I was shopping for Corelle plates, must get some back to Malaysia. I was browsing the shelves for low prices and I heard plates falling on the floor. Actually it was one plate but it didn’t stop. It is like someone throwing it on the ground, picking it up and throwing again. It went on for more than 5 minutes.

I thought the Corelle’s staff was doing a demo. So I kepoh and followed the sound. Guess what? It was a small boy as old as Timothy testing out the plate. His dad came by and asked him what he was doing. He said, he was testing the plates because he read behind the plate, it said unbreakable.

This is definitely not a paid post but a funny incident that I encountered 2 days ago. By the way, the plates and bowl here only cost US$2.99 each. In Malaysia, it is above RM$20 per plate.

Better blog something here to clear off some cob webs. Yesterday early in the morning, my boy message me using papa’s Google chat account.

Boy: Mummy, Tim here.

Mummy: Yes dear.

Boy: Did you get my 3in1 Bakugan?

Mummy: I got you 7in1 Bakugan.

Boy: Thank you.

Mummy: Sorry, mummy has to run to a meeting. Talk to you later and miss ya.
Now I am home sick, away for ½ week now. I missed my boy, my gal and my hubby. I hope to see them soon. It is always no fun to travel without family.

I learn something that is important for nurturing our children. If you observed, most (not all) children from very rich family may not be able to withstand issues when they encounter big problem. Reason, their parents has provided all they need or want. We call those children born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

As for children of the poor family, they somehow learn the survival skills. They will not let anything stop them from living. They have to do everything to get going. No maids to help them. If you observed, most CEO, company director or successful businessman, they came from a poor background.

Lesson for us, how you want your child to be? You need to nurture and train them. Not by giving everything they want or need. Nor by having other people do things for them. If you do that, they will not learn how things are done. Let them learn by making mistake and they will improve on it, hopefully to become a better person.

Often you hear of adult who do not know how to cook, do not know how to sweep the floor, do not know how to wash plates, who do not know how to clean up, who do not know how to fix a bulb, who do not know how to wash clothes or who do not know how to survive in the real world.

Even Bill Gates donated his fortune to charity rather than passing it down to his children. He does not risk spoiling his children with wealth and end up good for nothing.

Bottom line, we have to be careful what we give to our children.

Every time I look at my son’s exercise books, I am so tempted to correct it. His writing has improved slightly but what I cannot stand is that he cannot draw straight line. His straight line does not follow the exercise book line. Somehow I need to go correct it or ask him to do so. Another complain is when he writes sentences, he didn’t leave any lines. He will squeeze everything in one line. Everything sticks together. Geram or not?

One time, I copied out all the sentences. I asked him to erase everything on the page and re-write it again. He is like me, he likes to press the pencil hard when he writes. With that, it is kind of difficult to erase. He doesn’t erase properly before he write on top.

I cannot stand checking his work, I will want to correct it to make it more tidy. I hope he shows some improvement this year.

My gal always gives me a Silent treatment whenever she is not in the mood to do anything. It makes me geram! She can be a good girl one moment and next moment she changes.

Once I was playing happily with her and it was time to sleep. I asked her to go up to brush her teeth. She kept playing pretending not to hear me. I asked the second time, she still didn’t response. I scolded her but she didn’t move. Of coz, I won’t take a cane for this small matter.

I stopped everything that she is doing, I made her look into my eyes and gave her a 5 minutes lecture. She cried and ended up sleeping without brushing teeth. By the way, I get a lot of those no response treatment. It is like talking, scolding or threatening the wall. Anyone has an effective way to counter this?

Funny thing is sometimes the cycle goes this way, I asked, she doesn’t response, I scold, she cry, she wants mummy to hug her, mummy asked her to do as she is told before hug, she does it and mummy hug her. Hrmm..if she does what she is asked, she probably get the hug without me scolding her. I just don’t understand her, she is like testing the water.

By the way, I do talk about this with her when she is in good mood. She always promises me not to repeat it but somehow she does it over and over again. She even wrote it on the paper to say she will listen to mummy. Funny isn’t it.

I heard that the government insisted all preschool to have at least 4 hours of school time. The government also wants the preschool to have equal amount of BM teaching time vs other language (English/Chinese). Is your child’s preschool doing the same?

