Parenting Archive

My thoughts on parenthood, and what it's like to be a mom in the Philippines.

10 Practical Travel Tips From A Mom Of 5 Kids

Traveling with kids is fun but it’s a not a walk in the park. What more, traveling with 5 kids and one is an infant. Imagine the extra baggage of diapers and baby essentials. Thank goodness I’m exclusively breastfeeding, that’s a big minus on my bag.

Also must read: Fun Time with Kinder Joy

We love traveling during the summer months (March to May) but we also travel during the rainy season. In fact, our longest drive happened in September. Months before it was declared as one of the New Seven Wonder Cities of the world, we had the chance to see Vigan.

One of the keys to traveling with keys is preparation. This includes packing ahead of time and taking out all the OCness in you. From our travels (accompanied by my OCness), I am sharing with you some practical tips that I guarantee will make traveling less stress and more memorable.

10 Practical Travel Tips From A Mom Of 5 Kids

Practical Travel Tip #1 Create a soundtrack. The idea of creating a soundtrack for a certain is really nice. Make a list of some of your favorite songs (it would be fun to include children’s song!) and make your own travel soundtrack at Spotify. Label it with your destination and year. Listen to your soundtrack every time your family is inside the car.

Practical Travel Tip #2 Make an itinerary. There is beauty in being spontaneous but you can explore more beautiful places if you plan ahead. And let the kids know your plan. Print your itinerary and give each a copy. I know it sounds like organizing a tour, well it actually feels like one and it’s how you can make the most out of your trip. You can also play your soundtrack while making this and even while packing!

Practical Travel Tip #3 Always ask for a corner room when booking. Most hotels listed in Traveloka are already discounted and though it is tempting to get plus more rooms for your kids, ask for a corner room instead. Corner room in hotels are usually bigger. Rooms with 2 queen size beds are great options for family with kids too.If you really need to book a hotel with two rooms, try asking for connecting rooms.

Practical Travel Tip #4 Plan your outfit. It’s not for OOTD post on your instagram. Planning your outfit and the kids outfit makes packing a lot easier. This will test your organizing skills but if you ace this one, you’re set for life. For bigger kids, let them pack their clothes. Give them a list of the clothes they need to bring and give them a bag each.

Practical Travel Tip #5 Pack in small bags. So how do you pack in smalls bags when you have more kids? As mentioned in #4, let them pack their own bag. Collect their bags and put it together in one big bag. Most of the times, my stuff and husband’s goes in one big bag and my kids’ on another 1 big bag.

Practical Travel Tip #6 Include small toiletries. Buy travel sized shampoo, soap etc and bring a set or two for your family. It should depend on the number of rooms you’re planning to book. Hotels provides toiletries but with kids, it will never be enough.

Practical Travel Tip #7 Bring a snack bag. Long travel + hungry kids is a disaster. Prevent it from happening by bringing a snack bag. Put 2 to 3 snacks for each kid. It should be light like crackers or snack bars.

Practical Travel Tip #8 Always bring small bills for tipping. In Philippine hotels, how much to tip the bellman? Most US travel sites I have read suggest bringing a lot of $1 bill. Basing from that, I guess 50 PhP bill is acceptable as minimum for tipping. It doesn’t hurt to give more though, specially if the bellman is very helpful to your family.

Practical Travel Tip #9 Take photos everywhere. When I say everywhere, it literally means everywhere. From the landmarks on the way, historical places you pass by to hotel facade to hotel rooms to all the place you will visit. Take photos of those, take photos with your family on it (bring a selfie stick and tripod always), take photos with only your kids. Take photos of each of the kids too. It eats time but it was worth it.

Practical Travel Tip #10 Print your photos. The experience will be forever in your kids’ heart and the fun times can surely make them laugh for a while. Make that memories last longer by printing some of your travel photos. You can also make an album and a scrapbook of your trip!

Kids+ well planned trip= Happy Family!

Pancake House’s House Specials Set Is A Certified Mom’s Meal

A friend asked me, “How are you?” and I said, “eto, surviving through Pancake House’s House Specials Set.”

Pancake House’s House Special Set is a delicious mix of specialties of Pancake House: Best Taco in Town, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and garlic bread, 1 pc Pan Chicken and Iced Tea.

Pancake House’s House Specials Set

And you couldn’t go wrong with this set. This is the perfect “pick me up” meal for lalo na for mommies na walang katapusan ang pagod. It has everything you need to make you feel better. There’s the pan chicken and its crispy skin, sobrang tasty ng chicken tapos with gravy pa! The best taco in town is not called as such for nothing. It really is the best Taco in town. The veggies are refreshing, every bite is rejuvenating. Tapos yung spaghetti na meaty, hindi matamis at hindi rin naman maasim. Finish it with Iced Tea, ay nako parang pinalis lahat ng pagod mo. The best part about it, hindi sya masyadong mahal. It’s less than 300 Pesos only at hindi naman masyadong nakaka guilty kainin kase walang rice (wooohooo haha)

This is how I usually eat Pancake House’s House Specials Set: put gravy on garlic bread and set aside. Finish spaghetti and sip iced tea. Finish Taco and drink iced tea. Eat the chicken with bread and gravy and drink all iced tea. Bread+ chicken + gravy is a very good combo for me. Yung roast chicken set ng Pancake House ang favorite ko noon eh, kaso tinanggal nila. OK na rin kase I discovered Pancake House’s House Specials Set. Mas solve!

