Being a Working Mom

If I will have it my way and if we can really afford it, I would rather be a work-at-home-mom instead so I can be with my kids 24x7. But that is not possible as I have to help my husband earn a living for the future of our kids.

Being a working mom entails a lot of challenges as I have to juggle my time between my online and offline work and my responsibilities for my husband and my kids. But I am thankful because there are a lot of tools that I can use like salesforce reporting that will simplify my task so I can still have time for my husband and my kids.

I feel really flattered when a friend of mine asked how I do it. She can’t imagine having a full time job but still ending up to have plenty of time to be hands on mom to her kids. I guess it is just time management and my pure love for my family.

Meet Beth, Bela's Flying Dragon

Bela received an Animaland Gift Certificate from her Tito Jp and Tita Grace last Christmas. She is really excited to use the gift certificate as Animaland is one of her favorite toy stores.

Since she has been doing well with her Kumon, we promised that we will take her to Robinsons Place after Cobi’s Gymboree class so she can buy any stuffed toy from Animaland using the GC. She was so giddy with excitement as soon as we reached Robinsons that Animaland was our first stop.

Since it is the year of the dragon, Animaland has a lot of new dragon stuffed toy to Bela’s delight as she has been looking for a flying dragon for a long time now so she got really excited when she saw one at Animaland.

She did not think twice and since she is a regular patron of Animaland, she knows the drill already and gave the stuffed toy to the attendant so they can start making her stuffed toy.

She named her flying dragon, Beth, and she sometimes calls Beth her lucky dragon because she said that 2012 is the Year of the Dragon.

Thanks again Tito Jp, Tita Grace, Izzie and Audrey for the gift.

Love for Arts and Crafts

Bela got his love for arts from her dad. During weekends, she and her dad would stay in one of our spare rooms where they can do arts and crafts. Howell believes that in order to instill the love for arts to Bela, we have to teach her as early as now.

Howell gives her full support to Bela that almost every weekend, he will go shopping for materials for their next project like colored paper, Water Soluble Solder Paste, sticks, cups, and any other thing that they can turn into art. Sometimes, they don’t even have to buy as they can get materials from recycled things like newspaper, old wood, old diskettes that we no longer need and many more.

Bela looks forward to our weekends as she is always excited to start a new project with her dad. Thankfully, my husband has a creative side in him that he and Bela never runs out of things to do. And would you believe that as early as now, they are already doing their Mother’s Day gift for me. And that is one project that I can't wait to see.

Her Christmas Gift

I know, I know it is not a good idea but hubby and I finally gave in and grant Bela’s wish for Christmas:

She actually did not ask for it but we always see her seating beside a stranger in malls, restaurants or any other public places if she sees them holding an iPad. She is just so fascinated with the games and the movies and all the cool stuff that an iPad can do that she can’t help herself and she will really take a look at the screen of anyone holding an iPad even if we tell her that it is not a good thing to do, several times.

She has really been a good elder sister to Cobi and she has been doing really well with school and with her Kumon that hubby and I decided that it will be the best reward for her. Besides we really don’t have any idea on what other thing to give her for Christmas and so to end our problem, we just went ahead and got her an iPad.

I wonder if there are pre-order video games that will work on the iPad. I don’t have to worry on the videos, as hubby is already ready with his tons of Disney and Pixar movies that he can load on Bela’s iPad.

Bela was really ecstatic when she opened her gift last Christmas and she was very thankful to us. I know she will really enjoy her new toy.

The Simple Joys of a Child

Guess what this is:

This is the coin funnel located in Cyberzone of SM Manila. This is a very simple machine that has a coin slot where you can put the coins so the coin will slide and will roll and roll until it reaches the funnel and the coin will fall in the hole.

This is Bela’a favorite now and she will ask us that this will be her price if she did well in school or in her Kumon. That is how easy it is to please Bela. Imagine, all we need is just a few coins and we have one happy kid.

She discovered this machine when we went to SM The Block last December and this is where she and her dad pass time while they waited for me as I went shopping for our Christmas gifts. Since then, she will ask that we bring her to SM so she can play with the coin funnel. Good thing there is one SM Branch near our place that has this. So a few minutes drive is all it takes to make our princess happy. The simple joys of a child.

Start Your Business Right by Doing Online Market Research

Ysabela Margrette Cellphone Store. This is the name of our cell phone business which I started with my brother a few years ago. Bela was my only child then and so we decided to name the store after her.

I can’t believe that it has been six years since we started that business venture. We were first time businessmen back then and we really have no idea how the business will go as we just invested right in without studying the market.

Luckily, my brother resigned from work and so he was able to personally manage our store which played a big contribution in the success of our business. But if we were to do it differently, we would have hired Infosurv first to do prediction markets for us first before we dive in on this business venture.

Inforsurv is one of the leaders when it comes to online market research and they provide host of other services like customer satisfaction survey, employee surveys, employee engagement and more. If we have hired them, we could have gotten a better understanding of the market so we can change our line of products to cater to the demands of our customers.

But looking back, my brother and I have no regrets because we know that we succeeded as we have learned to run our own business and has thought us that it takes big risk to succeed big time too.