We did it!!!!

It's been a month since I started to wean Reese off his night feeds and initially after a week of training, we were so happy because we thought we did it....but my gut feeling told me otherwise... after he recovered from his illness, he started to whine and kicked and kept wanting his milk... this continued for over a week and after that... he finally got the message and stopped asking for milk in the middle of the night. The last two weeks were peaceful for us, we got to sleep through the night and so did Reese only that occasionally he had a bad dream or two and once or twice he asked for milk but immediately go back to sleep when we told him he had to wait till the sun comes up! :) His sleeping time has been extended to 10pm /10.30pm and he wakes up around 7.15am / 7.30am. He only experienced weird waking ours during the first two weeks of training. Now everything is regular. Phew!

So for those of you who wants to wean your child off night feeds.... a word of advice.. peservere and be discipline and do not give in to the child unless necessary. Our journey the past one month wasn't that difficult though we faced alot of resistance from our little master initially! It's worth it!

So... I guess it's safe to say we finally did it! :) I am one happy mama now! Yippie....

Cooking Lesson....

Today I had some fun with Reese in the kitchen. This is the second time I let him 'help' me prepare food. Today I decided to make banana & strawberry milk shake. After my morning class, on the way home hubby drove me to TMC and I bought the ingredients for the milk shake. Reese enjoyed the whole cooking lesson with me. I will definitely do more cooking with him as I do not want to raise a son who can't cook! :)

Reese washing the fruits

Look at his chubby hand!

Reese cutting banana with a dinner knife

Check out the yummy fruits.... Reese puts them in the blender...

One of his favourite moments... scooping ice cream into the blender....

Enjoying the ice cream...

Priceless!

During blending... he ran to the room to hide... he is afraid of the sound.. our end product... yummy!

He was so excited to try his milk shake that he made a mess on his clothes!

Enjoying his milk shake...

Thumbs up!

Book Review: God I Need to Talk to You about...

I bought this series for only $0.69USD each when you purchase above 10 books (www.chistianbook.com) and some postage. They are little books written through a child's eyes and words! Delightfully illustrated, these stories deal with concerns youngsters encounter in their daily lives. Each book points out the Good News of God's love and forgiveness, while the supporting Scripture verse emphasizes the point of each story.

Tittles in this series : Bad temper, Bad Words, Bullying, Disrespect, Greed, Hurting Others, Laziness, Lying, My Bad Temper, Sharing, Stealing, Vandalism, Whining, Being a Bad Sport, Cheating and Pay Attention.

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An excerpt from God, I Need to Talk to You about Sharing:

Dear God,

Today I had a bag of candy and I ate it all myself. I would not give any to my sister or my little brother or to my parents.

Yesterday, I had a bag of popcorn at the movies and I did not share any with my friends. (Give to everyone who asks you. Luke 6:30)

Today, God, I learned a lesson. My friends were playing ball. I wanted to play too, but they would not share the ball.

I went home. My brother and sister and parents were eating a big bowl of popcorn. They would not share it. (Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways. Proverbs 20:30TEV)

I felt lonely. I felt angry. I sat on my back stairs.

.....................................................................................................

I don't know how well these books are going to teach Reese on daily issues but I like them. They are short and simple enough for a child to see the kind of situations they may be in and the consequences of their actions. When Reese is much older, I hope these books will be good for him. :)

Finally...8 weeks of waiting...

My books and music CDs are here! First, waited 6 weeks and the shipment got lost! Then they reshipped and another 2 weeks later..... they were at my doorsteps. :) I think I will stop buying some books for a while. There are sooooooo many I just don't know what to do with them right now... It always feels good when you buy new books isn't it? ;)

I will do a review of the books and CDs in a separate post.

First Visit to Singapore...

Last Friday night we drove to Johor Bharu and spent the weekend there and went over to Singapore. We stayed at a TNB rest house with some friends. It was a really big bungalow and very comfortable. Fully air-conditioned. Upon arrival, it was about 12am. Reese woke up and got all excited and didn't want to sleep till about 2am!

