I'm so lazy to post + Talking & Singing

The title says it. Most of my photos are now posted on facebook with captions which makes things easier so I think i'll give up on posting photos here until i feel like it.

Meanwhile...

There's not much going on just that we've been going out, doing our usual walks and play downstairs etc. I'm not planning to send her to any playgroup since she's still quite young and I've read more bad than good about early schooling. So while the very common question i get from friends and strangers are whether she's attending school, I do say that maybe when she's older. So home life is quite good enough, and we meet up another family for playtime on alternate weeks.

The other option is exploring homeschooling but with me working (even if it's 4 days a week), my home time with her is very limited. And while it's wonderful that my in-laws stay with us and help us take care of Eliza, sometimes i would like to experience a bit of hmm..challenge (?) like handling the home/cooking on my own. I'm not complaining and I really love that she enjoys the company of my mil, fil, sil + bf, cousins. My in-laws love her to bits...so it's nice to see her so showered with love. I'm quite pampered with the minimal amount of cooking & housework in need to do really.

Talking...
Eliza's talking a lot a lot more these days, and while not everything is that most accurate and understandable, it's loads easier to communicate with her, except when her calmness breaks down into a whiny tantrum. She speaks some Chinese too and 75% accurate cos some words sound quite English which is quite cute. We've been 'practicing' saying 晚安 for weeks at least and nowadays she can say it more accurately. Previously, it was wan1an3. She picks up some sentences too, like "阿妈戴眼镜".
Her hokkien can't be any better and the "ai" (yes) & "mai" (no) is so stuck she uses it for all her yeses and no-s. Many times we will overhear her talk to herself, " ai mai? ai" It's hard to undo it when it's still quite a common word heard around the house, esp when my in-laws talk. I've heard other words like "mai cha" (don't disturb) & "mai jia" (don't want to eat) from her before. Amazing!

Singing....
This is the age they LOVE to sing. At least Eliza does. She'll break into her No.1 hit song "ABC song" anytime. Her top 15 hits in no particular order (except for the abc song), cos it really depends on her moods.

1. ABC
2. Jingle bells (or sung "Jingle bars jingle bars" it has sounded much better closer to the word nowadays)
3. 恭喜 song
4. This little light of mine
5. Twinkle twinkle little star
6. Tinkle tinkle little pee
7. Round and round the garden
8. A-choo song
9. Ah-ma song (self composed...the words go "ahma ahma ahma ahma" in her own tune)
10. Ring-a-ring-a-roses
11. With Christ in the Vessel (i use it for going home..."driving driving home" or "walking walking home")
12. He's the Lord of the Sunshine (the part with "Pain" used to send her nuts giggling cos i'll sign it and look really pitiful)
13. Jesus Loves me (amazing how she caught it so fast cos i've been singing it to her since day1)
14. Colours of the Rainbow (baby signing time song...and the only one i can remember)
15. Row row row your boat

Other than these and those i can't remember, she'll generally hum some tune and follow the last words of the song. She remembers some of the words of the lullaby music that i always play for bedtime. Repetition is key, huh? But interesting how for some things, i need only to do it once and she gets it or remembers it.

She doesn't really sign nowadays but when i do sign some things like "sleep" cos i don't want to talk when it's time for her to zzz, she definately understands. She also knows that the animal skunk / owl / fox / badger / eagle etc are animals that she learnt from her BSL.

Guess you really can't measure how much your child knows isn't it? It's all hidden treasures, only known to them & God. It's up to us to open the doors of enjoying and knowing these things that they learn.

Potty progress

It has been almost 3 weeks since we have started potty training.

There's so many stages to go but we'll take it step by step. Anyway she's fully potty trained on home ground (obviously minus the sleep times...kids this age still pee in the sleep..i wonder why). Just that she'll run to the potty and give some indication that she needs to pee. I'm in the process of getting her to learn to say it. She'll only pull down her panties/pants when we tell her to tho 50% of the time we do it for her...somehow depending on what she wears her panties/pants always gets stuck at her bottoms cos she only pulls by the front of the panties/pants.

