Multilinguality

Mommy is happy that Juan Or is showing signs of understanding several languages. Early this morning (yes, during the wee hours in the morning when Juan Or refused to go back to sleep!), Mommy showed Juan Or the alphabet board book. In the book, under the letter 'A' category, there were several objects that start with the letter 'A', one of it being 'apple'. So Mommy pointed to the 'apple', pronounced it and then asked Juan Or in Hainanese language to pronounce it as well. Juan Or immediately said 'apple' in a very babyish sort of voice, but the pronunciation was very clear. Oohhh...Mommy was thrilled to hear that because so far, Juan Or has never opened his mouth to repeat after Mommy whenever Mommy reads with him. Then Mommy asked Juan Or to say it again and he said,"Apple". Then Juan Or started walking around as part of his play routine. Sometime later, Mommy took the same book again, pointed at the apple again and asked,"Juan Or, what do you call this?" "Apple!," Juan Or replied and he continued walking around and playing. Then about an hour later, Mommy took the book again, pointed at the same apple picture and asked him in Hokkien,"Juan Or, che si keu ha mek? (what is this called?)" Juan Or replied,"Apple!" Woohoo....Mommy is thrilled to know that Juan Or understands Hokkien as well since that is the least spoken language to him!


In the house, the most spoken languages are English and Hainanese, second comes Cantonese because Grandma is Cantonese. In the babysitter's house, Cantonese is mainstream, followed by Thai language because the babysitter is a Thai lady married to a Malaysian Chinese man, but the babysitter is able to converse fluently in Cantonese. The babysitter told Mommy before that sometimes she scolded Juan Or in Thai language and he seems to understand. Mommy only speaks Hokkien with Juan Or when Mommy is having private time with him such as during his wakeful wee hours in the morning or when Mommy is scolding Juan Or.


Other words that Juan Or spoke before randomly were 'car', 'What's this?' and two other words that Mommy just can't recall at this point of writing (getting forgetful nowadays!). At the babysitter's house, when Juan Or refuses something, he'll say,"Moi" which means 'no' in Cantonese, but when in own house, he'll say,"Mai" which means 'no' in both Hainanese and Hokkien.

Stranger in the Night

In the wee hours of yesterday morning, at around 4.30 am, after Mommy had put Juan Or to sleep (Juan Or woke up at 2.30 am and refused to go back to sleep!), Mommy settled down to go back to sleep (Mommy sleeps downstairs in the hall nowadays because the spring cot is downstairs). Mommy wasn't feeling sleepy but Mommy merely closed the eyes hoping to fall asleep. Within 15 minutes of lying down, suddenly Mommy heard continuous smacking sound coming from Great-Grandma's room upstairs followed by Great-Grandma's mumble - and the mumble sounded vengeful! Mommy was curious what Great-Grandma was up to but Mommy was too lazy to get up but curiosity killed the cat, so Mommy went up to check. Upon reaching the doorstep of her room, Great-Grandma told Mommy that there was something next to Mommy's feet. Mommy looked down but there was nothing! But Great-Grandma kept pointing at Mommy's feet, so Mommy searched high and low for that 'thing'. It turned out that the 'thing' was just next to the door frame. Mommy looked hard and thought that the 'thing' looked like some big black insect, but hey no, it didn't quite look like an insect, turned out, the 'thing' was a tiny bat! And the bat looked half dead.....eeee......yucks! So the bat actually flew in through the window and probably gave sleeping Great-Grandma a rude shock! She handed Mommy her hand fan (you know the type used by satay man to fan the satay?) and asked Mommy to whack it some more. Mommy whacked the bat but didn't whack it that hard because Mommy felt geli. As a result of the impact, the bat fell onto the stairs and it managed to hide behind a step. Papa, on hearing the commotion, came down to investigate. On knowing what happened, Papa decided to hunt down the bat in case the bat reached downstair and may harm Juan Or. So Papa went to the store room to get his badminton racquet to use as 'weapon' and rolled a book of newspaper as an extra tool. Papa went near to the step where the bat was hiding, used the rolled newspaper to push the bat out of its hiding spot and the bat merely fell down motionless onto the floor! Papa quickly went downstairs again and used the racquet to 'trap' the bat. As Papa moved the racquet along the floor, so too the bat and bat let out a few squeaks. So the bat wasn't dead after all! Papa quickly lifted up the racquet and used the rolled newspaper to whack hard on the bat. The bat laid motionless now - no more squeaks. Here's how it looked like:

(The 'stranger' was trapped under the badminton racquet.)

(A closer view of the 'stranger'.)

(The 'stranger' is dead!)

After that, Papa went looking for a charcoal tong but couldn't find one, so used a newspaper to wrap around the bat before picking it up and threw it onto the small plot of land just next to the house. The land has fruit trees planted on it, so the dead bat becomes the fertilizer! After everything was over, Mommy went back to sleep. Juan Or still remained asleep as if nothing happened!

