Brought Jiale for his trial class at Playdays at Mountbatten Centre this morning. And yes, we have signed up for a term!
This is a drop-off class for 1.5-year-olds to 2.5-year-olds. 10 students in the class, 3 teachers. While I was chatting with one of the teachers at the start of the class, she warned me that as this was the 2nd week of the new term, there were still quite a few newbies, and thus, to be prepared for quite a lot of crying. She also told me it's ok for me to stay for the entire class or to leave anytime. The class started with free play, with wooden toy furniture and a playhouse, a magnetic 'fishing' car set, and some painting with Dot-A-Dot pens. As more kids came in and the parents gradually left the room, I realised the teacher was not kidding. The crying was sooooo loud and sooooo whiny..! I really admired the teachers for being able to tolerate it! So, the 3 teachers ended up with one crying baby at their hip each, while they played with the other kids. Jiale was not very happy when we entered the classroom, I guess he recognized it as a 'school setting' and realised mummy might be abandoning him soon. But he soon calmed down as I promised him I would be with him. He soon started exploring the room and the toys, also playing on and off with the other kids, especially one boy who was one month older than him, often glancing at me (to check I was still there, I think!)
Gosh, though it was just a few hours ago, I realised I can't recall much about the class! Faintz.. my memory is getting from bad to worse.. OK, I THINK after the free play (about 30 minutes), there was music and dance for a short while.. Then the kids went out to the playground, where there were quite a few tricycles, cars (Little Tikes type), skate scooters etc, and a big enclosed (with net) trampoline, and a simple play structure (again, Little Tikes type). Jiale was playing quite ok for a while, then he decided to be unhappy.. dunno why!! He was ok again when the class went back to the classroom.
Then.. I THINK it was snack time.. (really can't recall!! Urgh!) The kids were given a bowl of plain white rice with some seaweed, followed by dried strawberries (like raisins) and fresh grapes. Oh ya, since they first came in, cheese crackers were available almost all the time, and greedy Jiale ate 3.5 pieces! (the 0.5 came from a classmate who offered it to Jiale)
Towards the end of snack time, one of the teachers started changing the diapers for the kids one by one. I changed for Jiale since I was there.
After snack time, it was art time. The kids were given a cut-out of the number two and rollers with trays of paint. It was about 11.30am when they finished with the painting, and then a Chinese teacher came in for Chinese time. The Chinese segment of the class was conducted in the format of a game, just like the rest of the class. The lao shi brought with her 2 big containers and some plastic duckies, filled the containers with some water, and let the kids catch the duckies with scoops & nets. (Just like what we do at home! haha!) Then she sang Chinese songs with kids and they danced in a group. But I think Jiale was quite exhausted by then, and he didn't join in the singing or dancing, just lay on the floor with his head in my lap. Though it was still early for his nap, I think 2+ hours of class was too siong for him, especially since he wasn't used to school at all.
At the end of the class, the parents joined in for a short segment of songs and the kids also played with bubbles.
So, why did I decide to sign up despite Jiale's still obvious reluctance to join in the activities and to let mummy leave the room? Hmm, I am glad I stayed on for the entire class, cos I saw how patient the teachers were with the 3 other kids who cried for almost 2 hours..! I know Jiale would definitely cry when I first leave the class, but I am quite sure he will not cry for so long. Furthermore, the type of activities are exactly the things that will be able to distract him, haha. I think with me around today, he was not able to participate fully cos he had to keep coming back to me to make sure I wasn't going to disappear. Quite a few times, I saw him looking with great interest at what the teachers & other kids were doing while he was standing next to me. Having stayed on for the whole class with him today, I hope he won't be so scared the next time since he will be able to know roughly what's coming next, and the place isn't completely new by then.
