To Me, jewel is a very nice place, and i love it. So, today I'm going to note down this nice experience at jewel.............So, early in the morning, I took the bus to terminal 1 (I think), and went up the escalator. I saw the sign and went to the vortex. Next, I went to the food court and it was called five spices or something. At first I thought it was a restaurant but it wasn't. Then I went to play. At night, I watched the night vortex show. It was full of glowing lights! It had been an enjoyable day!
Friday, March 19, 2021
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Ting Ting development @ 8 years old
It’s been a long while since I last update. Been very busy with my life. However when it comes to my precious little gal, she is always the priority.
Ting Ting is now 8 years old. How time flies! It seems like yesterday when i just gave birth to her. This blog was started to commemorate the journey of her arrival to our family. It started with us blogging about her when i was expecting her till she was born and her growing up journey through the years. Lo and behold, she is now one of the contributor of the blog and she managed to blog her very first entry by herself!
She discovered about this blog recently. She was sharing that she wanted to create a time capsule when she grows up next time. It was such a coincidence that she mentioned time capsule which was the same name as this blog. So we shared with her about the existence of this blog and she was so excited and wanted to read it. She got so inspired after reading the blog entries that she asked to be one of the author of this blog too so that she can blog her entry. So yes, this is her first blog entry on her very own Ting Ting time capsule blog!
I find it meaningful to blog together as a family. Didn’t expect that this day will come so soon. That my little gal can now blog by herself from her own perspective. I shall look forward to read her blog entries π.
The time of the year is here again. It’s her 8th year old birthday! This year we had 2 celebrations again. The 1st birthday celebration was held at my aunt’s house. My aunt and cousin bought her a cake to celebrate her birthday together during CNY as her birthday this year falls during CNY period. They bought her a baby G watch which was so sweet of them. They doted on Ting Ting a lot!
The cake from my aunt & cousin. They bought her a baby G
watch for birthday present too
The 2nd birthday celebration was on her actual birthday. We booked Sofitel Hotel and had a small and intimate birthday celebration with her in the hotel room together with my husband and my mother. We had the staycation for 2 days 1 night. The hotel rooms were spacious, clean and swanky. The rooms came with bathtub which is her favorite as she likes soaking in it. Personally, I don’t really like soaking in bathtub, but well, since it was her birthday and she wanted it so much, so we tried our best to fulfill her wish. Her daddy even bought her Sumiko Gurashi bath bomb for her to enjoy in her bathtub soak. Sumiko Gurashi is her favorite anime now, so everything evolves around Sumiki Gurashi haha.
There was nothing much to do in the hotel except for swimming and relax. We enjoyed our stay. The hotel was so nice to prepare a mini birthday cake for her and the cake was yummy! We also bought her her favourite strawberry cake topped with her favorite Sumiko Gurashi figurines. She was so happy as she get to arrange her figurines topping on the cake! Those Sumiko Gurashi figurines were specially ordered and bought by her daddy just for her to decorate her birthday cake. So much love for her π.
The Sofitel hotel room. Very spacious and nice!
The bathtub in the hotel room. Her favorite! Her Sumiko Gurashi bath bomb
She had a blast swimming! The mini birthday cake from the hotel
Her strawberry cake decorated with full of her favorite Sumiko Gurashi figurines! She was so ecstatic!
At T-play, she had so much fun!
We just hope that she have a fun and enjoyable childhood. After all, she is just a little child who loves to play, play and play haha. We may have doted on her a lot and showered her with lots of love, but we are also firm with boundaries when necessary too. We believe in warm, loving yet firm parenting approach. Seeing her growing up everyday gives us so much joy. We are so blessed to have her in our family and life! With lotsa love from daddy and mummy π.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
My first entry
Hi I'm Ting Ting (the one my mom was talking about). my mum hasn't blogged in a while, though. So, anyway I am P2 now and learned typing. And that's how I got here. So I've read some of my mother's entries and got inspired to make my own entry.
I made a book about Among Us with my primary school friend and turned out pretty well.π We were thinking of making another book. Too bad me and my friend only made 1.π We named it The Speedrawers!
Friday, April 10, 2020
What the world needs now....
Have you heard about this song "What the world needs now is love"? I liked the Jackie DeShannon version.
With the current state of the world due to the COVID-19 situation and environmental crisis (global warming, sea level rising, animals extinction and etc), I guess what the world needs now besides love, is commonsense.
The world needs leaders who have commonsense, compassion, empathetic yet with courage and bold enough to make radical changes to turn over the earth's fate from self-destruction by human beings.
The earth needs leaders who dare to challenge our existing belief systems of consumption model - consuming, producing, buying, spending to sustain economic growth at the expense of the earth. This is because, in order to support this consumption model and belief, countries encouraged population growth as more people means more consumption and more consumption means multiplier effects which ultimately brings to GDP growth and good looking numbers.
