JL - Journey in Music

He started during his kindy time keyboard and was supposed to move to piano once his fingers are stronger. However he realized he doesn't like this instrument but dare not tell us because he requested for music lesson. Being his parents we notice that...he stopped his lesson just before he enter Pri1 and coincidentally his music teacher Teacher Jin May Chua  migrated.She is a lovely teacher whom we still keep in touch occasionally

Later, for few years he requested for drum lesson but we said see first because we wanted to make sure this is serious and not just `hangat-hangat taik ayam`. However he never stop wishing for drum lesson...

It was unplanned when Melysa Soo-Hoo introduced me her joyful smiling student Isabel Tan Lyn Mey to be AL`s piano teacher...we found that she also teach drum lesson. Within 24 hours we reconfirm with JL if he still wants drum lesson and arrange the slot with teacher, he started his first lesson end of 2015 same time AL started her piano lesson with same teacher.

Our purpose for the kids to learn music as a form of therapy and relaxation...we hope they will use this skill as a tool of worship like how their Papa Othniel Lim using his self learn guitar to play for cell meeting worship... Teacher Isabel is indeed the teacher who is in sych with our wish. Exam will be secondary if they wish to take and ready to go for it...She is a music therapist. 

JL has only a drum pad which he uses as practising pad and he will have his lesson once a week in the music studio nearby. For those who have seen our apt, size is the issue to get him a drum...we hold on until we get a green light that he is ready to have one at home..

I am sure God will make a way both the right unit and financially. ...

JL's Menu 26Dec15

Our dinner by JL with AL's help.He decided the menu, prepared the ingredients, cooked and now cleaning up after dinner.The mashed potato is freshly made and not instant one...

JL & AL baked bread using breadmaker

Let's hope no disaster in kitchen ... Both JL n AL are given the list of ingredients to bake butterscotch cranberries Hokkaido bread..

First they need to weigh each of the ingredients in a separate bowl. Next to place each ingredient by sequence in breadmaker - wet to dry. Last before we on the breadmaker mummy will put the yeast explaining that yeast to be placed on dry ingredients n away fr salt...

The result....

JL's 11th Birthday

Today is our precious eldest and only boy's 11th birthday... It was an amazing up n down journey for both papa n mummy... As we guide you as much as we can...you have taught us a lot too.... At times you can drive us nuts but you will always give in to your two demanding sisters....

We hope and pray that God will continue to bless you joy, good health, wisdom, good heart.... 

We love you a lot.. 

Blessed 11th Birthday....

Love, Papa, Mummy, AL n EL...

08Mar2015 -- Kids cooking for lunch

Super busy Sunday...asking the kids to clean up things can be an extremely tough for them to do but they have been asking if they can cook lunch. I just cut some carrots and prepared the chicken for steaming... Next moment, JL n AL were busy cutting celery and cooking in kitchen... The result stir fry celery+carrot, omelette n steamed chicken on the table for lunch....with more than 90% done by them. 

5 wishes by a mum - a chat with the Genie

Found out that I was tagged my Lucas’s Mummy. So I simplified the version (har har as usual lazy mummy)

5 wishes for my dear little JL – Mummy Darling boy

FIRST

JL will be good (everything), happy & obedient boy

SECOND

JL will be healthy always

THIRD

JL will be wise in everything that he says, he does, he thinks etc.. (wise to learn only the good things he sees and he listens)

FOURTH

JL will still remember PaPa & Mummy always as our Darling Boy

FIFTH

JL will find a great companion (wife) who also can get along with PaPa and Mummy

JL’s Level 2 Basketball Exam 17Nov2013

JL had his basketball exam yesterday. He had been practicing hard with his PaPa that last Friday when PaPa was busy, Uncle Jon took him for his practice. It was long practice from 530-8+ pm. We found out that quite a number of his friends who failed Level 2 and had to stay back one year in Level 2. We challenged him and he took it well.

PaPa was very sick with fever since Saturday that I sent JL early morning with EL (while AL still in LaLa land) and told him I will be back later after I get his 2 sisters ready. Once home, I prepared food for lunch and got AL ready with her bread and books.

By the time we arrived the school, JL was doing his last skill set. It was a long talk given by his coach while the seniors busy calculating the results.

There are award for 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and consolations for each primary by boy and girl. JL got consolation for under Primary 3 boy. He was happy because his result was better than his Level 1 result. He got 22X points compared to his Level 1 18X. I shared with him that all his hard work paid off and he should put in all his effort in everything he does.

JL, we are proud of you…

After JL’s exam…final exam Pri3

JL got his final exam for Primary 3 results. It was very bad. Like how we even as adult face failure in our work or assignments. It is good to dwell in mourn and sadness for some time but not too long.

