Mama Goals

Our family is not the typical middle class Filipino family. We are quite different from the majority, wherein either the father or mother, or both, leave the house on workdays to go to the office, while the kids go to school. Instead, my husband and I both work at home, while our one and only son, Theo, studies under an independent homeschooling program.

Additionally, we are not regular income earners. Our income depends on how much we worked on producing output. To give you a hint about our source of livelihood, suffice it to say that we earn through our works on the internet. These past two months, we have been on a very tight budget.

Photo credit: loveandduckfat.com

Since we have set July 6 as the first day of our 2015-2016 homeschooling year, I had to plan well and prepare for Theo's Grade 5 curriculum, from as early as April. Much of my time was spent in researching for his lessons and finding ways to avoid making his daily activities boring or too exhausting. This is our first year doing independent homeschooling, and I want Theo to enjoy each and every lesson, but still making sure that he learns and retains all that he has learned.

July came. This time, aside from spending time for preparing the lesson plan, of course, I also have to spend time teaching Theo. (The parents, usually the mother, are the teachers in a homeschooling setup.) Usually, I assign several tasks for each subject, and he is able to do most of them on his own. But I still have to be there to monitor his progress, and explain topics whenever needed. In other words, I wasn't able to work as much as needed to. Less work = less output = less income, hence, the tight budget... so tight indeed, that we could not even buy anything in excess of the basic needs.

For food, we just make sure that we have supplies for 3 meals a day that include rice and one viand that would be enough for lunch and dinner. Breakfast would consist of rice and egg, bread, cereals or oatmeal. Believe it or not, the budget is not enough to buy fruits. "During more abundant times," we were always very conscious about our diet. We would make sure that fruits and vegetables are always part of the menu.

I prayed in my heart that even if our food pyramid is incomplete, our health, especially our son's, would not be compromised. Well, God has a funny but very loving way of answering my prayer. He gave us free mangoes.

You see, beside our house is a mango tree owned by my husband's elder sister. Every now and then, we would hear loud bangs on our roof, and we have long since figured out that the sounds are caused by mangoes falling from the tree. My husband decided to check out our roof, just to make sure that the mangoes are not making any damage. With the help of a neighbor, they found out that the branches right on top of our roof are still filled with so many bunches of mangoes, that can fall anytime, if not harvested. My husband asked permission from my sister-in-law's husband to have those branches cut, which he immediately granted. He also told my husband that he can have all the mangoes that he can get. They were still green, but after a few days, we were blessed with very sweet ripe mangoes, rich in vitamins A, B and C, healthy probiotic fibre, copper, potassium and other nutrients!

Photo credit: choosephilippines.com

For the nth time, God has shown us that He answers all our prayers. For the nth time, He has shown His love even in a simple and funny way. There have been so many of God's blessings and miracles that our family has witnessed all through the years. I hope I can write about them, and more to come, here on this blog, to somehow inspire you, my dear reader. 

I also pray that God will bless you and your family as you read this.

I end each post with the lesson/s I learned from the particular experience for the said post and keep them in mind as my "mama goals" that I can apply in everyday life and future events or activities. Perhaps they can be your parenting goals as well.