Commonsense tells us that higher population growth means the world needs to produce more food, more infrastructure, more houses and more energy to sustain the population. That will means more forests need to be clear for land to build houses, infrastructure, and food. More oil need to be extracted to produce energy to sustain the infrastructure and utilities. More seas need to be combed for fishing. The high demand for resources from our mother earth due to excessive consumption had severely strained our ecosystems, causing disruptions to weather, global warming, ice cap melting and sea level rising which threatened human species survival. The virus outbreak was also due to the transmission of virus from exotic animals to human beings due to the consumption of wildlife animals which is a result of this consumption model and belief. Human beings are consuming way beyond our needs due to the need to consume to support the delusion of growth and wealth.
Commonsense tells us that this consumption model is not sustainable because the earth resources are finite. Consumption model also drives anxiety and fear into people's psychology as we are too used to consume and loss our ability to create and creation is the key to survival. Thus as the virus outbreak progressed, many people exhibited anxiety and fearful behaviour of buying and hoarding food and supplies because deep inside, everyone knows that the earth resources are finite and can run out someday. Thus people resorted to hoard the supplies for survival because we are too used to consuming and loss the ability to create for self-sufficiency and survival. We are all the end product of this consumption model.
Commonsense tells us that if we don't change our belief system, living habits and lifestyle, human beings are headed to self-destruction which many scientists and researchers been warning us through the decades and the dooms day scenario was also depicted in many movies though the years too. However we are too entrenched in group thinking and loss our ability for critical and independent thinking for commonsense.
Commonsense tells us that this COVID-19 virus could be air-borne due to the evidence of China had to resort to locking down one of its main city to prevent the virus spreading out to affect other parts of the country, wide spreading of the virus within the cruises and to many more countries. Yet the first thing our country leaders did was to tell people not to wear masks if not sick and not even a cloth mask as the cloth mask has 0 effects of blocking virus. Which in my humble opinion was not true as it depends on the cloth mask material. Instead of putting efforts to think of ways to create and invent reusable cloth masks with suitable material which may help, they disregarded people who suggested the need for wearing mask and shamed people who wear mask (evidence of one high profile minister leaked audio of mocking HK leader of wearing mask).
They continued to maintain this mantra even after some doctors came out to strongly recommend wearing masks to prevent spreading of the virus. They can attribute it to some reputable organisation advise, but the question is why countries like Taiwan, Macau are able to do things differently which help to prevent the virus from spreading in their countries? When the outbreak first started, their countries' leaders advise their people to wear mask and even ration them to buy mask and did not follow that organisation advise fully. They are able to exercise their commonsense to identify the problem accurately and dare to take bold action swiftly and proactively.
Whereas for our country, what we witnessed are reactive measures which they took actions progressively as things got worse... This showed how our country leaders are getting out of touch with the reality and unable to identify the problem early and accurately to take actions swiftly. But well, one thing positive is that they had the courage to own up their mistakes to reverse their previous flawed position. Hopefully it is not too late. Perhaps getting another minister with a good track record of handling crisis with commonsense thinking and bold to take proactive actions to take over heading the taskforce will help to put it back on track.
This COVID-19 situation had reflected that nations which have the ability to create is the key for survival in this new era. It is only through the ability to create basic needs (e.g. food, water, energy) then we can self-sustain during trying times to survive. Because when such epidemic outbreak, all countries will want to protect their own interest first and countries which relied heavily on imports and foreign workers will be the first to be affected.
For nations and human beings to survive, I believe that there need to have radical change in belief systems to shift from consumption to creation model. Creation could means growing plants and vegetation in a sustainable manner which could provide food to humans and greenery to the earth. Creation by using amino acids and vegetables to create healthy, meat-alike food so as not to adopt cruel practice of rearing and killing livestocks excessively to satisfy humans' wants. Creation by finding ways to tap on existing free and clean energy (E.g. solar power) to power up utilities to reduce air pollution. Creation to reuse and recycle our existing resources into something new. Creation with compassion and empathy towards fellow human beings, other living species and mother earth. That will be the key to survive in this era, if not within the next 20 years, we may be the last species to witness the end of human, flora and fauna on planet earth, if mother earth decided that enough is enough.
Reflecting on a post I made few years back about a children book review. It is very relevant at this time.
https://tingtingtimecapsule.blogspot.com/2015/11/children-book-review.html
With the current state of the world due to the COVID-19 situation and environmental crisis (global warming, sea level rising, animals extinction and etc), I guess what the world needs now besides love, is commonsense.
The world needs leaders who have commonsense, compassion, empathetic yet with courage and bold enough to make radical changes to turn over the earth's fate from self-destruction by human beings.
The earth needs leaders who dare to challenge our existing belief systems of consumption model - consuming, producing, buying, spending to sustain economic growth at the expense of the earth. This is because, in order to support this consumption model and belief, countries encouraged population growth as more people means more consumption and more consumption means multiplier effects which ultimately brings to GDP growth and good looking numbers.
