Wednesday, July 31, 2002
daddy was out this morning... when he came home, you too him to the window... 'think, think' pointing to your head... aha! idea! .... really love it whenever you do that... played hide and seek with daddy except you don't know how to hide. you'll place daddy somewhere and leave him there and then comeback and pretend you found him and you were so suprised!

went to inay's but alexa wasn't there... stephanie (six yrs old) played with you like a big sister... you even gave her a big hug when leaving... she invited you to their home pero sandali lang daw, you went out right away... ...

Tuesday, July 30, 2002
wheels on the bus

breakfast at canad inn
waiting, hat.. don't like... left in the bench in the shed , old lady, lots of energy, hope she has that energy
in the bus, a lady boarded the bus at osborne by burger king with a bag of burger king... little boy shouted "ketchup" ... nahiya tuloy yung lady, but she was smiling and put the bag's side with the sign at the back.

hulls, parking meter ... want to put your money there

portage place, fountain... new york fries... tita lydia

going home.. on the same bus with the same driver!
nose... face towel, you showed it to the girl infront of you in the bus! buti na lang ok lang sa kanya
tita tita all the way home
going home. ayaw. wants to turn right to tita's
called her to make sure she's home. buti na lang she's there
went to visit tita
...

Monday, July 29, 2002
saw dr. mc donald today. ace doesn't even want us to park in the parking lot! 38 lbs, 38 inches. I think the height is wrong cause his feet wasn't touching the wall. he was upset! but the checkup was great... only got upset when the dr was looking at his ears. when he was checking his heart, he was making "car sounds" ... toot toot... tss..tss tss.. dr asked for "five" when he was leaving and the little boy gave him one just to make him go away! even giving him back the tounge depressor to get him go away

then off to polo park... bought marbles but they are too small so mom sequestered them once he was playing at home. kawawa naman. buti na lang we bought him carpenter tools and seems to make him happy. well... until he remembers the marbles. saw ate and asking her to "come on" ... but ate's working!

took pictures of ace and dad in their garden :) with little boy commanding the flower buds "abra!! abra!!" ...

Sunday, July 28, 2002
went to crescent park with daddy... then mc do ... good you're no longer taking kids hands for them to follow you. but dad said you scream when you're excited... irritates the other kids and their parents! ...

Saturday, July 27, 2002
without saying it he said he wants to go to inay's tonight. i was going to clean. dad and baby going out somewhere. out the door... came back to get keyboard and pokemon cartridge. picture of him and dad going out

had a wonderful time at inay's... playing keyboard with alexa and friend... running outside with the kids. dad said you even went door to door and tried to open doors and even pressed a doorbell!!!! that's a no - no!

got home with a 'galit' look... suplado! really hungry. took your skyflakes baon and ate them all (about 6 pieces) then ate more chicken dinasaurs and ice cream sandwich too. lagkit lagkit... smells like a little boy who had a lot of fun out on the sun ...
...

Friday, July 26, 2002
at the forks, enjoyed playing with the little girls

picture with mom

at superstore bought cards (trading cards) ... only men can touch it.. at nanay's played with kuya
...

Thursday, July 25, 2002
took over control of the vcr... push the button! ...

Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Three and a half years old today!!!

fell asleep last night while watching digimon at around 10:30 p.m. ... still asleep at 10:43 a.m. today! growth spurt... growing boy... napagod lang siguro tahil walang nap yesterday except for a five minute one at the car going home

went to walmart to buy you a table and chair (2) set. also a new hat. you don't want to try on nor to put in the cart the new hat we were buying! so we have to trick you by saying it is for daddy... then at home, we won't open the table and chair set until you wear your hat and required you to use it while using the table... masyado na attachment sa "live fast" cap mo! you even dream about it when you sleep ...

Tuesday, July 23, 2002
woke up at 4 am ... lights! eyes! cant sleep awake til 8 with mom and dad so we failed to meet with silver at mc do

went to nanays found kuyas dreamcast keyboard... so happy.. stayed with nanay for a long long time

new desk! so happy placed the keyboard agad on the drawer ...

Monday, July 22, 2002
mc donald's
doesn't want to play by himself... calling the other kids to go in
taking hands of the kids
krista and matthew , 4 and 2
silver - promised to go back tomorrow to play with him again, cause he doesn't want to go home
whats the fun of a play area without friends to play with

the other kids were calling him "moon eater" ... baka kinain yung k niiya!

silver calls him the green boy.. cause he was wearing a green tshirt


...

Sunday, July 21, 2002
the forks
kite
more interested with the construction of the kite than actual playing with it

having nightmares / dream of choking ...

Saturday, July 20, 2002
went to inay's

saw you hold a marble correctly!

cried over the keyboard and pokemon game ... don't want to go home

been crying a lot this week ...

