Second week of school - little Wayne

It's the second morning when little Wayne would start to cry at the moment he knew that I was sending him to school.

I had to carry him... So today, in the attempt to distract and calm him down a little, we said bye-bye to Dora on TV before switching it off... We said the first hellos to two aunties neighbors whom we met in the lift and we were ignored... We then greeted the cleaner uncle who responded happily...  Two strangers women who were cycling and they smiled back... A cyclist uncle who ignored us... Two elderlies and their dog who also ignored us... A poodle which was pretending to drive a stationery car and kept waving it's tail at Wayne... And we said hello to a butterfly...

I was fed with about 3 cheeseballs along the way to school. Wayne didn't cry anymore. He just whinned a little when he saw his teacher during the screening. He kept his sandals to his allocated pigeon hole and went in to the centre quietly...

We didn't exchange good bye today. I just told him that he's doing great and I'm very proud of him.

I'm bringing the rest of the cheeseballs with me to the office... These shall be the power to keep my spirit up for the rest of my day.

Jia you! Cheers!

First 3 days of School - My little Wayne

First day of Wayne's toddler class... Supposed to report to school at 9am but I got the wrong time and turned up with little Wayne at 10am, instead. The class would conduct EL class daily between 0900 - 1000 hr, then break for playtime between 1000 - 1100 hr before serving lunch, followed by bath time and prepare for nap between 1200 - 1500 hr.

According to the teachers, Mother tongue class would be conducted between 1500 - 1630 hr on every Mon and Tue. Anyway.... for the first day when we were advised to stay for only 1 hour to sit in for their EL class, I stayed for 2 hours, watching their playtime + lunch. OOps!

Wayne was excited in school uniform and strolling to school.. (see Day 1 before and After school below)

Day 2 was a big leap for him (and for me), it totally reminded me of those days when I had to drop Renee off for playgroup years ago... heartbroken memories... Anyway, Wayne did great! He sat down with his friends to enjoy (or rather playing with) his breakfast, without realizing that's an important meal of his time there.. I bid him goodbye and assured that I would be back very quickly, after his lunch to pick him up.

He didn't cry. He was enjoying the nursery rhythms played during mealtime and looking forward to playtime... When I turned up to pick him from his 3 hours session on second day, he was crying... quite badly.... too exhausted and famished... since he's a picky eater. Time for him to appreciate food by adequate starving I supposed...  T__T

Below: Day 2 Before and After School (and he kept showing off his "Star" reward on the back of his hand...)

Day 3, instead of doing the same AM session warm-up for him, we were asked to report after 3pm because the kids were out on an excursion... We missed it since we only joined them this month. AIyOooo.... Nevertheless, Wayne had a good time with his sister at the playground before getting to school. He was still excited... He told us to keep our volume down because his friends were napping. We exchanged goodbyes and picked him in 2 hours time. He came out crying hard, again... He missed us. We knew it...  T__T

Renee's second Children's Day prep

Her first children's day celebration was held at MFS when she attended her playgroup class.

We made some cookies for the kids, if I remembered correctly. Most of the time, we only baked cookies during Teacher's Day or Children's Day.

This year, her new school called for healthy snacks for potluck. Usually, they would ask me for hotdogs.... They had a few parties and they often asked me for hotdogs... Which is not exactly a healthy snack.

This time, I decided to make some granola bites for the kids and teachers ^^

I love granola bars, specially those with frosting. As this would be my first attempt of making some granola bars in my kitchen, I decided to settle with the easiest recipe to avoid disappointment. (Partly because there's only a few days to try) my fallback plan would be off the shelf granola bars...

I improvised a variety of nuts/seeds but keeping as closely to the recipe's call. However, the amount of wet mixture wasn't sufficient to hold the dry ingredients together because I grounded the nuts and seeds, instead of keeping them in chunks. Why so? Because some kids won't eat it if they see chunks... I thought.

So here's my very first yucky-looking granola block which was later divided into squares of bite size to cater for the class. Though it looked yucky... It tasted so yummy, So chewy, so delicious!

Will let the girls have some for breakfast tmr morning... If they love it, I will love to make more in the future, in chunks of nuts instead of grounded form for more texture. 

Hope it sit and set well in another 2 days for the morning party!!

Renee's artwork

All the kids drew stairs...

Renee was absent on the day when all kids drew their stairs... So she had a makeup lesson for it after many weeks...

