It's the school hols and I find my life remains the same - busy!
So what have I been up to? Basically whatever time I can find; I blog a little (very way back in all my entries) and do some materials for Aricia on top of her daily home sessions. When I am done, I need to go through the 2 books (the themed preschool book + preschool Math) for Aricia - plan what I want to teach her & do up a time-table. Still have sufficient time to teach & relax at the same time, not much of a hurry to let Aricia cover so much coz' she still has another 2 more years before the tyrant me will start 'torturing her with loads of books'. Other than that, this whole week I've been kept on my toes.
Monday
Went down to Vicom to check on my IU. They said no problem but I received summons for going through ERP gantry without a card. They said it's the problem with my cashcard but I found it strange, coz' I don't have the same problem when I inserted my card into hubby's car IU but he encountered the same problem in my IU. But..... don't you find it frustrating especially when it hasn't been working and suddenly when you took your time off to bring car down; they tell you no problem/ or the thing suddenly work out fine?!?! Anyway, they said they are going to help me appeal for this summon I received. Let's hope it's waived, if not I'll be fine more and maybe be jailed. Hee!
Night time - her Berries class
Tuesday
Morning : brought Aricia to the sinseh for her follow-up.
Did some printing out materials for her Speed-Reading (thanks to Mei - from KL - who scanned them for me. I only needed to print them out. Still that took alot of time, coz' I need to cut and put them according to the pages in a book.
Then was kept busy with the celebration in school.
Hmm..........Aricia seems to be very frightened of Iggy, she's been bullied by him many times. More to be posted on this topic in next entry.
Night time - her Hanyu Pinyin class. Since Aricia was with me, I packed in some work for her to do. And ..... my dear lil' girl can finally read "ma ma" - mother for me. So happy!
Wednesday
Morning : All so ready and geared up to gym today. Came out of the room and she cried when she saw me, cling onto me - my heart sank and I changed back my clothes. No gym! Feeling obese. I felt guilty too for leaving her at home, next year I won't feel guilty when they are in school and I am FREE!
I brought her to Giant for a walk after dropping Athena off in school . Funny! When I need to relax now, I find Giant very therapeutic. Signs of me turning into a marketing Ah soh? Not really, I meant the things that I bought - chocolates, big pack of Calbee Hot & Spicy chips, Korean strawberries - Therapeutic huh?
I spent some time with her and then left to do some shopping. I came back $300+++ poorer.
R introduced me to these books by LDA called Stile, it uses the same game grid as I have. And what better way for Athena to indirectly learn her English & Math is through games.
1) Stile Math - is for Year 3 (our P3) . Very expensive! $119.95 for 9 books. They have for different levels and since it's so bloody expensive, I thought getting advance level would be more worth it, moreover I can start training her for P2. Hee! (not that she's strong in Math, I'm going to scream at her mistakes..) They even have Stile Starter which I thought it's quite interesting for Aricia and perhaps also suitable for the "18-12=12 Athena" but like I said I want my money worth. Hopefully next time Aricia is smart and don't need the Starter books
2) Stile Literacy (can't seem to find in their website the link, they probably changed the name) - is also for Year 3. $119.95 for 9 books. The lower levels are easy for her, the lady boss kept asking me to get them but I think that's easy for her already. Also, they have Stile Starter.. (which means I need to get the grid as well) which I might consider getting for Aricia provided her language acquistion is good - I can save the money. The books I bought for her includes : Comprehension, Grammar & Punctuation and Spelling & Phonics. These are really interesting but expensive coz' of the different levels. Provided my hubby is super rich, I wouldn't hesitate to buy all.
3) Sequencing book for Athena, I plan to photocopy it so Aricia can get to do it. It's for K2-Year2 level. I think it's fun way of learning as compared to her usual sequencing card.
4) Daily Oral Language - very interesting! The children read the text and circle out the spelling or grammatical errors. Hopefully these will help her boost up her level of English otherwise I may have to really consider sending her to British Council or Morris Allen. I wish I can teach... not when the mother can also make stupid grammar mistakes when writing (blogs) and have all the mistakes pointed out by her free English teacher - sister.
