Christmas Tree At Home

Two days before Christmas, Jin Hui asked, “Mummy, do we celebrate Christmas?” To her little mind, Christmas is a fun festival with Christmas present ….Santa Claus …and Christmas Tree but she never has all these! Haha, but she knows Santa Claus is fake; she told me “our world does not have Santa Claus”. It is true (because she never get surprise present from Santa Claus) but not totally true.

Well, we couldn’t bring her Santa Claus, but we can surprise them with Christmas present and Christmas tree AT HOME! Yes, why not we decorate our own Christmas tree.



Being so happy with the Christmas tree!

Ta..lah…here is our little Christmas tree, just the same height as little Hong Jin. He will be busy all day picking the ornament. They are also very excited to tell everybody that we have a Christmas tree at home! I think it warmed their little hearts; at least the Christmas is something to them this year.





As expected, he cannot allow his hand not to touch.





Attention is more on the christmas tree than the camera.







Are we over-rewarding the kids?

We give prizes for kids when they perform excellent in exam, finish their homework or helping with the household chores. I think modern parents are so addicted to this rewarding method and so am I. The situation can be sometimes out of control that the kids threaten back that he/she wouldn’t do what we want them to do if their demands are not fulfilled.  The questions rose: are we over-rewarding the kids?

After some reading, there are few things I need to be careful when I reward them next time.

1)      Reward based on good behavior not on good result

Children that have grown based on expecting reward can feel disappointed when it does not come. I once heard a story about a primary school student who expressed deep disappointment when he scored only 7A over 8 subjects. It was like the end of the world for him. When being asked further, it was the reward that he doesn’t get that upset him but not his feeling on the grade. Could you imagine whether he will still study hard when the rewards go away?

A long term more effective way is to reward the good studying habit rather than the result or score. This is of course more difficult to measure or monitor compared to reward based on their exam report, but it is more important that we instill their good habit or behavior since kids to ensure perseverance.

2)      Reduce the reward frequency

We need to increase the value of the reward to suit their ever increasing desire if we reward too much. After they have all sorts of toys, books, are them still be interested if you reward them with small items like sticker, coloring books or pretty pencil box? No, they will ask for more and I guess they will certainly ask for an expensive ipad or even smart phone one day.

Instead of rewarding, we need to help them focus on the self-satisfaction derived from the achievement they have made. It is the self-enjoyment that fuel further learning.

No more rewarding on finishing homework, but to reward based on self-discipline.

Hope I can reward her of taking good care of his brother one day.

Kinder graduation

There is going to be another 15 years I shall witness my daughter’s real university graduation….provided that she works hard enough. Now, it is a kinder version of her graduation; we are proud of her to see how she has developed the various skills like reading, writing, coloring, self-confidence, interpersonal skills and brave to perform in front of the public.  

She is still a very shy girl; she almost cried during her 4 years old dancing performance and was very stressful during the 5 years old performance, but this time I can see she was more relaxed and had fun. Thank you for all the teachers who have guided her and given her the opportunities to present in front of public.  

http://youtu.be/20HjbxSMLg0

A Big Big Happy Birthday To My Son and Daughter

  

Time flies and this November is my son’s TWO years old birthday and my daughter’s SIX years old birthday. As usual we throw a party for them to invite all the family members to celebrate together. Except this time my daughter invited her own friend…yes, she has her own friends now which I am happy for her that she began to socialize.

Can't wait to go to see his birthday cake

As for my little son, the highlight is while we sang the “Happy Birthday” song in front of the birthday cake. He was so excited about this moment; sing the song, blow the candle, and then cut the cake. Before everyone began singing, he was the first one to sing out loud “Happy birthday to you” and made everyone laughing. Then, he followed everyone to sing the whole “Happy Birthday” song and impatiently waiting for our instruction to blow the candle.

 

Happy Birthday, my dear son and daughter, May You Two Grow Up Happily and Healthily!

Sing Out Loud "Happy Birthday To Me"!





Feel funny after seeing everyone laughed at his own singing!



Having fun at Dino Trek

If your children love dinosaurs, why don’t bring them to the Dino Trek at the Bukit Mertajam’s Jusco Mall, Penang. We just brought our kids there last weekend and they were having great fun there. The admission fee for children is only RM 3.00 per person and for adult, if I remember correctly is RM 8.00 per person.

