Halloween Story Telling

Emmy drew this and told a story of scary theme during our evening family activity. It was a scary story of the monster and the baby alien. We all had a great laugh listening to her imagination, with change of voice and actions.

Craft Time @ Home

Lil sister, Emmy was down with fever, diarhoea and vomit. According to doctor, its the season for virus that caused this sickkness.

We spent the weekend at home. Elly and emmy spent some time doing art and craft. The girls drew, cut and paste some angry birds.

Elly made a birthday card for her good friend in her kindergarten, YinTing. She found out about her friend's birthday through the Astro Disney Junior channel. What a coincidence as she was watching some programme when the birthday greetings appeared on screen.

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My First Handbag from Elly

Elly drew me this handbag. It's a Coach bag! She really has the eye for details and even drew the tags.haha...

I hope I can get a real one from you when you grow up, ok!

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Princess Angry Bird

Elly made this princess version of Angry Bird. Its an angry bird with a crown, beautiful beak, long hair and high heel shoes.

Really cool, huh?

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ParentWonder.com

I recently like to read parenting blogs, especially those written by parents themselves. I like to share this blog written by Abel Cheng, a work from home daddy with 2 young kids. Check out his blog at www.parentwonder.com. I find the blog rather entertaining and informative.

There is no magic required in bringing up kids, just lots of patience and love. I like his saying that we are normal human being too, dont put too high expectation on ourselves as parents as we are learning and growing at the same time too. No one is born as a great parent. It requires a lot of hard work, fine-tuning and 'trial and error' as each kid is unique and will require just a little more observation from us.

I have a 4 yo toddler myself. I seem to connect with his post on 'What a 4YO should know'. I am sharing his views too, to me what is more important is not the checklists of what the kid can or cannot do. It is what our parents have 'condition' or set the expectation to the child.

As Emmy will sit for her exams, haha, yes, Malaysian education system is funny. Starting tomorrow, she will start her 2 weeks of exams. I spend some time to do some revision with her, but i do not pressure her with the exams. To me, what is more important is the learning journey and not the results of exams.

Anyway, back to this blog, it also recommend some scenic places around Malaysia for parents to plan for short vacation with children. I will plan for mine too, have heard a lot of Sekinchan, hope to be able to bring my kids there for a day tour.

Thanks, Abel Cheng for all the sharings.

Shoulder to Sleep On

Elly happily extended her shoulder for lil sister, Emmy who was fast asleep in the car.

Thanks elly, for playing the big sister role.

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Mango Pudding

These were mango puddings that I made. Not too bad for the novice jelly maker.

The best thing was, my girls finished all of them.

Over the weekend, learnt to make mango lassi too. Hmm, not too bad as I got it right with second attempt. The trick is to add more yogurt than milk and blend with the mango cubes.

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Finding Blessings in Everyday Living

Hmm, time do flies very quickly. My little darlings are really growing up fast. Despite busy schedule of schooling, working, we take time out to be with each other.

They are darlings and at times turned into little monsters, driving me nuts. If any mother say otherwise, I really must learn the magic. What I learnt is to be less perfect, more tolerant and spend more time, as much as I can with them.

Elly combed my hair yesterday and sang me the Rapunzel song. 'Flower gleam and blue, Let your power shine, Make the clock reverse, And it was once was mine'. Thanks, lil Elly. I hope to get the flower power and keep me young too. Vain mommy, like Mother Gothel..hehe

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Emmy's Buah Duku

Emmy fell down from trolley while we were shopping at Jusco.

Got a swollen forehead and it was the first time myself saw such a big 'buah duku'. This is local sayings when someone has a swollen head upon falling down.

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Conversation with Elly

Elly : I love you Mom
Mom: How much? Do you think you love me more or i love you more?
Elly : I love you more.
Mom: How much? I love you three thousand.
Elly : I love you nine thousand ...
Mom : I love you three million
Elly : I love you nine hundred million
Mom : Really? Next time when you have boyfriend, you will love him more
Elly : No, i will still love you more
Mom : Why ?
Elly : Because he is only a friend, and you are my Best best friend
Mom : <>

Prank by Emmy

Emmy pulled a prank on me this evening. She put a lizard on my laptop! You think she is so brave?

