Thankful Tuesdays

This post by Petunia Lee has somewhat knock me in the head. Indeed I have been far too focus on what my son cannot do than what he can do best. I always hound him for that 0.9% rather than applaud him for that 99.1%. I am hereby challenging myself to list down his strengths.

 

 

1) He's independent

 

I can trust him to manage his own school work. Very rarely I have to hover around neither do I need to send him constant reminders. I can fully rely on him to tell  me his homework  for the day rather than checking what was instructed in his hand book. I can also leave him alone to complete his homework; I don't have to nag him to do his work nor coach him.

 

2) He always does his best

Sonshine puts in effort in his school work. He's been like this since kindergarten days. I recall the kindergarten teachers, even those who didn't teach him, would come up  to me and praise him for his efforts. They said they could tell he really put in a great deal of effort to achieve what the teachers want. Now at primary school, he's Chinese teacher also recognises Sonshine efforts when it comes to his school work. She was so impressed once that she sent me a Watsapp during class praising him for his good effort. 

3) He is responsible

I was prepared for reports of lost items f& replacing water bottles, pencil cases and what nots when he began his primary school journey. Surprisingly I have none of that. He always brings home his belongings intact- nothing missing till to this very day. I can trust him to take care of his belongings.

4) He is self motivated

Once I totally forgot that he had spelling the next day. I was only reminded when I saw him taking out his textbook and revising on his own. Still clueless, I questioned him why  only then did I realised he was revising for spelling. Needless to say, I was more than happy that he takes ownership of his work. 

The other day, he had to list down of words with a particular ending that was difficult to look them up in the dictionary. I had to help him by giving him clues and how to think for more words. After he managed to list down about 5 words, I told him to stop there since he was only required to 'list down as many words as possible'. But he insisted to complete all the blanks. But this mama was lazy and refused to help him any further. Instead of closing his book, he persisted and thought hard on his own until he completed the list.
 

5)  He is a planner

 

We are a party family. So over the weekends (which starts on Friday for us) we regularly chill out till late into the night. There's hardly pockets of  time for Sonshine to do his homework. However, he surprises me by waking up earlier than all of us on Sunday mornings so that he can quietly complete his homework before we head to church. I'm heartened that this boy is able to think ahead & plan without our inputs.

 

At school, he also manages his time well. He tells me that he will break his recess time such that he has enough time to eat, visit the loo, play and head to the assembly area before the bell rings. Everyday. Whoa, the discipline he has!

 

+++++++

 

 

I am thankful that he posseseed these traits, I cannot say that the credit is all mine (although I would love too, LOL!). These characteristics are indeed more valuable than scoring the As in schools. For if he continues to hold on to these traits, I know it will bring him far in his adult life (of course with Christ guiding & honing these traits in Sonshine).

 

Creating this list does help me to see Sonshine in a different light. It helps me to appreciate his strengths more than set my eyes on his shortcomings. I am truly thankful that he is blessed with these strengths. And I am blessed to be called his mama.

 

Now it's your turn to list down your child's strengths.

 

 

Day In A Life

Have you ever been curious how other mothers, be they working or stay home, manage their daily lives? Now it is a chance for you to take a peak into some of our lives. A group of us SMB is on a blog train hosted by the very sweet Justina over at Mum in the making.

And today is my turn to invite you to peer into my typical day.

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5:50am

That's the time my alarm thunder into my ears. I wrestle with myself for the next ten minutes before I finally get down from my bed.

 

 

Soon after a quick wash up, I snail my way to the kitchen to prepare snacks for Sonshine's recess as well as his breakfast. The boys awake and get wash. I police Sonshine to finish his breakfast.

 

 

 

At 645am, my husband is ready to send the boy to school. He goes to work straight after. The minute they leave, I dive right back into bed & get my first (quick) nap of the day! 

8am

My alarm nag me to wake up a second time. This is my most challenging time of the day- dragging the girl out of the bed & preparing her for school. 

