The "Yes" Mom

"Can't you ask her to sit down?" 

"Aren't you going to scold her?"

"If she's my kid, I am going to whack her",

said my mother and brothers. My darling dad just shook his head.

Obviously the person they were berating was me and the subject of their despair was Dragon girl.

I just shrugged, "That's just who she is and she wouldn't understand even if I beat her. Watch this,"
I grabbed hold of my daughter to keep her still for 2 seconds. She started wriggling, kicking and shouting. I looked over at my mom and said, "See? You come and try la"

After 5 minutes of going nuts, I asked for a high chair, sat her down and fed her. In 15 minutes, she went bonkers again. Usually, I will just let her be but this time, I was a little apprehensive because it was a steamboat restaurant. But it was one of those classier ones with clean floors and electrical stove. Still,  we all ate quickly and left.

Oh, Dragon girl. What am I going to do with you?

I heard all children who are born in the year of Dragon are like this. 

Haha, blame the zodiac. How professional!

 

I do not hit my kids. I try not to even scold or yell unless they:

1. Attempt to injure themselves. Like trying to leap of the first floor or play with fire.

2. Attempt to cause harm to others. No hitting/biting other children.

3. Think they can get away with bad attitude such as shouting at elders or kicking doors.

**Fighting among themselves are allowed as long as nobody gets killed. Bones can be mended. Wounds can be cleaned.

Coming back to my boogie woogie girl. 

That her on the stage, dancing for everyone.

Fell of the stage once and didn't even flinch. 

She just hopped right back on and continued dancing and running.

Mama is her biggest fan

I already know she will need lots of outdoor time. Probably taekwondo, ballet, gymnastics, rock climbing & drama classes just to burn off all that excess energy.

And I know she doesn't like studying like her brother. Despite being exposed to so many letters, numbers, shapes, etc......she just wants to play and play she will.

I have no expectations for her to meet. Neither do I want to force her to perform academically. She will be who she is and we will let her creativity and stubbornness shine. This one will not be a typical grade A student. She will be the one giving the teacher a headache, not doing homework, wearing nail polish, skipping classes, etc. I can feel it already.

She will always be my sweetheart and papa's little girl.

I cannot imagine how anyone can hurt little girls.

They are just so, so precious.

 

She is oh-so-brave, she scares me.

Never one to back down from a fight.

Ain't afraid of heights

Attempts anything without a second thought,

Not frightened of strangers, animals or the dark.

Loves the stage and attention.

Anything Tiger can do, she will try to do it better.

 I choose to believe that she is meant for big things.

And who am I to tell her no?

So, let me be the 'yes' mom.

Go, be fearless. Do your thing.

I will right behind you, guiding and supporting you.

Tot School: 23.5 months

This is a very late report on Tiger's schooling activities at 23.5 months.

He is still very into alphabets at the moment and sees them everywhere. Even when he spat out his cherry tomato the other day and it landed in a v-shape, he shouted, "Mama, see...V"

Speech is developing well and he surprises me all the time. Last night we went for dinner to celebrate Grandma's b'day and as we were leaving, I spotted the cutest Reebok basketball shoes. Tiger refused to try them and when I presented him with an array of shoes (that I thought were super cute) he shook his head and said, "No nice, mama" When I asked him which one did he liked best, he pointed at his own scruffy sneakers and said, "This one". Even the poor sales girl was laughing and she said, "Your son is saving money for you." So, we left the shop with zero purchase.

I am so proud that he is really keen on reading these days, especially the Brillkids books. Every night, he would choose a few and bring them to bed so that we could cuddle and read them till bedtime. I am just glad that book baskets could be part of his busy bags/baskets now....woohoo!

Daddy is allowed to read too ^.^

Fine motor wise, he is now able to draw circles and several alphabets like V, l, t, etc

<<< >>>

Here are some shots that I would like to cherish and share. We did a lot of other stuff but some involved nudity on my part (painting during bath time kind of stuff) which might be offensive to some :p

He LOVED the simple alphabet book that I put together.

We used stickers, dot painters and his new M&D stampers, etc

Shape finders and the silicone shapes

He can recognize and name most of them now except diamond.

Music: with tuning fork

More alphabet.

He MUST put them in sequence, MUST!

Alphabet game:

Jumping on alphabets Mommy called out.

