Home Made Skirts

As mentioned before, we school 4 weeks and take 1 week off the whole year through except for Christmas where we take 2 weeks off. We also give ourselves a day off on our birthdays

I usually take the 1 week break to catch up on chores, let the kids do some crafty stuff and/or bake if inspiration strikes . Well, at the last break, we re-did our study and installed wall-to-wall cabinets. That involved lots of decluttering, dusting (scratch-scratch) and re-organising.

And to just up the ante, I decided to sew some skirts for the girls which they had been bugging me for. So sweet that they actually want me to sew them skirts, right?

And so in the photo you see some of the skirts I sewed for the girls. I sewed 11 skirts (4 in yellow floral print, 4 in black floral print, 2 in black and 1 in pink floral) in total for 4 out of the 5 girls. It took me 1 day to cut the fabric another day to sew them all up. All with a crawling, clingy baby at my side. It was erm..challenging. And I swore never to do it again till the baby is 2 years old!

I even tried to sew patch pockets for the yellow floral print skirts. Not too bad I must say for someone whose only sewing lessons was way back in the early 80s in Home Economics class which made me cry coz I was just so bad at it!

But what really makes me feel all warm inside is is that the girls inevitably pick these skirts to wear for Church. And it is so cool to see 4 of them trotting out of our home in a single file. Although I still stand by my decision not to sew anymore till the baby turns 2!

 

Hot and Humid!

Oh man, while my friends in the US are enjoying their cool weather, we are most certainly sweating it out here in hot and humid Singapore!

It is so hot that the air conditioner seems totally ineffective. Or perhaps ours are dying?! I shower a minimum of 3 times a day and still feel icky and covered in a layer of sweat. Yucks!

Although we used to almost never turn on the airconditioner, they are now turned on daily from 4-5pm* til midnight when we go to bed! That’s a lot of hours! Yes I know I am contributing to global warming But I will just go crazy without it. Already with it turned on I am still breaking out in a heat rash and am scratching and scratching.

It doesn’t help that I am often rushing from task to task, generating more heat in the process. I suppose if I walked and moved much slower it would help?!

An afternoon siesta would be helpful too

* Edited : For some days the aircon gets turned on after lunch

One of those days

It was one of those days. Can’t teach properly. Actually can’t even think properly. The baby is acting up and likes to climb all over me and mouths whatever book/paper/pen she can grab off us.

Then someone can’t get fractions. Another person can’t get punctuation. Everyone clamouring for his/her turn with me.

I sms-ed dh “I’m slowly going mad.”

And then something else happens to really push things a lil bit further.

Some background : we have a Diamond Water filter affixed to our kitchen sink for yummy tasting water that doesn’t require boiling. Today, we had an upgrade since it is already 5yrs old. However, I did not realise that the new tap has a much longer “neck” than the old one.

The drama starts : While the kids started eating their lunch, I placed our huge stainless steel water dispenser under this new tap to refill it. When the dispenser was full, I put grumpy baby down on the floor to move dispenser back to the kitchen counter top. I suddenly realised that I couldn’t lift the dispenser up. It was stuck under the tap!

I gingerly tried to tilt the dispenser a little to get it out from under the tap. However, a LOT of water spilt out of the dispenser onto the kitchen counter top which then flowed down to the kitchen floor forming a huge puddle.

Baby almost immediately crawls to toward me wailing away. The rest of the kids continue eating their lunch oblivious to the unfolding drama in the kitchen :( (Ds now peering over my shoulder as I type it claims, “Hey! I didn’t know anything, so not my fault.”

I continue with my task of bringing the dispenser back to the other kitchen counter. Suddenly I realise that the dispenser is dripping water non-stop from the bottom! I look wildly around for a container large enough to pour the water out.

Zilch. Nada.

I grabbed the largest, unused, clean pot which could only take less than 1/2 of the water in the dispenser! Never mind. I hurriedly brought the dispenser back to the sink so that it can conitnue dipping there as I look for my old Tupperware water dispenser. As I was filling that up, I suddenly remembered that I had put it away coz it had a leak too! Smack head! But thankfully, it is still holding strong – for now.

While all this is happening, the baby continues wailing away even though by now, the older kids had stepped in to carry her away to amuse her. I quickly mopped up the floor with 2 thick towels. Took unhappy baby off her siblings and tried to eat lunch with baby climbing all over me.

My life.

The End.

Pollyanna

I started reading Penguin Classics: Pollyanna with my 11 and 9 yr old last month and we are loving it! It is a well-loved children’s classic which sad to say, I have never read till now! I am so glad we homeschool or I would never had even thought of picking up the book to read!

