Day: June 2, 2007

Cool learning method… strewing

A few days ago, The New Parent wrote an interesting article on strewing up…. a method of introducing new things to his little girl through discovery. I thought what a cool fun way of teaching Alycia and Sherilyn to read through discovery.

Yesterday when the gals were having their afternoon nap, I strewed flash cards around their room… one card in their mega blocks tub, two cards in their toys closet and one more card on their bed for them to discover.

Later that night, as they got into their room, they were so thrilled and surprised to see flash cards strewn everywhere. They thought mummy had forgotten to keep the flash cards back into the drawer. As they returned the cards to me, I read out the words and number on the flash cards to them. What fun way of teaching them to read. No coercion on them and they actually looked at the cards. Tonight, I shall strew a few more cards at different places in their rooms for them to discover.

These are some of the pix I managed to snapped candidly of Alycia and Sherilyn when they discovered the cards.


Mummy, the word “fun”. Sherilyn always recognizes this word.


“How come there’s a card here too mummy?”

No. of times viewed = 299

Miss Pukey Sherilyn

Sherilyn is nicknamed Ms Pukey coz she throws up very easily from the time she was a baby right through now. She pukes when she cries, when she eats food that she doesn’t like, particularly meat, when I brush her teeth, when she gets choked on food or when she’s over-eaten and simply when she wants sympathy and attention. She even knew how to gagged her throat with her fingers till she puked just to get our attention whenever she was locked up in the playpen when she was barely a year old. She knew mummy would not easily succumb to her crying and pull her out from the playpen but if she pukes in the playpen, mummy would rush to her aid and bring her out from her little prison. See how cunning and manupulative my brat can be.

Sherilyn has been rather whiny, cranky and cries easily for no real reasons for the last few days till she really gets on my nerves. Yesterday, she woke up from her nap bawling away as if she had had a bad dream. Nothing seemed to subdue her. I then fixed her a bottle of milk and she drank it with her head lying on my lap like a baby.

When I went into the kitchen to wash the bottle, she was still bawling and rolling on the floor. I was already very pissed off with her as there was no apparent reason for her bawling and I’ve exhausted all my means of trying to placate her from distraction to laughter and my patience was really wearing thin.

As I had expected, Ms Pukey then choked, coughed a tad bit and I knew she was about to puke. This happens most of the time when Sherilyn has a bawling session. I dashed right into the storeroom and fished out a huge garbage bag (that’s all I could see in the storeroom) and headed back to retrieve Sherilyn’s vomit. The milk that had formed into fresh curd spewed out from Sherilyn’s throat right into the garbage bag. After she was done, she pushed the bag away and said “finish already”.

Afterthat, I brought Sherilyn to the loo to have her washed up. As she sat on the toilet, she was still whining and sobbing for no apparent reasons. I was even more pissed off with her now and as I looked her straight into her face, I told her this, “Sherilyn what’s the matter with you? Why are you crying non-stop for no reason? You’re not in pain, you’re not hungry, cheh cheh didn’t bully you and you’re not a baby. Only babies cry like this because they don’t know how to talk. Can you tell me what you want instead of cry? If you want to be a baby, fine…. I’ll put you into the playpen and you stay in there”. Without any second thoughts, Sherilyn blurted out “i don’t want playpen”. For a moment, I could feel something magical had happened. Sherilyn stopped bawling, then the bawl gradually dwindled into a faint whimpering and then as I dried her body and put on her clothes, she transformed into an angel…. singing and giggling as she tried to start a conversation with me. Hiyah… kids are just so unpredictable and sometimes you just don’t know whether to get mad or laugh at their quirks and idiosyncrasies.

No. of times viewed = 309

How Do You Back-Up Your Blog?

Fellow bloggers, how do you back-up your blog? I’ve read it before, somewhere in my Google Blogger’s instructions but can’t seem to locate the info now.

Anything can happen and I’ve read that some poor bloggers’ blogs had been deleted or unblocked by unscrupulous parties and blogger rivals. That’s really scary.

Would someone please enlighten this IT / blogging idiot here?

Thanks thanks!

No. of times viewed = 178

A Bad Day

At times, Alycia and Sherilyn’s behaviour and temperament can be crazy… though I hate to use this word to describe my 2 gals but they behave as though they are crazy and totally out of control…. and this drives me crazy.

Today is one of those crazy days where both Alycia and Sherilyn got all cranked up right from the moment they rose from the bed in the morning through pass lunchtime.

Early this morning, Sherilyn had refused to get up from bed coz she wanted to watch the Shrek 3 vcd that DH had bought last night and gave the gals half an hour of viewing just before they went to bed. I am totally against letting the gals watch cartoons just before bedtime as they would rebuff going to bed later and a meltdown would ensue when I turn off the tv. However, DH who spends very little time with the gals love pampering his 2 angels with not-so-healthy pass-times and his favourite pass-time with the gals is spent watching cartoon with them on the bed before bedtime, which infuriates me.

Last night after I had turned off the tv, a meltdown begun as the gals demanded to have more Shrek. DH had to spend half an hour coaxing the gals to bed whilst I just laid on my bed, ‘no eye see’ and said “serves you right” to DH. He had to carry Alycia and Sherilyn one by one from our bed to the gals bed in the room next door at least 6 times as the gals demanded to be carried like a baby to be transferred to their bed over and over again for a good 15 minutes and it was already way past 11:30pm. What the fun!

This morning, Sherilyn refused to get up from bed as she wanted to watch Shrek 3. After I had failed coaxing and distracting her, I just pulled her out from bed and then another meltdown session begun. This lasted until lunchtime. Sherilyn would disagree over everything and kept whining and whimpering. The sounds of her whining just make me insane.

When lunch time came, the gals were happy coz I had baked a loaf of bread and they had sandwich for lunch. Then the gals demanded for their dessert and I gave them a packet of organic alphabet biscuits to be shared between them. When my maid opened the packet and gave the first biscuit with the letter ‘A’ to Sherilyn, Alycia saw and hollered and said she wanted to have biscuit A too as Alycia begins with the letter ‘A’.
Before my maid could retrieve it back, Sherilyn had already bitten on the biscuit and then another crazy meltdown begun. Alycia wailed and rolled on the floor. We tried to look for another biscuit with the letter ‘A’ for Alycia but unfortunately there was only 1 miserable ‘A’ biscuit which is now in Sherilyn’s tummy. Alycia’s outburst lasted for around 15 minutes when I could no longer stand it and decided to open another box of organic biscuit with moon shapes. This managed to subdue the gals for a while.

Amidst Alycia’s tantrum outburst, Miss Pukey Sherilyn vomitted on the kitchen floor after I had cleaned her teeth with a hanky after her lunch.

Alycia who was still seething and terribly upset that she didn’t get her ‘A’ biscuit then started to act up. She scolded my maid by saying terrible things like “I hate you kakak, I want to cut your stomach”. OMG, where on earth did she learn such an awful thing? I then lectured her and this made Alycia more upset. Alycia then scolded me and blurted out the word “stupid”. OMG… I was even more enraged now and gave her another lecture and I think this time she finally realized she was wrong to have scolded her mummy.

After lecturing Alycia, I then left the gals alone and they slowly patched things up between themself whilst I went to the computer to destress and chill myself out.

Now, they are gleefully playing and giggling away as if nothing had happened. Sometimes, it is better to ignore a child when they are in the midst of a tantrum outburst. I sometimes give them the cold silence treatment and continue doing my things nonchalantly and I think they somehow got the message through.

Sorry for the loooooong and boring post! Just needed to divert my anger somewhere else sometimes.

No. of times viewed = 234

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY