some of her favourite songs...

both at home and in school:



I particularly like the part where she would place her hands slightly behind her bottoms, and then lean backwards to support herself with her head pointing towards the ceiling and her mouth wide open! Hahaha...

happy holidays!

It's Christmas party in Kristin's class this morning. This was an encore from all parents because the kids simply did so well!

new bake wares...

Earlier this month there was a fund-raising event in the kids' preschool: Kitchen wares on auction.
Unwittingly, I placed bids on 6 different baskets. See, I always overspend, don't I?

Thank goodness that I only managed to get 3 baskets. And for 57 Euros, I have bake wares now that will last me a life time. And yes, I did promise my sponsor aka family's CFO aka my dearest husband that I would keep the oven running the whole winter, baking an awful lot, enough to keep us all warm and toasty in the apartment.

Check out these new additions to my kitchen:

wait a minute...

Both my kids are never interested in food.

So what do we do at home? We feed the children. Actually, we feed them too when they're out dining with us.



When my mom was feeding Kristin last night (btw, hurrah! My parents are here and they are a great help!), Kristin told her to wait a minute.

She was fumbling her toy, which was essential at dinner table to distract her to open her mouth so that we can just shove food in.



Yeah... spoon-feeding is what we do. We certainly do make sure that our children won't starve. You should have seen the many recent cases of children being neglected and starved to death in this country, yes, even in this part of the world. If only my kids knew when Mommy talked about Lea-Sophie of Schwerin, she wasn't making up stories.



Wait a minute, girl. It's time you eat!

skipping the night...

We've been through all those:

Skipping naps, skipping meals, skipping baths etc...

But tonight, it's "skipping the night"! Why?



Bryan: When's Daddy gonna be home?

Mommy: Daddy's not coming home tonight. He's gotta work.

Bryan: You mean, he's skipping the night?

Mommy: No. I mean he's gonna stay in a hotel tonight because it's just too far for him to come home and sleep.



Funny expressions aside, Bryan's quite right after all, in a way. Daddy is "skipping the night". Poor Alan, I think he's still working away in his hotel room. Probably pulling an all nighter, again.

our cutie pies...

Hey all!

This is an update of our cutie pies. Picture taken in October.
We just received our copies today.

Aren't they both looking gorgeous? :)

c'mon, darling...

This is my favourite phrase. I hurry my children through the whole day with "c'mon darling, let's go!"

And this afternoon when Kristin woke up from her nap, she told her mommy, "C'mon, darling. Let's go!"

it's a cow!

Mommy: What animal goes "moo"?
Kristin: It's a cow. And you get milk too!
Mommy: Wow!

I think the sound animals make is just too simple for my little girl now. I shall try asking her what one can get from an animal or perhaps naming the youngs of animals.

word of the week...

Bryan: N-O- No, V-M - Vem, B-R - Ber. There, mom, NOVEMBER!
Mommy: ????? LOL

Today's Novmbr the 27th!

KAPUTT!

I was just thinking of the funny words my kids use to express something is out of working condition.

The top favourite for Kristin is "kaputt". It is German, but can also be found in the English dictionary. She moved on very quickly from "broken" to "kaputt" and probably thinks that this is her favourite word now when something is out of order.

Bryan likes to say, "Look. My ship is wrecked." Or, "look Mom, Meimei ruined my train!" And I constantly hear him scream, "Don't wreck this! Don't ruin that!" whenever the two are playing together. Yeah, you can almost sense his frustration coz Kristin is definitely not a very nice little sister now. She's going through the phase where she destroys all things! O help! Kaputt! Alles kaputt!

it's paying off...

Early February this year, I was eager to teach Bryan some sight words. Timing wasn't really perfect. He was reading a little and then became lazy to practise anything at all.

I always subscribe to the belief that creating a learning rich environment will enable a person to learn subconsciously. This has always been so when I sprinkled important lines all over my classroom when I was teaching German, especially near the main entrance/exit. You see, students go through them so many times a day. It would not be long that they would put the foreign sounds to the foreign words.

Anyway, I thought I could do the same with my kids too. All my passive learning aids were up in the hope that my kids would absorb something without me actively teaching them, e.g. the alphabet wall frieze, the posters, the sight word charts etc. After 9 months, I think it's paying off:

Bryan was using the alphabet wall frieze yesterday to spell his name and his friends' names yesterday.

Then he surprised me when he read out the whole of the "Where" and "my" sight word chart!

He couldn't have remembered from his memory coz:

1) It was about 9 months ago that I even uttered those sounds to him.

2) He was correcting himself as he read. The first two questions begin with "Where is", while the next three are "Where are". When he was at question no. 3, he was reading "Where is" initially and then self-corrected to "Er, no, it's Where are". And when it came to differentiating socks from shoes, I begin to believe that he's making connections with the little phonics that he learnt from Ms Julie's class last year. The words "shoes" was initially read with "s" sound. And then he self-corrected again when he saw the aitch and went "sh-oes".

He's definitely making the connections. How exactly, I don't really know. This reminds very much of the"litte black box" aka the Language Acquisition Device as proposed by Chomsky.

Till now I still haven't figured out how to teach him phonics, blending sounds. I tried using onsets/rimes, but he still has a long way to go when it comes to segmenting words into syllables. Honestly, I don't have the diligence to do work on something with him systematically every day.

But I'm definitely pleased that he's reading without any active effort of teaching on my part!

nocturnal vs diurnal...

I'm really pleased with what Ms Judi does in her class. It took me many years to learn about the terms nocturnal and diurnal, and now my 4 year-old son is just rattling off what nocturnal and diurnal animals are.

I wish I could do more with the kids, e.g. reading with them. Even that I hardly find energy to keep up.

false alarm...

Kristin woke me up today with her cries. It wasn't the usual cries for "Mommy-come-get-me" attention. It was weird. When I found her, her face looked so flushed that I only had one thing in mind: Is she afflicted by Scarlet fever?

Friends have told me that there had been cases in the Frankfurt International School and Internationale Schule Frankfurt. And knowing that Kristin comes into contact with the siblings of these children, chances were pretty high.

