I Like Ballet

Sharlene has been telling me that she likes her ballet class. I’m so glad and happy that she is showing interest in ballet, learning and enjoying her lesson at the same time. I never thought she would be interested as all along she is a shy, quiet and reserved girl who doesn’t mingle and play with her friends in school. She prefers to stand and observe them from far. According to Aunty YK, she has improved lately and has started to play along with her friends. I guess she just needs a longer time to warm up. However, she has a total opposite character at home and during her ballet lessons!

Every Tuesday she has an early dinner, then gets dressed in her costume and waits for me to reach home. She would eagerly get into my car and upon reaching the school, she would open up her little bag and fish out her ballet socks and shoes and put them on herself. I must say she truly enjoys her 45 minutes ballet lesson that focus on having fun. Not much is expected from them at this age, only a few ballet moves.

The other day, my little girl was demonstrating to me some ballet moves ...


I think she's showing me a ballet warm-up exercise here...

See mummy, I can touch my toes..

Growing Spring Onions And Germinating Green Beans

The above are two simple projects for kids to experiment at home. Of course, they need adults to help them with the preparation. A few weeks ago, Aunty YK demonstrated to Sharlene the ways to grow spring onions and to germinate green beans. The steps are pretty simple. Just get an empty container and fill it halfway with soil, put in onion bulbs (do not cover the bulbs completely), water well and expose it to sufficient sunlight. Nowadays, we don’t have to buy spring onions from the wet market as we grow our own spring onions :)

And here is Sharlene’s little tub of spring onions. She loves to water the plants, watch it grow and was very thrilled when the onions started to sprout.


As for the germination of green beans, I’m sure all of you are familiar with the steps, right? Sharlene was first taught how to germinate green beans at her pre-school last year. Back home, she has done it a few times too. And her latest one looks like this...


Now she knows that plants need soil, water, air and sunlight to grow properly :)

Watching A Drama Online And Internet Connection Fails

I’ve stopped watching Korean dramas for a while and I’m now into Singapore drama instead :D I grew up watching Singapore dramas but ever since I shifted to KL many years ago, I have not been following any of their series. A few blogger mummies have already watched this well-known drama and after reading reviews about this drama in their blogs, I’m so tempted to watch it as well.

You could have guessed the name of the drama by now. Yes, it’s Little Nyonya and I’m currently catching it via youtube. Every night, after Sharlene has gone to bed, I’ll glue myself in front of the PC to watch it. However, I'm rather slow and the most I could watch is only 2 episodes per night. Although I wish to know the outcome of the story fast, I try not to continue watching. Otherwise, I’ll surely have a tough time waking up the next morning.

Last night, I followed the same routine and was really disappointed that the Internet Explorer wasn't responding. Really wonders why the Internet connection suddenly stops working? I tried to switch off and restart the computer but after doing so, the condition was still the same. I finally gave up and went to bed after repeating the same process for a few times.

I am hoping the computer won’t give me the same problem tonight so that I can continue watching the drama again. Still have many more episodes to catch!

Photos Of My Ballerina

Due to the mad rush on last Tuesday, I wasn’t able to snap photos of Sharlene prior to her ballet class and I'd also forgotten to remind hubby to bring along the camera when he went home to pick her up.

While we were in the car on the way home after her class, I told her that once we get home mummy is going to take photos of her in her costumes. She nodded her head and said ok. But as soon as we stepped into the house, she rushed to the toilet to relieve herself first :D That was when she took off her set of ballet clothes. At the same time, I scurried to the room to get my camera. I was determined to snap photos of Sharlene and luckily, my little ballerina was really nice to oblige mummy’s request to put on her ballet costumes again :D I thought she would be too lazy or refuses to have it put on again.

So I went snap, snap, snap.....but before I could take more photos, she said with annoyance enough, enough, I want to change my clothes now.

So, here are a few of the better-looking photos. The rest were not very well taken either with her not facing the camera or with her not-smiling face.

1st pix of my ballerina. She looks a bit skinny here? I topped up an additional RM8 for her sleeved top as opposed to the sleeveless one. Guess she would look even skinnier with a sleeveless top.


Told her to look at the camera but she was eyeing the idiot box instead.


Taken while she was putting coins given by daddy into the gold piggybank.

A Rush Tuesday

Yesterday was Sharlene’s ballet class and I was supposed to fetch her to the center. As I need to catch the commuter early, I left my office at 5.30 pm sharp and rushed to the station. The moment I reached the platform I saw the train but it was already too late. The door was shut and I saw it passed by before me. Argghh...frustrating or not you tell me! What's more, an announcement came almost instantly to inform that the next scheduled train has been cancelled and the next train will be arriving in 25 minutes later.(This problem occurs quite frequently). I immediately looked at my watch and knew for sure that I won’t be in time to fetch Sharlene to her class. Without further delay, I called hubby, hoping he’s able to fetch Sharlene. Thank god, he’s on his way home but due to traffic jam, he wasn’t able to bring her there punctually. She was late by 15 minutes. Hope next Tuesday would be a better day and she doesn’t have to be late again.

By the way, I have taken some photos of Sharlene in her ballet costume and will be posting it up soon.

The Things That Daddy Does

While I was busy changing bed sheet on one Sunday, hubby came in to offer his assistance. After a while, Sharlene also came in to the room to check out what both of us were doing. Unavoidably, my chore got abandoned halfway once the little girl stepped in.

And here's what happened next...hubby found a new way to ‘entertain’ his princess instead of helping me to change bed sheet.

Wrapping her up in a quilt cover...

Lifting her high up...and sway her like a baby.

Here’s another stunt by the ever-obliging daddy :D
Ok, ready and gooooooooo...

Yayy!! This's really fun! I like it....again, I want it again please....

Sharlene's Progress In Learning Mandarin

Sharlene’s ability to read and write Chinese characters has improved a lot this year. Her words recognition is even better than her daddy now :) She wasn't able to converse in Mandarin when she first started pre-school last year but now, after 1.5 years in school, she can understand and speak Mandarin rather well although English is still her preferred spoken language.

On her writing skill, she finally mastered writing her Chinese name at the beginning of this year. She learned how to write the characters in school. One day, she proudly showed me her Chinese writing book that has 3 stars stamped on the page where she writes her Chinese name. It was great effort on her part as her Chinese name isn’t easy to write especially the last name which has 16 strokes altogether. Can you believe it that I never knew how to write her Chinese name? So ashamed of myself...but of course, now I’m an expert after seeing her writes it every other day :D

The school uses a few series of Chinese books (very similar to the English version of Peter and Jane) to teach them Chinese. I find the books are really useful in helping Sharlene to recognize and improve her words recognition. Now, she’s able to read the first 100 words of the series, which contain 8 books. By coaching her at home, I’m also learning and improving my vocabulary at the same time :P

She’s having a reading session with her piao cheh on one of the weekends.


She's reading the book by pointing to the words with a bamboo stick! See, how naughty she was....haih! I have no idea how she got hold of the stick.