I'm trying to teach her to wipe dry after she pees but the toilet paper is too far and i always forget until she has finished her pee. By the time i go get it, she would have jumped up and done something to her pee or scrutinize it. I think it's also time to put it nearer to the toilet or in it. So far she has poured pee on herself, stepped into her potty with pee and on more helpful times, helped to pour the pee away into the toilet bowl. Nowadays, she'll sit on the potty base while i go clear the pee and wash the potty part, and i'll usually say 'excuse me' to ask her to move away. I didn't know it was her 'magic' word to get out of the potty base cos my mil told me that Eliza didn't want to stand up and told her to say 'excuse me' to her before she would budge.

Training part was mostly done by my mil though cos somehow i don't have enough home time with her and when i do, she doesn't want to sit on her potty. My mil's the better person at coaxing and distracting her till progressively she was able to sit on it for as long as 1/2hour...or at least till she pees. Ok sometimes it's giving her something to do while we wait for her to pee...like playing some music.


That was the ardous beginning stage...getting her to get used to peeing in the potty. Of course, sometimes while trying to get the right feeling to make a poo, it helps to do some reading or watching tv...




So far so good, there has been no accidents this week at home. And she can hold her pee for a good 2hrs...though it also depends on how much water she drinks.

Oh but it's the going out that's more challenging. We have gone diaperless at my mum's place but that was still the early stage and i have had the potty there yet. So i had to hold her while she sits on the toilet bowl and wait for a pee. Somehow i think i asked her too often and she kept saying she didn't need to pee but after that wet her pants. Another time she was playing to crazily with daddy that she forgot she needed to pee and it was too late by the time she reached the toilet bowl. We tried her going diaperless for a playdate and so far so good..she did pee in the potty there. I also tried for her going diaperless during by short outings to the library with her, though she was too nervous with the noisy flushing in the public toilets to want to pee...so i think she held back till we got home.

She's still on diapers for long trips out so the next stage is to overcome the fear (both me & her!) of her peeing in the public toilets. I can't be bringing the potty everywhere i go! Yeah i should try it on sundays when we go church this week!

Play

It's really fun when now that Eliza's older and she can play better on her own.

Read an article on NPR that "Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills". Play is quite a hot topic these days isn't it? While i'm planning to plan things for Eliza to play, she really doesn't ever come to me and complain that she has nothing to do. She'll just hop on to another activity, regardless on whether it's a ok thing to do or a no-no (like opening the fridge to check out its contents, we have recently put a child-lock on the fridge to prevent her from doing so cos it was becoming too electricity wasting and distracting). Sometimes she'll ask me to play with her and sometimes she's quite happy on her own. Most of the time i realized, we are the ones who join in on her play. I'm asked to play when she is threatened by another kid nearby, or legos which we have always been playing with her on it.

Anyway to quote that article:
"Organizing play for kids has never seemed like more work. But researchers Adele Diamond and Deborah Leong have good news: The best kind of play costs nothing and really only has one main requirement — imagination. "

It is isn't it? Imagination.
I do think that Eliza's only on the early stages of imagination and it's too early to expect that from her but she has her own ways and ideas of playing without me even guiding her. While she does a lot of copying from us, somethings she does surprises us.

""It's interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys," says Chudacoff. "Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object."

Though at home i wonder what activity she can do other than tinker with her toys. She loves playing bouncing/throwing/rolling balls and it always sets her really excited. I do find that when i bring her downstairs to the playground and the park she also has her own ideas about where to run off to, with some prompting from me on what can or cannot be pick up. Once i give her the freedom to do so she'll be more or less of to her devices. Else, at times she's a little afraid of somethings like bugs and big kids and even adults.

"It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.
...

"Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time," Singer says. "I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills."

It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all."

I remember one of the most fun things during my pri school days was recess and after school when we do manage to beg our way out of the house to play downstairs. I do remember always teaming up with my cousins to beg our grandparents to let us go downstairs, to the school nearby to play at the physcial fitness equipments and look at the small farm that was there. We threw leaves into the small drain that was teaming with the after-storm water to see and chase it while it floats away and improvise from there. We played a lot of chasing games though and i always lose out to my very nimble cousin, that made the challenge more exciting and rewarding when i did win him though.

