March 2014 - The blog is back in business. Beginning of homeschooling journey.

It's been 3 years since I stopped blogging. Recently I felt that I ought to take it up again. The one big change at the moment is that we've started homeschooling since the beginning of this year. I hope we'll be able to document our journey again.

I kind of feel bad that I didn't blog anything about Hannah. But I enjoyed being with her so much that blogging just didn't enter my mind. I hope I can record more good memories about both Sean and Hannah from now on.

We've been a trial and error stage since Nov last year, trying out different ways of learning. A lot of the problems have got to do with discipline for all of us, Sean, Hannah and myself.

Sean came out from school disliking anything that has to do with learning. He's been in chinese school since nursery until Standard 1. He didn't enjoy school very much, especially with the bullying that went on for almost the whole of last year. I felt that being in school brought out the worst in him. So we decided to pull him out after his final exams.

Sean has improved his reading by leaps and bounds, but his writing has suffered. He hates BM and writing and it comes to a point where he starts to whine and sulk and throw tantrum. Then I would lose my temper and the situation gets worse.

So I am trying to curb my temper and readjust his lessons. I admit that some of the lessons I plan for him are way beyond his level. So I am changing the curriculum. This is what I love about home schooling. Everything is so flexible and I can tailor the lessons accordingly. It really helps that I didn't buy a curriculum off the shelf and am doing it myself. This way I can do whatever I like. Unschooling is the way to go! :D

We've been following Charlotte Mason's ideas this year, which consists of a lot of reading and discussion. We started the school year with Plymouth Maths, Famous Men of Greece, Mystery of History (history of the church and middle ages), Usborne Geography encyclopedia, Wild Weather, The Little Duke, Understood Betsy, Childcraft: About Animals & Places to Know, Burgess Animals, Parables of Nature,Scott Foresman English and Bahasa Malaysia.

Bahasa Malaysia is the subject that causes lots of flying tempers. Sean hates BM. So I've had to revised our lessons over and over again. Finally we've decided on starting him with really easy BM books in little snippets. BM is going to be really slow going.

Along the way, we've dropped Burgess Animals and Parables of Nature, and last week I've decided to drop Usborne Geography, Wild Weather, and the Childcraft books.

We joined WSC, a home schooling group, that meets once a month. They're starting this year on a lapbook about Desert Animals. Sean seems to enjoy it and looks forward to do more. So we'll be doing more lapbooks from now on.

Our new lessons will include:
Literature:
Time of Wonder lapbook that includes geography, science and english.
Paddle to the Sea
The Castle Diary: Journal of Tobias Burgess
Life Sciences:
Desert, Nocturnal and Polar Animal lapbooks with WSC, and maybe a few of our own choosing.
Chemistry: Matter


Oooppsss.... It's Hannah's turn now. Hannah has been such a blessing. She's pretty, cute and cheerful. She loves to sing and dance. She's still only 2 but she already knows what she wants! She only wants to wear pink pretty dresses. She thinks she's a princess and wants to marry a prince so she can live in a castle. She can play make believe by herself and loves to go to playgroup. I brought her to 3 playgroups last year, but since we're homeschooling this year, Hannah only goes to 1 playgroup on Mondays and Fridays at Children's Corner. She's very friendly and makes friends easily. What's there to gripe about? ;P

The only little complain I have would be the fact that she still breast-feeds and is very sticky to me, so I don't have any personal time at all. I can't even go to the toilet without her barging in and sitting inside while I do my business! So I am always trying to run away and get some personal space while she runs after me looking for me. ;P But it's all good and well. Whatever my complain may be, I really do enjoy being with both my children.

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Sep 2011 - Dealing with 2 kids

Baby Hannah was born last month. She is the most adorable and wonderful addition to our small family.

However, our major concern right now is with Sean. From being a wonderful boy, he's going through a very difficult period. He's been showing his temper, answering back, and generally not listening to us. The last straw was yesterday when his teacher in school finally had to complain to us. It seems that all his teachers have been having a problem with his behaviour recently.

It is probably related to the arrival of Hannah. I have been busy with Hannah and because of his bad behaviour, DH has been hard on Sean. So all his resentment and anger must be manifesting into the current behaviour pattern.

Sean has no problems at all with Hannah. He has issues with figures of authority, i.e. us parents and teachers. We have been pushing him too hard and yet been spending too little time with him.

We are going to have to try out a different approach to tackle this problem before it gets out of hand. Currently, Sean is a different boy from the one a few months ago. I hope we can rectify whatever it is that we did wrong.

