Kids Archive

What my kids are like, and how to raise your child/children in this day and age.

Shopping Experience at Baby Company Grand Baby Fair

I was invited to take a look at the Grand Baby Fair preview yesterday… which feels like just a while ago.. Baby Company Grand Baby Fair opens today until Sunday, that’s January 27-29, 2012. Yesterday it was open to employees and some costumers who can’t wait for Friday 🙂 Some stores are still setting up but most are already rolling and selling!

That’s the registration area at the entrance with a very festive mood.. beside the registration area is the shopping cart station.

First stop is at Ai-NON, because you know, Ai-NON is a friend of ours 🙂 s please guys check them out on Facebook and like Ai-NON Facebook page 🙂

Ainon Baby is a trusted brand of safe , BPA Free, LEAD Free & durable baby products.. so if you’re expecting or have a newborn, stop by at Ai-NON and see what’s store for you and your baby.

After some chitchat with Agnes (Ai-NON), I walked around and take a look on what Grand Baby Fair has to offer this year. It’s more spacious this year than last year. And there are benches now unlike last year.. the stage area is more lively too.

The play area, courtesy of Gymboree is also bigger..

New exhibitors such as Cast & Frame caught my attention.. if you’re into this.. go give it a try 🙂

My favorite baby products were also there and I bought some from them 🙂

Here’s a scoop from Smart Steps Facebook page (go like!): Get 3pc set Original Baby Looney Tunes Feeding Bottles OR Original Baby Looney Tunes Character Hood Feeding Bottles OR Original Baby Looney Tunes Bottle Keeperfor FREE in every P500 worth of purchase at the Baby Company Grand Baby Fair at Megatrade Hall! Supplies Limited! So hurry!

Mommy Matters was there and I was planning to buy a breastfeeding blouse since some of the blouses were 50% off, some were 30% off.. but I forgot to go back on their stall when I got busy taking picture around.. I’ll have to go back again and get the blouses that I want 🙂

Another exhibitor that caught my attention, my time and yeah my wallet too is Sprint Asia.. what caught my attention is their Nail Polish on display.. ORLY! But they got me to stay on their booth and give their cosmetics products a try:

That’s the products that she used on me.. Wet n Wild is exclusively distributed on Watsons.. I bought two Orly Nail Polish and 2 different eyeshadow palettes from Wet n Wild and a bronzer.. I’ll be experimenting a sun kissed make up soon! 🙂

Baby Company Grand Baby Fair is much like shopping haven to expectant moms and to moms with kid 0-3 years old. It’s your one stop shop to all your baby caring needs.. and not just in terms of baby clothing, diapers, vitamins and baby furniture and other baby essentials, exhibitor like Medela offers help in terms of breastfeeding, booth with Parenting magazines and books from Summit is also available. There’s also a booth for those who are considering cord banking as well as a special breastfeeding station. And of course they have a line up of talks about parenting, caring for your baby and other topics moms will be interested. The stage will be used for this activities and celebrity moms will be there too to share their experiences, there would be experts that will surely be of great help to all moms who will attend the fair.

After almost 2 hours of non stop walking and a bit shopping, this concludes my day:

Necessities for the kids.. I also bought two sets of pillows, each set contains 2.. from 900+ I got it for 450+ each set 🙂 My total purchase 2000+ PhP excluding the beauty products that I bought from Sprint Asia.. and so I got my own swag bag!

Take a look on what’s inside.. that’s 2000 worth of items! yay!!!

You can get a free swag bag too! single receipt of 2000 PhP entitles you to one swag bag.. items that was paid inside (such as Sprint Asia products, Ceelin) are not included on the swag bag promo.. aside from the swag bag, Mom Card members gets a free cell phone holder.. wow! that’s a lot of freebies in one day!

Grand Baby Fair officially starts today, err, later today I mean. See you later at Baby Company Grand Baby Fair.