5) Chinese set - it's flashcard and they have textbook and workbook which you have to buy separately. 5 different levels, I bought the basic one. Why? My GD cards should have helped Aricia right? On the contrary, she doesn't absorb Chinese as fast as her che-che. I went through the box to see the words, with this cheap amount for the whole set. I can save 1 year of Berries - chinese enrichment class- fees. I've asked hubby to look out for me the rests of the 4 sets when he goes Shanghai (he just got back!!). When he heard "can help you save Berries fees," his eyes sparkled and obliged to help. But prior to this last recent trip, I asked him to help me source for a game - he refused. Argh! I want to fly to Taiwan and China - buy materials for them. Some time in Dec when I send my car for servicing, I'll bring Athena down to the place. Let her try the other Stile products to test her level. Anyway so it means.... yup I'll be teaching mei-mei chinese & time-table has to be up. And then I thought I should convert the spare room into a study room. I have lots of materials which needs a place to store & a nice table for the children to do their work and easy for me to supervise them. You see at the rate I'm going and the joy of teaching them... I think it'll be a long time more before I decide to go back to the workforce. Hmm.. maybe can consider in teaching huh?
Night time - her music lesson Came back home, I was packing up the cupcake picks which I took out for her BD cake decorations.. and then che-che saw what I had bought during my crazy frantic purchase in September. I bought some additional cupcake picks -next time can present it to my children when I do cupcakes. Hee! Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Pooh, 12 Dancing Princess, Care Bears, Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse. Cute hor? 
** I opened up the kitchen cabinets and gasped at my collection of things. Though they're all nicely categorised and stored.... it's going to be a hassle when I move and if I move. Will need one special kitchen cabinet for all my/their stuffs. Two parcels came today, my GD Picture Dictionaries are here. Yay! And another parcel is a German CD. I am still expecting another 3 more parcels. I have no idea what happened this time round, usually it's quite fast for me to receive my shipments. This time, I have one parcel which I bought the earliest of the whole lot and it's still transiting somewhere in US. I was so afraid that the GD Picture Dictionaries would be lost too coz' it's the most valued of the 5 parcel I'm expecting. I can't wait for the time when Aricia outgrow all these educational materials I have. By then, I'll have to do a garage sale. I'm like running a mini-school like that with all the things I have Thursday Went to her school to collect textbooks and buy her school uniform. There wasn't any queue when I was there so I was lucky I managed to finish everything within an hour. Got back home and was organising her things - writing names on books; sharpening pencils/colour pencils. (thank goodness I am a lil' smart, I bought battery operated sharpener from Popular the night before.) ironing the labels on her school uniform. I have this fear of her losing her things in school - she's that careless! After that I had to sew on the hook for her belt. The school uniform feels heavier now. There is no way I could pass down my uniform to her - serious! Colour faded; thin material; not sewn on badge. 
Next thing I did was to glance through her textbooks. She's already advancing in her Math, the only worry I have for her is her subtraction. As for English... it's introduction to nouns, pronouns, verbs etc... I'll leave that to the teacher to do the explanation. But what I can help her is the flip chart I have. Chinese - no worries. She was reading the book while waiting for me. Oh, speaking of which.. I let her do the exam papers for Chinese early this week. First I let her try MGS paper, she scored 91.5%, then I upped the standard and tried RGPS - 93%. Not bad huh? I'm very impressed. Next step I should try those papers by St Nics, Chinese High... those chee-na schools and see her standard. 
Whole day it seems I was busy hemming up her school uniform hoping mom's sewing machine can help with a faster job while I designate KZ to help me wrap up the books. Then I realise how stupid I was, I forgot about the shop in Tampines market - the lady can alter clothes. Argh! Night time, I was packing up her room and organizing the assessment books on her table. The urge of doing a study room is stronger. Asked hubby, no reply. I do not want to waste $ on renovation and then we move. (Moving? Ehh.......let's just say we were looking but since he is out of country all the time, we are not that hard-core house hunting type) Alot of packing up. Packed up the candies (from Halloween & some I purchased or from goody bags) in the fridge and will bring it over to mom. It's quite a big bag. Cleared!
Busy day for me, I got home from her school at close to 11am and at 10+ I was still in that clothes. Showered and managed to relax a while before preparing Aricia's materials & blog. Goash! My side table is in a mess!!
Friday
Half of me tells me to let Athena go to school, another half tells me to be lazy and don't rush here and there (drop her in school, go upstairs to prepare Aricia, go for class, come back Tampines pick Athena up, go back home) after the tiring day I had the day before. In the end, I let her pontang school. Whatever had happened to my "don't let her pontang school too much" mentality? Brought the 2 of them to Suntec after Aricia's class.
First stop, Pizza Hut. The 2 of them were so noisy!!
Second stop - The Bear Workshop where Athena wanted to get some thing for Andrea. Aricia had so much fun pushing the mini-stroller in the shop.
