童言童语

老公：（对媛奶奶家的狗）Happi!! 趴下！趴下！我叫你趴下！

Happi：（坚持不肯，发出怪叫声）

媛媛：爸爸！它刚刚剪毛，地板很冷，不能趴下啦！

Jaimie (not Olivia) Can Cook

Yesterday, the children came together for a baking session organised by their mommies! They are going to bake some home-made food. They have their aprons and even their "home-made" toques!

Kids, I mean the cooks, washed their hands before touching the food. Good hygiene practice is important!

Great friends!!! (Cat family... check out our tops)


First, the kids were given plastic knives to cut the fruits into small pieces.


Done!

For the 50th time, "Is the jelly ready?"

Next, pizza!!! Trust Viv to make the pizza base herself!!! Amazing! The kids decorated their own pizzas. They had so much fun putting on the sausages, ham and pineapple cubes. Capsicum and onions were not popular. They couldn't wait to see the pizzas they made.

Viv also prepared baked rosemary chicken for all of us... OH, YUMMY!!!!!!!!! Viv made the most wonderful mushroom soup for us too. The soup was perfect with the biscuits that WG's sister, Yvonne, made for us. Yvonne is another talented baker and we were glad that she was able to join us yesterday! How nice!

After dinner, it's dessert time. Cupcakes!

We chatted and planned for the next gathering while waiting for the food to (1) digest and (2) ready. We whipped out our handphones to take note of when and where to meet next month. Fortunately and unfortunately, the next gathering is for mommies ONLY.

Viv did it again!!! 100% home-made apple strudel for Wolfie's birthday surprise!

Happy Belated Birthday, my dear BFF!

The cupcakes were ready for decoration. The kids wasted no time in piling up the cupcakes with their favourite candies, rainbow sprinkles and other icing.

They learnt to share, take turns and be careful with handling things during this session.

They also learnt that food doesn't come by easily and they have to treasure everything that is on their plate.

All of us definitely had another memorable and fun-filled evening. They say food bonds people together. How true!

Jaimie Writes “黄"

Jaimie is learning to write her surname. This is the easiest of the 3 characters!!! Sorry, dear... should have named you “一一”or “二二”...hahahaha!!!

Photo Morning

Jaimie wanted to ride her bicycle and Clement wanted to test his new lens. And today is a public holiday. The logical place to go will be WCP.

So Jaimie got to ride, Clement got to shoot, while I sat on the bench, reading "Slumdog Millionaire". It's a very good book, better than the movie!

At about 11am, we went to Kampong Bahru to eat our favourite 饺子and 小笼包. I ordered chicken chop noodles for Jaimie. When asked if the noodles was delicious, she replied, "妈妈帮我叫的很好吃！"

Do all children have super high EQ nowadays?!?!?!

Jaimie Performing @ Childcare's Graduation Concert 2010

We received a letter from Jaimie's childcare centre informing us in the K2's Graduation Concert, selected K1 and N2 students have been picked to participate in the performances, and that Jaimie was among them. We were thrilled! Then, we scrolled down the letter and realised that Jaimie would be playing "Baby Bird #3" in the skit "RaFunzal" (a spoof of the classic Rapunzel - soon to be featured in the new Disney animation "Tangled"!). Jaimie's name appeared last on the actor's list and we knew that she was just playing a super minor role. Nonetheless, we were still very happy and proud. We kept asking her what were her lines and dance steps. Jaimie couldn't tell us very much so we didn't know what to expect of her performance.

That's Jaimie in her baby bird make up, taken outside the childcare centre.
The concert was held in the school classroom. It was a simple and cozy affair. Jaimie was with the other performancers in another classroom while we were seated on "baby chairs" along with many other proud and equally anxious parents.

That's our "Baby Bird #3" after donning her cardboard wings.

The concert began at 11am. The graduands marched in to the song "The Saints Came Marching In". They were so cute and so smart! I don't know why but I almost broke into tears when I saw the children came in! Gosh!! And Jaimie wasn't even among them!! What's wrong to my tear ducts!?

Super super cute~~

The play was the second item in the concert. Now I know why Jaimie couldn't tell us what her involvement was BECAUSE she just came out to with the mother bird and 2 other siblings to say "Chirp chirp chirp! Plat plat plat!!", flew round the prince charming twice. And THAT'S IT! I mean, I know it was a minor role but I didn't know it was THAT insignificant! Hahahaha~~~

This was Jaimie waiting at the door to join in the chorus. She wasn't bored. While waiting, she was dancing together with those performing on stage. Muahahahaha~~~~

After the play skit, there were a few other items. The children were simply toooooo cute in their fashion show and during the modern dance to the tune of "Nobody", which is being played like in every children concert.

Of course all the parents were busy taking photos!!

The grand finale. "I like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..."... Jaimie was the only one singing and gesturing to the song!! Huh! We were wondering if she made it up herself.

