She Wants To Look Pretty Now

Yes, she’s into this stage now and really likes to put on hairclips and hair band everyday, without fail :D She would stand in front of the mirror, comb her hair, put on her fanciful hair accessories which majority of it belong to her piao cheh and smile at her own creation after that. Her nanny said nowadays she would do this routine everyday before she goes to school! So vain hor?? But I think its okay lah...after all she’s a girl, right? ;P

At one time she disliked all these hair accessories and refused to let me put on for her but she's so different these days.

See, she even wants to look pretty in her pyjamas and right before her bedtime. *shake head*


A closer look at her creation. I will surely freak out if she wants to go out like this.

Side view

Writing Her Chinese Name

Sharlene was taught how to write her Chinese name early this year. It wasn’t easy at first but after practising for sometime, she finally knows how to write her own Chinese name. I was proud of her! From then on, she’s able to write it down independently whenever we ask her to.

After awhile I was quite assured that she knows her Chinese name well. Hence, I have cease getting her to practise.

The other day (during the last school holidays), when I asked her to write the characters for me, she gave me a blank stare. Ooppss...I knew she must have forgotten some of the strokes. True enough, she needed my assistance in order to complete the strokes below.


Time to practise again, Sharlene! :)

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.

Last Day of 1st Semester

Sharlene is having class party today before the school closes for 2 weeks. It will be a fun day for all the kids today. No lessons in school, no need to bring school bag, no need to wear school uniform, plenty of food to eat, lots of snacks to bring home and most of all, get to go home early.

Hubby said she woke up this morning feeling very excited about going to school. She quickly got herself ready with the help of Aunty YK and together with her friend, Choi Sin, both of them walked to school eagerly. This friend of Sharlene stays nearby our house. Every morning her mum walks her to school and on the way to school, both of them walk pass our house. Sometimes Sharlene will join her friend and both of them will walk to school together. Likewise, the 2 girls will walk home together after school.

Today she will surely come home with loads of junkies. I’ve told her last night that she’s not supposed to eat so much of it and she has to share it with everyone. Hope she remembers that and keeps them until I get home later.

On another note, Sharlene has got back her mid-term test results in a folder 3 days ago. I think she did pretty well and I was pleased with her results. Her best was 100% for Mathematics and as expected, her Chinese was the lowest at 83%. On the folder I noticed the teacher wrote 15/26. I reckoned #15 is the position she obtained in her class of 26 students. At that moment, I admit that I was slightly intimidated by the number I saw on the folder. Really bad huh, me? But overall, I am proud of my little girl whom I know has done her best.

Coloring Is Fun

Coloring is one of the activities Sharlene does at home. She loves to color since young and whenever a coloring sheet was given to her, she would willingly and happily complete it. Those days I used to search for free printable coloring pages from kids websites and I used that to let her have fun with colors. And that was how she learnt her colors too. I find that using easy and attractive pictures often helps her with coloring.


She did some coloring activity over the weekend. Upon her request, I gave her the Copy and Color book which I bought sometime ago. She randomly picked a page and colored it.


This one was another masterpiece by Sharlene on the same day. Both hubby and I like it a lot. I told hubby that I was really pleased with her piece of work, although her coloring strokes aren't good yet; at least she’s able to color within the lines.

Sharlene And Her Interest In Learning Mandarin

Sharlene has very little interest in learning Mandarin. I realized this sometime last year when she chooses to read only the English and Bahasa school books most of the time. Her Chinese school book is always left behind and she will only look at it when I told her to do so. I am starting to worry as this year she has more Chinese books. Needless to say, there will be more mandarin homework as well. I’m just so afraid she can’t pick up this language if she doesn’t show much interest in learning now. Sharlene’s nanny is currently coaching her in her Mandarin homework and hopefully under her guidance she’s able to improve.

Just before the school closes for holidays last year, Sharlene’s class teacher told me that whenever she speaks to her or asks her question in Mandarin, she would reply and answer her in English. I suppose she understood the question at that time otherwise she would not have answered her teacher. Looks like I really have to 'zhiang hua yue' (speak mandarin) with her more often.

The pre-school that she is attending focuses mainly in Chinese, even the Principal and teachers speak to the students in Mandarin. I even noticed that majority of Sharlene’s peers speak good Mandarin. Hubby and I intend to enroll her in a Chinese primary school, as we really want her to learn and be able to speak Mandarin. It’s always good to know an extra language, don’t you agree with me? At the moment she can only speak a smattering of Mandarin. I am trying my best to speak more Mandarin with her nowadays. Sometimes when she doesn’t understand what I’m saying she would show me her blurry stare or totally ignore my existence. But apart from that it’s quite fun to converse with her in Mandarin.