Commonsense tells us that higher population growth means the world needs to produce more food, more infrastructure, more houses and more energy to sustain the population. That will means more forests need to be clear for land to build houses, infrastructure, and food. More oil need to be extracted to produce energy to sustain the infrastructure and utilities. More seas need to be combed for fishing. The high demand for resources from our mother earth due to excessive consumption had severely strained our ecosystems, causing disruptions to weather, global warming, ice cap melting and sea level rising which threatened human species survival. The virus outbreak was also due to the transmission of virus from exotic animals to human beings due to the consumption of wildlife animals which is a result of this consumption model and belief. Human beings are consuming way beyond our needs due to the need to consume to support the delusion of growth and wealth.
Commonsense tells us that this consumption model is not sustainable because the earth resources are finite. Consumption model also drives anxiety and fear into people's psychology as we are too used to consume and loss our ability to create and creation is the key to survival. Thus as the virus outbreak progressed, many people exhibited anxiety and fearful behaviour of buying and hoarding food and supplies because deep inside, everyone knows that the earth resources are finite and can run out someday. Thus people resorted to hoard the supplies for survival because we are too used to consuming and loss the ability to create for self-sufficiency and survival. We are all the end product of this consumption model.
Commonsense tells us that if we don't change our belief system, living habits and lifestyle, human beings are headed to self-destruction which many scientists and researchers been warning us through the decades and the dooms day scenario was also depicted in many movies though the years too. However we are too entrenched in group thinking and loss our ability for critical and independent thinking for commonsense.
Commonsense tells us that this COVID-19 virus could be air-borne due to the evidence of China had to resort to locking down one of its main city to prevent the virus spreading out to affect other parts of the country, wide spreading of the virus within the cruises and to many more countries. Yet the first thing our country leaders did was to tell people not to wear masks if not sick and not even a cloth mask as the cloth mask has 0 effects of blocking virus. Which in my humble opinion was not true as it depends on the cloth mask material. Instead of putting efforts to think of ways to create and invent reusable cloth masks with suitable material which may help, they disregarded people who suggested the need for wearing mask and shamed people who wear mask (evidence of one high profile minister leaked audio of mocking HK leader of wearing mask).
They continued to maintain this mantra even after some doctors came out to strongly recommend wearing masks to prevent spreading of the virus. They can attribute it to some reputable organisation advise, but the question is why countries like Taiwan, Macau are able to do things differently which help to prevent the virus from spreading in their countries? When the outbreak first started, their countries' leaders advise their people to wear mask and even ration them to buy mask and did not follow that organisation advise fully. They are able to exercise their commonsense to identify the problem accurately and dare to take bold action swiftly and proactively.
Whereas for our country, what we witnessed are reactive measures which they took actions progressively as things got worse... This showed how our country leaders are getting out of touch with the reality and unable to identify the problem early and accurately to take actions swiftly. But well, one thing positive is that they had the courage to own up their mistakes to reverse their previous flawed position. Hopefully it is not too late. Perhaps getting another minister with a good track record of handling crisis with commonsense thinking and bold to take proactive actions to take over heading the taskforce will help to put it back on track.
This COVID-19 situation had reflected that nations which have the ability to create is the key for survival in this new era. It is only through the ability to create basic needs (e.g. food, water, energy) then we can self-sustain during trying times to survive. Because when such epidemic outbreak, all countries will want to protect their own interest first and countries which relied heavily on imports and foreign workers will be the first to be affected.
For nations and human beings to survive, I believe that there need to have radical change in belief systems to shift from consumption to creation model. Creation could means growing plants and vegetation in a sustainable manner which could provide food to humans and greenery to the earth. Creation by using amino acids and vegetables to create healthy, meat-alike food so as not to adopt cruel practice of rearing and killing livestocks excessively to satisfy humans' wants. Creation by finding ways to tap on existing free and clean energy (E.g. solar power) to power up utilities to reduce air pollution. Creation to reuse and recycle our existing resources into something new. Creation with compassion and empathy towards fellow human beings, other living species and mother earth. That will be the key to survive in this era, if not within the next 20 years, we may be the last species to witness the end of human, flora and fauna on planet earth, if mother earth decided that enough is enough.
Reflecting on a post I made few years back about a children book review. It is very relevant at this time.
https://tingtingtimecapsule.blogspot.com/2015/11/children-book-review.html
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Updates 2018 - Present
It's been 2 years since I last blogged. So many things happened during this 2 years. To catch up on the happenings for the past 2 years:
2018
Ting Ting
Ting Ting was 5 years old. She developed so fast and I lost track of her developmental milestone as I missed blogging about it. So a bit regret now...Anyway, I will pick up where I left. I remembered that I was struggling to manage her emotional outburst during this period. The difficulty to manage her emotional outburst also set me thinking if I been a good mother. A lot of self-doubt and stressors.
Work
A mixture of good and bad year for me. Experienced a traumatic incident @ work. Was emotionally affected. However sometimes, it is only through experiencing and overcoming challenges that we grow. Through the incident, I built more insight about myself, learnt to accept things as it happened and letting go of some unhelpful thoughts and felt better. Guess the reason I could get over it so fast despite what happened was also because of the support of my supervisor and bosses at work. Most importantly, my family is my greatest support. Really thankful of the helping hands extended to me during that period.