15 minutes later, we're off to Doll's school! This marks my first of many exits for the day. 

 

 

 

I return home alone to an exceptionally quiet house. I spend the next 30 minutes doing a myriad of things in heavenly peace. I would be eating my breakfast or listening to worship songs, reading the bible, a book or just surfing the waves on the internet. 

 

 

 

All too soon my day slumps down as I make war in the kitchen and settle my longstanding scores with the chores! 

 

The clock screams at me again, time to make my second exit out of the house. This time to pick Doll up from school. I let her hang around the school for another 30 minutes to play with her buddies.

 

NOON

 

12pm

 

We rush home and I race against the clock to feed Doll her lunch. I've a very short window period before I pick Sonshine from school. During this time, I squeeze in a very quick home learning with her as she eats.

 

 

 

 

The girl and I head out once again to fetch the boy.

 

Mid Noon

  

We all return home. 

 

The kids make it easy for me as they know the drill. They automatically march into the bathrooms for their baths without my prompting.

 

 

 

 

Sonshine eats his lunch, Doll self entertains while I cool myself down with a nice bath. Sonshine gets to play & wind down after his meal. 

 

 

 

3pm, it is NAP time!
All 3 of us crawl into our beds and I embrace my second nap with delight. I knock out for 1 to 1.5 hours while the kids sleep for 2 hours. YAY.

 

Late Noon 

 

I wake up from my nap, somehow I'm more tired than before. So I perk myself up with a second cup of coffee; I savour the stillness and quiet moments before the kids send a tsunami of noise and mess into the house.

5pm
 

Doll awakes and breaks my peace. I take the cue and reluctantly wake the brother up as I brace myself for another bout of chaos.

 

The battle begins.

 

Sonshine takes his homework out (if not, he will do my assigned revision) while I hurry into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Doll joins her brother in the study room and makes a lot of distractions for him. I find myself shuffling back and forth the room and kitchen, juggling between barking at the kids (one to stop getting distracted and another to stop distracting) and cooking.

Evening

 

When Sonshine is done with his work and if there is free time, he will have his down time.

The kids have their dinner at 630pm. They are allowed to have their first TV time for the day while eating.

 

 

 

My favorite person arrives home and I shut down, mentally, physically, emotionally and immediately. From now on, my husband takes over!

 

He takes his meal (I will join him if I have not starved by then) and washes the remaining dishes in the sink (my hero). I retreat into my room, doors closed, for I am an introvert this way. I need to recharge in solitary. The kids have a whale of a time with their daddy, playing board games & what nots.

 

Bedtime

 

The dear husband settles the kids for bedtime. Sonshine quietens down and reads a book while I take Doll to the room for story time.

 

Lights out. If I don't lose the battle with the zzz monster, I will join my hero in the living room and watch my first tv show for the day.

 

12:30am

 

The dark night creeps into the house and the still of the night looms before the cycle begins again the next day.

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As I typed this, it occured to me that my life seems so mundane and 'dead'. I wondered if all that I do has any worth and meaning to it. After all, cooking & nagging the kids don't bring in money nor make my brain any more smarter.

But God spoke and assured me that there is annointing in all that I do as a mother. Even the very act of chopping the vegetables, He has annointed me to do it. And I was reminded not to demean my role at home for He has placed my role at home for a purpose. Oddly but surely not coincidentally, my pastor honored the mothers in our church last Sunday (early Mother's day celebration) and said the same thing. I knew then that the Lord is assuring me that I am where He wants me to be and annointed me to do so.

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Coming up next on the blog train is Ing, a mom of 3 and former primary school teacher. She juggles an "insane schedule" (a term coined by her closest friends) running after her 3 kids, tackling the never-ending housework and at the same time stepping out as a mumpreneur. She shares mommy tales, kiddy thrills and learning activities on her blog, Ingspirations. Find out how a day in her life is like.