Frankly speaking, while I like the teachers and the play-based ideology, I was not impressed by the activities. For example, while they were doing art, it seemed a bit too rushed.. Understandable, cos other than the activities, the teachers also had to do the cleaning up and prepare for the next activity. Even with a ratio of 3 teachers to 10 students, it's still like that. Can't possibly expect a better ratio right?? Whereas when we do artwork at home, Jiale could take his time and paint to his heart's content, and add water if he likes.. or add some balls.. or add water beads.. or so many possibilities! I think at the school, there would be no way he could get his whole body 'painted' :P It was just... not so... relaxed.. Oh well, I guess he can learn to be neat & tidy while at school, and create messes to his heart's content at home : )
Anyway, since it's just for 3 hours a week, I think there's no need to worry too much about what the school is doing. I don't need the school to teach any academic stuff, in fact, I would prefer the school not to teach ANY academic stuff. I'm happy as long as they don't undo the relaxed and happy learning attitude which I am trying to inculcate in Jiale - no structure, no timetable, no lectures, no worksheets, no homework please! Homelearning is still the main course. If I were sending Jiale to daily classes, there would be sooooo many more criteria I would expect the school to fulfil! Only 3 hours.. chin chye la.. On the other hand, Playdays is already not cheap.. and I still find it lacking.. I wonder how much it will cost for a school that really satisfies me... >.<
In fact, I'm seriously considering homeschooling him.. *think think think* Just for the preschool years la, I don't dare to NOT send him to government primary schools! Anyway I love our education system and MOE syllabus and government schools... exam stress, PSLE, homework are all good, part & parcel of life la, since he's already grand old age of 7 by then. Just as long as his afternoons are still free for him to play!
At the moment though, he's still 'untamable' and I have no idea how to do 'seat work' with him, cos he can't sit still la. No point me planning lessons and he's not happy. Shall see how it goes as he gets older. Will it be too much if we are still doing play-based ONLY when he is 6 years old??? Gotta read up! For now, I only know play-based is definitely good for a 2.5-year-old monkey : )
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Classics
增广贤文 弟子规 唐诗
Bought these CDs from Popular recently.. and I LOVE them! And so does Jiale! I play them in the car and most of the time while we are at home, and now Jiale would ask me to play the CD (point at the hi-fi and say '鹅鹅') when I forget. He's often dancing to the songs and recitation, which are in very lively melodies and voices. The melodies are lovely, and the singers are good!
Listening is supposed to be one of the best ways for a young child to learn, especially since they can't read much yet. Furthermore it doesn't hurt to have the CD playing in the background while we go about our usual activities anyway, so why not? : ) I don't know about Jiale, but I have definitely picked up a few more poems since I started playing the CDs. If even my old brain is learning from the CDs, I'm sure his young fresh brain is learning much more! (but I did cheat la, cos I would refer to the lyrics as I am a very visual person. My hearing is usually affected when I can't see well, ie when I'm not wearing specs/contacts.)
But then, so what? Why need to know what chinese classics at all?? Good question. I also don't know the answer. I guess if you want to link it to some academic goal in terms of PSLE etc, they are pretty useless. Personally, though my knowledge of chinese classics is sadly lacking (no guts to take Chinese Literature in secondary school cos I was very scared of the memorizing), I am loving all the sayings.. so meaningful.. the poems are so beautiful.. I am also very pro-Chinese, as in I think it's VERY important to learn Chinese well, Chinese should be my children's first language and main foundation, and Chinese is a beautiful language (which I did not fully appreciate while I was in school).
I also truly believe that it is waaaaaay more difficult to learn Chinese than to learn English. I came from quite a good secondary school and a very good JC and there were many good students (good as in good results) around me, and I have only met people who were good in both Chinese and English, or good in English and bad in Chinese. Never met anyone who's good in Chinese and bad in English.. China scholars not withstanding (but then, even China-Chinese manage to do well enough in English to get top government scholarships!)
Ending off with one of my favourite poems (very hard to make a choice!)
日照香炉生紫烟
遥看瀑布挂前川
飞流直下三千尺
疑是银河落九天
飞流直下三千尺
疑是银河落九天
I can visualize Li Bai looking at the waterfall!
(OK, OK, I admit the CDs are for ME. My boys only 顺便 listen!)
(OK, OK, I admit the CDs are for ME. My boys only 顺便 listen!)