It was not an easy year but we managed to scrap through.
2019
Ting Ting
Ting Ting was 6 years old. We finally decided to withdraw her from the Yamaha piano lessons. It was not an easy decision as we already invested quite a substantial amount for the past 2 years and it was a great pity to give up.
However, as the piano lessons progress, she started to display resistance. As it was conducted in a group setting, she had difficulty to catch up with the teachings. We witnessed her from dragging to attend to finally refusing to attend despite us using soft tactics. She won't even respond to positive reinforcement like rewards to bring herself to attend the lessons.
What really compel us to make the decision was one of her meltdown outside the centre. That really set us thinking what do we as parents hope to achieve by imposing our will upon our child when she was so resistance to attend and in distress mode? What is our intention of getting her to attend piano lessons? Is playing piano her interest and strength? What are our hopes for our child as parents in the first place?
Our original intention of enrolling her to piano class was because she showed interest in music and singing, and furthermore, we read about learning music at young age helps the child development cognitively and emotionally. But well, our good intention did not turn out to be intended.
Our hopes is simply for her to be happy and find happiness in doing things which interest her, allowing her to apply and develop her strengths and passion. So how can she be happy when we imposed upon her to do what she disliked to do? After weighing our priorities, we decided that her happiness is the most important to us. Thus we withdrew her from the piano lesson.
After stopping the piano lesson, I noticed that her temperament improved and able to better control her emotions, thus lesser outburst. So we decided to take it easy and pace with her interests. She wanted to attend art lesson as she has a passion for drawing. She can draw quite well for her age and she's been drawing everyday consistently. The things she drew can be things like flowers, houses, family, Disney characters and comics. She also enjoys attending Akido lesson as there is one Akido centre near my house and every time she passed by, she will keep looking at it and so interested. Therefore we had enrolled her to the arts and Akido lessons. There is a spark difference of her attitude when attending the lessons now. Totally 0 resistance and most importantly, she enjoyed the lessons.
She is able to read books by herself already. Her favourite collection was Dork Diaries. I remembered when she started sharing with me about her crush in her preschool, I was so shock. What does a 6 year old child knows about crush? But well, I learnt not to be reactive towards her sharing. The fact she willing to share means she felt safe. Thus I encouraged her to share more about her crush and what she likes about her crush to understand her better. She told me that she liked her crush because that boy was kind, humorous, likes to joke but not trying to be funny. Oh well, I guess I need to constantly learn and relearn parenting knowledge and skills to cope with her developmental and emotional needs.
She had grown to be a sociable gal, able to make friends with ease and open to share about her likes and dislikes. I observed that she seems to be more matured than her friends. Often, she talked like an adult and able to hold conversation with others
She finally graduated from her preschool. She performed well during her year end concert. We were so proud of her.
Work
It was a relatively ok year for me. I was able to better manage the stress @ work and felt less stressed as I gained more competency. I finally decided to take the plunge to take my Masters by doing one module first in the last quarter of 2019 to improve my professional knowledge and skills. Took 1 module to test waters first if I could cope with the work and family commitments. I managed to pass the module with quite good results. Felt pleased about it and I shall continue to work hard for the rest of my 5 modules which I be starting in 2020.
2020
Ting Ting
She started her P1, which is a major transition for her from preschool to primary school. The year started with a mishap. She was sick after Christmas towards the end of Dec19. She had sudden high fever which lasted for 2-3 weeks, and the doctor diagnosed her as having bronchitis It stretched till she started school. Thus she had to skip her school opening and missed her first 2 weeks of class. We were so worried about her as this strain of fever was so persistent and we had to go KKH A&E twice and saw the GP twice. First time she was sick for so long too.
However upon her recovery, she quickly adjusted to the school environment despite the late start up. She likes going to school and shared that her form teacher is the nicest teacher she ever had. She now have great interest in Math which is to my surprise as she had not appeared to be interested in Maths previously. Her report card showed that she achieved "accomplished" in every category in her Math subject too surprisingly. It shows that having a good teacher is important to cultivate interest in the child's learning.
She is also able to integrate well socially in the school. Except that she was disturbed by one girl in her class who displayed some dismaying behaviour (e.g. showing others her poop, touched other classmates with her saliva and other unhygienic behaviours). She was also disturbed by her student care centre teacher who shouted at and scolded them whenever they misbehaved and she was implicated too.
We tried not to intervene in her school affairs and matters as we believe in letting the child to learn how to cope and manage differences and conflicts. She has to learn her way as we parents cannot always be with them to help them solve the problems. Instead, we make it a habit to listening to her stories in school everyday to let her share and ventilate, providing the emotional support instead.
