Word World

I wanted to blog about this for sometime now. About a month ago, while teaching my students we talked about cartoons they like to watch. The name Word World came about. Never thought much about it after that. Then not so long ago, read in this mummy's blog about Word World. It's a cartoon that teaches reading and spelling of words in the most fun way! Every character and most things in Word World are made up of alphabets literally. Interesting right?

I went to their website and let Reese play with some games just to test whether he was interested or not. He likes it. So I downloaded the entire season 1 of the show for Reese (No cartoon channels on my Astro). Reese started watching it an he wanted word world everyday!! (except weekends) Result? After 1 month of watching Word World.......

He can spell 95% of the words in Word World season 1. Kid you not. He can spell it orally or fixing the alphabets or just simply reading it from a piece of paper!

Some of the bigger words he can spell :- water, rocket, crown, happy, house, cake, spoon, nest, box, hay, barn..... etc. He can almost spell 'mountain' too. All these by simply watching the cartoon.

If you say watching the idiot box is bad....think again! This is really one of the best educational cartoon around. Should encourage your kid to watch it.

Almost 3

Look different? Before his hair cut by mummy...

Early Birthday Celebration

On 20th September we had an early birthday celebration for Reese with family. Prior to this, Reese had been telling us this (In his exact words):

Reese: Soon, Reese 3 years old, mummy and daddy buy your (me) birthday cake with 3 big candles, balloons, party hats for Reese to wear, presents!

My boy sure knows what he want thanks to the cartoons he saw on birthdays! It was a simple celebration. We got him 3 helium balloons (RM6.40 each! crazy!), an ice cream cake and a clown cone from BR and we also got him 3 presents.

I wanted to cook chicken rice for the dinner but because it was the 1st day of Raya, almost everything was closed except a miserable green grocer and the pork section of the market! So I ended up cooking pork and vegetable dishes only but it was good. We had steam pork with salted fish, roast pork with vegetables, another vegetable dish, lotus soup cooked in pork bones and braised pork with eggs.... crazy huh? everything pork! :)

Reese was super excited on that day even though he was down with a bad runny nose. First he had a blast playing with the balloons and then started asking for birthday cake and presents! Gave him his party hat and he happily wore it. I tell you, he never like to wear anything on his head for longer than 2 minutes but he wore the party hat for more than 30 minutes that day. When it was time to sing the birthday song, he happily sat on the chair and eying the cake! Can't wait to blow the candles. After everything was over, he used his finger to eat the ice-cream... he was unstoppable! It was really fun watching him licking the ice cream cake. It was really finger licking good. Everyone was laughing but that didn't seems to bother him. :)

Opening the presents was also a first time experience for Reese. Well, at least first time opening presents on his own. Last two years he was too young to do that. Hehehe..

He got a fishing game, whack a mole game, binoculars a pirate ship and ang pows. He really had a good time playing his new toys and imagine having 4 grand parents fishing with him!

Thank you Ye ye, Ye Poh and Gong gong(s), Ama, Poh Poh for coming!

Enjoying the balloons

See how he is more interested in the cake than anything else?

Mother and son

Yummy..

Finger licking good!

Daddy, mummy and Reese

Another family picture

Checking out the pressies...

My in-laws with Reese

My parents with Reese

4 grand parents fishing with Reese!

Dinner

:) We are back!

Where have you been??

Well, been busy with many things but mainly... too distracted by *farming, managing a restaurant and now... am in the mafia business* Hehehehe.... Ok.... I am addicted to facebook online games!!

I was also busy with taking care of family, both my dad and mum were not well earlier in the month. Every time when I wanted to do an update, I procrastinated.

Finally... yesterday we had a early birthday celebration for Reese and it's about time I update on my not so small Reese before I totally abandon this blog! :)

I will be doing a few posts tomorrow and hope I will be consistent with my blogging again.

Happy Holidays and Selamat Hari Raya to my Muslim friends!

Dancing Star...

Dancing away at grandparents place

Lately Reese loves to dance! He can dance for more than an hour non-stop! It's like going to the gym... so sweaty and he has to take 2 showers at least in a day! I am happy because he gets extra exercises... hehehe.. since he is still consider over weight. :)

Laughing like a horse....

Playing a Little Einstein game and laughing non stop!

I am cool....

I am a cool drummer!!

What we did on Friday night....

Silly Daddy...

Silly Mummy...

Yummy french toast...

This is quite good... mince chicken with rice..

Yummy white coffee...

Little boss playing with his ipod while we eat in peace

Does he look like a gaming addict?

These days.... we have the luxury of having dinner out because Reese's no longer sleeps at 9:00pm! He goes to sleep around 10:30pm now. Last Friday we went to Old Town White Coffee for a nice and cosy dinner. We like the surrounding. Not crowded at all. Reese can roam around freely while we eat in peace.

