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Dawn Zulueta wants kids to get physical

Glam mom Dawn Zulueta doesn’t seem to be the type who’d go down on all fours and scrape those smooth knees of her.  Neither does she look capable of dirtying those dainty hands with – horrors! – mud pies from the beach.
 
Surprise, surprise! She is.
 
“I remember ang dami kong galos sa tuhod,”  Dawn recalls her happy childhood at the launch of Breeze with ActivBleach. “I used to play with the boys – biking, habulan, patintero. There was an empty lot in front of our house that had gravel.  Some sort of construction work was going on. It was really tall, like a hill. We’d roll down, bring the bike up and down and come home so dirty!”
 
You guessed it.  Her mom scolded Dawn for coming home all smelly and dirty at night.
 
Now that she’s a mother, Dawn would like her children, Jacobo and Ayisha to experience what she’s been through and savor their childhood.  But she knows times have changed.  New diseases from pollution and other causes put children at risk when they go outdoors.
 
“That’s the only reason I am wary of my kids going out anywhere. You don’t know what they’ll pick up.”
 
Davao summer
 
Summer vacations in Davao are more freewheeling.  Dawn, her husband, Anton Lagdameo and their children hie off to the beach.  Dawn looks forward to joining her little ones in creating sandcastles and mud pies the whole day long.
 
She doesn’t mind the dirt and the grime at all.
 
“They’re kids. You have to adjust to them,” she reasons out.
 
Indulging in child’s play helps Dawn as much as it does her kids. It transports her back to simpler times, when she didn’t have a care in the world, when all that matters is having fun and living the moment.
 
“It’s therapeutic, a great way to fight stress,” she smiles.
 
That’s why Dawn wants not just her children, but others like them to get more physical, to go outdoors and play. Of course, this also calls for a lot of care.
 
“We have this fear na baka masagasaan, or baka may ma-pick up (na sakit) outdoors,” she admits.
 
Balancing act
 
The balancing act is something only loving mothers (and fathers) can do.

This summer will be a lot different from the rest, though.  Dawn will be dividing her time between taping for ABS-CBN’s “Bukas Na Lang Kita Mamahalin" and campaigning for her congressman-husband in the coming elections.
 
The showbiz-family set-up was totally unexpected.  Dawn thought she’ll just be helping Anton campaign this summer and focus solely on her family.  But she replaced Maricel Soriano in the soap at the last minute. “I owe a lot to ABS-CBN, which produced (the top-rating soap) ‘Walang Hanggan.’ I love acting.  Also, I want to please the fans,” Dawn explains why she can’t say no to the new project.
 
That, a supportive husband beside her, make everything fall into place for Dawn.

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