Elephant

JR came face-to-face with the fishes & the pygmy hippo today. Super-delighted especially with this big puffy fish, the name I failed to catch on any of the signs. It was a really cute fish, but active just like JR, hence the blurry pix. *haha*

We also saw the White Tigers on the way out. I also had quite a fright from a snake that slithered across my path(!!!).

Our main aim in making the trip to the zoo was to once again see the Elephant Bathing/Feeding session which is at 9.15am. And I printed out a very simple book just about that.


Next trip, l should work on a different animal theme. ;-)

Your Faves

YOUR FAVOURITE NURSING STYLES
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Along the way as nursing moms, we'll find some styles suit our style of nursing and our lifestyle the best. For this baby, I've grown to love the empire-waistline style the best.

Many of you saw me wearing the neat Anna Cross-Wrap top at the last Saturday Showroom Opening. It's sleek and colours are fresh, and just keeps me looking great. Needless to say, that top sure sold that day. Get yourself one too!

Anna Top:
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/annatrim.html]

My other everyday favourites are the Liana Short-sleeves and the Selina, apart from the Cindy. And my most recent favourite is the Sharon Top. I reach for these over & over again every morning as I prepare to get dressed for my full day of dashing in/out with our 4 children. It is a busy day, and I do need a get-up that keeps me looking well put-together!

My faves:
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/liana-SS-Top.html]
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/sharon.html]
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/selina.html]

Which are your favourites?

Saying it Loud

This is one of the few words he can verbalise for certain right now.

He can only do words that sound like "Ba" or "Ma", so Butterfly would end up like "Ba ba bye" & even Umbrella will still sound like "Ba"! The only word that he can say nicely with 2 syllables is "Ma-my". *hehe*.

And I will find him taking books to "study" too. Our eldest was the same way. The older 2 boys never did this.

Raw

Hai, with the more frequent night nursing bc of the extra wakefulness due to the chickenpox, my nipples & the skin around are quite raw with JR's teeth scrapping frequently on it. *sigh*

My skin must've grown much thinner over the years with age!!! Must step up intake of vitamin C to aid healing. In the meantime, I am trying what I did years ago.

Express a little milk to clean skin and then wipe dry, put Lansinoh, and cover with the Hydrogel disc bc these help to keep the lansinoh cream neatly on without dirtying my bra and further promotes the moist-wound healing process.

Pox Party

Big boy had chickenpox 2 weeks ago, and now everyone else in the family is down with it! Our very own pox party! LOL!

Baby too was affected and he looks quite bad for it too...so many huge spots. No fever though. Whew! Itchy now the scabs have formed and giving me sleepless nights, so started giving him long oatmeal baths & shampoo, and applying numbing anti-itch antiseptic plus Desitin cream after that to help reduce redness.
He happily continues to play though!

The good thing is that this seems like quite an outbreak for him so maybe he will have lifetime immunity now!

Flip Books

Since JR has finished going through the Wink-to-Learn English & Chinese DVD Flashcard programmes, I thought to make some books like the "short stories" in Level 6.

This one is on the title "Picnics are Fun" or "我们去野餐".

It's A5 in size (half A4 size), printed on 160g paper and bound.

I also made a book on a short trip to the zoo

Just some ideas on how to reinforce the child's learning using vocabulary & events that is familiar to him.

The BUSiness Times

JR was digging through his dad's bag and found copies of said Times, and starting pointing and saying "Ba", "Ba", which is how he refers to "Bus". How interesting ...

He managed to isolate a small word from a longer word...hmm..

Grind Rice

For those who prefer to give baby brown rice as one of the starter foods, you'll realise that even after boiling for awhile, the "nutty" brown rice is still not as soft as white rice porridge. It's best to have it broken up abit before cooking.


You'll find that a normal chopper will not do. Instead, a blender with a grinder attachment is better. The grinder can handle dry items and churn out powdered stuff. I prefer the porridge not to be too powdery, so would just run it in the grinder for 5 to 8 seconds. You can experiment with it. And I liked to buy organic short-grain brown rice.

Simple Readers

Reading from a new set of books. I love these "Wo Hui Du" Readers as they have large words and it helps that the books only have around 10 to 12 pages each. Easy to go thru'.

These books build on the vocabulary he already is familiar with after having gone through the Wink-to-Learn DVD Flashcard programme, just that the same words are presented in phrases & sentences.

He was so super-tickled by the waterfall though! Really funny.

Puzzles

Saw a number of very suitable simple puzzles at a Popular Fair. They came with words which JR is familiar with. So the puzzles are great reinforcement for matching shapes & words.

Of the 3 sets I got (yea S$4.90 each), JR seems to like the shapes set the best:

Ah, JR likes eating the star too! Haha!

JR's also familiar with the words on this "Colours" set, and he did play with it some, but not as much as with the "Shapes" set.


