Look Out For The Impromptu Lessons

My excitement of being pregnant has been washed away by the daily discomfort of nauseousness, tiredness and headaches. My poor kids have been the victims of neglect. But they have also been very understanding. I hope they don't start to dislike baby. My son told me one afternoon “throw baby away because baby make you sick.” Sweet but a bit worrying.

Anyway, I feel quite guilty coz' I haven't been diligent in teaching them. Yes, they are going to “Mummy's School” for the time being. However, this has made me more alert in catching those “impromptu” lessons. Here are 2 examples:

• Decided to go for a walk one night to ease off the discomforts. The streetlights were on casting shadows on the road. My girl comments “Hey, my shadow is almost as tall as yours.” (Blink, blink, lights go off in my head). We had an enjoyable discovery session about “shadows”. Here were some of the questions we explored:
  1. What makes the shadows? Light. Where there were no light, there were no shadows.
  2. How do you make it grow so small that it's right under your feet? Stand directly underneath the lightbulb.
  3. When is the shadow on our left / right / front / back?
  4. Does your shadow look like you? And does it do what you do?
  
• Pointing to an envelope while introducing the letter sound /e/ to my son. Although an ordinary object, I suddenly wondered if he really knew what an envelope was for. I then talked about writing letters, putting stamps, writing the name and address on the envelope, posting it at the post office, and our friend the postman who delivers the letters. The children seemed pretty intrigued and now our project is to test if the system works. So, they decided they want to write to Grandma and see if she will really get the “envelope.”

So I guess the point of this blog is to remember that lessons are not only found in books. Let us not confine our children's learning to a desk. Life itself is full of lessons. We just have to awaken our senses to things that have become “ordinary” to us because to them, it may not be that "ordinary" afterall.

Teeheehee... Could This Be No.3?

I have the symptoms... missed period, chilly, tired. And today, the food don't smell so good anymore. Did my own testing and that came out positive. The only thing I don't have is a doctor's confirmation. But I'm 99% sure.

Well, some people like to keep these things quiet. They don't like to tell people until they are like 4-5 months pregnant. Some fear that something unpleasant will happen if they tell people before 3 months is up. I'm not like that. Once I know, I feel like shouting out to the whole world. It's such wonderful and exciting news. Well, that's me.

So, ready or not, number 3 seems to be on it's way. Here I go again!

Froggy Update

Some people have been wondering what have become of my tadpoles. Well, half way through my moving house, two of the tadpoles decided to mature into frogs. It happened rather quickly after they developed 4 legs.

After I had moved into the current house, there was another tadpole on his way to becoming a froggy. He was getting pretty close but ended up dead one morning. Don't know what happened. I wonder if he drowned as I added a little bit of water to the tank the day before. Not too much but I guess it may have been too much for him. How sad!

It's interesting how when we caught the tadpoles, I thought they were all going to turn into frogs and the same time. But it looks like they take turns -- only one or two mature at a time. Now I have another two with legs and the rest... they look like they are happy being tadpoles.

Getting Kids to Like Spicy Food

The other day we decided not to cook but to get our dinner from the pasar malam. It was unfortunate that most of the food were spicy and my oldest girl wasn't very happy with what we brought home. This brings me to the question of "How do you get your kids to take spicy food?"

I myself grew up not taking too much spicy food. My only experience with chilli was the "nasi lemak" I bought during recess break at the school canteen. Even then I had to extinguish the fire with lots of cold water. I'm much better now when it comes to spicy food. That much I owe to my DH and FIL who are the "cannot-live-without-chilli" kind.

Anyway, on a trip to Hong Kong a few years ago, we shared an apartment with an Indian family. Their little girl who is the same age with my daughter happily helped herself to Curry Maggi Mee. If I'm not mistaken, most Malay and Indian families cook spicy food most of the time. How did they get their children to take spicy food? Did they adopt an "eat it or leave it" attitude?

As mentioned before, my daughter is not a big fan of spicy food. My son however, seems to have inherit his father's genes and is able to handle the taste. He wanted to try Asam Laksa and we let him. Surprisingly he came back for more. Sometimes during church occasions someone cooks some spicy noodle. He doesn't mind it. Today we had ladies fingers (okra) cooked in sambal. That was his favorite dish.

So I wonder, is eating spicy food something you learn to acquire or is it a "either you have it or don't have it" sort of thing? What do you guys do with your kids on this issue?

p.s.: By the way, I finally found my putu piring which I desperately looked for during the puasa month but failed to obtain.

Back Online

Finally, the moving house saga is over. It was a crazy week mixed along with a touch of bad luck. Not only had I to deal with lots of packing but also had to stress over hitting a motorbike. To add to the stress, I also managed to leave my house keys in my mom's car and she drove home to Seremban with it (that's about an hours drive away). I'm definitely glad to put it behind me. Looking forward to experiencing rainbows after the rain.

I know many people have lots of tips on moving house. This is mine (warning: this may apply to Malaysians only):

• When looking to hire wiremen, aircond contractors, grill makers, plumbers and whatsoever, do not drive around looking for their shop. Instead, pay attention to tree trunks, lamp posts or whatever fixture you can find along the roads as that is where they stick their advertisements.
• Also, the usually irritating little flyers and name cards they stick in your mailbox, do come in handy at this time.
• When you make an appointment with telekom to install your telephone line, be ready for them NOT to turn up. Insists on getting the contractor's number so you can call him direct. In my case, the contractor didn't turn up for the appointment because he didn't get the order in the first place. It took me 4 days to get my phone line up and another 4 days for the broadband to work.
  Moral of the story: If you can't live without your internet, better have a Plan B e.g. make sure you know where the nearest internet cafe is located.

Well, the kids look like they have adjusted well. This area has many young families and so they are quite a lot of kids their age. However, this is a Malay community and my kids have yet to speak Bahasa Malaysia. But amazingly, language is no barrier when you want to have fun and have a desire to make friends. My daughter didn't understand what the girl next door was saying but they were running around and having a good time.

Anyway, it's great to be online again. Life resumes to it's normal mode.