Here's her artwork... LOL!

With her scary smiley faces... ;)

Teacher's Day is coming to town

Since young, I only remembered that teacher's day fell on the 1st of September. Few years ago, a friend who worked in education line told me that it had been changed to a Friday in September, no longer a fixed date...

I couldn't seem to know or remember when that was... until Renee went to Skool. Haa!

Teacher's Day falls on first Friday of September, which is this Friday (So, perhaps the same applies for Children's Day)

I had suggested to Renee to prepare cookies for her teachers... We tried to make some this evening but Phoebe didn't take her nap and I was called into a meeting so the plan was badly interrupted. Instead of having Renee rolling the dough, cutting the cookies and stamping the "Happy Teacher's Day" wordings, she only managed to put the ingredients to the mixer... poor little girl.

I continued with the rest of it after I logged off from work... here are the giant cookies ^^

I wasn't sure if there's enough but just want to have a personalised token of appreciation to the teachers for taking great care of Renee. More importantly to teach Renee to be grateful to her teachers ^^

小手牵小手

睿锦平日放学便想到课室外的小小游乐场玩儿, 今日也不例外。

前一天, 也是遇上了同一位同学Tiffany。巧的是,Tiffany 的妈妈其实是我同窗4年的中学同学!

今天和前天不太一样。前一天,这两个小朋友自己玩儿自己的。今天, 她们兴奋地叫着对方的名字, 然后还一起玩儿。看了好温馨!

不管多忙, 我都告诉自己一定要让睿锦尽情地玩, 哪怕只有短短的几分钟。。。

拍拍睡

Tonight was hilarious... I still sound like Zen Zhi Wei (HK comedian) after resting my throat for almost the entire day...

I almost recovered... until I had to discipline Renee for taking food for granted. She refused to finish her dinner macaroni, except the soup. So, I explained to her how she's not going to get food until bedtime.

After my overrun meeting (which I sort of attended it with Phoebe). I spent some time with Renee to make it up to her... She tried to pat me to sleep...

It was like the chicken and egg theory.... I tried to co-sleep her while this cheeky girl tried to pat me to sleep!

As she pat gently, she would occasionally tap me on my shoulder and said "快点睡啊?" It repeated for a few times before she said something new..."快点睡啊。。。不然我不管你啦!"

(And my husband who was almost asleep on the bed would interrupt our girls talk "Renee, don't disturb mama... 妈妈明天还要拍戏" ... TMD... X,X)

I listened quietly (to Renee) to observed what she went through at skool. Then, I asked Renee "So, who was the teacher who said that to you?"

"杜老师"

Hahaha. .. she seemed to enjoy skool more and more... just trying to overcome the morning send off separation anxiety moments...

On the other note, Phoebe finished the macaroni soup and tofu. She seemed to be in love with my so-called-by-my-husband "zombie" pyjamas.

Daddy asked Renee (because children wouldn't lie) "Renee, 妈妈的睡衣好看还是难看?"

Renee hesitated before she answered "难看"

Daddy couldn't stop laughing...

Mommy switched the sequence "Renee,  妈咪的衣服难看还是好看?"

Renee smiled at me and continued... "难看"

WTH...

Mommy asked again "Renee, 爸爸好看还是难看?"

Renee responded without a blink "难看"

I supposed that's the new Chinese word learnt from Skool today :p

Very funny night...

Good night, my sweetie Girls... Good night, my snoring hubby ^^

First homework from Skool

Daddy did 2 shapes with Renee on Monday, it was circle and triangle.

Mommy did 2 shapes with Renee on Tuesday, it was rectangle and square.

When it was my turn to guide her on the hands on learning about shapes, I thought I would do the sticking while Renee could hold on to the pieces while I sticked them up...

Instead,  Renee requested to switch with me. "妈咪!睿锦要黏。"

So she did it for both square and rectangle while trying to figure out how to differentiate them.

After which, we had to draw a happy face on the shapes... This is the first time Renee drew a happy face on her own!!!