It's just her toy lizard, but that was enough to give me a scare!

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Ong Sisters Prepare for School

My girls really grow up fast. As working mom, it is always an act of balance to juggle work and family.

Seeing them so big girls made me want to stop or slow down the time. It was just like yesterday I gave birth to them, the late nights and the nappy changing times.

Am so blessed to have the girls into our family.

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Art Class at home

We bought some water colors and painting materials on the way back from market last weekend.

The girls spent the whole Saturday afternoon painting and coloring at home. They had their 'shield' on, which could be bought at Ikea.

Cost: RM8
Time spent: 3 hours
Value: Priceless

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Happy Family drawing

I asked Elly how come Daddy is not in the picture?

Elly: I cannot draw Daddy.
Mommy : Why? (Thought she is angry with Dad)
Elly: because the paper is too small...
Mommy: ???

Just realised sometimes as adults, we have complicated thinking and full of our own assumptions. Kids help us to balance, providing the learnings to us as adults.

By the way, in the drawing, from left: Mommy, Emmy, Elly. Mommy is so beautiful... Haha!

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Mommy's homework

I sometimes have to work at my laptop at home.
Emmy: mommy, next time, ask your boss not to give you anymore homework ok.
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Purple cucumber?

Elly loved eating brinjal with fish cake. She called it purple cucumber!

This is one of the vegetables she likes eating. Really hard to get Elly to love her vege.

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Elly's Drawing

Elly drew herself. Its her style now to draw big face and small body. She even had a mini crown, ribbon on her hair, a necklace, laced gown and high heel shoes.

Pretty and happy girl she drew!
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Emmy and her Nanny

Since Emmy started kindergarten, the nanny and her family missed Emmy very much. Emmy and myself are just very lucky to have her nanny and family loving her so much.

We went to pay Emmy's nanny a visit last weekend and we went out for dinner together. It turned out to be a great dinner and allowed us to explore another great place for family dinner @ Salak South.

Later that evening, Emmy spent some time at her nanny's place while I got some time for readings and did some house chores. Emmy cried all the way home when we picked her up from nanny's home.

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Happy Family

Similar like Donkey, got Happy Family cards and gave to Elly. As I find it more challenging to play Happy Family, I gave it to Elly while Donkey is given to Emmy.

Changing some rules to the game, I asked Elly to identify the different families in the card deck and train her memory skills. This keeps Elly busy for some time while I get some quiet time to do some readings. Hehe..

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Donkey card game

Its been ages since I played this card. Donkey was the name of the card and it has 2 similar cards per deck showing pictures of animals and things we can find in the farm.

Just bought this card for fun and Emmy loves playing it, identify the similar cards and finding the Donkey.

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Elly and her Pony Ride

See how joyful is this gal! Play time is happy time for Elly as she ride the pony around Tesco.

Hope to bring them to real stables in near future.

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Pony Ride

Its a toy pony and nevertheless made Elly and Emmy very happy to ride the ponies. Its RM3 per ride for 10 minutes at Tesco.

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Emmy's Birthday Cake to school party

Its a tradition at Mayter that students having their birthdays in the month bring a birthday cake to school and to celebrate with friends. I got Emmy a cute Winnie the Pooh chocolate coffee cake.

Happy Birthday to Emmy. This little girl is growing up fast and is now four years old!
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Pumpkin Tomato soup @ D'Italianes

The girls loved this soup which is served at D'Italianes. Its a combination of pumpkin and tomato in the soup, giving a sourish and sweet taste.

It is also easy to make at home. Do try mashing or blending the pumpkin and tomatoes for a wholesome soup for the family!

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Hello Kitty Chocolate Cake from The Cake Shop

We got a beautiful Hello Kitty chocolate cake for Elly, for her kindergarten birthday celebration. Although only served as decorating item, the Hello Kitty did played a great role in making the cake more 'appealing' to Elly.