In almost every chapter, Pollyanna reminds us to be thankful in whatever circumstances we find ourselves to be in. In case you are not familiar with the book, the protaganist, Pollyanna, has been taught by her father to always be thankful in all circumstances. For example : she received a pair of crutches instead of a long awaited doll as a present. Instead of sulking or throwing a temper tantrum, she decided she would be thankful – that she doesn’t need crutches!

I suppose the sceptic in us would say that is too naive. Afterall, when I searched the term Pollyanna, I found that it had a negative connotation But I beg to differ.

Having an attitude of thankfulness teaches one to focus on what one has, not what one doesn’t have which could easily lead to discontentment. It is even biblical as we are told to: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Go and read it – or better still, read it to your children and let’s cultivate an attitute of thankfulness.

Book Review : Raising Real Men

Whether you have one son or 12, this book will help you understand boys a little more. Raising Real Men : Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys is written by Hal and Melanie Young, parents of 6 boys and 2 girls. They take an unabashedly Christian take on raising boys into men for God.

Their own real life experiences flesh out what they are sharing. This makes it more credible than books put forth by experts who have merely studied statitistics with a few case studies thrown in. The book’s friendly and humourous tone will engage your attention immediately.

I personally feel that children today are molly coddled way to much, be it boys or girls. Probaly due to the fact that most families have only one or 2 children only and a live-in helper to boot. I once blogged about children and chores after reading an article featured in the Sunday Times where getting yourself a cup of drink is considered a chore

I feel that all this pampering has a more detrimental effect on boys than girls. Where will the real men of society be found? They can’t even do basic chores and we are expecting them to lead their families and our country?

Anyhow, Raising Real Men first explains that boys are well, boys. They are different from girls on so many levels. And admittedly, I think we moms tend not to appreciate this:)

I onlyhave 2 boys out of the 7 children the good Lord has blessed us with but all that activity (jumping/climbing/wrestling) and noise just gets to me at times, especially now when I am very sleep deprived. But as the authors remind me, boys are made that way by God. I just need to learn how to channel all that energy and noise to something productive. As they say, “The focus must be on leading our sons into godly manhood, not just trying to manage them to make our lives convenient and pleasant.”

 They also remind me that because boys are always on a lookout for heros to emulate, I need to be careful who they are watching and learning from! This includes friends they make, tv they watch, computer games they play and books they read.

What I like best is the section “Who’s In Charge Here?” and “His Own Man Now” where they speak at length about encouraging leadership in our boys. Encourage them to be leaders, not followers - they need to be groomed to lead their families one day even if they never get to be a CEO of a large MNC or GLC. “God made boys – all of them – to be leaders.” Hence the occasional (regular?!) challenge to mom’s authority. But they need to also understand submission to authority and how the chain of authorityworks. They also need to learn that mom is acting on dad’s behalf (as head of the house) and dad is acting on behalf of God.

And one skill they need to learn in order to be good leaders of their families is to be a good provider. Therefore, teaching important life skills such how to handle money and developing diligence and dependability is another topic Hal and Melanie touch on. They share how they encouraged their sons to be entrepreneurial and hardworking to contribute to the family’s needs.

Raising Real Men is a good read. I highly recommend it to those with boys. I have learnt much from it!

The book itself is available only in January 2010 but you can preorder it now. Or if you don’t want to wait, you can download it as an eBook – like I did and on top of that, save on shipping! More details can be found on their Raising Real Men website. And if you click on their Preorders tab, you’ll see that there are some free bonuses there if you preorder now. I don’t know how long this link lasts though.

Happy Reading!

 

She’s 6 months old

The smile that brightens our day

Our 7th blessing on earth is 6 months old today! And it has been a ride thus far

She constantly reminds me that I know next to nothing about babies and their kind Keeps me humble I say! Just coz something worked with the other 6 babies doesn’t mean it will work with her. Thankfully I can count on the older children to help me out. They have matured so much since her arrival which is a nice side benefit of having a baby in the house!

Ever since she burst forth into the world at a whopping 4.3kg (drug free, doctor free ) 6 months ago at home, she’s been in a rush. For what I am not exactly sure though She could flip over, either way at 3months, could get herself on all-fours crawling position by 4month and crawled (properly, not commando style) at 5.5 months. She could also pull herself up to a standing position at the same time. And in the last week sits very steadily by herself! Now if only she would remember to bend her knees when she wants to get down instead of holler for us to help her! Lol!

