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when things get boring, try looking at things at a different perspective.
like handing over the camera to a 3-year old, so this is what you get:
messy, colorful, bright. just the way it should be.
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UP Technohub, QC | April 2010 | Canon EOS 400D Rebel Xti | photos by Mia
Tags: light paintingthe outlaw is finally in custody…
in the brief chase in tagaytay highlands, police was able to bring in the famed outlaw, Wide Eyed Mishka.
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Tagaytay Highlannds | May 2010 | Canon EOS 400D Rebel Xti
Tags: comic photography
what’s that in the background?
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50mm prime lens | Canon EOS Rebel Xti 400D | Antipolo | April 2010
Tags: camera, camera accessories, camera lens, PhotographyYou know how avatars, RPGs, and virtual personalities have taken over half of our waking hours these days? Even all the games on Facebook look the same. You’re either glamorizing college outfits or planting beans or beating up mobsters. I bet you wouldn’t let your kids even touch that.
This Munked out site on the other hand, is funner, cuter, and more kid-friendly. The Chipmunks’ second sequel or titled more aptly, the Squeakuel, has got a cute promotional site for its digital releases. Try it out with your kids to get a Chipmunk version of yourself and even record a an audio message (mine said “Mia rocks, yeah!” hehe)
What’s even nicer is that the movie is available to download in digital format. Mia would go crazy watching this, especially with all the singing and the cute little Chipmunk voice. But if you can’t download, the double disc DVD pack has its own sing along feature (The Squeak Along). That’s even more fun for the kids (and for the kids at heart)!
(buy it now or visit the site for More Munk Mayhem!)
these days i’m not so hard to please. probably because of other things that (thankfully) provide so much contrast to what i’m blessed with.
like an adorable little girl who loves to pose for the camera…
who can also manage to lift a 2lbs dslr and take a photo…
and whose simple joy is to watch fireworks even from afar, whether from our 3rd floor bedroom window or atop the car in a parking lot hundreds of meters too far away.
i was so disappointed that we didn’t get to watch the world pyro olympics at MOA up close and that it took us more than an hour to get there, and that i had to walk a gazillion miles to buy food, and that our view was conveniently blocked by a bunch of trees.
but the way her face lit up with each colorful explosion, the way she squealed with delight at the big and small sparkles, the way she pointed at each one, i ought to have been ashamed of myself for missing the beauty of the simplest of things.
really, if you have trouble appreciating things around you because of problems or work, try sitting with a child. it never fails.
what simple thing did you appreciate this week?
This is one of Mia’s favorite songs, which she learned first along with her ABCs.
And one day Mia will learn the complete lyrics. For the meantime, hanggang first line muna kami =)
Kids are notorious for having the ability to get what they want, whenever they want it. It was a struggle I had with Mia during her (thankfully brief) tantrum episodes. It was especially hard when it would be just the two of us in the car going somewhere.
One time this happened, she was sitting at the back and was probably very tired from all the walking we did at the mall. I knew Mia was already grumpy and wanted to take a nap so I tried distracting her by talking to her about what we just did that day.
Well, it wasn’t working. She saw the Toblerone bar in the front and naturally asked for it. I gave it to her with the condition that we would eat it at home (messy and all that, you know). And yeah, you guessed it right, she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
I tried going the these-are-the-consequences-if-you-don’t-stop-badgering-me-while-i’m-driving route and the mostly bad cop technique. It was wearing my patience down and it didn’t help that the traffic was heavy. A cranky toddler with chocolate plus a cranky mommy? Not a good combination.
I wished right then and there I had a portable LCD/DVD player like my cousin does (which she uses on Iya, my niece, who’s the same age as Mia. Rhymes, I know, haha). And that it would have a whole gazillion of movies in them (half of which would be Dora, The Backyardigans, and Word World), ready to play (and distract!).
