We made a decision to try PLDT MyDSL broadband service about five months ago. This was after shopping around, comparing and attempting to subscribe to Globe WiMAX and SmartBro. Two months later, I complained about PLDT's poor customer service after a bad experience while attempting to pay our bill in one of its business centers, which then reminded me about past encounters with and inefficiencies of the PLDT system and its personnel.

Today, after two billing cycles since and about five months of generally good broadband connection, I am writing this "how to" advice so others may also lessen the chances of encounter with PLDT's poor customer service as I thankfully have so far and instead just focus on their reliable internet connection (cross my fingers).

First is to altogether avoid any relationship with PLDT if you can.  This company is well-known for its inefficiency and poor customer service ever since I can remember.  There's no other surefire way to avoid frustrations and headaches than to not establish any relationship at all.  Back in Davao City, we went for the alternative telephone and broadband service provider, Bayantel, and this newcomer lived up to its promise of good service.  However, here in Laguna and after the failed attempts to connect to wireless broadband services of Globe WiMAX and SmartBro in our location, we had no choice but to go for PLDT MyDSL and to wait for weeks for installation when the wireless broadband providers can hook us up within a couple of days!

Second, when you cannot help but subscribe to PLDT broadband service (i.e. you don't have any choice like what happened to us), lower your expectations! You might then be pleasantly surprised just like we were that unlike earlier customers that waited for two to three months for installation, it was ONLY two to three WEEKS...now that's progress! (just don't compare this with installation time of Globe and Smart, which is only one to two days).  Also, lower expectations when you call or personally go to PLDT business centers for assistance. Who knows, you might also chance upon the very few (most likely the young and well-trained ones) who'd surprise you with courteous and efficient service.

Third, hope and pray that something like a typhoon will not cause any interruption to your good broadband connection. Response time is known to be less than desirable, so refer to the second tip above just in case something bad happens to your broadband connection.

Fourth, pay your PLDT bill online. I have done it through BPI Express Online, which saved me a lot of hassles. I enrolled our PLDT, SMART and Meralco accounts through our friendly local BPI branch. With this arrangement, I avoided unnecessary contacts with PLDT personnel, thus sparing me from needless vexations.

We must learn to adjust to things we have no control over... learn to live with them and be happy despite of them. In the end, I am grateful for small favors like finding ways to avoid aggravations and freeing myself to appreciate the bright side of life.

Since Casa 3 (Preparatory to Grade 1) our kids are in school the whole day.  It is part of the Abba’s Orchard School practical life curriculum to train the children on table manners and use of eating utensils. As the child constantly take lunch on his own, he advances to independence. Wow, I just realized that I have been preparing our kids’ lunchboxes for 4 years now. I didn’t notice it’s been that long, probably because I am enjoying and getting much satisfaction doing it. Having to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning every school day to prepare healthy but enjoyable lunch and snack treats for our school kids, on top of a healthy breakfast for everybody, is a challenge I am taking with pleasure.

I have been consistently preparing their lunchboxes using the following criteria:

• Variety and Nutrition- go, grow and glow foods should be well-represented and whatever is prepared today should not be repeated tomorrow. No artificial juice, only plain water and milk or choco-milk for their drinks.
• Taste and Preference- finding out their food preferences through consultations and observations, and incorporating those foods in the menu if possible. My daughter’s favorite is cooked ham so I give it to her one day a week. Another favorite is bacon, which they get to enjoy once in four weeks only because of health and cost considerations.
• Perfect Combination- combining food types and recipes that go perfectly together like fried chicken + steamed veggies, and grilled fish + buttered veggies.
• Volume- finding the right balance between how much would satisfy them and how much they should consume to satisfy their nutritional requirement is important. Neither do I want them hungry because their food was not enough nor for them to bring home left-over food for the trash bin. (The school doesn’t tolerate this as well :D)
• Presentation and Color- for most people, especially children, presentation counts. A nicely presented food gets them excited and would entice them to eat. While color contributes a lot to the presentation, it also speaks of the food’s nutritional value. A multi-colored food preparation will more likely supply the varied nutritional requirement of growing children better than a single color dish. So a fried pork chop which is colored brown will be better served with green and orange vegetables and a yellow fruit for dessert.
• Convenience and Safety- making life easier for them by preparing for them simple, easy to eat foods. Boneless and fillet for fish and breast cut for the chicken are the best. Pork or beef are sliced into bite-sized pieces or small strips. Fruits are pre-washed and sliced for them.
• Surprise Factor- often, whatever is packed is not known to them to keep them guessing and inject some excitement. From time to time, I surprise them by adding fruits they love but don’t get to eat often (like grapes) or a piece of chocolate, which they don’t get to eat often as well. With this trick, I earned my halo points

This was how my kids’ lunch looked like yesterday: Boiled Lady Fingers with Soy Sauce-Lemon Dip, Boneless Garlic Milkfish and Ripe Mango Cubes. For their snacks; Egg Sandwich, Banana and Fresh Milk.

Today, they will be having Fried Chicken, Tomato, Lettuce and Cucumber Salad in Vinaigrette, and Mandarin for their lunch. For snacks, it will be Peanut Butter Sandwich, Apple and Choco-Milk.

