This Precious Moment

The blog, that is.

We are moving over to Wordpress. I have been using it for Ferdinand’s blog and like its ease of use. The old posts remain here and this blog will not be deleted. But all new stuff will be posted here. 

Tried to add the following to the sidebar but did not work. sigh* But here’s the cyborgs in our house:

It’s really funny. 

Get yours here. 

We’re back! It was definitely not a straight-forward joruney, but we made it! I am grateful. We are all still in one piece’ we got all our luggages; our dear friend’s husband picked us up at the airport at 1130pm. The home is clean (well, as clean as I left it the day we left 3 weeks ago!), and the weather is beautiful. There is no need to worry about the girls getting back to school. We are on our own time.

Still! Stuff remains to be done. Still 3 luggages to unpack. And then, we gotta find space for all those books we bought! The refrigerator needs to be fed again, and so do we, we need to be nourished. Memories need to be downloaded into more tangible forms, and photos need to be organized. Words are impatient to spill out of my brain but I do not feel I have my brains yet.

The girls are doing well. They did well on the flights. They are pretty good travelers, I would say! They are happy to be home again, finding their stuff and space again. Val is the one babbling all the time about the seashells and Thailand and Singapore. Sophia is happy to reach into the books and hide in her little corner and make up songs. They have been playing outside and pulling weeds.

I am grateful. For the journey, for the girls’ experiences; for being home again. Sweet home. Messy, but sweet. I feel as if now, the year has only started for us. Lots to do, plan, think. Onward we go. 

We are leaving for Singapore tommorrow evening. Actually, 5pm we should get out of the house. The house is a mess, laundry is still churning away in the washing machine, stuff still needs to be bought; stuff still needs to be packed. Ack!! We are excited, of course- it will be the first time the girls celebrate Chinese New Year in an Asian country; and we have not been in Singapore for four years, and we will get to "visit" Ferdinand. But I am also stressed. So many things to do!

Before, we leave I wanted to upload these pictures of Val with the monster family she created. Inspired by the book "Huggly gets dressed". Huggly is a chubby green monster living underneath your bed and he wanted to try out human clothing, putting socks on his hands; mittens on his foot, underwear on his head, etc. Really, who’s afraid of a goofy monster  like this? Val made a whole family of papa, mama, sister and brother.

I am thinking we need a special section for all the books we read, but there is no time, but here’s just a few of our recent favorites:

• Peace at last by Jill Murphy
• Stars by Roy Wandelmaier
• Papa, please get the moon for me by Eric Carle (recurring fav)
• The Snow Glory by Cynthia Rylant (very funny! and has a bit of Zen to it)
• Henny Penny, various versions
• Jamaica’s Find by Juanita Havill
• Living color & Where in the Wild? by Steve Jenkins (all his books are wonderful)
• I will never not ever eat a tomato (guess who said that?)
• But, excuse me, that is my book (ditto)
• The Treasure & The Golden Goose by Uri Shulevitz (one of our fav authors)
• What is a wise bird like you doing in a silly tale like this by Uri Shulevitz
• Little Grunt and the big egg : a prehistoric fairy tale by Tomie De Paola
• Millions of Snowflakes (simple and nice)
• Gregory the Terrible eater (hilarious! must-read if you have picky eaters!)
• The fat cat sat on the mat
• Wacky Wednesday
• I can read with my eyes shut
• Squeaking of Art by Monica Wellington
• Prudy’s problem and how she solved it (hilarious esp if you have collectors like Val & Sophia)
• Little Bear’s Valentine
• Half a Moon and one whole star
• A lot of otters by Barbara Berger
• That’s Love by Sam Williams
• Who’s Hiding? by Satoru Onishi
• What’s wrong, little Pookie? by Sandra Boyton (so cute)
• Just a little bit by Ann Tompert
• The bugliest bug
• The Sneetches and other stories
• Bear Shadow & Mooncake by Fracnk Asch (his series on the moon is great)
• A Little bit of winter by Paul Stewart (sweet and cute, a bit funny)

We’re also working our way through Charlotte’s Web as a homeschool theatre group is going to put up the show and we hope to watch it!

ok, back to packing and rushing around!! 

So I did say, a few posts back, that I cannot, or more honestly- will not, sit down every evening and document my children’s every move and qualify those as learning or accomplishments. For, where is the standard? Different schools of thought have different things to say about when is the optimum period to introduce what concepts. (I also later realized in my "Year in Review" post I totally neglected to mention how nicely Sophia is able to hold her pencil and write really beautifully now; and how Val is starting to read. It is because they were not really "accomplishments" to me. No, they were BIG… big happenings… milestones really… so I dunno why I forgot to include. I guess after the initial excitement… it becomes the norm, and we no longer view it as "biggie"…)

Ralf asked if there is a chart somewhere that will detail what things a child at age 4 and 6 should be learning. And I asked him, "Do you truly think this will be useful?" Surely we could find books like that, and use that as a guideline, but if we narrow our vision to those words on the so-called chart, then we are also limiting our lives and our experiences. As well as our children’s potential. If you expect this much, usually you do not get more.

