Paint bedroom

Lara helped me paint her bedroom today. I have wanted to make the kids' bedrooms more 'kid-like' for some time, but procrastenated until now. To minimise work, I've only done one feature wall. It is blue, Lara's favorite colour with free-hand clouds on other walls. Sam's bedroom will have a similar theme, maybe I'll do that next week. Lara helped me with the first coat, but was 'too tired' so she watched Harry Potter while I painted the second coat. Where was Sam? He was in family daycare. One of these rare days where I can spend some quality time with just Lara.

ps colour: dulux - sky babe

Perfect ears

Sam had his ear check-up again this afternoon. We were only in the specialist's office for about 5 minutes. After Dr looked into both ears, he confirmed they are now perfectly normal and healthy. It was worth the one hundred dollar fee just to hear these words. The troubles we took to both work part time so Sam could stay out of daycare was the right thing to do. Now the test will be to see if his ears can self-drain next winter (the cold season).

After we left the doctor's office, we bumped into a ukelele group playing outside. Lara insisted we stay and watch. With good news in mind, the afternoon breeze, and some live festive music, it was a good Friday afternoon to end the week.

Now Sam does not have any execuse to not listen to me!

Remote controlled cars

We stopped at a garage sale on the way home from violin lesson this morning. I bought 2 remote controlled cars for a grand total of $4. Simon never had remote-controlled cars as a kid and was thinking of buying one for Sam for Christmas because he was sure Sam will love it! Simon was very excited when he saw the cars. He recharged the batteries, put new AA batteries in and fixed the wheels. All these were done very quickly, much more efficient than, for example, when I asked him to change light bulbs in the house. He was nearly late for his massage because he couldn't wait to try them.

Simon and Lara spent some time outside trying the bigger car in the afternoon (they also played with the smaller car inside). I heard lots of laughter and screaming, they must be having fun. I had to do preparations for some work I had to do at night so I couldn't join in.

Zeb busy chasing the car...


Oh how do we get the car out?


As for Sam, he went outside to watch the remote controlled car after his nap. Was he interested? No, not a bit. I guess he's not getting remote control car for Christmas this year then!

Lately

I have been busy visiting childcare places, and confirming Sam's spots for this year and next year. Sam started in Lady D's family daycare 2 weeks ago. Because it is based in the carer's home, I hope this translates to less sickness (less kids). Lady D cooks a vegetarian lunch for the kids every day and she's been doing this for 21 years, Sam seems happy with her. Even though not all the days I want is confirmed, I feel comfortable that things are starting to fall into place. Work has been busy and with Simon started a new job, completing life's many activities just seemed a little rusher and harder. Lara has done 2 school orientations and I have booked after-school care and got some uniforms. There is still quite a lot to do before the year's end.



We had a few very warm days in the last couple of weeks but fortunately some wet days too. The new grass in the back garden is growing crazy with the the good combinations of rain and sun. We were told to let the new turf grow and not cut it for 6 weeks, but Simon had to cut it a little earlier in fear of breaking the lawnmower. The first cutting took him a long time. The rain hopefully will make the 9 new plants we bought last week grow too.



Wei-po came 2 weeks ago. The timing was good and wei-po helped with cooking, looking after kids, and household chores. Lara loved doing puzzles with Wei-po after dinner and Sam went to wei-po when food was served. Wei-po's flight home was delayed for 2 hours so she must be exhaused. We hope she visits us again soon.

Halloween 2011

Halloween landed on a Monday this year. I didn't plan anything because Monday was normally a work day. But life had a way of working itself out. My laptop power supply/battery stopped working and the new one didn't arrive until Tuesday, suddenly I had a couple of days free. We decided to join Lara's friend Annie for trick or treating.



Lara was very excited, she wore her 'wizard' cape and 'witches' hat (like I said we didn't plan to go so we weren't prepared). We walked around for about an hour and collected so much candies! It's funny how with candies in minds, walking up and down many blocks suddenly was no problem at all. We saw many fine displays of halloween spirits at Lara's first trick or treating, it was great!