June 2011- Number 2 is coming soon!

Okay..... My blogging has been on a hiatus for much too long. But just for updates,

I'm on week 32 pregnancy and it's a girl! =D
2nd trimester has been really good. I had a lot of energy and no morning sickness at all.
Entering 3d trimester, I get bouts of exhaustion, but it's quite expected. So nothing to worry about. I just rest whenever I'm tired. Or eat a bar of chocolate to pick me up. =P

This pregnancy is all about chocolate. I'm glad we have so much chocolate at home, otherwise I would be spending a lot of money on chocolates. Ha ha ha =P

Sean has been accepting about getting a baby sister. At first he wanted a baby brother, but this year he's been playing with more girls at school, so he's quite happy to have a sister. Girls are as fun to play with.

We've discussed with him that he's got to learn to be a koko and that when the baby is just born, mummy would be busy with the baby because it's still so tiny and can't do anything much.

Once he asked, "Why can't the baby come now?"
I told him, "Enjoy whatever time you have now, because once the baby is here, there won't be much peace and time!"


When Sean was still a young baby, I read about Attachment Parenting, and tried as much as possible to adhere by it's principles, i.e.

1. Birth Bonding
2. Breast feeding
3. Baby Wearing
4. Bedding close to baby
5. Belief in the language value of your baby's cry
6. Beware of baby trainers
7. Balance

I believe the results are starting to show now. He's a wonderful boy, who is caring, confident and compassionate. Of course, there are days when he does get on our nerves because he's jumping about and talking non-stop when all we wanted was some peace and quiet! He's really quite active and is one of those boys who can't sit still for long. But overall, he's a son any mother would be proud of. =D

Once I was busy cooking in the kitchen, he came over and said, " Call me if you need any help, ok." And then he watched TV. A few minutes later, he came again with arms akimbo, " Why haven't you called me to help you?"

He always says, " I want to help, I want to help!", but there are just some things that get done faster when I do it myself. So sometimes I need to remind myself to let him help out. It does him a lot of good when he feels he has been helpful. He feels really happy about it.

He's quite a joker. Most of his jokes are really NOT funny, but he derives so much fun telling jokes, that it makes me laugh anyway.

He's quite willing to share his things, to the point that I have to tell him to be a little selfish. After Sunday school, the boys would play Bay Blades. Whenever we look for him, someone else is always playing his Bay Blade, and then they would go on playing without returning it to him. I've got to tell him to go and ask for it back. I feel a little bad to teach him to be selfish, but he's got to learn to take care of his own things!

He's still very close to me. Still needs to sleep with me, but I told him that when the baby comes, the baby will need Mummy more because it'll be so small. So I hope he'll be able to adjust to the fact that he won't have as much of my time anymore. But I'm confident that he'll be able to adjust. Some days I'm so tired and need a rest. When I tell him I need to rest, he lets me have my time and try to do his own things.

Many times when I drop him off at school. He would always tell me, " Zai Jian, mummy. I hope you have fun.", then he'll give me a kiss and a hug, and sometimes he add, " I love you, Mummy", and then a flying kiss.

I feel happy and blessed to have such a wonderful son. He's loving and kind, willing to share and to help out and almost always starts his day with a smile and a laugh. It really lifts my spirit up =D.

And I'm looking forward to meet my daughter when she's ready to be born. I hope to be able to build another wonderful relationship with her.

It's only another 8 weeks to go! =D

January 2011

It's been several long months since I've taken any interest in the Internet. It's mostly because my laptop has been usurped away from me by the 2 boys, the big one and the little one. And anyway I haven't really been inspired to say anything.

So since the last post,

Sean had his 4th birthday. Christmas and New year has come and gone, and now Chinese New Year is coming. There are several notable things starting from the beginning of this year.

Baby no 2 is in Production! Yay!

Firstly, number 2 babe is being grown in the oven. It's now the 11th week. So it's still early stages, and it has been an awful stage so far. Throughout the 2nd half of December until now, I feel that I've been incapacitated.

I am nauseous most of the time, and I practically spend all my free time in bed. I can't stand the smell of any chemical or perfume, so I kind of dreaded bathing in December. The smell of soap or shampoo made me sick. So now we all use (yes, both Sam and Sean also) Simple bath soap which has no perfume at all.

Two weeks ago, I was walking near some mamak stall, I had to look for drain holes every few steps to vomit into. In his desperation, Sam went to the pharmacy to look for a face mask for me, and came out with Veloxin (an anti nausea medication). It worked great! First I took one tablet every 2 days, and then it wasn't working enough, I had to take one tablet every day, and now, even when I take a tablet, I still vomit. So I am of the opinion that my body just needs to vomit. I haven't taken any today. I vomit when I need too. But at least I can eat now. It's not as bad as earlier when I had no appetite at all.