And you might be wondering why a food related post is filed under parenting…

Eh kase nga, this meal is my “I’m soooo tired I need a fuck!ng break!” meal. Sabi ko nga di ba, it’s the best “pick me up” meal. Sa totoo lang, nakaka dalawa na ako this week. That’s how bad I am at parenting right now. OK, I take that back… I’m just having a rough time handling some mommy woes. I just can’t talk about it right now but in due time I will. I have learned a lot and still learning from my current ordeal and soon I will be able to share my learnings to you. For the mean time, kain na lang muna tayo 🙂

By the way, Pancake House has online delivery!

The Ins And Outs Of Snapchat For Parents

It really is quite challenging to be up to date with my kids’ online activities. Our only requirement for allowing them to use a device is they share their passwords with us. Now that I have a son who’ll be a teen ager in just a few months, I know the password requirement will soon be questioned. So I guess the only way to be up to date with his technology and online activities is to know what’s in and out with teen’s technology. And Snapchat is one of those!

Here’s a guest post from Hilary Smith* about the Ins and Outs of Snapchat and 5 Ways To Encourage Teen Safety On Snapchat

The Ins And Outs Of Snapchat

Snapchat is a popular disappearing messaging app that was developed in 2011. It allows users to send short messages or images to others, but after the receiver views the message after a certain amount of time has elapsed Snapchat automatically deletes the message. The fleeting qualities of this app have made Snapchat one of the fastest growing social media platforms.

Teens and adults embrace the freedom and authentic communication Snapchat offers users. The ephemeral messages trim the amount of data left in a person’s digital footprint making it a great alternative to traditional social media that relies on walls, profiles, and messaging. As an added bonus, it allows users a broad range of self expression without fear that everyone will be able to see every post a person makes.

Recently, Snapchat has created “stories” which are basically homepages for users to post Snapchats with other users. According to the site, “stories are compilations of Snaps that create a narrative … Snaps appear in chronological order with a beginning, middle, and end.” While this makes it easier to share posts, after twenty-four hours the Snaps still disappear from a “story”.

Disappearing Messages And Teens

Typically, children using Snapchat are only sending funny pictures or silly selfies that are entertaining to a certain friend or group of peers. Unfortunately, this popular app is quickly becoming notorious for sexting and cyberbullying among our kids. The promise of fleeting messages can encourage teens to behave in cruel or risky ways that they normally wouldn’t even consider in a face-to-face situation.

It’s easy to put our blinders on and say this won’t happen to our children, but current statistics are stark reminders of how prevalent negative behaviors online really are. Here is a quick rundown of some shocking statistics:

Sexting is now seen as a normal part of teen development. Experts liken this behavior to “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours” for the digital age.
Cyberbullying rates have tripled and now it is widely believed that 87 percent of our children will come across bullying on social media or text messaging.
25 percent of Snapchat users regularly send “sensitive content” that includes sexting or bullying.

Children often fail to recognize that there is no guarantee of secrecy. Even though Snapchat boasts about disappearing messages, other users can secretly screenshot or take a picture of the message before it disappears. This copy can then be shared with others or kept as blackmail for later use. So what started out as a fun way to communicate with peers, can backfire and open a child up to lifelong consequences for a hastily made poor decision.

5 Ways To Encourage Teen Safety On Snapchat

Unfortunately, there is no promise or guarantee that our children will never encounter a dangerous situation on social media sites like Snapchat. We need to challenge ourselves to help our kids learn the necessary life skills needed to avoid common potholes lurking on Snapchat.

Listed below are five tips to encourage our sons and daughters to use Snapchat safely:

Teach children about social media etiquette and frequently discuss this topic as a family.
Make sure a child knows it is alright to deny a request for sexting or to ignore hurtful comments.
Stress the importance of seeking help from an adult if they witness cyberbullying.
Keep digital devices in public living areas to reduce the temptation to take part in questionable activities.
Encourage kids to only friend people they actually know online and be leary of friend requests from strangers.

What other ways do you use to keep your teens safe on Snapchat and other social media sites? I want to hear your suggestions and tips.

*Born and raised in Austin, TX, Hilary Smith is a free-lance journalist whose love of gadgets, technology and business has no bounds. After becoming a parent she now enjoys writing about family and parenting related topics.