Today, we took Nathan and Nicki to Lucky Chinatown as a reward for being so good at their dentist.
Nathan ended up buying shoes and a pinball-type toy; Nicki bought Hello Kitty stuff. Caths and I bought a Sorry! Revenge card game, which we played at KFC (and Caths won, what else is new?).
Our family likes going out. It helps to be in a cold place in this intolerable heat.
The Deens have been bitten by the Monopoly Deal bug. This card game puts a new spin on the old Monopoly card game, making it a fun and challenging game for Caths, Nathan, and myself. (Nicki isn’t quite there yet, but while we play, she’s usually playing her Barbie’s on our bed.)
Nathan is only eight, but he has beaten us on occasion. He can be a sore loser at times, but then again, his dad’s definitely a sore loser, so I can tell where he gets it from! Hahaha! Despite the occasional short temper, this game has brought us closer than most other games have, and we genuinely enjoy playing this game and being in each other’s company.
What about you? What family games do you have?
Last March 20, Cathy, Nathan, and I went to the Manila Ocean Park along Roxas Boulevard. The way the ads and the press releases were buzzing, Cathy was expecting it to be better than Sentosa, which she had actually seen. I knew how diverse our marine life was, and while I wasn’t expecting the Ritz, I was hoping that Manila Ocean Park would offer an experience truly worth the PHP400 they charged per head.
It was a big disappointment. There weren’t that many fishes on display, the fishes that we were expecting to be gigantic weren’t, and the place was hot. It was very underwhelming. The highlight of our visit was a manta ray that was relatively large, but I’d seen bigger rays off the coast of Amanpulo. At least Nathan was able to enjoy himself somewhat. And he looked so handsome in front of the sign, don’t you think?
Cathy’s thoughts on Manila Ocean Park here.
Last night, Nathan was horsing around with us in our living room, when he had to pass some gas (in Filipino, the word for fart is utot). He stopped in the middle of the room, gasped and said, “Oops! I made toot toot!”
Cue the raucous laughter. My son’s such a ham.
My apologies for the lack of updates. Things have been soooo out of control, and it’s getting daunting just keeping up.
In a nutshell, it’s June 6, and Cathy’s ready to give birth. Nicki (Nikki? Nicky?) refuses to come out, though, and my wife is getting increasingly impatient.
Meanwhile, Nathan is getting fidgety as school approaches, and I’m getting impatient with my weight loss.
How’ve you been?
Nathan’s grandmother gave him a Chinese-made Gameboy-type handheld computer game for Christmas 2006. A few months later, the screen went on the fritz and we assumed that was the death of his Gameboy. It was just as well; Cathy and I were starting to get a little concerned with how well he was playing the games. (For instance, he got further in Super Marios Brothers than I did.)
When the Gameboy broke, we decided to get it fixed but it just disappeared. Vanished into thin air. Our yaya – the one we fired less than two weeks ago – claimed she had no idea where it was, and Nathan went Gameboy-less for weeks. Then, yesterday, Cathy found it, after months of fruitless searching.
Nathan was beside himself with joy. I, meanwhile, still feel relatively good about the lack of relative violence in his Gameboy 35-in-1 video game cartridge. Let him jump and ‘kill the mushroom,’ or ‘kill the turtle,’ or run faster than ‘the fish! The fish! THE FISH!!”
I’d rather he enjoy his Gameboy now, than when he’s too old to appreciate its simple pleasures. (And when he’ll require more complex, expensive toys.)
Cathy and I did an Extreme Home Makeover-type thing yesterday in Nathan’s room, transforming it from the dusty, dingy yaya’s room it was to a bright, colorful room where Nathan could play in all day.
The intention: phase Nathan out from our room. LOL Actually, it was more of getting him to transition to sleeping in his own room so we could clear up some space for Nikki when she gets here in June.
It was actually so well-done that Nathan fell asleep comfortably in his room. His Mom, meanwhile, couldn’t get to bed without her son. Useless.
Nathan is barely three years old and still unable to read, although he knows his alphabet like the back of his hand. I’m not too concerned – my son has shown himself to be quite the techie.
Nathan now knows how to turn on my desktop computer, log onto the Internet, and get onto his favorite website, www.Orisinal.com, which features over 40 easy Flash-based games for children his age. When Cathy tried to put her earphones in, she couldn’t figure the wiring and sockets out, and abandoned the set on the computer table; minutes later, she heard Nathan humming, and returned to the table to discover that he had plugged it in himself, and was now playing with abandon.
For Christmas, Nathan received an educational VTech Challenger laptop from us, and a GameBoy-type Chinese ripoff from his grandmother, my Mom. He enjoys the games that challenge his hand-eye coordination and encourage his phonic skills. Of course, we still read with him, and now that he’s really starting to hold his own in conversations, I’m thrilled that he’s shown himself to be adept at adapting to the computer age a lot faster than I did when the revolution only started to grow.
I can only imagine what technology will have for him when he and his sibling (Natalie or Nicholas, we don’t quite have the baby’s gender just yet) are ready to go to school.