Well, they all looked pissed off to me but it was due to the uneven surface when we sticked a straw behind. Hahaha ^^

Fun fun fun! So the excuse to go to skool is to submit her homework that is due tomorrow! Yippee ;p

睿锦上学记

大女正在适应期当中。

校长, 老师和帮手们都很热心,很有耐心地开导家长们。。。

睿锦的情况是正常的。她需要的是时间来适应这些改变。

今天,我稍微又提醒了她一下,说明天要上幼儿园找朋友玩儿,跟着老师学唱歌了。一洗完澡妈妈就会来接她下课。

她有时会撒撒娇,有时会唱起儿歌来。所然有99%她到了明天会哭着去上学;但是我发现她对于'学校'这个字的反应改善了一些。

这天晚上,睡前准备,我们照常提起了女儿关于学校的活动。突然间,爸爸问道:"睿锦, 你最喜欢哪一个老师?"

小姑娘想了想,回答:"那个大大的auntie。"

我顿时不敢带她上学了。我还真怕被那位老师打死。。。

我赶紧纠正:"Teacher Vivian"

睿锦又道:"大大的auntie! "

我这次死定了!

First day at school

Some sort of school... to be exact, it was spelled as Skool ^^

I thought it went pretty good. Renee started off her day at the centre without cranky loud cries. She sat by a table of playgroup mates and all started to play in parallel.

After a while, she started to take toys from her peers without asking... uh-huh. .. she had nobody to ask when she was at home because she's the only one playing! Good lesson for her... The kids were very protective over their toys. They would shun away when a hand came "snatching"...

"Renee, if you want to play with that toys, you'll need to ask nicely...", I guided her (Teacher didn't teach this)

"Can I... pls... Thank u!" (extremely softly as if she was negotiating with ants)

"NO!", said one.... "NO!", said the other...

Hmmz... Okay, it didn't mean that you'll get what you want even if you asked. So she learnt (in fact, we learnt)... within the next 15 mins, Renee totally adopted this bad culture.... whenever a kid asked for toys, say No! She did it, too... I had to spend some time to correct her!

As I watched her play from a distance... Some kids (mainly boys) came to (harass) me...

"Teacher... See this...too too train...", went away and returned to repeat the same old thing... million times....

"Teacher... hahaha..." then ran away...

"Ah. .. grrrr. ... ohhhh...." (I didn't understand a word)

And a boy came to me with his pants (on his hand)... yes, bo cang kor... gesturing for me to help him put his pants on... I didn't even dare to turn my head around, before I could react, a teacher/helper grabbed him away..

Renee was playing well (alone most of the times), when she suddenly cried loudly for "MOMMY!!!" When I went to her, a lego brick came flying across the table hitting on her chest. It was a flying 'gift' from her classmate.... a rowdy kid who almost had troubles with all other kids. Before I flipped the table, I counted to 10 super quickly within myself and told him with a firm voice, "Hey, it's not nice to do that, please don't do it again." (BTW, the teacher/ helper didn't see and didn't do anything about it)

After this not too pleasant incident, Renee became a little unstable. Also due to her hunger and fatigue, since she woke up early and didn't take their breakfast. I brought her to a corner where she laid down for milk... Just when she was slightly calmed down, for less than 10 mins, the kids came running merry-go-round her, stepped on her hair (accidentally, of coz) and one playful bigger boy, for no good reason, stepped and fell on Renee's chest.... So, this poor little girl started crying again, saying "Mommy, pain-pain.... pain-pain....." This took me another 10 minutes to pacify her...

Most of the time, once she's fed and calmed down, she would join the kids at the table to play with plenty of toys... A sweet little jie-jie (althought she looked tiny, yes, she is a jie-jie) who was the first who talked to Renee bybasking for her name, came by and told Renee "Don't cry".... She's a very sweet girl although she didn't share her toys...

Today, Renee's first day, went through ups and downs... She had mostly fun time, playing with toys, joining their sing-along session, lunch, and story telling time... minus away the hungry+tired=cranky moments, I guessed she had done pretty well for her first day at school. I was most of the time sitting at a distance away to watch over her, hoping that she could become more independent and learn some of the good stuff from the centre.

Hope we will have better time next week... I'm still nervous... Haa!

BTW, mei-mei Phoebe woke up.early to send her sis off today... so sweet little girl ^^

Eve of First Day of School... prep!!

Mommy was certainly more excited than the girl... i kept walking Ard the house trying to figure out what was needed to be packed... and I almost labelled everything... "Renee Tay" had almost become her own brand....

Will involve Renee in packing her own bag once i get the idea of what needs to be brought... except for her snacks... because she will start to eat during packing!

Haven't been so excited for a while... May I enjoy success in my first 陪读妈妈 role tmr... freaking scary!! MGBMPP!!!!