The owner, PETRONAS might invest much in this Dino Trek to make the dinosaurs so real and “alive”. I love the dinosaur’s egg parts which the eggs hatch and dinosaur babies came out. They looked so cute and they said the dinosaurs parent also take good care of their babies.   

My little son was a bit scared at first because of the giant size of the dinosaurs. But he and his sister enjoyed most at the dinosaur’s fossil finding sump. The big sister said it is like playing sand at the beach but with “air-conditioner on”; didn’t understand much about fossil finding actually.

There are also some games there for bigger kids, like gun shooting dinosaurs, running with dinosaurs and educational stuffs about dinosaurs.  

The giant dinosaur...it moves lively.

My favorite part :the dinosaur eggs and babies.

Jin Hui actions...shooting dinosaurs

The kids favorite...fossil finding or playing sand?

Show Me Victory Sign!

One day, we taught Hong Jin to show the “Victory” sign with his finger while we took his picture. He first learned seriously, see how he looked at his finger and puzzled how to show only the index finger and middle finger but to hide the others. He laughed finally after multiple tries and he just able to show ALL FIVE fingers instead of TWO fingers.

I think we need to teach him more about this, may be this is what terms as “eye-hand coordination” which is an important skill development as toddler. He also cannot do the “THUMBS UP” sign. Haha, he will show the index finger, but not the thumbs. Never mind, my little son, you will learn one day.

1. How to hide the fingers?



2. Never mind, I am just too little to know.



3. See, at least I can show FIVE fingers!

Both Kids Are Sick With Food Poisoning

Last Saturday morning, my daughter was down with high fever and vomiting after every eating/drinking. The doctor diagnosed her with food poisoning and gave her the medicine for fever, vomiting and reduce air in the stomach, luckily there is no need of antibiotic because it is caused by virus most probably. The situation seems okay in the evening and she asked for many foods to eat after a day of fasting because of the feel of vomiting. Her serious high fever come back again in the first night and finally recovered on the second day’s evening.

And yesterday, my son also began to show the same symptom, perhaps being spread from his sister. He has mild fever, tired and also vomited everything he ate/drank (about 4 times in a night). So, I have no choice to give him some of the anti-vomiting medicine that the doctor subscribed to his sister but at lower dosage. The funny thing is this little fella likes to drink medicine, he kept asking for more medicine ..."I want, I want". Unlike his sister, we need to pursuade with both soft and hard methods to have her drink the medicine. After like 20 minutes, I gave him about 4 ounces of milk (he drinks 6 ounces normally) and he vomited lightly after that. I felt more relief because he can begin to take some fluids after the medicine.  We need to keep close monitor of his situation then.

Important thing to remember when kids have this situation is to keep them hydrated with plenty of fluids especially if with diarrhea and introduce drinks/food slowly so that their stomach can adjust to the food intake. If they have high fever, put a wet towel on their forehead to quickly dissipate the heat.

Homemade Sushi

After the long raya and merdeka holiday, I feel fresh and much energetic, so decided to try making sushi at home . Recently my husband is so addicted to sushi, especially the eel sushi, plus my daughter loves the maki sushi too(She doesn’t like the eel sushi, but only likes the sushi with cucumber filling; the cheapest sushi). We can easily find all ingredients necessary to make sushi in local supermarket except the eel that I have to order it from a friend whose mum is operating a small sushi shop.   The whole piece of eel (cost about RM 30) is already cooked and we just need to put in a microwave to warm it up.

Here is the picture of sushi I made: Unagi Nigiri and Maki Sushi with cucumber and egg. Not bad from the look, right? That is one thing good about home-made sushi : we can cut the eel bigger and have a mouthful of eel, compared to the little thin piece of eel when we eat at outside Japanese food shop.

At first, my daughter refused to eat the maki sushi, may be the flavor is too plain. I have done a trick by spreading the eel source (taste sweet) on top of the maki sushi, and guess what, she finished all the maki sushi I made for her. 

Make Yourself Happy During Pregnancy

Today, I heard from the radio discussing about children's behaviour is closely related to the mother's emotion during pregnancy. Hm...I totally agree with this and have been sharing this important fact with many friends.