Fire Station Excursion

We were at the fire station!

Trying the shoe polisher...

Watching the ladder extend...

Wasn't too happy being forced to stand on the little platform... hehehe..

Where is the water?

Helping the fireman with the hose... (He enjoyed this the most!)

We were in for a little treat on Friday. We went to the fire station at Sri Hartamas for a 2 hour excursion. It was our second excursion with the playgroup. Reese was a little hesitant when he saw a big crowd (a kindy joined us) at the fire station but after sometime he started to explore the place. We had a good time and Reese enjoyed sliding down the pole, playing with the water hose and watching the ladder on the fire engine extending. He was afraid of the siren and refused to go on the fire engine for a ride!

Thank you God for food....

(Reese said " Thank you thank you God for food, help us help us to be good. Amen")

About 2 weeks ago, we taught Reese to say grace before consuming any food. We haven't been consistent but trying to! Here is a video of him thanking God for food. :) He learned this simply prayer from his playgroup.

33rd Milestones (very back dated)

Just a quick summary of his 33rd milestones:

1. Talks non-stop!
2. Eats very well and slightly more variety of food.
3. Gadget boy just like daddy.
4. Beginning to show more emotions! (Yes!) He will shout "I want mummy" if mummy is sad or hurt. Hehehe... then he will 'sayang' mummy (usually have to request).
5. Can be reasoned with. Most of the time he understands.
6. Likes to listen to more stories read by mummy and daddy.
7. Finally willing to play with puzzles.
8. Creative in his play now. Everything he holds is something 'else'. No imaginary friends yet. :)
9. Reads and spells better. Mummy lazy to teach just go with the flow or whenever he is interested.
10. Very active and hardly sits still. Always on the run!
11. Plays well with other children.
12. He is 18kgs +-, height probably 100cm (haven't measured)
13. Clothing has to wear western size 3-4 yrs for t-shirts and 5 yrs for pants!
14. Now everyone thinks he is at least 4 years old. Gosh... he is not even 3 yet... hehe
15. Still as smart as ever, absorb things like a sponge.

I love him sooooooo much. Ahhhh.....

Cheeky Reese

So finally we have upgraded our camera from a Canon Powershot to a Sony Alpha 330 DSLR (RM2k plus). I tell you, sooooooo much difference. Just simply take a shot and the photo quality is anytime better. If you are planning to get one... it's a good investment. DSLR these days come with live view meaning you can shoot by looking at the lcd screen. It is also much more user friendly than before at least for us newcomers. I am just beginning to learn how to play with the shutter speed and aperture speed. So much to learn but the satisfaction is great! We took some photos of Reese with the new camera and most of it taken with the auto mode. Still looks so much better than my previous camera.

Waiting for noodles while playing with his Ipod

In the car dreaming...

Enjoying ice blended coffee at KLCC

Looks handsome?

Oh! look at that cheeky face!

Clowning around

Can never sit still!

Cold Storage at 1U

This picture... abit girlish?

My cheeky boy..

Doing his big business....

Missing in Action

Ah.... haven't written a post for more than 2 weeks. Was I busy? not exactly... Not in the mood? not really then why? I don't know. :) probably pure laziness.

Anyway... I am back. A number of things I wanna blog about.

1. A post on right brain learning ( still gathering relevant free websites and materials)

2. Reese's 33rd Milestones

3. Latest photos of Reese with our new SLR camera

4. Reese's latest antics and behaviour

5. My latest rant about life

Training the Brain.....

I have been doing a lot of research lately on how to enhance the right brain learning in a young child. I have always wanted to DO something about it and yet was too lazy to do the research! Terrible mummy.... hehehe...

Anyway... most of you probably have heard of Shichida Method and Glenn Doman Method to enhance the right brain learning. So what's the big deal? Apparently there are many successful stories on how children can read, have photographic memory and stuff at a very impressive level.

As a child grows older, the right brain usage will become less dominant and by the time they reach 6 years of age, the potential to train them to use their whole brain is very difficult. So it is best to train the child using the right brain before the age of 6. For the best results, you should start training them when they were babies! Oh well, I missed that out already.... hehehe...

Anyway.... at one time, I wanted to send Reese to Shichida but thinking is it really worth it? It's expensive and yet, we have to do most of the work! So I did not and then there are other similar programs sprouting out everywhere....so being the curious mummy and a bit kiasu, I did my research and hoping that maybe I can do it myself without paying others!

When I googled right brain learning.... I was bombared with soooooooo much info that I find it overwhelming. Anyway.... I think I finally grasp some of the fundamental techiniques in training the child's right brain! I am still digesting the information and will share them with all of you mummies and daddies. So watch this space in the coming days.... I am so excited!

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!