time flies.. flies... flies.... february has come and is almost going... going...gone... it seems that cny was only not too long ago where we were once again back at daddy's kampung for a short visit and dinner before we headed off to KL with 2 feverish kids...fever had struck ethan only the night before while zoe had hers the moment we reached the relatives' place. nonetheless, the fever did not dampened their mood for their favourite activity once we reached the hotel - the long awaited bubble bath time! and this was just about the only 'water' activity they did over the next 3 days since swimming was out as the fever persisted till we returned home several days after. this time round, it was only zoethan in the tub, sans daddy, and both had a good time blowing foam all over each other and practising their 'breaststrokes' while 'swimming' in the tub! it was definitely a delightful sight to behold...
ethan:
its been almost a month since ethan started home-schooling at teacher peggy's house. God has definitely turned things around for good, from her resignation from appletree, to the new horrible teacher and assistant who took over which led to ethan's withdrawal from the playgroup! though initially, ethan was reluctant to stay at peggy's place while mum sent zoe to school, he has since overcome whatever 'separation anxiety', or rather 'reluctance' in about a week or so! he now waves goodbye to mum and jie jie happily when we drop him off and goes about whatever routine he has to while at peggy's place.
he knows that he has to arrange his shoes neatly upon entering the house and that he has to greet the ah ma (peggy's mil) first thing after putting his bag down. in fact, its just amazing how he can listen and follow instructions when told and is able to sit at the the same spot daily for snacks (mostly cheerios!) without running everywhere! even if he does messes up, he knows discipline awaits him and that he has to clean up or risk sitting in the 'naughty corner' till he apologises and cleans up. in fact, he has even learnt to wipe the table after food, something that he has never done before, till now. peggy's home is definitely good training ground.
in just over a month, the boy has learnt his phonics well and can recite them in record speed almost as well as his ABCs though there are some letters that he can't pronounce accurately as yet. he knows that we are super proud of him for he often takes out his ABC book and recites the sound each letter makes and often looking at mummy with a cheeky grin when he's done. we are definitely so really proud of him. it's still another 3 months before his 3rd birthday but he is already able to spell like a hundred words, or, oh well, maybe at least 50 words and its all self taught - courtesy of the applications on the ipad and the iphone! he can spell the various colours, from, red to blue to green and even yellow, animals like, ant to cow to fish to lion, things from bed to car to jeep to shoe to to house and mouse and the list just goes on and on!!! the parents are just totally amazed by his ability to remember things! he's literally a sponge, soaking up everything he can right now! one nite, mum taught him to spell 'sleep' just as we were going to bed and the next morning, when asked for the spelling of it again, he could spell it out right even though his eyes were barely opened when awoken by mum! for the record, his jie jie can barely spell half as many words as he can.
right now, it seems that he's really just living in a world of alphabets, for spelling is the first thing he does out loud when he wakes every morning and he's almost always reading the abc book whether we are home or out. besides reciting the alphabet song or reading it phonetically, he can rattle off at an amazing speed that goes something like this:'a fo..r.rr.r apple, b fo.rr.r..r bed, c fo..r.r.. cow, d fo...rr.r.rr drum, e fo..rr.r.r. elephant all the way and he wouldn't stop till he reaches 'z'. its really funny hearing him and if anyone interrupts him before he finishes all 26 alphabets, he'll just be totally annoyed and then continue from wherever he left off till he finishes all 26 alphabets!!! hhahahaha :) what's more, it took him just under 3 days to learn to recite 1 to 10 in chinese!!! ethan is just mum's amazing superbaby!!!
also, now that's he is approaching 3, he's talking more, using more words, and starting to talk in complete sentences too. he has 'invented' some new words like 'mhug' which actually means 'mummy hug' and 'dhug' which of cos would mean 'daddy hug' (he would scream hysterically 'mhug, mhug, mhug!!!' whenever daddy hugs him). and so we introduced him to 'ahmug' which he now knows to mean 'ah ma hug''!!! LOL!!! once zoe kept butting her fingers in as he was playing with the ipad while seated on the high chair and he immediately cried out, 'zoe!!! sit down!!!' and on another occasion, he actually complained out loud, 'jie jie ... pushed... brother!!!' when zoe bullied him by pushing him! he sure knows how to defend himself right now (by complaining to the parents!!!) and he has also learnt the 'art of bullying' from being a 'victim' of his sister after too many a times! he occasionally 'pushes' her and smiles for he thinks it is funny. other times, he pinches, scratches or even hits his sister (for fun!) but mostly, its when his things are being snatched away by her that he does it. what to do, its now a case of 'monkey see, monkey do' at home. sigh...
