Car Journey with the kids - Part I

I was a little worried about how we would manage travelling with the kids but it turned out fine. As before, we left the house early in the morning at about 6am. We took the kids out of their beds still dressed in pyjamas and half asleep straight into the car. My girl woke up and chatted for a while while my boy stayed asleep while we carried him from bed to car. My girl went back to sleep after a while.

They both slept for the first 2 hours of the trip and woke up at 8am where we made a brief stop for breakfast. I spent the next 2 1/2 hours slowly changing out of their pyjamas into their Chinese New Year new clothes, playing and chatting with them. We arrived at our hometown at 10.30am and went straight back to the old house where the relatives were waiting with the kids still bright, fresh and cheerful.

Nothing to it at all. The journey home was a different story though. I'll talk about that in another post because this post is getting long.

Chinese New Year told in Pictures

What is Chinese New Year?

Chinese New Year is red lanterns hanging at the temple

Chinese New Year is lion dancers everywhere

Chinese New Year is food glorious food

Chinese New Year is cookies for the kiddies

Chinese New Year is families getting together

Chinese New Year is trying to catch a brief moment of solitude away from the noise and the bustle

Chinese New Year is watching a rainbow in the sky while driving back from visiting relatives at your hometown

Chinese New Year lasts for 15 days culminating on Chap Goh Meh (15th day) with lots of merriment, family get togethers, festivities, hustle and bustle and joy. Today is the 9th day of Chinese New Year. So to the Chinese folks reading this blog, do enjoy the rest of your Chinese New Year celebrations.

Animated Lion Dance Chinese New Year Card 2007

Someone sweet (you know who you are) sent me this cute animated Chinese New Year greeting depicting a lion dance for the kids to enjoy. They enjoyed it and so did I. Really puts me in the Chinese New Year mood to beat the drums harder and harder and watch the lion prace around and dance. So cute!

To all visitors of this blog, Happy Chinese New Year to you all and I hope you enjoy the animated lion dance.

Travelling with the kids

We will be travelling long distance in a car with the kids soon. I'm now busy thinking of a plan to entertain them during the journey. I remember the last time we set off on a journey. We left very early, at about 5am in the morning. Took them out in their pyjamas and they continued sleeping in the car.

The car was cool at this time of the day and it was still dark. The driving motion helped them sleep. By the time they woke up, we were half way to our destination. So we stopped for a meal. After that they were wide awake. So we sang songs, counted cars, trees, looked at car number plates and colours and ate. Yes, food is a good form of entertainment in the car for this lazy mama.

How do you entertain your kids on a long journey? I will be happy to receive more tips from experienced parent travellers.

Festivals are more merry with kids

I love to celebrate festivals with the kids. I love to create the excitement for them. We would talk about the festival and what we would do and I love to see the look of anticipation on their little faces.

They are getting all excited now to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We talk about the foods that we are going to eat, the new clothes we would wear, the relatives we will visit. It gives us a lot of things to chat about and it gives the kids something to look forward to. Come to think of it, it gives us the adults something to look forward to as well.

Talking to the kids, leading up to the festivals are a fun way to teach them about the festivals (as if I know a lot). Anyway, since I don't know a lot, I make sure I read up and learn about them myself so that I can teach the kids about their culture and to value and be proud of being part of that culture.

You can read a child from their drawings

This is a recent drawing my girl drew of her daddy. He is wearing a tie, his specs and driving home from work. (According to her that is). The rectangle thing on the left is a tall building. (because we used to live in one). She drew one of me too (with the curly mermaid hair) and we (she and I) had a good laugh about it but I misplaced it so I can't post it. :(

You can tell a child from their drawings. Their "artwork" are very nice and interesting to keep as keepsakes. Its a good thing that I have a blog to keep them. Otherwise, my house will be full of clutter. Haha. At the moment, my boy just draws circles, so I'll post his drawings later when they make more sense. Lol!

For now, my girl's drawings usually consist of her family, her house and car and usually we all wear happy faces. Hehe. Thats a good sign, I suppose. Sometimes she adds in some scenery like flowers or a road, clouds, sun or rain.

Apart from drawing's I can also tell if she's unhappy or otherwise when she pretends to read. After a scolding, her "stories" would contain sentences like "and her mummy said go away! and she cried and cried (making sobbing sounds) ......" etc. Thats when I know I have to tone down the scoldings.

Sick again!

The whole family is sick again. Runny noses, coughs, on and off slight fever. Yup. Its the sick not so merry go round again. Started with me. I passed it on to Mr MG. He passed it on to baby. Baby passed it on to my girl. Baby passed it on to me. So now, we've all got it at various stages.

Its the time of the year made worse by the weather and the food. I fall sick every year around Chinese New Year. This year we got it early. Lets hope we all are able to recover before Chinese New Year. Bleh!

In the meantime, its Valentine's Day, so Happy Valentine's Day to all who visit this blog. Here's a rose for you.

Doing more things together with the kids

Its been searing hot. We took our old carpet out to the porch, sprayed water on it, threw soap powder over it and brushed. After that we sprayed more water and the kids had so much fun jumping on the carpet and making the water splash over their feet.

