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...