Look at me!

She constantly amazes me with her physical progress.

And then there’s her smile. She always melts our hearts with her beaming, ear-to-ear grins in the mornings no matter what time it is! And her blissed out look when she’s done nursing. She’s really a joy to us. So blessed that God sent her our way.

Yes, despite the lack of sleep, the sacrifice of abstaining from coffee, tea and rootbeer floats and countless interruptions during school

Thank you Lord that you sent her our way. May we raise her to fear you and serve you all the days of her life and bring glory to Your Name!

My eBay Finds

As a person who’s always looking for stuff to make my life easier and more productive, I found 3 items that I have been most pleased with off eBay. A nursing bracelet, a key finder and cloth nursing pads.

  

Nursing Bracelet

While I was waiting and waiting for baby #7 to make her grand entrance into the world early this year, I came across a nursing bracelet by Made With A Mother’s Love. She called it a Mommy Helper Reminder Bracelet. And I absolutely love it!

 

 

Nursing Bracelet photo courtesy of Made With A Mother's Love

 

This is how it works : It has numbers 1 through 12 on it representing 12 hours on a clock with 3 beads in between to represent every 15 minutes. Simply move the charm between the beads to record, keep track of, count or remind you of whatever you need. Also, for breastfeeding, you can easily switch your bracelet to your other arm to remind you of what breast your baby last fed from or needs to feed from next time.

 

I use it not so much as to time the feeds but to keep track of baby’s naptimes and of course to remind myself which side baby last nursed from. In case you are wondering why I need to keep track of baby’s naptimes - well, I do not like to keep baby up for more than 1.5 to 2hrs from her last nap. She gets overtired and wound up and cannot settle down to nap properly. So the bracelet helps me remember what time she woke up and when to put her down for her naps. I love it coz I no longer have to use my diminishing brain cells to remember such stuff! Baby is almost 6 months and I am still using it. I ordered 2 in colours that would match most of my outfits

 

A Key Finder

While looking for a keychain, I came across an item called a key finder. It is a simple solution to digging around in your bag for your set of keys. Unless I am wearing jeans, my clothes are usually sans pockets which means my 2 sets of keys (car and house) are kept somewhere in my huge diaper bag (I have 2 children in diapers). And it is extremely annoying to be poking around in my bag looking for my keys which I know are in there somewhere, especially when I have a baby in one hand and a toddler in the other. And this is even when I have a bag with mulitple compartments! The keys are still hard to fish out coz they tend to sink right into the bottom of the pocket compartments.

 

So I was extremely intrigued by this contraption. After surfing around for the best deal and the prettiest one I could find, I bought 2 key finders from Ar’bed Floral.

Key Finder photo courtesy of Ar'Bed Floral

No more digging around! I clip my keys to it and let it hang out of the bag! Even dh and the kids can find my keys without me going “No, no, no! Not that compartment, the other one!”

Nursing Pads

I also bought some lovely hemp-fleece nursing pads from Sling-A-Roo Baby. But  on the way to Singapore, the pads went missing! But she was very professional about it and re-sent the package at her cost. These hemp fleece nursing pads are really soft and absorbent. I bought the double layered ones since I leak heavily. It is so, so comfortable compared to the Avent ones I had been using. If only I had known about these with my first child! Btw she’s a mom of 10 kids!

If I come across more great buys, I’ll share them with you again! I love eBay!

School Planning 2009/2010

If you have been wondering why there haven’t been any new posts lately, it’s because I have been planning and planning lesson plans for our 5 school-aged children. And why has it taken so long? Coz I can only do focused planning when the baby is sleeping, which well, she doesn’t do a lot of.

Anyhow, it’s done. Completed. Finished. Whew! For a moment I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish it by this week. So to be able to finish mid-week is a real bonus. And so I rewarded myself with some chocolate

We re-start school on 31st August 2009 and will end in July 2010. If you are wondering why we have such a weird time frame, you might want to check out my School’s Out post.

Prior to this, I had gone online to Popular Bookstore to order up a bunch of textbooks and assessment books. This saves me a lot of time unless I make a trip down to their Bras Basah branch. Ordering online ensures that all the books I want are available and can be collected at the branch most convenient to me!

So this is our grand plan for the 2009/2010 year.

Besides Bibe and English, which we will be using Student of the Word Year 5, I am using all of MOE’s recommended textbooks for Maths, Science and Chinese. That makes life much less complicated for me. Yes, boring to the rest of you but when you have 7 children to raise, you look for the most efficient way to do things. And yes, we school the textbook, traditional way.

