Recently I discovered a new psychology problem called selective mute. It means that an individual will not speak during certain environment or situation. Selective mute is usually misdiagnoses with the child being shy. It is not really. It is an anxiety disorder. You can do a search in Google for this disorder, it has lots of useful information on it.

Timothy has this problem in school. He didn’t speak in is previous school for 2 years, not a single word to his teachers or friends. Every time I picked him up, he would wait for the teacher to go in and he will speak to me. Once while he was speaking to me, the teacher appeared in his back and he saw, he kept silent. *rolled eyes*. My diagnosis of him having this problem is the teachers were too fierce, not all but some. The turn over was high too. He always didn’t like to go to school and always asking me tomorrow got school or not.

However, he can speak freely in church, with Emily’s babysitter, with my brother or my parents, which he doesn’t always meet. In church, during nursery time, he has no problem speaking to the volunteers taking care of the children.

A month ago, we changed him to another school. He meets the principal who was my church friend. He did speak to her occasionally with 1 or 2 words. It is some progress there. He is still reluctant to speak to his class teacher. However, I hope time will allow him to build his confident and open up to his teacher. If he doesn’t do that, maybe we need to seek professional help. One thing to note is that we cannot pressure him to speak, it can cause more harm than good.

It is very important to check out the school for your children. Some school can give a negative development impact to a child.

I launched Gbay a while ago and it still need a lot of work in creating back links. For those who have not link to Gbay, please do. Let me know if you want to exchange links.

Recently I have been blogging about some very interesting topics in Gbay. If you have not hop in there, don’t be shy to pay a visit. The doors are always open. I will certainly blog more interesting stuff, non related to my children over there.

Some of the articles that may interest you:

Keep Your Contact Lens From Germs
Mattel Toys Recall (With Pictures)
Spot The Scam
Another China Product In Question
Stress Reliever

Thank you all for your support.

Today I took my children to watch a French tale of a rat mouse called Ratatouille. Ratatouille is actually a French dish. You ask what a French dish has to do with a mouse? I am not going to tell you. I must say the plot was very well written and the movie was filled with action, humorous and of coz a good ending. All fairy tales has a good ending, right?

It is a story of a talented mouse that has a gift of smelling. He can smell where the good food is, the spices around and even rat poison. He is different from all his other friends. He is one daring mouse. He went into an old lady house to watch a TV cooking show that feature the famous chef named Gusteau. And that’s where his adventure begins. Watch it, my children loves it. I give it a 4 out of 5. :good: :good: :good: :good: It is a very inspiring story too.

Lately, I am learning how to do more sculpture balloons. Not that I am going to be a clown. :giggles: My church is having a fun event for children. It has lots of children activities and fun fair type of games. If you are in Penang and would like to go, ping me.

Of coz, I volunteer myself to do balloon sculpturing. I found a collection of videos of an expect doing different balloon sculpturing. He is good, professional, can even knot a balloon with one hand. I learn to do a cool sword, flower and butterfly by watching those videos. The website: http://www.balloon-animals.com. Videos here. Now my house is filled with sculptured balloon and I need to get more. Now anyone want to invite me to your child’s birthday party?

One tip I learn about balloon sculpturing that is to prevent the balloon from popping, you let out some air after you inflate it. You need to even out the air in the balloon. It is very fun thing to do as I love doing things with my hands. Try it and you will never need to queue infront of a clown to get balloons for your kids.

Gbay: Keep Your Contact Lens From Germs

I am impressed with KWSP. They set up a branch near my residential which is very convenient for me. I am doing another round of withdrawal to reduce my house loan, rather than pay the hefty interest rates for my housing loan. This year I am a bit lazy and wanted to speed things up with less stress. I went to my housing loan bank, pay a small fees to get all the documents ready for EPF withdrawal. In less than 2 weeks, I had all the papers with me.

I went to KWSP with the required papers and fill up the required form. I got a ticket and only had to wait 20 minutes due to lunch break. While I was waiting, I got another ticket to get the iAkaun pin so that I can check my EPF account online. First time I am seeing govt officer smiling when serving their customers. It sure earned lots of plus points from me.