I remembered when she had her 4th year old birthday celebration last year, she tend to stand at other kids cakes to take photos. I guessed that her own cake was too plain. It was a pandan layer cake, with toppings of thin layer of coconut chips with no creams, cherries or chocolates.

Time flies, and so fast, its been another year. Elly has grown another year older, more bubbly and taller. Sometimes, I just wish that time will stop so that we could spend more time with the kids during their pre-school years. Just love the sharings and chatting sessions with them.

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Birthday Cakes

Look at the birthday cakes at Elly's kindergarten birthday celebration for the month of March. Out of 7 cakes, 5 were bought from the cake shop, King's nearby, one from The Cake Shop, Midah and one from Bread Story, Leisure Mall, most probably.

Interesting fact that we conveniently get what we need at nearby neighbourhood, and thanks to King's for being just around the corner, parents don't have to look far to get a cake for their kids.

We planned to conveniently get one from King's too, but last minute decided to get from The Cake Shop.

Elly's cake is at front row, second from right, Hello Kitty chocolate cake.

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Princess Elly is Turning 5 years old

Elly had birthday celebration at her kindergarten today. All kids born in March are celebrating their birthdays together. On birthday celebration day, Elly is not required to wear uniform and can choose her party dress and shoes. The little darling even had a pink crown on her head.

Happy birthday, darling Elly! Wish you grow up happily as you are already now.
Look at the photo, you will notice her grinning happily all the way, so cute...

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German Law to Protect Kids Rights to Noise

As i was flashing the newspapers recently, this news caught my attention. German, a country known for many rules would soon have a law that protect kids rights to noise. It would soon be perfectly legal to make noise for German kids. The German government is desperate to encourage citizens to have more kids that they are proposing a bill for kids under the age of six to play, laugh and shout at any volume that they want.

This move came about when recently there have been numerous lawsuits regarding kids and noise level and a recent call of the senior citizens unit of a conservatives group which sought to ban kindergarten from residential areas just because they are too loud.

I am glad to hear about the Government moves on this issue, because it is natural for kids to play and laugh, its their growing years and the best times for them to explore the nature and things around them. Banning kindergartens from residential areas will make it a challenge for parents to send their children to kindergartens, and the travelling times would tire the kids.

On the other hand, i do respect the senior citizens rights for peace and serenity, but it is too extreme when it seems that they want to 'ban' the kids from making noise. Hope German government is serious on imposing this law and have the kids welfare protected. However, what the kindergarten teachers can do is to come up with interesting activities that would keep these kids active and not left idle around on their own and this is when fights might occur and the shouting come into the picture.

MBG Photo Contest

MBG fruit shop is having Washington apple photo contest. All that is required is to be a fan of MBG Facebook. Take a photo when you are enjoying Washington Apple with your loved ones.
The grand prize is RM1000 cash, certificate and fruits hamper and 10 consolation prizes of fruits hamper worth RM100. There is also the Most Creative and Most Colorful that comes with RM500 and RM250 cash respectively.

Grab some Washington apples and be on your way to earn more apples and cash money!

I will get my girls to pose too for the fun.
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Hand-Painted Children Shoes

Look at these cute shoes for children! Entrepreneurs are getting more creative, especially for children products.

These hand made shoes are available at RM40 per pair. I will definitely bring Elly and Emmy look at these cute and colorful shoes the next time we are buying shoes for them.

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Happy Birthday, Mei Ling 姐姐

Mei Ling is my bro's wife and supposedly, my kids have to call her 'Aunty Mei Ling' after she got married to my brother. However, the girls got used to call her Mei Ling 姐姐, which means sister, and the name sticks till now.

Personally, I am not that particular when come to adsressing the elders. I take a more western approach, elderly, just call uncle or aunty and younger ones call sister or brother. In chinese language, there is different name to call father's bro, mother's bro, father's sister or mother's sister. The list get more complicated upon marriage, in addressing my own relatives or my husband's relatives.

Anyway, as Mei Ling 姐姐 birthday is approaching, we celebrated her birthday and Elly and Emmy sang her a birthday song and some Chinese New Year songs. May all your wishes come true!

