Do you know that your toes can reveal your characteristic? My mom told me that if your second toe is longer than your big toe, you are a big spender. If your second toe is shorter, you are very thrifty and you can definitely save money. Hahaha…don’t start staring at your feet.

Here are my family feet. Guess who can safe and who can spend?

By the way, my sister is a big spender that no medicine can help her. Her third toe is longer that the big toe. Just imagine that. I remembered when we were young, she promised my mom that she will start saving some money. I gave her a snoopy coin box for her birthday present. She was very happy because she can use it to save money.

However she discovered that the coin box has no opening as it was made out of tin and she cannot get her money out. She may need a can opener to do that. She gave it back to me. :rolleyes:

Don’t start pulling your big toes, it does help. :giggles: A better way would be marry one who is more thrifty than you. Thrifty not stingy!

P/S Show me your family feet in your blog. 😉

I am trying to upgrade Tim’s BM Vocabulary. I got him a Oxford BM-English dictionary. I need to teach him how to search for words in the dictionary. Besides that, I do a lot of reading with him in BM. However he is not very good at remembering BM words. I won’t say he has a poor memory because he can remember every alien in Ben 10. I wished I can turn BM words into alien.

I am happy that Maths and Science is in English because he definitely has no problem in it. The funny thing is he has problem in spelling English words but not BM words. He can spell the BM words without knowing the meaning. I believed BM words are easier to spell.

I am trying to find more BM books for him to read. How I wished there are Peter and Jane in BM. If you know any interactive BM CD/VCD ROM, let me know. I got the Unik Interactive VCD-ROM on Science, Math and English for primary school. It is very good and even now Emily is also learning from it.

Tim will be having is first exam in March 3rd and 4th, aiks that is next week. I guess this weekend, I need to help him with his revision.

Alicia just reminded me from her post to blog about this. It is about teaching children how to tell the time. Yeap it is difficult to teach children to tell time. You must teach them 1 hour has 60 minutes. They will look very strangely at you because they always learn that 10 is the complete number. Next, you have to teach them, when the long hand move from 1 number to another, it will be a multiple of 5 minutes like 5,10,15,20…etc. Too complex for any child. Worst you have half past, quarter past, quarter to…etc.

However my children mastered the way to tell time ever since they know how to read numbers. I have a clock in my room but not my children’s room. Sometimes if I sleep in the children’s room, I will ask either Emily or Tim to go to my room to tell me the time.

They love to run over and tell me. Mummy it is 8:15. Cool eh? How do they do it? Here is the secret.

Isn’t it great to have digital clock, make things so simple. Anyway, if you really want to teach a child time, start with the short hand moving and the long hand at 12.

I think it is my year and I received a letter from Golden Screen Cinema that I won a consolation prize. I entered this when my family and I went to watch Madagascar 2 last year. I just wrote the slogan on the spot. Now I cannot remember what I wrote too.

Emily and I participated in a Tinkerbell coloring contest. Results will be out in March. I am keeping my finger crossed. Emily told me that she wants to open the prize. I don’t think it will come in wrapping paper. She enjoys tearing the wrapping paper.

On another topic, this happens yesterday at the Penang Bridge. A crane fell over and cause a long hours of jam! It looks like a crane wants to be a transformer but failed to do so. Timothy was fascinating with the front page of TheStar today. He asked me how the crane transformed. :giggles:

Yeap she almost there, she can switch on the lights with tip toeing. She is going to be 5 and she can reach the lights. One less chore for me, to help her on the lights. Now she can open the doors by herself.

One thing that she constantly makes me or herself frustrated is when she asked me something which is very ambiguous and make me tell her. If I cannot, she will make a fuss or cry. A few times, I tried to divert her attention but failed.

Here is one classic example:

Emily: Mummy says what is kepala.

Mummy: Head.

Emily: No Mummy says what is kepala. *a little frus*

Mummy: Kepala is Head. *blur*

Emily: No Mummyyyyy say what is kepala.

Mummy: Huh??!! *better not say head, later she will explode*

Emily: Say What is kepala. Like teacher.

Mummy with imaginary light bulb on: Emily, What is Kepala?

Emily: Head *smiling*

Mummy: :rolleyes:

Today lunch time, my gal told me she had stomach ache. I applied some “minyak angin” and thought she was hungry. I gave her some honey dew, my subsidy from my workplace. She ate and she was ok.

Later after I sent my son to school, my hubby got a call from my nanny. She said that Emily is having fever and has no appetite to eat. I suspect is food poisoning. However she didn’t vomit nor has any diarrhea. I gave her fever medicine and asked nanny to let her sleep. The clinic was already close for lunch time. I thought to let her rest and take her to the doctor after work.

She had fever again at 5:30pm and my nanny gave her the fever medicine. She looks very tired. I gave her Gain Bac, good bacteria. Later, she passed motion and she was active with no fever and no stomach ache. Her motion was normal. However she insisted that she wants to see the doctor. More like she wanted to go to the clinic playground.

I took her to the clinic because I was afraid that she may have fever again at night. Better let the doctor check her. However when she was at the clinic playground, she has no sign of being sick.

She saw the doctor and he could not find anything wrong with her. The doc said she just has some wind in her tummy. Since I already have fever medicine and Gain Bac (good bacteria), he didn’t give her any medicine. There goes my money too! RM25 for the playground. :rolleyes:

By the way, if your child has stomach flu, good bacteria helps a lot. The doc told me that he has a case of a child admitted because of rotavirus. The doc gave the child good bacteria and he recovered after 4 days. However the child’s aunts also had the same rotavirus and were admitted for 10 days.

