Saturday, December 1, 2007

Extras extras

Videos / Photos
I've forgotten about Athena's video in her school celebration.

I've re-linked it back to the entry
Click here

I'm also linking some photos on all our sidebars

One week ago
One week ago this time I was a busy アリ running around for touch ups etc..for her party
One week later, I am sitting down finishing the blog entries and still trying to do housekeeping in my laptop.
Next week, I'm going to start printing my flashcards. I've got some things saved in my laptop so need to clear them

Any more birthdays?
Hubby said "no more parties next year!"
We both say one thing, do another. But the last 2 years I've been really exhausted. Last year was coz' I just delivered in September; doing confinement. This year coz' of bad timing. But it's okay, I'm used to hard life.
I like personal touches to parties, which is why I find that paying for someone to do the job is :
1) expensive and not like they serve proper food - just finger food
But counting back my costs and probably (if I'm an insurance agent "time is money; money is time") thinking , I had probably only saved a few bucks from getting one to do it

I'm thinking if I do a low scale personal touch birthday party again next year without much nonsense from me... it's like I've lowered my own standard. Let's just say my benchmark was high, guests will probably expect something more next year. I spoil my own market huh?
But maybe I'll do it outside...... that is if my hubby & my heart went soft again to pamper our child
But I do realise that I tend to overspend on parties. It's only once a year what! I end up buying things from online too. So lucky children!

Handmade / DIY / Personal touches
Today, brother asked me when he took my Hersheys chocolates to eat. "So this one you also bought online?" I meant to tell him that it's not professionally done how can it be bought online.
That's why I say I love personal touch is important.
For Athena's party, only the gifts for children; food; treats either in pinata or the noisemakers etc (only 2 things were personalized with Dora); cake; Roslyn's poster; the bush that brother made;jellies - all these are definitely not done by me!
Maybe call me crazy for doing things and then people just throw away.... err... just don't tell me what you do with it, I won't feel the heartpain.

I love gatherings
I know this sounds crazy... with November 25th (Athena's birthday) exactly a month before Christmas. I thought of doing a small party. Crazy! Relax girl!!!
But you know what? I love gatherings, I love to do parties etc...
Perhaps I really marry wrong man. If I married in another country and one who loves to entertain. Woah! All my creativity will come up. By then I can tell David Tutera step aside! Lily Ann Teo is here!! Okay, I'm daydreaming... right brainers (ahem left-handers) are dreamers remember? But at least, I don't have to spend tons of money on online shopping - getting things in from US.
But you know my hubby and his family don't like gatherings. My family don't mind , probably to their family is a waste of money. But for us, we value relationships more than money.

Playdate
I'm trying to see if I can get a few children for a playdate.I'm too tired to prepare something for the children to do at my place. Anyway, my place is really ulu - far away. So we'll probably be out dumping the kids somewhere. Well.... still haven't materialise yet coz' it can be difficult to get everyone to be free on the same day. See how lah! But for sure, Alexandra & Athena will be out on their playdates.

Meet & Greet
There's alot of Meet & Greets. But I'm so tired.... wasting time to queue up. And it's like I can only go one show one day, and how many free days do I have in a week" 2! Okay maybe 4, considering that her music lessons are in the evenings but I usually need the children to nap. If there's Meet & Greet then they can't rest. If Athena never rest means she'll play trash music in class and mummy gets more angry.
I'm keeping my mouth quiet and not suggesting anything to her. Coz' it means I'll be pulling her out from school very regularly. Tired leh!

Cat mask for the children's YJC concert
Peggy commented to us "Peizhen's mummy got this nice cat mask with a tail and a bow for only $5 at Rochor. You can go there to buy."
At that time I thought to myself "sorry, buy already hor?" I bought for the children simple mask from SKP and buy the feather thing for the tail. I'll just have to cut it and tie the string around their waist. Although I may be the free-est person for being the only non- working mom in their class, but I'm not as free as Grace who's always roaming the streets outside. Her older kid is in school, I've got 2 young kids

Linguistic
Aricia did a funny thing when she heard this German song :
Ein Vogel wollte Hochzeit machen

Click here for the tune

When the song came to the part "Fi di ra la la. Fi di ra la la " Aricia started giggling and then she'll pull her pacifier out from her mouth and go "ya ya ya "She remembers the songs. So I sent mass sms to brother and sister "your niece is so smart can speak german." And everyone know German is the hardest language to pronounce.
Brother came back, "wow!Aricia is multi-linguistic can speak english, chinese, japanese and now german"
Yes! She's so smart that she can only speak one word of each language. Haha!