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Ultraman-Elly's New Hero

Elly told me lately that she has a new boyfriend. I thought that she meant she has a close friendship with some of her classmates. Earlier last year when she started kindergarten, she confessed that she liked her 'boyfriend' classmate who sat next to him. However, towards the end of the year, she expressed that she did not like him anymore as he has shaved 'botak'(shaved head bald).

Now, her hero is Ultraman, and Elly likes her stationery to be Ultraman-themed. She woukd even imagining talking to Ultraman on the phone.

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Pumpkin Beancurd

This is one of the favorite dish of Elly and Emmy. This dish is made of beancurd, korean mushroom and blended pumpkin sauce.

Emmy especially loves the korean mushroom with long stems. The pumpkin sauce is sweet and the girls love to mix the sauce with rice.

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Emmy Is Going To Kindergarten

We brought Emmy to kindergarten for registration to start in March. We purposely not register her in Jan as we felt that the first two months has a lot of drama of toddlers crying and not adapt to school yet. It will also influence Emmy to behave in same way.

With the registration, Emmy got her uniforms, sports wear and childcare bag. Time really flies, dear Emmy is soon going to be a Mayter student next month.

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Swatch Valentine's Day Promotion

Swatch has been successfully create beautiful limited edition timepiece to celebrate the Valentine's Day.

This year, the collection consists of two beautiful watch of pink and blue color, both with a cute girl on top of the ladder which to me symbolise the effort both party have to work on in making the relationship great.

This collection is available at all Swatch shops, selling price is RM465 for 2 watches.

And it will be great gifts for the children too, as the design and theme this year is more universal and I am sure the kids will love them.

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Babies are Natural Swimmers

In UK, parents are sending their babies, as early as 3 months old to swimming lessons. It is interesting to watch these babies being 'thrown' in the water and naturally they will float and start to swim! Some are relaxing while lying on their back.

Swimming is one of the exercise that use the most muscles. You need whole body coordination in order to balance yourself in the water. Thus, babies will develop their muscles and coordination better with swimming.

So, do consider to send your babies to swimming class and have some water fun with them!
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Ideal Sleeping Time for Kids

What time does your kids sleep at night? Do they follow you and stay till late nights? Young children are encouraged to sleep early. The ideal time for them to sleep is at 9pm.

For most of us, working parents, that is a bit impossible to put into practise. Coming home from work, dinner, take bath, by the time can comfortably sit down and spend some time with the kids is already past 9pm.

For myself, its just take a lot of effort from me and my kids, in order to put them sleep so early. They usually follow us and stay till 11pm before sleep. By the time they really doze off is in another 20-30 minutes, after some cuddling and story telling.

The plan is to change some lifestyle and put them to sleep at 10pm, though an hour later than ideal time, this works best for us. There are many best practise or ideal ways of doing things, what's more important, in my view is to find our own best fit.
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Preschool Hours Extended to Four Hours

Effective 1st Jan, preschool hours are extended to 4 hours from 3 hours in Malaysia. With the changes, it made some impact to those who have childcare also after the classes.

Personally, I do not agree to have the extension. Afterall kids are kids and at the tender age of 3-6 years old, they need more play and rest time. Does the extra one hour will make the kids smarter and more emotionally stable?

At the end, the kindergartens are the ones reaping the benefits with extra charges for the extended one hour. Let's hope that the one hour will be well spent by Malaysian kids, and learn good foundation to prepare them for Primary One.

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Registration for Primary One

For parents with kids aged 5 year olds this year, please prepare their birth certs and your IC for registration for Primary One which will be Year 2013.

The registration will start effective 1st March 2011, so plese do think over where you want to send your kids, is it national school, chinese school or private school.

For those plan to send kids to chinese school, please register early as seats are usually limited. It will be a hassle if do not get the best option, and need travel far.

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Tug of Love for Low Bi-Anne

Children are the best gift for family. However, when the husband and wife decided to split, the poor children will be torn in-between.

I don't comment on other family's matters thus it is hard to say who is right or wrong in this dilemma. However, I empathize for Bi-Anne, the daughter of a married couple from local who decided to go on their own ways. The eleven year old girl is torn between her mom and dad, both want to claim custody over her.

