Grandfather's creations

I have drafted this post somewhere earlier this month (check the entry date, its 5th Oct heh) but only managed to complete it today (2 Nov 06)! SO embarrassing actually, always updated past events in my blog heh...but its better late than never right? :D For us, Oct 2006 has been an exciting month. I will share more of the "happenings" in my subsequent updates!

I have always wanted to share some of FIL's creations for Trenyce and finally taken photos of some of his creations. The purpose of this post is simply to let Trenyce knows (years after she is older) that she is very fortunate to have a creative grandfather. *Drum rollz* okay, here are the items.....

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Very Cute right? This is how Trenyce started to recognise apple, orange, star, fish etc... It helps to reinforce whatever she has learnt as child at this age has shorter memory, they need reinforcement every now and then to help them remember. This is recycled from a metal stand which FIL found at the void deck. The panda poster is actually a 2006 calendar.

This is a closer shot. I have just changed the flashcards about 3 weeks ago. She is learning shapes now but she can only recognise the star and whenever I point to the circle, she will tell me its a ball :p Square and triangle seem to be difficult for her to remember, probably bcos she cant quite associate these shapes with things she sees everyday.

This is Trenyce's exercise books. PIL always goes to Labis RM$1.70 shop to buy exercise books for her to practice her pasting, colouring and drawing "skills", one of her favourite activities. Sometimes, FIL will just simply cut some pictures (like here, its a little girl) for her to paste on the exercise book. Ocassionally when there are pasar malam downstairs, he will buy some stickers for her (I think its 20cts per piece, quite a variety got Barney, Memaid, Hello Kitty, Nemo etc) to make her pasting activity more fun!

See, this is the Hello Kitty stickers and some of her scribbing! Trenyce will tell me "sticker, my favourite!"


Little girl also has a pencil case of her own. Quite a colletion yah. The colour pencils are gifts from Auntie May Kim. Look closely and you will notice the mini paper duck in her pencil case. This is also done by FIL. By getting her to draw around the duck and "eventually" a duck picture on her exercise book helps in "strengthening" her motor skills. Good idea eh? Here is a closer picture of the mini paper duck. Its only the size of my thumb. Trenyce will say "my favourite duck inside pencil case" :)

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The end

"Time not enough"

Phew! Finally finished my errands yesterday for the mid-autumn festival, dashing from place to place to buy mooncakes, pomelo, "piglet" biscuits....etc This is the life of a working mother, maximising the use of her "free time" (yeah cos doing these errands mean I will have to forgo my lunch :p) to complete her mission. This also applies to other missions e.g banking, marketing or simply shopping for something that I need etc

Since becoming a mother, I have treasured my lunchtime more than ever. Not that my lunchtime has increased from an hour to 2 hours. (Instead it has reduced from an hour to 45 mins!) But it means I need to accomplish more things with the same (or less) amount of time I have. Yes, time is precious for me because I hope to rush home immediatley after work to spend time with my girl. It can be a very simple chore like taking her for a walk at the void deck, changing her pajamas, running around in the house or saying a prayer with her before she sleeps etc. If I have to run my errands after work, I would have missed out some of the activities or worst still, I may not get a chance to talk to her as she could have fallen asleep by the time I reach home. That means I would have spent one less day in my lifetime with her. So sad huh? As a mother, you would feel that taking charge of the kids after work is necessary and feel guilty whenever you are not able to spend time with them. In my own definition, I feel that is how a responsible mother should behave. (No offence to other working mothers) Is that only myself feeling this way or that is generally the way working mothers feel? Actually I am considered lucky in the sense that my work does not demand me to work late everyday and most of the times, I am able to get off from work on time. However, even with that, I have only 2 miserable hours to spend with my girl everyday (reaches home around 7pm and she sleeps around 9pm).

Sometimes I really wonder how other busy working mothers coped with that little time with their kids and how I will be able to cope if I have another kid? I always feel that 24hrs is not enough for me cos I simply have too many things to do or want to do. I am already feeling that I dont have much time doing my routine tasks, not to mention doing my personal stuff. My wedding photos which I wanted to scan and put on the website is still left unscan. The malay language book borrowed from my SIL is still left on the shelf (I wanted to take up a third language when Trenyce was 1, now she's 2 already!) Oh, let me count when is the last time I have a simple meal with my galfriends...hmm