You know how you’re supposed to replace your toothbrushes right after you’ve been sick?
I met a mom yesterday who disinfects her “sick” toothbrushes with Listerine instead. It’s worth a try, especially if you come down with something right after buying yourself a brand new toothbrush.
This doesn’t mean you should hang on to your disinfected toothbrush forever — we throw out brushes every two months or so, they start looking icky by then anyway.
Our little neighbours Phoenix and Qianyi are moving away tomorrow.
That’s the end of the kiddie gang on my floor, and of course I’m sad about it and so is Layla.
But I s’pose this is her first important life lesson — that people come and go, and we’ve just gotta treasure the good times while they last.
p.s. Table tennis paddles + ball set was from Daiso @ $2. Good buy, the kids loved it!
Layla doesn’t have a typical kid’s library — we’re not big on fairytales (we don’t care for stock characters or black-white morality), Enid Blyton (could you get any more predictable?), books with talking animals, or books where nothing much actually happens (think Shirley Hughes, although I must say Layla quite likes her books).
What do we like? Books with an element of real life in them, especially ones based on real people. Non-fiction can be pretty magical too, and it’s much more uplifting to read about a real person who overcame a tough situation or someone who lived her dreams even if no-one else thought much of them.
Here’s a peek at some of our favourite non-fiction picture books:
Van Gogh And The Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt
“If I had a lot of money,” said Camille,
“I would like to buy them all.”
“Thank you, my friend,” laughed Vincent.
This is part of the “Anholt’s Artists” series, which highlights encounters between famous artists and the children who inspired them in some way. We’ll get to the other books in the series eventually, but the Van Gogh book is a good one to start with because it’s short and doesn’t have complex themes.
The Man Who Walked Between The Towers by Mordicai Gerstein
It’s hard not to be awed by Philippe Petit’s incredible stunt — walking on a wire across the Twin Towers one morning in 1974. If you’re a practical person you’d probably think, “What a stupid, senseless, and dangerous thing to do!” But if you’re a dreamer you’d understand perfectly. (Gerstein’s What Charlie Heard has similar themes; it’s based on the life on composer Charles Ives.)
John’s Secret Dreams: The Life Of John Lennon by Doreen Rappaport
Aunt Mimi told him he could
never make a living as as guitarist.
“You’ll never make a living as a….” I’m sure we’ve all heard this one before! I hope I’ll never end up saying it to Layla and books like these are a great reminder. (Note: We also like Rappaport’s tribute to Martin Luther King.)
The last time we had to declare ourselves “SICK,” I did a lot of reading while Layla mostly slept.
This time around, all of us were down and the meds didn’t have their knockout effect. We would’ve felt a hell lot crappier if we hadn’t made an amazing discovery. That Layla can now sit through full-length animated videos, and likes it.
So it was showtime around here: Toy Story 1! Toy Story 2! Coraline! Up! 40 episodes of SpongeBob!
Yeap we were definitely entertained. Good thing too, because we were shut in a few more days than we should’ve been — it wasn’t viral and we couldn’t have beaten it without antibiotics, but it’s not our usual policy to go running to the doc’s within a day or two.
The other notable thing that happened: We finally made the switch from a PD to a GP!
Dr Lai of Care Family Clinic (#01-12, Blk 663 Buffalo Road, next to Ananda Bhavan at Tekka Centre, tel: 6299-5868) is already winning fans in my neighbourhood for his kind and gentle demeanour, and his efforts to educate patients about their condition and treatment options. If you live anywhere around Little India/Farrer Park/Novena, this is one good and affordable clinic in the area that no-one really knows about yet, so no queue! It’s even open on Sundays and public hols.
p.s. The doc gave Layla a bottle of banana-flavoured antibiotics to finish. She didn’t love it but she didn’t hate it either, so no tears over medicine feeds this time, phew!
It’s good to preview a book before you read it out loud to kids, so you can decide beforehand how you’d like to present the story.
Here are a couple of things you can do when you’re pre-reading a story:
1. Find the drama.
If you’re not naturally dramatic, you’ll need Mem Fox’s read-aloud guide, which has great ideas on how you can vary your voice (loud/soft/fast/slow/high/low) to keep your listeners engaged. Her ideas can be applied to any story — but you’ll need to practise!
2. Polish your pronunciation.
French names like Degas always trip me up. Thankfully Merriam-Webster’s pronunciation guide covers names of famous personalities too. It’s useful to check out names because you wouldn’t want to be talking about “Ay-sop’s” fables when it’s really pronounced “ee-sop”.
And if you’re not sure how a word’s said, don’t guess, just check. We Singaporeans tend to mess up on our word stress, so it doesn’t hurt to be careful. (An example: how do you say “obligatory?” I’m guessing a fair number of people here say it as “orh-blee-gay-tor-ree,” with equal stress on all syllables. Click here to see where your stress should land.)
