What we've been doing

Life had been so much on the go, that sitting down to write/ blog seemed like a chore. But in conjunction with school hols, it's time for me to slow down, recollect my thoughts and reflect over the past two and a half months.

Since Girlet began Primary 1 in a Chinese School, I've been studying Mandarin too. Good news is my reading vocab has increased by 200% (which is not difficult since I could only recognise less than 30 words before *>^ ). Still confused with similar looking words though. Girlet is doing very much better than me, and actually asked me "Why you learn so slow?". Hmmph!

She is certainly adapting very well to Chinese school. She does her work very fast, and often finishes her homework in school so she'll have more playtime at home. Her problem is writing too fast, so the handwriting is messy like 'cakar ayam'. What is shocking is the amount of time or lack of that they spend on English - two half-hour sessions a week. Apparently they thought with Maths and Science in English, that is sufficient time allocated on English. And what they are teaching is so basic, things that she already knew 2, 3 years ago. I almost wept at the poor standard. But then, the purpose of sending her to Chinese school is to learn mandarin. We can work on English at home, we certainly can't work on mandarin at home. So we'll just soldier on.....

For Boylet, we've been working on his reading. I didn't post last year that his teacher (now ex) thought he was dyslexic. Anyway, I went around contacting Dyslexic programs and none wanted to take him as he was too young to be diagnosed. In a panic, I switched him to another kindy, one that will work on capturing his interest and motivation instead. He still struggles with phonics.... (which I don't actually understand either.... English is so unphonetical!!). So left that for his new kindy which is using Jolly phonics, while we concentrate on whole word recognition (supplementing his tuition using the Oxford Tree Program). We have to get him reading by this year as next year he'll be off to Chinese Kindergarten, where they only concentrate on Mandarin and neglect English. It's a Do or Die situation..... sense my desperation?! The good news is he is recognising some words now. What he's good at are numbers, puzzles and mazes. So I bought him plenty of workbooks in these area for him to practise and to build up his confidence.

I've started some homeschooling for Babylet.... didn't buy any materials, just made use of the ample books and materials accumulated over the last 7 years. Other than reading, Babylet had been busy cutting with scissors, pasting, drawing, tracing..... all working on fine motor skills and pre-writing skills. She enjoys what she called 'homework', mimicking what the Jiejie and Korkor are doing. In fact when I'm supervising the older ones with their homework, she would come and insist on doing homework too.



On lighter note, we've done some baking. Made these in my eldest sis' house using those cute Wilton silicon cups I got d'Hubby to buy in US last year. The kids gobbled these up in no time.


Also tried my hands on icing. Can see that I am in need of more practice. The buttercream was also way too sweet. We're so used to fresh cream. Anyone got a nice icing recipe that's not sweet, yet can be piped and retain shape?




Yours truly has also been embarking on some, ahem, self improvement programs. Was inspired by the passion in music shown in the Japanese drama, Nodame Cantabile, and decided to take up piano again. See, good things come out from watching drama *_^. (That, by the way, is an excellent show, highly recommended for the wonderful classical music it contained). So instead of surfing bento sites, I've been surfing sites providing free piano scores recently. Current favourite song to play is Fairytale (Tonghua) by Michael Wong. Started learning it in the original key of F# major, which was a real killer with all the sharps. After much searching and begging (on youtube), am so glad to find the transposed version at G Major. So anyone wants the score, just let me know. The upside of my playing piano is that every time I want to practise, the kids would clamour to play too.



Also been trying to read more 'intellectual' books instead of chit lits. Finished 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' by Salman Rushie back in January. Currently reading 'Midnight's Children' by the same author. Yup, I borrowed it because it won the 'Best of Bookers' last year. Shallow reason, huh? I usually finish a chit lit in 1 or 2 days, but been taking forever with this book.


The only thing that I still can't get going is the exercise regimen. With SIL's wedding in Nov, I must, must get in shape by then. Sigh!





Enough rambling. Will try to post bentos next. I had been packing bento every school/work day, the kids and hubby had to eat after all. But speed bentos are just not as interesting to post without interesting food. Didn't even bother to take pics of some of them. But doesn't mean the frenzy is dying off, otherwise wouldn't splash on more bento stuff from CP(new link here), and 100 yen shops (see Bentopet and Emily's accounts). And that's another post.