Busy October

October was a busy month. Lara & I started our violin lessons. The first few lessons are all about postures, postions and rhythms. We learned 'rest position song', bunny rabbit bow hold, names of the violin parts and violin strings. Lara likes the rocket and chu chu train song and she can do "busy busy stop stop" on the A string & E string. We just started on the more challenging left fingers. I'm not only learning violin with Lara, I'm also learning to take smaller steps and making each practice fun. (It is very true that children like to do what they can already do).

I met some new Taiwanese friends who have kids of similar ages to Lara and Sam. We had a few sessions of park plays, I even learned how to make a delicious Taiwanese pork stew from one of the Mums. Lara learned more Chinese words because of this.

I got a phone call one day mid October from an early childhood eye test nurse (they do eye tests in daycares). She told me Lara couldn't see well with her left eye (she could only see 3 lines out of 9). That freaked me out but I later found out the result of "6/9 -3" meant she got three letters (out of 6) wrong in last line. The additional eye test confirmed Lara's eyes were fine. What a relief!

Antoher good news is that Sam's ears improved greatly in the last 2 months. His glue ears are mostly cleared. Although he's still on nose drops, specialist confirmed at the last appointment at the end of October that it's unlikely Sam would need grummets. Yeah!

I have enjoyed the last few months with both of us working part-time. I didn't have to rush home from work to pick kids up and rush to get dinner ready. Even though working part-time means less money, there is always one of us home with the kids so their lives are less hurried. The good time unfortunately has to end. With Simon going back to full time work, life will undoubtedly get busier. I also have to sort out daycares in a very short time (not something I'm looking forward to do).

November is very busy for Lara - she's got kindy orientation, 3 birthday parties and 3 ballet rehearsals. We also have a 21st party to attend. Fortunately, Mum will be here for a couple of weeks to provide some much-needed relief.

Siblings bath time 16-Oct-11

For a little while, Sam cried every time he went into a bath. I suspected he had a little nappy rash that stung once and that put him off bath for qutie some time. Now he really enjoys having a bath with Lara and Lara loves bathing with Sam. They still fight and sometimes the bath ended in both crying but generally they play well together.

Turf

We finally made up our minds to get the back garden turfed by professionals. The date was set to be the Saturday of the October long weekend. We spent the previous weeks obtaining qutoes (4 quotes, 3 quotes were very similar and one was strangly cheap, we chose the most expensive one), deciding on grass variety (Sapphire Buffalo) and preparing the ground (killing weeds). The skip bin arrived the day before, but turf was delivered on the day (because it was quite wet the week leading to the Saturday so turf farmers couldn't cut any ealier).

Because of some mix-up, the turf cutter didn't arrive until nearly 8am, even though the grass was delivered and guys were waiting to start the work. But once work was started, the guys kept going and going. At one stage, it looked like work would not be finished on the day, but somehow everything got done before it got dark.

The garden went from this:


to this in under 10 hours. Amazing!


Now 10 cubic meters of "Forest Blend" mulch is sitting on the driveway waiting to be moved to their rigthful place in the back garden!

Gruffalo

We watched "The Gruffalo" in the Opera House last Wednesday. I originally planned for Lara to go with her grandparents as Sam's specialist appointment fell on the same day. Then I managed to reschedule the appointment after Granddad offered to mind Sam so I could watch it too. Daycare introduced the book earlier this year and Lara absolutely loved it (I've noticed Lara likes stories that rhyme). Lara knew the words of the book very well, she even read the book to kids in dayare! The hardest part of the day was probably the train journey. Sam would not sit on the train so I was tired from having to watch him and 'intervene' constantly. Also we had to change trains and went up and down the platforms, not so easy with baby, pram, and the school holiday crowd.

