Sunday, January 31, 2010

Kids say the darnest things! :)

Tristan started saying a lot of things that surprised me. It's amazing how children learn and pick up language. He only need to hear it once and he can use it like a pro.How to use what word when. :)

He's vocabulary is pretty good for his age (3+), he is using words like:

'modify'-daddy taught him about car modification

'team'- he asked me if I was strong, I said yes of course and he said: " then you can join my transformer team. Pretty good. moving from 'I' to 'team'. hhmmm :).

I have a puzzle about the human digestive system so he's pretty good with it. He can say 'oesophagus', 'intestine'... and can explain where the food goes and what happens :)

'hangar' we kept passing by this new exhibition hall and Tristan kept saying "Ma, that's a Hangar". Well this is quite embarrassing cause I don't know what a hanger is, I thought he meant 'hanger'? Ha, he saw a documentary on Discovery channel and Uncle Raj explained to him once and he could remember and apply that. It's true.. the hall looks like a hangar. :)

'Inuit' now who lives in a Igloo? Most people would think the answer must be eskimos! But no, the answer is Inuit. The correct term to use for people who lives in Igloos.


Trevor is now 13 months,
hasn't spoken much yet, but he's taking interest in reading which is great! And he can say :
1) 'ish' as in Fish. He was watching the penguins swimming in the water at the bird park. He kept saying 'ish ish ish' maybe he thinks they are fish-they are swimming like one :) or maybe he is right cos its' feeding time and the penguins are having fish for lunch.(see the picture -> the boys are mesmerized with the penguins)
2) 'Psss' in Please
3) 'Ssssh' as in Shoes
4) and other random syllabus of sounds or babbling: I just learn from Kindermusik seminar that these sounds are called echolalia…babbling gives the child the opportunity to use and control the mouth, throat, and lung muscles.
5) And some Signs : Here's also an extract from my Kindermusik class: From early in infancy, it is evident that Baby is aware of his environment and has the desire to communicate. Introducing signing to hearing babies has the benefit of allowing Adult and Baby to communicate before Baby’s vocal chords are developed enough to speak. This form of communication raises self-esteem, eliminates the frustration of not being able to communicate and engages Baby as an active participant in the learning environment.

Trevor can sign : Aeroplane, Apple, Bye Bye, Elephant, Milk
I've been signing everything I know to him: Eat, Please, Stars, Dog, Cat, Boat, Bird, Banana.
He hasn't sign back but he understands when signs to him.

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Well I guess children are never too young to learn and some people assumes that certain words or concept is too difficult for children. But they are never too young, and there can be a simple way that they can understand words, concepts, ideas and how things words. So don't underestimate a child's capacity to learn and use correct terms for everything. Their minds are keen and memory sharper than many of us! :)

Here are some links I found on language development in young child

Language Development Institute
- has a chart which shows when a child can do what in terms of language development

Teaching your child speech and language

Top 6 ways to teach early language skills

Some tips from me :) Try it!

- Personally I believe that treating children with respect and they might look too young to understand but they have the ability to understand.

- Have patience and take time to talk to them in the way that they can understand and always speak the truth.

- Create a love and curiosity for learning, be amazed and show enthusiastic in learning.

- Read everyday! have a bookshelf full of age apropriate books that the child can easily access by himself. Before bedtimes are great time to read.

- Bring them everywhere with you if you can. Kids learn a lot when you expose them to different environment, different situation, weather...etc.

- Make everything a learning experience. e.g. You can talk about anything and educate your child from them. Bring their attention to their surroundings and let them use their senses to learn.For example you can ask: " Look what is that?Do you know what it does?" " Listen, can you hear the birds singing? ", " Can you feel this? what does it feel like?"

- Bring learning to life. Tell them and they might forget, but if you let them see and experience water for themselves they can remember better. Let's say if you are teaching your child about water, it's easier for the child to learn about water when he is playing with water.. etc. bath time. And you can then teach them concepts of wet/dry, full/empty, float/sink...etc :)

- Singing to your child and singing together. Listening to music on the CD player is great, but singing with your own voice encourages your child to sing along and they learn the words and language very quickly with songs. When you sing to them, they can listen and watch how to you pronounce the words clearly and it's a great for bonding too.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Sneaky Chef to the rescue!

