Do you let your children watch television on school days?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I allow my children to watch TV especially the news if they have finished their homework and if they have read their school notes. Sometimes I turn off the TV and we’d just spend talking about their day at school.

When it comes to gaming gadgets, I have to say my children don’t have any. No PSP, Kinect, wii, XBox, DS, and what-have-yous connected to an LCD TV to speak of. For me, it would be better for them to be more sociable than just be kept busy playing games.

Sometimes though, I feel a tinge of guilt, especially when I see them looking over the shoulders of friends who play with their hand-held gaming consoles. During these times, I feel sorry and sad they don’t have any. When I ask them if they like to have one, they answer in vague terms, centering on the topic of budget. Argh! No one else to “blame” but me being heard by them when I talk about budget.

On the other hand, I feel blessed by my children who are understanding enough not to badger me with these purchases. They do demand I make time for them, make home-cooked meals and do occasional “pick us up from school today” days but I don’t complain. I’d rather we spend time together doing these.

Havaianas is having a flip-flop design competition for the benefit of Operation Smile.

Mechanics of the Havaianas Design a Smile flip-flop competition:

What: Design the sole of a Havaianas pair of flip-flop for 5-12 years old based on the question: “What makes you smile?”

The winning flip-flop entry could be produced to heal the broken smiles of the children of Operation Smile.

Where: drop by any Havaianas Design a Smile booth at the following dates and venues:

• October 16, Activity Center, Alabang Town Center
• October 17, Level 4 Exhibit Area, TriNoma
• October 23, The Gallery Greenbelt 5
• October 24, Left Wing G/F Glorietta 4
• October 30, Activity Pod 3, Bonifacio High Street

Prizes to be won:

• The Top three designs, which will be chosen by the public through text voting, will receive fun prizes from Havaianas, a creativity workshop from My Masterpiece Movement and gifts from Polaroid, Faber-Castell, KidSports and Orange Juice.
• The Top Ten finalists will get cool prizes from Havaianas, KidSports and Orange Juice.

For complete mechanics, visit HavaianasPhilippines.com

What is Operation Smile?

Operation Smile is a private, non-profit volunteer medical services organization and worldwide children’s medical charity that provides reconstructive surgery and related health care services to indigent children and young adults with cleft palate, cleft lip and other childhood facial deformities. Along with the surgery, Operation Smile provide training to health care professionals who work with these children.

Cleft lips and palates is said to be among the top 12 birth defects in the country. Along with these facial deformities, the children are found to experience other conditions: malnutrition, respiratory problems, and ear infections. Psychological as well  as sociological impact due to low self-esteem brought about by their inability to interact socially because of these deformities also has an impact on the child.

A simple surgery is needed to be able to reconstruct the deformity. But to those coming from the low-income bracket, the cost is a heavy burden to bear, considering a number of patients come from this group. Operation Smile gives the gift of surgery that can change a child’s life at the cost of PhP15,000 per child.

So far, since 1982, Operation Smile Philippines has done more than 22, 500 free reconstructive surgery all over the country. Around 140,000 children and young adults have been given free reconstructive surgery all over the world.

Join the Havaianas Design a Smile flip-flop competition and who knows, your child’s entry would help put more than just a smile to other children who need the services of Operation Smile

I can safely say that I am discerning mommy, choosing only the best products for my children.I always think not only of the safety of the products I use with my children but also the quality and assurance that these are the best there is in the market. However, having the best does not mean making a dent in the budget. How? because a discerning mommy knows how to get the best products without paying too much.

So when the chance to visit Amherst Plant, Unilab’s plant for medicines came along, I did not hesitate to join the tour. After all, paracetamol Biogesic suspension, Ceelin with Zinc, PH Care, Myra E 400, Neozep tablets, Solmux Capsules and Biogesic tablets are products we have been using through the years.We now have Dolan in our stock and the reason for this will be explained later.

Plus, UNILAB is a Filipino company that has been in the health care market for a long time. The UNILAB products we buy from are safe, effective and affordable.

The Amherst Plant tour was timely because I was able to ask Dr. Royce Mangubat, Medical Director for UNILAB Pediatrica Division about the low-grade fever my son had for almost a week. I learned from him about the use of paracetamol versus ibuprofen. So we got Dolan which has ibuprofen.

A few days after the plant tour, my youngest daughter had the low-grade fever symptoms my son had. The difference now was that instead of giving her our usual dose of paracetamol Biogesic suspension, I gave her ibuprofen Dolan. The results were different: the low-grade fever went down faster when ibuprofen was given.

Anyway, the tour…

For the plant tour, Ving Abolino, Amherst Plant Director showed us the different parts of the plant. We were made to wear plastic shoes, plastic hair covers, hard hat and sterile lab gowns. The plant was huge but very clean. All I can say was that I am thankful, these health care products that we use come from here.

Wanna know more about UNILAB? Follow UNILAB in Twitter and “Like” their Facebook page

Stripes. On chocolates. On dark Belgian Chocolates (from Island Rose).

With or without stripes, chocolates are almost always on the top of the list we women crave for when we are stressed and/or just plain happy.

More stripes photos here: stripes on a flower and hot air balloons.

photohunt

And yet another life was lost.

News like this and this make me extremely sad. Suicide is not the way to end or face problems, as people would opine, but if the young people and even children who took this way had not been treated as how they were treated, I don’t think they would resort to this.

What Tyler’s roommate did was beyond words to describe.It was not just Tyler’s privacy that was invaded by two persons. Considering Tyler decided to end his life is not something to be taken lightly. I really hope these two will pay for what they did and I don’t mean “bail” when I wrote pay.

My burning question is: Would these two be liable with Tyler’s demise?

The fact was that what he was doing privately was on broadcast for the world (or the curious) to see and read about in 140 characters or less.

Social networking sites are powerful enough to make or break a person.It is therefore important for parents to teach their children netiquette as early as possible.