I was rushing to finish up my work on Friday. Lately I had been overwhelmed with too many projects and I had a presentation at 11:30pm on Friday night. It seems work never ends. Anyway, back in the good old days, I was unhappy if I have to go to school on Saturday except if it is a sports day or non-study day. Malaysia has too many public holidays and teachers cannot finish the entire syllabus for the year which caused us to have additional classes on Saturday. It is a dragged.

Today was the first time after so many years I have to go to school on a Saturday. This time the role is different. It was an open day at Timothy’s school. Basically an open day is where the school invites parents to come visit the school. They will show all the crafts, school work and activities that the school children did. It is also a good time for me as a parent to get acquainted with the teachers.

Previously I wrote about Timothy refusing to talk in school because of anxiety. It is not that he does not want to speak but the word cannot get out of his mouth. I saw a documentary about selective mute that my BIL recorded for me. From the documentary I learn that there are ways to help Timothy overcome this problem.

I was glad that Timothy was reading out to me in school with a little help from Emily. Both were competing with one another to outsmart each other. It is a first step to help Timothy feel comfortable to speak in his school. I will do the sliding in method where by he will read with me in the presence of a teacher. Next week, the school principal that is also my church friend invited us for dinner. We will use that opportunity to help him feel comfortable with his school principal. I really praise God because he answers our prayer.

I got a little gift for Emily and she is really fascinated with it. I got her a star pendant, first time bidding in Ebay. I must say that there are lots of beautiful jewelries in Ebay. The little pendant came with a nice box. She have been asking mummy to put it on for her. To avoid any accidents, I didn’t allow her to wear to sleep. She keeps it in the gift box after she takes it off her neck. Girls being girls, they will want more of this to keep them beautiful when she grows up. By the way, she has cute hair pins in her collection. Next I may want to get her a jewelry box.

Do you think I should start piercing her ears? I know a gal who is younger than Emily, pierced her ears. Maybe I wait till she is older. I pierced mine when I was 20, mainly because I was afraid of pain.

Gbay: First Timer With Ebay.

Emily like me, likes to go out and doesn’t want to stay home. A few days ago, daddy wants to go out for walking exercise and she wants to tag along. It was getting dark and daddy didn’t want to bring her along. She stuck to daddy practically hold her daddy’s leg. Daddy told her that he is not going out anymore but went upstairs.

Later, while she was watching leap frog, daddy sneaked out quietly. She didn’t even notice daddy went out and came back. However in between, she kept asking me where daddy is and what is he doing. I told him daddy is upstairs reading. When we finished watching leap frog, she asked me again. I told her to go upstairs to look for daddy. She came down crying, saying daddy not there. I went up to look with her and true enough no daddy. She reinforced saying “See daddy not around, why daddy didn’t take me out?”

I told her that daddy may be in the study room. She opened the study room door, saw her daddy, she was so excited.

Every time we told her we are going out, she is so happy. I guess we need to take her out more often. I can understand her because she stays at the babysitter whole day and nothing really excites her there. Yes, we will start her with school again next year.

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Funny Conversations between Tim & Emily:

Timothy: Mummy, you didn’t bring the ultraman VCD to aunt’s house to watch.
Emily: :giggles: Ultraman VCD cannot wash. Cannot put inside the water because it can spoil.
Timothy: *speechless*

I am being pressured to teach my son how to read and spell but I made it fun for Tim to learn. I don’t remember learning spelling during my kindy. What to do, the schools are getting competitive. However the current kindy that Timothy is attending definitely has less homework and spelling. Anyway, I read many online good reviews on Leap Frog DVD and most of them were very positive.

I decided to get a set of 5 DVD for my children. Thanks to Vien who help me to get it and ship it to me. It arrived yesterday and I was really excited. :dance:

In the evening, I turn it on for my children to watch. They were learning how each alphabets sound. I must say that the animations were excellent and fun for children to watch. By the way, each DVD comes with a game too. I played with Tim and Emily and they got 80% correct. I am surprised that Tim made an effort to learn how to spell, maybe because I motivated him by praising him after he gets it correct. He likes it. I can see him competing with Emily. I am not sure whether Emily knows it or she is guessing but she got a few correct and ahead of Tim.

