I blog about this when Tim entered primary 1. He had a problem where he cannot speak in school. He didn’t speak to his friends or teachers when he was in kindy at all. His friends asked me “Can Timothy speak?” Similarly, first few months of primary 1, he was the same.

My hubby and I took steps to encourage him to speak in school. I took some flash card and accompany him to school. I would ask him to read to me in a quiet area. Every time he does that, he gets rewarded with a sticker, eventually get a gift after collecting a number of them. He could read the cards without problem in school.

Next step, we invited 2 to 3 friends which he talks about at home. First we can see he wanted to talk but his high anxiety holds him back. All he could do was whisper. His friends were amazed to hear him whisper because they never heard his voice before.

We were persistent to do this until he could read to his friends at normal voice. After a few weeks, we took a simple story book and he read his with his friends.

We told his class teacher and counselor teacher that he was having such problem. His counselor teacher always invites him to her office to talk to him. He could whisper to her. He was really happy when the teacher gave him a ruler.

That was standard 1. Now he is in standard 2, he can talk & play with his friends and sing in school. He still find it difficult talking to teacher. The teacher said he only whispers.

However in Sunday School, he could talk to the Sunday School teachers. I am seeing that he is overcoming his high anxiety.

If you are in the similar situation with me, don’t panic or scold your child. Take small steps to encourage your child. You can view lots of video in YouTube that talks about “Selective Mutism” Most of the time, they will overcoming their high anxiety with not talking. That is their coping mechanism. No one know what is the root cause of this problem. However I suspect it could be due to bad experiences they encounter in school, like fierce teachers scolding them or other children.

Parents out there, if you are talking steps to help your child, although progress is slow, you child will eventually overcome his high anxiety.

By the way, Timothy does not have any problem with his academic. He still learns and does well in school. However he is not doing well with Lisan and Oral which requires him to read to the teacher.

My children are slowly growing up and nothing much to blog about them. I guess I have to change topics soon. I am running out of things to blog or losing the motivation. I believed many bloggers are feeling the same as I am seeing fewer and fewer post. Ha! Some of us still need to keep it alive to earn some side cash.

Anyway, I will blog about what I played when I was in primary school. The other day, I started a sewing project. My gal came to me and said that she was bored. Well Tim was having exams, so we had to stay at home for him to do some revision.

Since I was doing some sewing, I sewed 5 stones for Emily. I am sure you played this before. There are 8 levels to this game.

Level 1: Throw all five stones on the ground. Pick one up. Throw the picked stone up the air, collect one on the floor and catch the one up the air. Do this until all the stones on the ground are picked up.

Level 2: Pick 1, throw up 1, pick 2 stones and catch.

Level 3: Pick 1, throw up 1, pick 1 and catch. Throw 1, pick 2 and catch.

Level 4: Pick 1, throw up 1, pick 4 and catch.

Level 5: Hold the five stones in your hand, throw 1 stone up while placing the four stones on the ground. Catch the 1 stone up in the air. Throw the 1 stone up again and pick up the 4 on the ground and catch them all.

Level 6: Pick 2, throw up 2, pick 3 and catch all.

Level 7: Hold the five stones in your hand, throw 1 stone up while four is still in your hand, use your 2nd finger touched the ground and then catch the 1 up in the air.

Level 8: Throw all 5 on the ground. Ask your opponent to point to one. Pick it up, throw it up, collect all found on the ground and the one up the air.

Rules of the game are that when you picking any of the stones, you cannot move any other. When you are catching the stones, none of the stones can fall out from your hand. . If you do, you will lose your turn.

If you will complete all levels, you will gain 1 point. The one who collect as many points wins. The game can be played by partnering with others to form team. Each person will continue from the level the team member failed to complete.

There are advanced levels for this game for experts.

Advanced level 1: Pick 1, throw up, pick 1, catch the 1 up the air. Now you can 2 on your hand. Throw 1, exchange the one in your hand with the one on the ground and catch the one up the air. Repeat the step until all the stones on the ground has been exchanged. Now the difficult part, how you are not lost. Throw 2 up, Left hand catch 1 and at the same time the right hand pick 1 up and catch 1 from the air. Do this until all stone is picked up. Final step you should have 3 on your left hand and 2 on the right. Right hand throw 2, left hand catch 1 and right hand catch 1. Right hand throws 1 for the left hand to catch.

Advanced 2: Pick 1, throw 1, pick up 2, and catch 1. Throw 1, exchange 2, catch 1. Throw 1, pick 2, catch 1. Throw 3, Left hand catch 2, Right hand pick 2 and catch 1. Throw 3, Left hand catch 2 and Right hand catch 1. Right hand throw 1 and Left hand catch the last 1.

