Ian and Iason

Christmas Gifts for the Kids

2008-12-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas is just a few weeks ahead and Ian is already asking his daddy to put up the Christmas tree and lightings in the lounge. Kids have very good memory and he remembers everything that should happen during Christmas especially the presents. We try not to buy gifts/presents/toys for them whenever we go shopping. We want to them to know that gifts/presents are for special occasions.

For the past few Christmas, we have been buying toys for them and kids being kids, these toys would end up in the cupboard after a few weeks. Ian and Iason get bored with their toys but not the books. So for this year, we would buy them books for Christmas.

Reading is good for kids. Whenever I read stories to them, they will listen very eagerly for the first time, and when I repeat the stories, they are able to read together or tell me what would happen next. I just love reading with them.

Preschool Hunting Again

2008-12-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

Iason is turning 4 years old next year and I have to register him to a preschool. I was just wondering whether I should just register him into the same preschool as the elder brother Ian, or should he be going to another preschool.

I have no doubts about Ian's current preschool and in fact it's pretty good. But I still have a choice of choosing another preschool for Iason.

The pro of sending both to the same school would be easier for the parents,ie, to send and pick them up from the same place everyday, and since we have a very good experience with Ian's school, we are confident about the teachings of the school. The con is I would never know whether there is a better system in another preschool.

If I send Iason to another preschool, I would get a chance to checkout whether it is a better system and I could teach both of them the different syllabus that's thought in both schools.

Dilemma. I will need to quickly make up my mind where to register Iason, ie, together with Ian or to another preschool ?

School Holidays

2008-11-17T16:29:00.000-08:00

The year-end holidays are here again and it's a busy time for parents. Why ? as we need to keep the kids busy and also find things to occupy their free time. Should we be letting them join some holiday programs or should we just let them enjoy the holidays.

We find kids to be quite 'programmable' not too sure on the real terms used. If you set a timetable and follow them strictly, they will eventually follow it. Since there's no school which takes 50% of their time, now we have to fill-up the 50% of the school time with some academic/brain stimulating activities just to ensure that they do not become lazy. We are just afraid that if we let them have the lazy attitude during these few weeks, we will have a hard time tuning it back to their school timetable.

So we have decided to let them spend an hour on either writing, coloring or drawing. And not forgetting to read with them or encourage them to read. We were quite amaze that when we read to them, they can actually remember the words thats read to them. We started to read bedtime stories to Ian in the beginning of the year and we read the same story over and over again, and to our surprised, one day he read it back to us. He does not know the words, but because he's been hearing the story over and over again, he's able to repeat it.

We were so delighted and went on to buy more story books. We buy simple ones and read with them.
Once you have read the story a few times, the kids are able to tell you what's going to happen next and sometimes they do act out as the wolf or the bad guys. It becomes interactive once the kids knows the stories. We find it good to read them the moral stories about honesty (not telling lies), hard-working, etc and it's kind of good to relate it back to the stories if we want them to behave accordingly.

It does not matter how old or how new the books are, JUST READ THEM and of course parents would need to choose appropriate books to read with the kids. This is their first and favourite story book.

What does Reading Do ? .........
In a paper called What Reading Does for the Mind, Anne E. Cunningham, associate professor of cognition and development at the University of California, Berkeley, makes the case that reading:
* increases vocabulary more than talking or direct teaching;
* substantially boosts general knowledge while decreasing the likelihood that misinformation will be absorbed; and
* helps keep our memory and reasoning abilities intact as we age.

Children Development Software

2008-10-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

We have been letting the rascals exposed to computers at quite an early age. There has been quite a number of good children development software around and now that computer plays a part in the growing stages, it is good to let them try their hands on the computer.

Children development evolves around these 5 areas :-

Social and Emotional Development
Language Development
Physical and Motor Development
General Knowledge and Cognition
Learning Styles/Modes

We started with some Toddler versions that covers mouse-navigation that covers the Motor skills, instructions from the software would cover their exposure to Language. Research found that most of these development software focuses on the language and cognitive skills. There's is also motivation and attention grabbing from these software whereby points/scores are obtained for each level/stages attained throughout the sessions.