My kids now noticed (and their teachers, too) that among their classmates, they are the only ones consistently eating vegetables in school and they are proud of it. When they open their lunchboxes, theirs are the most varied and colorful, and yummy as well. During our daily gratitude ritual after dinner, they would usually say they are thankful to me and for the food. This signals success in my healthy lunchbox challenge, Yippee!

It is imperative for people, young and old alike, to have adequate daily fluid intake for proper hydration. This is necessary for normal body functioning and immunity to diseases as discussed in item # 3 of Parenting Journey blog entitled ‘Top 6 Natural Immunity Builders for Kids’.

There are many healthy fluid sources available everywhere, but still you may find that people, especially school children, often do not reach the minimum requirement. Getting so busy and preoccupied with school work, socialization with peers and other extracurricular activities leave them oblivious of this health concern. Here is where parents come in.

Though the consequences of inadequate fluid intake may not be fatal in most circumstances, there are definite short term and long term negative impacts on our children’s health. Some known effects of inadequate hydration in children are frequent headache, constipation and impaired cognitive function. Vulnerability to common diseases like flu, cough and colds are very likely because of weakened immunity.

As promised in the above-mentioned blog, I will be sharing the results of an ‘experiment’ we did on finding ways to improve the daily water intake of our school kids. So much time and effort was spent on this endeavor but so many lessons were learned in the process and lots of gratification in the outcome.

Some Background

Let me begin by specifying the fluid sources of my school children. A glass or mug is at least 180 ml. Our school kids, ages 9 and 7 years old, drink 1 glass of milk in the morning and another one in the evening. Half a mug of lemongrass tea and one glass of water (together with their vitamin C supplement in tablet form) are taken in the morning. In school, 1 glass of choco milk is consumed for snacks but the half liter drinking water goes back home often barely touched. One glass of juice or iced tea and 1 cup of soup are the usual consumption at dinnertime. It looks like a lot but still inadequate because of low water intake while in school.

I feel so upset looking at their water bottles every afternoon when they get home for I know that the minimum daily fluid requirement was not met. Based on their weight they should consume about 1.6L of fluid per day. To know the fluid requirement of your child based on weight, here is the link for your reference.

With the objective of ensuring that our school kids are properly hydrated for better health and immunity, this journey began.

The experiment

I initiated making a water intake chart using post-its so it can be easily attached on our refrigerator door. It is a simple table where we could record the amount of water we drink, a sort of score sheet. Only the intake of pure water is ‘scored’ because that’s where the inadequacy was identified. Our son provided the pencil and was asked to make sure it is always available near the refrigerator (he tends to take it with him and usually gets misplaced). Everything else evolved beautifully from this beginning.


My husband asked my daughter to summarize the data every end of our ‘water week’, which falls on a Wednesday. She was taught the concept of averaging and how it is applied in real situations. She was advised to use long-hand in her computations…no calculator. My husband even made it more difficult for her by recording different fractions of glasses so she can practice mathematical operations with unlike fractions. My daughter survived the challenge and even volunteered to do the next score sheets.

At the end of our first week, we were surprised that even we adults did not meet the minimum daily requirement of 8 glasses. Our children’s quota is 6 glasses a day. The next week saw us falling short again of our target. It was even lower on the third week because everybody got busy that time. I knew it was not easy but I didn’t think it would be this challenging!

Because enough data were already available, my daughter was now asked to make a graph to plot the data for us to clearly see the trend. Very few directives were given to her and hurray her first graph was made! Here is the graph she made:

Looking at the trends, we decided that it’s time to make a change. A meeting was held after one dinner. The importance of water in humans was reiterated, the data were discussed and resolutions were made.

The first strategy was to give a reward (but not specified) for the person(s) who can reach the target. As it became a contest, our quite competitive daughter surely reached her target but didn’t quite care about the performance of the rest, not even to check on our faithfulness to record when we drink. Failure to record was a significant reason in some drops in the averages.

It was obvious that we had to modify the criteria for winning a reward to make sure that everyone would benefit. So I suggested putting emphasis on team effort and changing the reward system to enhance teamwork. That is, all four of us need to meet the target average for the week so that we’ll get rewarded as a team. The first reward is to watch ‘A Christmas Carol’ in the movie house. Because we seldom do this, everybody was thrilled with the thought.

Other resolutions made were as follows:
1) We started to modify our drinking habits. Fruit juice and iced tea were eliminated during meal time in favor of pure water. This is a triple benefit because we also reduced our sugar intake and lessen our expenses with this move.
2) Because we fail to record our consumption at times, we resolved that each one of us will remind one another about it.
3) The children gave their commitment to be conscious about water intake even while in school.

With all the above resolutions, the following week saw a significant rise but still the criterion for the reward to be granted was not met. When the showing date of the movie we want to watch drew closer, the pressure mounted. And just this Wednesday, on the seventh week after we began the experiment, we finally did it-- all points were above the horizontal lines representing the target!

So happily, we declared that on Saturday, all of us will be in the movie house to reap the reward for our success as a team in an endeavor that was started to make us healthier but ended up making us wiser and happier as well. CHEERS!

glass of water photo courtesy of stockvault.net