My experience comes from my 2 children, which has opposite childhood behavior; the big sister is very hot-temper, sensitive, and too afraid of stranger. She cried a lot at night and easily get sick when she was 1-2 years old, average to once a month. The little brother is just the opposite; cheerful, easy-going with stranger, more obedient and more easy to take care of.

After i had my second baby, i only realised this difference and it was linked to my emotion during the pregnancy. During the first pregnancy, my emotion is more tense due to work and family. I worked very hard and i seldom relax during my work. See, our working life makes about 70% of our life after deducting the sleeping time. Not happy at work means our life is not happy.

But, during my second pregnancy, i worked with more colleages who like to make fun everytime. The laughter, the food sharing and talks about our kids really help in relaxing the emotion. Besides, maybe we don't easily get angry while we get older. And there i got a happy and funny son.

Although those activities like listening to slow music, talk to your baby during the pregnancy may help a little, but i strongly believe the pregnancy emotion plays the bigger role.

So, mom-to-be, remember to make yourself HAPPY during the PREGNANCY so you will have a happy and healthy baby.

"Ah Mi Tuo Fo" by Hong Jin

Recently, Hong Jin learns to say "Ah Mi Tuo Fo"(it is a praying word for Buddhist, my mom always told us to say this when we are in confusion or difficulty). He just simply "Ah Mi Tuo Fo" here and "Ah Mi Tuo Fo" there. One day, his grandma pretended wanting to beat him up because he kept turning off the televisyen. When the grandma almost catched him, he kneed down and said "Ah Mi Tuo Fo", like asking for forgiveness. When the grandma heard this....she end up laughing instead of beating him. "How a little toddler like him understand the meaning of "Ah Mi Tuo Fo"?" She said.

His grandma then told everyone about this, sharing the joy the grandson brought to her.

Butterfly farm visit

We finally managed to bring our kids to the Butterfly Farm in Penang island, which we have planned since few months ago because Hong Jin loves butterfly. We expected he will be thrilled when he saw so many butterflies at one time and it actually turned out to be so. He first puzzled for a short while, and later enjoyed chasing and touching the butterflies. 

Besides butterflies, there are other insects and animals too such as scorpion, iguana, snakes and etc. but the animal they like most is still the butterflies. When we were heading to the exit, he was reluctant to go and keep running back to see the butterflies, TWICE! I know he will miss the butterflies…maybe we will bring him there again.

Ups and Downs of Sibling Relationship

It feels so good when I see both kids of mine play peacefully together. I begin to think they will have a close sibling to share their happiness and sadness in the future. Jin Hui, the big sister feels she is no longer lonely with her little brother’s companionship.

When she visited the new born baby Hong Jin at the hospital, she cried terribly when she saw me with the new born baby in the baby room. We thought she was jealous because she never share mommy with anyone for the long period of 4 years. But, no, we were wrong; we finally got her answer that she cried because mommy did not wait for her to meet the baby brother. Her love for her baby brother started since my pregnancy, I guess. She kept asking about when will her baby brother came out from my stomach.

However, things were different after the new arrival. The family attention shifted to the new baby and she started to feel jealous and hide at a corner to complain that nobody likes her. As her mother, I would try to spend more time with her, encourage her to play and have fun with her little brother, and tell her to take care and protect her little brother. I think she will gradually get used to share her mom’s love.

Nevertheless, the sibling rivalry happened almost every day after the little brother grows bigger and stronger. Big sister, Jin Hui is always the one who cry first, and little Hong Jin to show he is pity too. We just need to repeat so that they do not hurt each other but to take care of each other. I really hope they will grow up to share a close sibling bonding and to take good care of each other when we are not there for them someday.

How do you help fostering a good sibling relationships? Do your kids complaint about bias? Do we always have the older sibling to let the younger one play with their favorite toys first?

My Son's Confession

I am just a toddler, close to 2 years old. There are many things I do but adults seem don’t like it. They will give me angry faces, and I will return them with a smiley face.

·         I like to pull my sister’s hair and see her crying. Then I will pad her hair softly back to calm her down. Then I will pull again…haha, it is fun.

·         I like to play with water. I will purposely dirty my hand so I have reason to wash my hand at the water tap. Sometimes, they allow me to play longer and it will end up to be a water -splash-wholebody fun.