Basically it uses phonics and animation to help children remember how each alphabet sound. It also builds words from joining the same last 2 letters like CAT, BAT, HAT, MAT, FAT …etc. Using this method will help the child remember how to spell the words. Tim’s school is also using the same concept and he has just learned to spell DAM, HAM, YAM, JAM and RAM.

We always like to say “No” and “Don’t” to our children. No you cannot have this, no you cannot do that, don’t touch, don’t run, don’t bully your sister …etc. All these are negative instructions. I bet you don’t like your manager telling you all the negative characteristics of you right. We like to hear positive stuff. If we hear positive stuff and build on our positive characteristics, it will outshine our negative characteristics.

Same goes for disciplining a child. Always use positive approach. Catch the good actions your child makes and praise him for it. Example, if you see your child keeping their toys, you can praise him while he is doing that. I assure you, next time around, he will be happy to keep their toys. By the way, I use this trick to potty train both my children.

Lastly, never call your child stupid, lousy and good for nothing. These words will affect them greatly and it will be in their mind subconsciously.

Gbay: Environmental Friendly.

Later in that evening, we decided to go Queensbay Mall to have dinner. You remembered the last post I made with regards to the skating rink. Guess what I found. There is a small kid’s indoor playground at the back, a smaller version to kidsport. The place had a huge slide, a shooting area and a ball pool.

In terms of activities, it is better than kidsport. It has a lot of soft colorful sponge balls, where you can pick up to the shooting area above. Place the ball into the shooting gun and shoot. There are 4 shooting guns. Emily and Timothy had fun shooting balls. One advantage was there weren’t many kids around and they can shoot as long as they want.

There are a few machineries in there that suck the ball up into the top basket. Once it is filled, the basket will topple and all the balls will fall like raining balls. Let hope they keep that place well maintained. Entrance RM14 and unlimited playtime. Remember to bring socks.

Yes, Malaysia is celebrating 50th Birthday and my family went to have fun in the “kampung” area in Balik Pulau Penang. My hubby and I decided to let our children enjoy the kampung lifestyle. We took them back to nature, the smell of river and forest. We took them to see small water falls and play by the river stream.

They had lots of fun in the water and playing the wet sand. My hubby successfully caught 2 small prawns, which we let go. There were tadpoles and fishes in the stream. It sure brought back a lot of memories of my childhood as every school holidays, I will stay at my uncle’s place in FRIM, we will go to the river stream to play and swim.

However the stream is not kept in a proper manner as we can see lots of rubbish in the surrounding area. I hope the villagers will put some effort to keep the place clean.

After a few hours of fun, I had to drag my children out of the water to have lunch. Balik Pulau is famous for its asam laksa and siam laksa. The famous pasembor (Indian Rojak) store only open at 1:30pm and I didn’t get to taste it …bumma. By the way, Balik Pulau has a lot of different kinds of durians too.

It was sure a fun day and my children request us to bring them back again.

Delicious Food:

Children remember promises. I guess I have to be cautious when I make small little promises with them. No one likes an empty promise, even for an adult. Yesterday when I tugged Emily to bed, Emily wanted me to sleep with her. I told her when I finished my work, I will sleep with her.

In the middle of the night Emily creped into my room and being a light sleeper, I was half awake. She whispered to me “Mummy, you said you will sleep with me after you finished work”. Wow she reminds me of my promise in the middle of the night. I had to follow her to her room and sleep, to keep my promise to her. She was happy and fall back into sleep.

I haven’t totally mastered this yet but I can say that when my children were 1-2 years old, they can sit at the dinner table throughout dinner. You see children attention span is very limited. They cannot sit doing nothing for long. They like to explore and do things. Create little activities for them to occupy themselves with.

For younger children, you can put a bowl of honey stars for them to pick and eat. When Emily was young, she likes to pick rice one by one to eat. As for Tim, he likes to draw. Ask Vien, he almost drew every paper mat on the table and ask the waiter for more. You can also give them finger food and let them eat on their own. Take color pencils and notebook for them to draw or color.

This has to be done when they are young. If you cultivate the habit of letting them run around during dinner time, it will stay with them and you will spend more effort chasing them around.

Yippy my EPF cheque arrived. Aug 15 I submitted the papers and my cheque arrived on the Aug 28. It only took 2 weeks. I am really impressed with KWSP. The process has improved so much. However no sign of my hubby’s cheque. I heard the loan interest rate may be going up. I have to speed up paying off my loan and get some savings there.