It's a girl!

We just found out last weekend that we're having another girl in the family.

Then, I began to think about these three things:

1. Oh my!  In the Philippines, they said that if you have all girl kids, it was an indication that you were very naughty when you were a bachelor...

So then I began to reflect even more?  How come?!  I'm a very good boy when I was single... :)

2. Second, how can I stay manly in a world full of girls.  So I started searching for articles in the internet on how a man can deal with this situation.  I bumped into this article http://www.prevention.com/health/healthy-living/how-dad-stays-manly-while-raising-daughters and find it to be very interesting.  To summarize it, no matter how tough you are as a man, you really won't mind doing girly things to show how much you love your girls.

3. Third, what's good about this will be the sweetness and thoughtfulness of my girls.  I may not have a sparring partner in boxing or a hoops buddy in basketball (technically they can but on a different level though) but generally and biologically, girls are more expressive of their love which could cheer me up often in this busy and crazy schedule that we have both in business and corporate life.

April 27, 2014 - Caliwag, Pasig

Irregardless of age, financial status or gender, everyone can share something for those who don't have enough.

As a rookie dad, I wanted Amanda to learn the value of living not just for herself but to have the genuine concern of loving others.  I believe that it's one of the ways to live life to the full.  And hopefully starting her young even if it seems that she doesn't understand is a way to expose her that not all kids experience the same blessings as what she has and that it's perfectly ok to aim to have more than enough blessings so that she can share them to others.

So starting on her first birthday, even though she's just barely walking, we coordinated with our SFC brothers and sisters serving in Caliwag to celebrate a simple birthday with our kids there. The same went on last year and on Champee's third birthday this year, it was pretty amazing since she's able to participate in some of the activities already.

Three things I've observed: 

1. Kids are highly engaged on music - There's lot of dancing and singing at the start and end of the program.  Pretty much the same with all of any of our community activities as we use song and dance as a prayer.  Thinking about it, when you put melody on words, it's easier absorbed by our subconscious and easier to infuse on our habits as well therefore transforming lives easier.  Consequently, aside from actions... if you're having a hard time teaching your kids about anything, try to make a simple tune out of the instructions you want them to follow.  For example if you want kids to cleanup after playing, maybe you could say "Clean up, clean up... " to the tune of "Bahay Kubo?"
   
2. Kids need special nourishment on both the body and spirit.  The kids' regular activities consist of the opening and closing dancing/singing prayer, games which helps them interact with each other and encourages cooperation for the seniors and story telling plus arts and crafts for the juniors to hone their basic skills.  It was a complete package to feed their spirit and intellect.  The second portion was the feeding program.  And this is where Amanda and other sponsors in the past greatly contributes into nourishing these kids physically through providing them food.  What's different about this year was that Amanda is now old enough to participate in the food distribution and was assigned as our juice girl :)  In her own little way, she's able to actively participate in nourishing tummies of other kids.
3. We could do more.  I know the committed brothers and sisters serving the kids could have spent their time resting on a Sunday afternoon.  But they offer their time, talents and treasures to make a difference in these kids' lives every week to teach songs, games and introduce God in their lives hoping that when they grow up, they'll grow up as loving and responsible adults.  Having this once a year Champee birthday helped them just for this week, but i do hope that we could also raise funds for them to make their venue accommodate more children and encourage more volunteers to keep this activity going,

I would like to honor the brothers and sisters who helped us with Champee's birthday at Caliwag:  Jhoan, Vince, Julius, Dave, Fidel, Sarah, Zaldy, Bojo, Tita Dorie, Tonton, and Jack hoping that someday, Champee will also get the same passion for serving underprivileged kids

A sigh of relief...

After the very agonizing and grueling battle with the "poop", she finally was able to let it out...

It was difficult for me and my preggy wife to sleep while seeing her wake up every now and then last night. There were instances where she would fall half asleep trying to push hard while standing up and just barely putting her head on a pillow on top of the bed.

But, the good thing is, it's all over now... hopefully this serve as a breakthrough for her to finally eat more fibrous foods and take more than enough liquids aside from her favorite milk.

From this ordeal, I got to research some based remedies which we tried, which should work:

1. Diet change -  well this one failed for us.  We still can't convince her before this to try oatmeal, apple juice, prune juice.  What we did successful was to have her drink water much more than what she consumes... the trick? we used the measuring bars on her bottle as her goal... that she should drink two bars of water and made it a game everytime she needs to drink.  The result, more water consumption but still not enough to fight her constipation.
2. Laxatives - probably we made a mistake stopping her laxatives too early after we brought her to the hospital weeks ago.  So that's why, this occurred again.  
3. Suppositories - could be the one that really helped her, but after 5 hours of great ordeal?

The best remedy I guess is the first, so we'll make sure to work on her diet starting this time..