 

Blog train:

Teaching Subtraction

I was looking through my old blog for ideas to work with my  soon to be 3 year old doll. I couldn't help but gawk at the things my then barely 3 year old Sonshine was learning! I cannot imagine teaching the very same stuff to doll. It was as if I was reading about someone else's kid! You can say I was a crazy mother then, but I say I was merely following my child's pace of learning. If I wasn't then by now doll would be learning at the exact same pace! But no, I am following doll's pace and she's not at the same page as her brother was. I am still sticking to my belief in following the child.

 

Anyway, I wrote too much. Here's an old post on how I taught 3 year old Sonshine subtraction, without any visual aids, books, long lectures etc. Just over a meal time and the lesson was done in 5 minutes.

 

{blast from the past}

I never intended to teach N subtraction this early, not until he somewhat masters the additions. But i accidentally found out that he was actually learning it from our daily ongoings.

It happened one day, in my desperate attempt to make N eat faster, i promised to 'free' him from the table after he finish 10 more spoonful of his food. As i fed him the 10th spoon, i heard him asking me '9 more?', and on the 9th spoon, he asked '8 more?' and so on until the last spoonful, he would declare 'no more!'. This went on for many weeks until it struck me that there in my face was the perfect opportunity to introduce to him subtraction!

And so, i began to teach him subtraction...during our next meal. Yes, i decided to go without any visual aids and go verbal and be informal. So as he ate his 10th spoon, i would simply ask him 'how many more?' and he would reply '9 more'. And i would say so '10 minus 1 equals 9!' and so on. It didn't take long after he got the hang of Subtraction. Subsequently, i wrote the equations on the some cards so he can have a visual on what subtraction equations look like.

Since then, he is able to do any subtraction equation (i.e. X minus 1) even for higher numbers like '100 minus 1' or '300 minus 1'. I think what made it easy to teach was that he could count backwards prior to this and he understood that minus 1 means going down a number by one.

*extracted from my old blog http://toddlercanread.blogspot.sg/*

A Love letter to my Champion

Dear Sonshine

 

When I look at you today, I can sigh a thousands sighs of relief over and over and over again. How far you have come and what a journey we went through last 2-3 years! I am simply grateful that everything turned out good.

 

Remember when you were 3 years old? How you were barely speaking and got me so terribly worried? Even when you spoke, your pronunciation was way off. Do you recall how your worried mom whisked you away to see a speech therapist? Only to have you speak accurately the very next day!

 

Then when you turned 4, I became increasingly worried because you were not interested in any social interaction. It was always common to see you absorbed in your own play at one corner and your peers in another. In preschool, the teacher would say how quiet you were and how you'd avoid eye contact. I was worried enough to send you for an assessment even though at home you were like any other kid with good responses & eye contact & showed no other signs of developmental delays.

 

Turns out that you are alright. You are the way you are because you are. :) Later, I read up on introverts and I felt I was literally reading about you. (That's when I also learnt that some introverts avoid eye contact too)

 

While I was busy worrying and scouting for answers, you were slowly, very slowly emerging from your shell. You started by playing and talking with one, just one, friend. After a whole year or so, you began to play with kids you meet at the playground. With each birthday mark, you became more and more comfortable & interested in interacting with people. It is also evident in your eye contact with others that you are gaining more confidence in social settings.

 

Just last night, I saw how you played with your peers whom you met only the second time, how you chatted with the girl- it made me really proud how far you have come. I was once again reminded that all that behaviour was unheard & unseen of you years ago. Did you know I heaved another sigh of great relief and thankfulness?

I remember worrying about how you would cope in primary school. I worried that the teacher would call me up and suggest that you are not suitable for school. Thank God, those fears were unfounded. You are doing excellently well as recorded by the teacher in her weekly report. Can I just say, 'PHEW!'?

