YouTube videos

Just to say that I've changed the settings of Sean's birthday videos. It should be able to be viewed now.

The birthday parties at Playgroup

On Thursday,
we had a simple birthday party at Playcentre playgroup. This time Sean shared a birthday with Hanzjay who also turned 3 years old this week. Hanzjay's mum, Sherinder, got the cake and drinks, so I got the rest of the food, egg sandwiches, chicken nuggets, sweet corn and watermelon. Things kids would eat, nothing fancy.

When I told Samantha and Amelia that Sean was sad that his friends weren't around on his birthday, they immediately offered to come over after Kai's kindy finished. So they came around 1.30pm to surprise Sean.









Thursday afternoon
Sean, Kristen and Kai, had a great time fighting and playing with each other. I think at this age, kids are just funny. Sean would miss them so much when they aren't around, but when they meet, they fight and then Sean usually would cry. But when later Kai and Kristen leave, Sean would miss them again. Sometimes I don't understand them. =P But Sean was really happy to have them here at home. That was a great afternoon, for us mums as well as the children.



I baked the cake for Friday's party in the afternoon and spent the evening decorating it. I made the cake for both Sean and Eason who's sharing the birthday party at Children's Corner.

Sean wanted Animal Mechanical Mouse this time round and I made a dinosaur for Eason. I also named the cupcakes Sean, Eason and Charmaine who was also having her birthday this week.

That was a lot of work. I think next year, we'll just have one big party and make a big cake. The baking doesn't take that long, but the decorating takes a lot of time. And next time, I want to have proper equipment! Doing it the old fashion way is a lot of work. But, I'm just happy that Sean is excited about both his cakes. =D

At Children's Corner on Friday



After all that preparation, the friday party was a good one. All we had to do was just enjoy the day. Joey, Eason's mummy, brought a pinata for the kids to hit at the end of the playgroup. Everything was fine until Eason was injured when Clarence swung the stick too vigorously. He was hit on his eyelid. Poor Eason, he was shocked and very scared. After crying for a long time, he managed to open his eyes. I hope his eyes are alright.


I brought the camera and was able to record short clips of Sean dancing. Daddy came along for both Thursday and Friday birthday party, and recorded the birthday for us. I think Sean enjoyed himself very much this birthday with so many parties going on.







The next day, he asked for Animal Mechanical Mighty Sasquatch cake! I think he thinks now he can ask for any cakes he wants. LOL =P

Sean is 3 years old.

Dear Sean,

Mummy is so happy to see grow so much within this past year. You've become a happy person who likes to joke and tease mummy and daddy. You are also a strong willed person who has definite views about certain things, for example, you insist that the Rainbow song should go

Red and yellow and green and pink....
When it should go Red and yellow and pink and green.

It takes quite a lot to get you to change your mind, but being a good boy, you decide to give in and accept our version, except that you'll give a long sigh and say, ok mummy or ok, daddy...

The last week or so, you seem to have grown up a lot. There has been a lot of sighing whenever we tell you NOT to do something. I hear a lot of '(sigh) ok, mummy', which I find very funny because you sound so old, he he he.... =D

But you are mostly a happy child who loves to joke. You find it funny when you make the figurines walk on their heads. You love to get on my knees and fly about. You love going to McDonald or KFC. Today, you were playing with Mickey and Minney, pretending that they are buying fries and hamburger at McDonald.

You like playing with Transformer, and you are currently crazy about Animal Mechanicals. You can watch the same 4 episodes that we found on YouTube over and over again for hours. (shake head)

This past month, your computer skill has improved tremendously. From not being able to handle the mouse, you are getting to be rather dexterous with the mouse, and are now able to navigate and play on the pbskids website or YouTube quite well.

Mummy is not always there to see you play computer because you usually play computer with daddy when mummy is working, but I am impressed to see you play the games so well.

Somehow ever since you are aware that you are 3 years old, no longer 2 years old, you've suddenly become more grown up. Don't grow up too fast, Sean. Live life to the fullest my son, and always ask God to protect and bless you in Jesus name, Amen.

We love you very much,
Mummy and Daddy.
xxx








The making of the birthday cake

The last few days we've been hyping Sean about his birthday and get him to sing birthday song. I asked him what cake he wanted to have. I was planning to make him a spiderman cake which is a simple design. But since his craze with Animal Mechanicals started, he was not interested in any other characters.