Sense of humour
I don't understand some people have no sense of humour. I have a video of Aricia playing with the newspaper in my Youtube "Smart baby". I get stupid comments from people "you call this smart? She was just playing with the papers." Ai yoh...... of course I don't mean to say that she's smart smart lah! But these people have no sense of humour. Crack some jokes and you'll have a happier life.
Imagine if I say my "girl is linguistic" in my Youtube account. I'll get trash comments.

Just like sometimes I hope my friends don't take offence in what I comment to them. Like what singaporeans say "just play play lah! You so serious?" We do crack jokes between helper and ourselves but we always end up laughing. Laughter is the best medicine.

Follow up
Dr Choong discharged her after the follow up on Thursday. "your girl is fine. No problem." I was so worried about the fits affecting her brain.
Then I asked her a question which she mentioned "you're the first person to pose me this question, but it's really interesting. I'm going to read up on this. Very interesting."
So what was the question I posed to her?
Me : with all the right-brain training that I'm doing with her, does it really affect her brain waves etc... that will make her fits come more frequently? Coz' it was barely a month apart between the 2 fits. "
Dr : (She heard of the right brain training) Who is it?
Me : Dr Makota Shichida. Infact I read from a research somewhere that he and some neuro surgeons did studies together and that's how they developed this method."
Dr: Well... not that I know of, or probably I should really read up on this. This is a very interesting discussion. You're the first person to ask me this kind of question."
Dr : Is it really helpful?
Me : "I think it did help. I find her smarter than her che-che or maybe..... coz' usually the 2nd or 3rd child are usually smarter.
Dr : what do they do?
Me : flash cards at high speed, and image memory. You'd be surprised, they flash the card and then ask child to identify which picture. The mothers all blur blur, but the children know. Isn't it amazing?
Dr : you'd be very surprise to know that children are smart
Me : I already know. That's why I'm so stupid!
Dr : (bursts out laughing)
Dr : but I can tell you Aricia is active. She's perfectly normal and she's stimulated
Me : over stimulation you mean
Dr : (chuckles) okay okay... she's fine don't worry about her fits

Active-ness
Brought Aricia to the sinseh. Goodness, the moment she went into the room, Aricia hugged me and turned away from the lady sinseh.
"Ai yoh.. she remember me!"
( 1st consultation was the lady sinseh. 2nd follow up coz' she had something on, so I had no choice but to see her brother - who's skills is not as good as hers, 3rd time- yesterday)
"coz' I scrapped her back. she don't like me now."
I don't know to laugh or what but I found Aricia's actions very funny and cute. At one point she turned to look at the sinseh (who was busy listening to her lungs) and blinked her eyes.
Oh my! So young and she knows this??? She must have really hated the sinseh.

Then I asked the sinseh "Her activeness... according to the chinese body study thing, does it got to do with any part of her body that needs adjustments?
She : no. Infact partially is genetically.
Me : but me and my husband very gong gong last time leh..
She : (laugh) not gong gong.. but actually medicine can help a little, it won't stop a child's activeness
Me : I don't mean to stop completely. Otherwise she's really stupid. I mean just a little so that we can breathe. She's really non-stop and end of the day we're all exhausted.
She : I can see she is more active than her che-che. But her activeness let me assure you is not ADHD. Also, another thing the more active the child is... the smarter the child is.

So should I be happy? I turn to look at Aricia "okay Aricia, graduate from Uni at 10 years old." According to Moo Han, "Aricia never stop moving". Haha! we're used to it, we're all totally exhausted. But..... when she's sick and can't move... I tell you it's heartbreaking and we want her to be active; back to her self.

More discussions
So my elder sister is active - she's smart
I'm the youngest - I also should be smarter than her. Ahem ahem... (okay lah better say good things about my sister, if not she'll ill-treat me. Ehh..... maybe coz' she bear grudge with me that's why purposely every year never take proper photos during parties for me)

Level of activeness :
There is no way to judge or compare the level of activeness between children. That's why I told Moo Han "don't compare your ShyAnne & mine. ShyAnne is smart."
Infact I hate people who like to compare eg. I say my child can walk at 1 yrs old, that person will tell me my child can walk at 10 months old."
How to compare level of activeness? Let me use another anology, different people have different pain threshold. Some people can say "I am perfectly normal after my C-section" some can say "very painful but still can walk", some is "I'm handicap. I gotta lie down in bed" So don't compare!

