Author Archives: MLS

Low Tank = Tantrums

In the past two weeks, I have been very busy. I have been busy with events, with clients, with meetings… So many things have been filling up my calendar. I have not spent the quality time I usually would have with my children. I tell my son that the meeting is just outside and I am home. But I have neglected our homeschool time and have decided to put it on hold. 

I would ask him to give me time to write up my proposals and so I tell him, “mommy is busy working, please don’t bother me. I’m just here go ahead and play.”  I admit I have let him go with his toys and the IPAD so I can be free from his asking me to play with him. I had so much on my plate to finish and I just felt like I needed to prioritize work. 

Then, as the days became a week… I noticed my little boy starting to act different. When he sees me in a meeting, I see him with a serious face and unfriendly body language. But I continue with my meetings. Then when I am free, I would spend a little time with Josh. That little time is also divided between him and his sister. I did not realize that my son’s love tank was starting to deplete. 

In the next days, he would throw a fit and I would have to discipline him for his behavior of answering back and being defiant. He would say things like “No!”, “Mom go away!”, ” Don’t touch me..” — I kept asking him… “What is wrong? That isn’t nice to say. Don’t be like that.”

I kept on with my busy schedule. I brought Josh with me to events and I would work and expect him to be okay that we are in the same location. I also brought him with me to meetings that were an hour away drive and meetings would be 2-3 hours and take another hour back. He would go because he wanted us to be together. But it was not quality time… 

Later, in that week, he got so upset he gave us meltdowns every day for three days. There was one where he looked straight at me in his upset mode because he did not obey what I said, and he said “Mom, I will destroy you!”.  I thought, I have left him so long watching the IPAD he got new words I did not teach, and they were negative words! Then I told him to stop saying that and obey. He instead shouted “No!” – I brought him to the room to discipline him. He kept screaming like a little hulk. I administered discipline and yet he would say “Mommy go away! I won’t obey”. I was really getting stressed. I knew I had to really get this corrected. We had a good 30 minute episode for him to know that I am the authority and that he cannot disrespect me. I was praying and even casting out spirit of anger from my son. I have never seen him like this. Inside I was petrified and crying. What have I done? 

  
Joshua also got discipline from his dad because he also disrespected his dad. He told me I tears, “I don’t like dad, I want to smash him.” I cried too because I no longer knew what to do. Josh was just being so disobedient and disrespectful and he responded in a defiant way. Even in his sleep, Josh would sleep talk and he would say “Mom, go away!”

So I prayed to the Lord…I confessed that I was sooo busy to nurture the heart of my son. I no longer know how to undo his behavior. It was a heavy burden in my heart. I asked God to guide me how to win my little boy again. 

God led me to devotional that struck a nerve. God revealed that if I serve Him in events without serving my family, it is a hypocritical act. My family life is the testimony that will speak if I have truly obeyed God. I know very well that my son’s love language is time and touch and I have starved him of both. I needed to improve on my priorities and to include God in all my plans. God is showing me how I have lacked in praying for my children and for every detail of things I am involved with.

Wow! I felt humbled and upset at myself. I asked Jesus for grace and to resolve this issue and I wanted it right away. Joshua on Sunday was still moody, he again started his rude behavior. Instead of reacting, I took him and carried him and walked just the both of us. Every negative word he would say, I just continued to kiss him and tell him “you know Josh I love  you.”  I keep reminding him of the good things and just kept telling him “I love you, my baby boy”. As we were having our moment together.. I started to see his countenance change. I made a decision that day not to spend too much time on my phone or laptop but to give him full attention and to play with him.

  
While we played, I asked Joshua if my not spending time with him made him upset.  He told me yes and he started telling me what he did.. And that was to fight mommy and cry really hard. Ouch!! I apologized and told him I miss him too. As we continued playing, I started to insert corrections like “Josh you must always obey mom and dad.” And he would say with a smile “Yeah I will obey.” Another moment I told him, “we love our family and we will not hurt one another by pushing, fighting or screaming.” And he would also say smiling “Yes we won’t fight, won’t do that (action his pushing moves), noh?” … I would show him I agree and acknowledge him. By God’s grace we were back to where I left our relationship 2 weeks ago. 

The devotion helped me see what I was doing when I was made to answer these 2 questions :

One undesirable trait I see in my child that reminds me of myself is…

One thing I could do to help them and me grow in that area is…

Then I was also moved by these verses:

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭4:23‬ ‭NASB‬‬

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:9‬ ‭NASB‬‬

I know as a parent I have to watch over the heart of my children with diligence too.  Also confessing my sin and repenting from it has healed the strain in my relationship with my little boy. Sometimes we think they are small people,  these kids are resilient and they will just swallow what is given them, and they will just grow up fine. Well, I think God taught me a pretty valuable lesson here… If I want to train my child’s heart, I too must be humble enough to admit my mistakes and change.