 

I cannot help but swell with pride whenever I am reminded of your progress. To others, this is nothing or even taken for granted. But those days of worrying & crying over your future was not fun at all; it made me appreciate your growth & progress even more. I don't care if you are far behind your peers (or even ahead for that matter), all I care is that you make improvements. I remind myself to compare you with you and not some other kid. When I do that, I see great progress and it makes me want to shout it out-too bad that others read it as bragging. In any case, seeing your marked improvement, you do deserve some bragging rights baby, :).

 

My only regret is that I was so caught up with worry during those years that I pushed you so hard to come out of your shell. I was so absorbed in doing that, that I forgot to enjoy you. But you always kept your composure, smile, joy and love despite it all. You're an amazing kid, you know that, son? You truly are. You are a champion in your own rights! Mummy loves you more than you will ever know! I am glad that I am enjoying  you more and your sillyness. I'm looking forward to more victorious years ahead with you Champion! MUAKS!

 

Your Sweet heart

(Yes, he calls me that)

 

What's on my refrigerator?

I am stepping it out and showing you a personal space of mine- my refrigerator. Quite embarrassing- I was going to tidy it up but ah well.

 

 

I think this is quite common in Singapore households. We have this funny habit of collecting magnets during our travels and sticking them up on our refrigerators. We are no different.

 

At the bottom of our refrigerator, is an over-collection of erm...paper mess.

 

Let me give you a closer view- in the midst of the mess are Sonshine's spelling lists.

 

And Sonshine would liberally add to the mess by sticking his drawings up for show.

 

There, my beautiful, messy refrigerator!

 

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5 Favourite Buys from Daiso

Justina at Mum in the making is running a fun linky: Great Buys at Daiso.

 

Here's my FIVE favourite buys from Daiso (for home teaching):

 

 

Trays!

 

I try to emulate Montessori style of learning. Display the activities on the shelf and let the child choose her desired activity she wants to work on. Hence, trays are very important. It helps the child understand that one activity = one tray & all the essential kits for that activity is placed in that one tray. The child does not need to scramble from place to place to get the necessary materials for that activity.

 

 

Colored pom pom balls!

 

There are so many ways to use these babies! They come in many sizes. You can teach colors, sorting, counting, differentiating sizes etc. Also one can use it for practical life activity such as scooping, tonging and transferring them with chopsticks. Considering the numerous ways we can use them, $2 for a pack of them is definitely a steal!

 

 

 

I am obsessed with their felt materials!

 

Again, I think it is so economical to get them from Daiso. I am the sort who won't be able to use up the entire felt cloth. So it helps that Daiso sells them in a pack of smaller cut out felts and in each pack there are a variety of colors.

 

I used it to buy make learning aids or simply for pretend play. I made these felt sandwich for Sonshine and I blog about it in my old site here. You can also read about the felt fishing activity i made!

 

Wooden blocks!

 

You would have read how I used them for teaching doll numbers. Daiso also sells wooden volumetric shapes like sphere, pyramids, rectangular prism etc which I think it can be used to present this Montessori activity- so who says you need to burn your pocket to buy Montessori kits?

 

 

Cookie cutters!

 

Most would use this for their baking needs while I use them to teach doll about graduating sizes- although I occasionally use them to to cut out star shape bread for the kids.

 

So there you have it! These are my Five favourite Daiso buys- SO FAR. I say that because you know, there is never a top 5 favourite buys at Daiso. Almost everything is a favourite buy! LOL!

 

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Wordless Wednesday: Work it!

 

Have a Wonderful Wednesday y'all!

 

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What is success?

If I were to describe myself as a mom it would be ill-tempered, impatient, irritable, prone to outburst, mean and demanding. Does that surprise you? I won't be surprise if some readers (I hope there is none) hold the opinion that I am patient & nurturing. There, I hope I've debunk any wrong ideas about me.