·         When I drink water, I like to spit the water out from my mouth. This wets the floor and my clothes. Then, I can play with the water on the floor. But when mommy is around with her finger ready to beat my mouth, I will swallow the water nicely.

·         I enjoy eating different kinds of food. When I don’t like them, I will spit out everywhere. Then, I will see many ants coming around.

·         I like to play with electric plugs and switch. It is wonderful when I switch, the light just turns on. But mommy always brings me away and told me they can shock me. What is the feeling of “shock”?

·         I am very observing. Those little things on the floor will not skip from my eyes. I will put all things into my mouth to taste even the lizard’s litter.

·         I like to take out all my clothes from my closet. It is fun to bring all out and bring all in again for a boring toddler like me.

·         I like to switch off the TV so the adults don’t just ignore me. But grandma will frighten me with rubber band to beat me and ask me to switch on back. Sometimes, I will be a good grandson and switch on for her.

·         I like to play with my sister but sometimes she doesn’t allow me to play because she says I will mess up. So, I will grab her toys and run away quickly.

My Son's First Words

My son at his 20 months begins to learn talking actively. It is a very funny stage for all toddlers. When we teach him to speak, he will follow sometimes but sometimes not, unless we seduce him with some foods. He feels funny too when he followed us to speak and will laugh together with us. Sometimes he gets shy and will close his face with his hands.

The 10 first words we taught him to speak besides the papa, mama, jie jie (sister), popo(grandma), pepe(uncle), yiyi(untie), kakak(the maid) are like below:

·         Xie xie (thank you in mandarin)

·         Hot cili (he pronounced as hot cici)

·         Magic (when he hides things under the pillow)

·         W-E-L-C-O-M-E (he pronounced as wahlah)

·         Moon (he pronounced more like mom)

·         Lamp (this he say correctly)

·         Qie (cut in mandarin)

·         Bird

·         Open

·         Mom mom(means things to eat)

See how he talked just for the "mom mom"!

What toothpaste is safe for your kids?

Have you ever wondering is the toothpaste you bought for your kid is safe for used? I am very concerned about this because after my survey, most toothpastes (including kids toothpastes)sold in our Malaysia's local super market consists of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate(SLS). SLS is an important foaming agent used in many personal care cleaning products, such as shampoo, body wash, soap, and mouth wash.  Its relative, sodium laureth sulfate (SLES), is sometimes used as a replacement for SLS and claim for less irritating.

I have read from many articles(one of them is Journal of The American College of Toxicology, 1983 (http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/sls-JACT-report.html)) and get to know the severe effect of SLS and SLES to skin and its toxic accumulation in our lungs, liver, heart and brain. It also causes mouth ulcers(my daughter has suffered from month ulcer very frequently last 2 years when she still used the SLS containing toothpaste).

Immediately, I think about what if our little toddler accidentally swallowed the toothpaste containing the SLS.  SLS had an LD 50 (Lethal Dose for 50% of the animals tested) of 0.8 to 110 g/kg in rats. If you toddler weights 15kg, the lethal dose is 12g to 1650g of SLS. Although this is quite a high dose, I would rather choose to avoid toothpaste containing SLS. 

 

I finally found a kids’ toothpaste without SLS in our local market, i.e. PUREEN KIDS TOOTHPASTE, introduced by a dentist when we brought our daughter to repair her 4 pieces of decayed tooth.

http://pureen.com.my/Oral-Care/Kids-Toothpaste-Fluoride-Free/flypage.tpl.html 

A Journey Towards Braveness

I once brought my daughter to take part in a coloring competition, participated by kindergarden kids from around Sungai Petani area. She is not very good at coloring, but I figured that would be a good experience for her—to learn what a competition is, to brave herself to take part in a competition and to build her self-confidence.

To my surprise, there was a big crowd when we reached the competition venue; around 60 kids were taking part. My daughter started to get nervous and began crying; begging me to go home. Well, I tried to comfort her and continue the mission. And then I realized that we should bring our own table and chair(what a silly mother I am). So without a choice, I had to ask my daughter to sit on the floor and bend her body to complete her task. She felt easy later when the organizing party asked all parents to leave the area and I stood outside the area to accompany her.