Chicka chicka Boom boom and his mini foam alphabets.

He LOVED this game that he created himself.

"Mama, sing"

Then, he places the alphabets on the pages like a puzzle

A renewed interest in Alphie

Math:

Mini magnets game and buttons

Reading & props:

The Carrot Seed with pipe cleaners, toy carrots and faux grass.
Here he was watering the seed.
We used some pipe cleaners as weeds

Pretend play:

Teacher-student (Mr Bear)

Teaching Mr Bear the name of the planets

Sensory bin:

His recycled rainbow bin.

We added some mini dinosaurs and foam alphabets
He calls it 'wice'

Daddy time:

Playing his "drum" to Jolly phonics

Mini "fun thinker' from Popular Bookstore.

He enjoyed this as well.

During the two weeks, Tiger ignored the finger puppets

Most of the activities we did revolved around his love of the alphabets at the moment.

So, I just played along.

Anything for you, baby!

Right brain

We are doing home practise on a nightly basis.

I will write more about this soon.

We are enjoying our Sunday classes at Ditoso and Tiger's showing progress.

Tweedlewink

We are attending our last class tonight...sigh...

We will miss it for sure

Brillkids

Umm, we kinda skipped this a lot this week

Linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1 = 1 

Puzzles: Fun Thinkers

For the past two weeks, Lil Tiger's been identifying similar objects in his surrounding environment and telling me, "same".  When I dressed him up like Daddy in white shirt and jeans, he was super thrilled :)

Last night after blazing through his trays and Little Reader, he asked for puzzles. I was planning to print out some simple matching cards for him when I remembered the Fun Thinker set.

Fun Thinkers set is designed for 4-12 year old. This product originated from Germany and it is represented by Grolier Asia in Malaysia. Each set comes with a hinged plastic grid and sixteen number tiles. I was told that since I bought from Grolier, there is a lifetime replacement guarantee should any cards or tiles go missing. I have yet to verify this claim but trust me, I will make a fuss if they don't since the salesman gave me such a hard time after purchasing. I am nice but only to a certain extend.

The Fun Thinker books are 11 paperbacks of different subjects:

English Levels

1. Level 1 Word Play
2. Level 2 Sounds Like Fun
3. Level 3 Word For Word Fun

Math Levels

1. Level 1 Number Count
2. Level 2 Figure On Fun
3. Level 3 Facts, Figures & Fun

Thinking Skills

1. Level 1 Shhh, I'm Thinking
2. Level 2 Mind Your P's & Clues
3. Level 3 mind Puzzles

All Around Fun

1. Rhymes & reasons
2. FunThinkers™ Match-Frame

I flipped through the books and decided that the first few pages were simple matching activities which were fine for Tiger's level.

Since he is crazy about puzzles, this was a hit. Or is it like Daddy's saying, "New toilet, nice to poop"?

Matching colours (thinking skills)

 Find the Uppercase (English)

He kept asking "Where's a?"

  Counting (Math)

He was a little upset that the numbers were not in sequence.

So, he removed the grid and did his own matching

^.^

Here's a video from Youtube showing how Fun Thinkers is used.

We have the Piccolo and Primo sets as well. Call me a kiasu :ppppp. After he is bored with this, we shall try Piccolo.

These sets are expensive, very expensive, very very expensive. I think I have made my point. You can get similar products (made in China) for a puny fraction of the price like Wisdom Star (Piccolo-like) and the Xiao Tian Cai (Fun Thinkers-like).

Tot School: A Week Without Trays

Tiger's 23.5 months

Last week, fat momma (me) did not prepare trays because:

1. I was lazy

2. Not feeling the creative forces

3. Busy preparing right brain materials

4. Giving me us a break

We did whatever Tiger wanted which was this most of the time:

He was dancing with his bells to the Japanese Alphabet Song downloaded from Brillkids.

LOVE

We also did a lot of Brillkid's Little Reader

We read a lot.

He wanted to thread but this was too tough.

"Help" was the most used word during times like these :)

So, I decided to be a better person and get my big butt moving.

These are his themeless trays for the week:

You know your social life's dead when you are up till three am doing this instead of clubbing

on a Saturday night.

The door b***h will probably bar me from entering from being "fat" anyway.