one of his favourite 'activity' now would be to stick out his tongue, wet every single one of his fingers with it and them spread them all over his face! definitely yucky! but its even more yucky when daddy takes it a step further by encouraging him to spread his 'saliva infested' fingers all over zoe or mummy unawares!!! gross, definitely! but we do play along with him by squealing and screaming and running away as it tickles him pink and have him chuckling out loud everytime. hehehehehhe ;p
zoe:
its only about a month before zoe turns 5 and mum has been very busy thinking and preparing for her upcoming birthday party. this year, the theme would be 'princess presto' from the cartoon series 'superwhy' and already, mum has placed orders for her party supplies from the US. yeah, she will be dressed up as princess presto, complete with wand (while ethan will also be wearing a personalised superwhy 'whyatt' t-shirt) and she will also be getting a princess presto cake, all thanks to chinee from pinkgingercakes! not only that, she will also be giving out superwhy favour boxes complete with superwhy favours and even superwhy ballons! mum can't wait to see the delight on her face when the shipment finally arrives from the US, all thanks to por por, who is residing there.
she's almost 5 and diaperless for the most part except for naptimes, bedtime and poop time (she refuses to poop anywhere except in her diapers!!!). but this month, she's officially off the diaper during naptimes! hooray! as she often drinks quite a bit of milk before she goes to bed at night, thus for the time being, the diaper stays on as mum is also not quite ready to toilet train her at night, for now. that's still not too much of a concern for mum as compared to her finger sucking habit.
at 4 and 3/4 years, zoe is sucking her fingers more than ever! she sucks them on any and every occasion (except when she's in school or church!). she not only sucks them when she's tired or going to bed, she sucks them when on car rides, she sucks them when she's upset, she sucks them even when she's watching tv! painting her nails with the horrible nail polish doesn't work much anymore, for the sucking resumes almost after 4 hours. initially, mum paints only the nails of those 2 particular fingers on the right hand, but because she has resorted to sucking other unpainted nails when she caves in to the habit that mum now has to resort to painting all 10 of her fingers!!! mum's totally going nutz about this horrible habit of hers and is now at her wits end. Jesus, we need help here! only You can work a miracle in a situation like this!!! Amen!!!
now that zoe is in K1, mum is trying to sit her down and impose a few pages of homework on her everyday so that she'll be better prepared for primary school. she can barely sit still for 10 minutes except when she's drawing and even in those 10 minutes, she would barely do a page of exercise that requires no more than drawing a few circles! for the most part, she would be in her dreams, scratching (she is suddenly itchy everywhere), talking, bothering, 'discipling' or even tattling about ethan. the point is, she would be busy doing everything else except for what she is supposed to be working on. when asked to write her do re mi (by drawing the notes) on her yamaha workbook, even before she could finish with 2 notes, she sat up to complain that it was difficult and that she couldn't do it though there is an example already set out there for her and all she had to do was follow. what happened next was totally unbelievable. when reprimanded, she cried crazily and hysterically for the next 30 odd minutes!!! compare this with her doing the homework, she actually spent more effort crying then doing a simple exercise! the same thing happened the next day when told to continue with her homework. mum is pek chek ah!!! yes Jesus! mum needs your divine guidance and wisdom when dealing with zoe! Amen and Amen!!!
other february highlights:
1. zoethan's officially enrolled into gracefields kindergarten for 2012, where zoe will finish her kindergarten year and ethan will start off in his nursery class.
2. hongkong, here we come (again!)!!! the parents booked a 9 days, 8 nights trip to hongkong at a pre-natas fair since america was way too expensive to go to! sorry por por! you won't get to see the grandkids anytime now...