Oh well...i'm not sure if that helped us in anyway, but it was really memorable. Still can you measure play? I don't really think so and the results aren't always the most obvious. I do believe it works with a secure home foundation as well.

thank goodness our pre-schools here aren't going to be regularized. Cos after that it's not as fun when the exam stress comes in.


Obviously i knew who was the one who did it. She left me this "straw chair" after taking out the straws in the drawer, poking it in there and ran off, leaving me to find this. I was quite amused.

Education

We have on and off always been talking about education in SG / for Eliza. And some of the books i've read have been really an inspiration. Ww is not for early schooling and if possible homeschool or have her in a good school (not the usual ones you can find in SG unless it's a International school..but then again, i have no idea what and Int' school is like anyway).

Still, it is hard to resist comparing with or keeping up with the educational flow that's going on here. A lot is about the results. (ask a teacher and the many awards their school they go after) Somewhere in pri school, i also knew that it was the results that i needed to achieve, it wasn't good getting below 75marks. It's hard to draw the line between the real learning or the learning to get the results. And we didn't want to put her in a system like that, that it is all about succeeding, getting the grades (yes even when the school is not blatantly saying it's about the grades). And me being part of the system, can't help but feel like that at times too. Now that Eliza's still young, these things are far far away. Still it's one of the major things we'll be going through as she gets older. I am not too certain whether i want to send Eliza to playgroup/preschool, but Ww is sure that she doesn't need to till she's at least 3. (any hopefully if we do go overseas, i may have no choice but to do pre-school homeschool..which isn't all that bad).
When i read an article from a mum's blog, and showed it to Ww, the more he's sure school isn't necessary for Eliza at this age. (check out the 2 links which the mum put in the blog). I remember him mentioning about it that kids pick up bad habits from kids and it is the adults that they pick up good habits from, even before he read it.

“We find that attendance in preschool centers, even for short periods of time each week, hinders the rate at which young children develop social skills and display the motivation to engage classroom tasks, as reported by their kindergarten teachers” (Loeb et al 2005).

We might guess that the problem lies with poor quality preschool centers. But even high income children—-who presumably attend the better preschools—-showed increased behavioral problems if they had attended at least 15 hours a week (Loeb et al 2005). Moreover, the effect is dosage-dependent. The more time children spend in centers, the worse their behavior becomes.

Researchers found that the more time kids spent in non-maternal care during the first 4.5 years of life, the more behavioral problems they developed."

Anyway, on another note, I love the principles by Charlotte Mason, quote:
"Her method, the Charlotte Mason method, is centered around the idea that education is three-pronged: Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.

By “Atmosphere,” Charlotte meant the surroundings in which the child grows up. A child absorbs a lot from his home environment. Charlotte believed that atmosphere makes up one-third of a child’s education.

By “Discipline,” Charlotte meant the discipline of good habits — and specifically habits of character. Cultivating good habits in your child’s life make up another third of his education.

The other third of education, “Life,” applies to academics. Charlotte believed that we should give children living thoughts and ideas, not just dry facts. So all of her methods for teaching the various school subjects are built around that concept.

For example, Charlotte’s students used living books rather than dry textbooks. Living books are usually written in story form by one author who has a passion for the subject. A living book makes the subject “come alive.”

She taught spelling by using passages from great books that communicate great ideas rather than just a list of words.

She encouraged spending time outdoors, interacting with God’s creation firsthand and learning the living ways of nature."

Sounds quite fun actually. The schools that follow CM's methods have schools in the morning and the afternoons is left for play outdoors. If education was like that, would not it be so much more fulfilling? would not it be so fun? You've got to read her books to get a better sense of what this is about.

I'm currently reading "For The Children's Sake - foundations of education and school" by
Susan Shaeffer Macaulay.

Hmm...the next thing I'll need to do is to quit my job.