Anyway, I dropped Bryan off at school and then went off to the clinic with Kristin.
The doctor did a swab on hearing my account. Thank God that the test was negative. So it's just a common cold.

Sigh... no wonder I'm getting fat. You must be wondering what's being fat gotta do with my children being sick?

Well, I had plans to hit the gym and then spend the remaining of the morning in a sauna after a workout, but no, one of them has to spoil my plans. Already, I gave up my Monday for grocery shopping coz I had to bring a plate for the Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday for Bryan's class and then attend his mini-concert. And now, Wednesday, I still can't spend time for myself! And whatabout tomorrow and day after?
Nope, the kids have no school (Thanksgiving holidays) and of course, the babysitters at the gym will not take Kristin in with her nose all runny now, or would they?

Now it's certainly easy to sit at home and get bigger on the waist, isn't it?

you hide, i seek...

The kids love to indulge in a game of tag or hide and seek these days, but mostly at home since the temperature has dipped.

Yesterday, I intended to bring them out for a short walk and and some fresh air. So it wasn't the usual routine for Kristin. Actually, the intent was to expend Bryan's energy. I could really have spared her from the cold. Anyway, cold air would do her runny nose some good too.

I sent Bryan to his room for his afternoon milk and strapped Kristin down to her buggy for hers. If she was in her room, in her bed, she would have knocked out immediately. When Bryan finished his milk, he came running out of his room looking for meimei. But he just couldn't figure out where she was. In the mean time, Kristin kept all quiet and was tucked away in one corner in the kitchen, grinning away. It wasn't long that Bryan enlisted Dad's help to look for Kristin. Daddy went up and down the hallway leading to the kitchen several times to hint to Bryan, and finally this girl let out a chuckle.

When Bryan had an inkling that she was in the kitchen and went looking for her, Kristin let out a "BOO!" and greeted her brother with a broad grin. What a cheeky girl! Her patience in waiting out for her brother and keeping all mum really amazed me. Think she's seen enough of hide and seek games going on in school to be a pro now.

On hindsight, it was an extremely BAD idea to let Kristin have her afternoon milk in her buggy. She cried for 5 minutes and refused to drink milk in her room when it came to bedtime. I should have known better to sabotage her routine. Hope she doesn't conk out in school today. I would love for her to go back to her afternoon nap routine after the weekend.

happy thanksgiving!

The school will be closed this Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving and Bryan's class will be celebrating the occasion with a big feast and a mini-concert on Tuesday.

The kids have been practising diligently and it's not hard to guess what they're gonna sing during the party.

Well, I wasn't quite sure of this song myself, so I ran a check on the Internet. And yes, Bryan did get all the words correct!

Albuquerque Turkey
(to the tune of "Clementine")

Albuquerque is a turkey
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
And he's absolutely mine.
He's the best pet that you can get...
Better than a dog or cat.
He's my Albuquerque turkey
And I'm awfully proud of that.

Looking forward to the mini-concert this Tuesday!

sunday school singing...

We made it in time to church this morning. When the pastor invited all the kids up to the stage to sing a couple of songs for the congregation, Bryan was among the first to charge up. Alan and I thought there must have been some mistakes. All the children were much older than Bryan, and our son involved in a performance? No way!

But it turned out that he's been rehearsing moves with his Sunday schoolmates all these weeks. And he did have a blast singing for the Lord! Don't you think? Good thing I had my camera in my bag this morning. Check out those shuffling feet towards the end of the clip and his electric guitar!






Just in case you're wondering, Bryan's the one on the extreme right, with the grey and blue jumper.

first parent-teacher-conference on Kristin's progress...

This was what we put down on the parent survey in the beginning of the school year:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What are two things that you really want your child to improve on or learn this year?

Learning to articulate more accurately, learning to communicate her needs either in verbal or non-verbal ways, but not through her cries and whines.
Eating on her own.
Toilet training.

What are some strengths that you feel your child has?

Being the second child in the family, we feel that Kristin learns many things by watching, listening, imitating her older brother. She’s also very keen to repeat words whenever she’s asked to during our reading sessions at home. When she’s taught a new song, she is quick to hum along. In general, we do feel that she picks up new things at a relatively fast pace.

What are some of the weaknesses that you feel your child has if any?

Kristin can be short-tempered and stubborn at times. She has a tendency to sulk and throw a tantrum when unhappy or when she doesn’t get things her way.

What special interests does your child have that we might be able to incorporate into classroom activities?

Kristin enjoys music and movement.

Is there anything else you would like to share with me about your child?

We would say Kristin is generally a cheerful girl. If she isn’t smiling, then something could be amiss.
Her interest in food needs immense encouragement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was what the teacher had to say yesterday at the PTC.

"Kristin is a pleasure to have in class. She has settled in quite nicely with the group and our daily routine. When you ask her a question she does answer. She knows her colors pretty well, some shapes, most of the numbers and parts of the ABC's song. She always pays attention in class. She enjoys listening to stories, songs and other activities we do. When it comes to physical development I feel she is right where she needs to be. She at times can be quiet or shy, but once she warms up she doesn't hold back with what she knows. She is very alert when it comes to listening to stories, songs and other activities we do in class. She enjoys playing with her fellow classmates and also content with being alone at times. She is very proud when she sees her brother in school and she lights up when she does see him. She is one of the first few in class to try new things. She seems to be enjoying herself as well and we look forward to seeing how much she will continue to grow over the course of the the year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right now, both Mommy and Daddy are happy where you are. We are also very pleased to hear that you did not cry even once in class. And the tantrums? Well, Ms Jane and Ms Sri say that they never happen in class. Good. Let's just keep it that way. This will be a very exciting year for you and the whole family. This will be the time you'll be actively picking up more words that we will soon know that we can no longer ignore the attention due to you.

kristin talks...

She's been quite chatty recently. Just about time, 2 months into school. After four months of nursery Bryan attended in Singapore, not only was he talking at at the speed of a bullet train, he was also performing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars on keyboard. He was about 27 months old then. He did have the advantage of starting school a month earlier than Kristin did. And of course, he enjoyed much more adults' attention since young.

