Sze Yi 1st Holiday Camp

I had better post this before the next holiday is here.

Last holiday, Sze Yi attended a holiday camp at her school. The main objective was to let the children learnt to be independent, able to socialise and also had a good sense of gratitude. They would be having a field trip to Taiping Zoo, and then overnight 1 night at the school. Since she was familiar with the building as she had her afternoon naps there, we felt comfortable to let her participate in the camp.

She's very excited when Daddy dropped her at the school

When Sze Juin woke up and found that Jie Jie was gone, she made a fuss. You see, last night, Jie Jie had helped her pack her bag as well, telling her that she could come along too, if she's ok to sleep alone at night - cannot cry because Mommy and Daddy won't be there. She had agreed, but kept changing her mind :)

So we took SJ to Taiping Zoo later in the afternoon, with the hope of catching up with Jie Jie and also let her have a holiday trip too since the holiday was just starting. 

 

See how happy SJ looks!

 We went for the train ride and saw lots of animals. 

 Most of them were taken afar, so it's not clear

SJ was trying to imitate the elephant :)

 Daddy and SJ on the lookout for Jie Jie

 Aha! We found them! We noticed that each teacher has 3 students under their charge

 Posing for the camera...

SJ was very excited when she saw her Jie Jie and all her teachers. So was Sze Yi when she saw us. It happened to be Amah's lunar birthday too, so she went to tell her teachers about it (her teacher came to wish Amah happy birthday :)). Later, we left when they were queueing up to go up the bus. 

The following day, we went to join them for a family session. I felt so proud when I saw my girl - she's so at-ease and independent.

She's wearing a T-shirt designed by herself during the camp

When we arrived, they were practising this song

I felt so happy and glad that I let her participate in the camp when I saw how happy she was

Don't know what caused her to be so amused

Blending in with the group...

All the parents were welcomed with this song...

They were asked to present the flower to their parents.

A closer look at the flower

 Then they were given a towel to wipe their parents face

And now for Amah...

We were shown a slideshow of what they went thru during the camp. It's reassuring to know that they were doing fine, and had a great time. They had a little picnic for lunch at Taiping Lake before they went to Taiping Zoo.

Some of the photos shared...

 Sze Yi's group photos (Kangaroo Team)

 

 Finally, queueing for the bus to take them home

Next, we saw them back from the trip in the bus, followed by the night activities that they did. They designed the T-shirt with their own creativity, and also did a mask. 

Busy designing their T-shirts...

I can't really remember, but I think they had some practise of the songs too...

Practice makes perfect

They had a few action songs

After having supper, they called the night off. I think they had some chanting or prayers as well. The next morning, they prepared sandwiches for their parents. They also practised for a sketch. 

 Sze Yi's role was as a Mama Bird

 Mama Bird with her little birdies

 The sketch in action...

 All the animals involved

Uh, looks like they had some fun games as well.

Then, there's the visit to the old folk's home.

Ok, back to reality. After all the slide shows, they then presented us with the sketch.

Everyone involved taking their places

Say cheese....:)

After the sketch, they had an activity involving the parents. All the children were required to wear a mask, and stand behind a big cloth covering their pants and legs, with their shoes removed. 

Can you tell which is Sze Yi? 

The parents were supposed to guess which was their child's leg and grabbed it. 

After that, the mast of cloth will be removed... ta-da!

Daddy found his princess!

Madam Tan (her school's Ex-Principal) helped us take a family photo

The camp ended with everyone (including the parents) participating in the activity song. Indeed, this was a very great camp. We were very impressed and grateful to all the teachers. It seemed they had all the teachers from every branch to help out with this camp. I would say this is a great success and we have enjoyed the camp as much as our kid. In fact, SJ had a great time too!

A big Thank You to all the teachers of Than Hsiang Kindergarten!

Mission Accomplished....Finally!

Phew! It took me 2 more months to fully weaned Sze Juin off.

