If I had any doubts about sending Cesky, our three-year-old bundle of cuteness, to school at an early age, it's gone now. After reviewing her test results from last semester, I can safely say that we—Joyce and I—made the right choice.

"Hogwash!" you might say, but you must know that the test being administered to kids these days—yes, even those who are in pre-school—are pretty long and will always, I imagine, test the mettle of your child.

Battery doesn't even begin to describe the finals examination given by Tacloban Angelicum Learning Center to Cesky. It's amazing the way kids nowadays remember all the lessons being fed into their growing brains.

Of course, I am speaking from the viewpoint of someone who started school at five or six years old. Oh, sure, we had classmates who were younger, but they were more of, hmmm, how should I term it, just pretending to go to school. Filipinos have a term for them, Saling Kit, which literally translates to, hmmm, Joining Kittens(?). LOL!

Although I'm not aware of what grades I received when I was in pre-school, I'm sure it's a hell heck of a lot lower than Cesky's shining 94 percent.

I'm proud of you, my daughter ...



Image showing Cesky and classmate Sera taken by Joel using a Kodak EasyShare M893 IS digital camera.

Is your child manipulating you?

I'm posing this question because I just had an argument with Cesky about her tantrums. You see, just like any other three-year-old, little Cesky uses throws a fit whenever we, her parents, don't do or give her what she wants ... immediately.

Wait a minute, before we proceed, we have to ask: What is a tantrum? Let's turn to Wikipedia for the answer:

A tantrum is an emotional outburst of ill humor or a fit of bad temper wherein the higher brain functions are unable to stop the emotional expression of the lower (emotional and physical) brain functions. It can be categorized by an irrational fit of crying, screaming, defiance, and a resistance to every attempt at pacification in which even physical control is lost. The person may not stand or sit on their own. Even when the "goal" of the person is met, he or she is not calmed.

Very technical, huh? But it fits Cesky's actions squarely.

So why do toddlers—yes, those cute bundles of joy you brought into the world a year to a couple of years ago—throw temper tantrums? Because they think it's the best way to get things done his or her way. It's not a totally negative thing. Remember that your child is only asserting himself and your reactions to his actions will shape him.

In Cesky's case, it's probably because of so many restrictions we impose on her. Being first-time parents, you can't really fault us. We just can't tell whether what we ask of her is already too much. She's probably thinking—and thinking hard—about all the don'ts. Yes, don'ts. As in, "Cesky, don't suck on your thumb," "Cesky, don't talk while your mouth is full," "Cesky, don't jump on the bed," and "Cesky, don't touch this and that."

It sucks for her, I'm sure. But once we parents start laying down rules, we have to see them through.

Want expert advice? Let's see what ParentingToddlers.com has to say about temper tantrums (emphasis in bold font are mine):

Toddler temper tantrum is something very common. Between the ages of one and three, your previously gentle and loving toddler will have a change of personality. He will no longer be content to accept your rules for everything, but will want his own say in what he does and does not do. Quite frequently, this will result in toddler temper tantrum.

When a toddler starts having tantrums, the first thing the parents should do is decide what is important and what isn't important. If you want to have your own way in everything your toddler disagrees with, then you're likely to spend the majority of your time in a battle of wills. The best plan is to make as few rules as possible. Your child will be more likely to adhere to a lower number of rules and he will also know that those rules are important. Letting him get away with eating breakfast cereal with his fingers may be worth the mess if you know that he will definitely hold your hand to cross a road.

Once you do decide what is important, don't give in. Make sure your rules are constant. If you make a rule that no biscuits may be eaten an hour before tea-time, stick by that rule, even if your toddler's cries are loud enough to annoy the neighbors. Once you give in and hand him a biscuit, he will expect one every time he cries.

A toddler has a tantrum to try and get what they want. If this usually works, they will continue to have tantrums. If, on the other, a tantrum never produces the result they want, they will soon give it up as ineffective.

Pretty straightforward, if you ask me. The site then goes on to enumerate four techniques in dealing with toddler temper tantrums. Go check them out here.