But I find Kristin's speech pretty advance too. E.g. I wanted her to go show Daddy her tongue. (Side-track: She has been having ulcers in her mouth since Saturday. Think trick-or-treating almost dehydrated her.)

She came back to me and she said, "I did (it) already!" Past tense! Wow!

This evening after dinner, Kristin was tugging at a cushion, dragged it across the living area and laid it down on the floor. When she realised that I was observing her, she explained her intent: I need to sit on the pillow, Mommy. See! And there she was, sitting on the cushion.

Ok, I wasn't going to argue that it was a cushion and not a pillow. I was very impressed that she sensed my curiosity and offered me an explanation for her silly antic.

More on her language to come...

happy halloween!

It's our first trick-or-treating altogether, ever: Daddy, Mommy, Bryan and Kristin!

We joined Bryan's friends from school within the American Community for a whole afternoon of fun! It first started with children's costume parade and costume contest. It turned out that the judges were swooned by our interpretation of an Indian girl, and Kristin unwittingly came in third for the "Best Costume Title"! Haha... finally our claim to fame! Doesn't she look cute in this costume?

Of course, it helped a little when she refused to walk with the rest of the children, dawdling all the way behind the line, and then as if it wasn't enough, she insisted that her Dad should carry her into the building where the judges were all seated. Daddy's height definitely made her entry among the last few kids grand!

But these kids were really cute and original, weren't they?

We have a headless man for the Scariest Costume, a girl on the table for the Most Creative Costume, and girls dressed up as horses as the Funniest Costume. 1st prize of the Best Costume went to the beautiful Princess and the 2nd was the Crooked Old Man with the crooked stick!

Our son didn't do too bad either, though he was a little disappointed that he didn't get a prize for his costume. Bryan was the only fire-fighter in the whole estate, while there were like Batman and many of his clones running all over the place. Spiderman was also a favourite outfit for the day.

And we didn't do too bad for our trick-or-treating too. Here's the children's stash.

Looks like we've got enough sugar to last us till Karneval!

But the day did not end on a good note with two very exhausted kids. They hardly ate dinner. Bryan even threw up during dinner (He had too much junk food the whole day - good excuse not to give him any more candy bars!), while Kristin was so tired to have anything in her mouth. In the end, we sent her off to bed at 8.15pm and Bryan was tucked under the cover by 8.45pm.

problem sums, problem PSLE maths!

This year's PSLE Maths Exam apparently caused a huge hoo-ha in Singapore. Wondering why? Check out this article here.

And if this is not enough, pick up a pen and some papers and work these challenges out! Bear in mind that it's not expected that these 12 year-olds should know anything about algebraic equations. So simple question, simple answer is key!

How does it fare with you? Drop your comments please!

Frankfurter Buchmesse

This was our annual pilgrimage to the "Mecca" of books - Frankfurter Buchmesse. Just like last year, the weather was fabulous! It was again a warm October Sunday, and we managed make it to the book fair no earlier than 3pm, as always. Yeah,we were quite pressed for time since the book fair was ending at 5.30pm.

We really did try hard this time to make an effort to be early: We left church immediately after the service ended. When we got home at 12.55pm, I found myself frantically getting lunch ready that I even forgot to take off my jacket. Got the kids fed by 1.45pm. Well, if only they could eat faster... if only they could eat on their own.... Then in between, Alan had to go change a soiled diaper for Kristin, and finally we had our lunch. And since it was such a brilliant day, we left home at about 2.15pm and thought, hmmm, why don't we let Bryan cycle there so that we could tire him out a little and he wouldn't be whiny by bedtime??

So we did. Instead of hopping onto the next U-Bahn, which we are by the way only a stop away from the Trade and Convention centre, we took a long leisure walk, while Bryan cycled and Kristin was sitting happily in the pram. So by the time we made it through the ticket office (yes, we had to pay 10 Euro per adult for entrance), past the entrance and up onto the shuttle bus and across the many halls in the whole Trade and Convention Centre, we finally arrived at Hall 8 at 3.15pm. That's where all the English books were housed. Ok, we were a tad earlier than last year, since we did not stop by the German Children's books section in Hall 3 this time round, and we also did not make the mistake of getting to Hall 8 on foot!

By about 3.40pm, we only managed down the A, B, C aisles, and there were plenty more to go. I think we were barely 1/4 through the hall and we got only a magnifying glass at 8 Euro (yeah, we came to a book fair to get Bryan a magnifying glass), a poster on learning about time (the Malaysian exhibitors were so friendly that they also gave the kids posters of the Malaysian states), two more posters on numbers from another Malaysian exhibitor (the kids received a pack of colouring pages, puzzle and stickers from them again) and two Christian books on Love from 1 Corinthians, and a Time for Everything from Ecclesiastes 3 at 4 Euro (we really didn't want to appear that we were bargaining. They wanted 5 but between Alan and myself we only had two 2 Euro coins. And we didn't want to break our 50 Euro note.) By this time, Bryan had gotten himself another free book on Pirates from another exhibitor. What a lucky boy, was the only thing I could say in an attempt to hide my embarassment! Then at this particular stand, I saw these Write and Slide wipe offf books for Phonics, Spelling and Maths. Now I couldn't resist. I knew I had to get them. They were at 8 Euro each! I thought, that's awfully cheap, considering they all had a sticker on one corner that read 7.99 GBP! So I got all three of them. Then when we got home, Alan discovered that it said 15.99 GBP each at the back of the book! Yeah, you can see the proud smile I was wearing on my face.