Third stop - The kids play area on 3rd floor. Athena had been asking for a kitchen set, I want to surprise her for Xmas. I went to look-see look-see first at ToysRUs.
Photos :
Aricia seems to know how to smile for the camera when I tell her to now
Athena's so blur..... went to dress up Chloe instead. Chloe was given to her by Aunty Jasmine for her birthday
She decided to dress Andrea up in the angel outfit that came with Chloe
Came back home, I went down to clean the car interior. Have to clean it at least twice a week, it's even dirtier when you have kids sitting in the car day in/day out so now may have to resort to cleaning it more.
When I came back home, KZ told me Athena kicked her mei-mei. I was furious with her. I don't deny that Athena can help to take care of her sister, she's a good help.. but I have told some her 'jealous streak' is very strong. Now you know how strong it is, she's observed to have been hitting her mei-mei; rough with her; and this time she kicked her. And I'm not pleased with her. I threatened not to bring her to the BD party tomorrow and she can forget about the kitchen set I was getting for her. She'll expect no presents this Christmas.
Call it wrong parenting style; very negative statement; childish of me to say all these to a child. But if you're me and you face her stubborn-ness and speaking nicely to her doesn't seem to help...
During our outing with the other mummies @ Botanical Gardens, the mummies did mention about my 'negative'. I know they meant it well for me and I do make an effort to tell her nicely but she don't listen but their words are a constant reminder to me as well.But how can I argue for the fact that when I'm lenient and soft with her, she takes advantage of it and makes you angry within the next minute? One mentioned the style she used for her child and it worked. I really wish it will work for Athena. I'm having a tough time trying to discipline her and bring her up to be a highly IQ and EQ person. Perhaps I should suggests that they let Athena stay with them for a year to see what I mean. Why am I so suay? And I told helper and my family, it's not that Athena is not loved. Look at her birthday cakes and 3 celebrations for a child whereas mei-mei only had one. Even KZ said I'm not being fair to Aricia (I think so too) Athena is the spoilt brat. All the more I expect her to listen to me when I tell her once and nicely. I have to speak to her in harsh tone then she listens - which means I'll get more heart-attacks & gotta speak to her like this for the rest of her life / or my life.
So what have I been up to? Basically whatever time I can find; I blog a little (very way back in all my entries) and do some materials for Aricia on top of her daily home sessions. When I am done, I need to go through the 2 books (the themed preschool book + preschool Math) for Aricia - plan what I want to teach her & do up a time-table. Still have sufficient time to teach & relax at the same time, not much of a hurry to let Aricia cover so much coz' she still has another 2 more years before the tyrant me will start 'torturing her with loads of books'. Other than that, this whole week I've been kept on my toes.
Monday
Went down to Vicom to check on my IU. They said no problem but I received summons for going through ERP gantry without a card. They said it's the problem with my cashcard but I found it strange, coz' I don't have the same problem when I inserted my card into hubby's car IU but he encountered the same problem in my IU. But..... don't you find it frustrating especially when it hasn't been working and suddenly when you took your time off to bring car down; they tell you no problem/ or the thing suddenly work out fine?!?! Anyway, they said they are going to help me appeal for this summon I received. Let's hope it's waived, if not I'll be fine more and maybe be jailed. Hee!
Night time - her Berries class
Tuesday
Morning : brought Aricia to the sinseh for her follow-up.
Did some printing out materials for her Speed-Reading (thanks to Mei - from KL - who scanned them for me. I only needed to print them out. Still that took alot of time, coz' I need to cut and put them according to the pages in a book.
Then was kept busy with the celebration in school.
Hmm..........Aricia seems to be very frightened of Iggy, she's been bullied by him many times. More to be posted on this topic in next entry.
Night time - her Hanyu Pinyin class. Since Aricia was with me, I packed in some work for her to do. And ..... my dear lil' girl can finally read "ma ma" - mother for me. So happy!
Wednesday
Morning : All so ready and geared up to gym today. Came out of the room and she cried when she saw me, cling onto me - my heart sank and I changed back my clothes. No gym! Feeling obese. I felt guilty too for leaving her at home, next year I won't feel guilty when they are in school and I am FREE!
I brought her to Giant for a walk after dropping Athena off in school . Funny! When I need to relax now, I find Giant very therapeutic. Signs of me turning into a marketing Ah soh? Not really, I meant the things that I bought - chocolates, big pack of Calbee Hot & Spicy chips, Korean strawberries - Therapeutic huh?