Yesterday she gave me a pleasant surprise. She was riding her tricycle in front of the house when I arrived home. I got down from my car to open the gate. At that time she was pointing her finger at something on the ground and said Mummy, ‘ni kan che li’ (look at here). I was elated that she uttered those words and I quickly walked towards her direction to see what she's trying to show me. Guess what she’s pointing at? Hah…it’s a pile of dog droppings!! Yucks, and luckily she didn’t run over it with her tricycle.

Anyway, that's surely a good start and I hope she uses more of this language everyday. :)

Learning To Button Up

Sharlene is learning to button up her clothes recently. The only time she can practise doing this is when she’s putting on her pyjamas at night.

A few nights ago after I'd brushed her teeth, she put on this pyjamas herself and tried to button up. She managed to button up the first button quite fast and went on to the second one. She had some difficulty at this point but refused to give up when I offered to help her. From a standing position she proceeded to sit down on the floor trying very hard to put the tiny button through the tiny buttonhole. Each time when she’s almost able to do it she missed it again. :(


Still trying her best to button up here. While she was struggling there I took out a vest from her closet and told her to put this on instead. This hand-me-down vest from her cousin has bigger buttons, which is easier for her to grip. Moreover, she’d successfully buttoned up this vest before.


Finally, she managed to button up her vest and was happy with her achievement. She even shouted, Yes, I did it!

Sharlene Can Spell

Sharlene learns how to spell by looking at books and flashcards. Now she is able to spell quite a number of words by memory, most of it are 3 and 4-letter words like dog, cat, toy, egg, shop, fish, goat, kite, etc.

EGG is the first word she learnt to spell. And egg is also her favorite food..haha!


I used to teach her by showing her a picture with word, and then I point to the word and spell it out for her. After doing this with her for a few times, I will start to test her by asking "Sharlene, how to spell the word ....." without showing her the picture or words. I’m just so happy each time she knows how to spell a word correctly. :D I will correct her if she didn’t get it right at first.

Last night, she was meddling with her set of flashcards in my bedroom. After I came out from the bathroom, I sat beside her and randomly picked up a card (with a picture of xylophone) and I asked her how to spell the word xylophone. To my surprise, she spelt out the 9-letter word accurately! Sometime ago, I’ve taught her to spell this word. But frankly, I didn’t expect her to get it right as yesterday was the first time I tested her on this. Maybe, she’d learnt this in school. But anyhow, I was really glad she knows and praised her for getting the spelling right. Hopefully her interest in learning will never come to an end.

Sharlene Knows How To Control The Mouse

After teaching and guiding Sharlene for some time, she finally can control the mouse independently. At first, I have to sit next to her, direct and click on the mouse for her while she looks at the screen whenever she’s having fun with the computer. Her favorite children websites is Sesame Street and she loves the character, Elmo the most! She gets really addicted to the games at this website and loves to play it over and over again. I only switch on the PC for her when I’m at home during the weekends and limit her usage for just ½ hour. Nowadays, she often exceeds the 1/2 hour limit. Since now she knows how to press the keyboard, move the mouse, position it to where she wants to go and click on the mouse perfectly (so far only at Sesame Street website), I can leave her at the computer upstairs while I get some of my things done. But it’s only FOR A WHILE before she clicks on something else and starts yelling for Mummmmy !! and I’m like a mad woman running towards the computer to see what she has done to my PC.

Sharlene has a book on computer learning given by her kindy. If I’m not mistaken, hubby paid a fee for that as well. These days, kids are exposed to modern technology at such a tender age. During my time there wasn’t any syllabus like computer learning in the kindergarten. Time has certainly changed now. But at least she knows the basic thing like identifying some main component of a PC such as the keyboard, the screen, speaker and of course, the mouse. I’m certainly proud of her achievement again.

A couple of weeks ago while Sharlene was at the PC, I wanted to snap a photo of her and asked her to give me a nice smile but look at what she gave me instead.....


......her mischievous look and cheeky grin.

The Word "Because"

Lately, I noticed that Sharlene is fond of using the word ‘because’ to reply whenever we ask her a question. I was amazed when she first uttered this word sometime ago. She seems to be able to use this word appropriately. For instance, last night she took her school bag in the room and rummaged through the contents. When I saw her doing it, I asked:

Me: Sharlene, why are you taking out all your books? (She took out her school books and pencil case from the bag and placed it neatly on the floor)
Sharlene: Because I want to check my books. (After ‘checking’ her books, she insisted on putting all the items into her bag again). You see, she wants to take over my role now.

Another scenario in the bathroom where she refuses to brush her teeth:

Me: Sharlene, why you don’t want to brush your teeth?
Sharlene: Because I don’t like the toothpaste. (She prefers the one with strawberry flavor).