 

This side of me stems from juggling everything on my own & especially when things don't go my way. But I also realised I am most impatient & demanding whenever i Think Sonshine does not conform to as the society expects him to, I'll get stress, worried and therefore push & (angrily) demand him to measure up. If you don't, you'll be labelled as abnormal or even a weirdo, stupid and doom for failure. Like any parent, I fear that Sonshine will be out casted if I don't push him. I notice that the more I worry, the harder I push him. And this would result in the worst treatment he will get from me.

 

But that's so typical isn't it? We are all racing to get our children to be society's definition of a successful child. A child, the society says, is successful only if he scores well in school. An adult is considered successful when he owns private properties & flashy cars. And so, we are pushing our children to get those full marks and ourselves to get those costly materials under our belt. But, we all know that these are but shallow measurement of success. It is not necessarily true that a child with poor grades would never succeed. Neither does it mean a man with no properties and expensive cars is not successful. As long as he is healthy, happy & does not tie his joy with money, who's to say he's not successful?

While pursuing these definitions of success, we (well, at least I) lose sight of what is more important: our relationship with our children. It is very apparent to me that when i drop the pursuit, i drop the angsty nagging & I begin to enjoy my relationship with Sonshine. What is most odd is, during which, I will see more of his strengths than his weaknesses. Suddenly, he doesn't seem to be that bad after all. The thing is whenever we use yardstick set by the society, we will immediately see the shortfalls in our children. That's when we panic and start to push our kids to be and do beyond what they can. Oh, and how we fail to understand that whenever we use one-size-fits-it-all yardstick, there will surely be children who will fall short just 'cause every child is different. But once we throw away this yardstick and start to measure our child's success by his own abilities, we will instantly see that there will be a place in this earth for him & he will succeed in his own right. That takes alot off our shoulders and we begin to chill which results in better performance in our children since the pressure's off.

If you think this applies to the rat race in getting good grades, well it is not just that. How about those times when we push our kids out of their shells? When they are introverts, we hanker them to be extroverts because society says introverts are oddballs. When they prefer to play to learn, we push them to sit down in a rigid classroom instead because otherwise they are labelled as one with poor attention span. Oh! Isn't it tough to be our kids these days? Or even us women who strive to be thin & beautiful because, well society says they are more 'acceptable' and maybe even 'better'?

Yet, it is SO hard not to be suck into this rat race. Everyday, we are told either through television, commercials, newspapers,  Facebook and even friends & relatives of what the society's measurement of success is. It takes a conscious effort to step out of this mindset and make a point to think & believe otherwise.

I then think it is important, we sit down and think about our own definitions of what success means to us. A friends asked me once, 'What is my measurement of success for my children'. Wow, that was a tough question that needed weeks to ponder over! I couldn't find my answer so I turn to myself. At this point, I think I am successful. Yes, I do not bring in the money, but I still feel that I am as successful, or even more, than that female CEO in that multinational company. Because, I get to change my kids' diapers, pick & send them from & to school, be the one to teach them the ABC & 123s- because I get to be hands on with my kids. That to me is success but another woman may deffer- but that's okay. God made us differently & gave each of us different dreams & talents. Which then, brings me back to my definition of success for my children. I think it would be that they live according to their own measurement of success, according to the gifts & desires that God has planted in them. Yes, even if it is a lowly executive, a cashier but if that makes them feel like a million dollars- then that is success.

What is your measurement of success for your children? Take time to think about it. And when you find yourself suck into the rat race, pushing your kids to measure up to the society, point yourself back to your own definition of success for your kids. Hopefully that helps you to get out the rat race, relax and have a more successful and meaningful relationship with your children. That reminder is also, if not, mostly for me. :)

 

Linking up

 

 

Threading a caterpillar

Here's an easy DIY threading activity!

In this activity Babydoll gets to exercise her fine motor skills and practise her 123s!

 

I made threading cards for babydoll. On each card of the ten cards, there is a number (from 1-10).

