The Road to 40 Day 209/365: Rain, Mexican Food, and Music

It was a gloomy Thursday, as it rained the whole day. I think it even rained through the night.

I prepared Vino’s stuff as per usual, and we went to wait for our cab. Since the beginning of the school year, he has needed a tablet for school. As such, I set up his own email address so that he could have his own Apple ID. It’s mainly so that we can track what he’s doing and limit apps that he can use.

I actually have access to his email address, which he doesn’t really know how to use yet. With it, I set up his Apple ID and his own Spotify account. His iPad was logged in to my account, so I can’t listen to it when he’s using the account.

So since August, he’s been playing his own music in Spotify. Because of this, we figured it would be nice to see his Spotify Wrapped.

Most of it is still tied to me using his tablet during holidays when we need music to sleep. However, his top songs and artists reflect the kind of music that he likes, which is nice. I’ve also seen him adding songs to his playlist, and he’s also been asking about song titles.

I like that his tastes are now geared towards real songs. Earlier, he’d have these fan-made songs about Among Us or Roblox that he watches on YouTube. It’s basically ripoffs of actual songs, and sometimes, the lyrics aren’t even suitable for his age.

Now that I don’t really borrow his tablet for music, his Spotify content will be all him for the upcoming year, and I’m excited to see how his musical tastes have evolved.

I went home immediately after dropping him off at school because a cleaner was coming over. I took the bus and luckily timed it just right to reach the house at the same time the cleaner did.

After she got done cleaning, I went out to have lunch. I’ve been meaning to visit Huevos, a Mexican restaurant that was highly recommended by a friend. She said it didn’t matter what time I went, it will always be full and will have a queue.

Luckily, or not, it started to rain super hard by the time I left the house. It was pouring so much that there were puddles practically everywhere. I hoped to keep my shoes dry, but stepping out onto the puddled road soaked my shoes and feet.

In my head, I was just wishing that Huevos will be worth it.

When I arrived, there was no queue. Maybe it’s because it’s 1:45pm and they stop taking orders for this service at 2:10pm. Either way, I wasn’t complaining.

I decided to get the birria tostada and some cauliflower bites for myself, just so that I can try at least two dishes on this visit.

Cauliflower bites were nice, and I think I’d copy their portioning. The sauce was a bit spicy, so that might be a problem for some folks I’d cook for. For the tostada, I felt like I ordered the wrong thing only because it didn’t feel exactly Mexican. The toasted bread made it feel like a banh mi for me. Flavors were ok, but I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t give me cheese on top of it.

After I got done, I had to take a cab to get to Vino on time. Thankfully, the rain stopped a bit, so I was able to book a ride easily, and not so expensive yet.

Vino asked if we could take the car going home, to which I said we cannot. We aren’t in a hurry, and booking a ride while there’s rain is actually going to be super expensive.

I guess he was tired, as he fell asleep in the bus going home.

When we got home, we did some of his exercises. He had no issues with English, maybe just a bit of overlooked punctuation and spelling, but overall, he was solid on that front. However, I didn’t want us to end with just that, so we did math.

Unfortunately, he is still having difficulty grasping the concept of division. I think the school taught them a certain way, but he missed a couple of steps, so now that we’re doing a longer form of division, he’s finding it difficult to put into writing.

There were tears again, which Che saw when she arrived home. These tears fall when he’s getting frustrated with himself. After a few equations, he finally got one without my help. During the process though, he was a bit unsure of some of his answers and went back to correct them.

I told him if he did it because I was watching, then he should always imagine that I’m watching so that he will review his work.

His first term assessment came back with the same notes from previous years – he’s smart, but can get careless because he rushes the things he does. He’s also easily distracted, which he also was while I was teaching him.

I’m hoping these daily exercises are helping him a bit to overcome these things. Having been a kid myself, I do want him to enjoy kiddie things like playing with friends. However, I need to balance it out so that he can still keep up with his peers in academics in the future.