Cleaning time is the only time they get to "play with water" without being scolded so it was double the fun for them. We used to live in a high rise before so there was no porch to do such fun stuff with them. It looks like we'll be washing our car more often now, with their help. Lol!

The sun was so hot, despite the carpet being dripping wet and very, very heavy with water, it dried up in one afternoon. Imagine what the sun would do to your skin if you were out all day?

Switched to the New Blogger

I've been switched to the new blogger. I was not allowed to sign in unless I switched and so switch I did. It took all of 2 minutes and everything was done. All my add-ons and other customization stayed intact. Phew! *wipes cold sweat off forehead*

I was dreading this day for months worrying about losing my layout etc and having to redo everything. I even went to change the template on my other blog to make it more "switch friendly" because I had problems switching earlier. I was worried that the template that I was using was not compatible with the new blogger. Hmm..... should have left my old template intact.

Now, I'm still running on the old html code because I'm so worried about trying out the new ones and having to waste time redoing everything. (my various add ons). Feel really silly for having switched but not trying out the new blogger but no time to mess around with templates these days.

The Same Shoe

Since I blogged about my girl's first high heels, its only fair that I blog about my boy's shoes too. LOL!

We had some trouble finding the right pair of shoes for him when we went shopping for Chinese New Year. He was disappointed! He cried and cried and said he wanted new shoes. He just didn't understand why we weren't getting him any when we had promised we would. Poor baby!

Eventually, we managed to find him the right pair. Its the same one as the current pair he is wearing. Hahaha. Its just a cheap pair. One of those you find in the discount racks that they throw about and everyone digs in wildly like its free or something. We just couldn't find another pair which we thought looked good and was comfortable.

We like his current pair (although they're not the most comfortable) but he is used to it so we got him the same pair. He seemed happy enough that we bought him a new pair of shoes (just like his sister) even though they're the same pair, thankfully. Lol!

Her first high heels

We got my girl her first "high heels" for Chinese New Year. I'm not sure why but we've always dressed her up in jeans and T-shirts and not dresses. We're so used to see her in this attire that when she wears dresses she doesn't look like our girl to us. Lol! Most of her few dresses are hand-me-downs from her cousins.

She had a cute little pink flower sleeveless sundress from her aunts and we loved see her in it and thats probably her most worn dress. She's usually in sneakers or sports shoes because we think its more practical for little girls so they can run around freely without worry of tripping and injuring their feet.

However for this Chinese New Year we got her a pretty dress and little dress shoes to go with it. She's delighted! She's happy to wear shoes like mummy's. Everynight she would totter up and down the bedroom practising walking on her new "high heels". Baby wanted to "practise" walking on his sneakers too. *rolls eyes*

I wanted to post a picture of the shoes and dress but having problems with my camera pic download so maybe I'll do it later if I'm not too lazy.

Conversation between two young girls

Recently we were rushing around doing our Chinese New Year shopping. Mr MG had to take my girl along with him to cut his hair while I took baby along with me to shop at the ladies department. Baby was good. He followed me around everywhere into various fitting rooms and tagged along while I tried on shoes. Hehe.

According to Mr MG, my girl made a new friend at the hairdressing salon so I asked her about it and this is what she told me.

My Girl: Mummy, the girl got nice shoes. Its orange and green polka dots. The girl say her shoe is nicer than mine.

My thoughts: Hahaha. Girls will be girls.

My Girl: Mummy, the girl also got a mummy, daddy and a baby but the baby not yet born.

MG: Oh, you saw her mummy's stomach was big big is it?

My Girl: Yes, her mummy also cut hair but the baby didn't get dirty because the baby was inside the stomach.

My thoughts: Hahaha. I am recording this down to show my girl the funny things she used to say as a little girl.

Conversation between a 5 year old and a 3 year old

3 year old: Mummy, where is daddy?

MG: Daddy is still at work. (Answered still because this is not the first time asking)

3 year old: Why so long?

5 year old: Baby, you have to wait until dark dark. Wait until the moon come out first, then only daddy come back.

LOL! Poor baby. I don't think he understands why his daddy is missing sometimes. At least the 5 year old understands that daddy has to work otherwise he will have no money to buy her toys so she doesn't mind so much.

How I survived moving house with the kids

We have finally moved. Its been quite a journey to get here. Many stressors along the way and lots of things had to be done twice or redone to get it right. On moving day, second sis offered to help me watch the kids. That was a BIG help!

She came with her husband and one of her sons to help out. She helped to babysit the kids at the new house, played with them, fed them lunch etc while we were busy moving. That really helped because then I didn't have to worry about the kids or their safety of getting in the way of big items being moved.

So we finally made it here. I didn't change any of the bedsheets or pillow cases and made tried to make their bed exactly as it looked at the old house. This helped in the transition. They even helped me arrange the pillows in the exact same places as they were used to seeing them. Lol!

The kids seem to have settled in by now and enjoying the "adventure" of being in a new place. They seem to like the new place although they did ask a couple of times "Are we going home?" to which we would tell them "This is your home now."