I told Lara about Opera House beforehand, but when she saw it she couldn't believe how big it is, "I thought it was just a house" she said. Lara coloured a paper Gruffalo on a stick before the show (pictured above).

The show was 50-minute long - any longer the kids would lose their concentration. It was packed with songs and jokes for the young and the old. The playhouse is not huge and we had great seats (I booked 3 months ago!) so we could see everything well. Sam stayed outside with Granddad and had a short sleep in the pram. Several kids cried when the Graffalo growled, but it seemed everyone enjoyed it. It was a cloudy day and it started to rain after the show so we didn't stay around for long. I'm keeping my eyes open for more 'Kids at the House' shows next year.



ps All the photos came out foggy (I thought because it was foggy day) then I noticed it was only foggy on one side of the photos. The 'fog' disappeared after I cleaned the camera lense (Lara was playing with my camera the day before).

Nurtured by love & violin lesson

Another interesting book I read recently is called "Nurtured by love" by Shinichi Suzuki (translated by his wife). Suzuki's father owned the largest violin factory in Japan in the early 1900s in Japan. Suzuki started learning violin when he was 17. After 8 years of music stuides in Berlin, he returned to Japan (with his German wife) and started teaching kids violin and later started the "Talent Education" school. There are no chapters in this book and the events are not in sequence. There are snippets of information, thoughts plus stories under many headings so the book is hard to read at times. I also jumped from story to story and didn't read the book in sequence.

Suzuki believed talent is not inherited and it can be developed through education. He taught young kids to play violin through what he called the 'mother tongue' method - repetition and listening. He believes 'character first, ability second' and learnings should be made fun. There are many touching and inspiring stories in the book including how Suzuki taught a blind boy and a girl with epilepsy to play violin. I like the story of 'two girls raised by wolves' (I later googled and found scholars debated the trueness of this story). I also like the story of Suzuki's encounters with Einstein. Einstein was my childhood hero and when I learned that he played violin since six and said 'I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin', I wanted to learn too. And when Lara showed an interest in violin, I jumped at the opportunity.

I did some research, talked to a few violin teachers in the area and took Lara and Sam to an early childhood music class. One of the violin teachers I talked to invited us to observe a lesson. Lara held the cupboard violin and pretended she was playing it while the lesson took place. I was surprised she sat through the 30 minute lesson. She showed great excitement watching kids playing the same music on youtube later that night.

I got the violin book/CD and lined up the first lesson. Lara will start with 20-minute lessons, and see how she goes. Next step is to hire the violin!

Crochet blanket progress

I think I will need around 75 blocks to make a single blanket.
15 blocks completed. 60 to go!

Weekend walks

Now that it's warmer, we started taking more walks on the weekend. Rather than walking in the afternoons, we set off earlier (at 10am) last weekend to avoid the heat, but it was still warm. We stopped at a park first this time, Lara and Sam both enjoyed the swings, they can sit on it forever! On our walk this Sunday we also checked out houses, plants and gardens while we walked and bumped into a film crew shooting in one of the streets, but we didn't recognised anyone 'famous'. We had coffee and returned books to the library after the walk. A nice and relaxing Sunday, just how we liked it.

Pumpkin and sultana scone

Made these scones the other day, only have two table spoons of sugar per batch.

Potato & garlic bread

I've made a lot of bread in the last 2 months. Most of the loaves (8 or 9 loaves) were the "Soft American-style white bread" (page 204 in 'Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day'). The first 2-3 loaves I used the exact recipe. I forgot butter in the next lot of dough, the difference was less rich and more sandwitch-like. I omit butter altoghter from the recipe after that.

I decided to try a differnt bread last week - 'Roasted garlic potato bread' (page 118). I mixed the dough on Saturday morning, baked it that night. Next door had their daughter's 21st party, the music was too loud to sleep so I was forced to stay up late and ate some bread. It was very nice warm from the oven. We had more bread the following day for lunch with sausages, meat balls and salad. I think the potato somehow gave the bread a very nice texture and made it surprisingly soft. It'll be interesting to see if the bread taste the same after the dough is refrigerated.