Also, how do you define learning and accomplishments? This is a tricky one. I feel accomplished if I can make an omelette without it breaking or sticking to the pan. And, is learning always a tangible thing? Something we can immediately grasp onto and pin down and show to the world? Not exactly. We have certificates from classes they have attended- from Little Gym, Herberger College for kids, music class, etc. But is it any guarnatee those things register and is a part of their life-scape? Nope. It just means we paid the fees and somewhat faithfully attended the classes. But what they got out of it… really depends. Perhaps they learn how to make friends; how to go to the toilet without mum accompanying; how to sit with their backs against the wall and listen to the teacher; how to imagine being a caterpillar; how to avoid a kid running into you, etc.

From the moment they are born, babies absorb and process information. They file them away, analyse them, store them for future reference, cross-check facts with their fellow compatriots and come up with their own schemes as to how to navigate the world. Really, they have a mind of their own. (But we like to think that we can control that mind. Or, we mistakenly think we can nurture it to its full potential by our manipulation.) They are learning all the time. And what we view as accomplishment (say, coloring within the lines, or something like that) may not be so to them. Maybe, it is an accomplishment figuring out how to quickly open the cookie tin and fish out two cookies and gulp it down within the five seconds that my back is turned, and when I turn around, I am totally clueless where those cookies vanished to. Hey, there is planning, there is timing, there is swift action and acting involved. Accomplishment, or not?

So, I make light of such matters. But actually, no, I have a deep desire to know what my little kiddos’ brains are up to. Like, why do they fight first thing in the morning; and why the messy carpet looks ‘clean" to them. And, how come they remember how many times a hummingbird’s wings flap in one second? Or, how come Val can remember lyrics so pretty well?

But I also cannot see myself diving to the computer everytime I see something I perceive as "learning" or "accomplishment" or "milestone". Hey, I should be popping the small-people-champagne with them and celebrating and relishing in the moment! I recall my early motherhood days, when Val’s every move is watched. Is she going to roll over? Get the camera ready! And then she keeps plopping back onto her back. I did not videotaped the time she first walked- exactly because we cannot always solidly pin down that glorious moment. But at least you can be there, next to them; be with them, and be happy, rejoice. The day Val walked, I remember calling Ralf and going really soft in my knees, not believing what had just happened! So much better to scoop them into my arms (while they are still a reasonable size to do such things) and rejoice and treasure, instead of sitting by with magnifiers perched on my nose, sniffing and scouting around, determined to detect anything different from yesterday and slamming that down for record. What am I truly watching for? Their accomplishment? Or mine to boast, because i am mum? And of course, everyday they are different. Every second they are not the same.

ok, so what is this occasional report about? Just my old schooly self manipulating me. Plus, I have always wanted to be a teacher. I like to write reports. But these will be random- on days when there is the space and brain power to do it. No must, no should, no gotta-do. Just a category to add to my blog, to kinda give it more, erm, structure. To jog my memory when I am old. To reminisce together when they are older, perhaps. In other words, for my own gratification and my own fun. For the sake of re-living the beautiful moments, and smiling at how my skin had tingled when we all hundled together under one blanket reading poems together.

So, ladies and gentlemen! I am done with my self-justification and aimless blather. I humbly present: The Occasional report #1 (Jan7, 2008)

• played with moon sand. The deal is they have patiently waited for three days to do this, because I was too sick in bed to take out that new "toy". They played for some 30 minutes. Well, moon sand is interesting because it will never, ever dry out (gotta love that!). It is also interesting coz it has a sandy texture but if you press it and squeeze it, it comes together, and you can press it into a mold and it comes out perfect. But it is still not as satisfying as say, playdough, or gack. It is not as malleable- you cannot pull it, squeeze it, squish it, bang on it….
• we watched a video about birds. It was short and quite interesting. Val was able to remember the facts presented in the video and repeated that to Ralf that evening: only birds have feathers’ they have hollow bones; they have different types of feathers; they lay eggs; they are vertebraes; they have no teeth; they eat small stones that helps grind up and digest food in their gizzard; some birds migrate; birds are warm blooded; the hummingbird flaps its wings 80times per second and needs to feed every 10-15 minutes; the ostrich is the largest, heaviest land bird. We are also slowly going through a series called "Life of Birds" presented by BBC and David Attenborough. Intriguing stuff. (but rather boring to Sophia. too much talking, in her opinion!)
• started playing the recorder. This one called back a lot of memories for me. But anyways, we have been looking at musical instruments, and the recorder actually caught Val’s attention. Other thing is, she said she wanna learn how to play the flute. So they each got a recorder, with an instruction book. They have learned how to play 2 notes and Val is keen to start learning tunes. They are having a lot of fun with it.
• read a ton of books but too lazy to find the titles right now.