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.
Bento # 113 : Made same day as above..... identified by the maki. Must be on a Wednesday then as this was Boylet's lunch before going to replacement music class straight after kindy. Boylet had to eat in the car, so I added easy to eat food like nuggets and sausages. Even cut them up to save eating time. The monkey container held icing sugar for the strawberries, to be eaten after the class. 
Bento # 114 : I had earlier made mini onigiris with the 100 yen shop's moulds - cubes and face shapes - for freezer stash. When I was making this bento, decided that mini onigiri took too much time to decorate. So after steaming, remoulded three of the mini onigiri into one bear face. Yup! I'm that lazy.... one face to decorate is more than enough early in the morning. And picks were easy way to jazz up the fishballs. Had I not remembered the ribbons cut earlier (from lunch sheet) in the fridge, the sweet and sour minced pork would have remained unadorned too. The bear container with soy sauce turned out to be ornamental, as Girlet didn't use the extra flavouring. 
I used various bento boxes from the 100 yen shop.
I didn't have enough time to take pics. I cropped the photo above for a close up look of the bento.
The day before, I made heart shaped Nutella sandwiches. Now that I put the photos next to each other, I realised the similarities between the two. Same box aside, the lettuce and mandarins were at the same position, and the colours are alike. I'm really stuck in a rut or what??!! Accompanying the wheat shaped pasta was cheese sauce in the orange container. I admit that the lettuce is purely for decoration. While Girlet now is eating lettuce, this particular bunch of lettuce was yuckily bitter even for me. The pet rabbit gets to enjoy it instead.
The bento which makes me laugh each time I see it.
