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:

Today's storytime is about ice cream! Seeing this angpow makes me happy!

Malaysians especially, who remembers the many classical types of ice cream back during our childhood days? I got the pictures below from Google search, these were some of my childhood favorites!

Ice cream lollies in the plastic tube which costs 20 cents? It's just colored syrup poured into the tubes and freeze.

Some came with asam boi inside. Yums!

Then we have the ice cream potong (cube shaped ice creams). Red beans, corns, durian flavors.

Who remembers waiting for the ice cream man? Hearing the comforting horn or bell sound as the ice cream seller sits on his motorbike scouring the neighborhood area and stopping to sell ice cream to kids and parents alike?

Who remembers the magical feeling of peeping into the metal box on the motorbike, trying to see what ice creams are sold?

Those were the good ol' memorable days!!

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I have previously written on teaching our 4 year old girl to write number 2. My methods in explaining to her how we should write number 2 was by explaining to her as we draw the number 2:

'Climb up a bit, oh no, we're falling! Go inside! Phewww... okay come outside!'

2 weeks from that day, I casually told our girl to write number 2 on the whiteboard and it was not like number 2 at all. Despite going through the 'Climb up a bit, oh no, we're falling! Go inside! Phewww... okay come outside!' method, her number 2 is just crooked to one side. No matter how I straightened her right hand as she writes her number 2 it just turns out wrongly.

I was running out of idea and she was getting frustrated and started whining that her writing is not perfect and this idea came to my mind. I tore out a small strip of used paper, took my red marker pen and drew a half heart shape on the paper.

Then I placed the strip of paper on the whiteboard and told our 4 year girl to draw the reflection image of the heart.... so that she can help mummy complete the heart shape. She likes the idea after seeing my sample heart shape and tried it herself.

Lots and lots of practise, gentle coaxing, reassurances and praises later, she got it! Some of her number 2s are still not as perfect as you would expect a number 2 to look like but hey, she's just 4 years old! It's beautiful to me and we are both thrilled at our results! Sometimes you just gotta tweak and be more creative if the current method doesn't work.

I shared some pictures above in an FB group I joined recently and one mum shared with me that there's some really old number rhymes she used to learn and upon googling around, I found it! Turns out I'm not the wonky one to come up with the half heart thingy to write number 2! Here it goes in case you are interested:

0 - Around to my left to find my hero, back to the top, I've made a zero

 1 - A downward stroke, My that's fun. Now I've made the number one.

2 - Half a heart says, "I love you." A line. Now I've made the number two.

3 - Around the tree, Around the tree, Now I've made the number three

4 - Down and across and down once more. Now I've made the number four

5 - The hat. The back. The belly. It's a five. Watch out, it might come alive

6 - Bend down low to pick up sticks. Now I've made the number six

7 - Across the sky and down from heaven. Now I've made the number seven

8 - Make an "S" and close the gate. Now I've made the number eight

 9 - Make an oval and a line. Now I've made the number nine

10 - One egg laid by a hen. Now I've made the number ten

** 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.

It has been almost 7 years since I left my job in the IT world to be a stay-at-home-mum. With our 3 kiddos growing up fast, how can parents like me adapt and try to keep up with the ever changing world of modern technology? How do we make use of modern technologies to parent our children and at the same educate and learn as we journey into the world of parenthood?

As parents, I absolutely believe there is no way we can avoid and shun our lives from technology and modern devices. It intertwined with almost every aspect of our lives and I feel that the best way is to embrace these technologies but still keep them to a moderate level and being there with our kiddos as we grow along together.

So in what ways do I use modern technology in educating our kiddos?

I think it is a fun and interactive method to educate our kiddos using tablets provided we get the age-appropriate type of applications to work with such as apps that teach young children on phonics, alphabets, puzzle games and more.

I am also picky and inclined towards reviewing apps that are beneficial and useful to our family. I sat together with our kiddos as we go through the apps, explaining to them how to play the apps and being there with them as well. It was amazing to see our little ones with the twinkle in their eyes as they discover and learn new things, such a precious magical sight! It's like making magic together with them, everyday!

Other than that, I also use our tablet to read news to our kiddos before their bedtime as it is so convenient to just turned it on quickly, browsed for interesting articles and read to them and once done, turned it off and time for bed! Anyway, I believe that knowledge is key and never harm anyone if we read up more and know more. And since I am reading out loud to our kiddos, I hope they can learn to listen the proper pronunciation apart from learning about things around them.

I also use my computer to gather resources such as worksheets and printables for our kiddos to practice on. I search tons and tons of websites online when I need to find more info along with YouTube videos to show to our kiddos how things work and looks like. For this, I'm very grateful to own a reliable Windows computer with the fast processing power of Intel processors.

Since I rely heavily on tablet and computer in my parenting life, it is awesome to be able to make use of Acer Switch, which is a 2-in-1 device to help me along as I educate and parent our kiddos on top of keeping myself updated with the technology today.

In the coming posts, I will be talking more on how we can reap the positive impact from using these modern technologies like Windows 10 and Intel in our daily lives. In the meantime, you can learn more at: http://www.makemagic.my 

Make magic. Every day.

#makemagiceveryday

** 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.