Ok, it was almost 4pm and we still hadn't got much in our bags, unlike last year. I was fretting when I reached Harper Collins and Sterling. Bryan and I picked up 3 Berenstain Bears and 5 People You Meet in Heaven from Mitch Albom at Harper Collins and I was about to pay when I realised I had to get some cash from Alan. So I told the man I would be back and went back to Alan when he was hanging around the Sterling booth. Then he pulled me aside and showed me the piece of paper on the floor: Free Books! The peace didn't last long when the Sterling people started shouting, Free Books! By this time, there were 30 odd people at the stand and they were grabbing whatever their eyes fancied. I went through the children's books and cookbooks briefly and twice I was pushed out by the crowd. Haha... looks like Singaporeans still have a long way to go when it comes to being a world-class kiasu freebie grabber!

Anyway, we were quite happy with the giveaways at Sterling and we called it a day since people were already ripping off the carpet in the other part of the hall. Yeah... we still didn't make it half way through one hall, just like last year, but we went home with a lot of books. At first, I was still fretting about how late we arrived at Hall 8 and how cash low we were - we did try to get cash but the ATM at the entrance was out of order. Now I finally know things happened for a reason. And Sterling was the reason!

Just a look at the free books we gathered:
The left pile was given and the right pile was bought.

And this is my ecstatic find at Sterling:

Yes, Bryan loves the rhymes here!

And the hero of the day was Alan! Imagine he carried back most of the books in one huge blue Ikea bag. How many times did we swear last year that we would return this year with a suitcase? Why didn't we learn our lesson?

Here's one with Daddy enjoying his hard work:

Oh I conveniently forgot about Harper Collins. Look, we wouldn't want to add on to Alan's burden, right?

fancy food fad... food fad fancy... fad fancy food...

My new cupcake recipe book arrived this morning through the post! Hurray!
Now you can definitely see more pictures of cupcakes filling out this dull blog. :) Can't wait to try out a few more recipes... but gotta hit the book first and start my research.

Baking is as much a science as it is an art. Don't you think? Gotta weigh out each ingredient with accuracy, take extra caution not to add in fluid unnecessarily, beat the mixture at the correct speed to the correct amount of time. Then come the various pretty cake adorning techniques. Oooooh... what labourious effort! But the whole process is really FUN! Especially so when you see the smiles on people who're sampling your bakes. :)

By the way, I knew I had to get this book and take advantage of the free delivery service by amazon because for this same book, I would have to pay SGD 55 at the store Bake-it-yourself. 12.95 EUR was quite a good deal, wasn't it?

a sahm finally...

Yes... this is what I've been wanting to live out!

I'm staying at home so that:
- I can drop off and pick up the kids at preschool.
- I can follow my children on field trips. This morning, I had my first debut as a chaperone for Bryan's field trip. It was a short walk to the duck pond and we collected leaves in the wonderful golden fields of autumn - nothing much to boast about. But yes, I want to be that mom who enjoys school experience with her children!
- I can experiment with recipes and bake as many cupcakes and muffins as I want.
- I can bring muffins over to another mommy friend's place and share them with her kids! Haha, so taitai now!
- I can sneak out for a lunch break with my husband and his colleagues (for some adult company) while the kids are at school and then back to being a sahm again when I pick them up after a decent lunch.

And now, while the kids are napping, I can steal some rest from my biking exercise this morning. I overestimated myself and attempted to bike to the kids' school within 15 minutes for my volunteer work. The uphill route proved to be a near heartattack experience. I came into the hallway looking all flustered, just 5 minutes before the class was about to leave the building and Bryan's teacher asked me how I was doing. It was so embarassing that I could only murmur a soft ok while I was still catching my breath!

I really should be going to the gym more often and bake less at home! Anyway, I don't bake when the kids aren't home.

apple picking at Appel Happel...

We knew that the weather would be fabulous over the weekend. So Daddy dug through his collections of restaurants and found the address of Appel Happel. Apparently, he was there at the end of October last year for a meal and discovered freshly squeezed apple juice and the apple orchard by chance.

We planned for a whole day of fun, starting out with lunch at the restaurant by the apple orchard, and then apple picking. But much to our disappointment, the restaurant does not serve lunches on Saturday! So in the end, we decided to go for a quick round of apple picking and head off for lunch at Ikea - what would we do without Ikea?

15 minutes of apple picking was just about right for the kids. I think any longer would either mean very tired children, or too many apples picked!

As with all our fruit picking excursions, Kristin must have a taste of farm fresh fruits. So there she was nibbling away on her freshly picked apple. More photos here.

We picked about 16 apples, with two tiny ones given to the kids at the farm store while we were weighing out the apples. All in all 1.89kg, so 1.89 Euro! The kids then finished off their excursion with a glass of freshly squeezed apple juice each on the house.

Ikea lunch was pretty good. Kristin finished her whole portion of lasagne on kids' menu, and had most of her jello. Bryan as usual ate pretty well because he couldn't wait to scoot off to the slide after his meal.

Really, Ikea is a huge playground for kids. We had to persuade the kids to leave the place in peace just to get across the street to Toys R Us. And we finally got a bike for Bryan.

I think we did very well this weekend. We gave alot of our time to the kids, as usual. If I were my kids, I would have nothing to complain about and strive to be as obedient as my mom would want me to be.

cupcake craze...

This was my third attempt, experimenting with pretty colours.

As you probably can see here, I'm running out of ideas at 1 am in the morning!

I kind of like these two best tonight! What do you think?

more cupcakes...

It was the Day of Unity yesterday. The Germans remember this day of reunification back on October 3rd 1990 when there was no longer a division of the East and West. So... it's a bank holiday and there's no school nor work for the kids and Daddy respectively. But there's still lots of work at home for Mommy. Hmm, when is MY bank holiday ever gonna come?

Anyway, I'm not complaining because we had some fun in the kitchen yesterday creating these mini cakes. Now, armed with advices and tips from Wendy, I returned confidently this time with a rojak recipe (well, not really rojak, but a recipe put together from many different ones to yield the optimal results). The rojak recipe really didn't turn out too bad! :)

Bryan was again a great help. And of course, this time we only started after Kristin had gone down for a nap.

This was my very first attempt of the day to frost:

I made this one especially for Alan and it turned out that he picked this one as his favourite design! Yay... I do know my man well!