Tests are over!

Today's Girlet's last day of test. Phew! What a relief. Especially when d'hubby left for USA last week in the midst of her tests, leaving me to handle the three kids. Now I'd better catch up with my blog posts, with the kids surrounding me like this.

Babylet on the floor with a lift-the -flap book.

Boylet spotting differences in two pictures. (He's not left-handed, just eating dried prunes with his right hand, so had to draw circles with his left)
Girlet doing Mandarin homework. She's happy her tests are over too.

I would have liked to go with D'hubby as I've not been to the NYC, but no one wanted to take in my 3 kids. And the flight was simply too long for the kids. And girlet had her tests...... basically life changes after having kids. D'hubby had better buy me something nice.... *_*

Babylet puzzles

Babylet loves doing jigsaw puzzles. This is one of her 'homework' from her enrichment class to improve her fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. Currently she can only do up to 5-pieces puzzles, which is less than boylet at the same age. But then, she can speak better than boylet with fully formed sentences.

Unfortunately, she likes to prefix 'the' to some words, for eg. 'the mommy' and 'the book'. So her sentences becomes "I want to follow the mommy" and "Please read me story the book". Haha.... some more touchy when get corrected. I'll just have to wait for her to grow out of it."TaDah!", babylet cheers for herself after she completes each puzzle. Another homework, Babylet showing off her scissors skills and camera smile.
Basically, she just want to sit next to me as I use the computer, blogging or facebook-ing. *_*

Long Distance Cousins

The kids' two cousins came back for a visit. Maya is two months older than babylet but is so much taller. Must be the Irish blood in her. Boylet knew we were taking photos and asked to change to his new crocodile t-shirt from Oz. Unfortunately, kakak didn't understand him and he threw a tantrum insisting on changing. What a vainpot, even vainer than the girls.

Babylet was most excited to have her own friend to play with, even though they mostly did parallel play and not with each other. In the morning when she woke up, she would ask for Maya, and in the evening would ask to go to the playground to play with Maya.
Not too late to celebrate National Day. Babylet showing Maya the Malaysian flag.
Girlet with 4-month old baby Danny. He's a good baby, slept and drank very well. But struggled to adjust to the heat and humidity here.
The kids playing in front of the neighbour's house, petting the cat and her kittens. Bye, Maya. Babylet will miss you lots.

Sydney trip

We stayed at BIL’s apartment in Darling Harbour. From the living room, we had this fabulous view. The kids outside the apartment.
On the second day, we went to Taronga Zoo, via a ferry tour of Sydney Harbour. Here’s girlet with the Anzac Bridge at the background. We even saw a few groups of climbers up on the bridge. I'm not posting the photos with Opera House as I'm in all of them.
Being winter, the wind was really cold. Most of the passengers went inside after taking the requisite photos, but boylet refused to go in. He loved the ferry ride so much that he refused to alight when we reached Taronga Wharf. When he finally did, he cried in the bus all the way to the zoo. Thankfully, it was not a long ride. He must have been tired because he couldn’t register that we were going to the zoo. He was most sheepish when we finally arrived, and was upset when girlet laughed at him, calling him silly. After that performance on the bus, we thought we’d better rent a stroller for him. D’hubby complained that boylet was really ‘pahpai’, behaving like a big boss, barking out commands, “go, stop, there, faster”. His good humour was only restored after seeing his favourite reptiles, whereby he deigned to come down from his ‘throne’ for a closer look. Some photos taken at the zoo.

This was the sunset view on the way back from the zoo.
Here are the photos taken at the Sydney Aquarium. We found it very educational. Girlet was excited to learn to differentiate male and female sharks. She loved this kind of facts. They enjoyed the touching pool whereby they get to feel the differences between a few types of seastar, some rough, some smooth and some slimy. Brrrr, the water was really cold though.

After lunch, we went to watch a 3D show, Dolphins and Whales, at the IMAX theatre. It was a 45 min show, and I must admit to catching 40 winks there. So that afternoon , I took boylet back to the apartment and forced him to take a nap, while BIL took girlet, d’hubby, and his dog, a yellow Labrador, to a dog park. Dogs of all sizes and shapes congregate there, to girlet’s delight. Unfortunately, boylet isn’t a dog lover.