3. bye bye punggol field, hello cambridge road! we bought our new home and sold ours within 2 weeks. even though we will officially be much closer to town than we ever would (in view of the distance to the kids' future primary schools), but we have 'downgraded' to a 4-room flat instead. boo hoo hoo!!! is it REALLY time to say goodbye to our collection of toys??? mum's really reluctant and saddened by the mere thought of it...
ethan:
its been almost a month since ethan started home-schooling at teacher peggy's house. God has definitely turned things around for good, from her resignation from appletree, to the new horrible teacher and assistant who took over which led to ethan's withdrawal from the playgroup! though initially, ethan was reluctant to stay at peggy's place while mum sent zoe to school, he has since overcome whatever 'separation anxiety', or rather 'reluctance' in about a week or so! he now waves goodbye to mum and jie jie happily when we drop him off and goes about whatever routine he has to while at peggy's place.
he knows that he has to arrange his shoes neatly upon entering the house and that he has to greet the ah ma (peggy's mil) first thing after putting his bag down. in fact, its just amazing how he can listen and follow instructions when told and is able to sit at the the same spot daily for snacks (mostly cheerios!) without running everywhere! even if he does messes up, he knows discipline awaits him and that he has to clean up or risk sitting in the 'naughty corner' till he apologises and cleans up. in fact, he has even learnt to wipe the table after food, something that he has never done before, till now. peggy's home is definitely good training ground.
in just over a month, the boy has learnt his phonics well and can recite them in record speed almost as well as his ABCs though there are some letters that he can't pronounce accurately as yet. he knows that we are super proud of him for he often takes out his ABC book and recites the sound each letter makes and often looking at mummy with a cheeky grin when he's done. we are definitely so really proud of him. it's still another 3 months before his 3rd birthday but he is already able to spell like a hundred words, or, oh well, maybe at least 50 words and its all self taught - courtesy of the applications on the ipad and the iphone! he can spell the various colours, from, red to blue to green and even yellow, animals like, ant to cow to fish to lion, things from bed to car to jeep to shoe to to house and mouse and the list just goes on and on!!! the parents are just totally amazed by his ability to remember things! he's literally a sponge, soaking up everything he can right now! one nite, mum taught him to spell 'sleep' just as we were going to bed and the next morning, when asked for the spelling of it again, he could spell it out right even though his eyes were barely opened when awoken by mum! for the record, his jie jie can barely spell half as many words as he can.
right now, it seems that he's really just living in a world of alphabets, for spelling is the first thing he does out loud when he wakes every morning and he's almost always reading the abc book whether we are home or out. besides reciting the alphabet song or reading it phonetically, he can rattle off at an amazing speed that goes something like this:'a fo..r.rr.r apple, b fo.rr.r..r bed, c fo..r.r.. cow, d fo...rr.r.rr drum, e fo..rr.r.r. elephant all the way and he wouldn't stop till he reaches 'z'. its really funny hearing him and if anyone interrupts him before he finishes all 26 alphabets, he'll just be totally annoyed and then continue from wherever he left off till he finishes all 26 alphabets!!! hhahahaha :) what's more, it took him just under 3 days to learn to recite 1 to 10 in chinese!!! ethan is just mum's amazing superbaby!!!
also, now that's he is approaching 3, he's talking more, using more words, and starting to talk in complete sentences too. he has 'invented' some new words like 'mhug' which actually means 'mummy hug' and 'dhug' which of cos would mean 'daddy hug' (he would scream hysterically 'mhug, mhug, mhug!!!' whenever daddy hugs him). and so we introduced him to 'ahmug' which he now knows to mean 'ah ma hug''!!! LOL!!! once zoe kept butting her fingers in as he was playing with the ipad while seated on the high chair and he immediately cried out, 'zoe!!! sit down!!!' and on another occasion, he actually complained out loud, 'jie jie ... pushed... brother!!!' when zoe bullied him by pushing him! he sure knows how to defend himself right now (by complaining to the parents!!!) and he has also learnt the 'art of bullying' from being a 'victim' of his sister after too many a times! he occasionally 'pushes' her and smiles for he thinks it is funny. other times, he pinches, scratches or even hits his sister (for fun!) but mostly, its when his things are being snatched away by her that he does it. what to do, its now a case of 'monkey see, monkey do' at home. sigh...
