New Kid On The Blog

27-April-2009:

Yesterday was a special day. The good news is that Dominic and I got baptized into the Church of England. I have been preparing for this for 6-7 months and now it's finally done. Although Saimun didn't show any interest throughout the past 7 months but he was there to support us yesterday, and he invited one friend along (probably to keep himself company). Ellen travelled all the way from Oxford and acted as Dom's Godparent. And there were many other people in the congregation who came for the normal service (frankly, a bit embarassed to have so many eyes on us). Dominic was the cutest when he shut his eyes tight for the Revd to pour water on his head.

Now, a few people has asked me why I chose to do this (and I'm sure you will ask too). It's not an easy question to answer. It is like asking a woman why she decided to marry her husband or why she fell in love. I guess I want to live knowing that someone is watching over my family and I, that no matter what happens, there's always hope and faith. I guess I want to build my faith on something that I am most comfortable with. No doubt, my grandmother is a Buddhist (and I lived with her) so by default I would be a Buddist as well, although I was never really into it. Looking back, when filling in all sorts of forms and applications where 'Agama' was one mandatory field, I've often filled in 'Buddhism' because that's the default, and at times I even filled in 'Tiada' (in fact, I felt more comfortable having no religion than to call myself a Buddhist).

Now that I am able to choose for myself, I choose something that I am most at home with, something that I've read about more than any other religion and to be honest, something that is most conveniently accessible in my circumstances. That subsequently lead me to have a small battle with myself on whether to baptize Dominic or to let him decide for himself when he's much older. But in the end, I love him more than anything in the world and I figured the right thing to do is to give him what I think is the best. After all, I've never had anyone to guide me in faith when I was growing up and I wished that at least one of my parents had done that for me. Besides, it is the first step in getting him into a good school, but honestly, that's hardly the reason I'm doing this.

So anyway, after it was all over, Ellen presented me with a pair of silver earings and a kids bible for Dominic. That was really thoughtful and I'm deeply touched. :-) We had a nice lunch and a nice chat. I've not had such a long conversation (verbally) with anyone in a very, very long time and it felt really good to have a friend to talk to.

# posted by Skye @ 8:16 am 0 comments

I have meant to post this a long time ago but some stuffs came up and I procrastinated. Anyway, the Thursday before the Easter weekend was my birthday. We celebrated in our pyjamas with a simple chocolate cake (which I didn't bake). Dominic made his own party hat out of manila cardboard and coloured plastic wrappers.

The following day (Friday), we made a spur of the moment decision to drive up to Wales. We booked a hotel, packed and off we went! We stayed 2 nights near Cardiff, did some sightseeing and visited this historical cave / dinosaur museum that I can't recall the name of. And we took a long drive to Swansea and walked on the beach wrapped up in our coats. It was a sunny weekend but extremely windy.

On Easter Sunday, we drove to Oxford and had lunch at Ellen's place where she made us roast lamb, potatoes, some vegetables and dessert. It was a delicious meal and Dominic had two servings. While he normally doesn't enjoy vegetables, that day he asked for more leek and more leek, and he also finished all of the broccoli on his plate. I tried to re-create the purple sprout broccoli at home but he told me it wasn't nice. Ellen, what secret ingredient did you put in there, because as I can recall you put olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and that's what I did?

# posted by Skye @ 8:15 am 0 comments

9-April-2009:

It was Parents' Day again at Dominic's nursery yesterday and as usual, I got a full illustrated report on Dom's progress during the previous term. This time, the report isn't as interesting because (1) He hasn't made a lot of progress; (2) The term was short - with Christmas holidays and all, and Dom being missing from school during our holidays back in M'sia; and (3) I think the first report will always be the most interesting one. :-)

Favourite Observation
One particular observation that I really like reads something like this: "Harvey (or whatever the name is, can't remember), our new little boy was looking helplessly at his shoes. Dominic went over and helped him put on his shoes. 'There, finished!', he exclaimed happily when he was done." Dominic is such a loving helpful little boy, don't you think. I have no doubt he'll be a wonderful big brother to his siblings.

Physical
At 3 years and 3 months old now, Dominic has been doing very well with physical activities such as obstacles and climbing frames. When given a choice, he spends most of his time outdoors. He often comes home with bruises on his legs and when I asked about it, he just said "I just fell down" (nonchalantly). I don't think he'll be the athletic type because honestly, I find him clumsy and timid (i.e. afraid of falling). And when he was young and still on nappies, his bum was so big that he had difficulty even climbing on a chair! Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not really sure what he does in school but at home, he's now getting better at *catching the ball* and he can ride the bicycle real fast.