Well, she was doing very nicely for a few days from here, and I thought that's it! Life will be so much easier soon. How wrong I was! There's once when I suddenly remembered that I forgot to apply lemon, and I absent-mindedly said to Daddy, "Oh dear, I forgot to apply lemon today!". Guess who paid the most attention to this off-handed statement? Yeah, SJ happily asked me, "Mommy, you didn't apply lemon today?" Smiling sweetly at me, she continued on, "Oh so I can drink today?" Haha, I was speechless. I didn't know that she knew I applied lemon, I only told her it's spicy. How she associated it with that, I have no idea. I guess she must be paying more attention than I thought.

Yeah, I learnt my lesson the 2nd time when I told Daddy that I ran out of lemon, have to buy soon. Again, that little rascal was only too happy to know that and took full advantage of it!

A few days went by, we still haven't got time to do our groceries yet, and so there's no lemon. Every time SJ would ask me, "Mommy, today your nen nen got spicy or not?" I don't have lemons to apply, so I just told her to try herself. And after a few taste, she would smile up and said, "It's not spicy".

Then suddenly Hubby came out with a brilliant idea. The next time she asked this question, hubby told SJ that the milk was spicy even before she tried it. So she started to cry and throw tantrums. I tried to sooth her by prompting her to try. And what baffled me was, after taking a taste, she told me it was! Hubby just proved to me how powerful our words could be to our children, we could influence them so easily. So he started his lecture on me - always say the positive thing to them, always use our words carefully especially when in front of then, our words can make or break them, blah blah, blah...

So, it had been quite smooth sailing from them... until I blew it up. One day, she was not feeling very well, so I quickly gave in and offered to nurse her. How comforting that was to her. Furthermore, I felt that it's the right thing to do, since she needed some antibodies to fight those viruses away. Well, that's when she got addicted again, and my dilemma continued... Blast me!

On and off, I tried to distract her. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It never really bothered me, until I started to feel painful when she nursed. Still, I didn't really do anything. Then, out of the blue, the opportunity came when I got very sick and had to be admitted. I spent 5 days in the hospital, and that just solved my problem. At that time, I thought maybe this was a blessing in disguise (little did I know then, 1.5 month from there, disaster would struck!)

Well, hubby told me that she wanted him to pat her to sleep at night. She slept after drinking a bottle of milk, and didn't once fret. The only thing was, she insisted to sleep with Daddy, and never with Amah. She seemed very understanding and did not even manja with me whenever she came visiting. Not like her Jie Jie who hugged me like a koala bear throughout the visiting hour, SJ kept her distance away from me and showed me how matured she'd grown.

After I was discharged, I thought she had forgotten about it. Nay, she remembered. She started asking again, and so I tried my luck with lemon again. Surprisingly, it still worked! Though not all the time. She started making deals with me, and when I told her that I don't have milk anymore, she told me she don't mind waiting till when I have it next time. She even booked 1 side all for herself!

Well, luckily I can now safely declare that she's been completely weaned off at 3 years and 2 months!

This was taken a day before she turned 3 years 2 months - after she was given a nice hairdo by her Jie Jie :)

Me and Amah on Papers!

Our school was hosting the Cleaner, Greener, and Safer Penang 'gotong-royong' activities for the Bukit Gedong area when the school holiday was nearing the end, and I took part in a dance performance. 

I woke up by myself that Sunday and got ready in no time before letting Mommy applied some make-up on me. In fact, I've been very excited about the whole thing and kept on reminding her that teacher said need to make-up weeks earlier. I even added that teacher also said have to apply purple nail polish on my fingernails,  but since Mommy didn't have, she clarified with the teacher if other colour would be ok, and later found out that there's no such requirement. Oops... the teacher said I'm too ai sui...(want to be pretty)

After all Mommy's hard work, I accidentally smeared one side of my make-up when I rubbed my eyes, and since Mommy never thought of bringing the make-up set with her along, she couldn't touch up for me...

I took part in the colouring contest before the dance performance

So many people from other schools were taking part too...

We're given a T-shirt and asked to put it on before they took a photo of us. I'm the first to pass up my work and didn't want to do further touch up, since I'm more excited for my dance later. 

Getting ready for the dance...

I'm so excited!

This was taken during the rehearsal before the actual performance

 I was asked to represent my school to receive a gift from YB Abdul Malik

I won 3rd prize for the colouring contest!

A few days later I found out that I was on the papers!

From the Star, dated 15th June

From China Press, dated 14th June.