This one was initially a flop. But I managed to repair the damage enough that it didn't look to bad to me after all:

Now this one was a design painstakingly done by Kristin throwing in the pistachio nuts in between the circle of almonds and chocolcate cream:

In the end, we ran out of frosting (the basic white ones) - only managed to frost 9 out of the 12 cupcakes baked.

He's got the whole world in His hands...

Enjoy!

colours and shapes...

Bryan burst out singing this song while he was putting his toys away this evening.

"There's red for the stop sign and green for the trees
And blue for the skies and seas
This is a song about colours, colours... we see them all around.
Red stand up, blue stand up, yellow stand up, everyone stand up.
This is a song about colours, colours..."

I'm impressed by what he caught on in school for this week. Yep, this week's theme is Colours and Shapes.

During our playdate with one of his good friends from his class today, it was so much fun observing the kids goofing around with an old game I used to play with my friends too.

It went like this:

Who took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Ryan took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Bryan took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Mommy took the cookies from the cookie jar. (I had to play along when I heard my name.)
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Kristin took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?

Again, I was pretty impressed by these two four-year-olds. They were listening to each other intently to continue the chant.

:(

I told Bryan today that Mommy was upset that he didn't behave himself in school today. So after drawing his teacher a card to apologise, he decided to perk Mommy up with this card.

"That's Mommy and me and a rose with lots of thorns," he explained his drawings. "And inside the card is a rainbow to make you happy again."

Yep, I'm holding onto your promise that you won't misbehave again in school. Just four weeks into school and I've heard enough complaints about you pushing boundaries and testing limits. Why don't I get "Oh, Bryan's such a sweetie today!" anymore?

child labour?

Haha... just a little something to keep them occupied, while Mommy relaxed over dinner preparation the other day.







As you can see, not much of relaxing there if you can hear the tone of Mommy getting all stressed up towards the end of the clip.

Here's one with Kristin enjoying herself:

learning styles inventory..

Style Scores

Visual 15
Social 13
Physical 10
Aural 15
Verbal 15
Solitary 11
Logical 11

Hee, couldn't resist doing this test, although I should be running out to grab some groceries now.

Try it out, friends, and find out what your learning styles are.

Hmmm.... never knew that I learn through listening too. Guess the years of training in Germany helped to shape that. During my first lecture I had the biggest cultural shock! My German professor came in and started rattling off and there was not a single transparency flashed!

Soon, I found myself taping down all his lectures for my first semester so that I could get by my first exam. Hee... as most Singaporeans would, I was among the top. :)

Seems pretty much a bit of everything for now. Maybe it's the work I do now: SAHM! A bit of everything?!!

Good to know. Perhaps I'll revisit the test when I join the workforce again. Thanks Lilian for the website.

joke of the week...

The kids and Daddy were having some fun in the living area after dinner, while Mommy was busy folding away clothes.

All of a sudden, Bryan went, "Daddy... *growl* This is an allosaurus. It eats vegetables!"
Daddy, "Huh? What's an allosaurus?" Obviously, dinosaurs and Daddy don't get along.

Then, Bryan assembled another dinosaur and explained to his Daddy, "Now this is a killosaurus. This one eats meat. Run, Daddy, run!"

By the way, allosaurus are any of various carnivorous dinosaurs of the genus Allosaurus of the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous Periods, and killosaurus is just a new term that my 4-year-old paleontologist-wannabe is cooking up.

sweet surrender...

Yep, I finally succumb to all those yummy posts that I've been reading much too often on blogs. So I decided to try my hand at baking today! Thanks to Bill Granger's recipe, things did turn out pretty well this evening.
A little hiccup though: The icing was much too runny for a novice like me to handle. No offense to Bill's recipe! In fact, I thought his recommended white chocolate + sour cream icing tastes delightfully delicious! I'm just disappointed to a tiny degree that I couldn't do art with my new icing kit.
Oops, I almost forgot to add that I had some "helpers" too - some were way too eager or much too helpful than the others. While I was frosting the cupcakes, I had to scream for Alan to remove both children and at one time, Bryan coz he was helping himself to all the M&M's instead of using them to decorate the cupcakes!

say cheese...

Due to overwhelming response to Baby No. 1, here's a collage capturing Baby No. 2 grinning from ear to ear!

results...

I couldn't wait for the night to come. So when Bryan came home, I decided to spring the test on him. Bearing in mind that it's his first assessment ever, I walked him through the task: Got him to read all the words in one column and went through the pictures with him to ensure that the pictures were perceived correctly. Then, I began to realise my mistake. I think he's got a little confused now with hat-hay, bat-bay...

I would say he did about 80% correctly on his own for today.

The next step is to start breaking down the words further to letters. Remember, I'm using the analytical method. So each word will get split even smaller each time. For a start, he has to copy the words by sticking letters.

test

A little learning assessment awaits Bryan tonight. If the mood for learning is right, he'll have to match the words to the pictures correctly.

I'm a little excited as to how he'll perform in the assessment.

Teaching word recognition to a young child sure involves alot of reviews. Hmmm, a recursive curriculum perhaps? I wonder how much he still remembers from the word families "-at" and "-ool".

This is the first time I'm doing assessment tasks with him. Previously, all the exercises were devised to help him search and recognise the correct word.

growing up...

Bryan's teacher requested for some photos so that she could add a personal touch to each child's cubbie in school. So while printing out some headshots, I decided I could play around with some collages and print out some for framing up.
And here's one of Bryan growing up and going places!

bits and pieces...

Just last week, I gave a Bryan a really fine black book. Hardcover, A4 size and with high quality papers, I think at least 100g per sheet. Actually it's all complimentary from SunTechnics, one of the companies that Daddy met up with.

Anyway, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to use it as a learning journal for Bryan?" So when I presented him the huge black book, he was pleasantly surprised, "Oh thanks, Mom! I really like my 'work'book." That's what I told him it was gonna be. "Ok, Mom. Let's do some work now!" He couldn't wait to start. Thus, for the initiation, I told him to pen down his own name on the cover! He was delighted!

