Blessing before sleep

Before slept, they spotted a lizard in the room.
Biggie was terrified. She asked smallie to get rid of it.
Smallie agreed by chasing it with the broom. Eventually the insect freed.
Came dedication and blessing before sleep.
I recited the usual "May i be well and happy. May my daddy and mummy be well and happy. May the Buddha Dhamma and Sangha blessed me with peace and happiness....."
Before i finished the verse, smallie chipped in with this "May the lizard come back to find JE."
What a cheeky bun!

buah petai

买了buah petai回家。一面剥皮，那个小精灵一面shoot老娘，全家都喜欢吃，除了你，你学吃一下啦。我白了她一眼。

Missing pinafore

I have someone complaining from her wardrobe on where have all her pinafores gone. She sounded so certain that they were lost. I ignored the qualms while continuing with my routine ironing job on weekend night.
A week passed and she started the same story about missing pinafores again.
Then out of sudden, she said she know where were all the pinafores.
She has mistaken the pinafores as little sister ones. 
She thought she has grown up and they looked too small for her.
I stared at her and almost wanted to laugh my heart out.
Retelling this to the dad, he laughed out loud in the washroom.
Well......time to get those passdowns out and wash them now.

家庭主妇

柔：妈咪，你到底是家庭主妇吗？家庭主妇是不是都是在家的，没有出去的？
不知一次被她这样问，尤其是在填写学校的妈妈的职业一栏时，为了方便，也为了很难找到一个圆满的答案。而她总是要一个肯定的答案。可是我的多重角色，交替的半职业，我实在不懂要如何才能说出我的职业。有点像WAHM，可是有时又是SAHM。

Does Flinstone Qualify for Macbook?

Many many ages ago Mac caught my eyes with it's light weight, less(or not at all) prone to virus attack, fast boot up and many other features. Having certain level of fear, i ended up with Acer, going for the lightweight version as well. But alas, i have to accommodate with smaller screen which was fine for me. I was ever so intimidated that i dared not upgrade to Windows 8 and still maintained with XP, fearing that some of my programs may ended incompatible. That's how pathetic i have to be. So keeping myself as dinosaur as i can be seemed to be the safest option. An old friend started asking me where is my Flinstone family ---- referring to my dinosaur technology with no wireless home environment. It was a good topic to start off with about keeping radiation as low as possible. It was even a better topic for old friends to tease me because only old friends will tease without second thoughts. That reminded of this: “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

弘一大师. 夢

看着弘一大师传。弘公的才华，太让人钦佩，他的戒行也太让人感动了。他的每一首歌，都让我有种想哭的感觉--亲切，深入，充满感情，认真。


哀游子茕茕其无依兮，在天之涯。
惟长夜漫漫而独寐兮，时恍惚以魂驰。
萝偃卧摇篮以啼笑兮，似婴儿时。
母食我甘酪兴粉饵兮，父衣我以彩衣。
月落乌啼，梦影依稀，往事知不知？
汩半生哀乐之长逝兮，感亲之恩其永垂。

哀游子怆怆而自怜兮，吊形影悲。
惟长夜漫漫而独寐兮，时恍惚以魂驰。
梦挥泪出门辞父母兮，叹生别离。
父语我眠食宜珍重兮，母语我以早归.

剪头发

奶奶问柔帆：“为什么你的头发像给狗咬到？” （这几天每个看到她的大人的“正常”反应。）柔帆：“我的头发，又不是你的头发。”
其实她是对大人对有点不耐烦了。那天是他要求要自己减一点的刘海，我说试试一点就好。后来，减稍多了，但我觉得还好吧，有稍短，但第一次其实都不错了。

Of knowing owns body and eating

Jo Von was all the while the more "spiritual" one.
When i was pregnant with her, i started to crave for pineapple which i have never like to take a single bite all through my life.
During that time too, i get nausea with cheese and dairy products which i has been craving for the past 30 years. From then on, i cut it out.
She was like always sure of what she can eat and how much to eat. She disliked mushroom but i always cut them in smaller bites and stuff in her meal. Sometimes she realized, sometimes no.
Few weeks ago i fried mee hoon with some mushroom. She took it for lunch but she got feverish during evening time and vomited. Sprout and vege and mee hoon seemed to have digested well and didnt came out, but not mushroom. Every single piece of the mushroom was out....in the complete cut pieces.

Told myself: i wont force her to take the food that her body cant take anymore. Perhaps i do not know well enough about her body as well as she is.

Observing and contemplating living creatures - Crawling down with compassion

We saw a big snail crawling down the wall.
Jo Ee, "will it fall?"
Jo Von, "i wont la, it has legs to suck on the wall."
Jo Ee, "What happen if we touch it?"
Jo Von, "I want to touch it, but i wont touch it, coz if i touch it, it will fall. And the shell will crack."
--- I guess when a kid have more time to be spent with the nature, naturally compassion will grow and they dont have to be taught on being kind to other beings. Compassion, loving kindness are grown inertly through nature and nurture.
Still, having more time, more leisure time to contemplate moments like these is the KEY.