That evening, we had scrumptious seafood dinner at Darling Harbour, courtesy of BIL. SIL also flew over for two weeks, and met us there for dinner. We tucked in mussels, soft shelled crab, oyster, both raw and baked, prawns, calamari, etc. Look at this pic - Girlet was thrilled at the humongous ice-cream. That’s considered two scoops by the way. Ice-cream in winter, 5-6 degrees outside…. I don’t know what to say.

We also went to the Australian museum, mainly to see the dinosaur exhibition. We ended up enjoying all the other exhibits too, giving only rocks and minerals a miss. It was both a kid friendly and adult place. We love that it was huge and there weren’t any jostling. We could browse leisurely. Boylet even watched the dinosaur clip/movie twice.

Don't know why boylet need to give a kungfu pose when taking photos with dinosaurs.

With the extinct Tasmanian tiger.
Patting a real life lizard.

Of course we went shopping at Paddy's Market, Market City and the surrounding area. Also managed to celebrate SIL's fiance and my, ahem, birthday at an Italian restaurant. Too bad boylet was so tired out from all the walking around that he slept through dinner and didn't even have the cake. All in all, was a good vacation. The kids enjoyed it and was most reluctant to come back home.

Babylet turns 2!

Another milestone. The babylet is 2 years old.......no longer a baby.... sniff, sniff..... As per tradition, we had a mini celebration with my in-laws, dinner at a restaurant on Saturday. Babylet absolutely loved the attention. As well as her chocolate birthday cake.She has been practising blowing a whistle so she managed to blow out both candles at the first try. Here she is cutting the cake, with jiejie's help, while giving her 'camera smile'.
Had an actual party for her at home on Sunday. Didn't think to take photo of the food.... until now. Oh well, she didn't eat anything as she was too busy running around playing with other kids. What she'll remember is her birthday cake - a doggy ice-cream cake. Singing birthday song again. After the 'trial run' the previous night, she can now sing at the top of her voice.
Look who is so pleased with her new dolly.

Happy Birthday, darling!

Baking cookies

Made cookies the previous week with the kiddoes. Yes, yes, I know. I'm totally backlogged. But blogging is supposed to be fun and not pressurising. Hehe.... another excuse for procrastination. Back to topic, we had fun, too much fun that we forgot to take photos except for this in the beginning. Girlet holding the mixer, with boylet looking on. The real fun began after the dough had chilled in the fridge.

Boylet asked : Mummy, I want more playdoh please?

Me : This is not playdoh. It is real cookie dough.

Boylet : Then can I have more cookie playdoh, please?

Well, that's exactly what they did, play with it like playdoh. Boylet kept dusting his portion with flour, that his dough were harden and i'm sure unedible, overwork as it is. Anyway, just dumped them after he had his fun. He did made a few cookies with his before-turned-lumpy dough. Girlet did a better job, obviously. At least the surface of her cookies were smooth. Here's the photo of what they made. No prizes for the correct guess of which cookie belonged to whom.

Landscape and Garden Festival 2008

Girlet has swimming lessons at Lake Club on Sunday mornings. Took the opportunity to bring the two younger kids to the Landscape and Garden Festival at Lake Gardens while waiting.

Flowers galore.
Pretty orchids of various shades for sale.
Bonsai plants.
Different varieties of pitcher plant. The kids are most impressed with these.

Herb seedlings for sale.
Fruit plant seedlings for sale.
They even have rambutan and durian seedlings for sale. If I have a big garden, that would have been a buy.
There are 6 theme gardens, but we only manage to visit two, the herbs and conservatory gardens. The reason being that the kids spied the playground and clamoured to go.
Boylet at his element in the dinosaur garden.

The boylet finally garnered the courage to go down the longest slide all by himself. As we left, throngs of people were just arriving. Many equipped with picnic baskets. I had thought of packing a bento picnic. In reality, we were very hot and sweaty, and were glad to go to Lakeclub for lunch.

It was a good day. Normally the boylet and babylet are like dogs and cats. Today they were the best of friends. At Lakeclub.

Sitting together during dinner at Sri Ayutha.

Since the festival is on until the 27th July, will continue the visit next week. Hopefully can see the Floral Enclave which has a children's floral theme playground, and let Girlet join in the various activities organised.