Joyce, my wife, and I recently went downtown to visit an aunt who had just come out of an operation to remove a lump in her left breast. Nothing seemed amiss, except for that nagging feeling parents get when they leave their children at home, alone or with someone you're really not related to.

Oh, sure, we've left Cesky at home before, but always with someone we trust explicitly. The longest we've ever been apart from Cesky is a week, and that had been a very long week indeed. It's hard to shake off that, like I said, nagging feeling ... something akin to separation anxiety.

In the case of our short trip to the hospital, it turned out that our fears were unfounded. We arrived at home about five hours after we left, and found young, rambunctious Cesky happily playing with her temporary sitter, Maricel.

Actually, sometimes, it's better to leave Cesky with people who are not close to the family, as she behaves herself and gets into less trouble—a tough act for a three-year-old. When we leave her with, say, her maternal grandmother, she becomes quite a grouch or cries her eyes out the entire time we are away.

Not that we are endorsing you to leave your child with total strangers. Of course, there has to be an element of trust involved, not only with the person you are entrusting your child to but your child as well. A child, after all, is most precious, more precious than all material wealth in the world.

Image taken from Parents-in-a-pickle.com, a website that has some of the best parenting advice on the planet. Go check them out!

Whew! Such a long weekend. Well, it wasn't really a long weekend, it just felt like one. Anyway, the reason for our sudden blogging hiatus over the weekend was a little kitten we named "Fallen." Why Fallen? Read on.

The neighborhood stray cat that frequently barges into homes to raid food-laden tabletops and trash bins gave birth in the crawl space between our bedroom ceiling and the insulated aluminum roofing of the house last Wednesday. From the time of their birth until Friday morning, the kittens—and their mom, we suppose—made it hard of us to get some shuteye. People who have cats as pets should know how noisy a litter gets when little mouths go hungry. Add to that the bumping and the scratching mama cat makes, and you've got a virtual disco with large speakers blaring with the strong boom of the bass.

Anyway, to make a long story short, a kitten fell through the vent from the crawl space into our bedroom and somehow made it into Mama Joyce's open shoulder bag, which had been, at the time, sitting on the dresser that was directly underneath the vent. We didn't know how long the little kitten was in the bag, but she gave us quite a fright when Mama Joyce reached into the bag and felt something furry. She yelped, thinking it was a big nasty rat that got into her bag. Haha.

So we placed the kitten in a cloth-lined shoebox and placed the box on the front porch, hoping that mama cat would discover one of her brood missing and go look for it. We waited patiently, but the big stray cat didn't come for the kitten. Being around cats and other animals in the past, Dada Joel decided that we should feed the kitten since it might take days for the mama cat to track down the kitten—if she'd come for her baby at all.

Mama Joyce and Cesky fed the kitten with warm milk using a syringe. While feeding the kitten, the two discussed what they should name the little feline that fell into our bedroom. Suddenly, the name came to them, naturally. We named her Fallen, for obvious reasons.

After feeding Fallen, we tucked her into the shoebox and headed for the dining room for a well-deserved evening meal. But Cesky couldn't contain her excitement at naming the cat. So she hopped off her modified dining chair in mid-meal, ran to the porch to "have a talk with Fallen," and got an unpleasantly pleasant surprise. Fallen was gone!

We looked around the porch and the garden beyond it but could not find Fallen or any trace of the kitten. So we assumed that Fallen was spirited away by mama cat while the humans were having their meal. We explained this to Cesky and witnessed her angelic face twist with myriad emotions, from confusion to anger to desperation to understanding.

Cesky is all right now, only asking about Fallen once in a while "just to check how she is." We no longer hear the kittens mews, so we're assuming that mama cat has moved them to a "safer" location.

Image features Puss in Boots, a character in the 2004 film Shrek 2, produced and/or released by DreamWorks SKG, Paramount Pictures, United International Pictures, and Universal Pictures.

Cesky and I are in the neighborhood again, so I guess it's prudent for us to drop in on old neighbors who we have missed dearly this past year. It's just like my trip to Manila last June, when I had to say hello to as many people I know in such a short span of time. I visited some, called most, but there were still people I missed or failed to get in touch with.

