First Hair Cut

Jared had his first hair cut last Sunday. We want him to enjoy this milestone so I searched for a salon that really caters to his age and so we chose Cuts 4 Tots. This kiddie salon doesn't really look like a salon since it has lots of toys, colorful interiors, TV sets, and books. The children who have their haircut will be seated in car chairs just like the ones in kiddie rides. Each station has a TV set so that it will get the attention of the child getting a haircut.

We let Jared play first in the play area so he can get to familiarize with the place. And before the official hair cut, we let Tintin cut Jared's hair first as per the tradition which I have just heard lately. They say that we have to carefully choose the person who will have to cut your child's hair for the first time because the child will inherit some characteristics from that person. And I followed it! haha! She's my sister and she's really good in school, she may graduate as cumlaude. :) So I hope Jared will get that trait of her. hehe!

Good thing, Jared became occupied with the TV and the toys, the cutter didn't have a hard time cutting Jared's hair. But when Jared became comfortable with the cutter, he started playing "bulaga" (peekaboo) with him so it took some time for him to finish the cutting. But I must say he is really good with makukulit kids.


And now, presenting the new Jared.. tadaah! (with sound effects ah!)

Banana Leaf

Had a nice lunch at Banana Leaf (SM The Block branch) last Sunday courtesy of my sister, Arlene. It's an advanced celebration of her birthday on the 17th. Belated Happy Birthday sis! :)

Arlene suggested this place as she says that food here was good and it serves Southeast Asian cuisine. For appetizer, we had the Roti Canai which looks like a flattened bread and tasted like a soft lumpia wrapper. Maybe we made a mistake when we chose the condensed milk as dip instead of the curry sauce. We also had the Beef Brisket for soup which Jared really liked. Jared is becoming a soup person lately. Others that we had are the prawns singapore which is okay, fish fillet which I liked most, the noodles which name I forgot, the Thai green curry chicken which Ryan really liked, and the penang fried rice. I also liked the bottomless dalandan juice which they claim that its fresh juice and I think that it is. All in all, we really enjoyed the sumptuous lunch. Thanks to sis Arlene :)

The Birthday girl & the boyfie :)

Girls' Night Out

This is a long overdue post about my date with my girlfriends, Cel & Sands last Thursday because I have to wait for Sands to send the picture above :) So here we go.. I met up with Cel first and we had some salad dinner at Kenny. Then Sands came and off we went to the restaurant area of Trinoma. We went to Gerry's first because we want to have the beer tower but the place was so full so we just settled for Giligan’s. We had 3 rounds of beer c/o Cel and yummy pulutan c/o Sands. Well, this is a post celebration of Sand's birthday and also a celebration of Cel's new career. I really love these generous girls! :) Oh I forgot to mention that this is my first time to drink beer after a long hibernation when I got pregnant and all. So after 1 or 2 bottles I already felt slightly drunk. haha! kulang na sa practice e :)

18 months

Jared is now a year and a half! Let me try to recall some of his new developments...

• His speech is getting better. He keeps on repeating after people so we really have to be careful to what we say. But he still has those "alien talks" - words we could not decipher.
• He's more expressive in his feelings (joy and sorrow) and lets not forget his tantrums too.
• He has already got rid of his habit of thumbsucking. It started when Ryan did a heart-to-heart talk with Jared :) He explained the disadvantages of thumbsucking and Jared seemed to listen. Well, that's really good news! But the bad news is he had figured out a way to continue his habit without disobeying his parents. He replaced that habit with the "remaining-four-fingers-sucking". Oh my! I believe this is all Ryan's fault since he only explained thumbsucking and did not mention his other fingers. :p Anyways, Jared rarely does it so not a problem at all.
• He can now identify some parts of the body. "ay" for eyes, "no" for nose, "maw" for mouth, "ear" for ears, neck, "tin" for chin, "ampi" for armpit, "ebow" for elbow, "pit" for feet.
• He loves reading books and also loves to be read to.
• He is still afraid of elevators (ok, there is no development here :) )
• He started to phase out one of his naps. It's now either in the late morning or the early afternoon but usually it's the latter.
• He's getting better drinking from a straw. His favorite drink is yakult and he drinks or sips it as fast as a lightning! hehe!

There are more new developments but I cannot recall anymore at this time, so I'll have to save them for another time. So there, that's Jared at 18 months. :)

Baby Einstein - worth it or not?

Jared has been fond of the Baby Einstein videos lately. His favorite is the Numbers Nursery and he can now identify the numbers from 1 to 5. We let him watch one almost every morning believing that it would really help him expand his vocabulary. But after some research, I thought maybe we're wrong...

I've read from the internet that for every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as “Brainy Baby” or “Baby Einstein,” they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. Ok, I got worried about this but I don't exactly believe it.

Moreover, there was also a study which showed that educational movies influence negatively on the infants (8-16 months) language skills development and it influence neither positively nor negatively on children from 18 to 24 months.

Well, I knew way before that watching TV is not recommended for children under age 2 but I think it's unrealistic or just impossible to do since everyone at home watches TV. I think that what we should do is just guide and accompany our toddlers whenever they watch TV and also limit their viewing time.

So now I decided not to show these videos to Jared until he turns two. For me, reading and conversation are still the best language learning tools.

Happy Birthday Tin!

Went to Trinoma last night to celebrate my sister's birthday. I went there with Ryan, Jared, mommy, Lyn, Jopol and of course Tin, the bday celebrator. They decided to dine at Crustasia. We had the buffet and food is still the same except for the crab which was in a different sauce. I think it was cooked with garlic and chili. It's a bit oily for me though. Anyways, we all enjoyed our dinner. Jared liked the soup, banana caramel (a.k.a. the sosy turon), and the mango panacotta.

mommy & tin

hiniram muna si jared

para single muna kame dito :p (parang first date! hehe!)

And today, we went to my mom's for another celebration... Ok we just did the cake ceremony :)

at syempre nakisali si Jared! :p

Jared shops at Walter Mart

On our way to Gapan, Nueva Ecija last Friday, we stopped over at Walter Mart to do some grocery shopping and at the same time check out Metrobank's promo. The promo is you get a free Jack n' Jill snack pack when you purchase at least 1,500 at any Walter Mart branch. We all love freebies! Who doesn't anyway?

While strolling inside the supermarket using a regular shopping cart, we got excited when we saw someone using the kiddie push carts just like the ones in Landmark. We hurriedly look for one so that Jared can also enjoy the shopping time. Fortunately, I found one cart that has just been left out by another shopper. It's Jared's first time to ride/drive a car shopping cart and he loved it. It's really nice that the supermarket owners provide these kinds of carts for kids, really shows concern for their customers.