P/S: I got the above bottle from my pediatric. I am sure you can also get from the pharmacy. I suggest you talk to your doctor before using it.

Remember that I won US30 on the first day of Chinese New Year. It was my company department photo contest. My director asked us to take picture during our December break. I submitted my Teluk Kumbar beach pictures I took during Christmas. The criteria is not how good the picture is but how relax we were.

I was one of the winners. The one sitting on my left and back also won. I guess we know how to relax ourselves. I was asked not to share this until the department meeting. Oh well, my director didn’t want me to steal the thunder. That’s how I won US30. I am still thinking how to spend it. Any great ideas….By the way, the prize money is taxable 🙁

Again, I will show the winning pictures.

“Sweets and chocolate are junk food, I don’t like junk food” Emily & Tim said.

Today I was at popular bookstore paying for the items I am buying. As you know the counter is filled with sweets, chocolate and junk food. I asked Emily whether she wanted Ribena jelly. She said out loud that “Sweets are junk food, I don’t want junk food”. The cashier gal laughed and told me that this is the first time she hear a child say that. It makes me very proud of them.

How did Emily and Timothy get there? It is influenced by my nephew whose parents were very strict on junk food. They don’t allow him to eat any and brain washed told him junk food is not good. There goes the fun! In turn, he influenced my children. You see having their cousin tells them that junk food is no good is better than their parents saying it hundredth times.

You know how grandma or grandpa pampered them with things they like. At one time my mom secretly gave my children chocolate. The funny thing is that when my children were at my parents place during CNY, my parents offered my children soft drink. Emily and Timothy told grandma, “This is junk drink and I don’t like”. All my relatives laughed.

Anyway, they are not perfect as there are times when I eat junk food, they too want a little bit. They tell me a little bit is ok.

I must say bravo to Timothy’s teachers. Yesterday I received the first “jumpa cikgu” letter from the school. I told myself “oh oh”. I already predicted what will happened.

As some of you know that Timothy had a problem with Selective Mutism meaning doesn’t want to speak in certain environment namely school. He overcame it when he was in kindy last year as the teacher reported his progress in reading. Today he is in a different school, which means he has to do it all over again.

I blog about the KIA2M assessment and Timothy didn’t do any of it. The counselor teacher met with my hubby and I to discuss his problem. As many of Timothy’s class teachers’ feedback to her telling her that Timothy doesn’t want to talk or read. They have a concern. She called Timothy to her office and did a psychology test (whatever that is) with him. He could do it all. Timothy has no problem understanding instructions, learning new BM vocabulary and doing his homework correctly.

I told her about “Selective Mutism”, printed some info for her and explain to her about Timothy’s problem. I should have done this earlier. She was very surprised that this even existed. I am glad that the teachers brought up the issue and they were willing to help him.

She sat with us and Timothy to do the KIA2M test. Timothy did most of the questions right and trying very hard to read to her in his small voice, almost whispering. It is a small step for him to learn to talk in school.

I must thank the teachers for asking us to meet them and giving Timothy a second chance. It is great to know that even in Kebangsaan school there are caring, dedicated and helpful teachers. Bravo to them in highlighting their concerns to us upfront. Now they are in the light of Timothy’s problem and willing to help us. We parents need to work a good relationship with the teachers to understand the progress of our children.

A step for me is to encourage and motivate Timothy to talk in school. One thing I may do is to spend 15-30 minutes in school ground, asking Tim to read to me. With selective mutism, we must consistently take small step to help the child to progress. Please pray for Timothy to overcome this problem.

P/S: He talks like a normal boy outside of school compound. I have a hard time keeping him quiet at times.

Chinese New Year started with a reunion dinner at my in laws place. After that, we went driving down town and took a look at Penang Times Square. It is another new mall in Penang Island. It will be opening soon as OC just had been given a few days before CNY. My children have fun with the mall’s water fountain.

On the second day, we went back to my hometown KL for a short break and a CNY reunion with my family. Some of my mom’s relatives return home from abroad and we had a good time catching up with one another.

I also took my children to Ikea, MidValley and Petrosains during the day and night is mostly having dinner with relatives. It was a busy trip and I didn’t get to meet any of my close friends down in KL. I wanted to go to Ara Damansara NZX but I do not know my way there. Oh well, maybe next trip.

Petrosains has change a lot and very well maintained. It has a lot more science exhibits for the children. We spent the whole morning there. It cost us RM24 for the family of 2 adult and 2 children. It has a section on space, formula racing, helicopter ride, lots of computer to play with and a small playground for the younger children. I like the shadow display where there are butterflies that can rest on your shadow. It is so cool. Timothy and Emily enjoyed it very much and asked me to bring them back again.

Believe it a not, I had Yew Sang almost every night. Hrmm…I probably will stay away from it until the last day of CNY. Sad to say that tomorrow I am back to work.

Timothy will start his first assessment called KIA2M (Kemahiran Kelas Intervensi Awal Membaca dan Menulis). I got some reference book to find out what this it. I believed for those who cannot pass this assessment will need to go to a special class so that the teacher can help the students to progress to the same level as others. I am praying that Tim will not have phobia and too afraid to read to the teacher.