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

Rollerblading Babes

Hai, now I wish I could go rollerblading!

Dot Dots

Started JR on Math Dot Cards this week. Not sure if he is too old for this. Difficult to have him stay still and focus for long at this age. Thankfully, they only require flashing of the dot cards for a very short while, but even that seems challenging to do with a 11-month-old.

Incidentally, the cards fit very well into our MIM sling plastic bags. Quite useful for holding only what I need for the timebeing - only need like 20 cards at a time.

I bought these Math Dot Cards from a local website:
www.kidsbook.sg

This website seems quite useful:
http://www.childandme.com/how-teach-your-child-math-glenn-domans-dot-method/

Ba-Ba

That's the limit of his vocal ability. Almost everything is "Baa". *haha* Butterfly, bird, banana, bus... although thankfully, the variation comes in "Ma-ma-my" and "merk". and he can say "Hi".

The "kan-cheong" baby couldn't wait. Banana still in it's skin and he still chomps on it!


I'm so often hungry these days, so sharing a banana with him is such a perfect snack. Clean, doesn't need to be cooked, nutritious, and somewhat filling. ;-)

Bus

Buses sure do grab his attention!


See how excited he is when he sees a bus approach?


And yeah, he recognises the word!

That means I always try to walk past the bus-stop and show him the big "Bus" words on the boards. haha.

Kids in Play

Kids playing in a violin competition in China

Trip to Bank

As part of this morning's "entertainment", JR followed me to the Bank. Along the way, he saw the Tasmanian Devil & Bob the Builder. I'm not sure why he's so fascinated with their faces.





We changed his car seat yesterday (yeah, he's 11mths old...time to upgrade). So far, he's been fairly happy. The new car seat offers him a much better view of his surroundings, and the view outside the car. He just LOVES seeing buses! And yes, he LOVES to study books.

I love this Maxi-Cosi carseat. It has very thoughtfully-placed clips at the side of the seat for us to hang the baby's toys. Ah, and I succumbed to buying that small hungry caterpillar (Eric Carle) book sometime back bc JR simply LOVES it!

After dropping by the bank, we went to the supermarket and visited loads of apples. Gee, there were South African APPLES (yeah, the word "APPLES" are so clearly printed on the packages), Fiji Apples, Japanese Apples, and I don't know whatever other country. Hey, it's sure cosmopolitan in that supermart! PINK apples...ever seen them? Actually their colouration is more like Rainbow Mangoes. I'm so unexciting. I simply grabbed a tray of organic Gala Apples.

Organic Apples are really tasty, and these were so soft that all I needed to do was cut them into smaller sizes and JR could chew them up himself. He's got 8 teeth and another 2 more on the way. Hai, I didn't even realise he was teething until he went around biting every one of us this afternoon, then I pried his mouth apart to check. *haha*.

Card Game II

Ah, now apart from "Hi", he can definitely pick out several other words.

Where's Baby?


Where's Dog?

I did not use flashcards to manually work on this word recognition - all this while, have been relying only on FlashCard Video Programmes. We started off with ">Your Baby Can Read Videos and English & Chinese Wink-to-Learn Videos.

He is now 11-months-old. We started showing him these videos from around 5 months.

Flower Stalk

JR actually watched the whole rendition of "One Stalk Flower". Hahah!

一枝花 is a classic Chinese Erhu piece.

Words in Print

This kept JR occupied a good part of the time in church today.

Words that I wrote on the printed page. Words that he recognises.

Did He Do That?

Coincidence or Reality?

He has been able to recognise that "Hi" word for quite a while now, and will even try to verbalise it with a screeching "hi" sound. I already thot he was quite "slow" since the girl in the video could point and act out the words from like 8 or 9 months old! JR is almost 11mths old! He has not been able to point or gesture to various parts of his body or at things. Only perhaps to raise his hands to ask me to carry him. Or to close/open his palms when he hears the "Twinkle" song, and raise his arms to show "Hurray" as in the "If you're happy" song. But then again, it does say that baby can recognise words if he just focuses his attention on certain words when you read them out, and JR does do that.

I'd made a little cardholder of words that he has come across in the videos that he has been watching since 5mths' old. This morning, while going thru it, he of course said "Hi" at the 1st word as usual, and when he saw "Head", he patted his head....then he saw "Ears" and he said out "ea" ...and then he saw "Mouth" and said "Mao". Was I dreaming that he did that? Was it coincidental or intentional? Couldn't get him to do it again, but well, the sounds WERE different, unlike his usual "do-it-all" "BABABABA or MAMAMAMAMA or DADADAA" sounds.

And when I walked into the store at the petrol station today, he excitedly went "Ba ba ba" when the door to the store opened and he saw the array of Bananas there....Hmm....oh well, he said the same thing when he saw the word "Ball"....

Wearing Baby

This is so amazing... a Mommy playing this YangQin-like instrument while slinging baby!


And this Mommy is kneading bread. Reminds me of slinging the boys and swinging them to my back when I prepared food & cooked so that their busy little hands would not be able to reach out so far .

Zoo Trip

Haven't been to the zoo in years! We decided to take the bus jus for fun, since there's a straight bus. JR was so excited humming away and looking out the bus window.


His 1st visit to the zoo!

At the zoo, Bb seemed somewhat overwhelmed. Can't tell if he recognised all those animals from his books n vids! Didn't seem to show much reaction! He was only much more lively after lunch after he had a short nap.

Zebras - there's this 斑马 book that he likes.


Giraffes. I think these are "baby" giraffes since they were playfully galloping around the enclosure. Who ever sees giraffes *galloping* in a zoo, right?! They usually just stand around looking bored.


Never seen a white peacock !


Ah...refreshingly cool aircon, and lunch!

We took the bus home. Not too bad a trip!

Health Benefits

Breastfeeding has health benefits for moms: Study

Women who breastfed were less likely when they were older to have developed high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.

Hand expression

Hand expression and breast massage combined with breast pumping does a better job of stimulating milk production than breast pumping alone.

Click below link for article
Hands On Pumping Pumps Up Milk Production

Card Game

Convincing, eh?

www.babycanread.com
www.winktolearn.com