Run to a Number!

To do some math workouts with Josh, we had to make a game so it would be fun. I decided to get Joshua’s number flash cards and placed them on his rubber puzzle mat. Since Josh is familiar with 1-10, I decided to move another level by placing 11-20 on alternate mats.

  
The game was simple. On paper, I cut out and folded numbers that was corresponding to the mat. These numbers we would randomly pick. We ( Josh, the nanny and I) all would randomly get a number and we would then say out loud what our number is and at the count of 3 we would run to the mat with that number.

 
You would not believe how many times we played this. From the Morning series it had a second run in the afternoon. The best part is that Joshua was getting more and more familiar with numbers above 10 in a fun an interactive way. 

Fearfully Made

It’s good to teach children body parts as an intro to science. Let our kids  know how God made us. So for this activity I drew on a white cartolina a faceless Boy without arms and legs. 

The idea is to make the eyes, ears, mouth, arms as cut outs that Joshua will paste into the faceless drawing. As a guided play, we start explaining the uses of each part. 

First we have 2 eyes so we can see. Then I wrap my hands on his eyes explaining if he had no eyes he cannot see. God gave us 2 eyes. Then 2 ears so we can hear and listen. Then, I cup my hands on his ears to explain that without these we cannot hear well.  And then further explaining 1 mouth for tasting and talking. Lastly God gave us 2 arms so we can feel, hold, and touch. Then, I held and hugged Joshua. I explain that hands are for helping and serving others. 

  
It is a simple activity at home that just needs paper and pen, scissors and a stick glue. I let Joshua stick the cut outs on the proper places.

Also you can further explain what areas in the body that are considered “private”. These are areas that other people should not be allowed to touch. He also should not touch other people’s private areas. They are private and should be left alone. This helps get our children awareness so that they don’t get into situations where they are in danger of molestation. I know it sounds so morbid, but there are horror stories of kids being molested. The worst part is when children are not sure if what was done to them was normal or not. So it’s good to keep our children aware and informed.

When teaching about body parts, it is important to note that God had a good plan in creating us. We are made in His image and likeness. We are also fearfully and wonderfully made! 

Family High Five

We like the Family Finger song. We sing it, we watch it on YouTube, and its fun! 

“father finger, father finger, where are you?  here I am, here I am, how do you do?”

Since I am teaching Josh about our family, I decided to make a Family High Five!

Items required:

  1. Photos- I made a collage of our photos and printed them out. 
  2. Paper Plate and Pen- I then drew a hand on a paper plate with 5 fingers
  3. Scissors  – cut out the photos and the hand from the paper plate
  4. Glue -to paste the photos
  5. Popsicle stick – to support the hand   

 

The most important part is getting your child involved in making this project. So after cutting out everything, it was Joshua’s job to paste the family photos on each finger.

   
 I took this opportunity to familiarize Joshua with the spelling of his surname. So I wrote SOLON on the hand and let him spell it out. This teaches him that we are the SOLON Family. 

Of course this is more fun when we start singing… “Daddy Finger, daddy finger, where are you?… Here I am, here I am, how do you do?”

  
This Family High Five is easy to make and fun to do! You should try it at home!  😊😊

Monde Minion Mamon

My two year old loves Minion. If you play the song “Happy” by Pharrel Williams, my son goes on a crazy groove! He finds Minions funny and popularized the song “Ba-NA-Na Na-na-nana”.

But in one of my grocery visits we found this set of Monde Mamon with the minion on the packaging. Naturally, we are gravitated to buy them– marketing, marketing so their product gets pushed. 

  
But inside it is a great activity to do with your kids. They prepare for you some yellow icing, black fondant, and eye fondant icing to make your own minion design. It’s a pretty cool thing! 

   
 
So Joshua with my supervision, we attempted to make his Minion Mamon. Mommies have to be around to assist. As much as possible we give our children the space to complete some of the tasks. Joshua enjoys stuff like this. It was not long, and he finally made his one-eyed Minion! 

  
He is quite excited to eat it now! And mind you, the mamon was pretty good too. By the way, Monde never asked me to write about their product. This is one honest review and I’m glad there are stuff like this for kids and parents. These are activities that help build bonds and memories! 

No Tricks for my babe! 

It’s October and Halloween is just about everywhere. You turn on your Disney channel and they feed our children all these monsters and zombies disguised in the cuteness of their cartoon characters. I’m not being a KJ (kill joy) mom. But Josh who will be turning 3 in a few more months is just more aware about it.

