The Apple's Diary!

Life is often not what as planned. We cope with the small bumpers, we lament at the medium-sized bumpers and large-sized bumpers, how do we deal with it? How do we cope with the horrid big C - Cancer that stares us in our face? I had an episode of 2 lumps scare recently. A routine health screening picked up something which the doctor suggested further checkup might be clearer. So I went, got myself a referral letter to the hospital and what followed on wasn't what I expected. I hadn't expect to go through a biopsy and in the midst of hair-tearing weeks, my herniated disc got inflamed and was bad enough that I was given hospitalisation leaves for a week. Many thoughts came to my mind while I was trying to ease off the back pain and waiting for my biopsy result. The most predicted question would be how should I settle the 2 young boys? Then there was the spiritual reflection on my life and action. While I was trying to deal with my personal crisis, a friend who I had not see...

(侯)sey Bo? That's a slang I picked up recently from the coaching workshop I attended. To get your coachee opened up, getting down to their comfort zone is initial. Now, I'm not going to go on about coaching. Rather with the new Monkey year being ushered in, how has it been for you? I always prefer the Lunar New Year to fall in February for a simple reason - there would be more preparation time. Indeed, I had got the luxury to take a day off from work, to run all the errands and to go for the much needed shopping for the whole family. Pedicure(d) for CNY with mommy dearest While the hair and nails (necessities for the ladies) were done, home decoration took a step backwards. Economy is declining so there wasn't the usual festive Pasar Malam. We picked up the pussy willows 2 days before CNY eve from Cold Storage. The pussy willows by the windows However keeping the tradition of new bag and wallet for myself. Got them from Esprit at a good deal in the c...

The N1 progress report of Matthew was returned to us today. I scanned through the comments and the checklist marked. He fared a lot better than his elder brother at the same age. I don't think that's because he was smarter or what, I would attribute to the fact that whatever he was learning in school, was in fact his second time hearing it. is that an ukulele? When I revised the work with the elder boy, the younger boy would probably pick it up too. So when it comes to the younger one's turn, it becomes his 2nd time hearing it again. So I believe this is the main factor why Matthew seems to pick up new skill or new word faster. enjoying his craft work time However as child #2 and the youngest in the family, he needs to learn to be more independent. He is also a fussy eater, probably resulted being spoon-fed most of the time. So he learnt to manipulate the adults in giving him what he likes to eat instead. what a big xylophone I am beginning...

There was a rampant outbreak of the dreadful H……. Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD) in the children's preschool. The boys stayed home for most of January as a result. This was bad because we needed to take leaves to stay home with them too. Staying home is problematic because they need to exhaust their energy wisely, else there would be endless troubles. So I started to assign homework daily to keep their morning occupied. practice writing small boy also not spare from writing practice Thankfully my mum came over to help so she could supervise the boys doing their 笔画 practice and either one of us will guide them in Phonics. Since I had to be home, spring cleaning was completed early this year and the boys are ready to usher in Chinese New Year. lucky them The boys are blessed to be wearing Chateau de Sable label for this festive season. That's because there is an outlet at IMM which I stumbled upon one weekend. However, the maid remains a...

The preschool returned the 2nd semester progress report on Jonathan last week and although there is improvement in him, there are many areas we need to work on it. Two of the biggest challenge remain would be Chinese and the general pronunciation on words in both languages. Enjoying gym time How do we work on his Chinese? Besides sending him to Berries and the constant revision from what Berries taught, I realised that there's a gap. He has very little interest and confidence in using the language to express himself. To grasp a language proficiently, we must first "HEAR" , "SPEAK" and then "WRITE". For the Chinese medium, he has not heard enough, thus how can he therefore speak and write? Berries suggested setting a day every week as a "Chinese day". Everyone in the family must speak in Mandarin and parents must embrace the language with much enthusiasm so the child can overcome any fear. I am rolling this out soon in my family an...

And so we said goodbye to 2015 and ushered in 2016…. in the stillness of the dark while I was in la la land. I hadn't blogged much in December 2015, in fact, there's only 1 post?! That was rather unusual but looking at the options, blogging sat pretty low in priority. 2015 had been kinder to me. There were quite a few major changes and I couldn't say that my last few days of 2015 went smooth and well for me. Still, there were simple occasions to be thankful for as we transited to 2016. Matt's Inside Out Birthday Cake The youngest in the family celebrated his 3rd birthday with an Inside Out theme. I was totally awed by this creation by Cloud9 and was glad to hear the birthday boy exclaimed "Inside Out, my favourite!" There was no big party, just a lunch gathering with my family and a simple school celebration. Looking so grown-up School celebration took place in his new class, no longer the toddlers in N1 Clover but moving onwards as pres...

December supposed to be my favourite month because of Christmas. Somehow for this December, I'm feeling dismayed. The work pace has not slowed down and there is still a lot of outstanding work to be completed and I'm quite pressed for time. It has also turned out to be a month of unsure, uncertain and a lot of doubts. Unsure - should we move or stay put? The bedroom flooring is giving way. The laminated flooring has started to warp and it is deteriorating with each day. The biggest sore eye comes from the study room which has a bald patch (no thanks to the helper - you can read about the incident here ). Every other day, we would get something that is starting to give way or broken down. Coming to 6th year of stay at this address (since January 2010), it is either we do an overhaul or we move out. The hubby is more keen to shift out. But I'm holding back because there's the primary school to consider, the parental support I rely on during emergency, the convenie...