Observing and contemplating living creatures - Looking beyond the compound eye

Not remembering which day was it, we moved out Jo Von table to the balcony so that she could draw at her own pace and space under the big blue sky.
I was cooking and heard her calling out loud: Mummy, mummy, come quickly and see! There is a big fly!
It took me sometime to finish cutting the veges before going out to see what was really going on.
Well, well, it was certainly a jumbo fly came visiting! A size of Jo Von thumb!
On one note: i was saying "We seldom see that kind of living creature flying around."
On another note: i heard my heart murmuring, "Would we be able to observe this little living creature looking at us with its compound eyes IF she is still in the kindy NOW?"
Well, maybe yes, but surely we know if there is any such chance, she may be able to see the fly came flying in but before it flew out, we will be calling her to get going "FASTER", "faster" and "faster". --- get going to school faster, get going to bath faster, etc....otherwise we will be late.
"LATE"? Did i mention about LATE?
"BEING LATE" --- a connotation that build the society to "KIASUism".

Improvising and making transformation at 5

I remembered i did my first scale transformation when i was doing Grade 5 theory at the age of approximately 14 yrs old. And little did i realize that i could actually improvise and make transformation on songs so that they are a few keys lower or higher. I read notes well and i could sight read, but that lacking of musical appreciation doesn't qualify myself as a music learner.
But being a homeschooler herself, Jo Von, has all the time that she could have with the piano.
She can't read any notes yet coz we have not exposed her to proper piano lesson. We did try once to send her to Miss Ho class when she was about 4 year old but she wasnt that ready and she asked to stop. We agreed and told her she could learn later when she is ready to attend the piano lesson again.
But this morning, amazingly she told us there were many ways of playing Mary Had A Little Lamb. She was actually playing the song with C major, then D major(with the F# key!!) and G major!
It surprised me on how well she had learned herself!
Homeschool works, doesnt it?

大自然的疗愈：茅草

和YJ还有两个小瓜回到离我家不到50步的小学母校的草场踢球。
除了爬树，还光着脚赛跑。
叫小柔滚一辊，她就在草地上滚了。还滚了好几圈。想起extra lesson里强调的孩子在硬的地上滚动是很好的运动。
后来玩了一个滚球比赛。
8岁的姐姐还喜欢有竞争的游戏，可5岁的小柔就还没到那阶段玩这游戏。
因为滚得不必姐姐远，所以就嘟起嘴来。
也是劝都劝不来。
她赌气坐在草地上，我陪她坐着。
随手拔起来一根茅草，告诉她小茅草喜欢跟人，喜欢黏在衣服裤子上跟我们回家，也把茅草刻意的黏在她衣服上。随着也把刚才那股气撵走。
前后不到5分钟的僵持，就这么容易降服在大自然的茅草下。^.^

大自然的疗愈：万年青

舅舅不懂说了小柔什么，弄得她和姐姐一直不高兴，姐姐中招少，一下就没事了，小柔大概是被惹得较多，就一直嘟着嘴，叫她去吃饭，也不肯理睬。
后来，我采了一叶万年青，对她唱一首barney的歌，“i love you,you love you, we are happy family,with a great big hug and a kiss from you,wont you say you love me too.送你一个love，等下你可以切菜煮mamamasak."
随即小柔的脸就笑了。怎么就这么简单呢？
比说道理还好用呢？

Handmade reward chart

Wanted to get a reward chart for the girls long time ago.
But it's always the price that put me off --- a daunting RM 70 or more, just for some removable and stickable cartoons!

Then i realized that i have actually had all the resources, why not DIY?

I have some leftover microfiber cloths, leftover of cotton and flannel fabrics, and snaps button. Just need to get more velcro and also reusing a stick.

1. Fold down the microfiber to form a loop so that it hold on the stick.
2. Mark and snap the button on the microfiber cloth with two males on top and two females at the place just below the stick.
3. Cut out the cute cartoon prints on the cotton and flannel fabrics and sew the velcro at the back. We have snoppy, hello kitty, strawberry, bear, assorted flowers.
4. The end result:

5. The back of the removable, washable reward 'sticker', with velcro stitched at the back.:


6. Velcro sticked well on microfiber without having to have another side of the velcro sewn on the back fabric.

7. And all these cost me only RM 3.50 for the 1 m of velcro. If I didn't use up all the velcro previously, this item will be totally FOC!

The girls are so excited with it! We use that to reward them when they do the cleanup, help mummy to prepare food, behave themselves, etc.