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Daily Routine
I love my new routine! : )
Jiale usually wakes up at 6am+. But I still wanna sleep, so I let him play with my iPhone till 7am before I drag myself out of bed. (I know it's not good for young kids to play with phone.. but there are some really good apps ya? At least it's 'controlled' cos I definitely want my phone back when I wake up :P And surprisingly, heusually returns the phone willingly and doesn't ask for the phone for the rest of the day. The only thing I am worried about is his eyes : /) Then I will do some bits & pieces around the house and give Jiale some breakfast if he wants to eat (usually not, cos he drinks milk when he wakes up), and I eat my breakfast. Didi usually wakes up a bit past 7am nowadays, he used to be able to sleep till 8.30am while I was still breastfeeding him, cos when he woke up at 5am+, I just breastfed him and he continued to sleep. Now that he's sleeping through the night, I also can't expect/hope that he will sleep till 8.30am la!
After Didi drinks (or more likely, refuses to drink) his morning milk, it will be free play or homelearning activities, OR messy/art/paint (often 3-in-1) play, depending on whether Didi can join in. Like this morning, Didi could join in to play with watercolors, so we started at 8am. Didi has to be down for his morning nap around 10am, so we have to stop by 9.15am latest for the boys' bath and breakfast. But Jiale finished up the watercolors around 9am, so we came in for bathtime. Since we were early, the boys were able to play for a longer time. Water play is definitely Didi's current favorite! 9.30am, I dragged Didi out, dressed him, gave him a drink of water, and put him down in his cot.
Having achieved so much in the morning, and since Jiale had started happily playing with his Playdoh, I gave myself a 30-min break - checked fb, drank some milo, took my morning shower, washed up the breakfast dishes, simple lunch prep.
10am, joined Jiale in his room, all ready to engage him in learning activities! But I don't have lesson plans or such things for him.. me lazy and I know he isn't likely to cooperate.. So my goal was just to play with the educational stuff (a lot!) in his room, depending on which ones he preferred. We played with Playdoh for a while more, then moved on to Mazes activity book, Go Einstein Go (a logic game), Chinese dominos, a fishing game, a board game (to learn turns-taking & moving by throwing dice, and counting the dots on the dice), a spatial learning game (the free gift that comes with Enfagrow, dunno how to describe it), a sticker game book, a buttoning activity.. I think that's about it.. before Didi woke up.
If Didi can't join in the activitiy (no shaving foam for Didi yet!!), we will do the activity during Didi's morning nap. This pretty much means not much learning stuff in the morning, cos the only alone time I have with Jiale is spent creating & undoing a mess :P
Time for Didi's milk feed again. If Jiale is not doing anything much or in his room, I will go to his room with Didi and try to do more learning stuff with Jiale while Didi plays on his own. But for today, Jiale was already engrossed with his trains at the balcony (trains area) when Didi was done with his milk. So we joined him there. The brothers promptly proceeded to forget about mummy and just played with each other and the trains : ) So I just hung around and sang along with the CD and watched them play.
(Oh ya, for the morning learning time, if Jiale is engaged in something else, eg trains, I won't disrupt him. Will let him continue doing whatever he is doing.)
1pm, time for Brillkids. I let them watch one lesson each of Chinese, English & Math a day, total less than 20 minutes. By 1.30pm, they eat lunch. After that, Jiale goes for nap. Didi might nap at the same time as Jiale or slightly later, depending on how long he naps in the morning. He had a 2.5 hour nap this morning, so I let him stay up till 2.30pm.
Once Jiale goes in for his nap, it's FREE time for me! Even if Didi is awake, he is perfectly happy playing on his own.. probably because Jiale isn't around to snatch toys, haha! So while Didi explores around the house, I eat my lunch. I have at least one hour to myself while both the boys are napping. During my break, I either read parenting books or read blogs, and of course, fb! It's also because I have this free time that I am able to blog. (Only one computer at home and hubby uses it when he comes back from work.) Used to prepare the afternoon play activity during this time too, but nowadays I bring the boys out to playground around 4pm, no time for anything else, so it also saves me some prep time.
Home around 6.30pm, bathe the boys, prepare a quick dinner for them, they eat, then drink milk. After milk, Didi goes to bed, around 7.30pm. Then it's bedtime stories for Jiale, and he's off to bed at 8pm. End of the workday for me!
Hubby comes back from work with takeaway dinner, we eat together, watch TV. I read parenting books and prepare for the next morning's play activity. Still fb-ing, on my phone, lol.