As the matter is a emotional turmoil for the 3 of them, as outsider, can only pray and hope they settle the issue peacefully with the best in mind for Bi-Anne. As she is already a 'tween', the term called for someone between children and teenage age, it is important to take consideration of her own preference.

Wish Bi-Anne a closure to her emotional sufferings and she could focus on her studies.

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Parenting and Facebook

Facebook is one of the social media commonly used by the new generation to stay in touch with friends. Parents are also catching up to open a Facebook account to keep up to date.

The number one reason is to 'track' and monitor their children whereabouts, know the circle of friends and their hanging out activities, beside understand the new generation lingo and thoughts.

During CNY, gatherings with family and friends made me realised that as new generation parenting style that works is to work with the kids, not work against them. If you know that your kid will not share much with you, but only to his friends, get to know them and be a sporting parent.

There are still a lot of parents who used abstinence as the key parenting philosophy. But with the rising of social media, we can't 'lock' the kids from getting the source of information from the social media.

It is so common that their searches for information includes wikis, online dictionaries, tweets, blogs and more. Thus, it is important to spend time with the kids and chat more with them.

Do not belittle the maturity of the young. You will be impressed sometimes with their 'out of the box' reply and answers.

Do you have a facebook account? Get one now and don't be surprised to see that your kid have 500 friends in his Facebook!

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Kids Acrobatic Performance Part 4

Flexible boy in a barrel acts as I called it, this cute boy cuddled himself in and out of the small barrel and perform various stunts around the barrel.

He is around 6-7 years old and very cute looking! At another stunt, the barrel is standing so this cute boy sat on the barrel and slowly pushed his butt and body into the barrel and then performed multiple rounds of rolling on the stage!

Won't he get dizzy? Impressed and worry at same time for the small boy...

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Kids Acrobatic Performance Part 3

These 2 girls performing Giant chinese yoyo acts. They will throw the yoyo and cross-catching them, perform somersaults and skipping as some of the stunts when throwing and catching back the yoyo.

Looks easy, actually difficult to balance and catch the yoyo!

Kids acrobatics rocks!
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Kids Acrobatic Performance Part 2

This boy did a marvellous balancing acts on Milo tins, as you can see, 5 layers of them. He jumped on the board with some assistance and then balanced himself on the moving Milo tins.

Do you notice his cute hair style?

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Kids Acrobatic Show @ Jusco Malacca

We were lucky to watch the kids acrobatic show when we were at Jusco Malacca this evening. Elly and Emmy were excited to watch the stunning performance put up by the kid performers. I guessed the older of them is about 10-11 years old.

The show lasted for half an hour and performed by 4 groups, including flexible movement by girls, balancing on milo tins by boys, giant chinese yoyo performance by girls and movement around the barrel performance by boys.

Was really impressed by the kids performance. Makes me wonder that talent is not so much inborn, but through sheer determination and resilience for success.

Chinese kids in China send their kids to these acrobatic camps from a tender age, as young as one year old! So that the practise starts early, when the bone is still very young and flexible.

While I was impressed by their performance, it makes me wonder into their practising schedules and lifestyle when they are not performing. These young kids are trained to perform in public since young age, building on their confidence and courage.

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Finance Lessons for Kids during CNY

During this festive season, it is also timely to give the kids especially the pre-school some finance lessons. Kids will get lots of angpows and pocket money during CNY. For my kids, i involved them in the filling in the money into the angpows and take the opportunity to teach them the different currency notes.

Counting is also possible by letting them to count the angpow packets that they received throughout chinese new year. Open savings accounts for the kids in terms of bank accounts, gold savings account or unit trusts.

We should teach our kids financial knowledge from early age so that they know to take care of own financial and reach financial freedom as earlier as possible. However, as kids nowadays are privilege lot with a lot of wants have become their needs, making them to understand the financial IQ is important.

Cheongsam from China

With globalizations, merchandise are easily available throughout the world. Take this cheongsam that Elly is wearing, her grandma bought for her from China for RMB 20, approximate RM10. I saw the same cheongsam at NiuZeSui(Chinatown, Singapore) being sold at SGD20, approximate RM24. It is more than double the price!