It took 5-10 minutes for them to verify my papers and do the thumbs print. She told me it takes 1 month for me to receive the cheque. Thumbs up all the way for KWSP!

Gbay: Mattel Toys Recall (With Pictures)

Emily loves playing the tambourine, either that or she loves making noise. Every time she is in Sunday School, she will go grab the tambourine to play during singing session. Last Sunday the teacher called her out to join the musician to play. She was overjoyed and walk out without the fear of being looked at. I guess she was not shy to be in the front stage. Timothy stood there for less than a minute, he wanted to return to his seat.

Now I have to think of starting Emily on some music lessons. I am sure she will be interested. I hope she has my father’s gift, able to pick up music and play by ear. I know I am not talented in music. Once I did drive my organ teacher crazy, I really cannot get the rhythm and coordination at all. As for my hubby’s side, no sign of any music talent seen.

I will let both my children have a go at music lessons, will see whether they can succeed in at least playing a nice piece of Beethoven for me. :think:

Gbay: Spot The Scam

Ha! I got to know this from Chinnee that my blog landed in the August Malaysian Top 50 Blogger in Technorati. Some of the mommy bloggers are in the list. I feel great.

However, there is nothing to shout about because I don’t see some of the Malaysian popular blogs in the list. Why? I believe Technorati rate the top 50s by how many bloggers are linking to your blog. On top of it, you have to tag your blog as Malaysia which many do not. If you are not, go to Technorati, sign up, claim your blog and tag it.

Lastly for me, it is the best time to have top 50 in Aug where Malaysia is celebrating 50th anniversary of Independence Day (Merderka). I land on the 50th position. Malaysia Boleh! Mybabybay Boleh! Not that I am anxious to get more traffic. More traffic means I have to pay more for bandwidth. Aiks! Worst more spam! Double whammy! :wall:

Yesterday morning while I was getting into the car to send Timothy to school, there was a stench smell in the car. First thought was it is certainly a dead rat somewhere. My hubby drove out and I look to see whether there was a dead rat on my porch. None.

Later, the smell followed us in the car. Second thought I was afraid that the cat must have brought the dead rat into the car. But how? I kept winding down the window to get fresh air. After a while, I sniff and it came from my son’s bag. I open each compartment and one of it threw out that stinky aroma. Yeak. I passed the bag to my hubby.

My hubby took out a bag of rotten stuff. I am not sure what it was as it was moldy and green. Timothy shouted “That’s the egg I prepared in school” He didn’t tell us that before. Funny thing is when my husband clear the bag everyday, he didn’t notice the smell. Hrmm…. :think: One in a while you get suprises from your children, be it good or bad.

Gbay: Another China Product In Question.

Every time we went passed Queensbay Mall Penang, we saw the mini ferris wheel. I told my children that I will take them there. Today after work, we made our way there. There are not many rides available for the age of my children.

Rides were very expensive. Each ride cost RM3 per person. Imagine 4 of us already cost RM12. They have all you can ride, meaning ride as many as you want for RM15 per person. However there are not many rides out there. I rather pay RM2 for them to enjoy playing the Jusco indoor playground.

Anyway, I thought of letting my children at least enjoy the ferris wheel. Bad decision. It went so fast that my children were really afraid. I can see Emily shaking. I kept consoling her that it will be over soon. Not suitable at all for any child below 6.

Other rides that were suitable were the train and the merry-go-round. I probably will not go back again. There is no safety whatsoever and not to mention, most of the equipment are not well maintained.

GBay: Give Your Child The Best

Mumsgather tag me on this one. Another simple tag that I think I can do in 10 minutes.

1. I am a mother of 2 lovely children Tim & Em.
2. I am in the IT line.
3. I love traveling.
4. I love doing jigjaw puzzles.
5. Although I live in Penang but I am born in KL. Pls don’t speak hokkien to me.
6. I can sew & cook.
7. I can complete a Rubik’s cube and all colors matched.
8. I feel good if I can help people in need.

I will not tag anyone. If you like to do this tag, consider I tag YOU!