Concert Rehearsals

The instruments for age 3-4

The boys costume for age 3-4

Samuel in action

Samuel's music centre will be holding a concert this Sunday. He has went for few rehearsals. It was a group performance with about 20 children from age 3 to 5.

I was there to observe him during his practises. The first few practises, he was abit blur. He doesn't understand what was happening. After awhile he will start to do some actions, but he still refuse to sing.

Last week when he first attended the rehearsal, he was afraid. Tears started to roll from his eyes as he saw alot of parents. He was afraid of people and the noise. I hope during that night, he will not cry especially on stage !

Super Mummy

Daddy has been away from home since Monday. Mummy has been looking after Samuel and Jesse single handedly. And to make it tougher for mummy, Jesse started to have fever yesterday and is still having fever now.

Jesse has been very attached to mummy and keep on clinging on to mummy. While mummy carries her, she doesn't even want mummy to sit down.

Daddy feels that mummy has transformed to SuperMummy :)

Lil Jesse Is Sick

Jesse is down with fever since yesterday. Not high fever, between 37.2 - 37.6. Yesterday night she had her last medicine at 930pm and the whole night her temperature was up and down. I did not feed her medicine until this morning at 6am.

I am on emergency leave today, staying back to monitor Jesse. Hopefully her conditions improve and the medicine will bring down her temperature.

She was extra clingy since yesterday. She looks more tired than her normal self although in between she can be very playful with mummy.

Afraid of This Picture

Samuel is afraid of this picture. He is not very keen in reading this book because of this dog. Usually when it comes to this page, I will close it with another book. He is afraid of the dog eye. If I cover his eye, he is not afraid.

The dog has a smiley face. He is just closing his eye. I do not understand why he is afraid of his eye.

Does this look scary to children?

Their Playing Time

Yesterday evening, I took some toys for both my children to play. Samuel was very happy playing with Jesse, teaching her the shapes and where to put them. When hes in good mood, he can be an angel and willing to share the toys.

Xenophobia

This morning, while I was driving to school, Samuel keeps telling me that the children laugh. He doesn't want the children to laugh. After I dropped Samuel to his class, I chatted with his class teacher about him.

Last year, his teacher told us about her concern. She noticed that he is afraid of "orang putih", because when the school has Western people to share their ideas or knowleadge with the children in front of the class, he will cry. But from our observation, its not because of that Western people, it is because of that person talking. Its the sound. However, the teacher said it its Asian who is giving the talk, he is ok.

When I talk to the teacher today about his fear in sound, she told me she did some research and found out that he has Xenophobia.

"Xenophobia is a fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people" - from Wikipedia

The only foreign thing that is he afraid of is Mannequin. Does your child afraid of Mannequin? He was not afraid of mannequin when he was much younger.

I think the biggest phobia he has is sound. Phonopobia!

Does any of your child afraid of these :
1. Balloon (hes very afraid that it might burst)
2. Laughter
3. Heavy rain
4. Thunder
5. Flushing toilet

A Buzy Week Ahead !

Since daddy won't be around for almost a week, I have to do all the things by myself. Besides sending and picking Samuel from school and art class, I have to send him to concert rehearsals, bring his costume to alter, feed him, bath him and Jesse, read to Samuel and put both to bed. Not to mention I will be late to work and go off early for lunch.

The biggest challenge is to feed Samuel. This really test my patience. Usually the maid will feed him but because I need to make sure he finishes his meal before I leave to work, I will have to feed him during lunch. He likes to keep the food in the mouth since hes 1. Sometimes even with some cane threatening, he still take hours to finish his food.

My other concern is, occasionally Samuel wants me to sleep with him especially if it rains. As he is sleeping alone, he might scream for mummy if it rains especially midnight. If it rains before he sleeps, I will ask the maid to sleep with him. If it only rain middle of the night, I will need him to sleep in my room together with Jesse. Hope non of them wake up each other during middle of the night.

Initially I was very stressed as I feel that there are alot to do when daddy is not around. But now, I think I will be able to handle it pretty well and I would like to take this opportunity to bond with the children.

Daddy at the Airport

Daddy will be away for work for almost a week. Now daddy is sitting at the airport waiting to board the plane, missing mummy and the babies.