Jua Or's Verbal Development

Yesterday morning, Papa was carrying Juan Or in his arms and walking around in the house. Mommy was hanging around too. Then Papa sort of passed by the kitchen calendar (pictured above) and suddenly Juan Or pointed at the calendar and said,"Thirteen." What!? Did Mommy just hear the word 'thirteen' coming out from Juan Or's mouth? As far as Mommy knows, Mommy only teach Juan Or numbers from 1 to 10, never going beyond 10. How on earth does Juan Or know that the number in the calendar is thirteen? Mommy wondered. That morning itself, Papa put Juan Or into the baby cot for him to occupy himself. Juan Or chose to flip the pages of an alphabet board book. Suddenly Papa heard Juan Or said 'A, B, C, D' in a very babyish-sounding voice. Papa and Mommy were very surprised. So far, Juan Or has never opened his mouth to pronounce any alphabets or numbers even though Mommy has read them to him many times before. So it was all a pleasant surprise!

Later that night, Mommy related to Second Brother-in-law about the word 'thirteen' that Juan Or said. Then did Second Brother-in-law mention that he actually showed and taught Juan Or the number thirteen in the calendar during the wee hours in the morning when Juan Or got up and about and refused to go back to sleep. So looks like Juan Or actually remembers what was taught or mentioned to him, the only thing is whether Juan Or wants to say it out or not! Haha!

Juan Or's Look-alike Meter

Mommy accidentally found this look-alike meter when Mommy was blog hopping at MamaDanish78's blog. This look-alike meter allows you to determine how much your child resembles you or your spouse. Sounds exciting and fun, right? So Mommy clicked on the widget which led Mommy to a webpage in MyHeritage.com. MyHeritage claims that their look-alike meter uses state-of-the-art face recognition technology to determine the percentage of resemblance. All Mommy has to do is to upload photos of Mommy, Papa and Juan Or. After that Mommy was prompted to register and then the uploading process began. Just follow along the guided instructions and voila, the meter's needle started rocking to and fro and finally settled at 12% resemblance to Mommy!


And then, just for curiosity's sake, Mommy retried the look-alike meter but this time using another photo of Juan Or at 7 to 8 months old. The result? It's a 14% resemblance to Papa! So Mommy has put the 14% resemblance look-alike meter at the bottom of this blog (you need to scroll all the way down).


What's the conclusion here? How much percentage of resemblance depends on which photo you upload. Seen from another perspective, as the child grows up and as the face changes, so does the percentage of resemblance to either the mummy or daddy.




MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

Soft Toys at Win (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. Warehou se Sale (10th-12th July 2009)

Last week Friday, Mommy went to this warehouse sale to see whether Mommy can buy any soft toys for Juan Or at a bargain price. What's more, this warehouse sale's advertisement (in The Star's Metro section) indicated that they carry the Russ and Caress brands. As far as Mommy knows, Russ soft toys are very pricey but good in quality.

This warehouse sale is at Sunway Damansara Technology Park, i.e., somewhere at Kota Damansara's SMI area. So, the parking is free but it's your luck whether you get a good parking spot or not. Unfortunately, there were no banners to indicate the exact location of the warehouse sale, so Mommy relied on spotting canopy structures.

(A view of the warehouse sale from a distance.)

There were quite a lot of customers when Mommy reached there and most of them were ladies (not surprising, eh!?) and only a handful of elderly gentlemen (looking for soft toys for their grandchildren?). The items on sale were gift, decorative and souvenir items - some still in good condition, some were mediocre and some had defects. There were only two payment counters and only cash term was accepted. Mommy recalled seeing one hot-tempered Chinese staff lady who kept on bugging the cashiers (her subordinates?) to shift the location of the cashier machine. These were some of the items Mommy remembered:

• Gift wrapping papers - RM3 for 10 pieces - most of what was left looked crumpled and torn a little at the edges. Probably all the good ones were already grabbed by the time Mommy arrived. But Mommy did notice other customers already holding many, many pieces of them and they all looked in good condition.

• Paperbags - RM10 for 10 pieces of large ones, RM10 for 5 pieces of jumbo ones - all of them still in good condition and were also one of those hot-selling items there. Small-sized paperbags were not on sale.

• Photo frames - prices ranged from RM6 and above.

• Mugs - RM3

• Soup mug with small teddy bear in it - RM5

• Ceramic holder (big size) for scented candles - RM12

• Ceramic Christmas ornaments - each price tagged at RM4 and buy one, free one. So price per piece became RM2.

• Soft toys - prices ranged from RM1, RM2, RM3, RM4, RM5, RM6 and RM8, depending on the sizes. Those RM1 ones were the tiniest size and those RM8 ones were of about 8 to 10 inches tall. Those very huge soft toys were on sale too, but not many and the price was something like RM80 or so.