And etc….

Now Emily is only learning how to throw and catch.

Well you do not have to spend on expensive toys. I found a website which provides paper folding popular cartoons like Ben 10, Transformer, Power Puff Gals, Simpsons and lots more. All you have to do is print to a printer and let your children cut, fold and glue. For children younger than 5, you need to help them.

Source: http://toy-a-day.blogspot.com

Here are my toy friends…save me lots of $$

I got a baking partner and she is Emily. She loves to help me when I am baking scones. I taught her how to sieve the flour, cut the butter and make the dough. It is fun to bake with her. Tim only likes to sieve the flour.

I am glad my gal likes baking. I will find more recipes so that I can bake with her. Besides baking, I also need to teach her to clean up after that.

Well after baking, we will wait for the scones to be ready. When it is ready, we will have tea with scones. Isn’t this cool?

Emily will graduate from her kindergarten end of the year. She already received an acceptance letter from her future primary school. I was surprised that they were so efficient.

Her school is preparing for her graduation photo taking. The school requested that she wear long white shirt and any color skirt. Do you know hunting for long white shirt was so difficult? I went to many departmental stores but I couldn’t find. Ended up, I asked the school to get for her.

She is all excited.

Emily: Mummy, I will have a congratulation.

Mummy: *blur* what tion?

Emily: I will wear a square hat, shake hand with the principal and get a piece of paper.

Mummy: It is called graduation or convocation.

Emily: Yeah!!!

Anyway, she grows up real fast, it was just like yesterday I gave birth to her.

I still remember that she came out huge and broke my c-sect stitches.
I remember she loved to pull my face and give me a big juicy kiss.
I remember she refused to call me until I tricked her at 2.
I remember she got me all worried over her UTI and fever fits. She even had fit in Berjaya Times Square where we had to call an ambulance to send her to hospital.
She makes me laugh at all her funny remarks and actions.
She is such a joy in the family, no question asked.

My children love this Science Project, it is called “Growing Crystal”. You can get this from Toys R Us.

Everyday, they will shine the torch light to see how much their crystal has grown.

I bought decorations for Emily’s room from Jaya Jusco. I don’t know how to draw on the wall and with the wall decorations, it does not look so bare. It was on sale too.

She loves it and she wanted to put it on herself. Later she invite everyone to admire her room. It sure looks like a kindy class now. :giggles:

Sorry this is a ranting post….

My hubby and I finally got around to get an air-conditional unit for Tim’s room. The process of it was very frustrated. Let me tell you the story.

You see the place to install the air condition unit in Tim’s room was limited. The height is limited because of the window.

My hubby and I went around surveying the price and the available model. We have been using Hitachi and it proved to be reliable. We asked one of the stores, the owner told us that we need to leave 4 inch gap between the ceiling and air cond unit. All released model, the input air is from the top. They no longer produced those that go in from the front. The gap is good to ensure the air cond is cold and not incurred too much electricity. That is a big problem because space is limited.

Well, we went to another store and this is the new store that was open recently. I am very reluctant to go to new store because I was afraid the person has lack of experience. Sad to say, they proved me right.

First, we went to the show room and chosen one of the unit that the input vent was slanted. I told the sales person about our problem about space limitation. I told him that this model will work for us. He asked me whether I want the nano feature, I told him yes since the price difference is not much.

The day came for them to install the air cond, they came 2 hours early during our lunch time. Well I have already told them not to come during our lunch time. Anyway, they install it.

Guess what?

First, the model is different with no slanting input vent. It was completely top input and only 2cm gap to the ceiling. The contractor kept insisting it was alright.

The model I picked:

The model they installed:

Next, the contractor does not do electrical point. They asked us to just use a 3 point outlet which my son’s room has only 1. I called the store to send over the electrical guy. From my past experience, the installer does both, installing the air condition and do the electrical point.

The electrical guys came and install a switch. My hubby complained that they pull out one of the roof tile so that there is light coming in for them to do the cable. The past contractors used torch light. The danger of doing that is that if they do not install the tile probably, it can cause leakage. It is really inexperience of them.

After they finished, they charged us RM170.00 for the cabling. Past contractor only charged us RM60. The contractor was smart to leave the helper to collect from us. We told him that we were going to pay RM150 only. We quickly called other electrician to check the price and they told us it was RM120 to RM150. It is due to wire cost goes up.

My hubby and I were really upset with the store and never will buy from them ever again. They just killed their own business with such lousy service.

Today marks my 10th Anniversary…