(Note : I was once most swayed by the other more interesting methods out there but could never pull it off the way I wanted to due to our family dynamics. And felt most guilty that I have failed my children. Then I got myself the Maxwells‘ Managers of Their School (available at The Home Library locally) and was reassured to find out that teaching the  children with the traditional method wasn’t that bad afterall! Thank God for the different methods out there to suit different family needs & dynamics,)

I know friends who use other curricula but in the final year have to do a crash course for the child to get used to the local way of testing. I know that would drive me nuts! Getting the children used to the local system from Day 1 means less stress for us when we hit the PSLE* year.

Once I decide what to use, I divide up the books (text & assessment) to fit into our school year in my Master Lesson Plan for each child. I like this form from DonnaYoung because it allows me to type in my lesson plan. You can choose to write it out of course. I just like the way it looks when it is all typed out and printed

Each child then gets his/her own Planner based on this Master Plan, every 4 weeks (since we school 4 weeks & take a one week break). Printing out their individual planner once every 4 weeks instead of the whole school year allows me to make adjustments as and when we need to. Eg. throw out books that are not working out, increase practice in weak areas, etc. which we cannot forsee in the beginning of the year.

Each child is then given their planner and all their books for the year to be placed into their individual school box (plain Toyogo box I bought from NTUC). To create some excitement for school, I also buy each child a new set of stationery.  (BTW do you know how difficult it is to find nice and non-garish pencil cases???)

One last thing before I am done, I condense all the children’s planners into 2 A4-sized paper and insert them into my own DIY Planner. This way, I can tick off what needs to be done by which child daily and it also keeps me accountable where grading their work is concerned.

And then we are set to go. If only DOING school is as easy as school planning!

You might want to check out a  more detailed Homeschool Planning post at Building Up Moms. 

* PSLE is a compulsory nation-wide exams all Singaporeans are required to sit for, unless special exemption has been granted by MOE.

30 abortions a day

My frame was not hidden from you 
   when I was made in the secret place. 
    When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body. 
    All the days ordained for me 
    were written in your book 
    before one of them came to be.

(Psalm 139:15-16)

I actually am very hard pressed for time since I have only 1 week left to plan out school plans for 5 children. We start school next week.

But today’s Sunday Times Graves with no names article so disturbed me that I just have to say something. The report said that 30 abortions are carried out DAILY in Singapore. And if you subscribe to the belief that life begins the moment a sperm fertilises an egg, then 30 abortions = 30 murders. DAILY.

Mind boggling.

Amazingly the report says that most of the abortions are performed on adult women who are not married not teenagers. Are these women using abortion as a form of contraception?! What are they thinking when they underwent the procedure? Relieved? Guilty?

I wonder how many are wrecked by guilt after an abortion. I was aghast at the comment given by a Dr Jen Shek Wai who was quoted as saying, “it is best that mothers do not know what will happen to their aborted foetuses or “revisit” them at burial or cremation sites or through even ultrasound pictures..(as)..it only perpeturates guilt and all the negative feelings associated with the procedure.”

Huh?!?!

Contrast this with the comment of a gravedigger, Mr Japar who says in Malay, “People should know what happens to the foetuses they abort. Maybe then they will not abort so freely.”

Exactly! We all need to know the consequences of our careless and thoughtless actions. Don’t make our babies pay for selfish acts.

And just yesterday I was viewing a video posted on Stacy MacDonald’s Your Sacred Calling blog called Born Alive. It tells of how doctors murder any baby born alive after an abortion – either by the action or non-action. Horrifying.

School’s Out!

That’s right, our school year is finally done!

Readers who are from Singapore are probably going, “Huh? So soon?” While those from the US are probably going, “Huh? So late?”

Actually the start and end date is purely arbitrary as we school for 4 weeks then take 1 week off the whole year round. I could start school in January and end in December as per the local system if I wanted to.

The reason we ended up officially starting the school year in September was due to the fact that the year our oldest ds was to start Primary One in January 2005, I was expecting baby #5 in February! It would have been ridiculous to start school in January, only to take a 3 month break when the baby arrived. And to start school in May (3 months after baby’s arrival) would mean a very mad rush to finish everything by December. So in the end, I decided to start early, in Spetember 2004 instead, just like most Americans

Anyway, we’re done, we’re done, we’re done! Hurray to all of us! We managed to finish up what I planned (very scaled down and simplified) despite having a demanding baby who’s now 4.5mths old. God is good!!!

Now I have to pack up and sort out what I am going to keep on file and bring out the new books to start planning!