• Wedding figurines (tall man and woman figurines) - RM20

• Jewellery boxes, music boxes, clocks, figurines, wedding photo albums, aromatherapy accessories, Nicci brand items - Mommy can't remember the exact prices but overall were cheap except for Nicci items.
  
  
  
  

(This was how the crowd was like.)






(Christmas musical-sounding soft toys at the upper shelf, each at RM18, the sound function didn't work anymore either because of spoilt mechanism or the batteries were already taken out. Mommy can't remember the price of the cow piggybanks at the lower shelf.)

(Soft toy section.)

(Christmas toys, each price tagged at RM6, but because of buy one, free one, so the price became RM3 per piece.)

(This rack is Mommy's favourite because all the soft toys were about 8-10 inches long, Russ brand, each at RM8, except for the green frog at RM4.)

How about Mommy's yield for the day? This was what Mommy bought for Juan Or (at bargain prices, of course!):

(Cow and pig soft toys of about 10 inches long, come with 'underside' pockets, Russ brand, each at RM8. Actually, there is a sound chip embedded in the nose part, but it's not functioning. Anyway, Mommy plans to remove the sound chips through the 'underside' pockets first before giving the toys to Juan Or.)

(Dog soft toys of about 8 inches long, Russ brand, each at RM8. The fur feels smoother and of higher quality than the cow and pig soft toys.)

By the way, should Juan Or dislike or show indifference towards these soft toys, Mommy has a backup plan for these toys: put them into the showcase cabinet for display! These soft toys are just as good for decorative items! Hehehe......

Free (Sample) Diaper Pants from Drypers Drypantz

The same time with Mommy's visit to Tesco Extra Cheras and stumbling on a leaflet about Huggies' redemption, Mommy also saw a pile of Drypers Drypantz leaflets hanging at the rack nearby.

(Drypers Drypantz entry form.)

This Drypers Drypantz programme is about introducing Drypantz to two other friends (the two friends must be of different households and each friend will receive 2 pieces of Drypantz of their desired sizes) and the introducer will receive either M4, L3 or XL3 Drypantz and also be in the running to win one year's supply of Drypantz. But the introducer needs to include only one proof of purchase by attaching the M44, L36 or XL32 packaging's barcode. The contest is from 1st May to 31st December 2009. There will only be one winner for every month. How are the winners chosen? Every month, each contest entry form received will be given a serial number. The total number of entries received per month will be divided by two and the contestant having the serial number of the nearest and lower even number (after dividing by two) will be the winner. However, each contestant is allowed to send in only one entry form.


How does this Drypantz programme sound like to Mommy? Mommy finds this programme more reasonable than the Huggies one. What's more, Juan Or is currently using Drypantz L36 and still has another unopened L36 pack. Yippedy-doo! Mommy will definitely go for this programme!


By the way, wasted already....few months ago, Mommy had thrown away a Drypantz M44 packaging! So the lesson learnt here is not to throw away bar codes of consumer product packagings because you never know when it will become useful!

Huggies Playitem Redemption

Yesterday, Mommy dropped by at Tesco Extra Cheras after work to go buy a bottle of Agnesia prickly heat powder for Juan Or (the old bottle is about to finish) and also to buy Chipsmore (2 packets for RM4 only!) to be given to the babysitter's children in return for her kindness to bottlefeed Juan Or during her off-time/days (Juan Or rejects the bottle when Mommy and Grandma feed him!). As usual, it is Mommy's habit to round the baby products area just to check out if there's any offer worth considering. Upon reaching the disposable diaper section, Mommy stumbled on a pad of Huggies leaflet hanging from the rack.

(Front side of the leaflet.)

(Back side of the leaflet.)

This leaflet is about playitem redemption by Huggies. The items for redemption are Huggies Play Train (100 points) and Huggies Play Mat & Play Gym (75 points). The redemption period is from 1st July until 31st December 2009. You can redeem the item(s) via three ways: by collecting yourself from Kimberley-Clark's office at Kelana Brem Tower in Kelana Jaya; or by paying RM10 (by cheque) to Kimberley-Clark to deliver to your house; or by redeeming at Huggies booths in specified shopping complexes on certain days (specified in the leaflet).