Toddler versions normally covers mouse navigations to click on buttons on the screens for nursery rhymes, sounds of different musical instruments, pronunciations of numbers, alphabets, shapes, colours, etc

After the Toddler versions, we got them some preschools softwares. When Ian reach 4 years old, we let him go online to some children website as shown in "Ian's Fav Links". Iason is only 3 years old and he's on the Toddler versions. We started on the JumpStart softwares.

Simple Cheesecake Recipe

2008-06-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Baking Cheesecake is not as hard as baking butter cake. It is really simple. I had many failures in baking butter cake even if it's out-of-the-box. Most of the cheesecake recipes requires 2 blocks of Philadelphia Cheese. Due to my many failures in baking, I have decided to use half of all ingredients needed to bake a cheesecake. Here is what I use :-

1 block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1/4 cup Sugar
1/s teaspoon Vanilla essence
1 large Egg

Base
1 1/2 cup of Graham biscuit
1/3 cup butter

Steps:-
1) Crumble biscuit and mix with butter. Press into baking tray.
2) Put the cheese, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Beat with medium speed for about 2 minutes until blended.
3) Add egg and mix until just blended
3) Bake in preheated, 350F for about 40 minutes.

Because I use half of the ingredients to test my First Cheesecake, it came out looking more like cheese tarts and it tastes just as good. My kids love it.

Tick-Tock beat

2008-05-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

Finally went for trial class and sign-up for a term. Ian was quite reserve when he went into the class. I was waiting for him outside and he's quite independent probably because he has started preschool. The class runs for about 45 minutes and after half-hour, I was peeking at him and saw that he already had a friend and it was girl in a long pretty skirt. The teacher was singing and blowing bubbles and the kids just love chasing them. Then they were asked to sit down but I saw Ian were walking towards a girl and sitting next to her REALLY closely. Wow ... as young as 4 years old and he is now woo-ing other girls in the class. How am I going to cope with all his girl-frens when he gets older. Phew ....

After the class, I heard him calling the girl's name and finally knew that it was his classmate from preschool. I thought my son was a casanova ........ hahahaha ...

Trying to expose him to music at an earlier stage to see whether he likes it before signing up for any instrumental classes like piano, violin, organ, etc.

Comparing your children

2008-03-30T18:12:00.001-07:00

Do you really believe that the second child will always have lesser attention from their parents and hence that would impact their growing up and also their interaction. Iason, my second kid, which is a year younger than Ian do not seem to be as a fast learner as Ian.

My parents used to say that we put all attention at Ian and hence neglected Iason. But of course we deny that and says that different kid will develop differently and hence we should not be comparing kids. Iason and Ian does have very different behaviors towards everything. Due to their small age gap, we tend to treat both the same way and also expect the same behave the same way. But we constantly have to remind ourselves that they are 2 different kids with different needs.

Here is an interesting article on ways/tip to avoid comparing your children when speaking to them.

Artist or Musician

2008-03-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

I always wonder whether music and art is the best way to start your kids as early education. I love art but not born an artist but have always admire artist with their lovely art pieces displayed at art galleries. I always had a dream of having my own art pieces displayed in a beautiful gallery and at the same time visitors would be able to have a sip of the best coffee in the world admiring my art pieces.

Many a times you research and hear parents saying introducing music to young kids will stimulate their brains at early stage. Hence you get to see all sorts of programs targeting young kids from as young as 9 months old. But there isn't any drawing/art classes that could start at a very young age. I do see art/craft centres mushrooming but then I am not too impressed with their programs as it is merely a whole class of more than 10 kids doing coloring or art/crafts. Maybe I am expecting my kid to continue with my dream.

This is really a cool site, that shows you animation on cartoon drawing for kids. Ian and Iason loves this.

Influence from other kids

2008-03-30T01:09:00.000-07:00

Since Ian started school, there are some influences that he learn from other children. Not all are as bad but you will find it different as different parents teach their children differently. Well, as parents we should not be too quick to blame the school for not having enough discipline on the kid. It is actually the start of your child getting social exposure and it's also a good time to teach them the right and wrong attitude to adopt with some examples.