Recently I got a shock when she told me that one of her boy "friend" from another class asked her to be his girlfriend and she agreed. That little boy I know him too as we used to have family gatherings together and outings as our families are quite closed. I know they are 2 little good and closed friends, but when first hearing this...I was like..."Oh my goodness"! Imagine as a mother when your young daughter only 7 years old told you such things.... But well, even though internally I was shocked and that motherly anxiety arise about the possible problems, but I decided to hold back and instead tell myself that probably they don't even know what does boyfriend and girlfriend means. It could be they are just fond of each other as friends which is quite normal for their age. Therefore, I hold back my anxiety and instead projected a amuse and curious stance to understand how she feels and her thoughts about this "boyfriend / girlfriend" thingy, and keep the conversation open. I think it is important for the child to feel safe and open to share with parents about their issues and that would help the parents to provide the necessary support and guidance for them when needs arise.
Work
Felt more able to cope with the stress and workload nowadays as I'm focusing more in my self-care. Enjoying my studies and learnt a lot for my professional and personal development. I see this year as an opportunity for me to unlearn, learn and relearn. A lot of ideas come into my mind and I shall share if time permits.
Oh well, that's our updates in the past 2 years.
2018
Ting Ting
Ting Ting was 5 years old. She developed so fast and I lost track of her developmental milestone as I missed blogging about it. So a bit regret now...Anyway, I will pick up where I left. I remembered that I was struggling to manage her emotional outburst during this period. The difficulty to manage her emotional outburst also set me thinking if I been a good mother. A lot of self-doubt and stressors.
Work
A mixture of good and bad year for me. Experienced a traumatic incident @ work. Was emotionally affected. However sometimes, it is only through experiencing and overcoming challenges that we grow. Through the incident, I built more insight about myself, learnt to accept things as it happened and letting go of some unhelpful thoughts and felt better. Guess the reason I could get over it so fast despite what happened was also because of the support of my supervisor and bosses at work. Most importantly, my family is my greatest support. Really thankful of the helping hands extended to me during that period.
It was not an easy year but we managed to scrap through.
2019
Ting Ting
Ting Ting was 6 years old. We finally decided to withdraw her from the Yamaha piano lessons. It was not an easy decision as we already invested quite a substantial amount for the past 2 years and it was a great pity to give up.
However, as the piano lessons progress, she started to display resistance. As it was conducted in a group setting, she had difficulty to catch up with the teachings. We witnessed her from dragging to attend to finally refusing to attend despite us using soft tactics. She won't even respond to positive reinforcement like rewards to bring herself to attend the lessons.
What really compel us to make the decision was one of her meltdown outside the centre. That really set us thinking what do we as parents hope to achieve by imposing our will upon our child when she was so resistance to attend and in distress mode? What is our intention of getting her to attend piano lessons? Is playing piano her interest and strength? What are our hopes for our child as parents in the first place?
Our original intention of enrolling her to piano class was because she showed interest in music and singing, and furthermore, we read about learning music at young age helps the child development cognitively and emotionally. But well, our good intention did not turn out to be intended.
Our hopes is simply for her to be happy and find happiness in doing things which interest her, allowing her to apply and develop her strengths and passion. So how can she be happy when we imposed upon her to do what she disliked to do? After weighing our priorities, we decided that her happiness is the most important to us. Thus we withdrew her from the piano lesson.
After stopping the piano lesson, I noticed that her temperament improved and able to better control her emotions, thus lesser outburst. So we decided to take it easy and pace with her interests. She wanted to attend art lesson as she has a passion for drawing. She can draw quite well for her age and she's been drawing everyday consistently. The things she drew can be things like flowers, houses, family, Disney characters and comics. She also enjoys attending Akido lesson as there is one Akido centre near my house and every time she passed by, she will keep looking at it and so interested. Therefore we had enrolled her to the arts and Akido lessons. There is a spark difference of her attitude when attending the lessons now. Totally 0 resistance and most importantly, she enjoyed the lessons.
She is able to read books by herself already. Her favourite collection was Dork Diaries. I remembered when she started sharing with me about her crush in her preschool, I was so shock. What does a 6 year old child knows about crush? But well, I learnt not to be reactive towards her sharing. The fact she willing to share means she felt safe. Thus I encouraged her to share more about her crush and what she likes about her crush to understand her better. She told me that she liked her crush because that boy was kind, humorous, likes to joke but not trying to be funny. Oh well, I guess I need to constantly learn and relearn parenting knowledge and skills to cope with her developmental and emotional needs.
She had grown to be a sociable gal, able to make friends with ease and open to share about her likes and dislikes. I observed that she seems to be more matured than her friends. Often, she talked like an adult and able to hold conversation with others
She finally graduated from her preschool. She performed well during her year end concert. We were so proud of her.
Work
It was a relatively ok year for me. I was able to better manage the stress @ work and felt less stressed as I gained more competency. I finally decided to take the plunge to take my Masters by doing one module first in the last quarter of 2019 to improve my professional knowledge and skills. Took 1 module to test waters first if I could cope with the work and family commitments. I managed to pass the module with quite good results. Felt pleased about it and I shall continue to work hard for the rest of my 5 modules which I be starting in 2020.
