The Big Four Zero

I'm turning 40 next week! Someone called me freakin' old! Hahaha! But I don't feel old! Hardly! I'm always stuck somewhere in time in my 30s, my mind that is, not my body. Hehe.

So, how does it feel to be 40? Great! Simply Great! And they say women want to hide their age. Whatever for?

I feel great at 40, much better than 30s or 20s. (for me personally that is). In my 20s, I felt incredibly lonely. In my 30s, I was still struggling to find myself. And now approaching 40, I have discovered myself. My relationships are better. Even my relationship with Mr MG is more stable now. We used to fight a lot before we were married and fighting is no fun.

I feel more complete now, especially with my little ones. I feel and I think I look better too. Heck! I even feel sexier at 40 than when I was younger. Though I may not look it. Hahaha! Sexy is all in the mind folks, its all in the mind (although a good body helps too so never ever let yourself go)..... which reminds me that I must do my exercises more diligently. So I won't be posting for the rest of the week as I concentrate on teaching my girl and doing my keep fit and keep trim exercises. My self discipline to do my exercises has been waning after my weight dropped. Theres only that many hours in a day. So if I want to do all of those other things, I've got to blog less. Oops! I digressed. I'm very good at that. Very "cheong hei" (Long winded) I am.

Back to my topic on the big FOUR ZERO. I'm more confident and I'm more daring and less timid than when I was younger too. Yup! 40 is definitely a great number. No doubt about it. Happy Birthday to me! Where else accept on a blog am I crazy enough to wish myself a Happy Birthday.. and its not even my birthday yet! Lol!

Lesson Funnies

Yesterday's Lesson

Yesterday we learned the concept of "health".

There was a page in her activity book which showed healthy and unhealthy foods. I explained to her which types of foods were unhealthy ie snack foods and sweets which I told her would not make her grow but would spoil her teeth instead. I also told her that eating vegetables will help her to go to the toilet and she remembered that today (although I don't think it will make her eat her vegetables).

There was another page which showed pictures of healthy and unhealthy activities. Healthy activities included skipping, gymnastics and jogging. Unhealthy activites showed the picture of a child sitting at the computer playing pc games.

Later that day, when she found mummy in front of the pc.... "Mummy, you can't do that. Thats unhealthy!" (*MG slaps forehead*)

Today's Lesson

Today's lesson got interrupted halfway by smelley poo from baby! I left her to do some work but she finished it so quickly that halfway through cleaning baby I got interrupted by "Mummy, finish already!" Now didn't I say that I'm always being interrupted?

There was a page which required her to draw a star. I discovered that my girl has an impatient streak in her. She was having difficulty drawing a star and I was trying to teach her but she hardly looked, eager to try it out herself. Gosh! I didn't know it would be so difficult trying to teach someone to draw a star! A star is a lot harder to draw (for a child) than it looks. We tried several times unsuccessfully, so going to postpone the star drawing and work on other simpler drawings first.

She read well both yesterday and today.

I'm happy with the way lessons are progressing. Hopefully I can keep it up!

Teaching is hard!

Hubby commented that I need to teach my girl in a more structured manner. He suggested that I wake her up earlier to teach her for about 2 hours before baby wakes up! *Faints* He also mentioned that I haven't been reading to baby very much, at least not as much as I used to read to my girl at his age. Thats true. Poor baby. Hubby also said that I have time to read story books but not to baby! Ah! That man. Just because I'm not working, he usually feels that I'm not doing enough for the children when I do things for myself. Once he said to me "Why do you blog? It doesn't do anything for the family?" Aiyoh! I told him "I blog for me because it makes me happy." To me taking care of myself means I can take care of the family better.

Ok. So now he got me all hyped up about teaching my girl. The fact that I feel a little bit guilty for spending time on myself instead of the kids aside, I do feel excited about teaching her because she is at a ripe age for learning and very eager to learn. I am eager to teach her but I don't know where to start! Theres languages, math, science, social studies, arts, music. My goodness where to start?

I got excited reading about home schooling. I went to the bookshops to browse and was disappointed at the incomplete series of books available. I guess I need to do a little bit more research on this but for the time being we have started "lessons" at home. The "lesson" went well today. First we read a little bit (from the hand-me-down Peter and Jane Ladybird books), then we did some activities (a mixture of math and other things) followed by some writing practise. I wanted to start her off for just 15 minutes first since this is our first day but she seemed to enjoy it so we carried on for 45 minutes. Baby was very good too. He sat down at the table with us and watched us happily.

For now my objective is to get her into the habit of sitting at the same place everyday to "study" for a fixed period of time. I want to show her that learning is fun so she can experience the joy of reading her storybooks on her own. I want her to feel a sense of achievement as the words on her book begins to make sense to her. Hubby says he will leave it to me but I think he is of the opinion that I need to also show her that life is not all about play and sometimes we need to do things we don't like as well. I think I will leave that important lesson for a little later.

At the moment she can write her numbers as well as alphabets from A-Z both capitals and small letters. She can write her own name and some other simple words. So I'll just have to build on that. I'm very excited but at the moment the teaching task seem daunting. And I'm merely talking about teaching a pre-schooler! I need to give this more thought. Thats the benefit of staying home. My mind is not distracted by other things. And I hope to be able to establish a lifetime love for learning in her. I don't think its too early to start and I will try my best. I will try my best to show her that learning is not a chore but a joy.

