Toilet Tales of a 5 year old

Caution: Proceed only if you're not having a meal while reading

MG: Come on, lets wipe that bottom. (After a poo trip to the loo/toilet)

My Girl: Yes, its dirty because got "mm mm" (poo) and "shi shi" (pee) too. When you "mm mm" and "shi shi" at the same time, the "mm mm" will melt and everything will become smooth smooth.

On another occassion.......

My Girl: Mummy look! Got two small "mm mm" and one big "mm mm"

Eww... Have I spoilt anyone's appetite? LOL!

Indoor Treasure Hunt - Activity for a rainy day

Not sure what to do with the kids on a raining day? The kids are stuck indoors and bored stiff? They are starting to whine and getting really cranky? So what do you do? Try an indoor treasure hunt.

This is a great activity for a rainy day when you are stuck indoors with the kids. My kids are under 5 so we made the treasure hunt very simple. Here's what we did.

1. Write clues on 6 pieces of paper (You can vary the number if you like)
2. Fold the 6 pieces of clues and hide them in interesting places like toys and furniture (Tip: If your child is a beginner reader; when you make up the clue, make sure you use words like "under" , "inside" , "on top of" , "behind" etc to encourage interest in learning to read and understand the meaning of the words. eg: "The next clue is under the carpet." Explain to them if they need help.)
3. Then hide the "treasure" (make it a small treat like a piece of chocolate or a small toy) when you reach the fifth clue. That clue should lead your child to the treasure.

The kids love the game and the treasure when they got to it. It gives them a sense of achievement and they learn describing words along the way. This treasure hunt activity is easy and quick to set up and perfect for a rainy day.

I got the idea for this game when my girl requested for it after reading about the treasure hunt game that Peter and Jane were playing when she was reading her Peter and Jane books under the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme.

I'm sharing it here and hope that you can enjoy this game with your child too. Have a nice day and thank you for reading my blog.

MyBlogLog

I've just joined MyBlogLog for the fun of it. I love to try out new things on my blog and since a big name like Yahoo has acquired MyBlogLog recently, I figured that its worth a try. Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product strategy at Yahoo, said “Every publisher wants to know his readers, and the readers want to find out about each other. It’s the power of implicit networking.”

What I like about it so far is the little widget right at the bottom of my sidebar which shows me the pictures of my recent readers but beyond that, I'm still wondering whats the point of it. Lol! I see some familiar faces and a lot of new faces and everyone is sort of playing Peek-A-Boo with each other as they drop by to say "Hi and Bye". Beyond the ego thing of watching your blog communities and contacts grow, so far, I'm not really sure what else I can do at MyBlogLog. Can anyone tell me?

I'll keep stick around for a while and test it out just like I did with Haloscan for its trackback feature (until I found out that my comments disappear after 3 months under my free account) or my tagboard (which I deleted after I got too many pop-up ads appearing on my site). Anyway, what I really like about blogging is the fact that its really dynamic and I'm learning lots of new things, terms and skills everyday.

Cut and Paste Word Count for Paid Posts

This post is for all those bloggers out there who write paid posts. As you all know, one of the most basic requirement for any post is the number of words. Usually it starts from as low as 50 (yippee!) to as high as 300 (must think twice before writing). So how do you all do your word count?

Previously, I used to do the dumb thing and did finger counting. Yup! Serious! You heard me right. In this day and age of advance technology where you can do almost anything online, I was dumb enough to do a finger word by word count. Pretty time consumming and very stupid!

Anyway, I've wised up and found a cut and paste word count site so I'd like to share it here. Its very simple. All you have to do is cut and paste your blog post into the example box provided then click "Calculate Words" and hey presto you've got your word count, just like magic. I usually write a little extra say 10-20 words just in case so that I won't get it wrong. Wouldn't want my post rejected because of that! So, how do each of you do your word count?

I want this NOW!

Baby has learned a new word. The word is "now". All throughout the day, I can hear him say....

"I want to eat NOW!"

"I want to play NOW!"

"I don't want to sleep NOW!"

"I want to drink NOW!"

"I want to brush teeth NOW!"

"I want to bathe NOW!"

And guess who he learned the word from?

"You two, stop playing NOW and come here right NOW!"

I'm trying to teach him that its bad manners and rude to talk to people in this manner. ( a little belatedly, since he learned it from me. :P ) His sister is a big help. Everytime I tell him that its rude to talk like that, she will chip in and give an example to him by asking politely.....

"Can I play with the toy, please?"

.... to which I will reply. "Thats a very nice way of asking. Yes, you may have the toy since you asked so nicely."

She is delighted to be praised so she tries to help me teach her little brother to ask nicely whenever she can.

