Things they did

On most Saturdays, Hubby needs to go to work (although self-employed) and I am stuck at home looking after my 2 girls as my parents-in-law will go back to their home town nearby for a break.

I try not to 'work' but try to accompany them as much as possible. I will also get hubby to buy simple lunch like chicken rice or fish ball vermicelli so that I can skip cooking. Sometimes when I need cook lunch for them, they will end up watching TV and I think the time is better spent on bonding time with them.



Several Saturdays ago, I did some simple crafts with them. I helped to cut out shapes from coloured paper and Tian could do her own pasting. I would deliberately leave some details undone, in this case, the ladybird's spots so that Tian could colour by herself. After the bug was done, I pasted it onto a straw and she used it as a magic wand.



I also bought a 'pool' so that they could play with water without having to go to beaches or swimming pools.

They had a great time playing but Tao (my younger girl) could not understand why she needed to come out of water after playing for about 20 minutes and she would cry for more than one hour. Every time she peeked outside and saw the pool, she would cry again. Since then, I have kept the 'pool' in storeroom until she could understand "Enough is enough".

I know it is unfair to the elder girl as she kept on asking me when she can 'swim' in the pool again. Maybe one day, when hubby is at home and can help to keep an eye on them, I will let them play once in while.

Double Expenses

My girls have reached a stage where I have to buy everything for them in pairs. Tian usually refuses to share her things with her younger sis and the younger sis will throw temper tantrum to get anything her sister is having.

Usually we will insist for the elder girl to share her toys with her sister but on some days, I just simply could not resist to buy something for both of them so that they are both happy (and I do not have to start persuading, lecturing......and punishing).

Another reason is that I will do anything to encourage them to drink more water and I do not mind to stock up on all those formula milk powder for this.

Free gifts from growing up milk for Tian.

Tian is such easy-going girl and I can alternate between this and another more premium brand depending on sales and free gifts available. She used to drink the 'dolphin' brand but I started to mix organic soy, millet, oat milk into the girls milk one year ago (which is more pricey) so I balanced out by buying less premium brand for her. I plan to switch Tao's milk from 'lion' brand to less premium brand when she is four like Tian. After all the recent hoo-haa about added sugar in formula milk, I am even more determined to cut down on formula and replace with organic soy, millet, oat milk which has less sugar.

A visit to Johor Bahru Zoo

I am ashamed to say that I have been staying near Johor Bahru for nearly ten years but I have never visited any places of interest here.

Previous week, Tian came home from her pre-school and kept on pestering us to bring her to zoo. We wondered how she knew about asking us to bring her to zoo. Peer pressure at 4 years old? What will happen when she is 12 then? We promised to bring her to a zoo but I was thinking that Melaka Zoo would be too far away for a day trip with 2 kids and I remembered my ex-colleague mentioning a 'small' zoo at JB so I surfed net and found the location. A zoo only 20km plus away from my home!

Two Sundays ago, we went to zoo after breakfast and buying a new canvas shoes for Tian so that she could walk comfortably. We reached there around 11:30am and it was scorching hot (I forgot to bring sunblock for the kids, only hats) and it was difficult to find a place to park our car.

We bought tickets (RM2 for adults, RM1 for kids and free entrance for 2 yo and below and there was a compulsory ticket to buy for birds show which was RM1 per person) and the kids had a good time looking at real animals while my hubby and I was sweating all over and still had to chase after them.



There were about 100 species of animals on the 5 hectares land. Although the zoo was small compared to other zoos in Malaysia, one to two hours of strolling and 30 minutes of birds show were long enough for younger children. The compound was well managed and clean.



The area for birds show. The shops sold tit-bits and beverages at reasonable prices.


Hornbill and other birds could be seen near the entrance.

At least there were tigers and lions to see. A zoo would not be like a zoo if there wasn't any king of the beast and king of the jungle, right?

Baby elephants could be observed at close distance as they were chained as we walked pass the enclosure. I hoped that they were not chained all the time.

There were shelters with tap water nearby so it was convenient to let kids (and adults) to take a rest and for mothers to clean them up after feeding them. Tian and Tao had a great time playing in the 'hut'.

Birds show: It was a pity that there were only a few birds performing. Maybe due to smaller zoo management, they were not be able to organize performance on bigger scale.

As we reached home, hubby and I were dizzy due to the heat. I quickly cooked some cooling dessert so that the kids would not get sick. Papaya (not too ripe) and white fungus with dried winter melon, red date and dried longans. Cooling and refreshing!

Stay focused!