Potty training prep

Here we go on another potty training trial again. I mainly left it there after our last attempt...cos she was refusing to sit and i didn't know what to do. I thought i'll try again after our phuket trip so as to save me the trouble of potty training during the trip.

Last week, we got a new potty so that i can put one in my bathroom and one at the kitchen bathroom. And we tried sitting on it when i went to the toilet. She did sit twice that day. And the next day twice as well. The problem with that was that she didn't allow me to close the toilet door! And i had do that if there were people in the house. By the third day, she already blatantly said no and ran away! any further attempts ends up in tears.

There's no way i can force here to sit. It'll be a super bad idea.

I've read many articles that the child has to be ready too for potty training but honestly, some signs are hard to tell. She can somewhat pull down her pants but her big diapers always add that extra barrier. She can't be dry for 2hrs! by 1hr she would have prob wet her diapers big time. Really, i've got no idea how ready we all are. I just guess we'll give it a go.

I'm trying to get my mil to help me in this, but i'm not sure if she has done it yet. Cos now that i'm back to work, i really don't have the time to do so. So i'm gonna get my mil to practice going to the toilet with Eliza and getting her to sit on the potty. So hopefully by friday, we can start potty training more formally. At least i'll have 4 devoted days to do it. So no outings for this coming week.

this is kinda scary for me cos it's new territory but i'm prepared for all the bribery and praise and rewards. let's hope Eliza is too.

Sleep

How interesting God created us and wired us all so differently yet so the same. My sleep patterns for now has been quite hmm..normal...in the sense that i sleep and wake up at about the same time all the time. Obviously my wake up times is pegged to Eliza's one. But i still sleep at anytime from 12-2am. Hardly earlier. Maybe at 11pm+ on some days when i'm really tired.

We aren't made to be robots. Really. When Eliza went to quite a predictable patten for bedtime, i was already wondering when she'll start changing her pattern.

After saying good night and hugs and kisses to everyone in the house, we'll start with picking her books for bedtime read to be left on the bed.
3. Then we'll go brush teeth (today i added a sit on potty to 'pee' with me).
4. Then switch off lights and close bathroom door
5. Read books. (nowadays it has expanded to 3-5 books lasting anytime from 10-20min of reading! i mean it's great la..but i wonder if she is just prolonging bedtime)
6. Pray...with Elmo too
7. Switch off lights
8. Go to window to say goodnight to whatever, whoever (moon, star, car, ah-gong's van, gugu's car, everybody, gorgor jiejie, etc etc)
9. Draw the curtains and take cream
10. Jump to bed, put cream, turn on music
11. Finish of milk and water
11. ZZzzzz

These days after we came back from Phuket, she seemed to develop a fear of sleeping with the lights out so Step.7 is skipped. We also skipp step.8 & 9. which i usually use to transit her to go into bed. So these few days i'll continue the book reading in her bed till she finished her books. and it's time to sleep.

Somehow the book reading has extended bedtime about 15mins longer than usual...and she has been waking up at 6am+ for milk, falling back to sleep till about 8am+. I kinda like that cos i get to sleep in this holidays. :) Just don't know how long this will last!

Phuket!

I felt like i was busy all the way to Christmas, or i just didn't have much mood to update the blog cos there was other stuff to do. We had a great time at Phuket, so much so that we felt that the trip was just too short! The resort was really just too fantastic and even if you don't go out exploring the island like what we did, you could stay there all day. The pools were so relaxing & fun, the beach so enticing!

We could have gone to the more popular places but somehow we did a road trip thing and drove all around the island (and got lost a few times). Ww loved the Honda Jazz that was rented for 1200 baht a day, we topped up the 1/2 tank of petrol but the car was so fuel efficient that we only used 1/4 tank! argh. We basically checked out Patong beach, the Viewpoint, Phuket Aquarium, TongSai Waterfall and some beaches.