Teaching Responsibility to Your Kids

Responsibility is one of the most important values that parents must instill in their children. It is also one of the hardest to teach. After all, the concept of responsibility is often an elusive one for toddlers and young kids, and our desire to raise them in a nurturing and caring atmosphere often precludes the trait from being adequately taught until the child is grown. How can this be corrected? How can responsible values be appropriately taught, even at a young age?

As a mom with children of my own, I have asked myself these questions numerous times over the past couple years. While I haven’t in this span found a perfect solution to my queries, I’ve still been able to devise methods and approaches that, hopefully, will ultimately serve to make my kids more responsible people in the long-run. Here’s what I’ve been trying to do:

Instill Healthy Eating Habits

We go to the grocery store for a variety of reasons: we need eggs, we want to stock up on organic makeup, or perhaps the bathroom has run out of toilet paper. And, when our kids are still young, we will likely bring them along each and every time. I think this makes for a great opportunity to teach both responsibility and healthy eating habits. I’ve devised a system: I tell my kids they can buy four food items of their choosing. These products need to hit certain nutritional requirements for fiber, calcium, and vegetable content, but otherwise they are free to make their own decisions. While my kids will always select one unhealthy food among the four, the requirement have made them more aware, discerning, and hopefully responsible. They have even found healthy foods that they enjoy.

Give them Jobs

Some parents give their kids chores and expect them to be done without any sort of compensation. Other parents won’t assign chores, but will instead try to teach responsibility by handing out a regular allowance. While you should certainly stick with whatever approach works best for your family, I’ve found that a combination of chores and compensation (i.e. an allowance that is paid after chores are complete) is a great way to teach responsibility. If my kids don’t feel like doing chores, that’s ok – they just won’t get paid. Conversely, if they want to buy a new toy, they might need to do more chores in order to gain the appropriate finances.

Let Them Fail

We certainly never want our kids to fail, and there are areas in which we will work hard to insure that they don’t. But there are other times where a failure has consequences only as a learning experience for a child. Sports and extracurricular activities are a case in point. If your kid doesn’t show up to practice or doesn’t prepare appropriate for the dance recital, there are real (although not harmful) repercussions, and there will often be an outside authority figure who gets angry at them. As a parent, I’ve decided to let my children fail – and, in the process, learn from their mistakes – when such situations are in play.

These are just a few ways that you can endeavor to teach responsibility to your child. None of these approaches are particularly difficult, but since the trait is a particularly challenging one to master – even for adults – its’ always good to make a concerted and consistent effort in following these techniques through.

This article is a guest post.

Giving The Kids Their Own Room

Let me start this post with reasons why kids should have their own room. Privacy is number one, primarily for the parents. We cannot deny the fact that kid as they grow older, question things that we cannot answer. How can you explain it, if in the middle of the night they saw you doing your thing. “Mommy and Daddy is playing” alibi won’t work with kids ages 7 and up (or to some even younger). Giving them their own room gives the parents the privacy for their romantic moments. Giving your kids their own room will also teach them how to be responsible, keeping their things tidy and well arranged. It will also teach them to be independent.

As you all know, I have 4 kids ages 8, 7, 3 and 2 respectively. The two older boys, we believe, is now old enough to have their own bedroom. After all, we don’t want them to catch us being extra “close” to each other. The apartment we are renting has two bedrooms. The other one, of course, we use as our room while the other room is being used as their changing room. My sister who lives with me prefers sleeping on the couch rather than in the bedroom. So, husband and I have been thinking, we can use the other room as the kids’ bedroom.

The first part of our planning revolves on the bed. We are choosing between a double deck bed or two childrens storage bed. I am leaning towards bunk bed because of its storage feature. Since we cannot afford to have a separate room for the boys, giving them a separate bed with their own storage area seems to be next best thing to having their own room. Storage bed can also teach them to be responsible for their own thing and learn to respect the things of others. It will also give them privacy which is much needed by a growing child.

The second part of our planning is the other furniture that we should buy. If we decided on bunk beds, this of course will be omitted. The last part of our planning is managing the finances so that we can buy the things needed for their bedroom.