On Saturday we went to Singapore and took Reese to the Bird Park. He was so excited upon seeing the penguins and later some big pelicans. It was a good experience for him. He learned a few new species of birds too. :) Then we headed back to Johor Bahru to have dinner with our friends. It was a really lovely dinner. Thank you Lena! After dinner we headed back to the bungalow and chit chatted with our friends while Reese had fun playing with another friend's son till quite late.

On Sunday, we went to the Singapore Zoo. Hubby and I felt that the Singapore Zoo is more fun and Reese had a lot of great experiences there. One of them was watching an animal show. For the first time he sat quietly and patiently waiting for the animals to come out. He sat through the entire show. Then we continue exploring the place looking at animals. Then we went for the Elephant show and we sat right in front and didn't know that the Elephants would give you a few splashes! Reese got shocked and cried cause we were all wet...hahaha... we didn't stay for the show and instead had to calm a terrified child! After we dried ourselves. The highlight was when we took Reese to feed the giraffes. Reese was not afraid at all. It's worth paying $5 SG for it.

It was so tiring, we had lunch there and I tell you, Singapore's KFC is just not as nice as Malaysia. Their coleslaw tastes weird, like there is a hint of durian in it... don't believe me? try it the next time you go Singapore. Anyway... we spent about 5 hours plus at the zoo. Reese took a nap in between. He got to eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. We all had a good but tiring time!

Going over to Singapore using the causeway was crazy jam on a Saturday! Coming back is no difference. We had to use the second link to avoid the jam when going into Singapore and coming back we used the causeway and got stuck in a bad traffic jam. Not to mentioned we got lost a few times even using the GPS! Poor hubby had to go in circles at times just to find the right direction.

First time eating mee rebus!

At the Singapore Bird Park

His favaourite exhibit... penguins!

Can you see how tired Reese was?

Father and Son

The tallest man made waterfall

Jumping around

Flammingos

At the Singapore Zoo

Waiting to go in...

Watching the baboons chasing each other...

Refused his stroller, 90% of the time he walked...

Mummy and Reese enjoying the animal show

Taking a nap after lunch... mummy and daddy got to watch lions and it happened to be feeding time.... we were right in front of the lion exhibits!

Feeding giraffes

It was really a great experience for Reese

Our cousins?

At the splash zone but Reese was too tired and didn't want to play...

Enjoying a whole cone of Ben & Jerry ice cream all by himself before going back!

Feeding the giraffe...

Languages

For Reese, obviously English is considered his mother tongue. He speaks nothing but English. Then when he was 1+, we discovered he know some Chinese (Mandarin) words from watching a children program in Chinese! So I took the opportunity to teach him some Chinese and urged my parents to speak to him in Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese). They used to complain that I should speak Chinese to him so that he won't be a total 'banana' and yet..... hahaha... they themselves conversed in English with him! Anyway.... as of now, he knows quite a lot of Chinese words. I am bugging my mother to get some flash cards to teach him to recognize Chinese characters! I tried looking for it but I am just clueless, everything is written in Chinese and I can't read. Bleh!

About two months back, he started to pick up some Bahasa words too! Now he knows eyes, mouth, nose, ears, hand, leg, hair, head, milk, clothes and also one or two phases in Bahasa. My maid taught him some of them. Even though I am homeschooling him, I realized that if he wants to study in a local college, he will need to have at least Standard 6 level Bahasa Malaysia so there is no escaping! He needs to learn Bahasa and I am bad at it. Will probably get a tutor for him then. :)

I read that introducing different languages to a child should be done after the child turns two so I guess it's good timing for my little boy. Reese is at a stage where he can really absorb whatever you teach him and I really want to make use of this time to teach him as many words as we can!!

So how many languages does your child speaks?

Book Buffet Update...

My brilliant aunt!

The crowd was getting big.... it was only 10.20am

Our super packed bag!

See... my aunt rolled the book up.... hehehe...

All the books we got for only RM49.90!!