Image courtesy Free Fifties Clip Art.
It’s easy to enjoy a kiddie book even after you’re done with your read-alouds — and no, worksheets aren’t required. Here are five book-inspired play ideas to get you started. Objective? Total fun, nothing more!
We don’t like fairytales generally, but the kids on my floor love this game! All you need are magnets. Lots of them. Better if they’re in different shapes and sizes and colours. To play the game, place your magnets in Ziploc bags. Then round up some kids and let them have a go at decorating the “Gingerbread House,” which can be your front gate or anywhere the magnets will stick. The front gate works best for us, because there’ll be a witch (usually me, unfortunately) with a mask or a scary expression waiting to pop up and catch fresh little humans for her oven!
The kids are the dough, and for toppings you can use powder, paper, gaming chips or anything around the house that’s colourful and easy to scatter around! Here’s how the little ones at Literacy Launchpad did it.
Mommy Jayne got her kids to lie on paper (i.e. “the dough”) so they could make life-size “cookies.” Click here to see them in action!
This was actually done as an awfully cool Mother’s Day tribute, but if you have this book and you happen to be at the beach or a sand pit, try it with your kid as well!
OK so this one’s not so easy to pull off, unless you’re SouleMama or someone equally “crafty.” But it sure is pretty and it’d probably make a little girl very happy!
Photo courtesy Photos8.com.
Better books, better-behaved people — that’s how I felt about this year’s NLB book sale. If you’ve been missing the sales, please make time for it next year. I promise that as long as books like “1001 Facts About The Desert” and “Life Cycle Of A Frog” don’t turn you on, there’ll be plenty of beautifully written and illustrated picture books lying in wait for you, no matter what time you get there.
Btw, all my picture book finds this year were from the junior non-fiction section. I don’t think many people were poking around in those trays for preschool picture books so I didn’t have to fight off any competition. Even bumped into another mother who packs and stacks; it’s nice to know you’re not alone!
If you’re a stay-home mom, which title do you prefer: housewife, homemaker, or full-time mom?
I’d pick “stay-home mom” or “homemaker” because they seem more modern. But since I hardly clean or cook or do all that much to make my home a cozier place, am not sure if I deserve to be called a homemaker! “Housewife” reminds me too much of my mother’s generation and it makes me think of a wife trapped at home, which is how my mom felt a lot of the time.
“Full-time mom” sounds fancy at first but if you think about it, it’s a huge insult to all the working moms out there who are just as dedicated to their kids, even if they can’t spend every single waking minute with them.
“Nonworking mothers are much more judgmental of working mothers than vice versa.”
I’m not sure about that. Both sides probably hold equally strong prejudices that are not without the tiniest grain of truth in them, i.e. “You’re letting your brain rot and your world get smaller” versus “You care more about money than your kids.”
I don’t think I truly understood that hanging around a kid all day could be energy sapping until I had one of my own! On the other hand, I realise that many stay-home moms have help and more free time than they let on. (Facebook, anyone?)
I don’t go out of my way to avoid working moms, it’s just that stay-home moms can do weekday morning meetups and tend to blog more, which makes it easier to connect and stay in touch. And I would advise any working mom thinking of “sacrificing her job” to hold off until she realises it’s a choice for herself, not a sacrifice or something that could result in future emotional debt for the kids.
More on moms versus moms in this NYMag piece.
Don’t miss this weekend’s National Library Book Sale!
My “Book Sale Survival Guide” is now hosted on MyPlayschool.net. Click here to read it!
We forgot our anniversary again this year. It was last month, on the 11th.
We’ve now clocked five years of marriage and 11 years of togetherness, and I’m pretty sure we spent a lot of this time disagreeing about something or other. In fact I’ve even got a Top Five list:
Longest Cold War: Two days. I was renting back then and I was fuming over the fact that Alf had wanted to borrow some of my savings to invest in pork bellies. He didn’t get any money out of me, and he spent those two days sitting at home making me a felt doll.
Silliest End To A Fight: The one with my dog Love and the stolen Mars Bar.
Most Embarrassing Public Fight: Throwing a used diaper at Alf and insisting trashcans were around somewhere. Well, they weren’t. Used diaper came flying right back at me. Venue? The Central Library.
Most (And Probably Only) Intellectual Fight: Arguing over James Joyce’s less-than-flattering depictions of his classmates in A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man.
Most Recent Fight: Last week. Mid-week. Late night. Over oh I dunno, the same ol. Two days later I said to Alf, “Did you notice we were both wearing brown RSAF t-shirts that night?”
“Yeah… See, we can be in sync sometimes!“
