Ok it is so dusty here. It has been quite a while since my last post here. Have been super busy with so many things. Reya has been coping up well in her preschool and she soon going to go to primary one.

Good news here, Reya has got a baby brother. How we managed to get her to accept her baby brother lovingly and without any trace of jealousy? (okay i admit, little bit of jealousy is here and there at times.. ;-)

Prior to the delivery we asked her that baby brother will bring her some gift and what she would like. She asked for a playdoh set. DH packed some gifts beside the playdoh set as if the baby will arrive with a lot of gifts for the big sister.

Little Reya along with my family members came to visit at the hospital once i delivered and she looked amazed and somewhat stunned to see her little baby brother. She was so happy and bothered less on her gifts that baby brother had bring for her. That look on her face says" hey brother i am your sister and i will be a protective sister". She really took care of him completely and concern on all her actions that might disturb him.

We did not expect that Little Reya will be so acceptable once baby brother arrived and the transition was less rough than what we had expected. From being the child who got all the attention from us which now shifts totally on baby brother, she have been so understanding. we as parents ensures little Reya got her fair attention from us most of the time even busy with baby brother.

Our education routine is the same and now we work more on activities to prepare her for Primary One. Little Reya is obsessed with reading story books and is reading fluently in both bahasa and english. What we focus more is on her attention span and focus level for each activities.

Stay tune for upcoming activities for Little Reya!

Cheers :-)

Permohonan ke Tahun Satu bagi negeri Selangor dan Putrajaya ambilan 2019 dan 2020 telah dibuka pada 1 Mac 2018

You read it correct! It is time to register your little one in primary school. How time flies. They do grow up super super fast. Registration can be easily done via this link https://public.moe.gov.my/. Parents need to be register for ID and password. After that can continue to apply to selected school nationwide except for Sabah, Sarawak and W.P Labuan which is still manual application.

Ok, come to selecting schools, parents have to cautious on schools location, morning or afternoon sessions, and school's performance.

Be sure that you have all your child's details on hand before registering. You will also need to have the vaccination records. Once registered online, print out the application forms and go to the selected school and submit together with documents as below:

1) Sijl lahir/Borang W/Sijil Anak Angkat (original & copy)
2) Bil Utiliti (Bil elektrik TNB/Air) (original & copy)
3) Kad Pengenalan Ibu bapa/Penjaga (original & copy)
4) Surat Nikah/Surat Daftar Perkahwinan/Surat Cerai (sekiranya berkaitan) (copy)
5) Surat Hak Penjagaan/Perintah Mahkamah (sekiranya berkaitan) (original)
6) Laporan Doktor & Kad OKU (sekiranya berkaitan) (original & copy)


For our littlereya, we have registered last year and awaiting for the result of application. Will be out around July 2018.

For more info on registering your children in primary school, please do visit https://public.moe.gov.my/ 

 

The Star 2: Celebrating Close Bond with Grandparents

This article is a throw back from June 2015. Little Reya and my parents were featured in The Star 2 paper.

The article is about the bond that every grandparents and grandchildren have through all stages of life and how beautiful it can be. For Reya she is super lucky as she is growing up with the person who truly loves her whole heartedly. Unlike for me and my little brother who lives with the babysitter when my mom works.

Read on : http://www.star2.com/family/2015/06/12/celebrating-close-bonds-with-grandparents/

This article is dedicated for Little Reya.

Bye Bye Pacifier @ 4.5 years old

Little Reya used to thumb suck since in womb. When we did 3D ultrasound scanning the sonographer told us see your girl is thumb sucking. That was cuteness overloaded and we didn't realise we will have rough journey with that habit.

Week 1 after my delivery i realise that little reya's urge for thumb sucking is so strong that literally i had to breast feed her continuously The urge to thumb suck and after so many sleep less nights i resorted to the much difficult decision which is the pacifiers. I have to admit that it was easy when she were using her paci and she slept well through night. She seems more calm and happy there after. Little did i know she will continue to have it longer than what we have expected.

I have tried to wean her off several time but often she will be crying continuously and being me i will always gave in. I would say that she were so obsessed with her paci. We were nearly gave up with the weaning idea altogether. I have tried all the methods listed online turning cold turkey, making it taste bad with oil and poking holes on it. Despite all the effort above i still failed as she did not buy in to the idea of letting it go and nothing works.

Lately we realise she developed a habit to having the paci all the time.. seeing a 4 year old toddler running around with paci is really not a good sight and deep down in my heart i feel really bad and guilty to introduce the paci for her when she was young.

Everyone we met will ask, she is such a big girl and why she still having paci and we have to keep telling everyone that she is sleepy, its her nap time and all sort of stories. I don't understand why parents/community nowadays wants everything so perfect with the children to the extent that undue pressure is on the kids. For me no one graduated from university wearing a diaper and using a pacifier.

So the key here is when the time comes they will know they will have to let go their baby moments. For Reya it was so magical that she just let it go in one day and without any fuss or cries. We were so surprised that she decided she don't need that anymore.

How it stops??

We went for a holiday and once be back everything was normal and usual with Reya. After few days, Little Reya had some sores in her mouth. We went to the Dr. and been prescribed with some ointments. She also had to drink lots of water. I have told her that she has to let go her paci and the sores will go on its own. She just slept through the night without asking for her paci at all.

