Being Mom

When it comes to food , how often do you cheat ? Do you plan to follow a certain diet but end up having more cheat days than you intend to? or Do you intend to eat home cooked food for the entire week but end up eating out almost everyday? You are not alone!!👊 We are partners in crime! Look at the picture below. It's a plate of lunch for my children. Prawn paste fried chicken, stir fry mustard leaves and white rice. Served on a plate from our kitchen. The only thing I cook is the rice. 😜 I bought the chicken and vegetables from an economy rice shop.  They are my children's top picks. It is a shop that sells a wide variety of dishes (about 50-60), mostly Chinese. The food are pre cooked and displayed on large serving trays. It is self service and faster than the fast food restaurant. When my children saw the food served to them, they had a debate on whether it was takeaway or home cooked . 😃 My 8 year old boy said: Mummy bought from Bar Wang Fan (the na...

Slow cooker has been my good friend since life gets busier with the kiddos. I have learnt to cut down my time in the kitchen and let technology do the work for me. Well, in this case, it is a very old technology but it is still one of the best helpers in the kitchen. This week, I would like to share with you a herbal chicken which is very easy to prepare and nutritious too.  THIS WEEK's SPECIAL: Herbal chicken (Dang shen, red dates and goji berries) From the top: Dang shen, red dates and goji berries Herbal chicken Ingredients: Chicken (any parts), dang shen, red dates, goji berries, salt, water.  1. Wash all the ingredients and put them in the slow cooker. Use minimal amount of water. I usually cook two chicken legs and I use 80ml of water. 2. Turn to high heat and cook for 40 minutes and then reduce to low and cook for another 90 minutes.  If you won't be attending it, just use the auto function and cook for 4 hours. 3. You can se...

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. - Confucius  I totally agree with the above quote so I always insist that my children get hands on experience as much as possible.  AND When I ran into my four year old son, JS, playing with my manual breast pump , what did I do?  I had to do what I believe was the best. Even if it is a sensitive one. So, for this week's activity, I would like to share with you on experimenting or hands on experience. Children are curious beings and they constantly seek answers to things that arouse their curiosities. There are times when the topic could be quite sensitive and how would you handle it? I always opt to be scientific. I find it the best way to explain things to a child, especially the sensitive ones. WEEK 8: EXPERIMENTING / HANDS ON EXPERIENCE TOPIC: ASSEMBLING EQUIPMENT So, this was what we did. First, I asked him what he was playing with.  Not  with a...

CULTIVATING THE READING HABIT AT HOME I wanted to cultivate the culture of reading at home. I have failed with my husband .👎 He once bought a   Star Trek novel , assuming that he would start reading if he reads something he loves watching but that didn't help . He did not read past two pages. That was more than 10 years ago and the book was still sitting on the shelf, untouched. I hope my children would read it one day. The only books my husband read was "Who Moved My Cheese" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". Recently, he started reading Cashflow Quadrant, a Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom. He is very much a movie person. Sometimes I wonder, is it always an "either or" situation when it comes to "books or movies" ? I hope some of the readers here could enlighten me in this area. How to get him to start reading? ALTHOUGH he doesn't have the habit to read, he insists that our children read . (Fortunately😁) We started readin...

My son loves to eat noodles because he loves slurping it up!  I don't mind cooking noodles often because it is versatile and very easy to prepare. I can use it in soup, toss it in a soy sauce mixture or stir fry it with vegetables and meat.  Preparing noodles for breakfast can be really quick and easy. Just pre cut some vegetable salad the night before or fry an egg before you make the soy sauce mixture (in the same pan or wok). If you have left over soup, just heat it up and pop the dry noodles in and there you go - a bowl of hot nutritious noodles soup to start the day. Today, I'll share with you the dry version of our favourite organic ramen noodles.  Ingredients: Dry ramen noodles or any other dry noodles of your choice, shallots, garlic, scallions, fresh red chillies, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking oil. 1. Boil water in a pot. 2. When the water is boiling, put the dry noodles in and boil according to the instructions on the...

Hi! Are you ready for another interesting alphabet activity? If your child loves art and craft, he/she will love this alphabet collage. It's a fun way to learn the alphabets and words. Lots of cutting and gluing skills involved so your little ones get to practise motor skills too! WEEK 7: ENGLISH LANGUAGE TOPIC: ALPHABETS and WORDS Note: I was teaching the lower caps when we did this but you could also use the upper case Materials needed:  old books for cutting  If you prefer not to cut old books, print out at least half an A4 page of alphabets for the child/student to identify. Including those not needed in the word. The idea is to see if the child/student will be able to pick the correct ones.  If you are not using old books for pictures, print out the pictures as needed.  A4 paper (any colour) marker pen (any colour) scissors glue stick STEP 1 Write the word that you want to use for the activity. In this case, "animals" fo...

Steaming food is not only a healthier way to cook but it is less hassle too. Not much washing is need after cooking, and I can attend to other things while waiting for the food to cook.  All you need is either a steamer or a wok . It is good to invest in a wok if you plan to do Chinese food often because a wok can be used for a variety methods of cooking. Fry, stir fry, deep fried, braise, steam and even soup .  If I am running out of time and need to prepare a quick meal, I'll always choose to steam.  This week, I am going to share with you my children's favourite steamed fish, a dish I learnt from my father-in-law. It involves a little bit more work but if your children loves tomatoes, they might most probably love this dish.  Now, lets look at the ingredients.  Ingredients: Any kind of fish suitable for steaming (here I use four finger thread fin), one to two tomatoes depending on the size of the fish, a few slices of ginger, ...

