Last day of School Term Party

On the last day of the school term the kids had a party at the kindy. Parents were "encouraged to bring food". I don't know the "protocol" for such gatherings since this is the first year my girl is attending kindy. I was going to "buat tak tahu" (pretend I didn't know) since I'm not one of those clever mothers who can either 1) bake wonderful stuff or 2) have very good PR.

But then.......... she came home the day before the party and told me that ........ she had volunteered to bring hotdog for the party. Ooops! I believe that she was coerced into volunteering but how do you say "No" to a kid who pleads "Please mummy, please, I want to bring hotdog for my friends."

Daddy said, "Why don't you bring doughnuts so mummy won't have to get up in the morning to cook the hotdogs?"

"No, daddy I can't change my mind. I already said hotdogs." but daddy persuaded her otherwise and so we rushed out to buy doughnuts. We were too late though. All the other parents had rushed out to the doughnut shop and so there was none (just kidding). I thought of bringing fresh cut fruits but eventually we went to the supermarket and got the hotdogs for the girl and mummy had to get up early in the morning to boil the hotdogs.

The next day I saw many parents bringing food. Some came with packet drinks (I should have thought of that), a few came with doughnuts, many cakes, sweets and other junk foods. There was so much junk food, each of the kids were given a party pack of junk foods to take home.

The kids enjoyed the party very much. The little girls looked so sweet in their pretty party dresses.

I can't believe she's 6!

My girl is 6. Recently we celebrated her birthday at the kindy for the first time. That is because she is attending the kindy for the first time this year. I had my worries about her adapting due to sending her this late but I needn't have. She is getting along just fine in kindy.

Anyway, we brought her to the cake shop to choose her cake. Thats how we do it for most of their birthdays. They will go along to the cakeshop and choose the design and the filling, usually chocolate with some chocolate rice sprinkled on the side. Hehe. We do this because mummy doesn't bake and the kids love to choose their own cake.

We had chosen a 2 kg cake but a few days later the cake shop rang up and said that the design we had chosen had to be a minimum of 3kg. Oh bother! We didn't have time to go back to the shop to choose another cake so we said ok while mummy took out her calculator and calculated the extra cost.

We had wanted a cake big enough to feed her whole class but now we got one big enough to feed the whole school said the teacher. Anyway her estimate may have been wrong because I saw that half the cake had disappeared by the time two classes were finished with it. The moment the cake was opened, all the kids pointed and said "Wow". That was priceless, so mummy kept her calculator.

The girl had been so excited about giving out her party packs. She had asked her teacher for a name list of all her classmates which she wrote out onto little stickers. We had a mixture of toys and snacks (no hard candy! I hate those) and she carefully chose the toys for each of her classmates before we tied them up prettily and stuck the name stickers on them.

After school we did exactly the same thing as we did for my boy's birthday. We went to a one of those indoor kidsports places, then went to eat pancakes and gave her a surprise present after her evening nap. She had thought that her present was the hula hoop which she chose herself at the toystore. She loves her hula hoop but she loves her surprise present even more.

I can't believe she is 6! I really can't. Time really flies.

The Gold Standard in Milk Powders

Does your child take the gold standard in Milk Powders or the normal Milk Powders? The Gold Standard means Milk Powders that are enhanced with extra nutrients plus DHA etc. Mine takes the normal Milk Powders. Why? Simply because as a breastfeeding mum, I felt that the kids have all the DHA etc that they needed from my breast milk so I didn't bother to read up about the other nutrients and other goodness in the Milk Powders. To me, the DHA, AA, SA, etc are just alphabets. Frankly, I do not know much about them.

Now that the kids are older, aged 4 and 6, I was wondering whether I should try those Gold Standard in Milk Powders. I have always wondered about that but never bothered to do any research into it. Perhaps I should.

Recently, I came across a magazine article about Friso Gold Growing Up Milk. I checked the website (www.dutchlady.com.my) and saw a few things that interest me. First, about the milk. There is Friso Gold 3 and Friso Gold 4. As the name suggests, Friso Gold 3 is for those aged 1-3 and Friso Gold 4 is for those aged 3 onwards.