He actually got into the liking of the Halloween theme and even with his play doh reviews on YouTube (which he loves to watch) they push these Halloween cartoon ads and other videos. Then one time he showed me a pretty scary picture of a child whose eyes did not have any iris. It had evil full black eyes and if he pressed the photo it will open into a scary video. I told him, “you can’t watch that”. He then said, “I want him to come here to our house”. It got creepy for me. With a stern voice I said, “that one is not invited in our house. This house belongs to Jesus and we will not have evil people like that one come here. They are not our friends!” 

I had to explain to Joshua that there is evil, and bad monsters, and spirits in this world. They are enemies of God. And since we belong to God, they too are our enemies. Okay, this conversation must be made and not brushed off (especially when your child is being lured to liking evil and deceiving content).

  
Here are the products that the toy store is telling our kids to buy during Halloween. It never bothered me before… Well,  not until Joshua and Anna became a part of our family. Maybe it’s also my personal walk with the Lord too. I want my children to love God and not have the enemy a foothold in their heart.  We are children of God and we should walk in the light. The bible tells us that Jesus told Saul (later called Paul) to do this and I believe we should do this to our kids:

To open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may thus receive forgiveness and release from their sins and a place and portion among those who are consecrated and purified by faith in Me. (Acts 26:18)

  Anyway, another information I learned is that Halloween is an official festival of the church of Satan. I’m not trying to scare anyone. It’s a fact. I know that I cannot shield my children from the popular culture of Halloween. But, I can definitely explain the difference of what is godly and evil. Like those photos on the catalogue posted here,  I explained to my son that these are evil and enemies of God. Most importantly I narrated to him that all of them are defeated by Jesus.

“[God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross].” Colossians 2:15 AMP

I know some readers will find me a bit too much. But if your child says he wants scary, evil and dead looking people to come to your house, you need to speak truth. 

I have seen our home when it was under the bondage of the occult. When families call on mediums because they can’t figure out something… That happened to us. After the consultation, our home had some evil spirits stay. Unplugged radio sets would play the CD, my sister had episodes of spirit interaction and almost possession. It opened a dimension and people think of it as nothing. It was scary. But by the grace of God, my sister was delivered from the occult, and we had to spiritually cast out and clean house! 

So for me, I will continue to let my children know God. I don’t ever want my children tricked or deceived. And yes, my 2 year old boy is grasping and knowing that truth… that there are two sides: God’s side and the enemy’s side.

Counterflow Parenting Seminar

The Biggest Parenting Event is held every year in CCF (Christ Commission Fellowship). This year an offshoot of that event will happen in General Santos City on Nov 7, 2015. 

  
This will be a Seminar to help families know how to develop the core family values of love, discipline, and godly legacy. The speakers are Peter Tanchi and wife, Deonna. They have raised 5 wonderful and successful children and passing on this godly legacy even to their grand children. Their advocacy is for parents to raise successful children despite the challenges they are facing in this world. 

The event will be on Nov 7 at Greenleaf Hotel from 9AM- 4PM. Tickets are at P500 with buffet lunch. 

Another interesting seminar that families should catch is the one by Francis Kong this Nov 6, 2015. Families have to talk about values on money and wealth. For another investment of P500 (inclusive of snack), this seminar might save your family heartaches brought about by money quarrels. There is so much wisdom we can learn from this Family Stewardship with Francis Kong. 

   
Tickets are now available at Go Sarangani Travel – call (083) 552-8015 for more information.

Colored Rice

Looking for something new to do, I stumbled upon some ideas on rice as a tool for sensory play and learning. So off we went to the kitchen and got some rice. Little did I know that my son would love this little project! 

First I prepared 4 ziplock bags and placed about a 1/4 cup of rice each bag. Then we got some food coloring with water and placed one color per bag. We prepared to do 4 colors.  After about soaking them for 15 minutes, we removed the excess water and drained the rice. Later, it was ready to be air dried.

 
But since Joshua and I were getting excited to play with the rice, we opted to use a hair blower and cloth to help us dry it quickly. 
Once it was dry,  the rice can be used to hide alphabets that he could guess. I tried to do one alphabet per letter. However, as we began playing that, it was not easy to keep every rice grain to stick to its proper colored bowl. Later, Josh wanted to mix them all and it was actually cute to have mixed colored rice! 

   
 
As I left Josh to explore with the rice on his table, he was making lots of artwork with his hands. First he was making circles. Later his imagination just left him to play there for almost an hour! 

   

This was a great sensory and learning tool for the day! Even the process of making the rice was such a great bonding experience for us! 