Well, if you know me, I'm not a hardcore-homeschooling-mom who has a strict curriculum and tight schedule to stick to. No offence to mommies who homeschool though. I just pale in comparison when it comes to discipline. If I were bestowed a wee bit of your discipline, I would gladly be a hardcore homeschooling warrior too and very definitely, my children would benefit from the real homeschool. What I do is really quasi-homeschooling.

Back to our workbook: We've been quite hardworking, last Wednesday and Thurday and this Wednesday and Thursday again. Hmm, I didn't know I actually set a time for these sessions. Convenience does plan its schedule well in this case.

From our very few sessions, I'm beginning to appreciate handwritten work. Sometimes, I spotaneously chart out an hour of learning with words, other times I prefer to get him to read from the calendar and count the numbers, while he dictates how I should spell out the months. I think by getting him to watch me write, he practises writing in a way too, by observing each stroke that makes up a letter, which then combines with others to make up words. I think I've forgotten that copying is learning in itself. Thanks to our huge black book, I am rediscovering this traditional method. Also, I think I'm setting the tone for the days to come - hee, guess who's gonna be writing eventually - when he begins to write, copy and eventually learn to transcribe accurately... but certainly not in the very near future, judging from the speed at which I tread when it comes to homeschooling.

So here's our huge black book!

a reading review...

As usual, we were doing some review on what Bryan had learnt so far.
Basically the fat-cat-sat-on-the-mat-stuff and he surprised me today with another word family, the "-an" family!

He was reading off "can, ban, man, ran, pan, tan, fan" all by himself when he got too tired with the word search on "-at" family I presented him. It certainly does look like he's ready for new challenges.

We've also been working on recognising the months on a calendar.
This was what his teacher wrote last Friday:
During circle time today the children were observing the display of months and discussing which month was their birthday. Bryan told us that December is Jesus' birthday.

I'm really pleased that he remembers little personal details, especially this one! I pray that he'll have a personal relationship with our Lord one day, soon.

it's so cold...

that the fan has stopped working in my room, Mom!

Well, actually I pulled off the plug from the wall socket before I sent Bryan to bed for nap yesterday afternoon. I didn't want him to switch on his fan as soon as I left him on his own to finish his milk and then fall asleep.

Ok... it certainly didn't sound smart. But which do you prefer: He said it was too cold and the fan didn't work or the fan didn't work because there's no electricity? While the latter is definitely the correct and sane answer, I think I still prefer the innocence in his voice when he proudly proclaimed about the cold causing his fan to conk out!

He's only 4. And some day I'm gonna miss his naive way of looking at the world.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhh...

It's happening again! The seasonal change... we've succumbed to the cold, yet again. Sigh! It started off with Kristin, then Bryan and now Mommy. Hope Daddy will be spared.
And soup is definitely on the menu for tonight's dinner. We've gotta be healthy soon because I so wanna go to Kassel this Friday! Yes, I'm finally gonna catch up with some old friends who I haven't seen for like almost 7 years! Yippee!

missing madeleine...

I've been following the recent twists of the missing Madeleine rather closely the past couple of days. Apparently, recent DNA findings in a car have led the Portuguese police to declare Madeleine's parents as formal suspects to the case. That's so mind-boggling!
You mean the same parents that have rallied so much international attention to search for their daughter Madeleine are now declared as suspects? Uh-huh, yeah, or so according to the detectives in Praia da Luz.

Good grief... may the truth come to light soon. And as a parent, I really can't imagine Gerry and Kate McCann harming their daughter, for whom they have so publicly been professing their love in the past 128 days through searching, hoping, praying, and awaiting her safe return.

because she said so...

Have you ever taken that dare trip down to the supermarket with your ever curious little ones who forever have ants in their pants?
While I was surfing around looking at other moms' blogs last week, I finally found strength to continue my mission as SAHM, even if it means I have to be alone out there once in a while, grocery shopping with my kids.

Meet Dawn Meehan, my inspiration to be a better mom.

After having read her ebay listing or rather an account of her recent trip to the supermarket - which by the way has earned her plenty of fame, job offers and most importantly thunderous applause from moms all over the world and thereby making her the spokewoman for all moms, grocery shopping suddenly becomes a less daunting task.

And the next time before I erupt with anger, when my children attempt to do art pieces out of their meals on the table , I should instead learn how to take a few deep breaths and think about just what Dawn might write on her blog today, and then smile! That will certainly make my day easier and less whiny.

2nd morning without the kids...

For a change, I decided to stay at home and do nothing. Alan dropped the kids off at school this morning. Yeah, he'll be gone for the next two days (full time, only be back late at night to sleep). So I've gotta be dropping off/picking up the kids anyway. Why not enjoy a morning of doing nothing now?

Ok... I'm not exactly a bum here... I need to do laundry, prepare lunch boxes for the kids for the next two days, go get some tights for Kristin and some new jackets for the kids. Ermm... wow! That's a lot for doing nothing on a lazy morning, huh?

I think I'd better get going...

back to the list..

Ok... I also organised the kids' toys after they went to bed. Only a wee bit. But yeah! That's actually 4 things off my list today. FOUR!

first day in pre-school...

While it's just back to school on the first day for Bryan this year, it really is Kristin's first day in school today. Attending school first time ever!

After a whole year of practice of going to school - Kristin comes with me to school every day when I drop Bryan off - and watching her brother attend school, Kristin walked into her classroom on her first day with much confidence and enthusiasm. Not a single tear, while the rest of her classmates were crying their eyes out! We had the shortest first day as parents. We really did just drop her off and that was it!

In the meantime, I went to my gym, had lunch with Alan and did some toiletries - well, not exactly groceries - shopping between 9 am and 2 pm! Hey, wasn't I good? Already three things off my list! Haha!

By the time I returned to pick the kids up, they refused to leave. Yeah... first day of school and not leaving it! After much coaxing and bribing (marshmallows if they went home with me), we finally left school only at 2.50 pm!

Kristin fell straight asleep in the car before I even hit the main road on our way home.

