Fasting – 可怜

We have been playing badminton quite regularly in the evening. As I mentioned in my previous blog, we have quite a handful of children who would join us in playing the game and they are a good mixture of Chinese, Malay and Indians.

Yesterday evening, one of the Malay boys said: “aunty, this Saturday we are starting our fasting month, so we cannot come down and play for the whole month.”

It was his way of informing me of their soon to be absence, I guess, and I think it was a very polite gesture on his part. I always like talking to this Malay boy because he is of very good nature and he speaks very politely. Not that the rest are rude but he stands out a little more in term of being courteous. Anthea also had the same impression and she said she likes him best…haha.

After the game, Anthea asked me: “mommy, what is Fasting:” I explained to her that during fasting month, the Malays will not eat or drink from sunrise. They will only eat/drink after sunset. This is call break-fast.

She asked: “then why they cannot play badminton?” I explained to her that they need to rest the bodies well as any exercises may cause dehydration.

Then she said: “wow…they are so 可怜，cannot eat and drink, they will sure feel dizzy. Lucky I am not Malay.”

When I heard her comment, I quickly add on: “Oh..They are not 可怜，this is their Muslim religion and they have a belief in their religion. Anyway, it is not that they cannot eat totally. They will eat heavy breakfast before sunrise and when sunset, they can have their dinner too.”

I took the opportunity to explain the goodness on fasting – Muslims are reminded the suffering of the poor. I told her we must always be mindful that some people are not as fortunate as we are to have a comfortable home and food. There are needy people in our society who need help.

As I have limited knowledge to the reasons, I also goggled to find out more about Ramadan and hopefully can explain in details to Anthea.

“Fasting serves many purposes. While they are hungry and thirsty, Muslims are reminded of the suffering of the poor. Fasting is also an opportunity to practice self-control and to cleanse the body and mind. And in this most sacred month, fasting helps Muslims feel the peace that comes from spiritual devotion as well as kinship with fellow believers.”

It is such a coincidence that only this week I heard the PM speech on religion and here we are – learning the real life things about our Muslim friends. I am really glad she has this exposure to learn about such practise. Slowly but surely she will learn more about other religion and their practises too. This is what I call “Learn through Play”…haha.

天下与冰淇淋之约

Today is Anthea 1st lesson for Term 4 at 天下 and her lesson is in the late afternoon from 4.30pm. My plan was for the Anthea and Anders to have early nap, so that they can wake up in time for Anthea's lesson.

My MIL had called me in the morning to mention that she is available to provide me with logistic support as she was not babysitting my niece. I was quite great to get her help as it's was anthea 1st lesson with a new class/teacher 粼琳, she had requested that I sit in with her at the class. I planned to let Anders stay with my MIL while I attended the lesson with Anthea.

For lunch, I prepared the sweet corn with carrot soup. I also managed to fried Thai Pineapple rice. The feedback for the rice was mixed – anthea don't like it and Anders finished his bowl...hehe.

Both of them took their nap around 1.30pm. Anthea woke up around 3pm and Anders was up by 3.30pm. Overall, the timing was just nice. Anders stayed with my MIL while I brought Anthea to her lesson.

Anthea enjoyed her lesson and she likes粼琳老师 very much and kept saying “mommy, I like 粼琳老师，she is better that 云芳老师. : P Actually the administrator did mention to me that Lin Lin is a very good teacher and I should not worry too much of the change... : )

Dinner was with the extended families at 满福园@ Intercontinental hotel. I brought along the mini snow skin mooncakes for the families to sample.

We finished dinner by 9pm and both Anthea and Anders was still not too keen to go home as they kept asking me “go where?” So when my youngest BIL mentioned that he was going to collect his golf set from his friend, I told him we will joined him for a car ride.

Along the way, Terence mentioned that his friend was not home yet and decided to adjourn to Geláre for Ice cream. Both Anthea and Anders were most happy and readily agreed to go for ice cream.

It was raining and yet the ice cream place was packed with people. Terence said this is a happening place during weekends.

Both Anthea and Anders had a great time sharing the waffle ice-cream with Terence and Cherry. Cherry will be leaving tomorrow to London for a 5 weeks work assignment and then continue with 2 weeks honeymoon in Europe when Terence meet up with her. I know the children are going to miss her a lot.

2 in A Day...

Anthea used to do her MPM Math on Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon. Then when my MIL announced her retirement plan, we took the opportunity to sign Anthea for a weekday Chinese lesson at Tien Hsia. So far, the routine was manageable with my MIL logistic support.

Recently, my MIL decided to return to the workforce when her previous employer approached her with a reasonable attractive package. I am all supportive of her returning to work because I know my MIL has great passion for her job and she also enjoy working with her colleagues.

With this change, I need to reschedule Anthea's classes in order to match our family routine. Now that Adrian is oversea, Anders will need to tag along whenever Anthea has her lessons. So I am trying my best to maximize her lesson time, so that it will not be so tiring for all of us.

The best fit schedule now is MPM Math on Friday and she will be doing 2 books instead of the original 1 book. The teacher has commented that she is progressing well and handling 2 books should not be a problem to her.

Her Tien Hsian Term 4 starts Sep to Nov and I have arranged for her to take the Saturday afternoon lesson from 4.30 pm to 6pm. This means that I will try to make the children nap early on Saturday so that we can go for her lessons. There are limited slots for weekend's session as most of the classes are fully booked

Today is her second last lesson at Tien Hsia for Term 3. I decided not to disrupt it and took ½ day off to bring her for the lesson.

