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.

About homeopathy again.... and vaccination

Recommended Dr Ooi's homeopathy to Hooi Ling.
It's has always been our (hubby and me) common recommendation to concern parents who are worried about sending little kiddos to pediatricians who may intend to prescribe overdose or unnecessary medication. Dr. Ooi's kindness and patience has been the key point for us to share.

Google about homeopathy and only realized that the founder, Hahnemann, was whom we had studied before in primary school about quinine and its healing power on malaria.

Thanks to homepathy, little JV has never been on paracetamol, cough mixture, not to mention antibiobiotics and antihisthamine --- not needed anymore.
JV was throwing out paracetamol ever since when she 3 months. For every jab under the vaccination program, paracetamol was just an untouched FREE gift from the Klinik Kesihatan.

p/s: I purposely skipped MMR for both JV and JE.
Why not measles? I mean why not let children get measles? We all do get in during childhood day and as according to many natural healing beliefs, measles is just a self adjusment way of the body to get rid of food from wrong feeding.
Why not mumps? I mean we all get that too. No big deal at all. Just some 'nila' and few days to recuperate at home.
Why not rubella? I get that jab during Form 3. The earliest we should get should be at age 12. So why forced the little body to get the vaccine so early?

Why spoil our body own antibody system?

柔帆的童言童语

去早三伯公。是爷爷的三哥。他生病了。是因为糖尿病和PARKINSON DISEASE瘫痪的.
柔帆问：“他为什么生病？”
妈妈：“他老了。”
柔帆问：“他是不是去玩水？”
:～

A birthday party to cherish and remember

It has always been hubby's dream to have something special for FIL. Being brought up in a conservative and traditional family, I can understand that it is definitely not an easy task to ....even hug your dad!
(I have that 'funny' feeling too when I first thought of hugging my mom and dad too!)

The inspiration came when hubby was contemplating his favorite video clip: 《爱和关怀》


He decided to have this kneel-down-tea-session during FIL 73 yrs old birthday celebration.
With the intention of, telling him that:
- how much he loves FIL
- FIL is loved by all
- and also to put down one's ego when kneeling down.
Well, don't let yourself feeling regret later when you know that you didnt do something that you should have done when your parents are alive, right?

FIL eyes were welled with tears when hubby kneel down and hugged him.
This was followed by SILs.
Then the last but not least, VIP MIL --- the most important person in FIL life, guess he has longed for love and recognition from MIL ever since a long long time ago.

MIL was actually quite reluctant to hug FIL, but you can see that FIL quickly hugged her when MIL approached him. How cute!

Hubby said at least he has accomplished the dream of bringing FIL to China lately.
I said this is the first time I see him seeing eyes to eyes with FIL too....so encouraging! :)

A big Sadhu to Tzu Chi for bringing this wonderful inspiration.
May the Lord Buddha bless FIL, MIL and all who make this birthday celebration a successful and memorable event be in peace, love and harmony!

Kids tagging along for seminar/talks

DH and I have always brought along the girls for any events we went, ever since they were as young as 5-6 months old.

We are proud of the girls who have always behaved nicely when they tagged along for seminars/talks/meetings. They really know how to settle themselves. Tips: we have never regarded kids as 'ma huan'(troublesome) and have let them be a part of our activities when they were as young as few months old.. Having them is a gift of love and a gift of life. 感恩！:)

Well, things doesn't happen just coz i am lucky. Had a hard time when elder girl was a colicky baby when she was 2 months old. Cried non stop every night, from 7pm to 12 am, did everything that others told, from swaddling her, apply ointment on tummy, superstitious acts like knocking her bum on the door before putting her to sleep while saying some mantras, etc....
And later i came to realize that many things has got to do with parents, or usually more related to mother. 凡事有因有缘呵. :) 所以当昨晚的讲座会看到场面刁蛮的孩子时，只是打从心底对其‘不爱负责任’的妈妈有所感触。孩子是自己的，怎可教别人调教啊？感慨感慨。

June was asking about "how u can let your little one to be so coorperate when u r attending seminar or talk?"

i think the parent mindset should come first. Let not our children be our 'burden'. Let them be the source of love n inspiration. I notice a lot Chinese parents nowadays always rgd kids as 'difficult to raise'. Unlike many Malay frens, which i really learn fr them --- parenting is so natural to them coz the love towards oneself and the kids... Read More conquer all. And this sort of 'LOVE' is simply without 'ownnership'. A change of mind will change the energy and thus having more 'cooperative' child. But then, it's not about controlling them.

Cookies baking

It's school holiday time again! we got some cookies mould from "xiao yi poh".
Mummy own creation of easy baking cookies recipe:
2 cups butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
No kitchen scale used, only measuring cup, so that it's easier for the girls,
1 1/4 was a bit difficult to measure. Nevertheless, explaining between 1 1/2 and 1 cup is easier to do.

JE mixed butter and sugar together, mummy blend them together.
Then add the rest.
But then only we realize the dough is too soft for cookies, so mummy add some more flour to make it hard enough. Dont ask me how much i have added it. But it was just nice so that we can press on it with rolling pin and make cookies mould shape out of it.