 

Fever go away! 

When our babies get the fever it seems so alarming for parents. Aggressive type of diseases (like the dengue fever) are rampant in tropical countries like the Philippines. That is why parents get worried and won’t wait longer than 2 days to get checked.

My 9 month old Anna, is a happy baby who likes to eat. Well, it was so until she got feverish. When Anna started burning up with a fever she was no longer playful and she did not feel like eating. She would whine and just ask for mommy’s embrace and the comfort of breastfeeding. I knew I had to let go of all my plans and appointments and strap Anna around me like a kangaroo with a baby on its pouch. 

   

After a visit to the doctor it was recommended to take a urinalysis, a stool exam, and blood test. Fever is a sign that the body is fighting an infection or causing an alarm on the immune system… It is anyone’s guess if it is a virus, an infection, or a disease. We were also advised if the fever hits 100.3 Fahrenheit, to administer paracetamol. Anna became a fussy, whiny, and clingy little girl. The difficulty of infants are not being able to articulate what hurts and where it hurts.

As we went back and forth to the hospital for tests, it was concerning to see so many children in the ER. You feel the tension among parents holding their crying babies. It makes you say a prayer for your child and for theirs. 

Manong Joshua would lay hands and pray for his sister, “Fever go away in Jesus name!” I also thank God also for friends who I asked prayers from because on the 3rd day Anna’s fever subsided.

  
Anna’s urinalysis came out negative from UTI. The stool exam also came out negative.She also did not cry when they took blood by pricking her little finger and pressing it. She’s one brave little infant. I’m blessed by that. I am also blessed by her blood results because all was normal except a low White Blood Cell count which means viral infection. And true to the form of viral – flat rosy spots have surfaced on day 4. Anna has roseola. It is contagious to children between 6 months to 3 years old. Since it’s viral there are no medicines for it … My baby has to just go through it.

 

So for now, mommy has to just stay close and take care of my little one. It will all get better in Jesus Name!! 

I am praying too for all moms and dads and babies that are currently in some health situation. Know that Jesus heals and he hears our prayers! 

Family trips: Manila Zoo

I thank God for giving me a husband who is excited to give his children an amazing experience. Going some distance and over some traffic is no big deal, as long as the family gets to experience something great together.

I was amazed on one weekend that Steve decided to bring us all to Manila Zoo. I was not sure what we would be seeing but the opportunity to show real animals to the kids, especially to Joshua, meant learning! Animals in our picture books are no match to the real thing. 

  
The entrance fee was only P50. I was so surprised how orderly and clean Manila Zoo is. It is the oldest zoo in South East Asia and has been operating since 1959.

We were able to see the controversial elephant Mali. She is a lone elephant whose residence is a cemented structure. There were volunteers who were feeding her and showering her water to keep her cool from the heat. She is controversial because many want her to be transferred to real Elephant sanctuary (like Thailand) where she can live a more normal elephant life with other elephants. She has been in captivity for more than 40 years. It makes me wonder if she can still adapt with others after being so alone for all these years.

  
Daddy took Joshua to meet different animals. We got to see different kinds of birds (peacocks, flamencos, etc) and see how big ostriches are… 

 
The Manila zoo is a 5.5 hectare park. It is so nice to walk around because of all the trees and the greens found inside. You can also tell that the animals are also well fed.

   
 
  

Daddy Steve showed Joshua the deers, crocodiles, turtles, monkeys, lion and Tigers. But I think the most fun part was touching the animals while taking a photo with them!  Inside you will find a photobooth where you can take photos with different birds. Look, Joshua held a bird in his hand and Anna had one on her head! 

  
Manila Zoo also sold refreshments inside and for sure you will need water. Walking around the zoo can make you a bit thirsty!  

I love how Joshua now realizes the cartoon videos we watch on his tablet like “5 Little Monkeys” are just inspired from the real thing. He actually felt a little concerned that real monkeys don’t look as friendly as the one on his video.

   
 
I love Manila Zoo because it is stroller-friendly too. Even our little Anna can enjoy just strolling around this park. 

   

And before leaving Manila Zoo, we took another family photo this time with some albino Python snake. Joshua did not get scared, he actually held it too! 

  I recommend the Manila Zoo for family bonding trips. It was interesting and educational for our little boy, and it was good fun for us all. I was actually happy to see how clean and well maintained Manila Zoo is. 

If you plan to visit, here are some information you need:

Location: Quirino Ave., Adriatico St., Malate Manila Luzon Philippines (corner of Mabini St. and Harrison St.)

Hours: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily 

Telephone numbers: (632) 400-1884  or (632) 522-6179