We'll love to go back there again and check out the more ulu but beautiful beaches, Phiphi island & stay there a night, stay a few more days at Maikao beach (the Marriot resorts there are super huge!), check out the other waterfall and maybe try a trek (we couldn't cos Eliza was zzzing in her stroller), maybe go see the Sunset at Sunset bay. If we don't go overseas for studies next year, i may try to convince Ww to go. hoho.

Thank God it was a short flight, so i whipped out all my bag of tricks to keep Eliza occupied. Of course the eating part was the most fun but accident prone part (think food and spoon all over the place).


My driver.


My backseat buddy...mostly sleeping for long drives.


Courtyard at Surin. comfy and huge. of course the water slide was fun for all of us. Eliza refused to stop...she kept wanting to go down the slide even after we did that countless times.


Lunch at Surin. Don't u love those pretty umbrellas...looks quite japanese. Eliza was snatching the fries before we gobble them all up. We didnt' expect out food to come with fries and Eliza was still recovering from her cough/runny nose...so she wasn't supposed to eat them.


This is Surin beach, the sea literally roared all the time. So we admired the beach from afar most of the time, wasn't too keen on dipping, also cos it was not recommended to swim. Still u see a lot of ppl in the sea anyway.


The few rare photos of us swimming in the pool, we were just too busy, especially at the slide


The first and last time Eliza wears the robe....cos it signals that it's time to get out of the pool, which she obviously doesn't want.


Jungcelon, Patong very big mall. We stopped there for dinner and to stock up on water. anyway we realized we were such water guzzlers that we needed 4litres a day...almost.


Day 2
We stopped by at Kamala beach.


Ended up in the late mornign at Patong for a swim and sand play. Eliza was picking up sea shells.


After Patong beach we were going around the island, popping by at the Viewpoint, some ulu beach which we thought was the Sunset viewpoint, drove along the east side of phuket and to phuket town. We got quite lost trying to find our way to Phuket Aquarium cos i couldn't gauge the distance in the map and the wasn't much road signs to guide you. We eventually stopped at the petrol station to ask for directions. haha..so amazing race.
this is my fav fish at the phuket aquarium...cos it was quite silly. 2-horned cow fish. Many funny silly fishes that put us in awe of God's amazing creation.


Our fav thing to do...coffee and dessert after Eliza falls off to sleep in her night stroll. She wouldn't sleep in the bedroom cos she'll either be too distracted or too afraid. So we stroll her to sleep. thank God she's back on routine back home after all the cut backs in our routines.


Day 3
We had to walk Surin beach again...this time in the morning when the sun isn't so high in the sky


Walked across the floating jetty...and we walked all the way to the end cos Eliza insists on walking all the way to the end.


Kids world at Courtyard at Surin. How could we miss this? If only we had more time for Eliza to hang around there.


Ball pit & slide!



The disappointing Tong Sai waterfall. disappointing cos we couldn't trek up further and that it cost us 200baht per person per entry. Not cheap!


We left her to continue to zzz while we trekked off to the other waterfall. (she was still within our view)


Checking in at JW Marriott with flower garlands and refreshing drink. We were quite early and had to wait about 2hrs for our room to be ready. So we went to have lunch and explored the place a bit.


Our room!! Larger than the one at Courtyard


Going for a dip at MaiKao beach, the waves were really strong but we enjoyed it loads. Eliza was laughing at Ww for being 'crashed' by the wave. Some were so big you could see the rip curl. Quite exicitng!


How could we miss a dip at the other pools...this is only one of the 3 pools at the resort. Eliza loved this steps part.


We'll be back again! I'm not sure if Eliza remembers all these but at least she can see the photos next time and know that she was there...and really enjoyed it. It was a happy day everyday, really, imagine snacking all day, swimming everyday, playing in the huge toylands.

We had a great time too, especially with Eliza. There were places we would have gone (the Island tour) or done without Eliza along and our schedules were shorter to accommodate her sleep times; our luggage was mostly her stuff (food, clothes, logistics, stuff), but with her it made the trip all the fun. I loved playing at the Kids world with her too! Nevertheless, like we always say, we can't help but want to bring her along to travel wherever we go, cos she's so fun to be with and we know she'll enjoy it too.