Last night, I was whatsapping photos of his exam paper to his tuition teacher to check and do some post mortem since I know almost zero in mandarin. It was no point to shout and scream, knowing it would make the situation worst.

After a few nag, I was so frustrated that I went to balcony to cry out and punching the walls to release because I didn’t want to throw it out on him. It was hard to swallow after so much effort being made.

We went out for dinner and I managed to talk to him nicely, telling him as much as we would help him, if he refused to corporate, it would be useless and nothing would works. I hope he would wake up a bit from his playfulness.

We would need to reflect back and do post mortem on his strengths and weaknesses. It is part of parcel of life and a learning process for him…

Cooking by JL

We have been doing a lot of cooking this few days to save cost and time. It is much easier to eat at home rather than travelling out. Besides that, the cost of food and fuel has been increasing. We usually have our simple meal. JL has been a great helper. Yes, it is a slow process but he is slowly getting it. He can now cook simple vegetables and steam fish or chicken. This is something which we can try to teach him even though I myself am a lousy cook…

Kids’ Art Class

Seeing JL’s tight schedule, JL stopped his art class this year. I managed to negotiate with his art class teacher to have lessons during school holiday to finish up his water colour program. His art teacher was very understanding and willing to accommodate to JL’s time.

Last school holiday in March 2013, JL had 4 lessons in a week to cover up one month lesson. The art teacher taught him the basic technique. JL would need to make time to practice at home all the technique he learnt.

At the same time, we also enrolled AL during the same time as JL as trial lesson. This was to help her to get use with the teacher. Immediately after the first lesson, she came back telling us she wanted to join art class. This caught us a surprise because we had been asking her to go to art class and she refused to go without her KorKor. However, this time she was willing to go by herself.  The time was just right because JL also started his lesson when he was 5 years old and now it was the time for JL to pass the baton to AL.

JL’s 9th birthday

This is a long overdue post—

Our boy turned 9 on 19^th March. We went to Shogun Sunway Pyramid on his actual birthday coincidently his tuition teacher decided to cancel his tuition for that night. Since it was his birthday, he had his meal for free.

Why Shogun? JL love the idea of buffet meal where he can walk and get any food he wants. On top of that, all of us love Japanese food. However, we were quite disappointed with the food which was cold and not very fresh.

On the weekend, we had simple dinner on Sunday night where after JL’s basketball lesson; he went to get satay, fried noodles and fried rice with PaPa.

He had his all-time favourite Lego for his presents including the Chima series. Sam Yee and Sam Yee Cheong from Adelaide also sent a gift for him. JL had his favourite jelly cake and this time he requested football jelly cake.

He had a great time fixing up his Lego.

We love you a lot JL boy…

02Jan2013 – Back to School/Kindy

Every year, no matters how old are they, I always looking forward to see the kids back to school/kindy for the new year. I would usually take leave at least one day to send them to daycare\/kindy and visit JL during his recess time.

However, 2013 was different because I was on confinement. I broke the rule by following PaPa on the car ride with EL to fetch AL from kindy and following JL’s new transporter to his school. Upon reaching the school, PaPa and AL went to say ‘Hi’ to JL while I was looking afar in the car with EL.

I was almost in tears seeing my boy going to school early as a school prefect. He was no longer a baby or toddler. PaPa and I made the right decision on not to appeal him to get into the top class (because he missed just by a few position) which would be in the morning. If we were to get him into the top class, he would not be a school prefect and on top of that, his homework load would be more.

It was back to usual having hard time to get JL and AL to sleep early and wake up early. I hope this would change knowing that both of them are not morning persons.

Siblings gift exchange in the hospital

Similar to arrival of AL, with the arrival of EL, we continued the siblings’ gift exchange in the hospital. JL and AL came to hospital with present each to be given to EL. EL greeted her KorKor and JieJie with two presents waiting in her baby cot. It was a great way to break the ice and say ‘hello’ among the siblings.

Cot Mobile – from JL to AL and now to baby

Back when we had JL, we bought this Fisher Price Cot Mobile which had music and light. The best thing was we were able to control via a remote control. There was option just music or just light. The music volume also had 3 levels. We bought it during sales.

It was a great toy to keep JL occupied on his bed especially at night and he would doze off. This same toy was carefully kept for AL and now baby#3. After so many years, the cot mobile was still in good condition and functioning well when we wet-up the baby cot last month.

I am wondering whether to keep it as memory or otherwise…

JL’s Midyear Exam – Standard 2

JL completed his midyear exam one week ago. This year the gap for him to catch up was quite big. He was having trouble with BM and BC’s vocabulary. However, he has been extreme playful this year that his teachers from both’ anching’ and tuition commented that.