I love to read. Most probably it's a habit I get from my parents who read a lot. Or perhaps it was due to a British teacher's advice to my parents that has created the culture in my family. She is the principal of one of the kindergartens I attended. Mrs Pereira, I can still remember her name. She told my parents that if they want me to have a good foundation in the English Language, they should encourage me to read as much as possible. That was when my reading adventures started. I was 6 years old. PRESCHOOL YEARS My parents bought me LADYBIRD books. Mostly fairy tales such as: Three Billy Goats Gruff Puss in Boots The Pied Piper The Stone Soup The Snow Queen I was introduced to a Malay language magazine called BINTANG KECIL. That was because I was enrolled to a national school where the medium of teaching would be in Malay.  ELEMENTARY YEARS I was further introduced to another two Malay Language magazin es:  Kuntum  Dewan Pelajar  ...

It's the time of the month for a new activity for mathematics so you can keep your child busy counting!  This is another activity to strengthen the child's number recognition skill.  WEEK 6: MATHEMATICS TOPIC: NUMBERS  Note: This activity helps a child to understand the meaning of numbers by counting the circless and also to recognise the digits. PROJECT: NUMBER RECOGNITION ACTIVITY WORKSHEET Note: One number for each page of worksheet 1. Prepare A4 papers (white), labelling stickers of the same shape and colour, marker pen, print out numbers (please refer to picture B) and print out the numbers in words or in any language(s) you want to use.  2. Draw a box at the bottom half of the paper (as seen in Picture A).  3. Take a sheet of labelling stickers and write two different numbers on the stickers. Please refer to the stickers in Picture A. Here, you can see that I have the numbers "5" and "6".  4. Since my dau...

THE PLAN MAN Are you a fan of Korean dramas or movies? I am one and today, I'd like to share with you a romantic comedy called "The Plan Man" starring Jung Jae-young and Han Ji-min. It's about a man who has the need to plan out everything he does, on a daily basis. He has to set his alarm to everything including the time he leaves for work, takes a shower, buys his lunch and even a specific time to propose to the girl he fell in love with. One of my favourite Korean Movies: The Plan Man THE PLAN MAN AND I After having my second child, I found myself to resemble the Plan Man. I started to have the need to set the timer to remind me of things I need to do, lest I forget and cause a disaster. If you are a SAHM, I am sure you have to multitask a lot too, just like me. Get meals done, feed the baby, send the toddler to school and fetch him home, read with him, do the laundry, clean the house, bathe the baby, etc.. After I gave bi...

Fruits, dessert, cold food and rainbow. All in one, for my dear children. I don't really fancy dessert. I prefer savoury food but my children love dessert and everything else mentioned above. Since I am fond of experimenting with all kinds of food, I came up with a delightful dessert for them. It was a time when we had a variety of fruits at home. OK. Lets start. Frozen Fruity Rainbow Yogurt Ingredients: Fruits of different colours (here I have pomegranate, mango, pineapple, green apples, and grapes), yogurt (any flavour of your choice) and any soft plastic containers. I use the yogurt container. 1. Cut fruits into tiny pieces. 2. Arrange the first layer of fruits (of your choice), and then put a layer of yogurt on top of it. 3. Arrange another layer of fruits on top, followed by another layer of yogurt on top. 4. Repeat until you reach the brim of the container, with yogurt as the last layer. 5. Leave them in the freezer to freeze. 6. To serve, just flip...

Mummy, can you buy me some stickers? My daughter loves stickers very much.  Sometimes, she gets them from her teachers at school as rewards. Other times, she receives from friends. She was already in love with stickers way before she started school. During her brother's project time at home, she would "attack" the stickers from our art and craft storage. There was a period of time when she would put stickers on things she wanted to claim ownership to. So, we would find stickers almost everywhere, including pillows, toys, furniture and even on parts of our bodies. ON THE OTHER HAND, I love stickers for another reason. They can be great art and craft items and they are mess free ! If your child is not great at drawing yet, use stickers to help create an awesome picture even with very minimal drawing skills . So let's do some art with stickers this week. Week 5: ART AND CRAFT Topic: STICKERS PROJECT A If you have picture stickers, you could do s...

*This post is dedicated to a friend who yearns for marriage, yet couldn't decide if she is meant for it.*  SINGLE VS MARRIED "What is it like to be married? How different is it compared to being single?" A friend asked me over dinner. Hmm.....  My answer was:  I have "somewhere" to fall back on.  It didn't take me long to reply her. I actually surprised myself for being able to provide her with a positive answer, almost instantly.  Marriage is a challenging journey on a bed of roses. After dinner, as I drove home, I gave the question another thought: I might have given her a negative answer, if I were in a "different marital stage". In other words, if she happened to pop the question when I was not in good terms with my hubby, such as being in a "cold war", I could have given her a different answer.  Wait. Would I? Or would my answer be the same?  OK. Moving on...  I went home and had the usual ...