One more scenario - When she wakes up on a Saturday morning and I’m in the bedroom, she would say:
Mummy, Sharlene no school today because today is a Saturday.
Likewise when she wakes up on a Sunday morning and I’m in the bedroom, she would still say:
Mummy, Sharlene no school today because today is a Saturday. LOL!!

Discovery Of A Mistake

Most of the time Sharlene likes to disturb me when I’m having my dinner. Sigh! I cannot even have my dinner in peace. My food monster will come to the dining table, look at the dishes placed on the table and demand for food. If the dishes are not to her liking, she will then ask for a slice of bread. A few days ago while I was having my dinner, I was surprised she didn’t come near the dining table. I looked around and saw her at the living area. She was working on the maths workbook I bought for her sometime back. I continued to have my dinner and minutes later she came to me with her book. She shown me the page, counted the objects and told me that she couldn’t find number ‘9’ (the correct number she’s supposed to circle). She asked me several times ‘where is number 9’. I immediately told her there was a mistake in the book and she can write number ‘9’ at the corner of the book herself.


Here’s the page where Sharlene spotted the mistake. And on my advice, she wrote the correct number and circled it herself at the side.


Apart from doing school homework, which is mainly colouring and letter writing, Sharlene does maths exercise as well. Her maths exercise is on a piece of A4 paper prepared by me. I used colour pencils to make it more appealing. The maths exercise given by me (slightly more difficult i.e. numbers from 1-25) is fairly similar to the ones she is learning in pre-school now, which consists of – fill in the missing numbers, count and match the objects to the correct numbers, count and circle the correct numbers, draw according to the number given and a few more. She likes counting very much and so far, she is very eager to complete the worksheet given by me. I’m really a happy mummy when my little girl shows interest in learning.

Time Flies.....

Sharlene is 3 years and 9 months old today and in another 3 months time she will be 4 years old. Time really flies....from the day she was conceived to the day she was in my arms a few seconds after she was delivered, to the day she took her first step and to the day she went to pre-school. I just can’t believe my eyes that my little girl is turning 4 years old very soon.

Here I wish to jot down some of her recent likes and dislikes, her most up-to-date development and behaviour before it slip away from my memory...

She likes -
· to drink plain water, barley without sugar, nutritious soup, prune juice with honey, fruit juice, vitagen, yakult, cod liver oil, yoghurts, etc
· and crazy over cheese, butter, peanut butter, all sort of nuts, chocolates, seaweed, ice-cream, honey stars and junk food (I’ve to keep all these out of her sight)
· to eat oats, noodles, chicken drumstick, eggs, cucumber, etc
· fruits – banana, orange, apples, strawberry, kiwi, grapes, durian, rambutan, and many more.
· junk food (I hate to see her eating all those unhealthy food and will only pamper her with the junkies once in a while)
· books, her soft toys, cats and dogs, to go to the playground.

She dislikes -
· and hates medicines but has no problem in taking traditional chinese medicines….really can’t understand why she prefers bitter to sweet taste.
· taking afternoon nap. FYI, she has stopped napping from 18 months onwards
· waking up early to go to school
· to put any hair clips, hair bands or even to tie her hair. That’s why she has to keep her hair short.

Some of her recent development and behaviour that I could think of at this moment…
· no more wearing diapers at night. She will wake up in the middle of the night if she needs to wee wee.
· Takes her own meal from time to time
· Able to use chopsticks although not very good at it
· Able to recite numbers from 1-40 (in English), 1-10 (in Malay) and 1-10 (in Mandarin). Daddy is trying very hard to get her to count in Hakka dialect but so far, no progress.
· Can read out some of her story-books (I think more of memorizing it than recognizing the words).
· Able to move the cursor and click on the computer mouse.
· Likes to do things on her own and feels very proud after completion of a task
· Wants to be number 1 in everything, refuses to be the loser.
· Very stubborn and refuses to listen to instructions most of the time.
· Extremely strong-minded and persistent in getting the things she wants.
· Cry and whine over a trivial issue.

Despite her character and behaviors that can sometimes drive me up the wall and flare up my temper all the time, I love her unconditionally and feel very happy and proud of her whenever she reaches a slight achievement.

Reminder to myself: Try not to emphasize too much on her not-so-good character and behaviors, as well as not to expect too much from her. Enjoy her childhood, appreciate and LOVE her everyday!

Say Goodbye To Diapers

Ever since Sharlene refuses to wear her diapers at night, I have started to train her - by waking her up in the middle of the night to pee in her potty. She is too sleepy and lazy to walk to the toilet. After trying for a few nights, I managed to catch the right timing to wake her up. Sometimes hubby will remind me if I am too engross with the TV, reading newspapers or sitting in front of the computer. The right timing is between 11pm to 11.30 pm if she goes to bed before 9.30 pm. Besides that, I will also restrict her water intake before bedtime. She will empty her bladder another time if she wakes up again later and she will then jump straight on my bed and sleep in between hubby and I. After that, she will stay dry until the next morning. However, incidents of wetting the bed could happen sometimes if she’s in deep sleep and that’s the time when she’s unable to control her bladder.