I'm so much happier now that I have a routine that works. For quite time, I have been coping quite well with the mundane stuff like getting the boys fed and bathed etc. But I felt something was lacking.. sometimes whole days went by without having really 'done' anything.. Did they learn anything? What did I achieve? What did I do with them having spent the whole day together? So I thought about it and set out priorities - messy play? homelearning? dvds? computer? outdoor play? I realised that if I did not plan, and just 'see how', usually nothing got done. It would of course be perfect if I could incorporate everything everyday.. But it's just not possible.. If I wanna spend more time at home doing learning stuff, I would not be able to let them go outdoors for two hours.. If I give up the messy play in favor of learning stuff... I don't want. So I accept that I CANNOT do everything. Umm, so learning stuff has been kicked to the lowest priority - small pockets of time in the day, as and when I'm free and he's interested, or when it rains in the afternoon and we can't go to the playground.. provided he doesn't get caught up with his trains again!
Jiale usually wakes up at 6am+. But I still wanna sleep, so I let him play with my iPhone till 7am before I drag myself out of bed. (I know it's not good for young kids to play with phone.. but there are some really good apps ya? At least it's 'controlled' cos I definitely want my phone back when I wake up :P And surprisingly, heusually returns the phone willingly and doesn't ask for the phone for the rest of the day. The only thing I am worried about is his eyes : /) Then I will do some bits & pieces around the house and give Jiale some breakfast if he wants to eat (usually not, cos he drinks milk when he wakes up), and I eat my breakfast. Didi usually wakes up a bit past 7am nowadays, he used to be able to sleep till 8.30am while I was still breastfeeding him, cos when he woke up at 5am+, I just breastfed him and he continued to sleep. Now that he's sleeping through the night, I also can't expect/hope that he will sleep till 8.30am la!
After Didi drinks (or more likely, refuses to drink) his morning milk, it will be free play or homelearning activities, OR messy/art/paint (often 3-in-1) play, depending on whether Didi can join in. Like this morning, Didi could join in to play with watercolors, so we started at 8am. Didi has to be down for his morning nap around 10am, so we have to stop by 9.15am latest for the boys' bath and breakfast. But Jiale finished up the watercolors around 9am, so we came in for bathtime. Since we were early, the boys were able to play for a longer time. Water play is definitely Didi's current favorite! 9.30am, I dragged Didi out, dressed him, gave him a drink of water, and put him down in his cot.
Having achieved so much in the morning, and since Jiale had started happily playing with his Playdoh, I gave myself a 30-min break - checked fb, drank some milo, took my morning shower, washed up the breakfast dishes, simple lunch prep.
10am, joined Jiale in his room, all ready to engage him in learning activities! But I don't have lesson plans or such things for him.. me lazy and I know he isn't likely to cooperate.. So my goal was just to play with the educational stuff (a lot!) in his room, depending on which ones he preferred. We played with Playdoh for a while more, then moved on to Mazes activity book, Go Einstein Go (a logic game), Chinese dominos, a fishing game, a board game (to learn turns-taking & moving by throwing dice, and counting the dots on the dice), a spatial learning game (the free gift that comes with Enfagrow, dunno how to describe it), a sticker game book, a buttoning activity.. I think that's about it.. before Didi woke up.
If Didi can't join in the activitiy (no shaving foam for Didi yet!!), we will do the activity during Didi's morning nap. This pretty much means not much learning stuff in the morning, cos the only alone time I have with Jiale is spent creating & undoing a mess :P
Time for Didi's milk feed again. If Jiale is not doing anything much or in his room, I will go to his room with Didi and try to do more learning stuff with Jiale while Didi plays on his own. But for today, Jiale was already engrossed with his trains at the balcony (trains area) when Didi was done with his milk. So we joined him there. The brothers promptly proceeded to forget about mummy and just played with each other and the trains : ) So I just hung around and sang along with the CD and watched them play.
(Oh ya, for the morning learning time, if Jiale is engaged in something else, eg trains, I won't disrupt him. Will let him continue doing whatever he is doing.)
1pm, time for Brillkids. I let them watch one lesson each of Chinese, English & Math a day, total less than 20 minutes. By 1.30pm, they eat lunch. After that, Jiale goes for nap. Didi might nap at the same time as Jiale or slightly later, depending on how long he naps in the morning. He had a 2.5 hour nap this morning, so I let him stay up till 2.30pm.