I then felt amazed when she started to color independently. She seem to know that she can’t ask her mom’s opinion on what colors she should used because it was a competition. But she will turned back to look at me and I replied with smile to signal her that she was doing alright. But in the middle of the coloring section, she did a small mistake and caused a boy in the picture with invisible hands. Then, she started to feel discouraged, but she also knew she can’t start over because it was a competition.  At least, she still finished it and passed to the organizing committee for marking.

I am proud of her to brave herself to take the challenge and complete it with her natural heart. I told her it is not important whether you won the competition or not, but it is the journey you went through towards braveness and self-esteem!



Happy face at the beginning






Moody face at the end







Be Careful of Hazardous Household Waste

There are numbers of household wastes that have potential bringing hazards to our family members especially the ignorant kids. But most of us may not aware of their dangerous characteristics and improper storage or disposal of these hazardous household wastes can cause detrimental outcomes to us. Since I work in the chemical industry, I could share some of my knowledge so that we parents are more cautious with this household wastes.

 In Malaysia, the Department of Environment has regulated some hazardous waste as scheduled wastes, due to their potential for reactivity, toxicity, corrosivity and ignitability and we can only dispose the wastes to licensed collector and recycler(see Schedule One of Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 2005). But this law is now only enforced at the industrial level, not household level.

Here are some of the hazardous household wastes which we commonly encountered:

1)      Used fluorescent lamp –classified as hazardous waste mainly because it consists of mercury (Hg). So, it shouldn’t be thrown into trash, but to be recycled.

2)      Used consumer electronics like television, computer, fax machine, handphone – classified as E wastes and are recycled to extract their valuable heavy metals like lead and cadmium.  Normally the scrap collector would pay you about RM 50 for one unit of your old computer.

3)      Battery waste– From our car battery to the normal battery we used, they contain hazardous heavy metals like lead, nickel and cadmium. When the battery cast corrodes, these heavy metals will leak out and pollute our water and land.

4)      Toilet bowl cleaner – They are mostly acid which may cause irritation to your skin and eyes if in contact. So, be careful to keep it out of reach of children and its empty bottle as well.

5)      Chlorine bleach – We normally use “Clorox” for bleaching of our white clothes. They normally contain diluted sodium hypochlorite. It is harmful for skin contact and inhalation. Be careful of its storage and its empty bottle disposal. Also remember not to mix chlorine bleach with toilet bowl cleaner because it will release chlorine gas which is very harmful.

6)      Others like paints, inks, antifreeze(coolant), pesticides, herbicides, brake fluids are also hazardous in their chemical nature.

In Malaysia, a good household hazardous waste management system is yet to be implemented.

Yelling at Kids: Good or Bad?

I remembered I used to yell at my daughter when she was about 2 years old.  At that time, I thought she might be afraid and will stop the misbehavior. Although at some points of time, it helped but I figured there is another negative impact from this. Kids are good at imitating; turned out she yelled to people and even screaming to express her dissatisfaction or when she tried to get something but being rejected.

At age 2-4, my daughter is short temper and we will have to face with her tantrums everyday. We are tired and exhausted and I used to scold her and yell at her to ask her to stop crying. I felt terribly sorry about that. In fact, I could have given her a hug and just told her everything is ok or just redirect her to other funny stuff. Now, I have learned not to raise my voice, unless there is an urgent need, but to speak firmly. We have to make it clear and patiently remind them for the “do and undo” things. So, my son is bit more lucky because he doesn't have to experience those horror yelling from mommy.

We as parents must always remember kids are mirrors of us.  So, we must always show good attitude for them to follow.  When I complained my kid does not know how to make friends, I must think how many new friends I have made first. So, I will bring her to the playground in our neighborhood and show her how mommy is making new friends. I think she will observe and learn naturally by herself.

Colon Cleanse with Salt Water

I have suffered from constipation after my first pregnancy. When I ate less fiber like fruits and vegetables, the problem is more severe. I am worried that the constipation which lasted for many years will turn into toxin and eventually develop a cancer. So, I am trying to search for a good remedy for cleansing my colon.  While there are many laxative medicines or enemas available in the market, I still hesitate to try on it until I recently found a safe and cheap method which can be carried out at home: just drink a lot of salt water. This sound simple and I do not think it would cause other side effect.