Oh, same goes for the sex life as well  :p



Left (top to bottom):
1. Music: Tuning fork and cards for C and C sharp
2. Shapes: Laminated shapes with silicone shapes
3. Alphabet: Mommy-made book  {Printed from Childcareland.com}
4. Vocabulary: Wild animals figurines, name tags, and pictures

Right (top to bottom):
1. Literature/Science: The Carrot Seed book, life cycle of carrot,
picture of real carrot, pipe cleaners for craft carrot
2. Numbers: Puzzles and beads
3. Pretend play: finger puppets and theater

 

<<< >>>

Life isn't always simple:

This is work in progress when I am working

Ditoso first lesson:

Tiger was the only student for the time being

which I don't like cause he tends to misbehave without a classmate.

He completed 95% of the work but was a bit of a diva because grandma joined us.

Anyhow, I thought he did splendidly for his first lesson.

He was exhausted and slept on the way home.

I have the sample lesson on Word.

Anyone interested please pm me in case of copyright issues.

I was thinking of removing the trays for a while to focus on right brain

but this has become a habit of sort.

Yeah, crazy.....

Happy Tot schooling!

Linking up to Tot School

Does anyone else keep typing tit instead of tot?

Right Brain: Ditoso Trial

I love the weekends! Simply because I get to spend them with my dear boy.

Funny how a simple bubble machine can bring so much joy.
So, thank you my dear sister, Ashleeprettimummy for buying this for us.

The highlight of our weekend was attending the trial class for right brain learning at Ditoso in Kota Kemuning.



I was curious to see Tiger's response to the class. The right brain method class is very different from our home practise sessions as well as Tweedlewink. At home, he gets to dictate his lessons and choose activities of his liking. Usually he would reject flashcards and right brain materials. In his Tweedlewink classes, well, since the material is cyclical, he was becoming a little restless and bored.

We met fellow blogger, Baby Darren who brought her daughter Isabel for the same trial class. Isabel is only three months older than Tiger.

Tiger who is usually slow to warm up and sensitive to new environment liked the place a lot.

There were six children in the trial class. Three girls and three boys. I am not sure about their exact age but they should be within 24-35 months. Tiger's nearly 24 months :)

We started with meditation and relaxation where they dimmed the lights while the teacher told a story of going to the park. A few children started crying, so I hugged Tiger and spoke to him softly. He was actually more relaxed after that and asked to sit on the chair by himself ^.^

The next half an hour was spent rather quickly with memory games. Tiger kept asking for more games. What's wrong with MY games at home? @.@

The flashcard segment was really fast, about three cards a second. Since I was the one who flashed to Tiger usually, this was the first time I was at the receiving end. Surprisingly, you can actually see each card clearly and Tiger was totally captivated and stayed focus the entire time. He was totally soaking it up!

I am not expecting Lil Tiger to develop super human memory or ESP powers with right brain training.

What I personally like about the method is the fact that it centers the childs attention & focus and I think we all understand how important those qualities are in life long learning. Maybe that's why children who attends Shichida classes fare better than their peers. It is their ability to pin point their concentration and maximise their absorption while others are running about and day dreaming during lessons.

I was explaining this to hubby (and MIL indirectly) en route to Midvalley after the trial class so that they can understand why I am paying so much for the lessons. Note the I AM PAYING.

Daddy  :   Wah. The lessons cost so much? Darn that HSBC message service. Hubs basically knows how much I spend each time I use the credit card >.<

Mommy: He really enjoyed the lessons. He was so focused.

Daddy  : New toilet, nice to shit (translated from Hokkien)

Grandma: WAHAHAHA!

Mommy: @.@

I have signed up for one term since Tiger really enjoyed the lesson. In June, we will be attending both Tweedlewink and Ditoso but we may withold Tweedlewink next term as two enrichment classes is gonna burn a hole in my pocket.

Phonics play: SMART puzzles

We usually end our nightly 'school' sessions with games or puzzles.

Sometimes we just play with puzzles all night if Tiger wants to.

This Alphabet Match Up from SMART is one of his favourite at the moment.

Actually anything with alphabets will do :)

He calls it "A B C"



Pic from kids.net.my



These are pretty reasonable at about RM18.90 each

 I managed to get several for RM10 each during the Toy R us warehouse sales.

