I Give Them Toys But...

My kids have a little quirk--they don't play with toys.

Don't get me wrong, they have loads of toys. In fact, I have banished several toys they got from last Christmas to the attic. Many of them are still untouched and wrapped. Along with them are other old toys that I have confiscated. My kids seem to have forgotten about them.

These days, instead of toys, they play with a lot of other stuff--empty paper towel rolls, bottle caps, loose microwaveable containers, strings, and other odds and ends scavenged during trips. The Ben 10 Happy Meal toys of Kuya and Kowi's PowerPuff dolls are starting to gather dust.

We've sailed the seven seas looking for pirate treasure, gone camping in the deep woods and joined the Queen's grand parade while eating Kowi's "mini strawberry" soup all from the comfort of our house.

I'm glad I have pretty imaginative (and very cheap) kids. I'm wondering how I can ask people to give money to my kids instead of toys this Christmas. Haha.

No More Janina

It's official: Controvertial beauty queen Janina San Miguel gave up her crown as the reigning Binibining Pilipinas World and her slot in the Miss World 2008 pageant. The Binibining Pilipinas Charities has confirmed that Janina resigned due to personal reasons and the death of her grandfather.

This gives 1st runner-up Danielle Castaño the opportunity to represent the country in Johannesburg this December. I certainly hope she's better than Janina at the Q&A portion.

Although I was sad for Janina when she became the country's laughingstock, I was shocked that she won a title at all. Yes, her answer was filled with lots of hahas and ahms, the P and F interchange was prominent, subject-verb agreement disagreed and, frankly, she didn't utter a single coherent sentence in English. Why did she win?

Why didn't she just request for an interpreter? European and Latin American candidates do it all the time. Although it might be weird to ask for a Filipino-English interpreter in your own country's pageant. Hmm...

Better still, she could've just the answered the question in Filipino. What's wrong with that?

Cats In Hats

Kuya had their Mufti Day at school last Friday. The theme this month was to come as their favorite literary character.

He initially wanted to wear his Spiderman costume. But from last year's experience, most boys came in assuper heroes and most girls were fairies and princesses. In last year's class alone they had 5 Supermen, 3 Flash(es?), several Batmen and 1 Green Lantern. I wanted Kuya to wear something unique and easily recognizable.

I asked him to name a book that we read during bedtime and choose a character from there. A lightbulb went on and he decided to go as the Cat in the Hat. Not a bad choice. It was unique and something that we could make together.

We bought red and white felt paper and construction paper to make the hat, a red ribbon, black shirt and pants, white gloves and penciled-on whiskers and viola--our version of Cat in the Hat. We had fun making it, although Kuya had a bit too much by taping all the discarded paper together and finishing a whole roll of scotchtape!

We made two hats. Of course, Kowi had to have one--just like her Kuya.