Alycia’s Milestone – Page 4 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Alycia Is Learning To Speak Intelligibly

Scenario 1
Yesterday evening as I was combing Alycia’s hair after her bath, she said this to me :

Alycia : Mum, today is so precious…… (and gives me a lovely smile)

Me : Why do you say so?

Alycia : Because today is so lovely.

Me : Lovely…. why do you say today is lovely?

Alycia : Because God made today so lovely and it’s so windy and din rain.

I had brought the gals to the park yesterday evening as the weather was fine and they had a swell time playing there. So, I guess she’s had a very enjoyable and happy time and therefore concluded that the day was so precious and lovely.

Scenario 2
Yesterday morning as I was all wrapped up working on my computer, Alycia asked me to open up her toy school bus which was folded. This was our conversation :

Alycia : Mum, can you please open up my bus for me?

Me : Ok…. give me 1 minute k.

Alycia : No, i want now.

Me : Later k.

She then ran to the kitchen and asked kakak to open up the bus for her . My maid who was outside at the wet kitchen cooking said “later” to her. Alycia then ran back to the hall.

Alycia : Kakak said she’s busy.

Me : Uh huh…..

Alycia : (grunting out her frustration) WHY is everyone busy? Kakak said she’s busy, you are busy, why is everyone always busy (and almost in tears)?

When she said that, man I tell you I was gob-smacked and guilt stricken. How could I have ignored my poor baby when she’s just asking me to get her her toy? I then sprung up from my computer chair and opened up the toy for her. Alycia sure knows how to make me feel damn guilty and bad. My baby is growing up fast.

No. of times viewed = 212

I Am A Grown-Up

One of Alycia’s favourite sentences is “mummy, I am a grown-up now”. She loves doing things that we grown-ups do and takes every opportunity to help out in the kitchen from washing the dishes, cleaning the sink, wiping the counter and the most recent one, shelling an egg. Most times she messed things up… instead of helping to wash the dishes, she wets her clothes and almost floods the kitchen floor and she would squash up the bar soap and gets chunks of soap stuck in her fingernails or pumps out ounces of detergent just to wash 1 cup or 1 teaspoon.

But I have to say, Alycia does a good job shelling hard-boiled eggs for herself every morning and to her, shelling her own egg is no mean feat. She even knows how to rinse off the remnance of the shell from the egg after she’s done with the shelling and pick up the pieces of shell from the sink to throw into the dustbin. That saves me a lot of work and she has so much fun with it.

Maybe I should consider boiling a pot of eggs for her & Sherilyn to shell when I need to get some work done. That can keep them occupied for at least half an hour and then we can all have hard-boiled eggs for lunch and dinner. Hmmm… another food for thought 🙂

No. of times viewed = 166

Alycia My Young Reader

Every morning as the gals have their breakfast, I will be seated at the dining table reading the newspapers as I sip my cup of green tea. Most times, Alycia will climb onto my chair and ask me to read the newspapers to her. I will then quiz her by pointing out familiar words to her. Yesterday, as I walked into the kitchen to get a bowl, Alycia quickly climbed onto my chair and began to ‘read’ the papers, flipping the pages like a pro reader and pointing to the words as if she knows how to read. I think I will be the happiest mommy around if Alycia can finally read a book or the newspapers on her own.

No. of times viewed = 283

Young Artist At Work

Alycia drawing a birthday cake, balloons and popsicles.

Eversince Alycia attended pre-school early this year, the artistic sense in her has been uncovered. She loves writing, colouring and drawing.

I guess daddy’s artistic genes have rubbed off on her coz daddy can draw pretty well, really damn chun wan.

That was one of the reasons why a naive silly 17-year old school girl 17 years ago fell for her older brother’s best friend who was head over heels over her and hand-made her ‘lum sei ngor lor’ Valentine’s Day cards and greeting cards.

Promise… will try to dig out those cards that DH made me close to 2 decades ago, get them scanned and post them in my blog.

No. of times viewed = 313

Alycia Can Tell The Time

Remember I wrote about Bedtime stories where DH taught the gals to read the clock? Well, I have been teaching Alycia how to read the clock for the last 1 week, though not consistently and last nite when I asked her to tell me the time looking at the ‘Tell The Time’ flashcards, she managed to tell me the time, though she only knows how to tell the time when the minute hand points to 12, ie. she has to say o’clock.