I spent some time with her and then left to do some shopping. I came back $300+++ poorer.
R introduced me to these books by LDA called Stile, it uses the same game grid as I have. And what better way for Athena to indirectly learn her English & Math is through games.
1) Stile Math - is for Year 3 (our P3) . Very expensive! $119.95 for 9 books. They have for different levels and since it's so bloody expensive, I thought getting advance level would be more worth it, moreover I can start training her for P2. Hee! (not that she's strong in Math, I'm going to scream at her mistakes..) They even have Stile Starter which I thought it's quite interesting for Aricia and perhaps also suitable for the "18-12=12 Athena" but like I said I want my money worth. Hopefully next time Aricia is smart and don't need the Starter books
2) Stile Literacy (can't seem to find in their website the link, they probably changed the name) - is also for Year 3. $119.95 for 9 books. The lower levels are easy for her, the lady boss kept asking me to get them but I think that's easy for her already. Also, they have Stile Starter.. (which means I need to get the grid as well) which I might consider getting for Aricia provided her language acquistion is good - I can save the money. The books I bought for her includes : Comprehension, Grammar & Punctuation and Spelling & Phonics. These are really interesting but expensive coz' of the different levels. Provided my hubby is super rich, I wouldn't hesitate to buy all.
3) Sequencing book for Athena, I plan to photocopy it so Aricia can get to do it. It's for K2-Year2 level. I think it's fun way of learning as compared to her usual sequencing card.
4) Daily Oral Language - very interesting! The children read the text and circle out the spelling or grammatical errors. Hopefully these will help her boost up her level of English otherwise I may have to really consider sending her to British Council or Morris Allen. I wish I can teach... not when the mother can also make stupid grammar mistakes when writing (blogs) and have all the mistakes pointed out by her free English teacher - sister.
5) Chinese set - it's flashcard and they have textbook and workbook which you have to buy separately. 5 different levels, I bought the basic one. Why? My GD cards should have helped Aricia right? On the contrary, she doesn't absorb Chinese as fast as her che-che. I went through the box to see the words, with this cheap amount for the whole set. I can save 1 year of Berries - chinese enrichment class- fees. I've asked hubby to look out for me the rests of the 4 sets when he goes Shanghai (he just got back!!). When he heard "can help you save Berries fees," his eyes sparkled and obliged to help. But prior to this last recent trip, I asked him to help me source for a game - he refused. Argh! I want to fly to Taiwan and China - buy materials for them. Some time in Dec when I send my car for servicing, I'll bring Athena down to the place. Let her try the other Stile products to test her level. Anyway so it means.... yup I'll be teaching mei-mei chinese & time-table has to be up. And then I thought I should convert the spare room into a study room. I have lots of materials which needs a place to store & a nice table for the children to do their work and easy for me to supervise them. You see at the rate I'm going and the joy of teaching them... I think it'll be a long time more before I decide to go back to the workforce. Hmm.. maybe can consider in teaching huh?
Night time - her music lesson Came back home, I was packing up the cupcake picks which I took out for her BD cake decorations.. and then che-che saw what I had bought during my crazy frantic purchase in September. I bought some additional cupcake picks -next time can present it to my children when I do cupcakes. Hee! Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, Pooh, 12 Dancing Princess, Care Bears, Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse. Cute hor? 
** I opened up the kitchen cabinets and gasped at my collection of things. Though they're all nicely categorised and stored.... it's going to be a hassle when I move and if I move. Will need one special kitchen cabinet for all my/their stuffs. Two parcels came today, my GD Picture Dictionaries are here. Yay! And another parcel is a German CD. I am still expecting another 3 more parcels. I have no idea what happened this time round, usually it's quite fast for me to receive my shipments. This time, I have one parcel which I bought the earliest of the whole lot and it's still transiting somewhere in US. I was so afraid that the GD Picture Dictionaries would be lost too coz' it's the most valued of the 5 parcel I'm expecting. I can't wait for the time when Aricia outgrow all these educational materials I have. By then, I'll have to do a garage sale. I'm like running a mini-school like that with all the things I have Thursday Went to her school to collect textbooks and buy her school uniform. There wasn't any queue when I was there so I was lucky I managed to finish everything within an hour. Got back home and was organising her things - writing names on books; sharpening pencils/colour pencils. (thank goodness I am a lil' smart, I bought battery operated sharpener from Popular the night before.) ironing the labels on her school uniform. I have this fear of her losing her things in school - she's that careless! After that I had to sew on the hook for her belt. The school uniform feels heavier now. There is no way I could pass down my uniform to her - serious! Colour faded; thin material; not sewn on badge. 