I am very impressed with the children. They were able to sing, dance, act and even host! The emcees were the K2 children themselves! How nice!

Even though Jaimie played a small role in the concert, I am very glad that she was chosen to perform because participating in a concert is more than just the performance itself. It's teamwork, discipline, hard work, commitment etc which was beyond the textbooks and the classrooms.

Good job, children!!

Practice Makes Perfect!

Thank you, friends, for leaving your comments in the previous post. I have asked my mother in law who is a primary school Chinese teacher her opinion and she agrees that strokes and sequence is more important than the structure at 4 years old.

However, Clement and I still feel that Jaimie has the ability to write this simple character well. We're not asking her to write words with more complex strokes so we should push her a little if she can manage. If she cannot manage even after trying, of course we will not press on.

You see, the problem with Jaimie is that she is very easily distracted. When focused, she can usually do quite well. Perhaps this writing exercise is a good way to get her to learn to concentrate better. But I must admit that the raising voice part is my bad.

I told Jaimie that a lot of aunties saw her writing in the blog and were impressed by her nice writing! She was happy to hear that. I asked if she was willing to continue writing the same word山 and she readily agreed. It was not surprising that she wrote well after yesterday's practice! After writing 4 lines and most of them were good by my standard, I told her to stop and we proceed on to do her favourite colouring activity.

I must say, well done, my girl!!! You wrote well and you concentrated when you write!

My mother in law will probably start to teach her to write her Chinese name soon. I will leave that to the expert while I will continue with building her foundation.

How Much Should I Ask Of Jaimie?

These 2 pages of Chinese writings were completed in tears and frustration.

“山”is a very simple character with simple strokes to me. I was teaching Jaimie to write it this evening. She had already recognised the word long ago but this was the first time I made her write the word.

She could write “山”, but the strokes were either not of the same length, or of the same width. Being a Chinese teacher, I am quite particular about the fundamentals and the accuracy. The horrible writing Jaimie produced at first was really an eye sore for me and I had to erase them and made her re-write the words. Jaimie had some difficulties in getting the length and the width correct. I understand it could be a hand-eye coordination problem but the Chinese teacher in me was having an internal struggle too. Should I let her pass as long as she knows the strokes? Or should I press for accuracy?

In the end, I decided that accuracy is important. Perhaps she could use this as a practice for her hand-eye coordination too.

In the end, Jaimie produced 2 pages of reasonable and acceptable writing of “山” but it took her about 40mins. I am quite ashamed to say that I kind of lose my patience too and started to raise my voice at her.

But I am really wondering if I am asking too much of a 4.5 year old to write Chinese characters accurately or just let her master the basic strokes of a word at this age?

I really should check with my pre-school teacher friends.

Bento #150

We are continuing with low carbo bento for Clement.

This is easy! Baked terriyaki chicken. Just throw them in the oven loosely wrapped in foil and bake at 180deg for about 1hr. For me, I wake up almost every 2 hours every night so I just have to push them in the oven at the 4am timing. By the time I wake up at 6am (no need to wake up at 5am, YIPEEEE!), the chicken fillet is all done. All I need to do is to open a can of baked bean, cut some capsicum and that's it!

After 2 days of low carbo diet, Clement stepped onto the fat analyser with fat hope. Of course, none of the figures even suggested the slightest dip.

2 daysssssssss only. What you expect!!! You think losing weight is such an easy task, huh!

Q & A on Sticker Art

Wolfgirl brought Jaimie some sticker art and the little princess was thrilled! She enjoyed putting the stickers on the paper a lot and created a world of her own. This is her garden.

Some FAQs you might have and I have asked Jaimie on your behalf.

Q: Why is there an insect on every house door?
A: The houses belong to the insects.

Q: Why is one of the houses hanging in the air?
A: Because it is a magic house.

Q: Why are there ladybirds on the cloud?
A: They are moving to another place on clouds.

Q: Why is there an earthworm on the cloud with the ladybirds?
A: Because the ladybirds are having a party and there is a 客人来~

Q: Why is this bee upside down?
A: Because it worked so hard that it had fainted.

Q: Why is this frog in mid air?
A: Because it was jumping.

Q: Why is there an ant on the sun?
A: I don't know.

After creating the garden, Jaimie couldn't wait to create her sea world.

It was a simple and fun art!!

Thanks, Wolfgirl!!

Bento #149

Clement is into this lose-body-fat-mission. Having a low carb diet is one of the things he do. So I woke up at 5.45am to prepare this no-carbo bento for him-- stir fried spinach with ikan bilis and minced garlic, button mushrooms and a hardboiled egg. His starfruit and kiwi are in another box.

After all the cooking and cleaning, I was getting ready to go to work when I realised that Jaimie was running a fever! No wonder she wet her bed (MY BED, actually!!!!!) last night, talked in her sleep the entire night and woke up numerous times throughout the night.

Cranky and tired, she fell asleep almost immediately after she came home from the clinic.

Hope my baby girl gets well soon~~