China products are available locally, but at a much higher price. Like the lucky hair clip that I purchased earlier at SGD5, my friend bought the same item at RMB5 back in China. China products are really gaining much popularity here.

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Doraemon Mosquito Repellent Spray

We use this Doraemon mosquito repellent everytime we are back in Malacca. This spray is handy and useful to get rid of the mosquitoes especially when we want to let the girls to play in the outdoor.

They are available at Guardian pharmacy. Do get one, the bottle is attractive too to kids by featuring cute Doraemon.

Mosquito repellent are available in few options. Beside this spray, it is also available (different brands) in gel, cream, patch, wristlet etc.

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Elly's Wishes for CNY

It is a tradition we go to the temple on the first day of CNY. Elly prayed and wished for 'Elly will be a good girl, listen to Mommy's words'.

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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - featured in The Star

In the parenting section of The Star, the ever controversial book 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' written by Amy Chua, is debated again.

The author did share views from western and Chinese parenting, her opinion on strict parenting style and high expectations on children.

The East meets West approach, the extreme in upbringing methods do create different preferences in the child. Parents play the most important role in shaping the child, and of course the innate type and talent, environment influece, cultural background do play their roles.

In my opinion, a blended approach, combining the east and west approach would be great. Western kids are more courageous and confident on speaking up and challenge ideas in constructive way. Chinese generally, due to Confucius teachings and some others are generally obedient and have high regards for the elderly.

Seldom we see the Chinese graciously accept compliments from others especially in my generation. The new generation at least are more receptive to compliments. When some other parents compliment the kid, more often than not the Chinese parent will deny the compliment and 'belittle' the kid in front of others. 'No, he is not smart. He is a lazy bum, always watching TV and play games'. Remarks like this is so common for the Chinese.

What is important is to strike a balance and give the child a conducive environment to grow up. Challenge the children's thinking skills and get them to generate options in making decisions.
It is never too early to engage the children in adults activities and events. Take time to explain to them when we do something or make a decision. Never belittle their maturity, especially now the kids have DHA in their milk, so their brain connectivity are even better than us, since we adults do not have this in our milk in old times.

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Baby Bites

Elly and Emmy cousin, Jingren is nine months old. He has the Baby Bites as snacks in between meals.

A few years back, Elly and Emmy also snacked on these Baby Bites. The taste is mild, although its carrot flavoured. Once put in the mouth, within seconds, it melts.

If you have babies around one year old, you can consider giving them these baby bites. These biscuits are available in major supermarkets.

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Petronas CNY Commercial Message

Petronas always have great commercials with wonderful take away message. For this year, its CNY TV commercial focus on parents.

'It is easy to make them happy' is the take away message. Elderly are lonely people and the companion of children and grandchildren(if any) are what they longed for.

Being a parent myself, I can understand what makes parents happy. It is not the children's wealth(although it is important to certain extent), but the quality time that the children spend with them.

Recently Singapore ran an interesting survey and found that the Singaporeans youth spend an average of 10 hours a week with their parents. I think this is a good sign that Singaporeans are looking for more work life balance.

Are you going back to your hometown and spend some time with your parents? Have a good reunion dinner with them and make them happy!

You can watch the Petronas CNY TV commercial in Facebook, check it out!

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Megakids @ Midvalley

Megakids is a one stop center for kids to spend their time while parents go for shopping. They are art class, music class, glass painting, sand painting and fun in the park filled with games and activities.

It is on 3rd floor of Midvalley Megamall, next to Celebrity Fitness, previously known as Jackie Chan Sports Club.

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Seaching for Kampung Chickens

Everytime we came back to Malacca, the girls would love to take a stroll along the street in the village. Kampung chickens freely walk around the village too.

Elly will lead the way and search for the kampung chickens. She will then act like one with arms flapping at sides and sais 'prep prep prep prep ...'

Its a wonderful past time during the evenings. Refering to Amy Chua's strict parenting where children are supposed to have strict timetables, practising on music and study diligently, I take a 'middle road' approach, letting my children to play and study when they are 'ready'.