And so here it is, without further ado, our knock on the door, ring on the bell, and tap on the window:

• AJA seems to be taking things seriously. Her blog, Season and Reason can't be accessed, even by old contacts like Cesky.


• Jayme, on the other hand, is as bubbly as ever. Recently, she talked about the christening of daughter Kalia. Whew! Time sure flies fast. Last time we talked to her, she had been at a crossroads of her life, trying to decide whether to go back to the daily grind of working or staying at home to take care of Jamaine, her first baby.


• Tita Dine Racoma seems to enjoy her new (renewed?) passion for the arts through poetry. Check out her latest masterpiece music ... magic ... mystery.


• I never knew Marjie could wax sentimental. But when she learned about her grandfather's demise, it suddenly came out in a torrent. Don't worry, Miss Marjie, I'm sure your grandpa would have been proud of you. Keep those fireballs coming.


• Peachy Galias is a great writer, so great that sometimes we have a hard time discerning between fact and fiction. A recent entry, about pretty faces, is one such blog post. Shed some light, please.


• It's good to know that Noemi Dado is back in the Philippines again after a short trip to the United States. We must confess that we have yet to read her past entries on Touched By An Angel, so we can't really say anything more than, "Welcome Back, Miss Noemi!"

It's great to be back in the neighborhood!

We discovered the Sushi Pack, a children's Saturday morning cartoon aired on CBS's Kewlopolis animated cartoon block in North America, purely by accident. I was looking for more browser-based games for Cesky when I came across AGKidZone, a website owned and operated by Ohio-based American Greetings Corp. It was on this website that I—we—had our first glimpse of the Sushi Pack.

Here's a short description of the cartoon show:

Sushi Pack features a team of wasabi, salmon egg sushi, crab sushi, tuna sushi, and octopus sushi as they use their wits and their emotions to save the world and educate young children. The Sushi Pack team lives in a donut shop with their human friend, Ben. Despite the superhero element of the story, violence is used only as a last resort. The closing theme song of the show is a techno/rap/funk hybrid song. Quests involve learning about the meaning of friendship, social skills, and teamwork. The show is produced by American Greetings, Cookie Jar Entertainment, and Tom Ruegger

Of course, the team members are named after the sushi they represent—Ikura for the character that looks like a salmon roe sushi, Kani for the crab sushi, Maguro for the tuna sushi, Tako for the octopus sushi, and wasabi for, well, the wasabi. The donut shop mentioned in the description above is also the setting of the first Sushi Pack browser-based game we played, Break the Ice.

Check out the game here. While the page is loading, you may want to check out these screenshots I took from Sushi Pack Break the Ice game:

"Careless me," Cesky would whisper whenever I tease her about losing what was once her most prized book Mister Beetle's Many Rooms, which she received on her baptism day back in August 2005 from her aunt-godmother Pepper.

Actually, careless doesn't even begin to describe what Cesky did to the book. Oh, she did lose it. I'm sure it's still buried in one of the boxes of stuff we left in Manila, but it's in such a bad shape that we didn't bother bringing it with us to Leyte.

Now, I'm thinking of purchasing the exact same book because Cesky's starting to badger us, her parents, to retell her the story of Mister Beetle and how he made himself at home in a plant with five branches.

Hmmm, this reminds me about a story I wrote for the original Ceskypooh's World (all told from Cesky's perspective, of course):

Books: What I am reading now

I'm flipping the pages of Mister Beetle's Many Rooms by Robert Magnuson, a friend of Dada Joel. Actually, I've been reading this particular book since I was, well, six months old. The story just clung to me—thanks mostly to my dad's great narration and sound effects. Can you say "Egad!"?

Mister Beetle's Many Rooms starts out with the main character, Mr. Beetle (who else?), walking through a field in search of a new home. Well, he found one and quickly made himself at home. Sheesh, I'm starting to sound like the book itself.

Here's the synopsis: "Mr. Beetle posted a sign in front of his house that read—This House of Five Rooms belongs to Mr. Beetle. No Trespassing Please. But soon, other creatures came to live in his house and his house seemed to be growing new rooms!"

The book is written in two languages—English and Filipino—and is published by the Adarna House, where Dada Joel spent countless summers learning art.