As for the redemption points, the points you get will be according to the Huggies points stated on any Huggies diaper packaging. However, in the leaflet, the list of points obtained from each packaging type refers only to the new type of packaging. How about those who bought the old packaging type? Wouldn't it be unfair to those who stocked up on the old packaging type (Mommy is one of them)? For that, Mommy called up Kimberly-Clark using the telephone number provided in the leaflet. It turned out that the given number is no longer valid, but luckily there is a recorded message telling customers to dial 03-7806 8288 instead. So Mommy dialled the given number and managed to make the enquiries. Here are the extra information that Mommy got plus Mommy's reaction in blue italics font:

• points from old Huggies packaging are also accepted, but the number of points will be according to what is printed on the packaging and NOT follow the number of points accorded to the equivalent new packaging. For example, an old packaging of Huggies Dry L72 is 3 points, but the new packaging of Huggies Dry L68 is 8 points. So if you got the old packaging, you only get 3 points and NOT promoted to 8 points.

What!? Since Mommy had already stocked up on the old packaging type, that means it is a waste-lah! So Huggies want to influence parents to stock up some more new packaging diapers? Wah...Huggies is really squeezing parents!

• when you redeem the playitem, you must submit the ENTIRE packaging and NOT merely the cut-out of the Huggies points.

What!? Huggies want to make sure that all the diapers must be used up first before parents can make the redemption? Sure, Mommy knows that the alternative is to open the packaging, take out all the diapers and put them into other plastic bags, but isn't that troublesome?

Looks like Mommy can forget about the redemption. The main reason being Mommy is not willing to stock up some more diapers for Juan Or because the current stock can last him till he is 21 months old. By then, Juan Or is probably potty-trained and won't need diapers anymore. Anyway, based on the current stock, the total points collected so far is only 24 miserable points. OK, forget it!

Self-assertion

Eversince Juan Or was nearing his 1st year birthday, Mommy noticed that he is increasingly assertive of his wants and desires. For example, when Juan Or wants to climb up the stairs, but Mommy came to carry him away, he will cry to protest. Or if his Second Uncle carried him away from those forbidden places in the house, he would cry in protest and wave his legs angrily in the air. Last night, Mommy fed Juan Or with rusk biscuit and he ate willingly. Then, he got hold of the house keys to play with. As he was playing with the keys, Mommy offered him to bite the rusk biscuit, but he refused. And Mommy tried offering the biscuit again, still he shook his head to refuse. When Mommy wanted to take the keys away from him (because he kept putting them into his mouth), he cried loudly in protest and then turned his body away from Mommy. Watch this video:

After much coaxing, finally Juan Or let go off the keys. This time, Mommy offered the rusk biscuit again and he immediately took a bite. So looks like Juan Or was worried in case Mommy got to snatch the keys away from him when he took the bite! That was why he refused to bite the biscuit when his hands were still holding the keys!

Crocodile Tears

Eversince Juan Or was about 1 year old, Juan Or is good at 'manipulating' others to get things his way. For example, because he loves to play at those forbidden places - you know, places like the electricals, wires, altar table, stairs, behind the refrigerator and his Great-grandmother's cabinet - and moreover, Mommy and other family members were busy with eating dinner or doing other things. So for our convenience and his safety, Juan Or will be put into the baby cot, very much to his dislike. Very rarely will you see Juan Or contented playing by himself in the cot. Most often than not, Juan Or will be feigning a pitiful-looking face, and making his trademark fretful and crying sound - but no tears! And when Mommy takes him out of the cot, Juan Or will start smiling or laughing! Mind you, the smile or laugh is not of the normal type, instead it's the cheeky type as if to say,"Haha...you got tricked by me!" That's what Mommy calls it - crocodile tears! Only recently did Mommy have the chance to video-shoot Juan Or doing his crocodile tears. Watch this video:

The Rocking Giraffe

After leaving Telok Gong (see post on Joyride Trip to Telok Gong), Papa headed back to the new house - that's where Mommy put the rocking giraffe bought in the recent My Dear Warehouse Sale. Of course, Mommy is still very excited about the rocking giraffe - and very excited to see how Juan Or reacts towards it. So, first thing upon reaching there, Mommy asked Papa to put the giraffe together. Here's how it went:

("Quick, Papa! I can't wait already!")



(Juan Or helps Papa to open the box.)





(Papa is fixing the wheels.)

("Let me have a try at the wheels too.")





(The wheels are fixed, but the giraffe is neckless!)

(Here's the giraffe's neck! Let Papa fix it.)

("Never mind, as Papa is fixing the neck, I'll fiddle with the rocker first.")

("Papa is fixing the handle bar now. I'll just watch from here.")

("Papa, aren't you done with the handle yet?)

("Yay! Finally Papa is mounting the neck on the giraffe's body!")

("Can't wait to ride on it. But wait....the giraffe is still faceless! Must let Mama stick the facial and body stickers first.")

("OK, finally the stickers are here already.")

Front pose.

Side pose.




(Aiyo! Whack the giraffe somemore!)

(Another pose on the rocking giraffe. Unfortunately, Juan Or still does not know how to rock by himself - his feet keep on stepping onto the floor instead of stepping onto the giraffe's rocker. And Juan Or loves to bite the giraffe's ears!)