Well... what can I say? Keeping to the new year resolution is going to be tough! My goal is to wake up early ~7:30am, get Tristan to school early or on time, get some work done, pick him up from school on time, lunch at mom's, spend time with boys at home in the afternoons , go for a walk, prepare dinner and sleep by 9pm. I would say Day1 went as planned! Horray! ( but I should learn not to get too happy first ) Day2 I was so tired from Day1's activities that I woke up bit late... Day3 Trevor got fever at night and I didn't get much sleep! So there goes my schedule! But at least I met some of the goals- 2 boys slept by 9pm! So sleeping troubles are ok, but eating habits are far from ok... Tristan only ate Roti Prata and Egg with runny yolk ( Roti Tampah), Cheese, Yogurt and Ice Cream for the past few days! I manage to get him to eat a bite of banana, a sip of kiwi milk shake... I think that's about it! I try to pack some fruits for his snake in school, I gave him 7 little grapes, I found 5 little grapes left, hopefully he at least attempted to taste some grapes. Oh... I am so burried in my troubles that I realised I didnt blog about Tristan's unique eatin habits. Tristan eats only egg white, fish, cheese, yogurt, he used to love bread but not much lately, sausages & nuggets are the only meat he will eat. He literally pukes at the sight and smell and no to mention taste of meat... all meat Chicken, pork, lamb, beef... no meat at all- we thought it was a phrase but it's been more than 6 months that he didn't take meat. He doesn't like vegetable at all now. Fruits - he would drink fruit juice or milk shake, doesn't eat much fruits. Knowing my troubles with Tristan's eating habits. My sister in law gave me a The Sneaky Chef to the rescue for my Christmas present!I am reading it but it was a sequal to The Sneaky Chef so the techniques are only mentioned briefly. I went to to the library and borrowed it the PART 1! In brief, this mother had troubles with her picky eaters. She tried everything from getting advice from nutrionist, pediatrics, making food look interesting, cooking with kids to make them more interested in food, bribing, threathening... etc.... and at last through her own 'labortory'-aka. kitchen, she found out that her kids will eat the food without complain if it was their favourite and it taste good. So she came up with all sort of recipes and experiment hidding healthy ingredients in seemly unhealthy food. Turning mealtime from battle ground to peaceful family social time! That is what I desperately need right now! I dont know how am I going to cook with the two boys but I'll try for the sake of decent family mealtime without a fight! So far so good, the book is easy to read and I can so relate to all the troubles she went through with her children. I'm definately going to try some recipes and see how it goes! Only one small trouble is all these recipes have very little pictures (I love pictures, less words to read for a busy busy mom) and most of the recipes are western-style kinda food. See if I can intergrate some of the Sneaky Chef technique into the Malaysian recipes. :) Well this is my project for now! Wish me luck. http://www.thesneakychef.com/ I actually blogged about another book call Deceptively Delicious some time back, I browse it at the bookstore but didn't buy it because it has no pictures (or very little) And I and not commited to cooking then... but anyway, it's also another 'hiding healthy food in unhealthily kids favourite food'. http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/

Friday, January 01, 2010

IT'S 2010!

I picked up my pen today and started writing 'to do list'. I wrote the date 1 Jan 0.... Hey.. it's 1 Jan 10! I've been writing 09 for the past 365 days that it's hard to change to habit. It stuck me that time flies! And it's time for New year resolutions!

I've learn my lesson and thanks to my dear brother's reminder to keep my resolutions short focused so it's achievable! No point trying to reach for the moon when you know you cant fly yet. take small reachable steps which will take you closer to the ultimate big goal of my life.

I use to write a long list of what I want to do for the NEW YEAR but I get so exhausted and discouraged half way down the road when I don't accomplish half of what I wrote and worst still I re-write those list for the following year's resolution. So the list just get LONGER!

This year's goal is going to be more focused and more achievable.

MY NEW YEAR RESOLUTION
I am going to keep to a tight- disciplined time schedule for me and my family- namely my boys so that Tristan & Trevor will sleep and eat better, I will have more time for myself, my health, for my husband, for service to others and for my business. Prioritize and focus on improving the jobs and responsibilities I have at hand!


So here's to a great year ahead!
Happy New Year!
May this year be fearless, blissful, fulfilling and let's live this year without regrets!


Found this online on HOW TO KEEP TO YOUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION
http://www.ehow.com/how_5800702_keep-new-year_s-resolve.html

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