Do not know whether my way is right, my logic is only to give them the best childhood and enjoy this best time of their life, free of troubles that a student or adults faced.

What is your view?

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JPops Baby Donuts

Had lunch with high school friends at Pavilion Food Republic. On the way back, grab 2 boxes of JPops Baby Donuts.

They are in bite size and simply delicious. Once you grab one, you will want more. They are priced at RM18 for a box of 24 pieces baby donuts.

JCo originates from Indonesia and they really produce nice donuts. Minus the calories, there isn't any reason not to pop a few JCo baby donuts into my mouth.

Elly and Emmy loved them very much too.

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Gong xi fa cai!

Wishing everyone a great gong xi fa cai! May the rabbit year brings lot of fun and playfulness into your life.

For those with young kids, spend more time with them in the growing years. Its the best rewards for parents. Enjoy the fulfilling responsibilities as parents.

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Paradise on Earth @ Haagen Dazs

What's your version of paradise? Mine? Simple... For spending time with my darlings Elly and Emmy and seeing them grow.

Haagen Dazs obviously a great hang out place to taste the Paradise. Its a ice cream dish, great for sampling different flavors of ice cream.

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Paradise @ Haagen Dazs

We brought the kids to an ice cream treat recently at Haagen Dazs. To allow that everyone can have a choice of their favorite flavour, we ordered the Paradise, consists of 6 scoops, layered with biscotti and topped with chocolate and strawberry sauce.

Emmy loved Mango, Elly selected Strawberry, coffee for daddy, rum raisin for mommy, and additional peach and belgian chocolate for all of us to share.

To taste the variety, Paradise is a great choice to taste on different flavors of ice creams. It is priced at RM29.00.

Haagen Dazs vs Baskin Robbins? Which is your preference?

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Universal Studio Singapore- Attraction for Kids

Check out Universal Studios in Singapore for the upcoming school holidays in March 2011. Bring your kids to the fun and entertaining theme park suitable for the whole family. Kids will love the cartoon city featuring Shrek, Madagascar while adults will love the Jurassic Park, Hollywood City and Ancient Egypt to name a few.

As the plan is to add on one new attraction every year, for 2011, the new addition is on Transofrmers. I would love to meet up with Bumblebee in Universal Studios. Cool!

Bunny/Rabbit Year - Filled with Love

See these adorable rabbits and the cute stares. These are available at Chinatown. Grab some to decorate your house and to give as presents to young little kids. Am sure they will love this cute bunnies.

The coming chinese new year is the year of rabbit. It is a pet animal thus, the compatibility to other animal zodiacs depends on the year that you are born in. Want to know whether you will have another great year? Check out the fengshui sites such as hosted by Joey Yap and Lillian Too.

My hope for the rabbit year? May my kids grow up healthily and listen to Mommy's words. Emmy will start nursery after Chinese New Year and hope that she could adapt to the new environment. Being shy and introversion as natural preference, she need time to 'warm up' and mix around with others.

Will be sending Emmy to Mayter kindergarten after some surveys and research to other available ones including Qdees, Midah Kindergarten, montessory or Smart Readers. As i am preparing the kids to Chinese based primary school, Mayter Kindergarten is more established in preparing the right foundation for the children to prepare for the chinese school.

If you are planning to send your kids to nursery or kindergarten, do a site visit and bring along the child so he/she is familiarise with the school environment.

Teaching Mother Tongue Languages - Fun and Creative Ways

Teaching mother tongue languages at schools in Singapore has been made more interesting with the creative and fun way that is created in ensuring that the students have better grasps of the languages.

Methods such as playing card games, singing opera, trips to supermarket and leveraging on the Ipads are some of the non-conventional ways to encourage students to have a better understanding of these languages. It is important to make the classes interesting and the absorption rate will be better.

That gives me some ideas in teaching my kids languages by using some of the above methods. It will sure be fun!

Helping Troubled Kids

I love to read Singapore Straits Times. Besides the core news and events that happened in the city and around the world, it has a lot of social issues being mentioned and actions available to curb it. In today's Mind Your Body section, the main topic is in 'Helping Troubled Kids'.