Great no? That’s actually possible with Charter Digital, which has 6,000 movies and shows to watch, anytime you want them (learn more at charter.net/ondemand and get updates and fun extras on Charter’s Facebook page). How great would that be if we had that here?
So, to make the long story short, I ended up opening the Toblerone and a tear-streaked, chocolate-messy Mia.
NIGHT. INT. Bedroom
Mia: (rehashing what she just learned previously) tita det’s a doctor?
me: yup, she’s a doctor.
Mia: no, she’s not a doctor, she’s good na.
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i really regret bringing mia to World Citi to be confined (about 2 years ago). all her hands and feet got ‘experimented’ on because they couldn’t get the IV inserted right. i know it’s a challenge to do that to a crying baby but doctors at St. Luke’s weren’t as unsuccessful. at WC it was the nurse who did the insertion, and though i don’t want to discriminate, you get the picture.
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me: but doctors are good too!
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hay, trauma. she even remembers the ‘tusok’ (puncture) whenever we pass by the WC building which is near our house. she recounts, with matching facial expression, how she got injected on and all that.
Tags: doctors, miano this won’t be about her recent development of tantrums. though i’d love to wail about that one. (by the way, what do you do with tantrums?!?)
before drifting off to sleep, we had one of our interesting conversations again:
Mia: Tita Det’s a doctor.
me: Yes, she’s a doctor.
Mia: Tita Khay’s a doctor?
me: Nope, she’s a lawyer. say, ‘lawyer’.
Mia: lo-yo.
me: good, lawyer.
Mia: can I have a lawyer?
wth!?
Mia had a lot going in 2009. growing up to be even more beautiful and smarter is one; getting some of her firsts is another:
her first photo with Jollibee!
(well, technically because during the first Jollibee birthday party she attended we only got a video of Mia dancing somewhere in the corner of it, nearly getting sideswiped by the large bug).
this was at Rinnah’s first birthday. i don’t know why, but it seems monumental for a kid to have a memory of Jollibee etched somewhere in the form of a photograph. or else. i didn’t get to have one myself, so there goes my frustration #1 passed on.
her first Barbie doll!
from me, of course =) i regret decapitating, hairstyling, and “couture-” designing my first Barbie dolls. mia hasn’t started that phase yet, but she’s already lost the only pair of Princess Jasmine-something-or-other’s high heeled shoes, so…
and her first flower girl stint 
i couldn’t have been a prouder stage mom. she walked down (or up the bridge and down again) the aisle with no problem at all. except that before that she was running all around the venue with her 2nd cousins, her hairdo was nearly falling apart just before she was to march, and that i was running after her for fear of having a soaking, dripping flower girl walk the aisle.
my cousin’s wedding was at The Butterfly Farm; go figure why.
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come to think of it, Mia’s firsts were mine too. thank goodness for digital cameras too. hehe.
how about it, what were your favorite firsts (either as a mom or your own when you were a kid)?
Tags: barbie doll, butterfly farm, jollibeein one of our nightly before-bed conversations where i, the toddler-intellect challenged mommy, attempted to defend my thesis on the whereabouts of the universe:
M: where’s the house?
me: in Quezon City.
M: where’s Quezon City?
me: in Manila
M: where’s Manila?
me: in the Philippines
M: where’s the Philippines?
me: in Southeast Asia….
(i know, konti nalang)
M: where’s southeast asia?
me: on earth
M: where’s earth?
me: in the solar system.
M: where’s the solar system?
me: in the universe!
M: where’s the universe?
me: in God’s hands! (thinking that I won…)
M: where’s God’s hands?
me: *patay ulit*
the (Dairy Queen) birthday cake that was. note to self: never put an ice cream cake in the chiller. unless you fancy eating it right out of the box, dripping.
if you’re a kid, though, that’s more fun.
at least Mia got to blow her candle.
thank you titas and titos who came (and for the gifts!). Play Doh, the holy grail of childhood playstuff — at least in our time — was such a hit with Mia and Clarice. while poor Mr. Potato Head lost a hand.
more than anything, i’m really happy God blessed us another year for Mia. Christmas naman!
