Essential Newborn Care Protocol: a Must Know for Parents and Would-Be Parents

Our 10-year old daughter came home upset late Thursday afternoon. She found out that day that the auditions for the school’s Dance Club was scheduled on the next day and she hasn’t made any preparations for it. Moreover, she also has homework – more than the usual, she claimed. The breaking point perhaps is that her uniform was sprinkled with ink from a ball pen of someone who was messing around in the school service on the way home.

Noticing her troubled face, I inquired when she got to the door, “Hi Rica, is there anything wrong?” With tears coming down her cheeks, she pointed to the black ink peppered on the back of her white blouse and explained that it’s not her fault. “Ok, we’ll ask Mama to fix this for you.”

Then, she went on about the audition and the enormous amount of homework for that night. Obviously overwhelmed, I told her to calm down and to tell me what it was that she needs to do.

It turned out that the biggest concern was the audition. I assured her that her Tita Tin already knows that she was going over after school for an emergency dance coaching session. Then, we agreed that after about an hour of dance practice, we’ll have a nice dinner and then deal with her homework.

So she stopped crying and fixed herself up to go to her Tita’s house.

A week ago, she happily declared that she’s going to join the school’s Art Club. She told us that there’s a maximum membership of 30 for each club. We immediately inquired about the Dance Club and the Glee Club, those directly related to her main interests: dancing and singing. “There’s an audition for the Dance Club!” she exclaimed, “and that would be difficult,” she continued. She claimed to not notice any club related to singing or music.

We already knew that that she didn’t want to audition for fear of not getting in. Being new to the school, she didn’t know what to expect and hesitated to ask anybody in school about it. She felt that getting in to the Art Club is the simplest thing to do as she only needs to sign up and be one of the 30. Besides, her new friends (and it actually turned out that all of the girls except for two) were planning to sign up for the Cooking Club.

She joined the Theatre Club last year in her old school and enjoyed it very much - having all the opportunity to act, dance and sing together with her friends and schoolmates. She said that she has tried cooking and theatre, and now it’s time to try art (probably also inspired by her summer Manga drawing and scrap booking with her Tito Jay and Tita Tin, respectively). She actually got quite good with her Manga sketching and we’ll feature some of her works next time.

We had to give her a nudge to the direction of dancing as we’ve already learned about she being happiest when she dances. This is easily understood as Tita Tin and Mama Sez, on separate instances, have also confessed their love to dance and being happiest when doing it. Fortunately, their love coincides with their talent. Mama Sez blogged about a dance performance and posted a video here.

Of course, she cannot deny what we already knew but had to make up excuses or reasons not to audition. This went on and off in the next days until that Thursday. Tita Tin, Mama Sez and I already discussed it prior to Rica’s realization and we expected her to eventually need to prepare a number for the audition.

It only took her and Tita Tin (and Tito Jay) an hour to come up with a new near perfect dance number to the tune of Kat DeLuna’s “Push Push”. After that, with a smile from ear to ear, Rica’s night was a breeze. Her homework was really just the usual stuff and one can even be postponed as it was for a long-term group project. So with the “it’s in the bag” seal of approval from Mama Sez, Rica confidently looked forward to next day’s auditions.



This time with a wonderful grin, Rica reported the next afternoon that she’s the only fifth grader who auditioned (mostly were sixth and fourth graders), the only one to dance solo (every one else went as a group) and the only one who came prepared with a choreographed number and costume. Of the 32 who went, four backed out when they were asked to perform again by the teacher. Although there was no formal declaration that the 28 remaining students already made it as Dance Club members, the teacher’s instruction that they’ll be meeting next week in the playroom (where there’s more space) and the “very good” she got from the teacher as well as the cheers and applause of approval from the other students, Rica confidently declared that she made it.

So much apprehension for nothing it seemed. I took her aside to congratulate her and to let her know that it’s also okay to not get what we aim for as long as we did our best. This is by knowing that battles may already be lost by not trying, or it could already be won by just showing up. The fear of failure is paralyzing and may lead to nothing but “could have beens”. Indeed, it takes one to know one.



Original photo by aussiegall