According to the site the Friso Gold Milk is formulated with Frisoshield™, a nutritious blend of prebiotics (FOS), probiotics (L. reuteri), nucleotides, selenium and mixed carotenes. The Friso Gold 3 & 4 also has DHA, AA and SA for your child’s overall development. Gosh! What do all these mean?

Well, I did the hard work for you and found out what all those alphabet means. Lol!

• Prebiotics (FOS) = Prebiotics helps the good bacteria in our gut to grow and flourish which leads to an improved immune system


• Probiotics (L. reuteri) = Probiotics are bacteria that help maintain the natural balance of organisms (microflora) in our intestines. In other words they improve the environment of our intestinal tract


• Nucleotides = A nucleotide is a chemical compound that consists of 3 portions: a nitrogenous base, a sugar, and one or more phosphate groups. It supports immune system and also plays an important role in reducing the duration of diarrhoea cases in young child.


• Selenium = A trace mineral found in some foods (antioxidant)


• Mixed Carotenes = Contains Vitamin A, beta carotene, alpha carotene and many other beneficial consituents


• DHA = Docosahexaenoic Acid is an Omega-3 Fatty Acid


• AA = Arachidonic Acid is another essential Fatty Acid


• SA = Sialic Acid

Gosh? What does all that mean? Lol! To sum it all, the milk is supplemented with extra nutrition and goodness for your child.

But the thing that I like most about it is the PACKAGING! Yes, you heard me right. I've got a screen capture below. I love the packaging! The scoop is stuck at the back of the cover. No more digging into the milk to find the scoop. Haha. Its such a hassle to wash a spoon, dry it before digging in to find the scoop! (Or when I'm plain lazy, dig my wet fingers in. That's so unhygienic but I must confess that I do it. :P) In addition, there is a little level bar so that you get the perfect scoop every time. Not too large or too little. What a good idea.

(You can click here to get a free sample pack.). I will get a sample to try Friso Gold milk and hope they will like it. Last time, when I weaned them off breastmilk, they didn't adjust to the new milk formula immediately. They had never tasted any other formula other than their present one. Sometimes they looooooved their present milk but sometimes they turned their noses away from it. I was thinking that an alternative would be good for them and hope that they would not reject it.

I have a question to ask. What brand of milk does your child take? Do you go for Gold Standard or normal Milk Powders? Have you ever changed brands? Did your child reject it? Can you share with me how you did it? Do you use only one brand or do you have an alternative brand?

Happy Teacher's Day

Since its coming to the end of the term, classes at my girl's kindy seems quite relaxed now. There is no homework. So she looks forward to doing "mummy's lessons" or doing crafts etc.

Yesterday we decided to make flowers and cards for the teachers. Its a lesson in itself. A lesson in giving. We made some or our crepe paper carnations, then wrapped them up in pretty transparent paper and tied it up with colourful ribbons. Then the girl wrote a Thank You note to the teachers on colourful papers which we folded into cards.

Teacher's Day is today but the kindy is only celebrating it next week so we kept the flowers and cards. However we decided to give her class teacher hers today.

My girl was so excited about it. She carefully packed the flowers and cards for her class teacher into her school bag and this morning she woke me up. "Mummy, mummy wake up. We don't want to be late for school today." :)

To all the teacher's who have dedicated their lives to teaching. Happy Teacher's Day. Yours is a noble profession.

Exam Stress

Its coming to the end of the school term again. The older kids are having their exams. My sister says that she is very stressed up during this time. I can imagine that it would be stressful to get the kids to revise their work. I have a daily stress trying to get my girl to finish her homework as she usually daydreams or plays while doing it taking hours to finish her homework.

Fortunately my time to feel a parent's stress during exams has not come. My girl is still in kindy. At this time all she talks about is the party they are going to have on the last day of school. No stress yet for me or for her. I'm going to enjoy this while I can!

I came across some good pointers on how to face exam pressure. I'm going to keep the links here for future reference but anyone who is facing exam stress now can refer to it.

Parenting Plus: Exam Stress (Make sure you refer to the links within the article. They're good.)
BBC News: Parents Add to Exam Stress (I like this phrase in the article "At the end of the day, parents have to let go and trust their children. The most important thing is to provide support and love them for who they are, not for what exams they pass." It is very true. In wanting to make sure they revise and pass their exams we must not place too much pressure on them because it will have a negative effect.)