There are few variation of salt water cleanse methods after my research on the web. Choose a day you are free preferably weekend. One of the method I follow is to drink about 3L of salt water in the morning (preferably 6am while this is the best time for the colon detoxification), by about 500-600ml one time. You can use sea salt, but I actually used the salt we used for cooking. Mix about ½ teaspoon of salt in about 500ml of luke warm water until the salt is totally dissolved and drink it quickly (this helps the water to reach the colons but not to other organs).

After the first drink, walk around or you can do some yoga or stomach rubbing; this helps to removes the accumulated toxic waste from the colon. Remember not to bend down your body to put pressure on the stomach because this may make you throw out the salt water you drank. After about 15-20 minutes, drink again the salty water and repeat this. You may feel the bowel movement after first or second drink and may need to defecate 6-7 times.

I felt the bowel movement after the first drink because this is my usual routine. There was another flush after the second drink, which is more watery. The third one and the fourth one I had were mostly yellowish water. Since there was only water being flushed out, I only finished drinking about 2 liters of salt water.  But I also read from another source that only about 1 Liter of salt water is needed. The process completed in about an hour.

However, this method is recommended to be done once every few months. Also, the complete flushing will flush out the good bacteria in the colons as well, and so it is recommended to replenish with some probiotic supplements like yogurt. Eat lightly after the cleansing.

I definitely feel loosen up and more energetic after the cleansing.

Isn't him my Funniest Baby?

Time goes fast, my second baby, Hong Jin is already 19months old. He is no doubt is happy, energetic and funny baby. He brings laughter to the family members and everyone misses his funny moves.

1) He is well-known for his reply "er" after we talked to him. So, we think he doesn't understand what we tried to tell him, and so we told him again. Then, he will "er" back until infinity.

2) His famous smile or laugh pose. See 3 pictures on top, we actually asked him to pose a smile for the photo. But he will respond with this "standard smile". Other people taught he was screaming, but he is not.

3) He likes to crimbed up on chair or even table or door, so the outcome is he got injured a lot. He will show his bruises or cut to all family members and showed us where the medicine is so we help to put on the medicine. So, a little baby like him already knows how to attract people's attention and care.

4) He can follow his sister to dance, he will bring up his hands and make turns beautifully.

He plays hide-and-seek(under the blanket, behind the curtain), he tried to feed his toys with his bottle water, he chases the neighbour's cat, he sticked to me after i reached home with his "mama, mama"(afraid i am going to leave him at home again), his many many moves and cute characters makes me feel i am so lucky to have him.

Make Your Own Reading Material for Kids

Books are quite expensive nowadays, a good reading book like “Peter and Jane” costs us about RM 10. I have bought about 12 for my daughters, total to about RM120 which she read at her kindergarden.

Books like “Peter and Jane” introduce few new vocabularies for each of its series and repeat them to strengthen the kids learning. I found this is now a typical technique used by children book publisher and has been proved effective.

So, a wise mom like me, start to think why not I make my own reading material for my kids. Besides the words I found from some educational website, I also paste some pictures on the material to make it more attractive. And I am very generous to share some of it with you all….

How to Encourage Your Kids To Read

Since i first became a mom, a friend of mine already told me that you have to read to your kids. They can understand and memorize what you read to them even at age 2.Hmm...so I figured to read some good stories to my kids.

As a working mom, I only have time to read to my kids before the sleeping time. My daughter loves the Disney Princess, so I bought her some story books like Cinderella and Little Mermaid(Remember the book must be in pretty color to attract them and the wording is big enough for them to see clearly). At beginning, she requested me to read almost every night. After couple times of reading, she can read by her own and even memorize it better than I can. Isn’t it amazing?

I have seen some parents bought a lot of books to their kids but have never read to them. For smaller kids like 3-6 years old, the reading begins from parents. Kids will be amazed by your reading tone, expressions and eventually build the reading habits because they are eager to explore the contents in books. So, begin reading to your kids from TODAY! You will soon amazed by the result!

Days after days, my daughter now knows how to create her own story. Of course, at age 6, she still cannot write well. So, I become her writer, write down what she tells and document it for her to see when she grows up. Above is the first story created by her...