She is barely two-and-a-half years old but she is already the most popular happy pill, stress reliever, and dose of good vibes in Philippine social media, with 1.3 million followers and growing—fast! Here 10 things you should know about the adorable Little Miss Scarlet Snow Belo.
1. “Purple is her favorite color, and her favorite animal is a cat. She’s very consistent about that, purple, and cat,” Scarlet Snow’s dad Hayden Kho shares.
On favorite characters: “She loves Peppa Pig. Now she likes dinosaurs. But also, she’s in a phase. In Trolls, she wants to be the Bergens. In Three Little Pigs, she wants to be the wolf. Why don’t you want to be the good characters?” Vicki laughs.
On favorite food: “She has a very sophisticated palate. She likes truffle pasta. I like this thing with black rice and cheese, and she likes that too. Grilled cheese sandwich. She loves cheese, it’s her number one thing.”
On favorite books: “She loves the Bible! She has her own kids‘ Bible and Hayden reads it to her,” Vicki says. “She knows the story of Jonah, Moses, Adam and Eve.”
2. On what makes Scarlet cry: “’Pag antok na tapos ayaw matulog. Or if we don’t give her the phone,” Vicki reveals.
“To be fair to her, she only watches educational shows. But my advice to you is, don’t even start,” Vicki explains. “We made a mistake. When she wasn’t really eating, we noticed that when there’s a phone, she’ll eat more. She got addicted. So now, that is her punishment when she is naughty, no phone.”
“When she gets her phone, she won’t make me pansin na. So now, she has not had her phone for five days, and it’s been wonderful. When she wakes up, she sings, she talks, she makes conversation!”
3. On what they do when Scarlet gets in a fussy mood: “Everybody, out.”
“Everybody, out,” Hayden shares; that’s what he tells everyone in the room. “Then we have a talk, as in a serious talk. Ever since she was eight months old. I stoop down, look her in the eye, and usually magpapa-cute muna yan,” he laughs. “I want to video it nga, eh! Her eyes turn so big, then tears well up kahit wala pang nangyayari, it’s so cute,” Vicki adds.
Hayden: “Do I ever get mad at you?”
Scarlet: “Yes.”
Hayden: “When do I get mad at you?”
Scarlet: “When I’m not eating” (shyly).
“So I ask her muna why. Then I’ll remind her what the rules are. When you articulate it, you have to use the same syntax. So, no throwing things, no spitting out food,” Hayden explains.
4. On their dream family vacation: “Africa! But probably when she’s bigger. She loves animals kasi,” Vicki says.
“In her first year, we traveled almost every month,” Vicki says. Scarlet has been to Singapore, Hong Kong, the US, the UK, Maldives, France, Italy, and UAE. “We go to Singapore a lot because we like the parks there! Scarlet loves anything nature,” she adds.
5. It was actually Hayden who first caught Scarlet’s head in the delivery room.
“I got sick so the doctors would not allow me to leave,” Vicki shared. “[The surrogate mother’s] due date was Feb. 28, but the baby could come earlier. So I told Hayden to go ahead [to the US] because I didn’t want Scarlet to be born without either of us there. Finally, I was allowed to leave March 2. And she’s so sweet, she really waited for me.”
“The mom was putting on makeup pa,” Hayden says about the surrogate while she was in labor. “The doctor was there but he was still sterilizing his hands. And I go, ‘I can see the baby’s head!’ Naka-gloves na ako ‘nun so I caught her head. I had practice in med school delivering babies, I did my internship at Fabella Hospital where we would deliver 50 babies a day. It all came back!” Hayden reveals.
On holding Scarlet for the first time: “It’s one of those moments that you really cannot explain. It’s instant love,” Hayden shares.
6. Scarlet was purely breastfed for nine months!
“People were so kind! They were all donating breastmilk. Cristalle [Belo]’s batchmates, Hayden’s batchmates. There was a driver just dedicated to picking up milk! When she’s older I want her to meet all her milk mommies,” Vicki says.