Friday, July 19, 2002
tatay's 21st death anniversary

the fivel goes west marathon continues...

saw a piece of black something (garbage, like a sand) ... 'goodness! goodness! goodness!'

i was wathching him and daddy play with lego,daddy admiring the car that ace made... ace looked at me.., pointing me to go back in the kitchen "cooking......." and bunch more words we didn't understand

at nanay's ... panic when he saw nanay's sandwich. remembered choking last week. ...

Thursday, July 18, 2002
fivel goes west marathon... even wears (daddy's gardener's) hat and (winter) boots... and ate a whole package of popcorn too. oh, and has a (bike) horse, too.
(picture)

he handed me a piece of paper part of a batch we printed earlier from clue into safety... sabi niya ... put in head (pointing at the paper), map, head... yun pala its an instruction sheet for making a paper firefighter's safety hat

as we were going to sleep... spider! right on top of us at the ceiling... tried to find ways of getting it (book, video, pillows), can't get it! daddy's eating and told you that it's too high for him to reach. (the night before you saw one by the wall and daddy was able to get it out) I told you shhh.. quiet... the spider will hear you... but you keep asking daddy to get the spider... then "oh my god!... daddy.. please... please... please......." and daddy went over to get it "yes!" ... ...

Wednesday, July 17, 2002
wakeup boy .... wakeup everybody!, as you wake up daddy ...

Tuesday, July 16, 2002
mommy doesn't want to get up. pero sabi ni boss "you, me, up!" ...

Monday, July 15, 2002
teeth..glue? ...

Sunday, July 14, 2002
art stuff... ...

Saturday, July 13, 2002
choking on bayleaf
stuck under the rocking chair ...

Friday, July 12, 2002
...

Thursday, July 11, 2002
very strong willed. doesn't want to wait. screams! ...

Wednesday, July 10, 2002
trying mom's patience tonight. don't want to wait for the video to rewind. took picture of ace drawing at magna doodle.. there's a face in it... jimmy neutron ...

Tuesday, July 09, 2002
bubbles this time with daddy... picture of ace at daddy's back in the balcony

we still watch about four screenings of jimmy neutron a day! you still get your shoes and cap at the end of each show to dance with the music. ...

Monday, July 08, 2002
made bubbles with temmie at the balcony,

drew jimmy neutron at his magna doodle

watering plants at night (as in 11:45 p.m.!)

...

Sunday, July 07, 2002
when i feel like complaining about the rain and the mosquitoes here in winnipeg ... i think of those dealing with mosquitoes in houston and ohio... of those in texas with the flood ... shouldn't complain at all

went to petland with daddy.