This issue is usually overlooked by parents, teachers and caretakers and dont take the issue seriously. It is estimated that 1 out of 10 prmary school kids have emotional and behavioural problems. I believe it is similar too in most parts of the world. What is more important is being able to identify the symptoms and then helping these kids to overcome the problems that they have.

Institute of Mental Health(IMH) manage and identify the minor mental provblems in children aged 6 to 18 years old. Counselling will be provided to these kids and help them to face and overcome their problems and not to runaway from it and have fear.

It is important that as parents to be more observant with the kids behaviour and do not wait until it had turned serious only it is realised. Lets play our part in creating a better world for our kids by giving them the support they need to grow up confidently.

Ejaan and Learning Tips for Kids

I recently attended a NLP training and the trainer shared on great learning methodology for young kids who have to go through 'Ejaan', spellings and other memory work. All you need to do is to write the letters big, say on A4 paper and hold it to the top left of your child so he/she can see the word on top of his head, left side.

Research has proved that this method works and allowed the kid to retain the memory better and able to recall where it is stored in the brain. Simply said, by letting the child to visualise the word in front of him allowed the brain works on its 'magic'.

NLP is Neuro Linguistic Programming and the skills and knowledge are so powerful that i could apply it to any area in my life, especially communications and parenting. There are many areas of focus for NLP and one of its application that awed me is in the treatment for ADD/ADHD child. Being a mom to a quite 'hyperactive' child, it was difficult initially understanding her unique behavior.

I am glad that i learnt about NLP and the ADD/ADHD symptoms. Some parents who do not know the background may have resorted to pills in order to curb the kids hyperactivity, which in actual fact, the pill has side effects. Observation of the personality and preferences of our kids will help us as parents to make better choices for our kids.

Do you have children yourself? Do check it out on the NLP and its applications to ADD/ADHD child, and learn to NOT label the kid. Understand him/her and you will discover the beauty that lies within.

Happy Parenting!

Amy Chua - Strict Parenting Style

This photo is courtesy from www.klue.com.my. Amy Chua, infamous Yale Law Professor is being critiqued when she openly shared her strict parenting style in a book and also published in Wall Street Journal recently. In today's Sunday Times Paper (Singapore), she and her strict parenting styles were discussed over a spread of few pages. She has 2 teenage daughters, Sophia and Louisa.

It also shown some Singapore parents residing in US disagree with her parenting style. Her article 'Why Chinese Mothers are Superior' in Wall Street Journal shocked a lot of parents, even myself. My 4 and 5 years old daughters are watching TV and playing computer games 'moderately'. I wont say with total freedom as control and balance has to be drawn down by the parents. Louisa and Sophia were prohibited from watching TV and playing computer games altogether!

Coming from her neighbouring country and a mother myself, i personally dont agree with her parenting style. Tracing history, no doubt that most Chinese parents are more strict when comes to academic excellence, this was proven also for the Gen X and late Baby Boomers whereby their parents were Baby Boomers who suffered a lot of hardships and given a choice, want the better lifestyle for their children. Do we need to take the extreme options as what Amy Chua has implemented?

Trying to see things from her point of view, her actions mostly is influenced by her own upbringing and perceptions to importance of education and music in life. But is that all to the lives of our most precious next generation? ONLY music and education matters?

What about teaching them moral and social values, basic living skills such as respect and humility? Does perfoming at Carnegie Hall really matters so much for a teenage girl? Or it is more to make her Mom/Dad happy and be done with it?

Parenting is not simple and is a complex skill altogether. As everyone has freedom and options to choose what is best to their children, it is important to strike a balance and 'ask' whether the kids are enjoying the 'masterpiece' drilling session ie music, art classes, sports and the list go on. But then, without parents to expose and provide the opportunity to the kids to experience the different skills and activities, the kids will never find their talent/passion, i mean most of them.

So, rather than criticising Amy Chua for her extreme parenting skills, please observe our own decisions, are we on right track as positive parenting? hmm.. it is tricky...