So how did she do today?
Her teacher said Kristin was excellent! She was a great teacher's helper. She helped to bring toys to the other kids who were crying, hoping that she could distract them. She sat down and listened to stories and punctutated the story-telling session with her occasional "Look!" Actually, I was surprised that she even spoke.

She had her snack and ate her lunch alright, made a new friend - Debbie, and did some colouring.

After dinner, she was pounding on me like a mad puppy while I was lounging on the couch, watching Daddy play Wii. She told me, "Come, Mom. Let's go! Let's go to school!" So need I say more on how much she loves school now?

the night before...

Tomorrow's gonna be a big day for the kids.

It's the first day of the school year for Bryan and it's the FIRST DAY of school for Kristin.

Yay! And finally, my day has come. Yap, mine! Finally, I can drop the kids off at school and have some time off from 9am to 2pm every day! At last, I can have a life! Previously, I was just a home-bound slave. Even though Bryan had been attending school here for a year already, I was still mostly stuck at home in the morning with Kristin.

So here are some things that I have in mind to accomplish, while the kids are in school every day:
1. Go to the gym, sauna, steambath and take good care of myself.
2. Do groceries, without kids on tow.
3. Sort the wardrobe: for the seasons, to give away, or to dump. Can you imagine I haven't been able to do this since we moved to Frankfurt in Nov 2005?
4. Sort the kids' toys. Messy!
5. Reorganise the store-room, basement storage. This one's gonna be tough work. Ok, basement? Am not too sure if I wanna be there on my own. I've seen rats scurrying around before.
6. Reorganise the contents in the kitchen cabinets. Throw out the expired stuff.
7. Sort the kids' books. Very Messy!
8. Start a family scrapbook. Got the materials, just need to have the time to do it.
9. Meet friends for brunch without the kids. Yippee!
10. Go get my eyebrows shaped! See, I can't possibly do this with the kids running around in Body Shop.
11. Make an appointment with the GP for flu jab and another appointment with an orthopedist to check my cracking left shoulder. Not due to old age, but due to prolonged carrying of baby/toddler in one arm, while I have to manhandle a mischievous preschooler who sometimes doesn't want to get into the car or do 1001 things with the other arm like cook, wash dishes, do laundry and fold clothes, carry grocery bags etc.
12. See Frankfurt, visit the Goethe's Haus, check out some museums. Can you believe it? I have been living in Frankfurt for almost 2 years and I hardly know this place. Yay, I can visit the book fair in October on my own!
13. Ask my husband out for a lunch date once in a while, hurrah!
14. Clean the toilets/bathrooms the way I like to. Somehow the Putzfrau doesn't get it quite right.
15. Errrmm, do nothing! Dolce niente! That is also good, isn't it?
16. Reorganise the digital photos. My photos are everywhere. My hard disk, Alan's portable hard disk, my portable hard disk and our common portable hard disk. Boy, if only one could actually see this virtual mess spilled over 4 hard disks...!
17. Blogging... hee, as if I haven't already spent lots of time here.
18. Buy myself a book and read. It's been a long time since I read for my own pleasure. The last time... ermm, before Bryan was born, oh my!
19. Go shopping/window-shopping! Haha... just doing my job: Alan earns, I spend!
20. Get a label machine. How can I not have one if I want to get organised?

Not exactly in any order of priority, just whatever that comes into my mind right now.
So... we'll see where the list gets me to in a couple of months' time.

our new friend...

Since last month, we've got an addition to our family.

It's Wii!

Not only is Bryan hooked on it, so are Daddy and Mommy. The only person feels left out most of the time is, unfortunately, Kristin. Being the youngest one, she's yet come to learn how to maneuver with the wii-mote. So far, the whole family has had so much fun doing Wii Sports together. Oh boy, Bryan's a natural when it comes to bowling. I get to play baseball for the 1st time. Ever! And finally, I have someone to play tennis with.

And whoever says that video games get in the way of learning? Try Big Brain Academy! It really is a bad idea to play Big Brain after the kids are in bed. We find that we are too alert to go to sleep at 2 o'clock in the morning!

terrible 2's?

I've been reading quite abit on how this is affecting alot of my mommy friends right now...
When did this exactly happen for Kristin???

I think it all started out when she mastered the magic word "No!". Now when was that??? I think it didn't take her long after her 1st birthday to say "no" since she's always getting a daily dose from her big brother.

Yikes... how long more???

yay, school, yay!

After a shower before bedtime, Kristin couldn't contain her excitement about school in front of her Daddy any longer. She kept cheering, "Yay, school, yay!" Yeah, after all, she's been practising going to school for the past year but never got to attend it every morning when we dropped Bryan off.

At the school's open house this morning, she was brimming with self-confidence when I left her in her new classroom with her teachers, as I had to accompany Bryan to his class to meet his new teachers. I really wished I could split myself into halves!

Kristin's been delirious whenever she gets to put on her backpack. Maybe she identifies herself with Dora in that way better? Or maybe she just can't wait to "wreak havoc" in school with her older brother. In the past, it was so easy to get her to get dressed after lunch. I just had to mention, "Quick, let's go! We've gotta go to school to pick Bryan up!" I could really see her eyes sparkle. Yeah, and nowadays, she'll drag me, "Quick, Mom. Let's go!"
"Where to, my dear?"
"Let's go!" She just wants to be out of the house... And school is about right for her.

I think I remember going through this stage with Bryan. And the first complete sentence my son mastered even before he turned 18 months was "I want to go!" said with utter urgency.

the fat cat sat on the mat, the finale...

This is Day 5 of "The Fat Cat sat on the Mat".

Bryan completed the whole reader with me, reading about 80% of it all by himself! The other 20% he insisted on parroting me.

Wow! I was impressed!

Ok, on some occasions, I think his memory served as a great aid to his reading as I've read the book to him before. But really, I've not read the book to him more than 5 times, I guess. So it wouldn't be right to say that he read it out of his memory. Also, I think Bryan's a natural when it comes to rhyming. So, when he got "room", he got "broom" too, not forgetting "wish", "dish", "fish". And because we talk so much nonsense day in day out, and he orders and commands his sister what she ought and ought not to do, "So get off the mat!" wasn't much of a challenge to him. When he got "get", he immediately completed it with "off".