By last Friday, he got all his results.  He didn’t do well as expected and we hope he would take things more seriously. He was so playful that he made a lot of careless mistakes especially his Science which caused him to burn 12 marks. Yes, it was a very painful experience but this would be a good learning process for him.

There was a drop in his mandarin that his tuition teacher would be doing the post mortem to understand where his weakness was. As for other subjects, we already sat down and identified his weakness with him.  We negotiated with him that he would have to let go one of his activities (TKD or Basketball or Art) or let go of his television time. He willingly preferred to let go of his television time.

Next week, would be his report card day and we told him, as long as he take this as a learning process and look forward by putting effort, we will support him. We realized that it was a very challenging for him to study in Chinese school having both parents who speak zero mandarin.

Note: It was partly my fault for unable to help him much on the revision because of workload in office and was not feeling well during that period…. Sigh…

Geronimo books

It was hard to get JL to love reading books. We had collection of books from our time which were mostly Enid Blyton. However, it seemed to be outdated I think.

 

JL seemed to enjoy reading Geronimo Stilton books that he could finish the whole book in one day. We bought a few for him from Popular since we could get with 10% and some on loan from my colleagues.

 

I even browsed the books and found that why he loves the books because it was colourful with big and animated words. JL said he wanted to collect the whole set. LOL… How I wish I can find a place where I can purchase used Geronimo books in Malaysia…

 

Now my next major task is to make him read Bahasa Malaysia Books…..

JL 1st Quarter 2012

JL is in Primary 2 this year. How time flies…

 

This year instead of Ground Floor which is reserved for Primary 1 and instead of 1st floor, his class is located at 2nd floor. The first few days, we monitored him going up the staircase with his trolley bag. We reminded him to walk at the side and take his time. He said the first day for tiring but subsequently he got use and had no problem.

 

I still continue to pack food for him and he save all the money we gave him.

 

He requested us to let him go for basketball and robotics class without wanting to sacrifice his other 2 activities, TKD and Art Class. After much persuasion, we let him join only basketball and not robotics. We pre-remind him that he would need to sacrifice all his morning because we were keeping the Sunday morning free for him to zzz and now his Saturday mornings would be TKD and Sunday mornings would be basketball.

 

Some parents would think why are we making him soo busy but it was at his request. Giving me an option, I would not want to add any extra activities for him. We negotiated with him that if we find he is tired and it disrupt his study, than we will need to remove 1 or maybe 2 activities from his schedule.

 

So far he survives the first quarter of the year….

JL’s 8th Birthday

JL turned 8 on 19Mar2012. We had a simple family teatime on 18Mar2012 at 4pm. I baked some puff and chocolate muffins. PaPa made herbs soda. We had KongKong, PohPoh, MahMah, Tai Pak+family, Yi Yee, Sam Yee+SamYee Cheong, Aunty Angie and Aunty Pat came for the teatime.

 

For this year, JL wanted basketball jelly cake.

JL had some gifts and angpau.

 

On his actual birthday, we let him missed his morning anching class. We took him for shopping in Pyramid using his angpau money and we had lunch McD. After that, we sent him to school.

 

Than we fetch AL from her daycare earlier to meet her KorKor during recess time. While waiting for KorKor’s school to over, we had our time just PaPa+Mummy+AL.

 

That evening, we fetched JL from school and went to 1U for our family birthday dinner, just four of us. We decided to try Watami the new Japanese restaurant.

 

Happy 8th Birthday to you JL….

31Jan2012 – Surprise morning by JL

This morning we were all surprised by JL. Last nite, he asked whether PaPa wanted him to make milo. We said see if he can wake up. JL was never a morning person and it was always hard to wake him up.

PaPa and I were caught with a surprise this morning when we heard him walking out from his room to the bathroom to pee at about 6.45am. After that, he went to the kitchen making drinks for all four of us. He even put all our multivitamins on the dining table together with our drinks.

Independently, he drank his milk, fed himself the cod liver oil, changed his clothes and brushed his teeth. Once he was done, he went to AL’s room to wake his MeiMei up…

It was a great morning with no nagging and we were hoping he would keep up this good work…everyday not just today….

DIY Ceiling Fan in JL’s room

After shrinking the kids’ room into JL’s mini room and tiny store room, the ceiling fan was far too long for JL’s room. This was the fan which we had from the time we bought this apartment. It was still in a good condition.

We went to Panasonic shop to check out the long and short blade fans. PaPa found that the fans blade can be interchangeable. So, PaPa went to Panasonic service centre to order for 3xshort blades which was only about RM 40. PaPa went to collect the short blades and came back to change the long blades to the short blades.

We were happy with the outcome because we didn’t need to spend money buying baby fan which would have cost us a few hundred without knowing what to do with the old fan which was still functioning well.

Now, JL’s room had a modified baby fan…