--------------------------
Word power
Bedtime stories can boost brain development
Sunday, July 7th, 2002
By Patti Jones
BEDTIME stories have long been known to foster parent-child bonds and prepare children for sleep. But lately, researchers have attached other powers to this nighttime routine.
They say that while you and your little one are sailing with Max to the land of the Wild Things or sampling green eggs with Sam, you're actually boosting your child's brain development.
"Neural research shows that when parents and caregivers interact verbally with children, which includes reading to them, kids learn a great deal more than we ever thought possible," says Dr. G. Reid Lyon, chief of the child development and behaviour branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md.
These gains range from improved logic skills to lower stress levels. But perhaps the most profound benefit discovered in recent years is the way bedtime stories can rewire children's brains to quicken their mastery of language.
"There's a clear indication of a neurological difference between kids who have been regularly read to and kids who have not," Lyon says.
The good news is that these discrepancies don't have to be permanent. In NICHD studies under way at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and the University of Texas in Austin, researchers have found that electronic images of the brains of children considered poor readers show little activity in the verbal-processing areas.
But after the researchers spent one to two hours a day for eight weeks reading to the poor readers and performing other literacy exercises with them, their brain activity had changed to look like that of the good readers.
Here's how the rewiring works: When you read Margaret Wise Brown's classic bedtime story Goodnight Moon to your baby, exaggerating the "oo" sound in "moon" and drawing out the word "hush," you're stimulating connections in the part of her brain that handles language sounds -- the auditory cortex.
In English, there are 44 of these sounds, called phonemes, ranging from "ee" to "ss." The more frequently a baby hears these sounds, the faster she becomes at processing them. Then, when she's a toddler trying to learn language, she'll more easily be able to hear the difference between, say, the words "tall" and "doll." As a grade-schooler learning to read, she'll be more adept at sounding out unfamiliar words on the page.
"To break down unknown words into pieces, you have to first know the pieces," Lyon explains. "When kids hear the word 'cat,' for example, they usually hear it folded up as one sound (cat) instead of three (c-a-t)," he says. "But when asked to say cat without the c, thus deleting the 'cuh' sound to make 'at,' they'll more easily understand that words are made up of individual sounds."
Reading rhyming books to kids is one way to help them practice this skill. To enhance a child's language skills even more, parents can use story time as a stepping stone for conversation, says Dr. Lise Eliot, assistant professor of neuroscience at Chicago Medical School and author of What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life.
For instance, if a mother points to Curious George's baseball cap and asks her child, "Do you have a hat like that?" she's offering him practice in using language correctly.
However, Eliot cautions parents not to continually correct their child's speech errors. "My own toddler is always saying him's, as in 'That's him's hat,"' she says. "But I don't say, 'No, you should say his hat,' because I don't want to discourage him. Instead I just model the proper speech by repeating his sentence correctly: 'Yes! It is his hat!"'
In time, reading with a child "will expand her vocabulary even more than just talking with her will. That's because books can introduce kids to ideas and objects -- such as porridge or kangaroos -- that are out of their direct environment and therefore not a part of their daily conversation. Look for stories that contain particularly rich or colourful language, like the works of Caldecott-winner William Stein, who often drops four-star words such as discombobulated and sinuous into his books.
"One more time." This phrase is known far and wide to be a child's transparent effort to delay bedtime. But what kids -- and parents -- may not know is that reading a book repeatedly can help a child develop his logic skills.
The first time children hear a book, they don't catch everything, says Dr. Virginia Walter, associate professor in the graduate school of education and information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. But as they hear it again and again, they start to notice patterns and sequences, realizing that if one page says, "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" the next page will tell brown bear's response: "I see a red bird looking at me."
They'll also learn to predict what will happen next based on their prior knowledge -- "Uh-oh! The wolf wants to blow the house down!" Later, these lessons in recognizing patterns, understanding sequences and predicting outcomes will help children in other areas, from math and science to music and writing.
And reading aloud doesn't need to stop once kids can read on their own. In fact, that's when they develop reading-comprehension skills, Walter says. To practise, ask a child what she thinks will happen next or how she would end a story differently.
Experts suggest that parents continue the tradition even into the teenage years. By choosing books that are slightly above a teen's skill level, you'll continue to expose her to new words to add to her vocabulary. What's more, reading aloud can provide fodder for family conversation.
"It's so much easier to talk about a tough issue outside the context of your immediate life," Walter explains. "If the issue then comes up in personal life, you can say, 'Remember what we talked about?'"
To best confer reading's cognitive benefits, a child's experiences with books should be enjoyable, says Dr. Peter Gorski, chair of the early-childhood committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"More than anything, you want him to associate reading with emotional warmth and fun," he says.
When kids are cosy and comfortable, reading aloud to them can even lower their stress levels. When a child experiences any strain -- such as being bullied or starting a new school -- his brain tries to protect him by producing the hormone cortisol, which activates the body's "fight or flight" response. In small doses, cortisol can actually help kids handle normal stress. In larger amounts, however, it can block learning.
While there have been no scientific studies on how bedtime stories affect children with spiked cortisol levels, neuroscientists say it stands to reason that being read a familiar book while snuggling close to a parent can comfort a child, thus lowering his cortisol levels to help him concentrate better. To enhance the calming nature of story time at your house, cuddle up with your child in a comfortable place, with his favourite blankets and stuffed animals nearby.
"Relax and just enjoy being with your child," Gorski says. "Just think of what that close time you're spending together will do for your own cortisol levels!"
-- Distributed by New York Times Syndicate ...

Saturday, July 06, 2002
picked a leaf off the plants and smelled it... then went inside the apartment to give it to mommy... sweet naman

picture ... while waiting for the last part of jimmy neutron, ready to dance with shoes and cap on ...

Friday, July 05, 2002
visit nanay ...

Thursday, July 04, 2002
surfs the tv now with the remote... always stays at the french channel 10, kid's show ...

Wednesday, July 03, 2002
whistling at mommy too, once... that's a no, no!

...

Tuesday, July 02, 2002
ate's visit... calling ate by placing finger in the mouth and pretending to whistle!
picture of you two eating fruit roll ups ...

Monday, July 01, 2002
pretending to need help, caught inside a pillow (the big one)... help! help! ... then daddy helped him out... then said "daddy saved me!"

put on shoes, and a cap.. ready to go out to water the plants. so they did. i gave him the spray and i was asked to refil once. when dad's all done... the went inside. ace went straight to the small watering container. and wants to go out. mine!!! so we gave him a chance... asked to refil again... so ok... the plants now have too much water! daddy had to bring him in... screaming! and still upset... addicted na sa pagdidilig!

great memory! remembered the mickey mouse bubbles we used the day before on your bath. akala ko out of sight out of mind... but remembered, asked mom for it... mickey mouse?! mickey mouse?! ...