Emily is a very detailed person and I must record this down. Here is what I told her to do.

Mummy: Please tell kor kor to do his homework, ok.
Emily: *shouted* Kor Kor, faster eats rice. After eat rice, go “choong leong” (take a bath). Then go do your homework, ok.

As compare to Timothy, he cannot even remember things he did in school. I am training him to do that and exercise his brain a little. Yesterday, I asked him to remember what color chair he sits on in school. Today, I am amazed he came back from school telling me he sat on a green chair. The next step, I will add more things for him to remember. It is a fun way to increase his memory power.

Timothy has progress tremendously in his development in the academic world. Such big word for small fellow. In his previous Kindy, he didn’t utter a word to his friends or teachers. I guess he was having fear of fierce teachers. The teachers could do anything to get him to read, participate or even speak. The teachers looked to me and complained everyday about him.

Ever since he moved to the current Tadika (run by my church) with friendly helpful teachers, he made progression. The reading report book changed from “cannot read” to “able to read with guidance” to “able to read softly” to “reading twice” Now he can read Peter & Jane series.

Peter & Jane series are a good series for your child to learn reading. Words are repeated and simple. They start with recognizing “The”, “a”, “here”, “and”, “I”,..etc.

As for Emily, gals being gals mature faster. She now can read 1a, 1b and trying out 2b. If you want to start your child with reading, go get the Peter & Jane series. Now anyone knows whether there is a malay version of Peter & Jane. I need to teach my children Bahasa Malaysia.

Little Emily showing off her reading skills:

Have you played with paper dolls before? Drawing cute dolls and making clothes for the paper dolls, mixing and matching. I have and I enjoyed playing with it. I came from a poor family where by my parents could not afford any Barbie dolls. I have to make do with paper and color pencils.

Guess what, I bought 2 paper dolls books for Emily in year 2007. She was too young to play then. Now she is having fun with it. She matches the paper/cardboard dolls with all the pretty wonderful dresses. The book has many collections of costumes, dresses, pajamas, shirts and pants. It is certainly a cheaper version of Barbie dolls. If you have a gal of age 3 and above, you should get a copy of this book. It only cost me around RM16.90. I got mine from MPH.

Tim always humors me without fail. He really got a good sense of humor. I bought a Mexican bun for both him and Emily. Tim is not a bread person but he will eat a Mexican bun or a sausage bun. As we were eating the bun, look what he did.

He makes his own face bun with it. Talk about creativity. By the way, I am sending Tim & Em to a trial Yamaha Music Kids class. Let’s see if they can be creative in the music world. I hope they have my father’s talent who can play music by ear without any music lessons. I will blog more about the class after I attended it with them. Yes, a parent needs to accompany the children in the class.

The objective of the music class is to develop fundamental musical ability by singing and playing keyboard instruments. Learning by listening. It will be a 2 year course. Let’s hope they can foster some musical interest in them. It cost around RM180 for per term (3 months), per child. It excludes material costs.

Parkbay: Toilet Bowl Restaurant

    Transformers
    More than meets the eye
    Transformers
    Robots in Disguise
    Transformers

Ku Ku Chu Chu Cit Cit

That’s the sound when Tim’s transformer transforms. Yes, he will use his transformer robots to fight against one another. He can play by himself for hours battling the robots. Taking Optimus Prime and Bumblebee to fight with other robots.

I am not allowed to transform any of his robots. He liked it the way it is. What does Emily do to disturb him? Walk right up and steal one of his transformers. It will end up two of them battling with one another with noise, not so much physical. Sometimes I let them fight their own battle but when it gets too noisy, I will have to step in. And that’s how it goes.

Tim: Ku Ku Chu Chu Cit Cit

Let’s see whether you can guess what Tim was doing?

One morning, I had an early morning meeting and my hubby had to fetch the children to school. Yes, we only have 1 car for the family. Save cost and environmental friendly family.

I asked my hubby to drop me first. My children were pretty excited to drop me at the office.

Mummy: Papa is going to drop mummy to the office and fetch you both to school.
Tim: Drop? What is drop? *he giggled, must be thinking of carrying mummy and throwing it down*
Emily: Drop?!!
Mummy: Papa will go to mummy’s office and I go to work there.

Both excited and making lots of noise. When hubby reached my company’s guard house, Emily started to cry. She didn’t want me to go to work and holding my hand. Hrm..her emotions can change very quickly. Twice and the same thing happens. As for Tim, he waved goodbye and as usual asking me to buy his favorite green soya bean.