2020
Ting Ting
She started her P1, which is a major transition for her from preschool to primary school. The year started with a mishap. She was sick after Christmas towards the end of Dec19. She had sudden high fever which lasted for 2-3 weeks, and the doctor diagnosed her as having bronchitis It stretched till she started school. Thus she had to skip her school opening and missed her first 2 weeks of class. We were so worried about her as this strain of fever was so persistent and we had to go KKH A&E twice and saw the GP twice. First time she was sick for so long too.
However upon her recovery, she quickly adjusted to the school environment despite the late start up. She likes going to school and shared that her form teacher is the nicest teacher she ever had. She now have great interest in Math which is to my surprise as she had not appeared to be interested in Maths previously. Her report card showed that she achieved "accomplished" in every category in her Math subject too surprisingly. It shows that having a good teacher is important to cultivate interest in the child's learning.
She is also able to integrate well socially in the school. Except that she was disturbed by one girl in her class who displayed some dismaying behaviour (e.g. showing others her poop, touched other classmates with her saliva and other unhygienic behaviours). She was also disturbed by her student care centre teacher who shouted at and scolded them whenever they misbehaved and she was implicated too.
We tried not to intervene in her school affairs and matters as we believe in letting the child to learn how to cope and manage differences and conflicts. She has to learn her way as we parents cannot always be with them to help them solve the problems. Instead, we make it a habit to listening to her stories in school everyday to let her share and ventilate, providing the emotional support instead.
Work
Felt more able to cope with the stress and workload nowadays as I'm focusing more in my self-care. Enjoying my studies and learnt a lot for my professional and personal development. I see this year as an opportunity for me to unlearn, learn and relearn. A lot of ideas come into my mind and I shall share if time permits.
Oh well, that's our updates in the past 2 years.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Review of 2017
It's really a very delayed post of my review of what happened last year. But then, I don't wish to give up detailing our journey, so here it is.
1. Ting Ting development
Despite being so busy with my studies and work, I'm always keeping my eye on her well-being and development. I'm really proud of her development.
a) Reading
She can now read a book by herself independently. She can read those stage 3-4 books by herself and can recognised complex words. She did it all by herself without any special intervention. It just happened gradually. I guess the consistent reading books regime at night helps a lot. Up till now, we will still read books every night together without fail. This has become our fixed regime and an intimate bonding time to cuddle together to read books every night.
b) Conversing
She speaks well, and often, I received compliments from my friends or relatives and sometimes even strangers (cos she likes to mingle with their kids) that she can speak relatively well for her age.
c) Social
She likes to make friends. She will shared with me who are her best friends in school and not so best friend and etc. I noticed she can make friends easily now as compared to previous. For e.g. whenever we bring her to a new playground, she will try to mingle with other kids and made friends with them and played together. All these were done by herself without our interventions.
d) Learning
She loves going to her school (Childcare centre) now. Her teachers also shared with me that she is progressing well in the school and marked her learning as excellent (5 stars!) for topics relating to English language. But well, for Mandarin, she still got a long way to go haha. She only got 3 stars for her Mandarin learning. Oh well, what an irony. Her mummy, used to be a 5 stars student for Mandarin, and 2 stars student for English lolx....So Mandarin is something I need to continue working on with her.
e) Changing and bathing
She can now change clothes and bathe by herself. So actually, I don't really need to do much. And this really helps to relieve my caregiving a lot as she is independent.
f) Emotional regulation
She could manage her emotions better with lesser tantrums and outbursts. She can comprehend better why sometimes we unable to accede to her requests as we explain to her. I felt that even though she is still at young age, but then, we cannot treat her like baby and brush her off without proper explanation on the rationale why certain things cannot be done according to her wishes. However at times, she still had some of her outbursts, which recently i found a better way to manage that, but that will be in another posting for 2018.
g) Roller Skating
She took up roller skating class and she loved it! She was able to roller skate independently by the 2nd lesson. Her instructor also shared with me that she is pretty fast for her age as compared to the others. So far I noticed that she can advanced very fast and well in physical activities like cycling, scooting, roller blading. It is good that she takes after her daddy in this aspect π.
h) Piano
She took up the Yamaha Junior Class as we felt that it will help her in her development especially emotional regulation. So far she is showing progress but of course needs more practice. This class is also good for us as parents too. As we can get to learn together with her as one parent need to sit in with the child during the lesson. So me and hubby takes turn to go in with her, and in the process we both learn how to play piano too. It makes the $$ worthwhile haha π
2. Studies
I finally completed my graduate diploma studies! Yeah! And I managed to get quite good results too in which I was consistent in achieving the same GPA every semester. It actually surprised me considering the challenges of my increased workload, and the juggling of my family committment. This is something which I'm happy that my hard work had paid off! But I think what helped me in this process, was the support i had from my family especially my mother and husband. Especially during times I need to do my assignments, they will help to manage my gal so that I could concentrate in doing my work. Family support is especially important to me and I'm really thankful and grateful for the love and support I have which helped me completed my studies with good results.