That means my gal’s preschool time changes from 9am-12noon to 8am-12noon. My gal is not a morning person and she had a hard time waking up at 8am. Now she has to wake up at 7am and I am not sure how to do so. Well, I need to train her, which means I will need to wake up as early too. There goes my “owl” time at night.

I am not a morning person. During my university days, I will arrange all my lectures and tutorials after 9am except for the first year. First year, everything is prearranged. My final year was the best because no lectures or tutorials until after 12 noon. Talking about university, I really miss those moments.

Just like many who used to rush, run and pick their seats in AA flights, it brings out the Malaysian identity in us. I am glad AA now assign seating arrangement, I believed it is for safety purposes. It is not very safe for people to rush and run on an airport runway.

Back to school, I overheard parents telling their children to choose the best seats in the classroom. I remembered my mom asked me to sit in the front because of a better view. I never like the front seat because teacher always like to pick on students in the front.

Today, parents are asking their children to pick seats near or below the fan. What to do? The weather is really hot here. When Tim returned from school, I asked him where he sits. He said he sat at the back. He also told me that all the seats near or below the fan were taken up very quickly.

By the way, I saw 3 tall students in his class. 2 were same height as him and 1 was taller. I believed it is a class for the tall. :giggles:

Yesterday was Tim first day of school in P2. First day, already got Math’s homework. He is still a little confused with the question.

15 + __ = 30

Sometimes, it is difficult for children to understand, yeap the word is understand how to solve the equation. With Maths, it is not about memory on how to solve but to understand how to solve. That’s how I teach Maths.

Once you understand, you do not have to memorize. The way I teach it is:

Tim has 15 apples. Tim would always be the first person, since he is the first born
Papa needs 30 apples. How many apples, does Emily need to give papa?

He will know that, it would me 30-15 and he needs to write it in this format to solve it:

 30
-15
—–
—–

It takes a lot of practice to get it right. Well sometimes, questions can come in this way:

__ + 15 = 30

Story: Emily give papa 15 apples, Tim needs how many so that papa has 30 apples?

15 + 15 = __

Story: Tim gives papa 15 apples and Emily gives papa 15 apples, how many apples papa has?

30 = 15 + __

Story: Tim and Emily gives papa 30 apples, Papa keep 15 and give mummy the rest. How many mummy has?

15 + 15 = 20 + __

Story: Tim gives papa 15 apples and Emily gives papa 15 apples, how many papa has? 30
Papa keeps 20 and gives mummy the rest, how many mummy has?

15 + 15 = __ + 10

Story: Tim gives papa 15 apples and Emily gives papa 15 apples, how many papa has? 30
Papa keeps some and gives mummy 10 apples, how many papa has?

With the story, Tim will know whether he needs to use addition or subtraction to find the answers. If Tim understands the concept, he should have no problem solving it.

In order to make peanut tong yuen, the dough must be a little hard with less water. It is alright, because when you boil it later, it will become soft.

First you take 2 small piece of tong yuen, roll it like a ball. Press with your thumb.
For peanut filling, I used chunky Skippy peanut butter jam. You can use 2 small spoons to scoop and place on top of the dough. Take another piece and put it on top. Like making doremon pancake.

Seal it with water, using your finger dip into water and tap it on the dough. Once seal, roll it like a ball.

With the Skippy chunky peanut butter jam, it has some crunchy peanut in it. Tada….my peanut tong yuen in palm syrup. Slurp :P~~~

Now anyone know how to make sesame paste?

Here’s wishing you a GREAT 2010 ahead!

I don’t usually set New Year resolution because I know I can never keep it. For this year, 2010 I am setting one that I will read the Bible from cover to cover in 365 days. I am one person that never had a good discipline when it comes to reading. Let’s hope I will achieve this. I also hoped that my Sunday School children will read the Book of Mark too.

What’s your resolution? Let me share with you one of Penang 2010 fireworks from the back of my gal’s room. A good view too.

Lastly, an update to my painting project since so many of you encourages me to paint Emily’s room. Wah lah…actually not completed yet, still got one wall left and the big cupboard is sitting beside it. I hope to get it done by Saturday.

I was not happy with the colors. The Fire Princess wasn’t as fiery as I expected. It was more orange than red. The candy floss (light pink) is too light. Since I have to paint over a strong blue, I have to do a double layer which is twice the effort. However Emily was pretty happy with it.