Achievement - Reasoning

As mentioned earlier, T's communication skills have improved greatly recently. She has also gained at the same time the ability to reason (read : argue) back.

On this day, we were having lunch in a restuarant. For some reason, she wanted to take out her sunglasses and put them on in the restuarant. I refused her request, explaining to her that sunglasses (she calls them eyeglasses) are only worn outdoors to protect the eyes from the sun, and there's no reason to wear them indoors. She whined for a little repeating her wish to have her sun glasses. I then told her not to be so vain to want to wear sunglasses indoors. Her answer 'I am not vain, I want to be like daddy, he is wearing eyeglasses too' (daddy is a specky).

hmphrm.... I have to spend another few minutes to explain the difference between prescription eye wear and fashion sun glasses, before she said 'ah... OK lar.' and stopped asking for it.

Candy, only after dinner

I have to note this down before I forget.

We never really stopped T from having her candies and ice cream as long she has them in moderation. (OK, I have to admit, I have never been able to stop Daddy from offering them to her). Fortunately, T seems to have good self control over these things. Somehow, I feel this is in some ways related to our eating habits at home. We never force her to eat more than she reasonably needs to in her proper meals. If she tells us she has enough, and we see that she has had her reasonable amount of rice or noodles or whatever she is having for her meal, we let her stop. We don't insist that everything on the plate needs to be finished. If she has poor appetite for a day or two, she usually eats more later in the week. Now, even when she is having lollies, chocolate or ice cream, she will stop when she has had enough. I've never seen her gorge herself with them. In fact, after she has had her piece or two and feels that she has had enough, she will give the rest back to us and say "I have enough".

After she past 2 years old, we didn't stop her from having her candies and ice cream. But I do keep an eye to see that she doesn't have an over dose. However, we do make it a habit that she only indulges in them after her meals. If she asks for candy around meal time, I will always tell her "Sure, you can have your candy, but you have to finish your dinner / lunch first. After that, you can have all the candy you want." After some time, she becomes very familiar with the concept and only asks for her snacks after she has finished her meals.

This evening, she has finished her dinner and mine was in the midst of being served. She was sucking happily on her choco vanilla chuppa chup lolly. I haven't had a chuppa chup in ages and asked her if I could have some of hers. She paused for a moment and thought about it seriously (no joking, she really knitted her brows and think) and her reply was
"Er... OK, but you finish your dinner first OK."

I was embarrassed. But on the good side, I am also glad that she managed to think carefully about the action and responsed appropriately. Hopefully, this means that she is able to be responsible independantly.

Achievement - Reading by own self

I feel very proud and comforted to know that I have successfully cultivated a reader. I hope T will maintain this love for books. We have been reading to her daily since she was born (OK, maybe not every single day, but 8 out of 10 is good enough for us). Her nightly routine goes like this. Evening shower at about 8:30pm, brush teeth, change into diapers and pyjamas and reading on the bed before lights out at 9pm. Nowadays, even if we don't sit and read with her, she will spontaneously go to her room and take out her book after she finish her shower. She sits by herself and starts 'reading' out loud to herself. Its really very cute to see this. She is not able to recognise any word yet, but she recalls the storyline of the familiar stories. If she pulls out a book that we have yet to read together, she will 'make up' her own story by looking at the pictures. I think the BFIAR program has played a part in why she seems more keen in reading at last few months as compared to the earlier 2 years. All the BFIAR storys are truly living books and the activities and animations that we do with each story cultivated her strong interest in each of them. The Green Pocketbook has been her favorite for 2 months and she has been asking for Caps for Sale everyday this month.

Singing "Jesus Loves Me"

This is one of the reason why I prefer to put T in a Catholic school. They get to learn how to pray and sing nice songs. This song actually has a series of action that goes along with it. I've seen them perform it in school, but did not manage to get T to repeat the actions at home.

Acheivements - Bilingual Conversations

After 9 months of chinese immersion at the preschool, T's conversational cantonese has improved remarkably over the past 2 months. She will now voluntarily speak in cantonese to daddy and continues to converse in english with me. I am nicely surprised that she can make her own direct translations at times.