Ear trouble

I postponed and cancelled Sam's specialist appointments twice because he seemed to be fine after stopping daycare. Once or twice though, I thought I smelt something sweet coming from his ears. To make myself at ease and think maybe we should try daycare again, I decided to keep this Wednesday's appointment. Am I glad that I did.

Wednesday was a busy day - I enrolled Lara at the 'big school' in the morning and I had to work that night (from 9pm for 4-5 hours). The appointment didn't worry me as I thought it would be a walk-in-walk-out, confirm-everything's-fine sort of thing, but I was totally wrong.

Firstly, the appointment was not made at the best time - it was booked 3 months ago at a time I thought Sam would most likely to be up, but 2pm now fell in the middle of Sam's only day sleep. Secondly, my plan of letting Sam have a short sleep in the pram beforehand didn't work, so he was very tired at 2pm. Then the doctor was running late, so Sam was over-tired by the time we saw the doctor at 2.45pm (so was Lara after she played 'jump from the cushions' in the playroom with her friend who happened to be seeing another doctor at the same surgery). I was tired too from stopping Sam break anything in the surgery, sucking on door stops, opening drawers and bumping his head on glass doors that I was very glad when Sam's name was called. I went through the motions of explaning Sam's past recurrent ear infections and how he was fine after no daycare for nearly 3 months and answered routine questions "Do you have any conecerns about his hearing?" "No" "Does he sleep alright at night?" "Yes he sleeps through every night" and so on. So I was shocked when the doctor told me Sam has glue ear, and that he probably can't hear me very well!

The short story is Sam is on bactrim (antibiotics) and Prednefrin Forte eye drops (on Sam's nose as it has the same ingredient as the nose drop without the sting) for a month then we will see if the condition improves. If not then surgery might be required (ie grommets). The 'glue' in his ear needs to be cleared or drained so it doesn't hinder his speech ability in the future.

I've been reading information about glue ear apparently it's very common, 1 in 3 Australian primary aged kids have it. The risk factors are : being with lots of kids (tick when Sam was in daycare), allergy (tick, Sam has eczema, quite bad sometimes) and being a boy (tick). Luckily Sam doesn't seem to be bothered by his glue ear so far and is generally very active and happy. Hope his condition improves in the next few weeks.

Happiest outdoors

We spent more and more time in the garden now that it is warmer. The retaining wall is done but not finished. The last bit of work (pipe behind the wall has no where to go) always takes the longest. Work is progressing but quite slowly. We will be planting a few more bushes and plants in the garden in particularly near the retaining wall. Looking forward to plant-hunting next weekend!

Tiger mother

I just finished an interesting book called 'Battle hymn of the tiger mother' by Amy Chua. I reserved this book for $2 from our local libray about 2 months ago and got it last Tuesday but only had two weeks to read it because there were other people waiting to read the book. I wasted no time and started straight away, and as it turned out, I finished the book in 3 days.

This book was supposed to be about how a "Chinese" mother(also a Yale law professor) raised her kids, the main focus being her daughters' music education (piano & violin). The are a lot of stereotypes in the book, which I found hilirious. Maybe I can relate to the stories because I remembered growing up wishing I had a 'tiger mum' sometimes (Mum used to tell me not to study too hard!). I admire Chua's perseverance towards her daughter's music learnings even if I wouldn't do what she did under the same circumstances.

Education theories of today advocate freedom and let kids be kids. To a large extent, this is also what I adopt. But does that mean the parents should do nothing and let their kids decide and do whatever they want? Parents are so scared of discipline their kids these days(me too) for various reasons - worried they'll hurt their kids feelings, kill their imaginations or cause some sort of psychological damages. I feel the kids of today are not as strong and can't take as much as the kids of yesterday. This book challenged me to think more about what I do as a parent, not just follow the latest theories or what everyone else is doing.