Today, I brought out a book on telling the time which my sil had bought the gals a few months back and tested Alycia and she managed to tell me all the basic ‘o’clock’ time.

Tonight, I shall progress to the next step of teaching Alycia how to tell the time when the minute hand points to 6. I promised her that if she knows how to tell the time, I shall buy her a Princess watch and this has motivated her to pay attention when I read to her. Hopefully she can independently tell the time very soon and be my walking clock.

No. of times viewed = 306

To Go or Not To Go To School?

I can’t believe that it is already June, which means it has been slightly more than 3 months since I had stopped sending Alycia to pre-school as she has been falling sick continuously eversince attending pre-school in January 07.

As the school term will reopen in a week’s time, I have been asking myself this question… should Alycia go back to school? While the health freak mummy and wimp in me keep telling me NO, since her paed said her immune system is not fully developed yet and that it’s best to send her to school when she turns 4, the kiasu mummy in me keeps telling me aiyah, just go lah. If she doesn’t go, she will be so far lagging behind her peers and how long can you keep her at home? She needs exposure to germs and virus to get immuned to them.

So how? I am really in a dilemma. To go or not to go to school? What if Alycia goes and then the whole sickening cycle of her falling sick repeats itself? This will even weaken her immune system further and may later lead her into developing asthma. That will be big time headache for me and big hole in pocket for DH.

Some friends have asked me to homeschool Alycia and Sherilyn. I seriously don’t mind homeschooling my gals as when it comes to teaching them, my enthusiasm is always unbounded but my gals just won’t reciprocate the way I want them to. Alycia is for one who learns better when she is with peers. I was surprised that she had learnt so much in school in a period of less than 2 months and loved going to school so much and she is actually raring to go back to school.

So what say everyone? To go or not to go to school for Alycia?

No. of times viewed = 408

Alycia Can Spell

Alycia can finally spell her first word by memory…. and the word is God!

SIL#2 had recently bought the gals a kids’ bible with lots of colourful illustrations. For the past few nights, Alycia has been pestering me to read this kids’ bible to her as she is so drawn to the colourful pictures in the book. She was so interested in the bible that the following morning when I asked her what I had read to her the night before, she could tell out the entire story. Then when I asked her how to spell the word God, she said GOA. I then corrected her. I was very pleased anyway that she got the first two letters right. The next day, I tested her again and this time, she got it right… she spelt out GOD.

Today, I tested Alycia’s spelling on the word dog. She got the first two letters right by saying DOB. I corrected her. I shall test her again tomorrow to see if she has picked up the word dog. I know I should not be testing her as kids just don’t like to be tested but kiasu mummy me am just too happy and excited that my baby girl finally knows how to spell.

The kids’ bible that sil #2 bought the gals.

No. of times viewed = 228

Alycia Can Count 1 – 20

Alycia has been able to count her numbers from 1 through 14 for quite a long time already, but no matter how I made her memorize 14 through 20, she still got the teens all jumbled up.

For the last 1 week, each time I brought Alycia and Sherilyn for their evening walks, I’d ask Alycia to count her 1 through 20. She always got her 1-14 perfectly memorized but when it comes to 15 onwards, she’d just get stuck and all sorts of non-sequence numbers will spill out from her mouth, like 14, 7, 16, 15, 9 ….. alamak, :slap forehead: Yesterday during our evening walk, as Alycia was in the midst of counting her numbers, a squirrel darted across the road all of a sudden. I then excited shouted “look Alycia, that’s a squirrel”. Alycia who was still counting, nonchalantly counted “fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty” as she fixated her eyes on the squirrel excitedly. I then shouted in delight “Alycia, you got all your numbers right, mummy is so happy and proud of you” and then gave her a big hug, patted her back and praised her further. We were both so happy that she finally got her 1 through 20 recited perfectly without any numbers missing in between.

So my conclusion is I think a child learns better if she/he is in a relaxed, calm, non-tensed mode. They even learn better when they are at play. Perhaps I had put Alycia into a tensed mode when I kept insisting that she has to get all her numbers right. I was so wrong….what a kiasu mummy I am!

No. of times viewed = 258