Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Juan Or's First Day at Kindergarten

Mommy knows this is already the 3rd week into school, but shy to say, now only Mommy finds the time to blog about Juan Or's first day at kindy. By the way, as usual, Mommy was really caught up with management matters during the end of the semester and dealing with countless students at the beginning of a new semester in Mommy's workplace. That's why Mommy has not been updating this blog for about one month already.

Juan Or is officially in kindy already! Here he is, ever ready and eager to go to school!



Here he is in his class called "Pre-K" for 4-year-olds. Good thing - no frets and cries from him - probably because he is mentally prepared after Mommy sent him for off and on holiday classes for the whole of 2011.



Mommy enrolled him for the kindy's daycare as well. In the daycare, the typical routine is lunch followed by nap time and then snack time at 4pm. If the child has finished his/her snack and the parent has not come yet, the teachers will guide the child with their homework (if any) until the parent comes to fetch.

According to the daycare's caretaker, Juan Or willingly ate his lunch, only thing is that he will take the spoon ans twirl and twirl and twirl the rice (instead of eating) if he is left to eat by himself. So the caretaker actually spoon fed him, otherwise he will end up 'eating forever'! ^_^ He slept well too during the nap time and ate together (ate by feeding himself) with the other kids during the snack time. In in all, Juan Or seems to be able to adapt himself well with the new environment  Here he is, eating together with his daycare mates.



A close-up pix of him eating....


(surprisingly he ate the jam spread as well instead of just the white bread - very much unlike last time!)


....and him drinking the milk.



Overall, Mommy is very happy and relieved that he adapts himself well both in the kindy and the daycare. :-)



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18th January 2012

This is the 3rd week into his kindy. Just yesterday, Juan Or was not quite himself when Mommy fed him dinner. He seemed withdrawn and kept on rubbing his stomach. So his Papa asked whether other kid punched him or not to which he said yes. So Mommy asked Juan Or whether he punched other kid first or other kid punched him first to which Juan Or could not give a consistent answer. He also could not give a consistent answer when Mommy asked whether the teacher scolded him or scolded the other kid.

So Mommy asked his class teacher, Ms. Ida as to what transpired. According to the teacher, apparently Juan Or and one other boy played rough with each other (i.e. shoving each other roughly) and playing while the teacher was teaching. So the teacher punished both of them by ordering them to stand at the corner of the class for 3 to 4 minutes (time out punishment!) and thereafter the teacher explained to them what wrong did they do. According to the teacher, after the punishment, Juan Or became more silent in class (Feelings of guilt? Or feeling bad ?)  and more mindful of things he shouldn't do in class (which is a good thing to Mommy!). Well, the fact that he couldn't hide his guiltiness at home shows that the time-out punishment has effect on him! ^_^

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Of Litt Tak Toys Warehouse Sale and Man-Woman Sexuality

Currently, Litt Tak is holding her toys warehouse sale again (till this Sunday) and Mommy, being a fan of Thomas and Friends toys, is sure to be there.

Sadly this time, although there is variety in the kind of Thomas and Friends toys offered, nevertheless, the kind of price cut offered is by far the worst ever Mommy encountered compared to all other previous Litt Tak warehouse sales. Previously, the warehouse sale prices offered are at least 25% discount, but usually are 30% lower than what you see in Jusco and Toys R'Us. However, the current one is only 10% to 11% cheaper than normal retail.

The only good Thomas and Friends deal this time is the Stanley set, selling for RM60 (normally retailed at RM99.90 and previous Litt Tak sale price was RM75).






Mommy saw another good deal too. It's the Power Rangers figurines, selling for only RM2! So Mommy bought two characters only just for fun, after all Juan Or isn't exactly crazy about Power Rangers.



However, when Juan Or laid his eyes on them, boy was he crazy about Power Rangers to the point of bringing the figurines with him to sleep and no forgetting, showing off the figurines to the other boy whom the babysitter is also taking care of! ^_^


Not just that, when Mommy handed the figurines to Juan Or, Mommy was surprised to hear Juan Or labelling the green one as 'man' and the blue one as 'woman', which is factually correct according to the illustration and labels on the figurines' packaging. As if saying 'man' and 'woman' is not enough, he went on to show that if 'man' and 'woman' are together, they must 'KISS!'




Huh, now Mommy knows where does Juan Or's level of knowledge/perception on man-woman sexuality stand! ^_^

P/S: If you are keen to go to Litt Tak warehouse sale, see the details here.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Spoooooooky Hands!

Come late evening or night, lights have to be switched on in the house. So not too long ago, Juan Or spotted this shadow on the ceiling....







He said it's SPOOOOOOOKY HANDS!


Look here, look there, apparently this is the culprit.....


It's the clothes-hanger stand!

But Mommy knows where he got the idea from. It's from one of his favourite storybook called "The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree"! 