I am trying my best to stay focused with my most important task a the moment. That is to compile all necessary receipts, cash bills and documentations for 2010 Inland Revenue submission for hubby's business. There seem a lot of details to confirm and documents to dig out. Although there are still 2 months left but I plan to complete early and submit to the company dealing with taxes so that they will have enough time to review. There are 2 weeks holidays in June so I am sure I won't be able to get much done during that time. I keep telling myself not to surf net so much, watch movies or tidy up the house (I always like to tidy up or clean my house when I have more important stuff to attend to. Denial, maybe?).

Crafting Week

Sometimes I feel guilty being a work-at-home mum but seldom accompany my girls as much as I want to except during weekends when my parents-in-law are not with us and I have take care of them on my own. Even so, I will leave them to play on their own while surfing net or doing my admin work. However, since last two weekends I decided to accompany them on Saturdays without touching my laptop except when they are both sleeping. I actually feel better because I am able to concentrate with one task at a time and my girls are happy that I can play with them, read to them and do some crafts with them. One evening last week, I told my 4 yo I wanted to make a mask for her and she chose to be Belle, the character from Beauty and the Beast. My 2 yo would want anything that her sister had so I made her a simple mask. I was getting lazy so I just simply cut out a piece of paper with two holes on it. She was satisfied. A few days later, my 4 yo pestered me to let her draw pictures with water colour. Normally, I would only let her use water colour when the younger sister was napping. After she promised she would share with her sister and would not fight with her sister, I let them play at the garage. Reason due to I HATE CLEANING UP just in case they spilt the water and colours. To my surprise, they played peacefully for more than half an hour. Last Saturday, I cut out some shapes from a paper plate and let the girls pasted the legs, head and tail to make a stegosaurus (I got the idea from one of my ex-school mate's blog). Again, they spent about one hour doing all the pasting plus some colouring. My 4 yo even helped her sister draw the eyes and colour the body of her dinosaur.

Finished work of two stegosaurus

'Me' Time at JB!

Last Sunday, I had a 'ME' time at JB from 10:00am until 4:30pm while hubby babysat my 2 girls at home. It was a relaxing and refreshing day for me.

First, I went to a investment talk for Public Bank customer regarding market outlook, introduction to a new unit trust fund and financial planning. I got to know some friendly bank staffs and had a very nice banquet lunch at the hotel. It was nice having time for myself and I could have undisturbed lunch without having to feed my kids at the same time.

An informative talk at the hotel

After lunch, I called up my hubby and he said the girls were sleeping and I could stay longer at JB if I wanted. Yippee! So I went to a nearby shopping centre and spent my time at a popular bookstore and bought some better quality English materials to teach Tian.

The 'High Frequency Words' book came with flashcards that we were supposed to teach kids 4 new words at a time and the worksheets contained exercises for reading and spelling skills for the 4 words. It was for 5-7 year old but I thought it was simple enough if I teach her with patience (breath in, breath out) and focused just on the reading part. True enough, Tian could read 4 new words at once and read the sentences containing the new words after some initial difficulty (I had to admit, I was not really patient and I did scold her *guilty*). I planned to let her progress slowly and not to rush her on this so that she could have fun learning.

I did not show her the rhymes book because she would be very rigid and wanted to read both books at once which I thought would be too distracting for her.

I bought a Dinosaur comic book because she was very fascinated with dinosaurs and she could differentiate between different types of dinosaurs and pronounce their names. She was not very interested in the Mandarin book so I had not started introducing the book to her yet.

Sharing needs to be taught

I have only learnt today that I have to teach my kids to share.

Before this, whenever my 4 yo and 2 yo were fighting over certain toys or books, we (adults) would just reprimand my 4 yo and insisted she should share with her sister. It always ended up with the little sister getting what she wanted and the 4 yo crying and being punished.

This morning and afternoon, I was alone at home taking care of my kids and I decided to really accompany them. No TV on the background and no surfing net for me. I took some toys and played cooking with them. When the 2 yo wanted something from the 4 yo, I would tell her it belonged to the sister but I tried to ask the 4 yo to lend her. She agreed and let her sister played for a while. I monitored them playing and guided them when they were snatching toys. They played for more than one hour peacefully. I was glad!

The 2 girls played together peacefully for the longest time

Normally when we were watching TV or chatting and the girls began to fight, we did not have the patience to know what exactly happened and we would just scold/ punish the elder girl if she hit or pushed the 2 yo in attempt to claim what belonged to her. She must be deeply hurt when we sometimes even caned her for that.

Lesson learned: We have to demonstrate and guide our children the proper way on how we would want them to behave instead of just being verbal. Actions do speak louder than words.