“M-I-A dot com!”
-mia, when she saw mommy on her laptop, surfing away.
like i said, i swear i don’t know where she gets her vocabulary sometimes.
“it’s windy!”
-mia, one time we were outside and the wind was, well, blowing.
it’s just so vast — for a three year old.
so sabi ko nga kay Mia, since she already knows how to count to 14, all basic shapes, can recognize almost all letters (and spell her name), and scribble, wag na siya mag-preschool. go straight to grade 1 nalang. hehe.
My dearest Mia,
You’re turning 3, about an hour from now! Yey! Such an accomplishment by such a little person and I’m so proud of you. For now, let’s celebrate His goodness to us, for another year you’ll be delighting us with your antics.
You’ve been telling me that you’re a big girl now. To me, you’ll always be my baby. =)
I love you so much!
Tags: mia
like i said, September 26 for me and Mia was a different story. since our company decided to push through with the Family Day though it was raining (not as bad), i still decided to go. Mia was even dressed up for the occassion already!
i asked my brother to come with me (because i needed an extra pair of hands to hold on to mia while driving) but he preferred to stay home. what a blessing that turned out to be. so we picked up another officemate and went on our way.
Imelda Avenue in Cainta was already flooded halfway (around the area of Makro Cainta), probably half of the tires were submerged. Rexi (the camera) unfortunately wasn’t able to take photos because i was too busy navigating following a truck. 
by midday after getting to Club Manila East in Taytay, the rain was already pounding hard. we were all confident that since the resort was a bit elevated, there wouldn’t be any problem with the water. the show went on.
that's the whole company (of 25), with family and minus a few who couldn't make it
lo and behold in about an hour or two, the muddy water was already thigh-deep out on the street and was beginning to flood the parking area. fortunately it didn’t rise any further but that meant we were all stranded inside CME. i already planned to go home right after lunch but the idea if submerging my car with me and Mia inside didn’t really sit well with me.
in the meantime, my mom has already been texting me not to come home anymore because there were flash floods. particularly on our street, which is sloping down towards a dead end, the water has been coming down faster than expected. my 2 brothers thankfully were aware enough to start bringing some appliances upstairs when the water started to come into our garage. the garage was thankfully empty. my mom had our other car with her in Cubao.
when the water started to come into our living room, my brothers started to bring some furniture up onto the higher level of the kitchen. (that turned out to be futile later on). they also thought about bringing in the 3 washing machines but unless you were Superman had a crane to do that, good luck with that.
by the time my dad came home, the water had rushed into the house waist deep in the kitchen and the ref was managed to be transferred upstairs. all the rest of the furniture were unfortunately left.
to make the long story short, my mom had been able to go home in the evening since the water had subsided by then. the cleaning that had to be done was unbelievable. and my mom being the cleanfreak that she is, had shifted to high-gear OC. i can imagine how that was.
i, on the other hand, had been worrying about Mia’s milk and diapers (i had only brought enough for one day) since we had to stay overnight. but God provides, that much i had been assured. one of the resort’s personnel and our HR manager braved the floodwaters and managed to get to SM Taytay. (thank you, thank you!)
by Sunday afternoon,we still weren’t sure if we’d be able to go home because the waters outside and in some areas where we planned to pass were still too high. but the sun shone, a la Noah’s Ark and a dove came bearing an olive branch.
so Mia went swimming! (forgot to download the photos)
we were finally able to go home when we got news that we could take the Valley Golf-Masinag hiway route. the mess (an understatement) that is Marikina was disheartening. even more so when i realized later that a lot of people washed up on the river banks died.
to say that we were blessed and that my family was spared isn’t even the point. there were so many others who weren’t and who still need help.
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pictures of how Ondoy damaged the house here
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