When we go back home during lunch time, we cannot let Emily see us. She will not let us go easily without a fuss. One minute she can be very excited and cheerful, next minute she can be a “bin chui ngap” (about-to-cry-look). I must always remind myself that she is only 3 years old and just acting her age. Although she always tells me that she is a big gal and wants a big cake for her birthday.

It was a great day yesterday for me because my department organized a team building event. We had Treasure Hunt in G Hotel & Gurney Plaza. We had 4 teams with 5 people per team. Basically we went around the mall looking for answers. It was difficult at first but our team got the hang of it. A good tip for treasure hunt, start with the mall directory. Most of the answers can be found there.

I had a lot of fun but a few interesting happenings:

1. We were supposed to find the price of a bottle of 100ml men CK perfume. The price was on the bottle. Some guys (as usual) went to disturb the promoter asking her for the price, until she hid from us.

2. First time I enter any shops with no “follow-me” promoters as they all knew we were treasure hunting.

3. We were going in and out of shops until the sales person look at us suspiciously.

4. One of the book we were looking for sold out!!! However some of us had great ideas on getting the answer. We had the sales person check his record for the price.

5. We were supposed to get a name of a company with 1 alphabet and get a chop from them. We thought it was G2000 and happily walk in to get the chop. The store staff told us, no chop allowed. Actually the answer was G Hotel. *roll eyes*

6. We got to the right area where all the clues fit and were suppose to look for something that promotes health. None of the surrounding shops was a health shop. The only store fits the description was a skin care, make up and beauty that uses natural ingredient. The answer was not that store because another clue state it is found in most of the public places. Guess what it is?…..It is the No Smoking Sign and our team was the only team with that answer.

Our team came in second and points were very close (1 or 2 pts) to the first team. We could have won but the last task was very ambiguous. The task was to get a 34g smarties box of choc with a picture of a bird feeding (nestle logo) its babies. The 34g box has no picture of bird so we decided to get the 3 packs wrapped in plastic with the bird picture on the plastic. One thing we forgot to do is to unwrapped the plastic and give the judge a 34g box. We were too excited. That mistake caused us first prize. Sayang. Oh well, we had lots of fun with treasure hunt and I don’t mind doing it again.

Last but least, the scrumptious meal from G Hotel, Mediterranean style. I do not have to say more for food….Oooh I loved those non-halal RUM balls.

Guess who is afraid of the dark? I am not sure when Tim developed the fear of dark. When he was younger, he had no problem entering a dark room. Up until recently, he told me to accompany him upstairs or to the toilet. The Chinese will call him “sai tam”.

Oh well, here is a funny thing he said to me.

Tim: Mummy, come follow me to the toilet.
Mummy: The kitchen light is on and there is nothing to be afraid off.
Tim: Come, come *pulling my hand*. I am afraid that Barney suddenly appeared.
Mummy: Barney? Now why would Barney appear???!!
Tim: See *pointing at a Barney cardboard that is below the dustbin*

Hrmm…no more Barney shows for him from now on. Yeap the purple dino is haunting my Tim. Don’t laugh!

We parents need to discipline our children and there are many ways of doing it besides caning. I know there are a few parents who object to beating. Everyone has their style, there is no wrong or right as long as your child learns discipline. I believed that controlled beating is alright. I only whack my children once at the palm of the hand or leg area. Only one time and nothing more.

Importantly caning must not be done:

1. When you are angry. It can become abuse if you are not careful. You need to calm down first and in your right mind, explaining to the child what he/she does wrong.

2. When the child is screaming because at that moment, he/she do not understand the caning.

3. When the child is too young, below 3. She/He will not understand at all.

Oh well, I am not an expert in the above area so I leave it at that.

We parents have to be creative, we cannot whack them all the time. I usually whack when a serious wrong is committed. Actually pst pst..I don’t do the whacking, the father does. So I am the good guy.

Today Emily was supposed to nap and she didn’t. We were supposed to go swimming now as I speak. Where is she? Napping. Dad bought Timothy to go swimming and Emily’s punishment is no go. When she wakes up, she will be unhappy. Oh well, I am not nasty or anything. Bottom line is she will learn that next time when we asked her to nap, she will nap or else she will miss out the good stuff.

In general, I want to find out from you parents, will you cane your child?