some of her favourite songs...

both at home and in school:



I particularly like the part where she would place her hands slightly behind her bottoms, and then lean backwards to support herself with her head pointing towards the ceiling and her mouth wide open! Hahaha...

happy holidays!

It's Christmas party in Kristin's class this morning. This was an encore from all parents because the kids simply did so well!

new bake wares...

Earlier this month there was a fund-raising event in the kids' preschool: Kitchen wares on auction.
Unwittingly, I placed bids on 6 different baskets. See, I always overspend, don't I?

Thank goodness that I only managed to get 3 baskets. And for 57 Euros, I have bake wares now that will last me a life time. And yes, I did promise my sponsor aka family's CFO aka my dearest husband that I would keep the oven running the whole winter, baking an awful lot, enough to keep us all warm and toasty in the apartment.

Check out these new additions to my kitchen:

wait a minute...

Both my kids are never interested in food.

So what do we do at home? We feed the children. Actually, we feed them too when they're out dining with us.



When my mom was feeding Kristin last night (btw, hurrah! My parents are here and they are a great help!), Kristin told her to wait a minute.

She was fumbling her toy, which was essential at dinner table to distract her to open her mouth so that we can just shove food in.



Yeah... spoon-feeding is what we do. We certainly do make sure that our children won't starve. You should have seen the many recent cases of children being neglected and starved to death in this country, yes, even in this part of the world. If only my kids knew when Mommy talked about Lea-Sophie of Schwerin, she wasn't making up stories.



Wait a minute, girl. It's time you eat!

skipping the night...

We've been through all those:

Skipping naps, skipping meals, skipping baths etc...

But tonight, it's "skipping the night"! Why?



Bryan: When's Daddy gonna be home?

Mommy: Daddy's not coming home tonight. He's gotta work.

Bryan: You mean, he's skipping the night?

Mommy: No. I mean he's gonna stay in a hotel tonight because it's just too far for him to come home and sleep.



Funny expressions aside, Bryan's quite right after all, in a way. Daddy is "skipping the night". Poor Alan, I think he's still working away in his hotel room. Probably pulling an all nighter, again.

our cutie pies...

Hey all!

This is an update of our cutie pies. Picture taken in October.
We just received our copies today.

Aren't they both looking gorgeous? :)

c'mon, darling...

This is my favourite phrase. I hurry my children through the whole day with "c'mon darling, let's go!"

And this afternoon when Kristin woke up from her nap, she told her mommy, "C'mon, darling. Let's go!"

it's a cow!

Mommy: What animal goes "moo"?
Kristin: It's a cow. And you get milk too!
Mommy: Wow!

I think the sound animals make is just too simple for my little girl now. I shall try asking her what one can get from an animal or perhaps naming the youngs of animals.

word of the week...

Bryan: N-O- No, V-M - Vem, B-R - Ber. There, mom, NOVEMBER!
Mommy: ????? LOL

Today's Novmbr the 27th!

KAPUTT!

I was just thinking of the funny words my kids use to express something is out of working condition.

The top favourite for Kristin is "kaputt". It is German, but can also be found in the English dictionary. She moved on very quickly from "broken" to "kaputt" and probably thinks that this is her favourite word now when something is out of order.

Bryan likes to say, "Look. My ship is wrecked." Or, "look Mom, Meimei ruined my train!" And I constantly hear him scream, "Don't wreck this! Don't ruin that!" whenever the two are playing together. Yeah, you can almost sense his frustration coz Kristin is definitely not a very nice little sister now. She's going through the phase where she destroys all things! O help! Kaputt! Alles kaputt!

it's paying off...

Early February this year, I was eager to teach Bryan some sight words. Timing wasn't really perfect. He was reading a little and then became lazy to practise anything at all.

I always subscribe to the belief that creating a learning rich environment will enable a person to learn subconsciously. This has always been so when I sprinkled important lines all over my classroom when I was teaching German, especially near the main entrance/exit. You see, students go through them so many times a day. It would not be long that they would put the foreign sounds to the foreign words.

Anyway, I thought I could do the same with my kids too. All my passive learning aids were up in the hope that my kids would absorb something without me actively teaching them, e.g. the alphabet wall frieze, the posters, the sight word charts etc. After 9 months, I think it's paying off:

Bryan was using the alphabet wall frieze yesterday to spell his name and his friends' names yesterday.

Then he surprised me when he read out the whole of the "Where" and "my" sight word chart!

He couldn't have remembered from his memory coz:

1) It was about 9 months ago that I even uttered those sounds to him.