3. Parenting
Despite the busy schedule, we took time to attend parenting talks and course together as this was an area of our conflict. I must say, attending such parenting talks and course works for us as we are now more calibrated in our parenting approach. We both agreed to cut down on giving our gal gadgets and limit her exposure on screen time. We were also more aware of our parenting styles and learned how to cultivate a more warm yet authoritative parenting style. I think this is really a good progress for our parenting and marital relationship too.
4. Work
Work load is increasing as my honeymoon period was over (long ago) haha. At times, there were frustrating moments about the work process, systems and etc, coupled with school workload (tight assignments dateline). It was a really stressful period. Looking back, I don't know how I managed to scrap through that.
I guess it helps with having supportive and understanding supervisor and bosses which I'm really thankful of. This really helps a lot in navigating through the work environment and stressors especially when working with some challenging situations. There are bound to have challenges in human relations I think, as human beings are complex. Sometimes, things which I thought is simple and straightforward, could be interpreted differently by others. Something which I'm still trying my best to adapt and learn. Anyway, it is difficult to please everyone I think. I shall continue to focus in my work, as this is something which I'm passionate about and hope to make a difference!
5. Social
Despite having busy schedule, I managed to reconcile the previous conflict with my group of long time friends and had regular gatherings with them, celebrating each other birthdays. Come to think of it, 30 over years of friendship is really something to be cherish. We all knew each other at a very young age, when we were innocent and silly. We knew one another inside out, and accepted each and everyone of our flaws. It is not easy to maintain friendship of more than 30 years.
I also made some new friends with my neighbours and Ting Ting classmates' mothers. It's been a long time I made new friends haha. I'm actually an introvert. But because of my gal, I yearned to connect with other parents to learn about their parenting and exchange ideas, so that helps in opening up myself.
6. House renovation
Remember i was sharing my Home Improvement Project idea previously? Yes, I managed to fulfil that as well, with minimal wastage and cost. What I did was to redesign all my bedrooms, shifted around my furnitures, removed some old shelvings and bought some new furnitures. We also did some painting by ourselves, which I'm extremely proud about it. We bought the odourless paint due to its minimal VOC level. All in all, we spent < $500 for the mini renovation and we got a much more spacious space for our bedrooms. This was something which I'm really happy about!
Conclusion
2017 was a stressful and hectic year for me. But I'm glad that I'm able to achieve most of my goals which I had set at the beginning of the year, with the strong support of my family! There are 2 goals which I did not managed to hit, but i shall not give up. I had made some new goals for myself including the unfulfilled goals of 2017 at the beginning of this year. I hoped with discipline and determination, I can achieved these goals!
Wish me luck! π
1. Ting Ting development
Despite being so busy with my studies and work, I'm always keeping my eye on her well-being and development. I'm really proud of her development.
a) Reading
She can now read a book by herself independently. She can read those stage 3-4 books by herself and can recognised complex words. She did it all by herself without any special intervention. It just happened gradually. I guess the consistent reading books regime at night helps a lot. Up till now, we will still read books every night together without fail. This has become our fixed regime and an intimate bonding time to cuddle together to read books every night.
b) Conversing
She speaks well, and often, I received compliments from my friends or relatives and sometimes even strangers (cos she likes to mingle with their kids) that she can speak relatively well for her age.
c) Social
She likes to make friends. She will shared with me who are her best friends in school and not so best friend and etc. I noticed she can make friends easily now as compared to previous. For e.g. whenever we bring her to a new playground, she will try to mingle with other kids and made friends with them and played together. All these were done by herself without our interventions.
d) Learning
She loves going to her school (Childcare centre) now. Her teachers also shared with me that she is progressing well in the school and marked her learning as excellent (5 stars!) for topics relating to English language. But well, for Mandarin, she still got a long way to go haha. She only got 3 stars for her Mandarin learning. Oh well, what an irony. Her mummy, used to be a 5 stars student for Mandarin, and 2 stars student for English lolx....So Mandarin is something I need to continue working on with her.
e) Changing and bathing
She can now change clothes and bathe by herself. So actually, I don't really need to do much. And this really helps to relieve my caregiving a lot as she is independent.
f) Emotional regulation
She could manage her emotions better with lesser tantrums and outbursts. She can comprehend better why sometimes we unable to accede to her requests as we explain to her. I felt that even though she is still at young age, but then, we cannot treat her like baby and brush her off without proper explanation on the rationale why certain things cannot be done according to her wishes. However at times, she still had some of her outbursts, which recently i found a better way to manage that, but that will be in another posting for 2018.
g) Roller Skating
She took up roller skating class and she loved it! She was able to roller skate independently by the 2nd lesson. Her instructor also shared with me that she is pretty fast for her age as compared to the others. So far I noticed that she can advanced very fast and well in physical activities like cycling, scooting, roller blading. It is good that she takes after her daddy in this aspect π.