Here's a link to kids.net.my for their selection of SMART puzzles.

Sometimes, I get to be lazy and sit aside to observe.

Other times, he would make me put on the puppets to play with him.

I can tell you that it is no fun handling pieces of puzzles with your fingers wrapped up in fluff.

He loves this game, especially when he thinks I am trying to beat him in finding the next piece.

Looking for 'u"

Neat, huh?

The moment he completes the puzzle, he would mess it up and start again.

As usual, I choose puzzles according to Tiger's interest and ability instead of the recommended age.

Since the single and double-piece puzzles no longer interest him, we have moved on to these as well.

Nothing to do with phonics but pretty interesting as the pieces all come in different sizes.

Each individual puzzle is 4-6 pieces.

These are available in Popular Bookstores for RM17.90 each



Pic from popular.sg



We are attending a right brain school trial class this weekend.

I will share our experience with this Shichida method school in the coming week.

Have a great weekend!

I know we will.





Letter: Loving Tiger at 23 months and Fatter at 33 weeks

Letter To Tiger Thursday

Dear Tiger,

Things I love about you at 23 months:

1. No matter how grumpy I am over the state of our country's political situation (For example, the question of how many Birkins do our Prime Minister's wife own? A LOT), I always forget all my troubles when I see you waving to me at the door the moment I get home.

2. You are still such a gentle being.

Whenever I ask you to whack Prettichubbi (my very chubby niece), you will NEVER do it. In fact, she would hit you instead and you would just brush it off.

3. At this point, when I present you with choices you would say, "Ummm..." while considering your options. {so like ME!}

4. You have a wicked sense of humour.

Mommy: What's your name?

Tiger     : Ipad! *giggle giggle*

Mommy: How old are you?

Tiger     : Two...ummm, no ONE!

Mommy : Are you sure?

Tiger      : Monkey smile and runs away before I tickle you into submission, shouting out the correct answers.

5. You are very helpful.

When we are grocery shopping, you would always fill up the cart with packets and packets of mushrooms. I have no idea why mushrooms. Then, you would insist on pushing the cart and filling it up with all sorts of stuff as we move along. You will also insist on unloading and reloading after checking out.

6. You have mild OCD like mommy.

You will arrange or stack things without being asked.

7. You are developing Montessori habits like using mats for lessons

One mat for "mama", one for "tiger"

"Mama, sit"

My reaction?  LOVE. Madly in love with you.

8. You are becoming quite a reader.

Currently, your favourites are The Carrot Seed and Thomas Book with the sound button. Monkey and Tiger puppets must be around for reading sessions

The scene after 'reading'

You make Mommy put on the puppets ALL THE TIME

They are starting to frustrate me a little.

HEADLINE: Monkey and Tiger Mysteriously Disappear

*evil laugh*

Us

Little Dragon

You are 33 weeks now.

Another 49 more days to go

You are still breeched;

punching and kicking my right side.

Last scan: You weighed 1.8 kgs

I get cramps in my left arm from sleeping on the left lateral side.

I am 9 kilos heavier already

I have mild edema on both legs.

Currently, there are demands for mangoes and pork.

Preparation:

Almost done with the list.

Just need to mentally prepare myself for the birth,

which is weird because I didn't have the jitters the first time

Love, Mommy

Phonics Play: Foam Letters Printing

We are a little heavy on letters/phonics this week.

The boss demands for it

^.^

On this day, Tiger chose the ELC foam letters and Crayola fingerpaint.

My sensitive boy have an issue with touching slimy stuff,

so he usually ask for "thing" which translates

to brush/foam/sponges

Making "a says /a/"

As he stamps, he will make the letter sounds

Turned out nicely...at first

I placed his foldable table by his side with all the letters

so that he could have a little "I spy" game as well.

After stamping each letter, he would arrange them in a line.

It must be straight!

 OCD at work..

The letter 'i' didn't come with a dot. So, that means it ain't 'i'

Tiger threw a mini tantrum...hehe

It was quickly diffused with the dot painter

After he dotted the 'i',

 he gave me a smile and said "See, nice"

We got to letter j before he lost interest (again, it was not dotted)

Anyone with links or ideas for fun letters activities, please leave me a holla.

I am quickly running out :p

I will update this post if I find any suitable for 2 year old.