Friday, December 2, 2011

Juan Or at UCSI-CDC Holiday Camp 2011

This holiday camp is the last of the holiday programme organized by UCSI's Child Development Centre (CDC) for the  year 2011. The holiday camp was for 5 days from 9.00 am to 12.30 pm, fee was RM250 for all 5 days, food provided everyday during morning break and the kids work together with the same group of friends everyday unlike the previous holiday programmes organized before this.

As usual, Mommy enrolled Juan Or for this camp as a preparation for him to go to school officially next year. This round, Juan Or showed his eagerness to go to school when Mommy was driving him there, but once we reached the school, Juan Or became clingy and insisted on Mommy sitting around with him first before entering class. Of course there were initial cryings from Juan Or when the teacher took him in, but luckily he adapted himself quickly.



Many kinds of activities were conducted during the camp such as music and movement, speech and drama, kinder cooking, kinder science, fun play,, arts and craft, water play and telematch. Mommy couldn't be there to see him do the activities, otherwise he would become very clingy and refuse to cooperate during class. ^_^ So these are the photos snapped by the teachers so that Mommy can see what he did there without having to be there!


Making snowman (and X-mas tree but Mommy has yet to snap his end product photo) .....




Rolling on the exercise mat during fun play and dance session.....







Kinder science experimenting on different densities of different kinds of liquid.....



Mommy isn't exactly sure whether this is painting or playing with gooey chocolate, but he sure is enjoying himself!






Telematch......passing the bowl around? Or perhaps passing the ball around using the bowl?






Another telematch scene.....probably the kids were asked to sit down to rest first before another game starts.






A reward (Cars stickers) for winning some games in the telematch....here's Juan Or with the Headmistress, Ms. Adeline Tan.






The week after that (but the camp was already over), when Mommy was driving him, Juan Or asked to go to school. So Mommy answered,"Soon, Juan Or. Next year you will be going to school everyday!"

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Big Bad Wolf Books Aftermath Sale (24th-28th November 2011)

For those who followed Mommy's adventures and hoards at the recent Big Bad Wolf Books sale, you can surely expect Mommy to go for the aftermath sale as well. Well, yes indeed, being the bargain hunter that Mommy has always been! This aftermath sale's objective is to clear out all leftover stocks from the recently-held sale in MAEPS, Serdang. And the good news is that all books are sold each at nothing more than RM5!

This aftermath sale is held at South City Plaza and starts at 10am. Mommy had an unpleasant encounter with one rude and bossy aunty driving a big four-wheel drive when looking for parking in the mall. The parking lot is where people round their cars to look for empty parking lots and here is one rude aunty who is ever-ready to honk fiercely! Then to get out of her way, Mommy diverted slightly towards a section where there is a no-entry sign so that she can head into the correct path and speed all she wants at the parking bay. For that, the rude aunty also has to show her bossy side by giving another fierce honk at Mommy as if saying that Mommy has no right to divert the car to the no-entry direction! Bugger! This is what Mommy has to say to the rude and bossy aunty who seems to think she's all so important and grand - "If you think your time is so precious such that nobody can be in front of you, then why go for this kind of sale? Better go for book stores like MPH, Borders or Popular during their normal business hours where there's no long queue and no crowd! Some more you can afford to own a big four-wheel drive vehicle, why have to come fight with poor people to buy cheap books!?"

Putting the unpleasant parking encounter aside, there was already a long queue at the sale even at 10+am. To avoid the queue, Mommy went to Watsons first to buy something before heading back to the sale. Luckily by then, the queue had dispersed. There were really lots of people there and the walking pathways between display tables are very narrow, so it was quite difficult to walk from one display table to another. And because of the extreme crowd, Mommy only concentrated on the children's section and did not at all bother to venture to the other genres' tables. Most display tables have their books all turned haphazardly. Despite the chaos, Mommy still managed to find some decent books for Juan Or.


These books (10 books altogether) each at RM2. Eight of them are Scholastic books. Mommy is happy to have found some books on Scooby-Doo, Bearenstain Bears and Fluffy the Classroom Guinea Pig. The book at the far bottom right is a postcard book. It contains 30 pull-out postcards. Maybe Juan Or can use them next time when writing to pen-pals (that's if he wants to have pen-pals!).




Here are another 3 books, each at RM3. Two of them (Duck Soup and the one with choo-choo train picture) are hard-cover books and the Safari one is a fact-cum-sticker book.



So total price is RM29 for 13 books, but because Mommy has OCBC credit card, Mommy got extra 5% discount, so paid only RM27.55.

How about the queue? Well, the queue was HORRENDOUS! Mommy started queuing at 11.35am, but only got Mommy's turn at 12.45pm! So this sale is definitely not advisable for people who are not fit, sickly or who are in their middle and late pregnancy (depending on the pregnant mum's fitness level) at least during the 'hot period' of the sale. Imagine standing on your feet for more than an hour to get your turn and in low-oxygen condition some more! You have to be fit to survive in this sale!

How about parking fee in South City Plaza? It's only RM1 for up to 12 hours of parking - cheap!

Would Mommy ever go for another Big Bad Wolf aftermath sale in the future? Highly unlikely.