Once Jiale goes in for his nap, it's FREE time for me! Even if Didi is awake, he is perfectly happy playing on his own.. probably because Jiale isn't around to snatch toys, haha! So while Didi explores around the house, I eat my lunch. I have at least one hour to myself while both the boys are napping. During my break, I either read parenting books or read blogs, and of course, fb! It's also because I have this free time that I am able to blog. (Only one computer at home and hubby uses it when he comes back from work.) Used to prepare the afternoon play activity during this time too, but nowadays I bring the boys out to playground around 4pm, no time for anything else, so it also saves me some prep time.
Home around 6.30pm, bathe the boys, prepare a quick dinner for them, they eat, then drink milk. After milk, Didi goes to bed, around 7.30pm. Then it's bedtime stories for Jiale, and he's off to bed at 8pm. End of the workday for me!
Hubby comes back from work with takeaway dinner, we eat together, watch TV. I read parenting books and prepare for the next morning's play activity. Still fb-ing, on my phone, lol.
I'm so much happier now that I have a routine that works. For quite time, I have been coping quite well with the mundane stuff like getting the boys fed and bathed etc. But I felt something was lacking.. sometimes whole days went by without having really 'done' anything.. Did they learn anything? What did I achieve? What did I do with them having spent the whole day together? So I thought about it and set out priorities - messy play? homelearning? dvds? computer? outdoor play? I realised that if I did not plan, and just 'see how', usually nothing got done. It would of course be perfect if I could incorporate everything everyday.. But it's just not possible.. If I wanna spend more time at home doing learning stuff, I would not be able to let them go outdoors for two hours.. If I give up the messy play in favor of learning stuff... I don't want. So I accept that I CANNOT do everything. Umm, so learning stuff has been kicked to the lowest priority - small pockets of time in the day, as and when I'm free and he's interested, or when it rains in the afternoon and we can't go to the playground.. provided he doesn't get caught up with his trains again!
Time Out Part 2
Left out some points in the previous post.
From what I gathered from books and online sources, the time out venue is supposed where he can see you and you can see him, and of course, safe. Also not supposed to use bedroom cos bedroom is supposed to be associated with only happy memories :P Well, I'm using his bedroom and I intend to continue doing so. This time out memories can't be worse than CIO memories.. and he has been happily sleeping in that room for the past 2 years (since CIO)!
Things which I use time out for: hitting/kicking/pushing/throwing things at mummy, daddy & Didi, and doing a very high-pitched scream (AAAAAAAAAHHHHH..!!!). Only these, never used it for unreasonable tantrums (usually due to frustration when he couldn't complete a task on his own or just for no apparent reason). Yet, such unreasonable tantrums seem to have vanished!
Children are happiest when the parents are in control : )
From what I gathered from books and online sources, the time out venue is supposed where he can see you and you can see him, and of course, safe. Also not supposed to use bedroom cos bedroom is supposed to be associated with only happy memories :P Well, I'm using his bedroom and I intend to continue doing so. This time out memories can't be worse than CIO memories.. and he has been happily sleeping in that room for the past 2 years (since CIO)!
Things which I use time out for: hitting/kicking/pushing/throwing things at mummy, daddy & Didi, and doing a very high-pitched scream (AAAAAAAAAHHHHH..!!!). Only these, never used it for unreasonable tantrums (usually due to frustration when he couldn't complete a task on his own or just for no apparent reason). Yet, such unreasonable tantrums seem to have vanished!
Children are happiest when the parents are in control : )
Time Out
Noticed I have been complaining less on fb this past week? It's because of this miraculous thing called time out! I have never read much about it cos I never thought it would really work.. not for Jiale anyway, or at least, or till he's much older. But last Thursday, I was really driven to desperation. Not that he did anything especially unbearable, it was just one of his usual tantrums. But I really do not wish to lose my temper toward him anymore.. I'm sure a tantrum from mummy in response to his tantrum will not solve any problems, to say the least. I was desperate because holding it all in was killing me! Being nice & patient was killing me! Almost had massive internal bleeding oredi lor.