Anyway, I'm definitely rejoicing over my a-little-less-than-a-week-of-"hard"-work... We are now one baby step closer to literacy! :D

yay, he's reading alright!

We just had lunch with Daddy in the city.

While waiting to be served, Bryan read to his Daddy his silly sentences again. Boy, was Daddy proud of him!

But we were quite disappointed to hear that Bryan didn't want to learn how to read. He said he would once he became a big boy. And for now, he preferred to be read to...

What a lazy baby!!! Actually my secret agenda of teaching literacy is to have him read on his own in the morning when he wakes up, lest he comes bothering me in my bed! Hey, I'm cranky too when I don't get my sleep, ok?

bravo, Bryan!

As of "The fat cat sat on the mat" Day 4, Bryan is finally reading! Reading actual words and understanding them, and not picture reading. Yeah, tried and tested! Really!

Guess what just happened? He was peering into my screen to read my previous post and he saw what he could recognise. To make things easier, I printed out a copy of the silly sentences he made. And the most amazing thing happened! He read all of them! Every single word! Awesome! I know he definitely understood what he read coz he was laughing his head off.

Well, to many moms, this is probably no surprise for a 4 year-old. Many kids that I know have already started reading as early as three, or maybe even younger. But it is the utmost gratification for me after an intense lesson of two days. Now this makes the quasi-homeschooling that I do fun!

"Mom, remember to tell Daddy what I did today, ok?" Oh no, you're gonna to read to him!

the fat cat sat on the mat again...

Last night, I was totally convinced that my son was an under-achiever.

I gave him a stack of self-made cards with words of the sentence "the fat cat sat on the mat" jumbled up and told him to read each individual words and then arrange them into a sentence.

He had no problems with word recognition. He was reading each card alright. But when it came to forming a sentence, it was "the fat cat sat on mat the", until Alan could sense my frustration at dinner table. (Yeah, at dinner table, coz otherwise Bryan will not be interested in food. Don't get me started on starving them for a few meals. My children are just not interested in food. They can starve and be cranky and crazy, and still they won't eat unless they are sat down at the table with Daddy and Mommy saying "Eat! Eat!" every other second. Why don't they like food??? Anyway, that's another grouse altogether.)

Alan pointed out that it could be too boring for him to just form one sentence. So I thought, ok I would throw in the other words like"bat, hat, rat" and see what Bryan would do with them. Still not much progress.

After dinner, I wrote some silly sentences on the board and got Bryan to match each sentence. And indeed, he showed keen interest in silly sentences. Still, he had to check with me a hundred times before he completed a sentence. And after 15 minutes, he said he's too tired and his arms were all aching from arranging the cards! What???!!! What an under-achiever, I thought again. Sigh!

During lunch today, we did the word cards again. Yeah, it's "The fat cat sat on the mat" on Day 3. This time I didn't have any spare moment to check and baby him through the sentence making steps, so I just told him to make one silly sentence to make me laugh. What came out of that motivating factor laughter?

"The fat bat sat on the rat."
"The fat rat sat on the cat."
"The fat bat sat on the hat."
"The fat cat sat on the rat."
"The fat mat sat on the hat."
"The fat hat sat on the bat."
"The fat cat sat on the hat."
"The fat rat sat on the bat." etc

Now not so much an under-achiever today. Yay! Of course, I had to pretend that his silly sentences were cracking me up. He was certainly proud that he could make Mommy laugh with all his silly sentences.

the fat cat sat on the mat...

Yesterday was a good day for me.

I managed to quickly cook dinner while the kids napped. By the time Bryan woke up from his nap, I was able to have some fun with him.

We have had this chart on our main door for a very long time. It finally served its purpose yesterday afternoon, when I told Bryan to sit in front of it and learn the first 4 words in the "-at" family column, while I cleaned up the kitchen.

It didn't take him long. After 5 minutes, "I'm done, Mommy! What's next?"

He's been resisting his afternoon nap ever since we came back from Singapore. So whenever I say he doesn't have to go back to his bed anymore, he loves it! In fact, he loves it whenever he has to do some "work" for Mom so much that when Daddy was back yesterday evening, he proudly informed his Dad that he was doing some "work" for Mom.

Anyway, next it was word-recognition exercise for him.

I wrote a series of "cat", "bat", "hat" and "mat" on the easel and got him to circle, t-cross, cross out and then strike out the words, one group at a time. Pretty well, and all this while I was still clearing the cooking utensils in the kitchen.

Next, it was word cards.

Got Bryan to read out the words, while prompting him not to forget the accompanying actions. The actions were a lot of fun for him. e.g. scratching moves for "cat", flapping arms for "bat", hands over the head for "hat" and lastly, he had to sit down on a "mat".

Finally I showed him the card "at", hoping he would transfer some of his knowledge to reading the word on his own. Well, not so much. He needed some clues.

The last thing we did before dinner was for him to complete reading the whole column of the "-at" family chart. And he did! Applause! So I did manage to get him to transfer his new "-at" knowledge after all. Oh... yes! I also got him to read "the fat cat sat on the mat" out loud and immediately he remembered we had a book in that title.

After dinner, we had a short revision on those words using Magna-Doodle board. Then we started reading "The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat" together. It was fun and an accomplished lesson plan! Homeschooling this way, I like it. But this is not always the reality.

Reality is: Mommy is always tired, Bryan is being silly or cranky, or Kristin is disturbing us!

But it was definitely seizing the moment to get him to learn a few more words.

Oh... did I mention I was in the gym yesterday? Yeah, that's where the energy came from. I think I need to camp out in the gym to feel fit mentally to teach again.

Next on my lesson plan is the "-ish" family. Not very many words - "fish", "dish", "wish", "swish". But I can certainly read Dr Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish with him after that.

I do have many ideas in my head... but really can't summon energy to realise them. Where is Brand's Chicken Essence and Youmeishu???