“One time we were at a stopover in Singapore. She was almost one year old and mixed feeding already. Her milk was in our suitcase checked in straight to Manila. So we bought this milk available there, and she wouldn’t drink it because she wasn’t used to that brand. And the wife of Kevin Tan, Michelle, said ‘O, I’ll offer a bottle!’ We are so amazed at how kind people are.”
7. Scarlet memorizes Our Father, Bahay Kubo, and the song Rainbow Connection.
“Because of repetition,” Hayden says. “She has playschool now, four hours a day. She has Mandarin classes twice a week, she also has reading classes and gymnastics once a week,” he adds.
On the most surprising thing Scarlet has said: “Why was you angry at me last night?” Hayden laughs. “For her, last night just means before, or earlier. That morning, nagalit ako sa kanya because before going to school, she spat her food out. So she said to me, ‘Why was you angry at me?”
On Scarlet’s sweetest moments: “My designated job is to get her milk at 4 a.m.,” Vicki shares. “So I prepare it, give it, then she goes, ‘Thank you Mommy, I love you.’”
“Yes, its those random moments when I’m working, she’s walking around, and she’ll suddenly say, ‘I love you, Daddy,” Hayden adds.
8. Hayden and Vicki have decided to home school Scarlet.
“We were discussing during Bible study what school to send her to,” Vicki shares. They had already reserved a slot for Scarlet in a particular school, but are now reconsidering. “Its more important to us that Scarlet grow up to be a good person, we don’t want to produce an Einstein, just a decent human being who will contribute and be a happy person. And also because we travel so much. And the world is a school,” she adds.
“She wants Scarlet to be a dermatologist. I want her to be the Secretary General of the United Nations. A leader with a good heart, that’s my dream for her,” Hayden smiles.
9. On putting Scarlet to sleep at night: “Daddy, can you carry me without crying?”
Scarlet sleeps beside Vicki and Hayden at night, but sometimes in her own room. “She has a specific position that she likes to be carried in, tapos she’ll say, ‘Yaya Nits, Yaya Nits’ and then she’ll cry. She just really cries before sleeping. She got used to that. So I would tell her, ‘I will only carry you if you don’t cry.’ So that’s why she says, ‘Daddy, can you carry me without crying?’” Hayden shares.
“At 8:30 p.m., the room is dark na. We can continue talking, pero ang rule lang, dapat nakahiga na kami. Haba ng kwentuhan naming, minsan hanggang 10 p.m.! Masarap naman yung kwentuhan.” he says.
On the most important value they want Scarlet to grow up with: “Fear of God.”
10 “To be God-fearing, not fear as in fear, but reverence,” Hayden says. “She prays before eating and sleeping but she doesn’t fully understand yet. I explain to her, ‘God is someone you cannot see, but He’s there. Like the wind, can you see the wind? You cannot see it, right? Can you see the air?’ Eventually she will be asking questions. If we don’t give her answers, she will be getting them from somewhere else, so might as well kami na ang magturo.”
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“She has no idea she’s famous, which is great. But she does have the attention of everyone at home because she’s the only baby. She remembers people’s names, that’s her charm,” Vicki says.
Hayden adds, “And every morning she does a roll call, she’ll say hello to the guards, to the houseboys, the yayas, and she asks everyone, ‘Are you happy? You, are you happy?’”
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Message the author @iamsuperbianca
Scarlet Snow Belo in numbers:
193,008: number of likes of her most liked post, a photo of her doing the finger hearts sign
1,040,936: number of views of her most viewed video, with her making animal sounds
05-16-2016: Date of the first ever post on the @scarletsnowbelo Instagram account
5: number of magazine covers she has starred in—Good Housekeeping, Lifestyle Asia, Working Mom, People Asia, and Esquire
1.3 miillion followers on Instagram