After work, I went to her childcare to fetch her and when we reached Tien Hsia, I made the payment for her next Term lessons. Judging by the number of waitlists on my preferred timing, the coordinator mentioned that chances are very slim.

While Anthea was doing her lesson, I run my errands. I managed to go to the Library to returned and borrowed new books for them. Thanks to Vivien and Levine's comments in my previous blog. I managed to collect the free gift and a token, plus the reading card. Now we are motivated to read more books...haha.

After the library, I went for a quick bite and then did some shopping for grocery at NTUC. I stocked up on our weekend breakfast and lunch ingredients...: P

Then it was just in time for me to fetch Anthea from her class. I saw many mommies/grannies and even daddies waiting for their child at the centre. This makes my dream of becoming a PTSAHM stronger!!

We went home and Anthea had her power nap. In the evening, Anthea and Anders had Happy Meals for dinner before Anthea went for her MPM Lesson.

At the end of the day, she was still pretty enthusiastic and came home to do her homework...phew... I was still worried she might be overwhelmed with 2 lessons in a day.

At night, we had chance to talk to daddy and he updated me on his course. So far, things are going well and he had been tasked to do some important assignments and I know this will be to his advantage.

Another quality day in Aces routine.

陪读妈妈与“天下”

Recently Adrian attended Anthea’s Parents-Teacher-Conference, he came back and feedback the teacher's comments. Her English teacher – Ms Valentine said that her English is good and she had confidence in her works. Her Chinese teacher – 罗老师said her Chinese needs improvement as she is weak in certain area.

Well, I took the teachers comment very SERIOULY and started to source for Chinese lesson for her. Actually all these while, I had wanted to do something for her English and Chinese but LAZINESS took the better of me... : P

I did some researches and finally decided on this language school – 天下。 My colleague's daughter also did the same lesson in this school and her feedback was good. Needless to say, anything that had endorsement from a mother who is of HIGH STANDARD will win me too...hee.

We arranged for Anthea to have a Friday afternoon lesson after consultation with my mother in law for logistic support. As she is now retired, she agreed to help me bring Anthea for her weekday lessons instead of me “jamming her lessons” on weekends.

On Anthea first lesson on 4 July, my MIL brought her to the school. I guess because of the new environment and classmates, she was a bit tearful. After the lesson, Anthea asked my MIL not to make payment for the lessons. She will talk to me 1st. So after some talks and persuasion, I decided to follow her on her 2nd lesson. I asked the school for permission to sit in during the lesson and they were very kind to accede to my request.

On Friday, 11 July, I fetched her from childcare after her lunch/bath. We headed to Tien Hsia for our lesson. I followed through the 1 ½ hour lesson. The class was small and there are only 5 students in the class. Heard from the administrator that this is actually the 2nd class since the 1st class was full. Good for Anthea as she will have more personal attention from 云芳老师。The 1 ½ lesson was very enriching, the children learnt 拼音，认字，写字。 There is a 听写list for next lesson.

From observation, I know Anthea enjoyed the lesson and I think she just need a little more time to get used to the class.

When we reached home, we revised her lesson and even learn the 听写list. She was very eager to learn them. I am glad that she had interest in Chinese and I know for sure, I would be there to guide her along and ensure that she will LOVE 华文 as much as I do... : )

This was my 1st experienced as a “陪读妈妈“and I know there will be many more to come as she starts her primary school soon.

宝贝，加油，妈妈会支此你！！

Her 1st Enrichment Class – MPM Math

As parents, we had been slacking in sending our children to enrichment classes, I think it's because we are plain LAZY…hee. Jokes aside, honestly, I have been looking around for enrichment classes and proposed them to Anthea. She always says “NO”. I believe the reason why she said No is because she is worried about getting scolded by the teacher.

Recently, I discussed with Adrian that we really need to consider seriously for her to start some lesson. This is mainly to prepare her for Primary School as she will likely has tuition classes when she starts school. The other reason is simply - she is too restless at home and watching too much TV programs.

I did some research on Mathematics enrichment class and shortlisted 2 schools that are near to our house – Kumon & MPM Math. From the Forum, I had gathered some feedbacks on Kumon and decided against enrolling Anthea for the class.

For MPM Math, one of my colleagues had enrolled her daughter for the course and listening to her feedback and looking at the workbook, I was quite impressed. So I brought Anthea to the Ang Mo Kio Centre and did a “game” as what the consultant mentioned. She did it and enjoyed the “game”. After that, I signed her up for the course.

Last Thursday was her 1st lesson. There is a Teacher Irene in the centre which Anthea had good impression of, so luckily on Thursday, she was around and guided Anthea through the lesson. The reason why Anthea had an impression of her was because she is PRETTY and very approachable.

Today morning when she woke up, she told me: “mommy, I am very excited about the lesson today and I am going to see teacher Irene.” I am really glad to hear these words from her. I brought her to the centre for her lesson and told her that I will not be inside waiting for her. Once she’s done, she can call me and I will fetch her. She said: “ok, mommy, you can take a walk in AMK HUB.” Such a sweet thought.

I did some errands around the centre and when she was done almost 30 minutes later. She called me and I picked her up from the centre. As usual, I asked her how her lesson was. She was very happy and told me that she enjoyed her lesson and teacher Irene gave her a sticker for a Well-Done lesson. Then she said she had homework and wanted to do it soon. After her afternoon nap, she woke up and did her homework.

This is definitely an improvement on her routine on just watching TV programs and doing nothing. She is very motivated and told me “Mommy, I want to learn drawings…” : )