Next thing I did was to glance through her textbooks. She's already advancing in her Math, the only worry I have for her is her subtraction. As for English... it's introduction to nouns, pronouns, verbs etc... I'll leave that to the teacher to do the explanation. But what I can help her is the flip chart I have. Chinese - no worries. She was reading the book while waiting for me. Oh, speaking of which.. I let her do the exam papers for Chinese early this week. First I let her try MGS paper, she scored 91.5%, then I upped the standard and tried RGPS - 93%. Not bad huh? I'm very impressed. Next step I should try those papers by St Nics, Chinese High... those chee-na schools and see her standard. 
Whole day it seems I was busy hemming up her school uniform hoping mom's sewing machine can help with a faster job while I designate KZ to help me wrap up the books. Then I realise how stupid I was, I forgot about the shop in Tampines market - the lady can alter clothes. Argh! Night time, I was packing up her room and organizing the assessment books on her table. The urge of doing a study room is stronger. Asked hubby, no reply. I do not want to waste $ on renovation and then we move. (Moving? Ehh.......let's just say we were looking but since he is out of country all the time, we are not that hard-core house hunting type) Alot of packing up. Packed up the candies (from Halloween & some I purchased or from goody bags) in the fridge and will bring it over to mom. It's quite a big bag. Cleared!
Busy day for me, I got home from her school at close to 11am and at 10+ I was still in that clothes. Showered and managed to relax a while before preparing Aricia's materials & blog. Goash! My side table is in a mess!!
Friday
Half of me tells me to let Athena go to school, another half tells me to be lazy and don't rush here and there (drop her in school, go upstairs to prepare Aricia, go for class, come back Tampines pick Athena up, go back home) after the tiring day I had the day before. In the end, I let her pontang school. Whatever had happened to my "don't let her pontang school too much" mentality? Brought the 2 of them to Suntec after Aricia's class.
First stop, Pizza Hut. The 2 of them were so noisy!!
Second stop - The Bear Workshop where Athena wanted to get some thing for Andrea. Aricia had so much fun pushing the mini-stroller in the shop.
Third stop - The kids play area on 3rd floor. Athena had been asking for a kitchen set, I want to surprise her for Xmas. I went to look-see look-see first at ToysRUs.
Photos :
Aricia seems to know how to smile for the camera when I tell her to now
Athena's so blur..... went to dress up Chloe instead. Chloe was given to her by Aunty Jasmine for her birthday
She decided to dress Andrea up in the angel outfit that came with Chloe
Came back home, I went down to clean the car interior. Have to clean it at least twice a week, it's even dirtier when you have kids sitting in the car day in/day out so now may have to resort to cleaning it more.
When I came back home, KZ told me Athena kicked her mei-mei. I was furious with her. I don't deny that Athena can help to take care of her sister, she's a good help.. but I have told some her 'jealous streak' is very strong. Now you know how strong it is, she's observed to have been hitting her mei-mei; rough with her; and this time she kicked her. And I'm not pleased with her. I threatened not to bring her to the BD party tomorrow and she can forget about the kitchen set I was getting for her. She'll expect no presents this Christmas.
Call it wrong parenting style; very negative statement; childish of me to say all these to a child. But if you're me and you face her stubborn-ness and speaking nicely to her doesn't seem to help...
During our outing with the other mummies @ Botanical Gardens, the mummies did mention about my 'negative'. I know they meant it well for me and I do make an effort to tell her nicely but she don't listen but their words are a constant reminder to me as well.But how can I argue for the fact that when I'm lenient and soft with her, she takes advantage of it and makes you angry within the next minute? One mentioned the style she used for her child and it worked. I really wish it will work for Athena. I'm having a tough time trying to discipline her and bring her up to be a highly IQ and EQ person. Perhaps I should suggests that they let Athena stay with them for a year to see what I mean. Why am I so suay? And I told helper and my family, it's not that Athena is not loved. Look at her birthday cakes and 3 celebrations for a child whereas mei-mei only had one. Even KZ said I'm not being fair to Aricia (I think so too) Athena is the spoilt brat. All the more I expect her to listen to me when I tell her once and nicely. I have to speak to her in harsh tone then she listens - which means I'll get more heart-attacks & gotta speak to her like this for the rest of her life / or my life.
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