Incident 1 -
T : Mummy see, I 'dirty cat'.
Me : huh? what is dirty cat, there is no cat here.
T : see, my mouth, dirty cat
Me : there is no dirty cat in your mouth dear
T : (getting a little frustrated) Mummy, I eat ice cream, see my mouth, dirty cat. Tissue please.
Only at this moment did I get it. Dirty cat = cantonese direct translation "Wu1 zhuo1 mao1", meaning dirty person.

Incident 2 -
T was drinking a packet drink and it was almost dinner time. I asked the maid to take the drink from her. Both Daddy and I were present. She complains to us (individually) immediately. She looks at Daddy and complains in Canto about the maid taking her drink and right after turns to look at me and repeats the same complain in English.

Achievements - 16 piece jigsaw puzzle

We've had a few boxes of jigsaw puzzles in the house for more than a year now, but T never seemed really interested in working on them alone. I noticed that she got impatient very quickly and gave up easily on this task. I let her be, thinking her time will come.

Admittedly, when I started reading that other children her age are working well with puzzles, peer pressure got me thinking that that I should 'encourage' her to work harder at this.

We took out these boxes of puzzles again and I sat down with her to start off with the 4 piece puzzles, slowly up to 6 piece. In the beginning stages, she would understandly get upset when she cannot fit a puzzle and throw a small temptrum when I refuse to do it for her. We will have to patiently give her hints and tips on how to go about finding the correct pieces and surprising, after a few sessions over the last 6 weeks, she managed to finish a 12 piece puzzle by herself last night and complete a 16 piece puzzle with a few verbal hints from me.

Once again, this experience just re-enforces the message that it is ever so important to stay observant to your child's needs and provide the neccessary stimuli to help them. It is not about pressuring them into the standard of the societly, but more about just gently introducing and exposing them to areas of interest and be able to adapt teaching method to their individual requirement and make the whole learning experience enjoyable.

On this jig saw puzzle experience, T has changed from one who will just throw puzzle pieces on the floor 6 weeks ago, to the child who asks to do more puzzles last night. In fact, when she asked to do the 16 piece puzzle, I explained to her that it be too difficult, but she retorted : "No, Mummy, I can do it". So we tried and she did it.

The next page on the puzzle book was a 20 piece puzzle. When she looked at it she told me "Mummy, I think this one is too difficult for me". I am very pleased that she is willing to push her own limits and knows when to stop when she had enough.

My First Portrait

Frankly, I've never been much of an artistic person and my really no good at art and craft work. I am rather clueless when in comes to teaching T arts and craft. Thanks to all the online resources available, I am able to get some tips from more talented people.

T has recently been rather keen on drawing. I usually let her doodle whatever she wants to rarely guide her or give her instructions on how to go about doing it. I think it was our domestic helper who have been practising with her on how to draw a simple face.

This is the mummy and daddy she drew one evening. I know many kids her age can draw much better, but hey, I'm satisfied for now.

The Budding Cinematographer

These are some creations from our budding photographer. She has inherited our 1st digital camera purchased some 7 years ago. Last year we finally upgraded our digicam even though the old one was working perfectly fine. We kept our old camera not knowing to sell it off (probably no buyers since it is really OOOOld), or to give it away. Then it dawned upon us that since T is always wanting to handle our new camera (no way ! we already had to send it for maintenance once cos she damaged the lens mechanism), we might as well let her have one of her own. After a few days of practise and dozens of spoilt pictures (never mind if she keeps taking and taking, easy to delete away) her technique improved alot and she has learnt to aim accurately at her target objects and wait for the right moment to push the button. Now this camera is part of her personal possession, place on her shelf so she has free access to it anytime she wishes and she knows how to ask for our help when the battery runs flat.

Achievements - speaking in complete sentences

Here's 3 short sentence that she said recently when her Aren gor gor (cousin) took her favorite dolly.

"Hey, what ya doing"
"That's my dolly"
"Give it back"

Here's some 4 syllabus words that she been saying (but not accurately though)
"Alicelator" = escalator

T has a bit of domestic goddess trait in her. Whenever she gets bored at restuarants she will take out piece of tissue and start cleaning the walls and furniture. This evening she was happily wiping the mirrored wall in the restuarant, out of the blue, she used the same wet tissue and attempted to wipe her face. Appalled, I managed to stop her in time and explained to her the tissue is dirty after wiping the walls and she should not use the same piece on her face. She replied with a simple loud "DISGUSTING".

faintz.... the diners from the other table looked over. I could only take it in stride and replied calmly "Since you know its disgusting, please don't do it again". She replied OK.