But in order to do that, first, I must learn.....how to teach!

The Right Balance

The Right Balance

Author: mumsgather

Teaching children is a delicate thing

Of finding the perfect balance

To love and protect our offspring

Versus freedom and disciplining

I love my kids sometimes too much

But loving also means letting go

I have to release my clutch

So they may be independant and grow

My natural instinct is to protect

But sometimes I have to stand back

And let them fall so they learn to stand

Self assured without my helping hand

I have to teach them right and wrong

But my discipline cannot be too strong

Causing the children to rebel

When all I want is for them to excel

And so I give them the freedom

To learn to do things on their own

So they may have the self confidence

To solve their problems when they are grown

While I stand quietly in the background

Always making sure I am around

To love, nurture, support and guide

So they always have someone to confide

What inspired my poem today:

We are currently teaching my girl to eat on her own. And so I have to close my eyes and ignore all the mess and worry about her not getting enough food and harden my heart when we discipline her for playing with her food or refusing to eat. (Disciplining in this case means no dessert and no playing with a toy of her choice or not having mummy play with her after dinner while she whines and pleads endlessly for me to play with her and boy can she plead!).

It is so much easier to do things for the kids ie to feed them, pick up their toys for them, button their clothes and tie their shoelaces, pick them up to carry instead of letting them dawdle. So much easier and faster. But as a mum, my duty is to guide and teach the kids how to do things on their own. This means having the patience to stand in the sidelines and watch them struggle, mess up and play while they are at it, in other words to let them do it at their own pace.

Later on when they face problems at school with teachers and with peers, as a mum I need to teach my children how to solve their own problems and to provide them with the confidence and the ability to do it. As parents we cannot solve their problems for them and protect them forever no matter how much we want to.

This reminds me, at the playground, I often have to close my eyes and let my partner handle the kids as I tend to become overprotective. I'd have palpitations watching them play and have to struggle very hard not to rush to hold their hand. I think dads are much more relaxed and better at letting go then mums. Maybe I'm wrong about this?

I have seen a few parents who love their children too much with my own eyes. Someone I know was loved too much by his parents, so much so that they never allowed him to do anything on his own. Now they are gone and his sisters are still taking care of him and teaching him how to take care of his own ailing health. He never married and he got his first job as a petrol attendant only after his parents died.

Another person I know who is a few years younger than me and the youngest child was loved too much by his parents, they shrugged away and forgave his laziness and tardiness in school and as a result he did not do as well as his siblings at work. He married and continued to live with his parents and has now divorced because his wife could not get along with his mother.

Its a fine line, loving but not loving too much.

For every action there is a reaction

In my previous post, I was talking about going beserk when my girl wets the bed at naptime. Now we usually wake up from nap about the time when hubby comes home from work. So occassionally the moment he walks in the house, he is greeted with the scene of a grumpy sleepy old lady carrying a pile of sheets, a wet crying girl and another crying baby who just woke up and is not happy about being ignored.

The other day when I wrote the post, hubby's action was like this. He came in, took off his tie, set his briefcase down, removed his shoes, washed his hands, then goes quietly to my girl to help her take off her wet clothes. Then he takes her to the shower to rinse the urine off her, takes a new set of clothes from the cupboard and helps her put it on while talking gently to her. "Its ok. Next time try to tell mummy you want to go to toilet to shh shh ok?" Whenever I happen to walk pass him, he gives my shoulders a gentle squeeze and say "Its ok. I know its hard." After that he picks crying baby up and says "Come to daddy!" He does all this despite having had a rough day at work. I know because he told me about his day afterwards. Whats my reaction to that action of his? Woohoo! He is the man! I love him to bits and pieces for being so wonderful. My frustration goes away (after a while). I pick baby up to hug and kiss (as baby was struggling to find mummy. Poor daddy!) Then I go and prepare dinner happily for everyone while feeling bad for my girl.

Sometimes however, I get this action from the hubby. He frowns. He tells me he has a bad day and thinks he can come back to some peace and quiet only to be greeted by more chaos with his wife shouting at his daughter and the house in disarray, sheets hanging over the furniture everywhere to dry. He tells me to have more patience with the girl, in front of the girl. When baby cries harder for me, he tells me that happens because I spoil them thats why. And what is my reaction to this action? Even if I may not say it aloud, I'm thinking "Yah, you try to do this and see whether you can remain patient. You think you're the only one who has had a hard day?" I could go on and on with the negative train of thoughts that goes through my head. I go and prepare dinner with a scowl on my face and during dinner when baby spits out his food and my girl plays with her food and get them all over herself, the table and the floor, I become even grumpier and so does he and we wear black faces whenever we pass by each other. And should he pass a remark about how the girl isn't feeding herself because I have not trained her well..... a words war will follow :P

Lol! This is a just example but it happens. The way we act towards another, be it our spouse, our co-workers, our friends, relatives and children really matters. You can influence how other people react to you simply by changing the way you act towards others. I was writing about my different reactions towards the way hubby acts towards me in a specific situation but this is actually a reminder to myself to act better towards those that matter to me because how I act will elicit different responses or reactions from them. So watch it MG. Watch how you behave all of the time as you can influence your surroundings and ultimately your own day and happiness simply by changing the way you act towards others!