Daddy felt emotional while hugging Jesse at home & Samuel in school but kept the feelings inside. Daddy misses mummy tremendously too. Maybe daddy might not express his feelings openly but deep inside daddy, its not easy to leave mummy, Samuel & Jesse behind. Its like leaving daddy's heart behind.

Mummy, Samuel, Jesse,

Please remember that daddy is thinking of you in everything daddy do. Hugs, Love & Kisses!

Go! Broadband go for it!

We are on 3.5G Broadband! Amazing it is max at 7.2Mbps. Our previous ADSL line was only 512kbps. And now we have mobile internet. Daddy was even suggesting to make his car a mobile internet station hahaha...

Isn't it great to have competing companies? It used to be monopolised by only one internet provider. Now they have 3. A month ago, they launched the first 3G broadband. 2 days ago, another provider launched the same products. And yesterday, we signed up for 3.5G (today, I will cancel the old line). Now we can blog anywhere and it is much faster. It is more than 10x faster. Thumbs up!!!

We also upgraded our handphone services from 2G (GSM) to 3.5G and we can video call. To check on each other hahaha...... Samuel is very excited and happy when daddy calls mummy. He wanted to see mummy in the phone when daddy picks him up from school.

So what is the price difference from switching 512kbps to 7.2Mbps ? We used to pay $98 for 512kbps. 2 months ago, the price drop from 98 to 68. When the other competitor came with an attractive package with 3.5Mbps, we did not think much about it. 2 days ago, daddy brought back some brochures on the other internet provider who has just launched their packages.

There are many different types of packages. We took the Go! Unlimited package. Is either we opt for the free gift or the router. With a 2yrs contact, the router (worth $600) and modem (worth 300) are free. Or we can go for 30 months contract with a free modem and free gift. But since daddy and mummy will be using internet at home, we do not need a modem. We pay additional of $300 in exchange of the modem with the router.

In order to get the free gift, we must also pay an additional of $10 per month for 30 mths contract. In other words, we have to pay $600 for the free gift ($300 additional + $300 for the router). And they are so smart, we have to pay in full! In total we paid$2,915 for 30 months. As daddy was using the the 3G Prima Mobile line, we are entitled for a $5 discount per month for 30 months. So the monthly subscription is $83 ie. 73 (internet) + 10 (free gift). The payment was inclusive of the router, license fee and deposit.

The other attractive part of the package is, it comes with 0% interest on credit card payment. Is either we pay cash in full or credit card or with credit card installments. Of coz we took the credit card installments! 18 months installments with 0% interest hahaha.....

We were currently paying $68 for 512 and now $73 for 7.2. $5 different and at least 10x faster! But we have to pay in advance.

So what exactly is the FREE GIFT. It is not exactly free as we pay $10 per month for it. Can anyone guess what is the gift? (Sorry, the gift is not yours even if you got it right.)

Phonics Vs Glenn Doman

2 weeks ago, Samuel brought back 6 phonics readers books with an audio CD, from his school. Only upon asking the teacher the following day, we got to know that those were part of the books that we had paid for beginning of the year. *slap head*

I think the teacher expects us to teacher our child at home with phonics. As both of us are not good at phonics, we did not really coach him in reading. We only know how the phonics sound but don’t know how to synchronize it. Samuel is not really good at synchronizing the words as well. However, some of the words he managed to get it when he tried to read it through phonics.

He can recognize the words pretty fast and he can read book 1 after teaching him once. However, we do not have the time to continue and the books are now laying around the table for 2 weeks.

The previous school teaches Peter And Jane series and he is able to recognize the words and read one series every month. He was there for 3 months and he was able to read till book 3b. And since then, he has stopped reading Peter and Jane.

We have actually started to teach him using the GD method. Sometimes I wonder which method is better. Phonics or Glenn Doman?

The phonics books focus more on the words which are of the same sound.

Phonics Reader No.1

Story 1 Pat Cat and Tat Rat
Pat Cat
Tat Rat
Pat Cat had a can
A can of jam
Pat Cat sat on a mat
Tat Rat ran to the can
Tat Rat! My can of jam!
Pat Cat got Tat Rat under a hat

Story 2 Pam’s Cap
My Cap! My cap!
Pam ran and ran
Pam’s cap landed on Sam
Pam’s cap! Pam’s cap!
Sam ran and ran
Sam rand and Pam ran
Pam’s cap landed on a ram
Pam ran to the ram
Pam got her cap