I think what's worse is the fact I have really low levels of energy. My energy reserve is probably 3 hours. After 3 hours of doing being up, I am exhausted and need a long rest. This is quite tricky because.....

Maid-less

of the second notable thing, i.e. we have no maid as of 1st january. It's not really that much of a problem not having a maid actually. It's just that, I've been so tired all the time, I don't really have much energy for housework. Our maid has gone to a couple of elderly relatives who need her more, and who is willing to pay her a lot more.

Sean and Sam have been angels. =D They're both really supportive. Sam in doing the cooking. MIL in the housework during times I am too exhausted to do anything. Sean is behaving so much better now. Not as sticky because he knows his mummy is 'sick because there's a baby in her tummy'.

Homework time

There are friends who feel that Sean's current school doesn't really prepare the kids well for chinese primary school. But I don't want to take him out and put him in a traditional chinese kindergarten because it took him a whole year just to get used to his current school. I don't really want him to have to adjust to a new environment all over again.

So during the holidays, I started a homework habit with Sean. Nothing much, just doing a few pages from workbooks. On days he didn't want to, I didn't push. I don't ask him to do anything on weekends. But when he does it, I give him a nice sticker to stick on his homework calendar. He loves counting the number of stickers he has on the calendar.

We usually do his 'homework' at 8pm. But yesterday, I just couldn't be bothered. I wanted to watch TV.... he he he.... I mean, So what if he doesn't do his 'homework' for a day? But he went upstairs, and I thought he was going to play computer games. When I came up at 9pm, he was doing his homework (with a little help from Daddy) all by himself! Wasn't that a pleasant little surprise? =D

The homework idea wasn't really to push him to study harder, it was more of creating a discipline habit. To set a little time to do some school work. I'm glad he's showing independence in this area. I don't know if this wonderful behavior will be the norm or the rare occasion. But it was a pleasant moment. =D

Visit to the KL Zoo

Akong and Ama brought us to the zoo. It was a week day, it wasn't crowded, so it was quite nice to walk about.


I like the Safari area, at least the animals look as if they have enough space to roam about. We got to see a little zebra fight.

Sean's favorite animal is the giraffe, and there was plenty of those in the safari.

Surprisingly another area that he really liked was the butterfly enclosure.

While I thought the horned toads were quite cool. =D

There was these rather steroided looking bulls with huge muscles. I wonder if that's natural.


I think we'll go back again. It's really quite nice and not too far away. =D

Bullied

On Monday, Sean did not want to go to school. He was being quite difficult so I was rather testy with him. I told him to stop talking for a while while I concentrate on driving him to school and keeping a cool head. So he did. He went really quiet. With my son, being quiet means something is wrong. I asked him if he was ok, he said, " Yes, I'm ok." ( but rather subdued)

This was after a battle of getting him to eat before school. I gave him more than an hour to eat and he still didn't finish his food. The moment I parked the car, he said he was hungry. So we quickly nipped to the supermarket nearby to get him some pastries to eat.

So as we were walking to school, he said again
" I don't want to go to school. My friends are stupid."
I was surprised because that's not how he usually behaves. So I asked
" Why do you call you friends that? That's not nice."
"My friends are stupid"
I asked, " Did someone call you stupid?"

I was guessing, but I know that he hasn't been picking up mandarin at school. After 8 months at school, he still speaks mostly English at school. So maybe some of his friends who are more fluent may call him names, and then he said,
" Yes. My friend call me stupid."

He didn't want to enter his classroom. I talked to his teachers about it. They said they don't allow name callings in class, but they'll be more alert and talk to the kids about it. When he came home, we found out further who this 'friend' was.

It was a girl. She seems quite nice enough, and even passed me Sean's water bottle once when he forgot it. Sean says, " Yen Ling calls me silly and stupid."

I can quite imagine the situation because Sean is a joker and likes being silly. But he is very sensitive and must be feeling very hurt. My cheerful son who is always a joker has been rather subdued these last few days, and does not want to go to school. He hasn't been himself

I feel very sad for him. :(

I think it's hard for a boy to be bullied by girls. I always tell him to treat girls nice. But little girls can be hurtful in their words, and he has no defense against this. I do hope mummies with little girls would remind them that they should be nice to little boys too.

P.S.
This lasted only a few days though. After that things went back to normal.