On Writing

On her first week at school, she came home with this:

She showed it to us and this were her words:

Bela: “Dad look, you will be so proud of me. I can now write in 3 lines only”

(I know where this is leading to and she will ask us to get her a little prize. LOL. Good thing I will buy coogi clothes for hubby so I will be able to drop by Toys R’ Us too to get her a little something.)

Writing is one of the areas that need improvement for Bela. I even enrolled her to summer classes and Kumon to help her with her writing. When she was in Jr. Prep, their teacher will ask them to copy the reminders on the board in their assignment notebook. The lines in the notebook that they are using is quite narrow compared to the writing notebook that Bela was used to when she was in Nursery so when she writes, she occupies 6 lines and even more and it is all over the place. LOL.

So when I saw that she could copy well the reminders on the board already, I was one proud mom.

First Day of School: Sr. Prep

Last June 14 was the first day of school of Bela. She was excited, as she has long been telling us how much she misses her classmates. I brought her to school, as I want to see who her new teacher is and who are her classmates.

There were only 2 sections when they were still in Jr. Prep and now there are 4 sections for Sr. Prep so the 2 JR. Prep sections were spread out among the 4 sections. And so Bela end up with only 4 of her former classmates. I was glad too that the daughter of two of my co-parent from last year is in Bela’s class too.

Parents were still allowed to go inside the school on the first week. I was looking through the window of Bela’s classroom and looks like she is comfortable and at ease to be back to school again. Although she told me that she cried for a short time on the first day when we were asked to get out of the room. I hope that she will have as much fun as she have when she was still in Jr. Prep.

Win-Win

Hubby discovered a gadget that has been introduced to him by our friend when we visited them in Toronto last month. It is called O Play and what it does is that you can connect an external hard disk containing movies to a TV and you can view and play those movies in the TV.

We have a lot of movies which hubby and I downloaded so this gadget is perfect for us. Bela will be able to put this gadget to good use as she loves to watch also and we already have a compilation in our external hard disk of movies that Bela loves.

This gave us an idea to purchase a digital tuner so we can use the old TV that we have so we can get a chance to watch our favorite shows which we will be able to do since Bela will be so busy watching all the movies that we have for her on our 1 Tera Byte external Hard Disk. LOL.

Hubby already checked it online and it is just affordable and it even comes with free shipping so we will definitely get this gadget so both Bela and us, can enjoy watching our favorite movies and TV again.

Tomorrow is Father's Day

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and we will be visiting Bela’s grand father (the father of hubby) to celebrate with him as this is the first Father’s Day where mama is not with us.

We were not able to visit papa when we arrived two weeks ago as hubby was still away and is attending training in the US so tomorrow will be the first time that we will see Papa after our long vacation in the US.

We have no plans yet on how we will celebrate Father’s Day but I already bought gift baskets which contains sugar free candy for my father-in-law as our Father’s Day gift for him.

I am sure he misses Bela and Cobi so much so with or without any big celebration, my father-in-law will be very happy if we pay him a visit. So our itinerary tomorrow will depend on what time we will be able to wake up (which I am sure might be a little late already since it is bed weather) so I guess anything goes for tomorrow’s Father’s Day celebration.

Girl Bonding

Every time my friends talk about makeup, I am always clueless. That is why I am wondering if I will be able to give Bela guidance when it comes to this arena. LOL.

That is why I got really interested and I started checking out Chattanooga beauty school, when I learned about Regency Beauty Institute. Chattanooga beauty school is one of the branches of Regency Beauty Institute and this school is very popular for giving good training in the fashion and beauty field to all their students.

What sets them apart from other beauty schools is that their campuses are like upscale salons, thus giving their students a great venue for their hands-on training.

I am sure I will learn a lot about make-up and fashion if I enrol in any of their courses so this is something that I can really consider doing someday. So when the time comes that Bela is already a teenager, I will no longer be clueless when we talk about make up and fashion and this is one of the passion that we can share together as mom and daughter.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com or contact Regency Beauty Institute – 2288 Gunbarrel Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421

For Bela's 6th

Bela is requesting to visit the Bird Park, Singapore Zoo and to ride the Madagascar Ride in Universal Studios in Singapore for her birthday. Hmm….

The daddy is saying yes while I on the other hand is sceptical if we can afford another out-of the country travel this year. Hubby was saying that it is doable if we will not have a party for Bela on her 6th.

No Party? I think that is a good idea. I am just not sure if Bela will agree with her dad especially since Cobi will have a big party to celebrate his first birthday this year and Bela might request a party too. LOL.

But one thing is for sure. We just have to choose one – travel or party. As we have tons of bills to pay this year and so we have to set our priorities.

On Kumon

Did you know that Bela’s instructor from Kumon asked her to bring 30 worksheets with her on our vacation? My mom was actually not keen on the idea as she does not want to make her grand child work while on vacation. But I still brought it hoping that she will be able to find time to at least do one work sheets a day.

But she was only able to work on it in the plane on our way to New York and did not touch her Kumon worksheets after that. LOL. Well she was jet lag on our first few days and so she is asleep by at most 4 PM, then we are always on the go and of course she is drained already from the continuous travel.

But she was able to finish all her worksheets for May when we came back here in Manila. Thanks to the lola, who took time to assist Bela as she does her worksheets everyday.

Bela will be going back to Kumon starting Thursday next week and I am glad that she can submit all her May worksheet when she goes back.