h) Piano
She took up the Yamaha Junior Class as we felt that it will help her in her development especially emotional regulation. So far she is showing progress but of course needs more practice. This class is also good for us as parents too. As we can get to learn together with her as one parent need to sit in with the child during the lesson. So me and hubby takes turn to go in with her, and in the process we both learn how to play piano too. It makes the $$ worthwhile haha π
2. Studies
I finally completed my graduate diploma studies! Yeah! And I managed to get quite good results too in which I was consistent in achieving the same GPA every semester. It actually surprised me considering the challenges of my increased workload, and the juggling of my family committment. This is something which I'm happy that my hard work had paid off! But I think what helped me in this process, was the support i had from my family especially my mother and husband. Especially during times I need to do my assignments, they will help to manage my gal so that I could concentrate in doing my work. Family support is especially important to me and I'm really thankful and grateful for the love and support I have which helped me completed my studies with good results.
3. Parenting
Despite the busy schedule, we took time to attend parenting talks and course together as this was an area of our conflict. I must say, attending such parenting talks and course works for us as we are now more calibrated in our parenting approach. We both agreed to cut down on giving our gal gadgets and limit her exposure on screen time. We were also more aware of our parenting styles and learned how to cultivate a more warm yet authoritative parenting style. I think this is really a good progress for our parenting and marital relationship too.
4. Work
Work load is increasing as my honeymoon period was over (long ago) haha. At times, there were frustrating moments about the work process, systems and etc, coupled with school workload (tight assignments dateline). It was a really stressful period. Looking back, I don't know how I managed to scrap through that.
I guess it helps with having supportive and understanding supervisor and bosses which I'm really thankful of. This really helps a lot in navigating through the work environment and stressors especially when working with some challenging situations. There are bound to have challenges in human relations I think, as human beings are complex. Sometimes, things which I thought is simple and straightforward, could be interpreted differently by others. Something which I'm still trying my best to adapt and learn. Anyway, it is difficult to please everyone I think. I shall continue to focus in my work, as this is something which I'm passionate about and hope to make a difference!
5. Social
Despite having busy schedule, I managed to reconcile the previous conflict with my group of long time friends and had regular gatherings with them, celebrating each other birthdays. Come to think of it, 30 over years of friendship is really something to be cherish. We all knew each other at a very young age, when we were innocent and silly. We knew one another inside out, and accepted each and everyone of our flaws. It is not easy to maintain friendship of more than 30 years.
I also made some new friends with my neighbours and Ting Ting classmates' mothers. It's been a long time I made new friends haha. I'm actually an introvert. But because of my gal, I yearned to connect with other parents to learn about their parenting and exchange ideas, so that helps in opening up myself.
6. House renovation
Remember i was sharing my Home Improvement Project idea previously? Yes, I managed to fulfil that as well, with minimal wastage and cost. What I did was to redesign all my bedrooms, shifted around my furnitures, removed some old shelvings and bought some new furnitures. We also did some painting by ourselves, which I'm extremely proud about it. We bought the odourless paint due to its minimal VOC level. All in all, we spent < $500 for the mini renovation and we got a much more spacious space for our bedrooms. This was something which I'm really happy about!
Conclusion
2017 was a stressful and hectic year for me. But I'm glad that I'm able to achieve most of my goals which I had set at the beginning of the year, with the strong support of my family! There are 2 goals which I did not managed to hit, but i shall not give up. I had made some new goals for myself including the unfulfilled goals of 2017 at the beginning of this year. I hoped with discipline and determination, I can achieved these goals!
Wish me luck! π
Ting Ting 4th Birthday!
It's been a long while since I updated this blog. Last year 2017 was especially hectic for me. I had been very busy juggling between my work, school and family.
Even though I'm busy, but when it comes to my precious gal, my priority is always for her, especially it's her birthday!
She's 4 last year, but I didn't managed to blog it. So this is a follow up posting of our last year celebration for her 4 year old birthday. We had 3 birthday celebrations again! One is for immediate family, where my cousin bought a Hello Kitty Cake for her and we celebrated together. Another one is celebrated at her childcare centre where she could celebrate with her little friends. She chose a Paw Patrol cake as Paw Patrol was her favourite cartoon character lolx!
The 3rd celebration was we went to Sentosa for a staycation for 3 days 2 nights to celebrate her birthday, visiting Kidszania and Sea Aquarium. Thereafter, we went to River Safari and Singapore Zoo too.
It was an action packed 4th birthday celebration for her!
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| Hello Kitty Cake bought by my cousin. So nice! |
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| Her 1st celebration at my aunt's house. |
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Her 2nd celebration @ childcare centre with her Paw Patrol cake!
At Sea Aquarium
Making soap
Making pizza
Viola! Here's my end product!
Making burger
Being a doctor
A dentist
A firefighter
Street parade!
A model!
Spending my hard earned $$!
At River Safari
Taking the cruise
Full frontal of the panda haha
Panda bun
Its overpriced...but oh well
At the Singapore Zoological Zoo. She loves feeding the pony!
 
Look, what is that?
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