I'm a full-time mummy

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this piece of lovely angpow:

The moment I see the motorcycle on the ap, it reminded me of my late dad's motorcycle. It was not the same Suzuki brand (my dad owned a Yamaha bike) but it looks very similar.

Ever since I was born, the bike has been in the family. I can't remember how many times dad repaired the bike but he had to, we are not rich to get a car etc. I remembered in late 90s, dad used his savings to pay for a second hand Iswara when my older brother got his license - that was the 1st car in our family. Yet, dad maintained his faithful old bike.

I remembered the stories dad told me about his bike. How it saved his life back in the 60s during the riot times. Dad told me how as he was riding his bike away from his office, he saw people chasing around with parangs trying to attack and hurt others, whoever within reach. Thanks to his bike, it saved his life. He made it back home safely.

I remembered sitting at the front part of the bike where the petrol tank was located at. I was 7 years old and insisted to tag along with my parents to the morning market.

I remembered how dad got into an accident when I was in my early teens and it hurt him that his bike was damaged as well but he managed to save up his money to repair it bit by bit.

I remembered as I got older and looking at my parents riding away after I got on my school bus to school in the wee hours of morning.

I remembered when I started doing part-time sales promoter job at 16 years old during school holidays, dad would fetch me back home with his bike from the back lane of Metrojaya Bukit Bintang Plaza.

I remembered when I was working part-time at the souvenir shop during my college year and dad fetched me back home everyday at 6pm with his bike.

I remembered the times we had to squeeze through the traffic jams and was amazed at how dad managed to sverve left and right to avoid hitting the cars and busses around us.

I remembered the times when I got stranded with my dad at some shoplots when it rained suddenly and we had to take shelter from the heavy rain.

I remembered the few times we braved through the rain on the way home (in highway, no chance to stop for any shelters) and how his raincoat will flap over my legs and I tried to cover his back as well with my windcoat.

I remembered to look of 'we made it home!' during these occasions.

I remembered the looks of admiration from other bikers as we all waited for green light and people were asking my dad about his bike.

I remembered the bike was unique from others, dad's bike has 2 long exhaust pipes while the newer modern bikes has 1 exhaust pipe only.

I remembered seeing how proud dad was with his bike. It was old, antique and in running condition. How can one not be proud of it?

I remembered dad telling us how people offered his lots of money for his bike and he rejected the offers.

I remembered watching dad wiping, drying and cleaning his beloved bike.

I remembered even as my dad started getting too weak to ride on his bike and he asked my hubby (then boyfriend) to start and warm up his bike every now and then to make sure it is still in running condition.

I remembered how sad I was when my dad passed away, the bike was left downstairs at our government flat motorcyle parking bays where it has always faithfully been parked at.

I remembered the sadness and regret that we never bothered to take up motorcycle lessons and exams.

I remembered the anger and fury as I see the tires and some main parts of the bike got stollen days after dad was cremated.

I will never forget how I cursed the thief and hope they rot in hell for doing this despicable acts.

I remembered regretting my cursing as I realised as a Christian, revenge is not ours to take and we should never ever curse at anybody no matter how.

I remembered praying that the person(s) who stole my dad's bike parts will make good use of the parts and the money will be able to support their family in need. That is the only thought I can think of to console my broken heart.

So many memories of that bike... Of my dad... Of my childhood... Of alot of things...

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I am crappy at planning things to teach to our kiddos way in advance. I usually just browsed through the workbooks softcopies on my laptop and see what interests me at that point and then print out the worksheets related to the topics or googled for the worksheets online. So happened that the topic I decided to teach our kiddos is PLANT.

At first I thought, I have to teach both of them together. Even though their age gap differs (4.5 and 7, I left our 2.5 years old girl play with her toys happily) I told myself I have to make it works for both our older kiddos. By hook or by crook I'm not going to repeat this topic again and again lol.

So I got our kiddos to sit on the floor facing the whiteboard while I started gathering up my thoughts on how I should approach this topic so that they both can understand at their respective ages. Yes, I think my brains works very well under pressure and critical time limit lol.

I started with explaining to them what is a plant. It is a living thing, just like the animals and us humans. It 'eats', 'drinks', breathe and grows just like any other living thing. Then I drew some examples of plants such as grass, plants with flowers and a tree.

I proceeded to explain to them the parts of the plants. Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, trunk, branches etc. What each parts does to the plant. I compared my body to the plants with flowers and also to the tree.

Pretending that I'm a plant with flowers, I asked them where should my roots be and waited for our kiddos to point to my feet. I repeated the similar questions for leaves and flowers and stem. And moved on to pretending I'm a tree and repeated the same questions, where should my roots, branches, trunk etc be if I am a tree.

After the explanation, I proceeded to hand them 2 worksheets related to the topic I have just explained. Now, our 4.5 years old girl is not reading anything yet but she can do her copywork decently, meaning if you give her any words and asked her to copy out the word, she can do it no problem. I didn't need to explain what to do to our 7 years old boy since he can read the instructions, so I focused on our 4.5 years old girl.

I read out the name of the parts of the plant and asked her where should the parts be. Once she pointed to the right part, I told her to copy out the respective words next to the part. She did so diligently and patiently. At the same time she practises her copywork and writing skills, I also get to observe her understanding of the lesson I just taught them. Whether she captures what I said and remembered anything.

(** Left by our 4.5 years old girl, right by our 7 years old boy)

I repeated the same method with the second worksheet. But this time, instead of her writing down the answers, I told her 'This word is circle means 'roots', now draw a line to match to where the roots are.' She happily matches the line to the parts and completed both worksheets. 

(** Left by our 4.5 years old girl, right by our 7 years old boy)

I'm loving moments like this where both kiddos can learn together!

Win-win!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I am not a fan of rainbow looms. We received some last year from our 1st kiddo's kindy friends as party packs. I kept them aside until I could decide what to do with them. FYI, rainbow Loom is a plastic tool used to weave colorful rubber and plastic bands into bracelets and charms. End of last year, I finally got an idea what to do with the colorful rubber bands. I threw away the plastic tools but kept the rubber bands and recycle them.

With 2 young girls in our family, I used the rubber bands to tie their slowly but surely growing hair. They look so cute in tiny little pigtails and braids. And with so many colors to choose from, I won't ever run out of ideas how to mix and match the rubber bands with our girls' clothings. The bands are sturdy and strong and quite lasting with gentle use.

What a great way to recyle the bands instead of buying them from those beauty outlets at a much much more expensive rates! I'm glad I kept the rubber bands and recycling them this way.

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.