Groupie

Goofing around and playing with the iPad's camera one lazy morning.

Message Exchange

Daddy is currently in Germany. The time difference between Philippines and Germany is six hours. That means when Daddy wakes up at 6AM, it would be 12noon here, and Ate Gabbie would still be in school so if we talk to Daddy over Skype, it would just be me, Rafa and Mack.

Because their schedules don't meet, I asked Daddy to just leave a message for Ate.

Coming home from school, Ate was more than delighted to learn that she had a message from Daddy. But we had to wait til Rafa is asleep before she could reply. It took her about 10 minutes to type everything including figuring out how to insert stickers.

Ang arte lang. 😜

Rewards System

In our house, just like everyone else's, we have rules. In playing, studying, eating and almost everything that we do, we have rules to at least, consider and follow. But lately it's starting to get challenging for me to get Gabbie remember everything that she should and should not do. It has really gotten so hard and frustrating for both of us that there's no day that passes that we don't fight about it. I also noticed that the older she becomes, the list of rules grows longer. And so I let her write them herself.

But of course I don't expect her to remember these all at the same time so I still remind her every now and then. So far on the first three days after she had written this, there's been an improvement, like her shoes didn't have scratches from tiptoeing anymore when she got home from school (so far).

And to make this thing still fun and enjoyable for her (and because she's still a kid), we came up with the rewards system. For every rule that she followed and for every good thing that she did, she gets a Heart Print (we have a book that says you give a heart print to someone if you did something good to him).

So for not giving mommy and daddy a hard time waking her up in the morning, she gets a small heart print. For finishing her food fast, she gets a heart print. For finishing copying the notes and seatworks in school, she gets a heart print. For giving way to Rafa, she gets a heart print. For saying "po" and "opo" she gets a heart print, and so on. And for every five small heart prints, she gets a big one. If she completes 20 big heart prints (one box), she gets a reward. For the first reward, she wished for a nice Elsa dress for her (and Rafa, how sweet!) on her 7th birthday.

I believe, this way, we get things done with less stress for both of us. 

To Gabbie, while it's a little hard for us because you are our first child and everything with you is experimental, I learn something about parenting everyday. Thank you very much for that, anak. Know that we love you so much and we only want the best for you. Only the best for you, Gabbie.