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Growing Up

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Boys and Girls Come Out to Play on World Play Day

June 6, 2012 in Celebrations, Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 1 comment

What I envisage is not an event or series of events, and not something that entails expansive and expensive preparations (or expensive presents). The essence of PLAY is childlike. It is what all children do naturally. Therefore, a WORLD PLAY DAY should be a day of total attention to each other, from generation to generation. A day when children and adults do what they want to do. A day that is relaxed and emphasizes human interaction. We do not need to stop the world for a day. We play in our own place, home, school or work place. Perhaps I am describing an attitude rather than an activity. A day that is FUN, shows adults and children in interactive situations promoting the healthy growth of each other in simple, self-motivated activities of their own choice. If everyone in the world can do this on the same day each year we will have a WORLD PLAY DAY.
– Dr Freda Kim, Founder, World Play Day

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Before this year, I had not even heard of World Play Day.  So it was a great surprise and experience to all of us when the kids’ school decided to organize an event in conjunction with World Play Day this year.

World Play Day is celebrated on May 28th each year, and it’s a day where kids and adults alike dedicate to the art of play.

Sounds like fun, yeah?

Not even the hot afternoon sun could dampen the spirits of these beautiful kids.  The celebration of World Play Day started with some warm-up exercises, which the kids were all to eager to participate in.

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It was then followed by the singing of the official World Play Day song.

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And then the fun began. 🙂

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A Billy Goat Experience

May 30, 2012 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | 1 comment

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Ethan and his schoolmates recently had a field trip to visit the Saanen Dairy Goat Farm in Balik Pulau here in Penang.  Since I could make it, I decided to tag along, along with a handful of other moms.

The trip to Balik Pulau took about an hour, and when we finally parked, we had to walk for about 15-20 minutes through kampung-style roads leading to the farm.

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Once we’d arrived, the kids had their snacks and then we proceeded to the stable/barn where the goats are kept.  These were Saanen goats, and according to the caretaker of the farm, they originate from Switzerland, and they are what we know as the mountain goats.  How they survive in our hot Malaysian weather is totally beyond me!

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We were provided with shoots of Napier grass to feed the goats with.  Some goats tugged and pulled at the grass while others chewed and chomped gently.

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Ethan had a blast and kept asking for more grass when he ran out of the ones he fed the goats with.

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Here’s a picture I took of a majestic looking Saanen goat.  Looks like the leader of the herd!

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The kids also had the opportunity to watch the goats being milked.  The milking process is performed using a mechanical/electrical pump, while the goats are busy *snacking*

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The kids even got to sample some fresh goats’ milk too!  Here’s Ethan cooling down in front of a huge fan at the farm.

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The trip was really fun and I’m sure everyone learnt many things.  We even got to see a gigantic spider perched on its spider web while walking back.  Not your typical city scene, I’m sure.

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Batik Beach Family Day

May 8, 2012 in Celebrations, Entertainment, Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up, Hannah | 1 comment

Hannah woke up with a big smile, and with big brown eyes, she asked me, “Mommy, is today the day for our Family Day?”

I said yes, and she smiled even more. 🙂

This year, instead of the usual Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day celebration in school, we had a Family Day celebration in Golden Sands Hotel outdoors instead.  So 2 Sundays ago saw us all making a trip to Batu Feringghi.

The kids were, of course, excited about the whole thing, because part of the program was a play session in AdventureZone!

The event was themed Batik Beach Day, so I got them all to dress up in batik attire:

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Weather that day was slightly threatening, and we were treated to intermittent showers during the event.

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Nevertheless, we all had a lot of fun, as can be seen in the pictures I managed to capture below:

Getting ready for…

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Every Limbo boy and girl
All around the Limbo world
Gonna do the Limbo rock
All around the Limbo clock

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Jack be Limbo, Jack be quick
Jack go under Limbo stick
All around the Limbo clock
Hey, let’s do the Limbo rock!
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Initially, our little princess was feeling restless and rather sleepy…

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…but soon warmed up and participated in the fun activities (although some were quite haphazard LOL)…

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Daddy also participated in the tug-o-war on the beach…look at Daddy go! 😀

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The tug-o-war event was divided into 3 categories: Daddies, Mommies and kids… let me just say that it’s not very flattering to be pulling hard on a rope when you’re dressed in a sarong pareo.  Good thing Daddy forgot to use the zoom on my camera 😛

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We then adjourned to AdventureZone for a little while (no pictures, sorry!) and then moved on to another fun activity which we all enjoyed: The Sand Castle building competition.

