Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Since Hubby-jr started speech therapy one of the things I’ve to do with him at home is “shadow reading”. Basically he has to repeat after me word for word and imitate the tone and rhythm as I read a storybook to him. This is to improve his articulation. According to the speech therapist he’s too nasal and speaks without really pausing between each word. His sentence could sound like one long word with many, many syllables!

Shadow reading was a tough assignment. I had to correct his pronunciation and rhythm more often than he liked. It made storytime grueling. I got quite disheartened. Thankfully I wised up and tried using his favourite nursery rhymes. It worked a lot better as they were much shorter.

Then recently I discovered a couple of wonderful short videos of storybooks on YouTube and that helped tremendously. You see Hubby-jr loves almost anything that moves on the computer! (I seriously think it’s the male genes, my daughter takes to computers too but at a much lesser degree.) And these videos were perfect because they were basically close up shots of the books (of which I had borrowed or bought), moving page by page as someone narrated the story.

After he watched the videos he was hooked. He watched it again, again and again memorizing not only the words but the tone and rhythm of the narration as well. So much so he could read the book (the real book with the computer off) to me and all I had to do was correct some of his pronunciation!

Here are the videos. The first is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The children’s classic by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle. He loved this one so much that he’d recite the story to himself every now and then!

(The YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHCYgO9zh8)

The second is Digger Man by Andrea Zimmerman & David Clemesha.

(The YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OOz_dz0vf4)

I have noticed that Hubby-jr has since started speaking slower and clearer. It works!

Elijah Wood Does The Dance

Elijah Wood does the Numa Numa Dance? Watch and see.

Bewildered? Here’s the REAL version.

It’s from a kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba! (Of which I just discovered from YouTube). Personally I prefer the Numa Numa version

Breathe In… And Hold.

A few days ago I was inspired by my blog friend Ruth to dig out my wedding dress from my closet. Ruth displayed some of the hidden treasures found in her closet on her blog and it made me wonder if I had any in mine. Lo and behold I remembered my wedding dress! Yes I bought mine

Anyway, after admiring it for a few minutes I found myself wondering if I could still fit into it (my wedding was a little more than 6 years ago). So I tried it on and guess what? It fit! Yes it was a little tighter but I could button it all the way. However I imagine the buttons would come off popping one by one if I actually sat down! Yes I made hubby take photos, so here’s a shot (not bad eh?).

My wedding dress was a two piece thingy and I only tried on the top. I’m leaving the adventure of trying both pieces for another day, thank you very much. Buttoning this top alone was no easy feat!

P/S: I know I mentioned that I’m thinner now than ever before but I also mentioned that the weight loss wasn’t evenly distributed. The tummy, people, the tummy!

WFMW - Easy Chicken Stew

Hi! I’m back after a long break from Works For Me Wednesdays (WFMW).

Today I’m sharing with you a simple Chicken Stew Recipe. I got the basic ingredients off someone (sorry, I can’t remember who) and through trial and error (poor hubby had to endure the first few unsuccessful attempts) I finally figured out the right amount for each ingredient.

Well folks I’m pleased to say the taste of the stew has been consistent the last 3 times I cooked it and even hubby thinks it’s yummy. It’s really easy and I cook it almost every other week.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken thighs (cut into small pieces) - marinate with 1 tbsp oyster sauce, dash of dark soy sauce, dash of pepper for about 20 mins.
• 2 large potatoes - peel and cut into cubes
• 2-3 medium carrots - peel and cut into cubes
• 2 medium onions - peel and quartered
• 1-2 star anise
• 1/2 cinammon stick
• 1 tbs oyster sauce (in addition to 1 tbs used to marinate chicken)
• 1 tbs dark soy sauce (the thick sort)
• 2 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs worchester sauce
• 1/2 - 1 tbs sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 tbs cornstarch

I usually cook this using the magic thermal cooker that I raved about sometime ago. What I do is put everything into the inner pot of the cooker and bring it to a boil over the stove for about five minutes. Then I remove the inner pot from the stove and plonk it into the outer magic thermal cooker. The stew’s ready 2-3 hours later!

You could cook it in a slow cooker too but I’m not sure for how long (until the potatoes and carrots are soft). Alternatively you could cook it over the stove at low heat after bringing it to boil, just add about 1/2 cup or so of water.

Easy and yummy. I hope it works for you too. For other WFMW tips head on over to Rocks In My Dryer.

P/S: I finally splurged on the Tiger Magic Thermal Cooker and its worth every single cent I paid for it!

Reading

We’ve been diligently visiting the library since end of last year. Here’s what we are currently reading.

Hubby….                          Me…

        

Hubby-jr…

       

He’s enjoying both these books by Andrea Zimmerman & David Clemesha. Incidentally I found this at youtube.

Last but definitely not least… Little Missy…

She picked this from the library during one of our regular visits and wouldn’t let it go. I borrowed it just to keep her happy and thought that she’d just throw it aside once we reached home (it’s really more of a book for pre-teens with lots of words and some illustrations). I was wrong. It’s one of her favourite books (for now) and “reads” it daily. She loves the illustrations, so much so that she’s wearing the book out (I think I may have to buy a new one for the library!) Go figure huh?