Achievements - Reciting the sign of the cross

Montessori - Practical Life - wearing coat

Learnt this trick from a Montessori book and couldn't wait to teach T how to wear her jackets by herself. Once again, she picked up the technique really quickly.

Acheivements - Able to appreciate 2 hours of stage play

In our effort to expose little T to various forms of arts and music, we brought her to a childrens play + a ballet this holiday season.

I was a little cautious about how she would take it all in. If she would like it enough to stay in her seat for the whole show. So our first try was a childrens play. After all a play intended for children should be more lively and catch their attention better. I thought the the play was only 1 hour, but it turned out to be a 2 hours play with no interval. Surprisingly, T did like the lively story and was able to understand it (it was in cantonese). She was very focused during the 2 hours and did keep pointing things out to me as the story went along. "Mummy see, witch", "Mummy see, mum mum, yummy", "Mummy see, gor gor running", "oh oh... gor gor crying....". I was very happy to see her enjoying the show. When we went home, she even took out her broom and starting 'flying' around the house pretending to be the witch.

Her reaction to this canto childrens play gave me enough courage to bring her to a full lenght ballet. T has always seemed interested by dance and music and I was hoping that she will be able to enjoy this as much. The HK Ballet Company was performing "The Nutcracker" with a live Orchestra. We were fortunate enough to get tickets at such last minute. I told T about bringing her to watch dancing and she got excited. Once again, she surprised me by being able to appreciate for the full 2 hours, clapping loudly between each act, and even getting up to tap her feet along to the music towards to end of the play. On our way home, she kept asking me to dance. Mmh.... is it still to let her attend some ballet class?

I am so happy that T is able to appreciate such performance and am looking forward to having her accompany me to more shows in the future.

Next in the the pipe is "The Grafullo" play in Feb and UK Ballet Company performing Alice in Wonderland in March.

Acheivements - My Birthday Banner

I came home to a nice surprise on Friday. T has made me a lovely birthday banner.

(PS. I am also thankful to my domestic helper for coming up with such a wonderful idea)

Achievements - Various Nov'08

I Love T for what she is now. It may be the terrible two phase, but on most days it is the terrific two for me and her. These are her recent achievement :

Practical Life Skills :
She picks out her own choice of clothes and shoes
She puts on her own socks and shoes
She takes of her own socks and shoes and puts them next to the shoe rack
She tells us when she wants to pee / poo. (We don't use a potty, so she still needs our help to put her on the adult toilet seat)
She wipes herself clean after she pees (we have to follow after to make sure it is really clean)
She brushes her own teeth (we have to do a second round to make sure it is really clean)
She wipes her own face with face towel
She applys her own face cream (California Baby calendula cream)
She applys her own lip balm
She takes off her own jacket when she comes in the house and puts it neatly on the sofa

Social Skills :
She is still shy of strangers and prefers one to one outings rather than big groups
She opens the door for me when I ring the door bell
When she sees me resting, she asks me "Mummy are you tired?, let's go sleep"
She will voluntary give me a big hug and kiss and say "I love you"
She brings Daddy and me our shoes before we go out. This morning she offered to help me wear my shoes.
She can make simple decisions, such as what to eat. We went out for dinner last weekend and I asked her what she would like to eat. She went "err.... (thinking facial expression) noodles!". Then I asked her with pork or chicken, and she went again "err... chicken!". So we ordered her soupy chicken noodles.

Academic Skills :
She is able to recite 1 - 10 in English, Mandarin and Cantonese
She is able to name basic shapes
After 2 months of school, she can now converse in simple Cantonese and recognises that she speaks to me English and Grandpa in Cantonese
She is able to name facial parts in English and Mandarin (eyes, ears, mouth, etc...)

Her little achievements :
Teaser -
How to do carry a bucket of fried chicken, a 6 pack beer and a chair all at the same time when you have only 2 hands.

