The Army dress

The swimming suit was not the only gift from Eyang that she trusted to Kecil's Tantes to bring over. Among other things, she sent this camouflage pattern dress for Kecil, as well as the purple batik you saw on the visits post.
There was a bit hesitation on Kecil's part when Mama pushed this dress on her (it would have been such a waste were she to outgrow her clothes before wearing them, no?).
After that purple batik, she has been a bit averse to dresses which are too long, but we managed to get her into the dress.

And when Mama took out her camera.... boy oh boy does the girl turn into a kid model in an instant!

And so we had a bit of fun in taking pics this morning. The photo op was soon followed with a trip to the market (shopping!) with Kecil carrying her Dora pencil case as her 'purse'.
It would seem that Kecil loves her Camo dress. I'm glad. Especially since we still have a pair of Camo pants that I need to convince her to wear. Perhaps soon.

Here's to more photoops, both Mama shots and Kecil shots. Until then!

Visits: Walkies & Bye bye!

The good weather continued to hold through the duration of Tante's stay, and with no more destinations planned, we went on our normal walks in the late afternoon, enjoying the beautiful light and company, while Kecil went on with her flower gathering routine.

Among other things, we walked, and took pictures, every one of us: Mama, Tantes and even Kecil!

Kecil Shot

Mama shot Tante shooting

Mama shot

And all too soon, it was time again to make the long trip to Manila to send Tantes off. We stopped along the highway to get some gifts for the Tantes to bring home, a chance that was used by Kecil to explore the nearby playground.

It was a pretty tiring trip, so there weren't many pics this time round.

But all in all, we had a good time with the two Tantes, and we look forward to many more visits from the family. Until next time, Tante!

(and hopefully no more fighting over gadgets next time!)

Photobooth

*Taking a break from holiday reporting...


As part of our extensive list of loot from the holiday (which we are going to cover some other day), Mama actually ended up with a working webcam and a Photobooth application.
And somehow, suddenly, the computer is full of photos like these:

... as Kecil delighted at finding herself directly on screen. She started with bugging Mama for more 'taking photos', but she soon graduated to taking photos herself.

I foresee Mama's harddisk filling up rapidly unless Mama stays vigilant in guarding her computer. Still... I'd  say I should enjoy it while I can.

Epic Holiday: Day 1

So one would think that an Epic Holiday should start with a bang. But after the long journey from home, which took practically a whole day despite the flights lasting a total of 6 hours, we simply took a long rest at home, followed with a trip to the local government office to update our IDs (a new requirement by the government).
The wait was considerable, although some would say it was amazingly brief as things went, so... as usual, we spent time taking pics.
It's also a good thing that Kecil's Tante was along for the 'outing' as well.

And then of course Kecil wanted to have a turn with the camera:

The trip was followed with some going around looking for a specific loot from the holiday, which will be covered in the next post. In the meantime, here's wishing you a good rest for the day, just as we did on that day 1 of our Epic holiday.

Cheers!

Perspective

(Now that I've shared with you our new toy, I can share this story, since the pics are mostly taken using the new toy)


In dealing with Kecil every day, although squatting down to get on her level kind of comes naturally, often this Mama forgot that her view of the world might be wildly different, thanks to her ... uhmm... relative size. So it was indeed great to have a share-able, Kecil-proof camera, with which Kecil offered this Mama the world through her eyes.

 Like her tall, tall, big Mama, who loves big sunglasses and from whom Kecil learnt this pose

Mama's uhm.. huge arms

the blue sky as the favored background (got to do with the angle the pics are taken, no?)

And even how close the Dog's face really is to Kecil's (and Ami's) eye level.
Photo credit: Ami

It's going to be interesting to see how much faster Mama's hard disk is going to be filled up with an extra camera around the house (and a certain set of itchy fingers). I am looking forward to it. How about you?

our budding photographer

Thanks to the recent Family Fun Day organized by the Skool, Kecil now is into running around as if she was still in the games.
But a more pronounced effect was the acquisition of her toy camera.
Oh, she loves her new camera.
Now she can take pictures of Mama taking picture of her. Ha!

I suppose it's a case of 'monkey see, monkey do'.
Of course, in Kecil's case, it's slightly more literal as we do have real monkeys that we do take pictures of.