All parents wants to ensure that their kids grow-up in the most appropriate education and manner. A very simple example that Ian had was his friend likes to give out sweets/candies after school and of course kids likes sweet stuff. So, he has the habit of asking this little friend for a sweet/candy after school. But he does not take it but brings home and we will put it in the fridge. We do not usually give Ian sweets/candies so he does not really ask for it but just feel good because he's given something. But as a parent, we would not like to see Ian asking for sweets/candies all the time from his friend despite several reminders to him and at the same time we could not blame the other kid for giving out sweets/candies as a 'Sharing' gesture. So both parents were not wrong, it's just whether you are able to reason with your own kid not to accept the gift.

We didn't want Ian to simply accepts gifts for a few reasons and of course the greatest reason is to ensure he does not accept sweets/candies as allured by bad people who has the intention of kidnapping your kid. I guess parents have heard quite a number of increasing cases on these missing kids. As a parent, we need to be patient always (easier said than done) and if possible listen to your kids. Sometimes, they are able to tell you things that would surprise you. They will usually talk to you when you are calm and patient. If you are screaming at them, they will just lose the confidence to tell you anything. So parents, listen up.

Keeping Up

2008-03-30T00:50:00.001-07:00

It's been really long from the last postings. Even though I am working from home but having Ian around and pre-schooling, time is just not enough. I would be up by 7am to prepare him for school and off to bed with him at about 9.30-10pm almost everyday. I just could not stay up most of the time to catch up on some "Me" time, it is just so tiring. When we do reading together before he goes to sleep, I would be first to doze off. What a lazy mummy. Parenting is just another career of it's own. I really salute all the housewives as it is the hardest job ever.

Ian was initially sent to half-day school, but we decided a few weeks after school started that we should leave him in school longer so that i could concentrate on my work for a longer period. Having him home at 12noon is really distracting as we need to prepare lunch for him and put him to nap. He doesn't nap too long and will wake up at about 4pm and then he will need all the attention until dinner time. After we enrol him into full-day school, time is better managed as we could quickly bring him back from school at 3pm, bath and put him to sleep. And by the time he wakes at about 6pm, I could logged off from office and have more time with him, play and prepare dinner.

We will still have time together at night and not totally putting him in school or childcare till dinner time.

Chinese New Year Butter Cookies

2008-01-25T23:39:00.000-08:00

For the coming Chinese New Year, I have decided to try to bake some butter cookies. I love butter cookies and have been searching for the recipes for a while. Finally found a recipe which I tried last week. First time baking cookies could be quite challenging. I was smart to divide the dough into few portions to try out. But the cookie tecture did not turn out as expected but it does not look bad. Actually, I was quite happy with the look (unlike cakes, if they do not turn out well, it will not look good as well). Anyway, my friends (who knows how to bake) have been telling me that it's very easy to make cookies compared to cake. But I guess I did not have the luck. Check out my lovely cookies.

Actually it requires some skills in baking. Every little step in the whole process counts and you have to follow the measurements of the ingredients correctly in order to get the best cookies. The temperature and timing of baking should be followed closely and also need to monitor during the baking time.

The recipe that I used to make butter cookies :-

1 Cup butter
1.5 Cup Icing Sugar
1 TspVanilla essence
1/4 tsp Sale
1 Egg
2 Cups of Flour
2 Tsp baking powder

Steps
1. Preheat oven at 200 C for 10-15 minutes.
2. Cream butter, sugar and salt.
3. Add Egg and vanilla
4. Combine flour and baking powder into a dough
5. You can shape the dough into small balls and press it on the baking sheet or roll them into a log and chill it before baking.
6. Bake in preheated oven
for about 10minutes. It's advisable to check the cookies 1 to 2 minutes before the actual time. Cookies are ready when the edges turn brown. Tips : Try a few pieces to get the temperature and timing right before baking the whole batch.