one of his favourite 'activity' now would be to stick out his tongue, wet every single one of his fingers with it and them spread them all over his face! definitely yucky! but its even more yucky when daddy takes it a step further by encouraging him to spread his 'saliva infested' fingers all over zoe or mummy unawares!!! gross, definitely! but we do play along with him by squealing and screaming and running away as it tickles him pink and have him chuckling out loud everytime. hehehehehhe ;p
zoe:
its only about a month before zoe turns 5 and mum has been very busy thinking and preparing for her upcoming birthday party. this year, the theme would be 'princess presto' from the cartoon series 'superwhy' and already, mum has placed orders for her party supplies from the US. yeah, she will be dressed up as princess presto, complete with wand (while ethan will also be wearing a personalised superwhy 'whyatt' t-shirt) and she will also be getting a princess presto cake, all thanks to chinee from pinkgingercakes! not only that, she will also be giving out superwhy favour boxes complete with superwhy favours and even superwhy ballons! mum can't wait to see the delight on her face when the shipment finally arrives from the US, all thanks to por por, who is residing there.
she's almost 5 and diaperless for the most part except for naptimes, bedtime and poop time (she refuses to poop anywhere except in her diapers!!!). but this month, she's officially off the diaper during naptimes! hooray! as she often drinks quite a bit of milk before she goes to bed at night, thus for the time being, the diaper stays on as mum is also not quite ready to toilet train her at night, for now. that's still not too much of a concern for mum as compared to her finger sucking habit.
at 4 and 3/4 years, zoe is sucking her fingers more than ever! she sucks them on any and every occasion (except when she's in school or church!). she not only sucks them when she's tired or going to bed, she sucks them when on car rides, she sucks them when she's upset, she sucks them even when she's watching tv! painting her nails with the horrible nail polish doesn't work much anymore, for the sucking resumes almost after 4 hours. initially, mum paints only the nails of those 2 particular fingers on the right hand, but because she has resorted to sucking other unpainted nails when she caves in to the habit that mum now has to resort to painting all 10 of her fingers!!! mum's totally going nutz about this horrible habit of hers and is now at her wits end. Jesus, we need help here! only You can work a miracle in a situation like this!!! Amen!!!
now that zoe is in K1, mum is trying to sit her down and impose a few pages of homework on her everyday so that she'll be better prepared for primary school. she can barely sit still for 10 minutes except when she's drawing and even in those 10 minutes, she would barely do a page of exercise that requires no more than drawing a few circles! for the most part, she would be in her dreams, scratching (she is suddenly itchy everywhere), talking, bothering, 'discipling' or even tattling about ethan. the point is, she would be busy doing everything else except for what she is supposed to be working on. when asked to write her do re mi (by drawing the notes) on her yamaha workbook, even before she could finish with 2 notes, she sat up to complain that it was difficult and that she couldn't do it though there is an example already set out there for her and all she had to do was follow. what happened next was totally unbelievable. when reprimanded, she cried crazily and hysterically for the next 30 odd minutes!!! compare this with her doing the homework, she actually spent more effort crying then doing a simple exercise! the same thing happened the next day when told to continue with her homework. mum is pek chek ah!!! yes Jesus! mum needs your divine guidance and wisdom when dealing with zoe! Amen and Amen!!!
other february highlights:
1. zoethan's officially enrolled into gracefields kindergarten for 2012, where zoe will finish her kindergarten year and ethan will start off in his nursery class.
2. hongkong, here we come (again!)!!! the parents booked a 9 days, 8 nights trip to hongkong at a pre-natas fair since america was way too expensive to go to! sorry por por! you won't get to see the grandkids anytime now...
3. bye bye punggol field, hello cambridge road! we bought our new home and sold ours within 2 weeks. even though we will officially be much closer to town than we ever would (in view of the distance to the kids' future primary schools), but we have 'downgraded' to a 4-room flat instead. boo hoo hoo!!! is it REALLY time to say goodbye to our collection of toys??? mum's really reluctant and saddened by the mere thought of it...
0 comments:
Post a Comment