Stew For Dinner

CK likes to cook beef stew and eat with spaghetti. Today I made naans to eat with the stew. The kids like it, surprisingly.

Art Class @ Home (4)

Alfee's Beach

Sophie's Beach

Shoot

Technology is always fun and addictive I find. We are still fooling around with our new Olympus camera. we say that we want to learn how to use it so that we can teach the kids but deep down, it's fun for us.

CK is very happy that he's starting to appear more often in our family photos. And since the quality of the pictures are now a lot better, he didn't quite mind using the Olympus. Move aside, Leica.... for a while, please?! 

But of course, nothing beats CK's Leica shots. Today, Ah Boh wanted to take Sophie to Kinokuniya shopping. There's a 20% storewide sale so Ah Boh wanted to support the bookstore. Alfee stayed with us even though we were in the vicinity. Unfortunately, he's a little too active to be shopping with the girls.

More photos back home. My kids are quite photogenic if they are in a good mood and stay still enough to have their pictures taken. 

PTC @ Mayflower Primary

It's our termly PTC at Sophie's school and it went very smoothly. We arrived 30 mins earlier but we left in less than 1 hour. The form teacher trained the children to do the talking during the session. Sophie had to explain some of the things they have done in class and talk about her experience in class. Her form teacher also gave us feedbacks.

In general, Sophie is doing well in class. She learns well and pays attention. The form teacher noted that Sophie's very helpful and kind. She's making a particular shy child feel very happy in school. In fact,  she feels that Sophie has leadership qualities.

Only issue is Sophie hates to learn by memorising so her multiplication tables suck big time. I always know that she will challenge this in a traditional school environment. It's quite important to memorise certain things so that the mind can be freed up to deal with the problem solving process.

My experience with the Chinese teacher was not as pleasant though. She seems to think that we (parents) are not doing enough to encourage kids to learn Chinese. She is insistent about the approach adopted by the school and tries to push for learning via technology. I remember telling her that I don't want Sophie to rely on computer due to her eyesight issues.

Sophie is quite similar to us in terms of learning. Both of us dislike 10 yrs series or learning by hard. I was particularly stubborn about answering questions truthfully. Like me, Sophie picked topics in oral exam based on truth while others just talked about the easiest topic. How can I correct her if I tend to agree with her?

'Piak'???

Poor Alfee! He came home yesterday from school with a slight fever, then it broke into angry looking rash. By night, his palms and soles were covered with red spots. So we sent him to the GP and she confirmed it's HFMD, even though there's no blisters or ulcers.

Today, his rashes are even more extensive. He itches big time and his temperature fluctuates around 38 degrees. I took him to see TCM Dr Wong and she said his body is too heaty and it's a form of 'piak'. What's that in western medicine? When we were young, our parents talked about 'chuk piak', 'jiak muay', 'zheng dao' (chicken pox) and 'sair zua' (shingles). We never quite knew what's 'piak' though.

In the evening, CK took him to another GP for a second opinion. Apparently he hasn't got hfmd. The doctor suspected it's a food allergy because the symptoms are inconsistent, sharing traits of different kind of rashes. I did introduce a new kind of probiotics 2 mornings ago so it could be me.

Ck and I have very different views about our health and the treatments we should seek. He wants me to ditch the tcm and just take the antihistamine. I want to follow my tcm doctor's instruction and 调 his body. No matter what, he will never believe those supplements I have been giving the kids or tcm work. And if the new probiotics is the root cause, I think I can forget about ever convincing him. It's tough to get along when we don't agree on many things. 

Masking Tape Resist

I saw some masking tape resist craft ideas and decided to try a simple one out with the kids before dinner. 

I took the opportunity to teach Alfee how to apply his strokes properly. Despite all his shortcomings, he's very receptive when I teach him. I can't say the same for Sophie who tends to insist on her own ways, even unconsciously.

In the end, both of them created pictures that are quite interesting. They aren't exactly what I have envisioned, but I guess it's not too bad.

Alfee's Work

Sophie's Work

Birthday Party

Alfee's classmate invited him to his 5th birthday party and CK took him. Sophie wanted to tag along but I insisted against gate crashing. Instead, I took her shopping for clothes.

After 1.5 hours of shopping, she told me her mind wanted to go home but her heart wanted to stay. Upon hearing that, I ditched the original plan of dining out with CK and Alfee after the party and headed home. Both of us were tired and wanted to go home.

I'm quite proud to have successfully cooked some Thai curry today. And tge kids abd CK ate a lot... to my surprise. WOOHOO! While I was preparing dinner, CK got Alfee to wash the car at the carpark.

Once Lost, Now Found

Alfee took out the propellers of his play mobile helicopter a few months ago. It should not have been such a big deal but it was. He did it without me knowing and my helper just dumped all the parts, including the two red screws that hold the propellers in place, into a container. Over time, other toys and stuff were dumped into the container. Yes, my helper is not very helpful when it comes to this. And by the time I got to know what had happened, the two screws were effectively lost. Since then, I have been searching high and low for the two elusive screws. It was particularly challenging when I had no idea how they look like and new things were dumped into containers daily. 

Today, I finally found the screws! Yay! It feels great! Now, my itch is gone!

Art Class @ Home (3)

Sophie's Butterflies

Alfee's Butterflies

Counsellors Unite @ Halia Restaurant Raffles Hotel