Sunday, September 11, 2011

Developing Jessica's Artistic side

This morning our family decided to go to Trinoma to have a little family time.  We had to leave early because we didn't want to have a hard time getting a parking space (QC malls are notorious to me for having limited parking spaces, no matter how big the malls are, same with SM Megamall).  We also had to drop by my mom and dad's house to give them some chicken nuggets so we went out early.  We did arrive at Trinoma around five minutes to 10am so we got a great parking space but the mall was still closed, we had to wait around 10minutes or so.  It wasn't too bad, except Jessica wasn't in much of a mood to go around walking.  We first let her play at Kevin's playroom at the Kids Zone.  The one hour there will give me and hubby some time to walk around the mall by ourselves, plus it lets Jess interact with other kids there.  I saw the Gymboree there also offered an hourly rate, but it costs a whopping Php 320 an hour, so I had to beg off on that, I should get a trial class instead. hahaha :-p  Anyway, we ate lunch after fetching Jessica when the hour was done, and so her wearing a pirate's hat and a sword.  Really cute but she removed it even before I got to take her picture. duh.

We decided to eat first before going around again, and unfortunately Jessica requested to eat at Jollibee and we didn't have much of a choice.  Gave her a jolly kiddie meal and she was happy for a while until she requested for something we couldn't understand (except for a word: yellow!).  After she was done crying we just told her we're going to the toy store and it improved her mood. We  went to Toys R Us and Jessica would point at so many toys she wants which I would reject because they seem pretty useless to me: stuffed toys, barbie dolls, pink wand, etc etc.  But she did point some stuff that would be useful like Megablocks, but she had those already and won't need new ones.  She then got this one and for me its pretty useful and would be something good to develop her artistic and creative side, which I think really has potential (hubby draws well and is good at this, I AM NOT! hahaha).  And its handy enough to bring anywhere. I may just need to replenish paints and crayons (and lots of paper) but essentially its easier to lug around because of the compartments and the retractable legs.  It costs Php 1,399.  But hubby agrees its worth the money.  So I went for it.  We also bought some drawing notebooks, more markers, poster paint and glitter paint (Jessica wanted these) at National bookstore.  I'm happy she loved it and used it immediately after we unpacked it.


 This looks like a laptop table.  She can sit on the floor or couch when the legs are used or use the table on top of a table when the legs are folded.

The paper can be locked in so it won't move while she's working on her artworks.  Notice too the slots above so she can easily place the watercolors in separate compartments.  I see these watercolor types in Japan home for 88 bucks so I know I have a problem once the first set runs out.


Under the blue cover comes separate compartments and free art materials: 8 watercolors, 2 containers for water, one of which has this great cover of using a brush, 5 markers (the ones we bought from National are already included here), two brushes and 12 crayons.  I was also able to sneak in the scissors - Jessica loves to cut paper.  
Clean up is pretty easy since we can easily wash or wipe it, whichever would be applicable.  I love it! 
I think this is more effective than the megasketch we bought just a week ago, which can be used by our next child anyway so I'm not too sad she doesn't use it much -- she was back to asking for bond paper after a day! :-D
And then my recurring thought is this.  I am glad and thankful that I have a good career that allows me to buy these things for her.  When she starts studying and we're spending 2x what we spend now on tuition fees, these gifts won't come off as easily. 

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