Affected

Now that I have Bela and Cobi, I sometimes can’t help but worry about their future. Of course, as early as now my husband and I are already preparing for their future so no matter what happens to us, we are sure that she and Cobi will be secure.

I just became sentimental after reading from the news a personal injury case from someone in Texas. The victim lost his job because he can no longer work and so he can’t provide for the needs of his family and now the family is barely coping up.

Their only hope is O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath, an Austin Personal Injury Lawyer. They scheduled a free consultation with them by contacting them here: O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath – Personal Injury Lawyers – 808 West Avenue, Austin, TX. 78701 – 512-494-9949.

O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath is known for being the best in the personal injury cases. They know how the legal system works with these types of cases so they know how to attack to win the cases.

I am just hoping that the victim will get his claim so he can start a new life again with his family despite the accident.

Ni Hao Kai Lan

Ni Hao Kai Lan

This is her new favorite show. I actually haven’t seen it but I think it is a show in Nickelodeon. She just kept talking about it even to the kids of our friends when we went to the US.

So after our trip, she ended up bringing home:

• a Ni Hao Kai Lan drinking cup
• a Ni Hao Kai Lan Leapster cartridge (which she loves playing)

On our thrd week in the US, she is complaining already and is asking us that we go home because she already miss watching Kai Lan as they don’t have this show in the US. LOL.

Ready for School

Bela just loves animals and she would rather have an animal bag than those cute and girly Disney princesses bags that you can see in the mall. So when I saw this in Toys R’ Us in New York, I did not think twice in buying it so she has a new bag that she can use for the opening of class next week:

This is a Skip Hop bag which Bela loves so much. She has the mouse backpack and lunch bag last year and just look at how excited she is when she used it on her first day of class:

I ordered this one before online from the Skip Hop website. There are actually multiply sellers of this bag but their price is a little high compared to buying it online.) I also find the dog design cute and if Cobi is ready to go to school also, I might get him a Skip Hop bag also.

I am sure Bela will be thrilled to use her new Skip Hop penguin bag when she goes back to school on Tuesday.

Public Service Announcement

This school year, Bela is an incoming Sr. Prep student already. Time really flies fast. I can still remember when I first have a glimpse of my princess, she was also born with a congenital heart disease but we are so lucky and thankful that she it is totally healed now.

I know the feeling of having your child suffer from a disease that is why I feel depressed when I read about kids’ who suffer from birth defects because of a drug called Topamax.

Topamax is a medicine use to cure migraine and epileptic patients but little did some expectant mothers know that this can pose a risk to their babies as it has side effects. Studies have proven that taking Topamax while pregnant can increase the risk of having birth defects such as cleft lip.

If you think you have a case, contact the lawyers of O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath – Personal Injury Lawyers – 808 West Avenue, Austin, TX. 78701 – 512-494-9949 to help you get started in filing for a Topamax lawsuit.

School Opening

I was chatting with my friends in Twitter about their kids' first day in school this week and that is only when I realized that Bela has no black shoes yet and I haven’t covered her notebook and books yet. Bad mommy. LOL.

You see, when we got back from our vacation, I got busy taking care of Cobi’s birthday party which is this coming 25th already so it totally slipped my mind that there are still some small details that I need to take care of for Bela’s school opening. LOL.

But at least I got her a new bag already, a new drinking cup and her white rubber shoes for PE. Hopefully, we can find a nice shoes (as it is difficult to look one for her size) this weekend so I can finally say that she is indeed ready for school opening this coming Tuesday (and she is just so excited already to see her teachers and classmates).

Conversations with Bela: Jet Lag

Since we arrived, she has a very weird sleeping pattern because of jet lag and so she would sleep late in the afternoon and will wake up around 2-3 AM and would stay awake probably until lunch time.

So one morning when she woke up:

Bela: “Mom, what is wrong with me. Why do I wake up so early.”
Me: “Because you are still suffering from jet lag.”
Bela: “What?”
Me: “Because New York and Philippines have opposite time. So when it is morning in New York, it is sleeping time already in the Philippines so you are still adjusting.”
Bela: “What?”

But I am still too sleepy to explain so we just went down to our living room to let her watch TV and play while I go back to sleep.

===

Bela after waking up from a short nap one afternoon:

Bela: “Mom, why is it when I sleep it is morning and when I wake up it is still morning?”

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Bela after waking up at 3 AM.

Bela (crying): “Mom, why am I not in my PJs, I did not take a bath before I go to bed and I did not eat dinner.”

LogicMonitor: The Best Network Monitoring Software

Being a network administrator for more than a decade now, I have seen and witness how complicated a network systems can be. One failure of even the smallest device on the network can create havoc and may cause downtime to the system. This downtime can lead to loss in income for a company as a lot of activities can’t be completed if a network is down.

That is why to maintain a system that has 24x7 availability; a good network monitoring tools should be use by the Information Technology department of any company. One networking monitoring tools that can be use to monitor any network infrastructure be it a physical, virtual or cloud infrastructure is LogicMonitor, the best network monitoring software available in the market today.

With LogicMonitor, an added hardware or additional staff is not necessary to monitor the network. The software will do all the work as it only needs the hostname and will automatically setup all the processes and thresholds that needs to be monitored to prevent any downtime. It has a lot of special features like VMware monitoring, SQL server monitoring and windows monitoring to name just a few. It also has alert and reporting features so proper authorities are alerted right away if there is any problem in the system.

No system is fool proof but with the help of these tools, less or zero downtime is possible.