At first he was crazy about The Mighty Sasquatch. Ok, Sasquatch is not too difficult to draw. But last night, he was quite definite that he wanted a T-Rex cake. There are not many Animal Mechanicals pictures online. So I just Googled and found 2 possible drawings. My drawing wasn't very good, but that's all I had. =P

This is my first birthday cake and I don't really have equipment, except for an egg whisk and some baking paper. Yesterday, I had a really good workout on my right arm, first, creaming the butter and sugar for the cake, then creaming the cream cheese and icing sugar for the icing.

There were a few problems. First, the pyrex container I used for the cake was slightly too big for the oven, and thus had to be put in diagonally, which made the cake uneven. A lot of cake was wasted to get an even rectangular cake.

Sean helped with the sifting icing sugar and whisking the butter, but I didn't really let him help much this time round. While icing the cake, I kept licking my fingers when the cream cheese icing leaked and dribbled from the paper cone. By the time, I decorated the cake, I was rather sugared out.

The birthday

Sean was so excited about his 'Rex cake' and wanted to eat it early in the morning, but I kept telling him to wait for evening when Ama comes home. He loved the marshmallows on the cake but didn't eat the cake. Seriously, no one at home like to eat cake, not even Sean. Except me and the maid. So it's a good thing, the cake is small.

Daddy cooked meatballs, spaghetti and tomato sauce, and french fries. He ate french fries, meatball without the sauce and marshmallows. *You need to eat more, Sean!*

By the time evening came, he was more subdued, and when I asked him much later, he said he was sad that his friends, Kai and Eason, were not there. I guess he thought he was going to have a big birthday party. Actually, I don't know what he thought, but maybe that's what he thought. I hope he enjoys the birthday at playgroup tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Sean!

The letter B, the color yellow and the number 2

Sean was stuck with the letter A, the color Red and the number one for the longest time. All he wanted to do was paint the letter A in red paint and he only wanted 1 of everything.

I think about 1 or 2 weeks ago, he decided his favorite color is now yellow, and his favorite letter is the letter B and he wants everything in twos.

Someone passed me a link to this great website a long time ago, it list down a lesson plan that you want to do with your child from1 years old. I didn't do anything then but I've recently dug it up and taken a look at it. I'm grateful for the people who puts up free lessons online, they are a great source of ideas. This is the link : http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html

I'm not following everything that is recommended yet, but I thought I'll start with borrowing books following a theme, i.e. letter of the week is....

Since Sean is very decided on letter B, I thought this was a good time to start this. I borrowed books from the B section, which made it simpler for me to look for books. I could only find one of the recommended book for letter B, but I think the idea is about introducing as many things that start with the letter B. So I just borrowed books that talk about things that start with the letter B.

Since he started playing games online, he hasn't been interested in reading as much, but this week, all I had to do was ask, " Do you want to read a B book?" So far, it's been working this week, we shall see how long this works and whether or not I can actually follow the recommended lesson with Sean.

I've started a new blog. At the moment it's just a list of books we are currently reading and links of YouTube videos we are watching. The blog is called Today, I learn about

UP

We went to see 'UP' the movie on Wednesday afternoon. This was my first movie with Sean but it was Sean's 2nd movie because Sean went to see 'Star Wars' with Daddy before.

Sean behaved well but he kept saying 'Let's go home' in the beginning while the previews were being shown. But once the movie started, he enjoyed it. He found it a bit scary during the chasing scenes (and cried a little) because the music was dramatic and he gets rather affected by dramatic or scary music.

I think we can start going to see movies more regularly now since he behaved so well this time.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday dear.
Sean and I love you. Thank you for being such a loving husband. =D

Mummy has been busy doing transcribing work at home, so Daddy and Sean have been spending more time together. Hence they are even closer than before. Mummy used to be number 1 but now, both Daddy and Mummy are equal, which is wonderful.

Daddy and Sean spend a lot of time playing computer games together, which I think has it's pros and cons. The pros is that they do an activity which they enjoy together and Sean is watching less TV. The cons is that Sean is getting addicted to computer games and is refusing to do anything else. All those Montessori activities we did before are suddenly too boring compared to computer games.

I have to say that the free computer games available at www.pbskids.org are cute and educational, and I didn't really mind him letting him play, just to practice hands and eye coordination as well as listening skills. But I have to limit his time on the computer.

Leaf the Caterpillar

Akong found a caterpillar and showed it to Sean a few days ago. We've been watching the caterpillar eat and move from branch to branch everyday. It's really fun, I enjoy it as much as Sean does. I took some pictures of the caterpillar yesterday and put it back on a bush with a lot of leaves.