Valentine’s Day

2008-01-23T02:25:00.000-08:00

Everyone celebrates valentine’s day and it’s not just for couples, but for parents and friends as well. Of course, whenever we talked about valentine’s day, we will definitely think of our loved ones, our darling girl-friend or boy-friend. Well, I could say that the first time I ever celebrated Valentine’s Day was with my then boy-friend and now hubby. He was so sweet that he bought me half a dozen of pink roses with little purple flowers . I was actually shocked to receive the flowers as I never thought that the first bunch of flowers from him was on valentine’s day. Poor thing, the very first bouquet was also the most expensive. Anyway, I can still remember the day when someone from the shop delivered the flowers to me in office.

Those were the days where you will get flowers and chocolates. But as years goes by the valentine gift would be more practical and economical. Haven’t thought of getting him anything yet for this valentine’s day. Good items to get for guys are trendy gadgets, ie, ipods, mp3players, digital cameras, camcorders, watches and wallet. I think watches are very good gifts as I personally like to buy watches. Watches are accessories to guys. There are different watches for different purposes/occasions, from sporty to glamorous. Get some good deals here.

Gifts for her would be roses,chocolates(goes without saying),sexy lingerie, jewelleries, ipods, mobile phones, small digital cameras(Point and Shoot), watches, and perfume.

eCards are a must since it's free and online now.

Dragon Fruit Jelly

2008-01-12T23:58:00.001-08:00

This is really easy to make and it taste good as well. Good to serve during Chinese New Year as it would be a cool dessert that goes well with the hot weather. With all the cookies and crackers, jelly would be a good to serve to quench thirst and heatiness.

All you need is :-

1 Packet of 'Agar agar' strips/Jelly
Half-Dragon Fruit
1 Packet of Rock Sugar

Put the 'Agar agar' strips to boil/mix the jelly powder according to the cooking instructions. Put in the Rock Sugar into the boiling 'Agar agar' and stir until dissolved. I use Rock Sugar because it is not as sweet as normal sugar and the jelly will also turn out harder. Once done, pour the jelly into the container and leave to cool.

Cut the dragon fruit into half and mashed it in a container with a fork. Pour into the jelly after 10minutes. Leave it to settle and later put into fridge before serving.

The kids love it.

Late for School

2008-01-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

Time flies as Ian has already attended the first week in preschool. Getting him ready for school is quite challenging as he takes his own sweet time in getting up, having breakfast, shower and dressing up. We woke him up at about 7am everyday, and he really can take 1 hour to get ready.

Kids might not understand time management or rather TIME as a whole. So when you asked them to quickly eat their breakfast as time is running out, it could mean nothing to them. So, daddy had a very smart idea and that is to trick him on Thursday (a public holiday). We treat that day as a school day, we got him ready and drove him to school. When we arrived at the school gate, he was shocked to see that there is no one around. No teachers and no children. Then we told him that all the teachers and children are inside the school playing and reading. Because he was slow in doing everything, he is late and the gates are closed and he is not allowed to join the children in school.

He was asking us to go down and open the gate and we said we do not have the key. While driving back home, we told him that due to his "Slowness" in getting ready for school everyday, there's the consequence that he has to face-No school for him for that day. So the very next day, when we said, "You better be quick, else school will close again". And this time round, it's a little bit easier trying to get him ready for school.

We were teasing him the whole day saying that he's slow and the school gates closes. And we also call him "Super Slow Snail". Of course, he always reply to say that he is "Superman". Kids are kids.

Harmonica

2008-01-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

Ian got a harmonica as a Christmas gift from a friend. He looked a bit surprised when he opened the gift as he has not seen it before, not on tv or books.

Harmonica is a very rare instrument that we hardly see or hear these days. Again, I would say that this could be a forgotten musical instrument that was once very popular during the olden days (I feel so old). Whenever I think of the harmonica I always have the picture of the villages kids where having one and playing proudly to their friends during play. Somehow, the harmonica brings that picture into my mind.

Anyway, daddy knows how to play harmonica and Ian is learning from his dad. But he normally have very short patience and whenever he could not get the tune correctly, he will just simply blew the harmonica and start making noise instead of music with it.