Scholastic Book Buffet

This morning with my aunt, we went to Megakiz at Midvalley to check out the book buffet. So what is it? Well, for the price of RM49.90, you will be given a small bag and you are free to stuff in as many books as you can. So was it worth it? Well, depending on what you buy. For me, I went for the picture books (soft cover) so I can really put in alot in that small bag. Book selection is so so only. Wider selection for older kids. Any how, my clever aunt came up with a brilliant idea on how to stuff as many books as one can... by rolling the books up and put it on top of the already full bag! You see, the bag that they gave, was really small, so we had to really plan properly what books go in first and then the rest was the art of managing space in the bag. :) It's really funny and soooo much fun. At the end of the it, the feeling of walking away with a bag full of books was really great! In all, we managed to get 15 books (soft cover of various sizes), 1 hard cover Bible and a box set of small books with CD to learn phonics. For me, it was really worth it! On average, each book only cost a little less than Rm3!!!

I will post up some photos tonight! :)

Reese in Action

Some videos captured over the weeks!


1. Kam's percussion band!




2. Daddy and son playing in an inflated house!



3. Dancing in public!

Weaning off Night Feed after 2 Weeks....

Remember it was only 6 nights and we were quite successful? So wrong... after the 8th night when he was some what well ( no longer sick) he started to ask for milk again... hai... and till today... certain nights was ok... certain nights were not. We still didn't give him the milk and he accepts it with some protest every night. His sleeping pattern is somewhat disrupted because of it. He will take about an hour or two to sleep back and when that happens, he will wake up late. That's alright if I do not have to go work!

Anyway.... will see what happens..... :(

It's been two weeks now.

32 months (back dated)

What's new? nothing much. Everything is progressing as usual but alot of negative stuff this month!

Let's start with the negative stuff!!

Rejecting alot of his usual food and getting choosy. Likes more junk food like doughnuts, cream puff and now hotdogs. Hardly takes any greens. :(

Lost 1 kg due to his illness 2 weeks back but it's actually good news... hehe...since doctor said that he is overweight. So his weight now is about 17+kgs.

Sleeps later. Now he will only sleep at about 10pm to 10.30pm! Not good because night time is daddy's and mummy's time. :(

Wakes up earlier around 6am and once 5am for the last two weeks. Maybe because of milk weaning and illness.

Naps longer. Around 2 to 2.5 hours which is good.

As usual, very talkative and now speaks in full sentences. At times very long sentences.

Will demand for what to eat and what to wear.

Can eat on his own IF he wants to.

Still can't take off his clothes on his own. Needs help. Can take off his shoes with help.

Likes building blocks but half the time wants us to do the building!

Wean off night feed (80%)

Listens to reasoning more and knows that certain actions he does will result in punishment.

Starts to hop on one leg (with us holding his hands)

We think he is definitely a leftie! He uses his left hand for everything!

Likes to dance to funny movements.

Now he attempts to sing along when I play his CDs in the car. He sings more in tune. :)

Very good at navigating starfall.com and some other kids' website.

He can read & spell 3 and some 4 letter words by matching the letters.

He loves to play slides and tunnels.

That's it for now. :)

Mess...mess..mess...

A typical sight at home when Reese is around. The entire living room is filled with his toys... every corner you will find something... :) Reese likes to take out all his toys and play all over the room or should I say room(s)? and at the end of a play session... we or the maid rather.... will have to clean up! We used to have a very nice looking house with nice interior design of some sort... but ever since Reese came... he has invaded our home with his toys and books and clothes and even the kitchen is not spared! I can't think of one part of the house that doesn't have anything to do with Reese.... hahaha....

The big picture

Trains, cars and tracks

Lego and Mega blocks

Tractor and some farm house equipment on the poof

Busy playing...

Musical instruments on the floor

Sunday fun....

Walking and hopping with mummy and daddy

Daddy and son

Sitting on the concrete balls

Happy boy...

Reese looks like daddy or mummy?

Yummy... doughnuts!

Enjoying his doughnuts...