New Kid On The Blog

1-OCT-2009:

Here are some photos of Dominic in his school uniform, taken about a month ago but didn't have time to upload. He's attending the 4-year-old class and it is Montessori based, therefore at the moment nothing academic, no homework, etc. The first week he went to school, he behaved really well and seemed to enjoy it, except that when asked what he did in school he always said "nothing". One day, he came back and he said that he did colouring and the teacher scolded the children. I asked him why and he said "teacher said penguins must be black, can't use yellow". I was thinking, welcome to Malaysia my son where apples must be round and houses must have one door and two windows.

On the Monday of the 2nd week, he refused to go into his classrooom and cried a bit. Fortunately, he didn't scream and brawl like some kids - just silent tears and an extremely pitiful face. Tuesday was the first time he got his new uniform and he refused to put it on in the morning. With some crying, we managed to get to school but he refused to go in again. We sat outside his classroom and we talked. He said he didn't like the uniform and I gave him examples of everyone who wears uniforms, such as policemen, firemen, train drivers (his favourite), doctors, nurses, etc. He went in at last and told me to come back very soon. "Don't take too long", he said. After that, he occassionally asked if daddy wears uniform to work, if spiders wear uniforms, etc. After school that day, I took him to the toy shop and got him some new train tracks. I said that if he continues to be good, he can have more toys. Problem was solved from that day onwards. He was even fine after the 1 week Hari Raya holidays.

I'm not sure he learned a lot from school. Perhaps it is still too early to tell but he definitely enjoyed it more in London, no doubt about that. There is a class timetable and the schedule includes English, BM, Maths, Art, Music, Computer and PE (among some other things). I'm not sure what they do exactly in English, BM and Maths but I suspect they did some writing because recently it has been much easier to get him to practise writing at home, i.e. he does it much quickly although still ugly.

Now, travelling in a car all the time, Dominic can recognize places and roads that we've been instantly, even at night. He would go "Oh ... we came here before", or "We went up there to buy satay!" or "Hey, daddy comes here to work" or "Ooh ... I think my toy shop is over there". And if we drive into some road for the 1st time, he would say "I think we didn't come here before". And by the way, he finally knows left and right now! I guess when you're always travelling on the train you don't really care whether you're going left or right!

In terms of meals, he has started to appreciate some local delicacies such as satay! My MIL made him drink soup every evening and he's now getting used to it. However, he still refuses things like barley drink, "leong sui" and once we had jackfruits (nangka) and he said "Please put it far far away and don't let me smell it!".

# posted by Skye @ 10:31 pm 0 comments

22-SEPT-2009:

School was off since last Friday and will only resume next Monday (i.e. more than a week holiday). I took Dom out for dinner with my ex-colleagues on Friday night while daddy bought his team out for dinner. We went to different restaurants but we both had seafood and crabs. It was raining heavily that evening and traffic was havoc. As expected I was still "early" despite having aimed to be late for 30 mins. When you have a date with fellow Malaysians you really need not be punctual!

On Saturday morning, we wondered what we shall do for the next 4 days (public holidays on Monday and Tuesday). There isn't much to do here except to eat and shop. In the end, we decided to visit the pet shop at The Curve. It's a nice pet shop really - at least we got to see some animals that we rarely see such as iguanas and baby alligators (I wonder who would buy them as pets). And we saw some pretty expensive puppies. Dom was rather excited but he never once asked us to get him a pet. Not any pet.

On Sunday, I sneaked out at 6:30am to go to church. I've been doing that for a month now since I found out that my MIL doesn't really like the idea. She didn't actually forbid or aske me not to but she mentioned that "Saimun better not ...". I also didn't mention that Dom is baptised and I'm not sure if she knows but at the moment I don't dare bring Dom to Sunday school yet. Anyway, in the afternoon we had lunch with a couple of friends and spent the rest of the afternoon playing Nintendo Wii at their place. At least we didn't spend the day at a shopping mall.

Monday and Tuesday was rather uneventful. We went for a swim, ate out a lot and there was more shopping - there really is nothing much to do except to roam the shopping malls! Tell me, what do you with your weekends? Where do you go? Where do you bring your kids?

# posted by Skye @ 9:29 pm 0 comments

1-Sept-2009:

Well, I've been rather busy lately. I spent the last 2 weeks or so house hunting but sad to say we've still not found anything yet. We viewed a semi-D last week and I quite liked it. My MIL loved it because it's just across the main road from her house! Anyway, we made an offer but the owner said the price was too low for him and Saimun refused to push it any higher (said he wants to retire and be a house husband instead, so would rather buy a cheaper house).

I finally received my new car last week and took a drive to Raub on Sunday to visit an elephant sanctuary (I think it was Raub ... somewhere in/near Pahang, I think). It was hot and sunny and MIL complained that the elephants were extremely smelly. The photos are all in my BIL's camera and I wonder when he's going to upload them.

I've been having problems falling asleep at night. Most of the time, it takes me about 2 hours to fall back asleep after I wake up for a pee, by which it is time for my next pee. :-D

Dominic has stopped using nappies at night. It's been about 4 weeks now and it happened accidentally one night when we forgot to put on a nappy for him and discovered that he was dry the next morning. However, he was still jet lagged at the time and went to bed really late. On the 2nd and 3rd night, he even woke up on his own to pee! But that only lasted for 2 days. Once his jet lag was gone, he wets the bed every night unless I wake him up on time to pee. Now, he manages to stay dry on most nights but that's only because I wake him up at 12:30am and 2:30am to pee. That's also the time when I need to pee myself. I wonder when he will do it himself without having me wake him up.

# posted by Skye @ 10:01 am 0 comments