So, I just decided to give him a time out, there and then. No time to read or research or ask around. Just Did It. Told him 'cannot _ _ _', carried him to his room, and I locked the door. Opened the door after 2 minutes (read that it's supposed to be 1 minute for each year of age. Very luckily, it's one of the few things I did remember about time outs!) When I went in, he was sitting on his bed and he had calmed down quite a lot. He asked for 'bao bao' and of course I gave him a big hug immediately. Reminded him that I love him no matter how naughty he is, and also reminded him he cannot _ _ _.
Ok Ok, I know not supposed to lock him in... but I didn't know this till I read up that night! AFTER I did it. I am not proud of it.. but since this blog is to share my experiences.. no point writing half-truths just to look good :P
Did it a couple more times that day. The next day, I think, only once. None over the weekend. (He did hit/try to hit daddy a few times, but I did not want to be the one sending him to time out when I did not see him hitting and thus was unable to follow up immediately. I did not encourage daddy to send him to time out either as I felt that we were new to this, and I would like him to observe how I do it first before he does it, so that we would be consistent.) These two days, only once (for hitting Didi), but I can't recall whether it was Monday or yesterday.
The main point is, the number of tantrums has decreased significantly! He seems much more responsive to warnings and reminders. For example, previously when I saw Jiale and Didi both playing with the same toy at the same time, I would watch them closely and step in once the situation seemed to be getting 'unfriendly'. The first step of 'stepping in' usually was to remind Jiale 'cannot hit Didi'. But often, he would go ahead and hit anyway. Now, he would curb himself!
(I decided to continue to lock his door, rationalization being that CIO was much tougher than this - only 2 minutes! And don't change what works :P)
Wow it sure feels GREAT to be able to take some action when dealing with 'situations'. Before I started time outs, there was basically nothing much I could do.... I don't want to use corporal punishment.. I don't want to shout at him... I think reasoning with him is a waste of my time.. (even if understand, I doubt he will be in the mood to listen or CARE. Cos it's no different from nagging.)
I think he knows it too. While mummy couldn't do anything then, mummy CAN and WILL do it now! Ha ha! Though it's only for 2 minutes, it probably feels like an eternity to him.. furthermore he's used to being around me almost all the time.
This brings me back to his daily routine, especially how I am very strict with him with regards to his napping & bedtime, from his CIO sleep training, to transiting to a bed from cot, etc. He knows mummy will never let him not nap or allow him to stay up later no matter what he does (cry, walks out of room a million times, asks for water or this or that). Thus he can relax and trust and leave it to mummy. I believe all children like to test boundaries and can be very stubborn, and that they are happier with firm & clear rules & boundaries. So mummy has to be more stubborn. Luckily, being stubborn is not a problem for me, haha :P
So, I just decided to give him a time out, there and then. No time to read or research or ask around. Just Did It. Told him 'cannot _ _ _', carried him to his room, and I locked the door. Opened the door after 2 minutes (read that it's supposed to be 1 minute for each year of age. Very luckily, it's one of the few things I did remember about time outs!) When I went in, he was sitting on his bed and he had calmed down quite a lot. He asked for 'bao bao' and of course I gave him a big hug immediately. Reminded him that I love him no matter how naughty he is, and also reminded him he cannot _ _ _.
Ok Ok, I know not supposed to lock him in... but I didn't know this till I read up that night! AFTER I did it. I am not proud of it.. but since this blog is to share my experiences.. no point writing half-truths just to look good :P
Did it a couple more times that day. The next day, I think, only once. None over the weekend. (He did hit/try to hit daddy a few times, but I did not want to be the one sending him to time out when I did not see him hitting and thus was unable to follow up immediately. I did not encourage daddy to send him to time out either as I felt that we were new to this, and I would like him to observe how I do it first before he does it, so that we would be consistent.) These two days, only once (for hitting Didi), but I can't recall whether it was Monday or yesterday.
The main point is, the number of tantrums has decreased significantly! He seems much more responsive to warnings and reminders. For example, previously when I saw Jiale and Didi both playing with the same toy at the same time, I would watch them closely and step in once the situation seemed to be getting 'unfriendly'. The first step of 'stepping in' usually was to remind Jiale 'cannot hit Didi'. But often, he would go ahead and hit anyway. Now, he would curb himself!