Unfortunately, the maid, fearing the caterpillar might eat all the leaves and kill the tree, threw it down the drain this morning. =(

Sean was really sad to lose his caterpillar.

I guess it ate up all the leaves from the original bush we found it on, and may kill a new bush with it's voracious eating. However we would have liked to be able to watch it become a pupa and then a butterfly.

I found out something interesting when I had it in a box yesterday. I saw the caterpillar poop and it's poop is huge! Can you see how big the caterpillar is? It's longer than my index finger when it stretches.

I wanted to upload a short video of the caterpillar but I couldn't upload it. Is there a way to shrink it's size so it can be uploadable?

Sean @ 35 months

I can't quite remember when it started, but this past month, I've been hearing a lot of " I love you mummy" from Sean. He feels the need to express himself that he tells me he loves me more than 10 times a day. It's wonderful for me of course, but he's so honest that he'll tell his Daddy and Akong that he doesn't like them.

He's becoming more chatty but his vocabulary is very limited, so you'll hear these phrases very often from him:
"This one" "That one",
I'm trying to get him use more descriptive words but it's our own fault because I notice we use these phrases often too. So we have to be more conscious about our own speech.

"Don't know" - he uses this all the time because he wants me to do things for him.

"Don't like this" - most of the time it's food. He's been very picky about food.

" Mummy help Sean" - i.e. he wants me to help him

" Mummy follow me" - I am his personal playmate so I have to follow him everywhere but when I get lazy and refuse to play with him, he goes:

" Mummy no sit down", " Mummy no sleeping", " Mummy stand up", " Mummy sit here", mummy this, mummy that all the time....... This is what happens when you only have one child and you are his constant companion. You get bossed around!

But there are times when he's really cute, like when he likes something, he'll go "I love it!" or he tells me he loves me over and over again.

He's also been saying a lot of "Thank you"s and sometimes he reminds me to say thank you too if he does something for me. Except that he tells me " Mummy thank you" and I'll go " What for?" Then I realized he was reminding me to say thank you because he passed me an item.

His pronunciation still needs work. He mixes his Rs and Ls, his Ds and Gs..... "I love you" sounds more like "I dove you." But he sounds so cute that I'm just going to enjoy it and not going to worry too much about it.

His ( Tue and Wed) kindergarten is on holiday. So he's been watching more TV and has started playing simple computer games with Daddy. It's more to let him get a feel of the mouse. His favourite games are " Red Remover", " Curious George", "Calliou" and "Clifford" from www.pbskids.org, and "Neverwinter Nights". He's also been playing "Transformer cards" with Daddy.

To counteract the TV watching that he's been doing, I've tried a few more Montessori-like activities at home. The sand (or seed) writing. Pouring water, Spooning seeds, Beading, Sorting colors/ maths, puzzles. I didn't want to buy anything new so most of the games are done with whatever I found at home. We usually do it on the verandah because I know how messy Sean can get.


Pouring activity. We used an old plastic container, a Vietnamese coffee strainer and a Nescafe milk jug, and a few sponges. It was a hit. He loved it and promptly wet everything around him. I've seen other children doing water activity, they are never as messy as Sean.







The sponges were supposed to mop up spillage but Sean stuffed them in the strainer, in the container, and after that mopped the floor with them, but never as they were intended to be. I found a lot of amusement in watching him play with the water.








Spooning. We reuse the biji selasih that we played with for sand writing. I mistakenly thought it was Mustard seeds because they are so tiny but they are actually Basil seeds. It's a simple activity that's just spooning the seeds into the glass candle holder. It was messy because Sean found amusement in the fact it gets really messy. *shake head*





I took clearer photos of him doing some beading. It's so cute to watch him concentrate for once and put in the pink beads into the wire.

I bought some buttons to do color sorting on an old paint pallete. It turned to be a maths activity instead once I wrote numbers on each of the indentation. First, we put buttons of the same colors in the middle and count them. There are 10 buttons of each color. And then I'll tell him, I'll put one in number 1. Then we count the rest and put in number 9. Therefore, 1 and 9 becomes 10. Next color, we'll put 2 and 8, and so on.


We replayed old puzzles. Previously he found it hard to put together the wooden puzzles because the color on the pictures given are different from the actual color. So I drew up the shapes on pieces of cardboard to help him do the puzzles. It was much easier this way.

I'm not sure what this game is called. I found it somewhere in the house. I thought this could be an activity that encourage taking turns. There are yellow and red discs. Unfortunately, taking turns for him means that he does all the red discs first before I can put in any yellow discs. ha ha ha.... That's something that needs to be worked on.