"I don't make suman!"

I have a funny story that will go miles in explaining why I do not totally embrace my Filipino culture: I get it from my mom.

When I picked up the boys from my parents' house yesterday, we were talking about what I was making and bringing to the Fall Around the World Festival. Here's how the conversation went...

"I have banana leaves to wrap the suman."

Real banana leaves?

"Well, they're frozen, but, yes, they're real."

Green banana leaves?!?

"Yes! What do you wrap suman in?"

I don't make suman.

A Hunt for Red Pants

Tomorrow is the Fall Festival for which we're toting in samples of at least three Filipino dishes, bamboo sticks, a sungka board and 70 little glass beads - plus extras in case curious, eager fingers walk away with a few - a Filipino story book, a cookbook, and whatever else the boys dream up before tomorrow afternoon.









I had thought that we would be going in barong tagalogs, etc., but Riley has other ideas. So, tonight, we'll be hunting high and low for red pants.

"Mom, remember the dance troupe from the Philippines where the dance originated? They wore red pants. I need to find red pants."

Alrighty then. Tonight: a hunt for red pants!

Lesson Learned the Hard Way

Here's a parenting lesson I'm learning the hard way: when your child wins a gift certificate to a restaurant you wouldn't normally go to, just go. Go quickly. Because when you look for the thing two years later - and it's expired - you now have to go and you have to pay for it. Horrible.

That was the case with Dylan and his gift certificate to Chili's. Dylan received the gift certificate in kindergarten. One of my good friends, who Dylan calls Uncle Brian, had promised to take him to Chili's to use the certficiate since I wouldn't take him. It's been two years and we had still never picked a day for it. Finally we picked a day and, as I mentioned before, the certificate was expired. But when you tell a 7-year-old you're going to take him somewhere, you have to do it. Oh, and to add to the horror, Brian promised to take them to McDonald's for dessert. Seriously.

So we went. The funniest response to my reporting that I actually went to Chili's and McDonald's: "I thought your account was hacked." If only that were the case. Here I am with my vanilla soft serve...at the drive-through because Brian said he wouldn't set foot into McDonald's. He'll promise my kid an ice cream cone from there, but won't leave the comfort of his vehicle!

There you have it. My account was not hacked. I did, in fact, eat at those establishments. The cocktail was weak, the food salty, really salty. And the funny thing is that I have eaten all over the world, from questionable food carts on beaches in third world countries and my body has never reacted like this; twenty minutes after we ate, Riley, Dylan, and I were running for the bathroom, almost as if our bodies were yelling 'reject! reject!' Jake laughed, saying, "I guess my body remembers eating food like this."

All I have to say is: if the school hadn't done away with giving out gift certficiates to Chili's as a reward for never being tardy, I would make sure that we were late at least once!