She has been without her diapers for more than a month now and I have since put away all the balance diapers and pull-up pants. And I’m thinking what should I do with the remnants of it?? Keep it, give away...? Anyway, so glad that hubby doesn’t need to spend on diapers anymore. Another BIG saving here.

Father's Day Cards By Sharlene

This Father's Day card was presented by Sharlene to daddy early this morning. With my assistance, Sharlene completed this card yesterday evening before daddy reaches home. I kept the card and only gave it to her this morning when she wakes up. She wished daddy Happy Father's Day and handed this lovely card to him. Daddy was overjoyed to receive the best gift ever from his darling girl.

Actually, I didn't helped her much...I just cut the big heart shape and she did the glueing and pasting the piece of 'heart' shape onto the front page of the card herself. Then, I spelt the words for her and she slowly and carefully wrote it down with a black magic ink pen. I was so afraid she will simply scribbles and mess up the card. But I think she did quite well except for the small letter 'a' which looks like number '9'.


Here's the inside of the card which I told her to write 'Sharlene loves daddy'. She confidently wrote her own name and the rest of the words were spelt by me. I have taught her to spell and write her own name sometime ago. She is quite a fast learner and it only takes her a few days to master spelling and writing her own name. I hope she can write neater and in a straight line the next time. She definitely needs to practise her writing more often.


And this purple looking card was done by her in the pre-school. Daddy must be elated and proud to receive these 2 lovely Father's Day cards from his dearest daughter.

Award For Excellent Performance

This was what Sharlene received at the prize giving ceremony yesterday morning. A trophy for getting number 3 in the class. Last night, she was so busy showing off and telling everybody that she's got a trophy in school. And of course, she received lots of praises, hugs and kisses from everyone at home.


That's how happy, excited and proud she was for the whole of last night.

Sharlene, Daddy and mummy are so proud of you too!

Oh Dear, She Peed On My Bed!

After Sharlene woke up in the middle of last night, she came up and slept on my bed. I had asked her to wee-wee first before coming to my bed but she said no wee-wee. When I woke up this morning I felt my pants were wet and my mattress was damp too. Oh dear, the girl has peed on my bed and my mattress was soaked with her pee. I quickly changed her pants and transferred her down to her own bed. Now I hope her pee will not leave any bad odour on my mattress as I have no time to wipe and spray the mattress with febreeze this morning.

I started to train her to go diaperless ever since she refused to wear diapers at night. Everyday she will take her last bottle of milk around 9pm, and goes to sleep by 9.30pm. Sometimes she will empty her bladder first before going to bed. Around 11pm, I will bring her potty next to her and wake her up to pee. At first, it was tough because each time I wake her up she will be cranky and crying. I feel really bad to disturb her sleeping but if I don't do that she will definitely wet her pants. If she empties her bladder around 11pm, she will be able to stay dry until the next morning most of the time. She was able to stay dry for the past 2 weeks. But accidents are common and can happen every now and then, just like this morning when she can't control her bladder and peed on my bed. She is already off diapers now and hopefully she can be trained to wake up on her own to pee at night soon. I know I can't rush her into this but I will be more patient and give her more love, support and praises.

Sharlene Is Practicing Her Writing

Sharlene has been practicing her writing last Saturday and Sunday. I gave her a few letter tracing worksheets to write. She loves to write the letter 'C' and can write it very well even without the need to trace on the dotted lines. However, she needs to practice her writing skill more often as her pencil grip is still not strong and some of her letters are still crooked.



After completing her letter 'C', she continued with her colouring on the same piece of worksheet I gave her.



She was doing some counting exercise here. I told her to count the objects and thereafter to write the number of the objects at the side. She got it all right! And she was over the moon when I praised her effort. Kids just love to be praised!

Sharlene and her numbers

Sharlene can now count from 1 through 30 quite well and is able to recognise the numbers 1 to 10 perfectly. She learned her numbers by looking at books and I used to teach her by flashing home-made number cards to her. Another way of teaching her numbers is by playing hide and seek. First of all, I will hide some home-made numbers cards in the room (at places that are easy for her to locate) and ask her to search for the cards. After she found it, she must say out the number on the card to me. She enjoyed this game very much. She gets really proud when she found the cards and got the numbers correctly. I am proud of her too!

As for writing the numbers, I will dot the numbers and then she will trace it. At the moment, she can only write number 1, 4 and 7 independently, that is without the dotted lines. The rests of the numbers are out of shape. Lets hope she can practise more often on her writing to improve her skill.