(I decided to continue to lock his door, rationalization being that CIO was much tougher than this - only 2 minutes! And don't change what works :P)
Wow it sure feels GREAT to be able to take some action when dealing with 'situations'. Before I started time outs, there was basically nothing much I could do.... I don't want to use corporal punishment.. I don't want to shout at him... I think reasoning with him is a waste of my time.. (even if understand, I doubt he will be in the mood to listen or CARE. Cos it's no different from nagging.)
I think he knows it too. While mummy couldn't do anything then, mummy CAN and WILL do it now! Ha ha! Though it's only for 2 minutes, it probably feels like an eternity to him.. furthermore he's used to being around me almost all the time.
This brings me back to his daily routine, especially how I am very strict with him with regards to his napping & bedtime, from his CIO sleep training, to transiting to a bed from cot, etc. He knows mummy will never let him not nap or allow him to stay up later no matter what he does (cry, walks out of room a million times, asks for water or this or that). Thus he can relax and trust and leave it to mummy. I believe all children like to test boundaries and can be very stubborn, and that they are happier with firm & clear rules & boundaries. So mummy has to be more stubborn. Luckily, being stubborn is not a problem for me, haha :P
I'm back!
Used to have a blog long ago.. but had not updated for quite some time, can't find it anymore : / Fortunately I can use back the same blog title! Though it's not that apt now as I will be mainly blogging about my children here, I shall use it for 怀旧purpose. But of course, I am even more 幸福 now with two children! : )
A few ideas of what to blog about:
1) What we play. I get most of my ideas from other blogs as I am definitely lacking in creativity, but those are usually non-local blogs. I will share where/how I find the materials (or substitutes) needed for the activity.
2) Just ordered Letterland to start on phonics with Jiale. Phonics is really giving me a big headache (the biggest of all academic stuff!!) cos it wasn't in the syllabus when I was in school eons ago. Gotta start from scratch. Leapfrog DVDs have been a great help cos now Jiale and I know the basic sounds of the 26 letters in the alphabet. However quite a few letters have more than one sound, and there are more chim things like blending & dunno-what-else down the road..
I chose Letterland for very simple reasons. Lol. Because another mummy is using it, and she is very dedicated to homelearning with her daughter despite being a FTWM (*kowtow*). Thus, I believe she would have diligently done adequate research before choosing Letterland. She has also been using it for some time, so it should be 'safe'!
http://beanienus.blogspot.com/2012/02/world-of-letterland.html
Urmm, second reason is even more bo liao. It's because I already have 3 Letterland books, haha. Bought when Jiale was... umm.. 3 months old, maybe? That time, anyhow buy.. Now then I realise how useful they are! So, anyway, I shall be updating on our phonics adventure!
3) Can't remember what else. Spent too much time on the 2nd point. Lol. Never mind.
A few ideas of what to blog about:
1) What we play. I get most of my ideas from other blogs as I am definitely lacking in creativity, but those are usually non-local blogs. I will share where/how I find the materials (or substitutes) needed for the activity.
2) Just ordered Letterland to start on phonics with Jiale. Phonics is really giving me a big headache (the biggest of all academic stuff!!) cos it wasn't in the syllabus when I was in school eons ago. Gotta start from scratch. Leapfrog DVDs have been a great help cos now Jiale and I know the basic sounds of the 26 letters in the alphabet. However quite a few letters have more than one sound, and there are more chim things like blending & dunno-what-else down the road..
I chose Letterland for very simple reasons. Lol. Because another mummy is using it, and she is very dedicated to homelearning with her daughter despite being a FTWM (*kowtow*). Thus, I believe she would have diligently done adequate research before choosing Letterland. She has also been using it for some time, so it should be 'safe'!
http://beanienus.blogspot.com/2012/02/world-of-letterland.html
Urmm, second reason is even more bo liao. It's because I already have 3 Letterland books, haha. Bought when Jiale was... umm.. 3 months old, maybe? That time, anyhow buy.. Now then I realise how useful they are! So, anyway, I shall be updating on our phonics adventure!
3) Can't remember what else. Spent too much time on the 2nd point. Lol. Never mind.
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