It took some practice to get the ratio of sand to water right in order to erect structures on the beach.  The kids had a blast helping to collect water, pat the sand into buckets and then create our sandcastle.

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We had no plan in mind whatsoever what to build, but ended up creating a fish-shaped castle.  Can you see the fish? 😛

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It was a truly fun-filled Family Day and the kids especially had a whale of a time!  We were all exhausted but everyone enjoyed themselves 🙂

Fire Trucks – A Story by Ethan

May 4, 2012 in Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones | 4 comments

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While I was busy sewing the tooth pouch, Ethan decided to write his first book.  Yeah, no kidding.  All his own ideas and words, with no help at all from us.

He finished the book on that day itself, and I’d asked him if he would like to color his illustrations too.  He agreed.

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So after a few days of coloring, he finally completed his first masterpiece: Fire Trucks. 🙂

Here’s Ethan reading the book he wrote:

I love how detailed he was, for instance his book is from the Baby Kids series, and he even wrote the recommended age group for this book on the cover (2-4); according to Ethan, kids older than 4 might find this book a little bit boring (LOL!).  On the back, he wrote a personal message to the readers: “I hope you love my first book!”

Yesterday, he started on Baby Kids Cars, his second book; and he told me he would be working on a  Bumper Issue next!  He’s wondering if anyone would buy his first book now…Anyone?  Anyone? 🙂

Time to “Be Prepared”

April 24, 2012 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | 4 comments

It’s inevitable. We all know it is.

It’s merely a matter of when.
And Ethan is as excited as ever…for whatever reason, I have absolutely no clue.
He has, on occasion, in an ecstatic manner, announced, “Mommy, I think my tooth is wiggling! Come check and see!”

Of course, they have all been false alarm after false alarm.  But we know the day will come when we will see a fallen tooth.

And it could be any day now.  Or week….. or month.

So.

To prepare ourselves for that momentous occasion, I decided to get a Tooth Fairy Pouch ready for him.  Ethan knows all about the “Tooth Fairy” (although he did ask rather skeptically, “Mommy, how will the Tooth Fairy know where to get the tooth?”)

Anyways, it’s all for fun…and my googling led me to a site that provided instructions on how to make/sew my own tooth fairy pouch!  Very very cool.  Hey, I only had a small plastic box when I was a little girl, ya know…

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It was also something Ethan could relate to at some level, because he told me a classmate of his brings a tooth pouch to school in case her tooth dropped in school.

I got this done in about an hour (including kid interruption time) and well, now we are *prepared* 🙂

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Things Kids Say: Reason

April 21, 2012 in Funny Moments, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | No comments

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Hannah has a habit of biting on straws when she drinks from them.  Obviously the straw will become flat and eventually she won’t be able to drink from it anymore.

This conversation took place just now when I was helping her “unflatten” her straw from her Vitagen drink.

“Mommy, I cannot drink from the straw…”
“Here, let me help you…now Hannah, you need to remember to try not to bite on the straw when you drink, okay?”
“But…but….”
“..otherwise the straw will go flat and you won’t be able to drink from it anymore…”
“But Mommy…I cannot!  My teeth are in the way!”

Priceless reasoning?  You bet. 😀

**By the way, I have no idea where she learnt how to pose like that.  She just wanted a picture with Ronald McDonald and came up with it herself!***

A Taste of Homework

April 20, 2012 in Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 1 comment

Hannah recovered from her recent case of HFMD within 4-5 days.  However, she could not yet go back to school this week, because unfortunately there were several other cases of the HFMD reported amongst her classmates.  So the school decided to close her class for the week.

To keep the kids *occupied* at home, her class teachers prepared some *work* for them to complete at home.

What?  Work?  Homework?  At her age?

Well, it was more like arts and craft stuff for her to have fun, but Hannah was very eager to do her *homework*, because she always sees Ethan doing some homework, when she has none.

So yesterday morning, I guided her in her *homework*, and we had so much fun too!  See how she would smile and pose for the camera? 🙂

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Success Story: The Tale of Toilet Training

April 5, 2012 in Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones | 2 comments

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There’s no hard and fast rule about when and how to toilet train a child, but experts say that if the child is ready, half the battle is won.  Some people choose to *make* the child ready by programming them to go potty from the onstart, but I was of the *other* school of thought and only began starting Ethan on toilet training after he turned 3.