Answer -
Little T is able to go to the kitchen (after permission is granted) to get her own snack / juice. At times she brings her stool along to help her reach the higher shelves. Last weekend, she took her stool and got both a snack and a pack of juice. Ha ha.... this time she has taken more than her little hands can manage. She kept dropping things when she tried to hold all 3 items, stool, snack and juice in only 2 hands. I watched from a distance to see what she would do. I saw her stand still for a moment to think, then decided to place the stool back down on the floor, put the snack and juice on top of the stool and carried it like a tray out of the kitchen. A smile of triumph on mummy's face.

Acheivements - Using scissors

We bought T a set of plastic kiddy scissors for quite sometime now, but only saw her interest in using scissors recently when we spend time in the kitchen together and had to cut open bags of flour, sugar, etc.... Took this window of opportunity to teach her how to use her plastic scissor. I think it is good training for the fine motor skills and not to mention practical life skills.

It is very difficult to take good video/photo of T doing stuff, cos she gets easily distracted once I pull the camera out.

Achievements - Drawing

T seems to have grown very fond of doodling. Over the past week, she started to draw intentionally and will tell us what she is drawing (never mind if it actually looks like the item or not). She will say "Mummy, see... circle", "Mummy, see.... apple" , "Mummy, see... ice cream", etc....

I asked our helper to let her paint this afternoon since T did not have a chance to paint for the past week. I was nicely surprised by how 'nicely' T has started to paint. Notice the difference in the wall painting she did last month and her drawing this week. You can see that she is no longer just scribbling or brushing mindlessly, but really making out individual items (whatever they are) with care and intention.

I must make it a point to include creative art time into her new weekly routine.

Acheivement - Bake Cookies

WHAT TO DO ON A RAINY TYPHOON DAY WITH A TODDLER AT HOME :

BAKE BAKE BAKE !!!!!

Recipe from Annabel Karmel's "Children's First Cook Book".
300grm plain flour
150grm sugar
250grm soften butter
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon salt
(I halved the above portions to bake a smaller batch)

Read the recipe

weigh out all the ingredients

sift the flour and put aside

mix butter and sugar till creamy

add egg yolk, vanilla and salt to mixture

continue to mix, then add flour to mixture

mix together to form a cookie dough

store dough in fridge for 30 mins to harden

roll out dough and use cookie cutter to cut.

Bake in 180 degrees celsius for 12 mins.

Achievements - Nursery Admission Interview

The Pre-school structure in HK goes like this :

Pre-nursery 2 - 3 yrs old (offered only in some kindergarten)
Nursery (K1) 3 - 4 yrs old
Kindergarten (K2) 4 - 5 yrs old
Kindergarten (K3) 5 - 6 yrs old

After weeks of research, phone calls, chatting with friends and colleagues, we finally shortlisted the few nurseries that we would like to attempt to enrol. The application for admission in Sep '09 (school year in HK starts in Sep) starts in Sep / Oct / Nov '08 for the schools of our choice.

During our research we found out that 1 of the school offered a Pre-Nursery class and T is of age to start in Oct '08. We were too late to join the AM session as they have no more vacancy and the wait list was long, so we opted for the PM session instead.

Initially, we didn't have the intention of starting T on Pre-Nursery and wanted her to start only in 09/10 when she was 3. But all the research made me rather nervous about how competitive HK is on the good schools and how T might not be able to handle the admission interviews. So we figured that the admission criteriors for Pre-Nursery should be much simpler since the child is really less than 2 yrs. If paying an extra year of school fees buys her a guaranteed entry to the kindergarten and primary school, it sounds like a good buy.

So we submitted our application and followed up closely with the school for the interview as we are considered 'late' applicants. Finally the interview was scheduled for Thursday 31/Jul. During the week, I did more detailed research on this particular school. The more I found out, the more I liked the school and really wanted T to be able to study there. I really didn't expect myself be so excited and nervous about it. It was almost like I am taking the exam myself. The scheduled time was just during T usual nap time. So I had to plan a day ahead to alter T's routine in order for her to be alert during the interview. The nite before, I had to do my 'homework' and look up more about the school in case we were asked questions about it. I was so nervous I had trouble sleeping that nite and woke up really early the next morning.

We went to playschool as usual in the morning and I tried to tired T out so she would take her nap earlier. We made her favourite lunch so she would eat faster. We bathe her and washed her hair so she would smell nice. Overall, she was kept very happy the whole morning and she was singing in the taxi on the way to school.