After than that day she did not ask for paci at all and i gladly packed it and throw away all of them. Now Little Reya is pacifier free. I am also glad that i didn't force through it and cause unnecessary trauma and stress on her. Weaning process will be lots more easier if the kids them selves are ready and trust me the time will come.

There is an opinion diverge where according to an article by www.parents.com:  Ending to pacifiers :

Children willingly will be ready to let go their pacifiers around age 3 and 4 years old. So parents out there, once your child is potty trained and weaned than pacifiers will be the last thing to go. According to Dr. Dowell it is tolerant attitude.
Experts have agreed that they are entirely soothing for babies and limit it once child is 2 years old and eliminating it by 4 years old to avoid dental problems. Beyond that there is no hard and fast rules to say bye-bye paci.

I'm happy that i have let Reya to be who she is and didn't force her to let it go as each children have different level of sucking urge and ways to manage stress.

As a parent i knew i have made a right choice for me and my awesome little girl!!!

Parenting Skills: 5 Important Advice

Being a parent is not easy at all. Most of the time our deeds and way of doing things gives an impact to our surroundings and members of family. Nevertheless,  little ones who will be affected the most by our behaviors. It tend to impact them in way that they grow up.

Following the flow of hustle bustle of life and often overlooked on whether we are showing good examples in being a better human to our children. Lets refresh and make sure to hold on to the best advice by the famous Sadhguru.

1) Creating good ambience. Good atmosphere for nurturing the little human beings is by giving them the love and support needed that will automatically let the intelligence in them grow. Right ambience here consist of little sense of joy, love, care and discipline.

2) Knowing what the child needs and avoid putting them under due stress and hardship. We can't be the parent who wants our children achieve what we missed in our life and also the parents who pamper and make the children useless and powerless to live in this challenging world. We have to practice moderateness in setting expectations on them. Know what inspires them and what the wants in life

"Once, there was a yogi who belonged to a certain tradition called Kashmir Shaivism. This is one of the seven forms of yoga. It is a very powerful form, but it has mostly remained in the Kashmir area, so it acquired that name. One day, this yogi saw a cocoon which was slightly cracked, and the butterfly inside was really struggling to come out – the cocoon shell was too hard. Usually, the butterfly struggles constantly for almost forty-eight hours to come out of the cocoon. If it does not come out, it will die. The yogi saw this and out of his compassion he used his nail and opened the cocoon so that the butterfly could come free. But when it came out, it could not fly. It is that struggle to break out of the cocoon which empowers the butterfly to use its wings and fly. What is the use of a butterfly that cannot fly? A lot of people, in what they think is love for their children, have made their children like this. The children don’t fly in their life." ~ Sadhguru

3) To try and learn from children. This is very meaningful and deep. I often carried out in pretext of being her teacher rather than enjoying the moments with her. There are lot of things in my bucket list that i wanted to do with her during toddler years which i have still missed. Its good that sometimes we let go and be like them.. just enjoy the moment and be happy.

4) Just let them be.. oh yeah.. i would say i failed in this. When we raise the children it have to be in a way that they should be independent and never have a need for a parent. But Little Reya will be always tagging along with me most of the time. Though she is 4 years old now, she still practically awaits for me in front of bathroom some times for me to finish my bath and plays with her.

5) Last but not the least and as said always be a joyful parent and transform own self. Avoid tensions, anger, fear and jealousy. Its good to change yourself before changing how you want your child to be and it can be done with full of wisdom.

For more detailed write up on this awesome parenting skills, please do visit: http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/relationships/parenting-advice-skills/.

Thank you for reading!

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Recently we have realised our plants in garden not growing well. All the leaves looked eaten and when we checked we found so many caterpillars. As usual curious Little Reya wanted a closer look. We managed to catch a few and put it in a bowl full of leaves for her to observe as it grows in to pupa and butterflies eventually.

Huge one here

Put 'em in a bowl for our observation 

We continued to learn on life cycle of  butterflies throughout the day. Included in our lesson is the Grolier's I Wonder Why book which has nice pictorial explanation on the butterflies life cycle.

We did'nt manage to see all the caterpillars to grow into a beautiful butterfly as they managed to crawl out from the bowl.. Little Reya was a disappointed but i can tell that this kind of activities has nurtured her ability to observe and think creatively.

Fun Ways To Teach Toddler to Spell and Write Their Name

Recently Little Reya is so interested to learn spelling and reading. So this week we were all out to try few fun ways of learning to spell her name.

Puffy Coloring - Use some all purpose flour, a drop of food coloring and mix well in water. Not too runny or thick. Use the sponge to dot the alphabet with colored flour. While doing this it helps them to recognise letter the spelling even after completing the activity.

Ice Cream Name- print out some name printable activity. I usually source my activities for Little Reya through totschooling.net. They do have awesome collections of activities for toddlers that are printable.

I've got the ice cream sheet and cut out for Little Reya. She paste it on another paper while spelling her name out.

Salt Writing- Sprinkle some salt on a tray and use spoon to level it. Reya uses her finger to write on the salt. Beside learning to spell she did  experience the course texture of the salt and the taste too.

My Name Flower Garden- This activity is also from TOTSchooling. Where we created a small flower garden that contains Little Reya's name. I got her to arrange the flowers as accordance to her name and display the pot near her play area. Forgot to snap some pictures for this one..

Writing on Board- We use mini easel and magnetic alphabets to memorise her name