Yes, you may have noticed that I hardly blogged about toilet training because I wanted it to happen naturally, or so I thought.  I also didn’t wanna jinx the process by blogging about it and then having to retract whatever I had written.  You could say that I wanted to wait till the entire process was completed before I wrote about it.

I’m extremely proud of my little boy … now my little man.  Although it was a process that took us 3 years to complete, I’m so happy that through it all, he feels a sense of achievement in what he is doing.  The initial struggle has been well worth it.

Because once it happens, it just does.

In the Beginning

Ethan was able to let us know when he wanted to poopoo when he was about 2+, and that helped loads.  But the peepee portion was the one that was eluding us.  I tried taking him to the toilet every now and then, but I could tell he was not ready.  Even though he was in cloth diapers then, which were supposed to speed up toilet training, he just wasn’t ready.

We had a few successes during our US relocation, as sometimes he would peepee successfully when we take him to the toilet.

At other times, though, he just wasn’t interested.

So we decided to go cold turkey and put him in underpants.  But even then, he would not feel uncomfortable when he had small accidents.  Time and again, we went back to square one, and we were not going anywhere.  I tried sticker charts (1 sticker for a successful peepee and 2 for a successful poopoo).  It worked for a while but then the novelty wore off and he would go back to wearing his pull-ups.

I admit I did worry a little as to when he would be toilet-trained, but then I kept reminding myself that there weren’t any teenagers I knew who weren’t toilet-trained, so I knew the day he would be completely trained would come some day.  The question is just when.

Admittedly, it’s difficult when we were in the minority.  When people around you tell you about their kids who are toilet-trained since 2, you just have to learn to smile and say, “He’ll be ready soon.”

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Monopoly Without Monopolizing

April 2, 2012 in Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 1 comment

Every time Daddy comes back from a business trip, Ethan and Hannah would eagerly await his return.  It is still unclear as to whether they look forward more to seeing him or if they look forward to the goodies he brings back for them.

A few months ago, when he returned from one of his trips, he brought back a board game that Ethan had wanted for the longest time: not the regular Monopoly, mind you…but Cars Monopoly!

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It states clearly on the box that the game is to be played by kids 5 years and over only, but because Hannah also wanted to play, we told her she could play only under adult supervision.

Well, fast forward a few months later and now, we can see that it is one of the most-loved board games both Ethan and Hannah enjoy together.  Hannah would request that we play with her, and now she understands the rules pretty well.

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It’s not just mere entertainment though, this game teaches:

  • Taking turns
  • Counting (and moving your piece accordingly) – Hannah can now do it independently
  • The names of all the Cars 2 characters which are on the board
  • Money handling
  • How to lose gracefully
  • How not to brag when you’re winning (well okay, we’re still working on that)

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  • Counting out the correct amount of money to buy the particular car parking space – a very good skill to have, in preparation for the future, i.e. buying stuff
  • Saying “Please” and “Thank you” where money is exchanged

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In short, I have nothing but good things to say about this game, which after all, is proving to be so much more than just that.

We’re Playing Chinese!

March 29, 2012 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | 4 comments

Well…look what we have here….Ethan has been playing with this new electronic toy/tablet for about a week now.

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When I was first introduced to this PlayChinese tablet, I was a little apprehensive about getting it for him.  It’s basically an Android-based tablet-like device which encourages users to learn Chinese by merely Playing it!  There are Chinese characters which allow you to practise the strokes and verbal pronunciations to help the user pronounce it.  What’s attractive is that points are allocated each time you write a character.

Well, I said I was apprehensive at first because I figured I could perhaps find a similar app in iTunes for him.  So I searched.

I did find a few apps and when Ethan tried them, he was initially excited, but then he told me, “Mommy, I WISH I had a pen to write the characters with!”

You see, the apps which I found for the iPad and iPhone only allowed him to write using his fingertips.

So I decided to try this PlayChinese tablet out.

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Well, so far so good.  It comes with 4 colorful stylus pens, which allows you to *write* on the tablet, just like the days of the Palm Pilot.  And Ethan is very happy to write the characters with them too.

Our intention is for Ethan to learn the verbal aspect of Chinese first, but if he shows a keen interest on writing it, then let it be.  After all, he will not be going to a Chinese-medium school, and we won’t be forcing him to do anything he does not like.

This 7-inch tablet appears to fit the bill quite well.  Ethan is currently practising his writing as well as the Chinese spelling exercises I prepared for him.  Oh yeah, they have pinyin capabilities too, which makes it easier for me to *locate* characters…

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Next step is probably to get a nice casing and screen protector for this tablet!

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