Note: I'm not sure why he has suddenly started talking in this manner. He used to be very polite and ask nicely all the time with a "please" eg "Can I eat now, please" etc. I guess he is just testing his limits and trying out this new word that he has learned to see if it works. (*rolls eyes*)

New Age Nursery Rhyme Music

One of my girl's favourite nursery rhymes sites has had a revamp or facelift so I'm adding the new link here to share with other parents. The site Mother Goose Rocks has many cute animated nursery rhymes.

The nursery rhymes are sung by today's biggest make believe superstars and features nursery rhymes music with a new twist. Some of the animated nursery rhymes include the following:

• Wheels On the Bus by Mad Donna (a.k.a. Madonna)
• Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes by ME2 (a.k.a. U2)
• Mulberry Bush by Gwen Stuffunny (a.k.a. Gwen Stefani)
• Old Woman In a Shoe by Share (a.k.a. Cher)
• Humpty Dumpty by Chewygummee (a.k.a. Chumbawumba)
• Pat-A-Cake by Diamond (a.k.a. Jewel)

The music can be found on a dvd but some of it is featured free on the site. Since the site has had a revamp, I'm not sure how much longer it will be available for free so better check it out soon. To make it easier for you, here is a quick link to some of the more popular pages (my girl's favourite new age nursery rhymes music) from Mother Goose Rocks.

Cooking For Children

Cooking for children is a different ball game altogether from cooking for adults.

Cooking for babies require extra care and cleanliness. Everything must be clean, the cooking utensils as well as the food of course. Food needs to be cooked till its mushy, blended, and sterelized. A lot of work is involved.

Cooking for toddlers and preschoolers require lots of imagination and creativity to make the food look attractive enough to eat. Toddlers are a picky lot when it comes to food. I usually try to "hide" vegetables and other food they dislike in the kids' favourite foodsl. I would hide fish in mashed potatoes. I would hide carrots and asparagus in omelettes. I would hide mushrooms and cabbages in fried fish or prawn fritters etc and they get eaten up that way when they would be untouch in their original form. It can also be frustrating when your hard work and "creativity" gets spit out all over the table and floor!

Cooking for adults is the simplest form of cooking there is but when your household has a baby, a toddler or preschooler and adults too, then cooking becomes rather challenging! Luckily for me, my household now consist of two adults, a toddler and a preschooler so the cooking for baby part is no longer required. Phew!

Creating Happy Memories With The Children

The other day as I was boiling some soup, I had a strong flash of memory...... of my mother feeding me with the little red dates she was using to boil soup. The dates tasted so good to me (because mum was feeding me, not chasing me away from interrupting her cooking). I tasted those I held in my hand and the memory became stronger and I smiled to myself.

Mum died when I was 10 so that particularly memory that was so strong must have been when I was younger than 10. I don't remember other things about mum, like the conversations we had etc because I was young when she died but its things like that which memories are made of.

With this memory, I would like to remind myself that whenever the children come to "disturb" me when I am doing a task like the laundry, cooking or other housework like sweeping, I should involve them instead of telling them to "go away, don't disturb me, mama is busy can't you see?"

Recently when we were cleaning our new house, I gave each of them a cloth and asked them to help me wipe. They were delighted! They wiped everything including, the floor, the railings, the furniture and their faces afterwards with the same cloth! I just had to close one eye to that and allow themselves to enjoy helping and smile at their antics because memories are made of these special moments.

Bad influence from fairytales?

"....... I wanna eat chocolate. I wanna eat chocolate. No, you cannot, said daddy. Naughty daddy. Got car. The car bang daddy. No. Got plastic. We kick daddy into the plastic never to be seen again......."

I overhead my girl reading this "story" to herself right after her daddy scolded her and forbade her from eating yet another chocolate right after dinner. My goodness! What a violent story! I wonder where she picked up all this violence from?

She hasn't started attending preschool yet and we really don't watch that much tv or violent shows so her main influence is .................... me! Oh dear. Oh dear. Or maybe its those numerous story books she has. Yes, yes that must be it! Some fairytales can be quite violent you know.

Afterall, the fox ate up poor gingerbreadman, chicken licken and his friends never did get to tell the king that the sky had fallen because they got eaten up by the fox as well, two out of three of the three little pigs got gobbled up by the wolf and little red riding hood almost met with the same fate too. Then there is Jack who chopped off the giant beanstalk and sent the giant to an early grave never to be seen again after he had stolen and casually ran off with the giant's golden egg laying goose. Need I go on?

The Digital Age

I received this remark from my girl recently.

"Mummy, mummy, hurry up. This will make a good picture. Faster come and take a photo for me and baby and all the animals. We are having a party."

