Stumped by Transformer

Someone passed me a brand new Transformer toy yesterday - Ironhide this autobot is called. for me, my only experience with Transformer has been to watch them on TV as cartoons and more recently as 'reel' life bots in cinema. It was my first time MANhandling one - - it completely boggled me, i must confess. all those small, moving parts make me nervous - i am afraid Val might gobble them up, but more afraid that i would inadvertently break them - they just seem so fragile. Of course, i hadn't meant to give it to Val but the minute i brought it home, there was no chance of hiding it. He demanded that it be opened ASAP. so i gently undid the packaging (cos i am thinking of giving it to a nephew!), and let him play with it for a while.

When he fell asleep, i began the task of repacking the autobot, cos i really don't want him to keep it. The aim was to magick it away in the steal of the night, hopefully when he wakes up he won't remember it. Cross fingers.

That was when the hard part came. I don't have issues with it when the autobot is still an untransformed truck but when the arms and legs come 'alive' i was lost lost lost. The illustrated instructions helped me nought. Which child can understand those intricate, complex drawings?!!! in the end, i just junked the paper and began wrestling the autobot back into its original (and less threatening) form. Boy, oh boy, it felt worse than that stupefying PSLE math question that's got everyone in a tizzy. I felt like a complete idiot as i shoved, twisted, bent, and manipulated the increasingly irritating bits. At times, the door broke off, the windshield popped out. thankfully, they all got fixed back 'cept for one small piece that popped out and i just threw away cos it would be a hazard to any child.

But finally i did put everything back into place - at the expense of a good half hour. Okay, now you see what a gadget illiterate i am. Gosh. i stealthily placed it back into the plastic box the exact way it came, and voila! a brand new toy for my nephew. Now, the trick is to wrap it up so Val don't see it and recall that he once, for one brief hour, had Ironhide as his.

going App over the iPod: the tech dinosaur speaks

I know i know, I am a slow slow slow adopter of new technology. I was among the latest in the peers to get a pager, a computer, a mobile, and now of course, an iPod (the iPhone will have to wait till M1 starts selling them officially!).

This week, I finally laid my hands on one - shsssh! it was barter trade for freelance services rendered. So imagine my excitement when i received the pod encased in its plastic home and began downloading apps! I went for free apps first of course, and then asked a colleague (veteran iPod user and a mom with 2 kids) what kiddy apps to download. And voila! i am offically an ipod Mom who brings home, not delightful sweets or toys for the babe, but new apps on the pod.

It's interesting to compare what Val likes versus what my colleagues' kids prefer. Val is obviously more aural, more into action, sounds, and movement. He is impatient to let me read a flipbook but loves the Wheels on the Bus app. He loves to see the wheels rolling back and forth. More importantly, he loves that he can actually stop or move the bus with his tiny fingers! it's really amazing what those guys at Apple have done to create the ipod/iphone's incredibly intuitive user interface. I have used phones with touch functions, but it's my first time seeing the extent to which you can control things, and the ease with which Val picked it up. So it's pretty impressive for this tech dinosaur.



One of the top paid App is The Little Red Hen. I love the illustrations, but i love the CANTONESE voice over even more! Cracks me up everytime i listen to it. Val, of course, has no patience for it so i basically bought the app for myself. I do hope though that when he's older he might appreciate it. It's strange that for printed books, he has patience to wait for me to narrate yet for the ipod he somehow knows that it can do more and perhaps demands more?



Anyways, i foresee myself getting hooked, and joining the legions of ipod/iphone parents who have discovered the joys of having e-books on the go, to entertain their fussies whereever they are. So i'll be blogging more about the apps i find in future.

Nyt nyt!

Toilet training

Val's childcare has apparently begun toilet training the toddlers in his class. That's why we have noticed that he uses just one disposable diaper a day in school instead of the usual 3. It's great cos he spends so much time in school so the toilet training shd be more effective than if we tried it only in the evenings and weekends. We're also trying to reinforce it by bringing him to the loo regularly. I even bought a silly sticker that goes into the bottom of his potty, and changes colour when he tinkles into it.

There're hits and misses of course. The teachers told Grandma that yesterday while dancing in class, a piece of poop dropped out of his pants. it was hilarious they said. Today the same happened at home! but it was not ONE piece of poop, it was blobs of poop (with strands of green veggies in them!) all around the hall area and guess WHO had to clean it up!?! Anyhow, he's definitely doing better telling us he wants to pee then to poop. i'm usually good at reading his facial expressions and spotting that slight pause in action, and elongated butt as signs of wanting to poop. But of course, we don't always guess right! We're not making a fuss of cleaning up his poop - cos i'm afraid it might put him off being diaperless. I fear he might ever become those "can't poop without diaper" kids.... poor things.....

disciplinary problems

so the time has come.... the naughtiness in Val has finally reared its ugly head at his childcare centre. it's been a few months since we first put him there. initially he cried whenever we left him there in the mornings. but these days he's really happy, and adores his teacher Valerie who seemed to bond with him from Day One. Grandma says in the afternoons when its time to go home, he actually dawdles, loiters about, and basically tries to delay the going home process, squirrelling into the playhouses to hide from grandma. He simply prefers to be outside the house where he's not cooped up, and where there's plenty to play. But now that he's finally comfortable with this environment, his royal naughtiness has surfaced. last week, he scratched claira his classmate, and today, he apparently beat a 4-year old girl till she cowered in a corner, petrified of the lil boy. gosh. i cringe whenever i hear these reports (note, the teachers never complain, they just very kindly tell us what happened). Worse, Val apparently refused to apologise. Double cringe....

We have always taken the route of encouraging him to tell us when he does something wrong. and usually at home, he gives me an "uh-oh" look when he's done bad things. most of the times, he has said sorry and admitted that he did it. So i'm not sure why today he was adamant. When i came home, i tried talking gently to him to ask him what happened in school, assuring him that i wasn't going to punish him but really wanted to know what made him do it. he admitted he beat someone but didn't tell me who, and why..... hmmm.... i only could pray with him and ask Jesus to calm him and help to quieten his soul so that he wouldn't do it again tomorrow. Sigh... discipline is a tough one isn't it?

catch the moon!

Val and his $1.80 lantern
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

Val has a book called Seven Ways to Catch the Moon! he loves catching the moon in a hot air balloon, on a magic carpet, or on a witch's broom. Last week we brought him down to the carpark area to celebrate the full moon with the kiddies in the 'hood. it was great fun. He loved his cheapo lantern from Carrefour ($1.80 with flashing LED lights inside and traditional paper on the outside), but i suspect he loved seeing the older kids burn down their paper lanterns even more! Happy belated Mid-Autumn to you!

we're still around ... just busy busy busy

blowing momma a raspberry
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

the boy has sprouted since the last we blogged. He's still at the same weight but has stretched taller. He's had a bout of flu recently but has sprung back to his lively (naughty) self. The surprising thing is how much he natters on in Mandarin (!), speaking whole sentences and pronouncing his words quite well. I think it's the grandparents and also the two Chinese nationals working at the childcare who are the nannies assisting the English speaking teachers. It's a lil weird but i think it's good thing for now since English is so much easier to pick up and so he could do with some Mandarin for now. Okay, back to my paper - obviously it's the reason why i'm even blogging, cos i was desperately looking for a distraction. @#$%^&*