Okay, Moo Han this is what I have to say now. Remember our conversation when you mentioned ShyAnne showing you how she fell, then you commented "so my ShyAnne is not gong lah!" Your ShyAnne is not stupid, every child is smart. Infact - genius! Probably due to the food that we eat now and the new researchers on tapping on brains etc... It's only a matter of how you tap your child's brain. Probably I'm too into all these that's why I stress myself up easily.
Now.... there's another interesting discussion here.

Smartness - what kind of smartness are you talking about now? Yes, parents nowadays want smartness from their children for their schoolwork. But have they thought street smart is also important? Also, like what my mom said "luck plays a part too." She was citing example of my hubby who is not a prodigy or what but...becos' he has luck, he's always being head hunted."
In order to see how effective Shichida works (in Japan it is coz' it's longer history there), it grows along with the person.

Aricia
KZ say "she never stop. Mess up here turn another side mess up, I keep this side, she turn back and mess again." I thought maybe that's why the fengshui master say "this girl is like you. Do things must do properly." So maybe next time she's really like me dwell into details.
Baby signing :
I tried and tested. It works! Really! Now I really understand what Angeline meant by "no frustration" coz' Ari's using signs to converse with us and we understand and give it to her. She saw a bird in the grass patch and told me, I didn't believe her coz' I see no birds and said "no Aricia there are no birds. They are up in the sky flying" she looked at me and pointed again and did the sign. Ai yoh.... I tell you it's lao-hua-yan (short sightedness). There were 2 birds there!

Every Friday is stressful day for me. As much as I look forward to her classes, I think of what the poor mummy have to go through.. I have to use a different approach on her. She's the only girl there but can't sit still but still knows the answers. The other 2 boys sit there guai guai, also know the answers . I'm very tired. No need to go gyming anymore!

Athena
My family (mom & bro) felt that it's wasted that I have to pull her out from art arty class. "Put her in dance class, she likes to dance" Yes, I don't deny my girl likes to dance. In the beginning she's like Aricia now, sway to the music; kick the legs etc.... but now Athena follows the steps.

The both of them likes to dance to this Japanese video I have. Really funny to see Ari's expression when she's sitting down and when the PonyCanyon sign comes out, she stands up and prepares herself to dance.

You know what I heard the other day? Athena was singing to certain parts of the song in Japanese?!?! I looked at the hiragana below and it's spot on!

It's repetition. Children needs repetition. You play the same music over and over again, they listen they can sing. Then teach them the words later.

Masako bursts out laughing when she heard Aricia trying her singing when we were in the meeting room. And Aricia attempted another song 大きなたいこ , it's the first time I'm hearing it. Rather surprised! She said "it's a good thing you let your children listen other language songs." Yah lah! And you're Japan side don't sell to us!! You're losing a big customer!

Medium
Being desperate (I know I will get alot of tsk tsk from people - especially my Christians' friends) we brought Aricia to one.
Goash! I really dunno what to say. Spot on! We didn't have to say anything, he just said "this child born 2 weeks early, you change her life luck." Not that my mom was blaming me for choosing a date but she mentioned "if we had known... we should just let things come naturally." I can't remember when I did the entry, either last July to September 2006 when I called to ask people if they can choose dates, only to get scolding from some "why choose? let a child come out naturally." But I did explain that I could have waited for a natural delivery but coz' I had a C-section once, chances of me going thru C-section is very high. If I had waited for Ari to decide when to come out and do a C-section that day, I'm putting myself at risk. As Dr Teoh explained. The risk of surgery is higher if it's an emergency surgery. That's why all obstetricians will recommend 2-3 weeks before EDD.
Our house is clean, so....... the presence that KZ felt that day on Ari's first febrile fit is definitely guardian angel!
Story 1

Mom thought and chided me for bringing (I was the only one to bring) my 2 children to grandma's wake and on the cremation day. So she asked the medium. Mom kena scolding "I incharge there, you think I don't know? She is so old already.. she wouldn't harm her own children or grandchildren."

I dunno if you'll believe in this or not. But I better try it out.

And speaking of which, many years ago when I was very young (not a christian yet) my parents also brought me to one in Hougang. Goash! The medium said things about me which is also spot on.
Umm.... maybe one day should go and ask what kind of person am I? Am I really that kind of fiery person coz' I seem to lose my temper at Athena quite often.

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