All Entries in the "personal muses" Category

Baby Turns Six Today

Ryan’s Six Birthday Cake

6 years ago on this day Ryan entered our lives. He was 3.7kg at birth and about 53cm long. Fast forward to today he is now 20kg and about  125c m tall.

My little monkey has grown and matured a lot since birth. He still is a handful at times but can be extremely adorable and charming too.

Now at 6yrs old Ryan ins able to

- read the newspapers independently

- converse and give his own opinions on most matters.

- help to do the laundry and clean up the house.

- takes care of his younger brother and looks out for him.

-rollerblade and ride his bicycle independently.

This year he requested for a 3D Shinkansen for his birthday cake. It took me about 4 hours from baking to decorating the cake. I’m glad that Ryan and his classmates really enjoyed seeing and eating the fondant covered chocolate cake.

Happy 6th Birthday my little boy.

Valentines 2010- A Message of Love

Valentines Day – A Day set up commercially to declare your love to your love ones and friends.  This is how I see this day to be. Everything is more expensive as retailers raise the prices of items like flowers and diamonds  to cash in on this season of giving.

I do love flowers, blue roses are my personal favourite . I guess that most girls do love pretty flowers and roses are a common choice.  However there were no diamonds or flowers this year.

This year’s Valentines present from  hubby was not fresh flowers which would wither in time but a timeless message.

This year he decided to do something a bit more different. It was a real surprise for me to read his love dedication in the local papers under the Valentines Day dedication columns.

It reads

Dearest Rachel,

Thank you for everything you have done.

Love Always,

Rapheal, Ryan and Roy

I was utterly touched by his sweet gesture. Words say more then a hundred gestures for me. It feels good to be acknowledged for my contribution to the household and family. I feel appreciated and loved by this declaration of love.

How was your Valentines Day this year?

TT-Potty Training

The past few weeks we have been going full swing ahead with Roy’s Potty training. Roy has been a bit more responsive this time around.

He is able to stay relatively dry during the day and is able to let us know most of the time that he needs to use the potty.However I still need to constantly remind him every hour if he needs to use the potty.

I have actually been trying to get him diaper free since he was 2yrs old but he has been rather apprehensive  and not cooperative. I  felt that it was no point pushing him to be toilet trained at that time as he wasn’t mentally ready. It would only cause him and me to be stressed up.

This time around we decided to re-start potty training after he turned 3 years old. My target is to get him fully potty trained by June if possible.

Giving your Child a Holisitic Education

Education today is focused more on educating individuals to be able to relate to themselves and society. A lot of reflection and self analysis are encouraged among students.

It is nowadays not good enough just to memorize and regurgitate what has been taught to you.  You would need to analyze and explain the rational behind your choice and support it with evidence you have researched prior to you presenting your case.

To be able to think strategically and analyze  rationally the problem laid out before you is not an easy task for an adult least a child. Getting to the crux of a problem and understanding it is already mind blogging enough.

Being able to think through and consider all possibilities plausible is quality that is expected of a great leader.

How then are we able to cultivate such a mindset in our child?

1. Give your child time and space.

   Showing signs of being  bored or irritated with your child who is struggling to find the answer will make them want to give up without trying.  Give you child ample time to source for the needed information with minimal assistance.

2. Do not spoonfeed your child with information.

   Searching for information by oneself is something that shouldn’t be robbed from a child. Information gathered through a child’s own resources is more readily absorbed than have information just placed at their feet.

   Spoonfeeding also breads laziness as they would expect everything to be given to them on a silver platter.

3. Allow your child to make mistakes and grow.

   To expect perfect results from a child every time  is simply unrealistic. As if many life lessons are learn from experience. Sometimes we do not give a child the opportunity to falter as we want to spare them the agony of failure. You may think that you are doing your child a favor
   by sparing them from the pain but in fact you are doing them an unjust as you are robbing from them a learning opportunity.

4. Teach them to think out of the box.

   There may not be a “model answer” for every question or project that one is faced with.  Different solutions may surface depending on the angle you are looking at.  It is like you looking through a prism. Light hitting the prism at a different angle will produce different colors of the rainbow.  The answer maybe easier then one had expected it to be.

5. Teach them how to reflect on their actions.

   For each action there is a consequence be it for good or bad. Being able to reflect will allow one to self assess what has been done properly and what needs to be corrected.  If the child is able to self reflect it will greatly increase their ability to understand their surroundings and how complex problems can be broken down and simplified.