During the interview the teacher tried to get T to play with her. T being her usually shy self needed some warm up time and turned away to hide behind me. Luckily, T responded well to me and I was able to make her follow the teacher's instructions. To my surprise, the teacher did try to test if T recognised the colours, which she didn't respond to. (I was afraid that we might fail due to this)

Sensing that T was still shy, teacher offered to show us around the school facility. Wow... I was positively impressed by how big their place is. It housed a kindergarten, primary and secondary school and with a school hall and chapel in the middle of the blocks. There were music room, library, playroom, gymroom just for the kindergarten sections. There was also a outdoor play area with a jungle gym and tricyles to ride on. I loved this place by now and so did T. As we were shown around the facilities, T started to explore around too. She played on the slides, fingered the books, tapped on the piano, etc... Teacher saw for herself that T was not shy of environment, only of stranger. T was also physically independant, able to walk, climb steadily. She also takes instructions well and will stop and leave the room upon our order and will not whine to stay and play. She did not need us to pull her hand and will just follow us wherever we went.

When we returned to the administration office, teacher told us there's no problem with T starting school with them. Yippee.... T continued to play with the toys in the room while I finished up the paperwork.

T will start school in Oct'08 (she is still under 2 yrs on 1st Sep). She will have to put on a set of school uniform and ride on a school bus. She will start to spend 4 hrs a day without any family beside her. I am sure I will miss her dearly. I already feel a whinch of sadness when I think about it. Only 22 months ago I was everything she had in the world. She was a tiny little baby lying in my bosom. And soon she will be happy to wave bye bye to mummy and run off to join her friends from school. Now I start to understand why do mothers always cry at weddings.

Sorry for the lengthy boring post. Just needed to get all these off my chest for a closure on the sweet yet sour school search event which has been bothering me the past month.

Here's the website of Rosaryhill Kindergarten where T will start school in October
http://www.rhs.edu.hk/kg/

Acheivements - Potty Training Part 2

I didn't really read up alot on Potty Training. I guess, I have to thank my domestic helper for the success we've had. She actually really didn't mind cleaning up the little puddles of accidents and never ever made a fuss about them. For T, I guess she gradually understood what it means when she gets the funny feeling in her bladder. (Sorry Rina, if this wasn't much help).

But we did try to make a big fuss when she successfully pee peed into the toilet bowl. We would praise her, give her hugs & kisses, say bye bye to the pee pee when we flush the toilet and give daddy a call to tell him about it. I guess all these positive fuss also encouraged her to pee in the toilet. (not to mention she also gets to play a short while with bubbles when she washes her hands.

She likes Mickey, so we got her panties with Mickey prints on them. The first day I brought them home, she actually tried to wear all 6 of them at the same time.

This week she did have a few accidents and wasn't so keen on going to the toilet like previously. Especially when she is playing, she would be very reluctant to drop her toys and go pee pee. So I will have to remind her every hour to go pee pee and bring her to the toilet to 'induce' her.

Nevertheless, we did try to take a few short trips diaperless this week. We went to the playground a few times, and also to grandma's place, and also to a restuarant for dinner. When we are out, I will try to bring her to the toilet every 1 - 1.5 hrs , even if she doesn't ask to go.

She still wets her diaper during her nap and nite sleep, so I don't think I will attempt total diaperless until she's older.

Achievements - Potty Training

Actually, we didn't intentionally plan on potty training T. It all started about a month ago when the weather started turning hot and humid and she developed bad nappy rash on one cheek of her bum. No amount of cream would make the rash go away and she made it worse by scratching it all the time.

As a reasult, I asked the maid to leave T diaperless during the day and we got her to wear panties instead. For us, this unscheduled potty training came in the following stages :

1. She would pee and we will discover the puddles when we step on them (Somehow we were lucky that we didn't have any accidents on the sofa or bed). We will just tell her nicely to try to tell us when she wants to pee.


2. She would pee and stand still in her puddle and say loudly 'pee pee'. We would then pick her up and bring her to the potty and try to 'induce' (by whistling) her to continue peeing. We would also nicely remind her that she should try to tell us before she pees and not after.


3. She would tell us when she wants to pee and we will bring her to the potty and she has successfully not had any 'accidents' in the past 3 days.

We still let her wear diapers when we are outdoors and definately during bed time.