Creativity
Dominic has shown an interest in artwork since he was young, but recently his interest is more noticeable and he takes pride in his own work. He loves his own artwork - "Mummy, be careful, don't break it" ... "Need to hang this on the wall" ... "Look, it's so pretty" (even though it was ugly) ... "I wanna show daddy!" and so on and so on. Once, he found a piece of his drawing in the dustbin (which daddy threw out) and he asked "Mummy, why throw this away?". I was at a loss, I didn't know what to say. So I said "I think it's broken". Recently, he stuck a few scraps of paper on the wall using cellotapes and he was so proud of it, telling us how pretty it was (it wasn't pretty at all, actually). When he ran out of cellotape, he used glue instead! Now, we have horrid marks on the wall (left by the scraps of paper) that we can't remove.

I find Dom really creative with songs. He must know about 40 songs by now. But instead of singing those songs again and again, he often makes up new lyrics for the songs, sometimes with his own words (i.e. words that don't exist).

Culinary Skills
In the kitchen, his role has been upgraded. Instead of just beating the eggs, he now cracks the eggs into the bowl as well (FYI, that is his job, I'm not allowed to do it for him). Instead of just transfering chopped garlic to the plate, he now peels the garlic as well. He's now also in charge of stirring or stir-frying food in the pan, although I'm always worried that he'll get hurt or burn himself. He takes an interest in what we cook and he asks everyday "Mummy, what are we going to cook today?".

Reading & Writing
Dominic is learning phonics now (I'm teaching him at home, the school doesn't teach that yet). He now knows the sounds for S, A, T, I, P, N, D, G, V, K and Z. He's getting there slowly. Sometimes he goes a whole a week without learning anything because I'm too tired (or lazy). Sometimes I get frustrated even though he's being funny, for example when I asked him what 'B' sounds like, he said "Zzzzzzz". Bee, get it? Or he said "Boink! Boink!". In terms of writing, he's been practising every evening, i.e. tracing letters and numbers on dotted lines. He writes one page a day and can trace pretty well but not quite write, except 1, I, l and O.

Other than that, I've also been doing Maths with him, e.g. find the 2 shells that are the same, find the object that is not the same size, colour the bigger object, match the objects that have the same shape, circle the object that is different, count the objects and write down the number, circle the group with fewer objects, etc and he's been doing well except for counting. He rarely gets it right if there are more than 5 objects.

During our discussion with his teacher yesterday, I said I would like Dominic to concentrate more on literacy and numeracy skills but she informed me that the direction for early learning (set by the government) is that it should be led by the children. If the child says, no I don't want to read, he/she cannot be forced. They can be encouraged but not forced and they should be encouraged in the areas that they show interest in. They should not be told to sit down and spend 10 minutes writing. They must want to do it themselves. I don't know how this will help my son because given a choice, he will ALWAYS choose to play, play, play and play. I know playing is also learning but surely they need some structure if they're to learn reading and writing? I don't know ... since they're not going to help me in school, I'll have to continue doing it at home.

Computer Skills
His observation report shows that he has been using the computer a lot in school for drawing and playing games. He has a good grip and control of the mouse and navigates confidently. It's a pity his computer at school is not Internet enabled.

# posted by Skye @ 7:05 am 0 comments

2-April-2009:

Last weekend was like Dominic's birthday. We went *window shopping* on Saturday and somehow he ended up coming home with another Thomas railway set and 3 new tops.

On Sunday, we took him to a Disney live show at Wembley Arena. The show was at 11:30am. We arrived early, thinking that we could have brunch before the show, but there were already so many people there (we arrived at 10:45am, if I'm not mistaken). We bought burgers, fried chicken and fries (it was either that or hotdogs and croissants) and ate in the hall instead.

The show lasted 1.5 hours (including a short intermission) and I got bored towards the end. I think it was great for the kids. Dominic seemed to like it - he smiled, he clapped, he had eyes fixated on the stage. However, about halfway through, he asked why the show's not finished yet and can we go home? After that, we asked if he liked the show, and he said yes. We asked if he would like to come again and he said no! He probably thought that 1.5 hours was a bit too long. Perhaps if we ask him again a week later if he would like to watch it again, he would say yes.

Here's a video taken at the end of the show.

A photo of the Wembley Stadium:

# posted by Skye @ 5:28 am 1 comments