A challenge for myself!

          Since last week, I have been trying to be consistent in doing learning activities with my children. Junior2 needs to have revision assigned and checked daily. He also needs to be told again and again to finish his homework from school. Junior1 has been doing daily 'brain exercise' as I call it. It is basically playing with specific games that require concentration, problem solving and imitation. The games also needs her to practice her fine motor in stacking, and putting duplo pieces together. I tried assessing her in her counting skills and found that all has gone. We have to start anew! Heck! I am now wondering if she has even forgotten the numeral symbols for numbers! Sigh!

           

          Junior3 is as curious as ever. I am basically just following his interest in his activities. Recently, he is interested in shapes. He would bring his shape sorter box and pointed to the shapes drawn on the box, requiring me to name them. He's getting better in pointing with a finger. Previously he would pull my fingers and touch the things he wanted to know about. He is very active and curious with his surroundings too. I am trying very hard to not to restrain him too much as he explores his environment. 

         As I prepared for Junior1 and Junior3's learning activities, I challenged myself to use only things that I already have. I have lots of manipulatives, stickers, books, games that I've bought and learning materials that I've made over the past years in my attempt to teach Junior1. As I am still trying to unpack my boxes containing all these things, I try to use them too. Over the years, I had also collected a lot of free printables online that I thought might be useful for my children. These came in useful when I needed something new but do not want to buy anything. I can just print them and laminate them.Yup! I have loads of printing paper and laminate pouches AND the old laminator is still going strong. I am extremely grateful for that. 

I Am Back!

Hi there!

It feels real nice to work on this space again. The thought of this blog has been on my mind for the past few weeks and I just felt the urge to revive it. It has been a long absence - more than a year. A lot has happened and changed along the way. 

For a start, I gave birth to my 3rd baby - Junior3. This time I managed to exclusively provide him with breastmilk for almost 10 months. Yeah, I know it's not that long,but a feat in my book since I only managed to breastfeed my older two for around 3 months of their infant life. It has been a very tiring adventure as I need to work and pump exclusively to provide enough for him. It was a relief to finally able to get my boobs and life back! Hahahahah!

The dynamics of the family changed too. With an infant in the mix, we learnt to take turns to rest during the day and to get enough sleep at night. I am grateful that my dear husband is such a hands on father. While I was still exclusively pumping milk for baby, he took care of the cleaning. He warmed the milk at night and I just need to feed baby without getting out of bed. Whenever I am too tired, he'll take care of the kids while I get some extra sleep during the weekends. I had to maintain the pace with Junior2's school work and revisions too. Unfortunately, I regret to say that I did not do any table work with Junior1 throughout last year but I focussed on getting her to improve on her self-help skills.

Last year, hubby and I were busy with our new house. This time we really put a lot of thought into the design and layout of our new house - as we wanted it to be a safe haven for our children - and to accommodate Junior1's special needs. An example is the couch (in the pic above) that we replaced. Our old one was not high enough and this provided a space for Junior1 to hide anything and everything under it. It was a torture to sweep under it too. This time, we searched high and low for the perfect one with the height that enables me to bend and sweep under it without having to break my bones trying to push it everywhere - or just to check underneath to make sure there's no 'treasures'. 

Packing up and moving in itself is a long process. We practically just packed up our necessities and moved in. Over the next few months, I enjoyed a house with just the minimum things we need. Slowly we start bringing in things from the old house that we needed now and then. Then the final haul was to clean everything. I am still struggling to find a place for everything we owned.

 While we were still trying to settle down comfortably, we discovered that the roof leaked! One night we had a stormy rain and It was practically raining inside the house and we were furious! The contractors came and 'tried' to repair the leaking room and each time it got worse.Whenever it starts to rain, we will be on the look out for leaks in the Study room and the Kitchen. In fact, repair work is still on going! 

As things start to get better, I was introduced to Chinese massage therapy. I have not been feeling myself since Junior3's birth. My whole body ached, the doctor diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis for my feet pain, and I feel tired all the time.  Every day after massage, I would have to endure the pain for a few days. It seems that my back bones were misaligned due to certain reasons - accident when I was a teen, a fall during my first pregnancy, and 3 pregnancies all may have contributed to it. My body is bloated and this contributed to the achy pain and tiredness. A continuous massage made me feel much better and lighter. It wasn't easy though. I had to control the type of food I take, do simple stretching exercises and have consistent massage until the body is healed. This will have to take a few months and a lot of $$$. 😢 I'll remember to post an update in the end of the year to report how things are.

Then I received the devastating news of my mom passing away while resting. Though I have never been particularly close to her growing up, she has been a rather prominent figure in my life for the past 10 years. My children were very close to her and my dad and she took real interest in everything about my children. Even now, I still sometimes imagine her calling me and talking to me about them. It is hard to accept the fact that I am now without a mother. I took comfort in going through the photos we took for the past 10 years - of my family celebrating her birthdays, Mother's Days, school holidays, my children's births and their birthdays and when I brought her and dad for a holiday in KL. My children missed her too, as Junior2 sometimes would silently cry before sleep whenever he thought about her. Going home to visit my dad will never be the same anymore as we will always miss her lively chatters. My dad too truly misses her and only time will heal the hollow gap in our hearts. 

It is a comfort to know that mom passed away peacefully. But I am always reminded of her words just a few days before. She kept telling me not to give up on my special needs child, to continue to teach her. Every time I thought of this, I am more determined to do all I can to pick up the slack and be more consistent in teaching her. 

Hence the revival of this space. I needed a place to keep track of what I have done and improvements in Junior1. This is also the place where I can keep record of all my children's development and achievements as they grow up. I spent more than 2 days going through all my previous posts and are actually relieved that I have been keeping records for the past 5 years. I hope to maintain this space for my children as something to remember when they get older.