Here’s a snippet of how the “reading” usually goes…

Little Missy: Lying down… (giggles while pointing to the lady)
Me: (Smile) Yes, the woman is lying down under the bed.

Little Missy: Horse… where? (flips through the pages and finds the illustration she was looking for) There! (giggles)
Me: Oh, there they are. Horse (pointing to the horses). There are one, two, three horses.

Little Missy: Heetar! (guitar)
Me: Yes, the man is playing the guitar.
Little Missy: Daddy pay (play) heetar (guitar)
Me: Yes, daddy plays the guitar just like the man in this picture.

And this can go on over and over and over again for about half an hour! It can be tiring but oh it’s so adorable, don’t you think? 

So what’s your family reading?

P/S: Mommy Speech Therapy has these great tips when reading to a toddler.

My Week That Was

I want to apologise for the unfashionably infrequent posts this week. I think I’ve finally got rid of the bugs… I think… I still have some remnant cough.

My excuse? I was either too tired (from being sick) or too busy. I was also trying to take things slow to help my body recover fully.

On Monday hubby took leave to look after the kids since I was sick. I slept quite a bit and managed to squeeze in a post.

On Tuesday I had to bring Hubby-jr for his speech therapy session and then rush him off to school and after that rush back to pick Little Missy from her grandparents’. All before lunch! Since I don’t drive, it took a little more than an hour just to get him to his therapy session by two buses. So you imagine all the travelling I had to do. And since I hadn’t fully recovered at that time, it left me totally exhausted. So much so I was still tired on Wednesday.

I finally only got my act together on Thursday but I had to spend all my “free” time folding laundry!

You see when the bugs started disappearing, a mountain became apparent in my home. The Laundry Mountain! While I had managed to somewhat keep up with the washing I didn’t fold any for the week and boy, did it pile up! So I had to do a lot of laundry folding and keeping them away on top of the usual stuff. Thankfully it’s almost just a hill now… the usual hill that sits in one corner of my house… Hubby calls it our “walk-out” cupboard seeing how we have to walk out of our room to get a fresh change of clothes!

I’ll try to write more next week. I promise.

Secret

Hellooo…. I’ve a secret to tell… one that’s not going to make me very popular… but here goes… I’m the thinnest now in my life than I’ve EVER been. Yes, thinner than before I had kids. Thinner than when I was a teenager or in my twenties! Before you kill me with envy, don’t. DO NOT be envious. I repeat, DO NOT be envious. You wouldn’t want to be in my shoes (at least I don’t think you would. If you do, you need help).

The main reason I’m hovering between 46-47kg at this point in my life is I’m in poor health. I’ve fallen ill more than I can remember last year. It didn’t help that Hubby-jr started nursery and caught lots of bugs that spread to me. It didn’t help that hubby caught a major mycoplasma bug last year and spread it to me. In between I caught some bugs myself and had about three stomach flu attacks! Yes, it seemed that bugs were drawn to me like magnets and I wasn’t strong enough to ward off their attacks!

I even had to go through Christmas with mild flu and having recovered from that I caught a cough just as it was New Year’s Day. It almost went away when it turned into an infection around my throat area just two days ago and I had no choice but go to the Doc’s. And the year has just started. Sigh!

I’ve since started popping Vitamin C and other supplements religiously (my only New Year resolution). It may be psychological but I think I’m recovering a teensy bit faster than all the “other” times. So maybe the Vit C is working (I’m keeping my fingers crossed!)

While I admit there’s a small part of me that’s just a tad pleased with being thin (what has society done to us women?!) I’d rather have had the little extra something and enjoyed more normal days with my kids and hubby. So I’m definitely praying for better health this year!

P/S: My boobs are still more “southward” and my waist is still a little thicker than pre-pregnancy. The bugs didn’t help with those.

Ulu Lovely

We live in quite an ulu (Malay for deserted) part of Singapore. Beyond our humble flat is an empty plot of land awaiting further development. Yes, we are living almost at the fringe of the island. That’s how ”ulu” we are considering that this is land scarced, urbanised Singapore.

Hubby and I fell in love with this flat the minute we saw it even though it was not completed yet at that time. We snooped around to take peaks at the inside of the unfinished flat and decided this was IT. This was THE ONE. So we crossed our fingers (after much prayer of course) when it was time for selection and miraculously no one else thought that it was such a great available unit. So just like that we got our first, dream choice.

Yes, it was quite inconvenient when we moved in. Without a car, it took us an hour just to get to work and more just to come home (yes, once upon a time I “worked”). It took quite a while for things to develop around us, for things to be a little more “convenient”.

But we have no regrets whatsoever.

For the “inconveniences” we have this.

And this.

Migratory Little Egrets at a nearby river. (Sorry for the blur photo, this was taken at quite a distance.)

Our family has taken many, many, MANY evening walks. We (including the little ones) enjoy it very much. We love our home. Our humble, “ulu-fied” home.

What Does Mama Say?

I found this via Rocks In My Dryer and just had to post it here too.

Touché!

Sweet!

Little Missy’s first Chupa Chups lollipop…

Her verdict?

Nnnnnice!!