The 'birthday card' incident in the book resonated with me the most. As a parent, I do want my kids to try their best whatever they do. Let's face it all kids (us included) have the tendency to do less if you let them(or yourself). I had a first-hand experience about this. Lara used to get very frustrated when she couldn't draw something and I told her the drawings didn't have to be perfect. Now the pefect came back to bit me. She showed me some half-attempted scribbles she called 'rainbows' and said 'but you said it didnt' have to be perfect'! when I questioned her. I agree with Chua that kids need to know you expect better of them and sometimes you have to push them a little just beyond their current abilities so they can improve. What people can't agree on is how much is too much. I was looking at Chua's eldest daughter, Sophia's blog the other day and thought she had not done too badly with her daughter-Sophia seems to be a well-adjusted kid who is accepted to go to Harvard. She had no problem with her upbringing, so why should anyone else?

"...one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.." page 62

Monday night dinner

I work on Mondays now so Simon's in charge of the cooking on Monday nights. He made a nice stew last week. I came home earlier last night so this dinner was a joint efforts - grilled chicken wingettes, fried potatoes, stir-fried garlic baby spinach and crispy fennel.

I got a fennel in my vege bag and was wondered what to do with it, then I found a nice fennel recipes that both Simon and Lara liked (well ... Lara ate it).

This is how I do it. Trim fennel bulbs and remove outer hard layers. Cut fennel into half then cut each halves into threes or quarters. Boil for a couple of minutes until just tender. Dip fennel segments into an egg/milk mixture then a bread crumb/parmasen mixture. Shallow fry until crispy. Yum!

This post was written on 12/07, I didn't process the photos until a couple of days ago.

Sam is one!

I remembered vividly the day I went into hospital to be induced and how fast everything happened at the end. I still remembered holding Sam straight after his brith, feeling his naked, sticky bottom and thinking how bony it felt (compared to Lara's). I also remembered falling asleep with him lying on top of me the day after. Now Samuel's walking and babbling and a whopping 11 kg! We had a small family birthday celebration for him the Sunday before his birthday. Lara helped me decorate his birhday cupcakes.

Sam learned to shake his head in response to a question. He would wait for me to finish the question, he would pause for a minute as if he was thinking, then he would shake his head like crazy. Sometimes he shook his head so hard that he fell over. It was hilirious to watch. The more we laughted, the more Same did it.

Sam wants to be in the midst of everything. Mum and I were pointing to a crochet block and discussing the colours. What did Samuel do? He walked over and pointed to the block and started "babbling". He also likes to watch 'Ninja Warrior' and 'Unbeatable benzuki' (SBS from around 7:30pm on Sunday) with Lara and us. He clapped and made all the right nosies when we did.

Sam was fored to stand in a corner for the first time the other night because he would not stop hitting Lara! We joked that we should have a corner reservered for him becuase at this stage it looks like he'll be spending a lot of time there!

Sam loves his food and always wants to try our food. Typical meals in a day for him would be :weetbix with fruit in the morning, bread with vegemite and avocardo for lunch, rice (congee) with veges or meat/fish for dinner. He also has what we have sometimes. He still has 3 formula feeds a day. More and more, Sam only has one sleep in the middle of the day, usually from around 12:30pm to 3pm.

Sam started showing stranger/separate anxiety. He's weary of people he didn't know well and took some time to get used to Mum. Sam loves his Grand-dad the best.

New door

Father-in-law working on the door frame.

When Simon organised a guy to come and cut a great big hole in our family room, we didn't know we would get pouring terrential rain for days afterwards, thus delay in starting work. The timing wasn't great either with this work started the day after Mum arrived and with Sam's birthday celebration(families coming) in the midst of it. Father-in-law worked hard to get the door in after the rain stopped (he's a perfectionist so work wa not fast-going). It's almost finished now.