She and baby had arranged many pillows around themselves to form a "house" and put all their animal toys near them.

Me thinks their mummy has been taking too many digital photos of them. Even she has started to look out for good photo opportunities! *rolls eyes*

Budding little con artist

Scene: Dark comfy room, everyone ready to go to sleep.

Baby: Mummy, I wanna eat ammal biskets. I wanna eat ammal biskets two times. I wanna eat ammal biskets ten times.

MG: Go to sleep baby. You can eat your annimal biscuits for breakfast tomorrow morning when you wake up ok?

Baby: Ok.

A moment later....

Baby yawns, stretches then....

Baby: Mummy, I wake up adi. I wanna eat ammal biskets.

LOL! My baby is growing up so fast........to become a little con artist!

Whats up with blogger these days?

I've been having problems with my blogger recently. The problem of disappearing posts. Its so frustrating.

I type a post then save it either in draft or publish it and then I can't find it. Poof! Its disappeared into thin air. All my thoughts and hard work typing. Grrrrr! That makes me so mad. I hate retyping. Worse, I can't retype some because I've forgotten. This happens when I hit publish to an earlier draft.

And to top it all, I still cannot switch to the new blogger account. Double Grrrrr! And the internet connection is still unreliable. Geez! Aren't I grumpy today?

Compliment or Insult?

While I was at the hair salon, I had this conversation with the hairstylist.

Hairstylist: You are very lucky! Your hair is very nice. You don't have any white hair at all.

MG: Oh, the white hair will come soon.

The hairstylist beamed probably thinking that she had paid me a compliment. I wonder, did she realise that she had actually insulted me instead? She was indirectly telling me I look old, old enough to be sporting white hair!

Boo Hoo Hoo!

New Hairstyle for the New Year

I haven' t had my hair permed for several years so I decided to have a perm for the New Year just for the fun of it. (or rather for several hours of time alone to hide away from the kids!)

When I got back.......

My Girl: Mummy, you look like a mermaid.

MG: Nice or not, mermaid?

My Girl: No. Not nice.

MG: Why?

My Girl: I want you back to normal. (then tears began to well up her eyes)

I think I must either have looked horrid or she thought I was going to turn into a mermaid and swim away. Children don't lie so I don't think the new hairstyle looked very nice to her. Better think twice before perming hair again. LOL!

The Honk if you're a Malaysian contest

I love contests. I think I've said that before many times. In fact, recently I won something again. Nothing much, just some toiletry products. Its just the thrill of winning that I like.

Well, now I'd like to join another contest. Its the Honk! Honk! contest. How to participate? If you've read "Honk! If you're Malaysian", all you have to do is write a review on your blog. Or, if you have not read the book, you can help spread the news about this contest like what I'm doing now. ( Sorry lah Lydia, I haven't read the book, not from lack of interest but from lack of time! But if I win the contest than I can take my own sweet time to read it eh? *hint hint* LOL!)

Closing date for this contest is on 19 January 2007. If you haven't read the book and would like to know more about it, read all about the book's successful launching on 16th December 2006 here. "Honk! If You're Malaysian" written by Lydia Teh is a sequel to "Life's Like That" and takes a humorous look on slices of Malaysian Life. Lydia is a mother of four and she still has time to write books. I am full of admiration for her and thats another reason why I'm joining this contest, to support a fellow mommy.

Simple Flower Craft for Kids - Crepe Paper Carnations

We received a gift hamper for Christmas. It had its basket handle wrapped up in red crepe paper so we saved those to make a simple flower craft. I still remember making simple tissue paper flowers in school which looked very lovely but I had forgotten how to make them. A quick search on the web came up with many great sites with step by step instructions (and pictures) to make simple crepe paper or tissue paper flowers. Here are the links to some of these sites.

Kids Creativity Portal
Kinderart
Enchanted Learning
Therapy Resources Inc

You can play around with materials and colours for lovely results. We made our crepe paper carnations with leftover or recycled red crepe paper from our gift hamper, some straws and green tape. Then we put them in their little toy teapot which doubled up as a vase. As usual, my girl wanted me to spray the completed crafted flowers with some perfume to make them seem more real so we just that. LOL!

Not only are these flowers simple and fun to do with the kids, they look good enough to decorate your home with. You can make these simple flowers in red or pink to decorate the house for Chinese New Year which is just round the corner.

This flower craft is simple to make and takes up very little time. We did ours in less than 10 minutes. For lazy mums like me, you might also like the fact that its not messy. No glue or glitters involved.

Place the crepe paper carnations in a toy teapot to decorate your child's room

Place the crepe paper carnations in some deocrative cans or vase for an interesting table top centerpiece