 

 

 

The goal is to thread the cards according to the number sequence.

 

 

Viola! Our cute little caterpillar (with no legs) is created! 

 

You can do this with ABCs or even work up a spelling activity with this! :)

 

Have fun!

 

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Mini Australian Unit (edited)

Following our trip to Australia, i made a Australian theme unit for Doll this week.

 

I made a printable for doll to learn her numbers from 11-14. Just to make it more Aussie, i added Koala bears design on the cards. She had to match the cards. As she picks one up i say out the number to help her recognise and identify.

 

Another printable i made, counting Cockatoos! I  accidentally discovered that she can count (not just rote count) up to 4! I made her these cards to help her practise more. :)

 

 

 

I took out all our animal toys; animals that can be found in Australia such as the Kangaroo, Koala, Sheep, cockatoo etc. Babydoll is task to match the animals to the cards and the word labels. My aim is to help her in word recognition.

  

 

 

I also made her an easy Australian map puzzle. I printed the map on the website and cut out the shapes. I chose this map because each state is color coded so Babydoll could match by color & shape.

 

 

This is how it looks like when completed.

 

 

Some non-Australian activity on our shelf. A box of 'B's.

 

This box contained all the objects/animals starting with the letter 'B'.

 

There are a couple of mandarin activity tray on our shelf this week.

 

I discovered Babydoll has learnt to read some more Mandarin words on fruits. Hence, I made these cards to help her revise and reinforce what she knows.

 

We are reading on colors (mandarin)! This is one activity to help speed up her learning.

 

 

This activity is still on our shelf. Well, it is somewhat Aussie, we did see these animals during our visit to Collingwood Farm in Melbourne! :P

 

Have a great week ahead y'all!

 

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My 5 favourite toys at my home

Walking through toy shops these days make me feel kind of sick. There are racks after racks of toys, so many of them! Unfortunately, as many as there are, they lack imagination and very often one dimensional (there's only one rigid way of playing them). Once the kids are done with it, it's done. Chucked in a corner of the house and never to be seen again. Yep, i have many of those stored in my house now.

 

That said, there are a few saving grace. There are toys (oh bless the souls of these toy

 makers) that encourages imagination, open ended and are timeless, that can be played over and over again and some even differ with each play.

 

Here are my 5 (actually there are a few more) toys that i am patting on my back for buying.

 

 

1. Soccer goal post.

 

Sonshine isn't quite an outdoor sport kind of kid. So to encourage him, i got this for him. Thanks to his father's love for soccer (as in sit on the couch and criticise other people playing), Sonshine was hooked. He has been playing this with daddy almost every night. So he gets a bit of an outdoor, indoor! Plus he gets his gross motor skills exercise fix!

 

2. Basketball stand

 

Yep, same reason as the above. I found this great because we can adjust according to his height. And he gets to practise his throwing ball & aiming skills right in the comfort of his own home!

 

3. Lego

 

I believe there is no explanation needed. We all know that this the best open ended toys we have ever known and will ever know!

 

4. Cooking/Kitchen play sets.

 

This is a big hit with my 6 year old and 2 year old. I love it because we can pretend play. Sometimes we pretend to be diners, sometimes waiters, sometimes cooks, sometimes cashiers etc. Okay, i confess, it is not we. It is they (both my kids) while i sit back and pretend to be pretending. :P This is something the kids play over and over and over again. Kitchen play sets are classic and never a bore.

 

 

5. Thomas Train

 

Yes, you read me right. Somehow i find this toy set encourages creativity. Sonshine loves to design his own train track routes, he can choose to have an up slope here or a down slope there or a curve track here or a straight track there. Each time he plays this, the train track designs are never the same. Each time it is as creative as the previous design. My husband and i are always in awe of Sonshine's creation! I love watching him play this as he puts in full concentration and thought into each design.

 

There you have it! My 5 favourite toys at my home. :)

 

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