So the girls make the shapes and mummy bake them in the oven at 170-185oC.
oh gosh, my oven reading has faded so much that i can hardly see the temperature reading nowadays....just agak-agak on everything. :)

The freshly baked cookies tasted to nice that the first tray was immediately gulped by all those little lion cubs!

As time goes by, they begin to loose their patience on finishing all the flour. (LESSON LEARNT: the dough is too much, should have reduced it to half of the amount so that they can finish fast.)

At the end of the session, and as they have promised, they will have to do the clean up. From sweeping the floor to mopping the floor.
But of course, shouting is inevitable.
"IF YOU DONT CLEAR UP AS YOU PROMISED, I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU HAVE ANOTHER SESSION LIKE THIS ANYMORE!!!!" ,
"CLEAN UP NOW! I SAID NOW!!!! NO MORE PLAYING!" --- coz the mop has turned into a toy to play with for the girls and you can hear giggles from them upon seeing each other act on the mop itself.

Daddy will wear 2 specs

爸爸躺着看书。
阿柔：“daddy 你再躺着看书， 就会戴两个眼睛了。”

哈哈！

Art and Craft Session at Taska Lin

This happened some time ago.
I almost forgot about it completely until JE mentioned to me again today.

Decided to let both of them have an art and craft session at Taska Lin which adopted Waldorf education system.
Teacher Lin was giving them a session on Waldorf puppet making.
This means the 6 and 3 yrs old girls will have to use needles to sew the cloths of the puppet, draw the eyes and nose and also glue the hair.
Was an enjoyable session for both of them.
And took back the puppet back.
Each session was only RM 20(plus material) and lasted about 2-3 hours.
They even had a picnic at the taska bungalow compound after that. How fun!

JE told me the untold version of the time they were there:
Teacher Lin tried to warm them up by letting them to feed the little tortoise. While holding the tortoise food, which look so cute, JV had actually had a mouth of the tortoise food. Hmmm.....must be kind of different taste, and not sure if she really gobble the whole thing in or not. But lucky that Teacher Lin saw this and took out from her mouth. Then throw back to the tortoise.

Do you think you will still remember this, Von?

Repairing CD's elastics

Repairing used and old CDs was not really what i want, but seeing those CDs being put to no use after some time is not what i want to see.
So i took up the initiative to repair them, even if they were not bought under me.
Honestly, just to put up my true feelings about the process of repairing them.
Most of them got worn out on the elastic part of the leg holes.
BG was among the easiest to repair, considering the fast that the old elastic starting point or end point are easier to locate. Easier for me to snip open it and later replace with new elastic. But honestly, honestly, i dont quite believe the whole piece is truely made in the US. The elasitc quality was of same quality as those made in else where in Asia, hmmm, u know where. :)

Blueberry, was hard to mend, considering that fact that the PUL and the fleece were sewn together and that make the elastic so much difficult to locate. Told myself, make this the last time to repair this, locating the old elastic and stretching out the new elastic was not easy eh!

I was mending the mink diaper and i was thinking , "what's the point of buying this expensive piece when you can only use it for some time? and if no one to mend this loosen elastic, this luxury piece will be a waste already? so what's the point of designing this whole master piece? to make more waste of fabric again? so that there is a repeat sale?"

Acupressure

Suppose to have a sharing with friends on acupressure this Saturday but this has got to be postponed to a date that is TBD.

Reason: becoming my own testimonial again for JV who had HFM....slack. Suppose to let you folks witness this upon learning this. but touch wood that this doesnt happen to you too. :P

Got to quarantine her and so cant be meeting you folks for a time being. ...."Sehingga Diberitahu". hehe.

This is her 2nd time, 1st time being passed down by her sis fr the kindy. Now herself getting it fr the kindy herself.

I did some acupressure last week when she was down with fever. A mild fever at 38.3oC was the signal. Wasnt really putting the HFM thing into my mind though, so we continue to let her rest at home for 4 days, then returned to kindy for 1 day. Even told her to get better so that we can go eat durian. gee...

That's another story: had durian on the 6th day morning + mangosteen. Then found out about 1 blister in her mouth on the 6th day night. Fuzzy mum and dad then only quickly went "hunting" for red spots on hand and foot.

Bingo. spotted some.....on palms.

Darn the clinic medical assistance (the usual lousy one) couldnt really diagnose this as HFM, but we know it should be HFM. Since there were already 2 outbreaks in the kindy. Cannot be coming from nowhere.

But good gracious that acupressure was performed during her feverish period and i believe that itself had slow down the outbreak of a HFM symptom.

btw, only taken homeopathy's 1 hot fever and 1 children fever(or was it sth else? cant remember well) during that time.
And she actually had vomitted out some phlegm after the acurpressure session.

The Ah Pek Si Fu had mentioned before that acurpessure is especially good for immunity system related disease...not so good for bacteria infection though. SInce HFM is related to immuno, then it might be of help.