The 3rd set is one on Animals. This set does not have any words on them. There was a set with words but the graphics were tacky to me (*urgh*!), so after much deliberation, I selected this instead. So I "DIY'd".

I came home and did abit of "homework" on it. I used my Dynamo handheld labeller and printed out the words for it, so now it looks like this.

As for storage...I had this brainwave. *haha* I thought the puzzles would be great in those A4-box files, so I rummaged thru' my "store" of used box files. Yah, they are just perfect for the job!

So everything's neat & dandy. Won't lose those bits now.

Trip to Bank II

Baby is forever making trips to the bank with me. LOL.

Outside the bank, there was a new coin-operated ride. A little merry-go-round of 3 little vehicles, and all of them were JUST perfectly JR's size!

And I hadn't even realised until a long while later that JR was actually in a "bus"! He LOVES buses!

On Twos

He's done bouts of 4 or 5 steps unaided this weekend. Ah, but only when he's in the mood to do so!

And it's too difficult to "catch the moments".

Colours

Chanced upon this Barney Kiddy Ride on my trip to Daiso this morning. Since JR loves the Baby Bop and Barney book (interestingly he hates the Barney videos), I let him sit and play for a while.

Ever exploiting any "educational" opportunities, I took the chance to point out to him in Chinese that there's a Purple Barney, a Green Baby Bop, and a Yellow BJ. *hehe*.

Life Cycle

JR loves Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar book

He just loves to make this butterly "fly" by "flapping" the 2 ends of the pages at the end of the book. Thankfully it's a board book so fairly tough.

And...haha - did he figure out the life cycle of a caterpillar? This was a new book that I got him. A caterpillar book. He took a look at it and picked it up:

...And went STRAIGHT for the last page?!!!! And started "flapping" it.

So for his birthday, I got this cake made for him.

Thanks to Mong's Cakes, who did JR's FULL-Month Cakes too!

Rat Race

JR was so super-excited at these rats, trying to catch them.

The aim of this zoo trip was just to bring him to see the horses being groomed.

...but we also saw the giraffes having a feed

...and learnt that flamingos have "pink milk"

Swing

Why is "Swing" called 秋千('qiu qian' in Mandarin) and 千秋('cin1 cau1' in Cantonese). I was so confused as to which whether I should refer to the swing as Qian Qiu or Qiu Qian as I usually speak in Mandarin to baby.

I was confused as I was thinking of the "cin cau" term that I used in my childhood days. It really is the opposite. Grrr... my older kids were laughing at me. ;p

Baby especially enjoys swinging. He has watched this on both the Wink-to-Learn DVDs as well as the Sing-to-Learn DVDs (in the songs & videos), so talking to him using the sentences & phrases from the videos help reinforce his vocabulary as he plays!

Bossy!

You know who you're dealing with or not?!

Time to recharge. I will wake in 10minutes ... and you will be tasked to put me BACK to recharge mode.

Flu Circus

Kids were getting sick one after the other. *sigh* Baby wasn't spared. The virus is sure ferocious. All who fell sick were really out & down for a few days. Baby started having high fever yesterday. The fever was quite unrelenting, continuing until today, but it eased off by this afternoon. The powers of breastfeeding. Whew! In the meantime, it sure wasn't comfortable carrying this little fireball! Hot, hot, hot! He hated that fever patch, he hated sleeping on the cold cushion.

Could this be h1n1? In all probability. H1n1 is already a community illness. Docs don't ask patients to be tested, and we didn't insist.

Reading Chinese

Yes, he can recognise Chinese characters too!

I was sceptical about flashcards, but with the convenience of DVD flashcard programmes these days, it just seemed like it was no harm to try.

I just tested him. Am amazed! Started him with the DVD flashcards at 5mths. He's 11mths now. He's never seen these words before other than on the WinktoLearn DVDs.

After having gone through the "Wink-to-Learn"(WTL) DVDs, I must say that this WTL and the "Your Baby Can Read"(YBCR) series are currently the best in quality of the DVD programmes available in stores now. YBCR has a much longer programme but once the baby is happy with the show, often he gets used to it and love bouncing along with the songs and short phrases. For babies with short attention span, the WTL would be most suitable. Being a "flash" programme, it flashes 10 words in a short 2-minute lesson. Just show that 1 lesson or if your baby has a longer attention span, then 2 lessons each day, and show those same 1 or 2 lessons for 7 days in a row. Very quick and simple process. Then change to another 1 or 2 new lessons for the next 7 days.

For WTL, both the English & Chinese programmes are similar. I took a video of 1 lesson of English while Baby JR was watching it this morning, just so as to time how long 1 lesson is - 2:04min exactly. Most lessons are similar in duration, so if you think it's a drugery to show a DVD flashcard programme, think again!

Healthy Eating

Moderation is the key. Too much healthy foods, too much fibre and too little fat is not good for children.

Very interesting article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3856699.ece
Too much healthy eating is as bad for children as too much junk