For now we are just hoping that all these exposure to cameras and photography would benefit Kecil through her life,
For now, we are happy enough that she's happy with her camera.
Perhaps sometime soon, we'll be able to get her a real one with which she can start real photography.

How about you? Any major investments on learning something new lately?

Techie Baby

It is NOT that Mama got direct criticism on her stand about Kecil and technology,
And it's NOT that Kecil has her own gadgets either,
But Kecil most definitely seems to have a free access to a lot of Mama's gadgets,
And there is a part of this Mama who always seem to say "Are you crazy?" kind of stuff at this,
So we'll use this chance to hopefully address that voice while also hopefully creating a map into the future regarding our uses of technology.

If we were to point fingers, Mama would freely admit of being responsible for Kecil's techie inclination, by introducing to Kecil the joy of watching Baa on Mama's computer. Honestly, Mama was just so bemused by Kecil's reaction to Baa (she loved it!), and anyway, playing Baa is a pretty effective diversionary tactic when Mama is too tired to play with Kecil at night.
Still... the result was that Kecil was hooked.
And by the age of two, she was pretty used to Mama's computer.

And then of course there was the blog, for which Mama have to provide visual documentation, which means... LOTS of photo session. Uhmm.. not quite a big wonder why Kecil got used to the camera and started wanting to take her own pics, yes?

There was a time when she was actually OK with the camera phone while Mama kept the bigger camera. Those were the days. Nowadays, she's just grabby about anything that Mama does.

VERY grabby, indeed!

While the possessive Mama really would prefer to keep her camera in her hands, thank you very much, Mama the parent was slightly at loss on a proper reasoning to deny Kecil the permission to learn to use it. Saying that the camera is too sophisticated for her does not seem to make sense once Kecil showed that she managed to find the shutter release button all on her own through copying Mama in action.
Even saying that the camera is too heavy is no longer true (see photo above).

It so does not help that Kecil can look like THIS when she's campaigning for something that she wants:

Coupled with quite a few decent shots, like these and those below, let's just say this Mama ran out of arguments and give Kecil some chance under very close supervision, that is.
Oh, and the admonition "And for goodness sake, don't. Ever. Drop. The camera. Yes?"

Kecil's love affair with various gadgets was also fueled by her gadget-loving clan. Check out Kecil playing with her Eyang's iPad and her Tante's nifty camera (I think Kecil secretly thinks the camera should belong to her since it fits her hands so nicely!)

This Mama believes that even a young child is already her own person, with her own opinion, wants and needs. Children often understand so much more than they are being given credit for, and you'll be surprised on how reasoning your decisions with them can often result in a much better compromise than simply enforcing your will by using your position as a parent.

This Mama had given Kecil access to Mama's gadgets with the condition that Kecil really knows what she was doing and will not willfully damage the said gadgets. Also Kecil is only allowed access under close supervision, with consequences for not following rules.

With regards to computers, this Mama is inclined to think of it as a wonderful tool, one that can be so useful for learning as well as entertainment. While Kecil definitely gets her daily fix of Baa, we also often browse Google Image for visual trips of animals, fruits, etc. There are also times when we play just using TextEdit to familiarize her with alphabets using fun colors (it helps that choosing color on the said program was also visualized using crayon colors rather than the usual color wheel).
Not to forget that Kecil had seen the usefulness of computers in keeping in touch with her extended family using Skype.

Technology would continue to evolve as we move forward into the future. Rather than shunning technology, this Mama is more into embracing technology. Likelihood is that we would continue in the same thread of letting Kecil explore the various gadgets around the house while keeping a close watch nearby. Hopefully her explorations would also inspire her parents to continue moving forward, keeping up with the latest innovation (not same as keeping up with the Joneses, mind you), both in the interest of keeping ourselves up to date, as well as keeping up with the Little One.

This Mama can see soon enough into the future where Kecil would be able to find her own way on the internet, browsing YouTube, having her own Facebook account (not for another 10 years, actually!), even writing her own blog! We would definitely like her to be able to do all these, but more importantly, benefit from them, rather than becoming a victim of fads.
These are the things that we will keep in mind as we move forward.

Added 25/08/11:
After all, it's been a while since she did this:

 
How about you? What is your stand on your Little Ones and technology? Do you let them perch on top of your printer as well? Apparently it's the latest trend ;p