Definition from Wikipedia :

A harmonica is a free reed wind instrument. It has multiple, variably-tuned brass or bronze reeds which are secured at one end over an airway slot in which they can freely vibrate. The vibrating reeds repeatedly interrupt the airstream to produce sound.

How to Make Nga Ku Chips

2008-01-08T16:40:00.000-08:00

CNY is just round the corner and you can see lots of nga ku selling in the morning markets and supermarkets. It's actually very easy to make Nga Ku Chips on your own with just Nga Ku, a shredder, Oil and Wok. I found this simple Demo from You Tube and you will know what I mean. There is no seasoning involve. Just slice the nga ku with the shredder into the boiling hot oil in the wok. When it turns brown, drain it in paper towel and sprinkle with some salt. Voila, you've got NGA KU CHIPS. yum yum.

Try it ! It's really easy ......

Nga-Ku

2008-01-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year(CNY) is round the corner and it's time again for the Chinese families to get busy with spring cleaning, preparation, buying new clothings and gifts/cookies for the actual day.Today is the first day of the last month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, so to be exact, it would be a month before Chinese new year.

The morning markets are filled with CNY cookies, decorations, plants and waxed meat (I think that's the English term for it, we called it "lap cheung" and "lap ngap" in cantonese"). And of course not forgetting the pirated CD sellers playing the CNY music.

I love the nga-ku chips and the best thing is that my aunt make very good ones. So I get my supplies from her in a discounted price. Do you know that you could also grow these and make them as CNY plants. I do it every year and it will just grow leaves. I have seen those on television that if you grow them really well (maybe in a cooler climate), it will actually flower. But mine will always be leaves only. So again I have prepared my Nga-Ku plant for CNY.

Going to Pre-school

2008-01-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

Finally, Ian will be going to preschool coming Monday. Mummy and daddy is more "kun cheong" (excited) than him. We've been telling him and preparing him to school by saying things like "Daddy will fetch you to school, then teacher will come and get you. Daddy will leave you in school and you will follow teacher into the school and you will have fun with other children. You will learn to write, draw and sing with the others. Then Mummy will come and pick you up and we will go home for lunch".

I was quite surprise that preschool nowadays are quite (not to mention expensive) but quite academic as well. This is definitely due to the standards of education that is being set where it is compulsory for all children to attend kindergarten for the minimum attendance(hours) spent for each subject. Glancing through his books, it's much more academic compared to mummy and daddy's time of preschool/kindergarten.

This is also why, tuition centres are mushrooming so fast and it's everywhere, practically everywhere. 2 years back when Ian is still very young, I was telling myself I do not understand why parents are sending their children to tuition classes from as young as 4 years old. I guess I am beginning to understand this much better. It is not so much of the kiasu syndrome that parents wants their kids to be no.1 in school or they just want to push their responsibilities to the tuition teachers, but i would think it's the syllabus that is driving everyone to do it.

This is the first time that I hear/learn that parents have to attend school orientation(maybe I am ULU and not wary about the current trend). Anyway, the orientation for parents was held before Christmas to ensure that parents are ready. We were being briefed of the school subjects, management and also ground rules for the preschool.

I was actually quite impressed with the session as it demonstrates to me the school's commitment in teaching the children well with compliments/cooperation with the parents. To me, the school's management had demonstrated that they have a very structured way of managing every single thing from coming/leaving school, things to bring, and things not to bring, and also parents commitment to spend 15-20minutes at home with a CD for phonics revision. Maybe this is the first preschool and also the first time sending my own kid to school, that I was "shocked" in a good way ... that the school means business .... no play play.

I have done my homework and that is to get all the books wrapped, with names written on each and every book, pencil, eraser, ruler,water bottle and bag.

Let's hope Ian will have a fun way of learning.

Dragon Fruit

2007-12-31T23:24:00.000-08:00

To me, this is a "NEW" fruit as we never have any dragon fruit during our childhood. I still remember when I was first introduced to it about 10 years ago, i tasted the white Dragon fruit and I didn't quite like it as it doesn't taste sweet and it's a bit soft. I always ignore Dragon fruits in the supermarkets and really do not understand why people are buying it. I always think it's the trend and people just buy it and it's not cheap as well.