2) He was correcting himself as he read. The first two questions begin with "Where is", while the next three are "Where are". When he was at question no. 3, he was reading "Where is" initially and then self-corrected to "Er, no, it's Where are". And when it came to differentiating socks from shoes, I begin to believe that he's making connections with the little phonics that he learnt from Ms Julie's class last year. The words "shoes" was initially read with "s" sound. And then he self-corrected again when he saw the aitch and went "sh-oes".

He's definitely making the connections. How exactly, I don't really know. This reminds very much of the"litte black box" aka the Language Acquisition Device as proposed by Chomsky.

Till now I still haven't figured out how to teach him phonics, blending sounds. I tried using onsets/rimes, but he still has a long way to go when it comes to segmenting words into syllables. Honestly, I don't have the diligence to do work on something with him systematically every day.

But I'm definitely pleased that he's reading without any active effort of teaching on my part!

nocturnal vs diurnal...

I'm really pleased with what Ms Judi does in her class. It took me many years to learn about the terms nocturnal and diurnal, and now my 4 year-old son is just rattling off what nocturnal and diurnal animals are.

I wish I could do more with the kids, e.g. reading with them. Even that I hardly find energy to keep up.

false alarm...

Kristin woke me up today with her cries. It wasn't the usual cries for "Mommy-come-get-me" attention. It was weird. When I found her, her face looked so flushed that I only had one thing in mind: Is she afflicted by Scarlet fever?

Friends have told me that there had been cases in the Frankfurt International School and Internationale Schule Frankfurt. And knowing that Kristin comes into contact with the siblings of these children, chances were pretty high.

Anyway, I dropped Bryan off at school and then went off to the clinic with Kristin.
The doctor did a swab on hearing my account. Thank God that the test was negative. So it's just a common cold.

Sigh... no wonder I'm getting fat. You must be wondering what's being fat gotta do with my children being sick?

Well, I had plans to hit the gym and then spend the remaining of the morning in a sauna after a workout, but no, one of them has to spoil my plans. Already, I gave up my Monday for grocery shopping coz I had to bring a plate for the Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday for Bryan's class and then attend his mini-concert. And now, Wednesday, I still can't spend time for myself! And whatabout tomorrow and day after?
Nope, the kids have no school (Thanksgiving holidays) and of course, the babysitters at the gym will not take Kristin in with her nose all runny now, or would they?

Now it's certainly easy to sit at home and get bigger on the waist, isn't it?

you hide, i seek...

The kids love to indulge in a game of tag or hide and seek these days, but mostly at home since the temperature has dipped.

Yesterday, I intended to bring them out for a short walk and and some fresh air. So it wasn't the usual routine for Kristin. Actually, the intent was to expend Bryan's energy. I could really have spared her from the cold. Anyway, cold air would do her runny nose some good too.

I sent Bryan to his room for his afternoon milk and strapped Kristin down to her buggy for hers. If she was in her room, in her bed, she would have knocked out immediately. When Bryan finished his milk, he came running out of his room looking for meimei. But he just couldn't figure out where she was. In the mean time, Kristin kept all quiet and was tucked away in one corner in the kitchen, grinning away. It wasn't long that Bryan enlisted Dad's help to look for Kristin. Daddy went up and down the hallway leading to the kitchen several times to hint to Bryan, and finally this girl let out a chuckle.

When Bryan had an inkling that she was in the kitchen and went looking for her, Kristin let out a "BOO!" and greeted her brother with a broad grin. What a cheeky girl! Her patience in waiting out for her brother and keeping all mum really amazed me. Think she's seen enough of hide and seek games going on in school to be a pro now.

On hindsight, it was an extremely BAD idea to let Kristin have her afternoon milk in her buggy. She cried for 5 minutes and refused to drink milk in her room when it came to bedtime. I should have known better to sabotage her routine. Hope she doesn't conk out in school today. I would love for her to go back to her afternoon nap routine after the weekend.

happy thanksgiving!

The school will be closed this Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving and Bryan's class will be celebrating the occasion with a big feast and a mini-concert on Tuesday.

The kids have been practising diligently and it's not hard to guess what they're gonna sing during the party.

Well, I wasn't quite sure of this song myself, so I ran a check on the Internet. And yes, Bryan did get all the words correct!

Albuquerque Turkey
(to the tune of "Clementine")

Albuquerque is a turkey
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
And he's absolutely mine.
He's the best pet that you can get...
Better than a dog or cat.
He's my Albuquerque turkey
And I'm awfully proud of that.

Looking forward to the mini-concert this Tuesday!