But recently, i saw the red dragon fruit and had the chance to eat it in a few occasions, and the color is so rich that really attracts you to try it. This time i quite like it, maybe because i like the color. It's just me. Now that it's so popular due to it's nutrients and goodness found in the fruit, more farmers are growing it and it's quite affordable.

The fruit is called PITAYA which is a fruit of cactus family. It is also known as dragon fruit, huǒ lóng guǒ (火龍果/火龙果 lit. "fire dragon fruit"), strawberry pear, nanettikafruit, or thanh long. It is best cultivated in dry tropical areas with moderate rain water.

It is believe that this fruit contain 10 times vitamin C than a vitamin C supplement and it's easily absorbed, helps purifying blood, anti cancer and also has antioxidant goodness. More detail benefits of Dragon fruit could be found here.

Ian and Iason do not seem to like the fruit. I will have to coax them to eat by telling them that if they eat it, they will be as powerful as a Dragon, ie, they can fly as fast and become as strong as the DRAGON. ;)

Music for Kids

2007-12-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

Music plays an important part in a child's development. As a Mum, I would of course like to expose all these goodies to them when they are young and within our capability. We went to trial classes for 2 musicals programs for kids, ie, Musikgarten and Kindermusik. Both Ian and Iason really enjoy the classes. But we did not register as the classes were too far away from home and it's quite expensive.

JMC was not new to me as I was accompanying my younger sister way back more than 20 years ago (no joke!). I love the class as the kids get to have hands-on on the organ and also exposed to various instruments and during the graduation, my sister was the one at the piano.

So now that Ian is turning 4 years old and i would like to expose him to a musical environment to see whether music interests him before signing up for the solo instruments like piano/violin, we have again signed me up for a Trail Class for JMC this coming Wednesday night. Let's see whether these classes are good. Yamaha is a very well known music school that teaches lots of instruments.

Sunbathing

2007-12-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year is round the corner and the weather seem to change frequently with hot sun, rain and shower. Normally the weather would be getting hotter and it's a good time to spring clean as well. So I took the opportunity one morning (bright sunny day) to give the soft-toys a wash. I had it soaked for about 30minutes, and gave it a quick spin in the washing machine. The spin does the best work to eliminate as much water from them as possible for an easier dry.

See the happy little friends out in the sun, sunbathing.

Imagination Run Wild

2007-12-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

[Mum] 'Boy what is this'
[Ian] 'Spider lah'
[Mum] 'Why your spider look like alien'

[Mum] 'This one leh'
[Ian] 'This is Fire Engine'
[Mum] 'How come look like UFO'

Loving Brothers

2007-12-17T21:56:00.001-08:00

We really love one another and there's no way anyone would think that we fight 99% of the time. Look at the picture, have you ever seen such loving 3 and 2 years old brothers anywhere.

Mum and Dad, look at us, this is our true self. We just wanted attention most of the time and also helped you to train your vocals for your Karaoke sessions.

Picture Paints a Thousand Words

2007-12-17T21:28:00.000-08:00

Meaning

A picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of descriptive text.

Origin

There are several varities of this phrase, including 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. The first time a form of the phrase appears in print is in James Kirke Paulding's New Mirror for Travellers, 1828:

"A look, which said as plainly as a thousand words."

This was followed by "One look is worth a thousand words", written by Frederick R. Barnard in Printer's Ink, December 1921.

Printer's Ink used another form of the phrase in March 1927, suggesting a Chinese origin:

"Chinese proverb. One picture is worth ten thousand words."

Whether this actually was a Chinese proverb is open to doubt. When the origin of a phrase is unknown but it sounds as though it fits into the exotic 'Confucius he say' style it is often credited to ancient China. This is a similar form of folk etymology that hijacks the romance of the sea and gives entirely land-locked phrases a nautical origin.

Definitions from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/14000.html