first storytelling by Renzo..

Last night, as I tucked Renzo into bed, I noticed him looking into the dark with his eyes wide open and rolling, so I asked, "What are you thinking now, Renzo?"..

To my biggest surprise, Renzo started telling me stories, based on the episodes of his favorite "Thomas and Friends" he's been watching on and off, for the past 2 years.

He started off with "Emily the late engine, Emily the late engine!!", which is what the troublesome trucks sang when Emily was having a bad day and being late with transporting flours. So I asked him a few questions and led him to explain the entire plot of "Emily's new route". It's a story about how Emily discovers that the "Black Loch Monster" along the Black Loch branch, described by James, is really a family of seals.

He did not mention too much details about this story, but when he touched on the conversation between Emily and James about their routes, Renzo said "'You're lucky,' James huffed, 'I have to do the Black Loch Run.'", in the exact same tone and accent, just like James, I was shocked as he really sounded like an old British chap.

Then he went on to tell me the 2nd story: "Don't tell Thomas!"
This is the first episode on the DVD so he remembers it in great details. This time, he almost recited the entire story about how the engines planned a surprise party for Thomas to thank him for his work clearing the lines of snow, but kept the details away from Thomas. He spent at least 20 - 25 minutes on this one.

I thought he would "briefly tell the story in his own words", like what he did with his first story.. Boy, was I so wrong!!!

"Thomas didn't like the winter because there was always lots and lots of snow.."
"So Thomas worked hard all day keeping the lines open.."
"Don't tell Thomas about the surprise, then Harold fly away.."
"Thomas likes surprises.."
"Percy's trucks were loaded with brightly colored boxes.."
"Thomas saw something strange on Emily's truck, it was long and pointy, but it was covered up.."
"Suddenly, Emily turned down one of the branch lines, Thomas raced to the branch line, the signalman changed the points, Thomas had to go straight ahead, 'Cinders and ashes!' Thomas said.."
"'I can't wait,' chuffed Edward, 'He'll love it, ' puffed Percy.. then, Thomas arrived, 'shhhhh,' said James.."
"Everyone knew what the surprise is except for Thomas.."
"It's time for you to collect the children and to see the surprise! It's a special surprise to thank you for keeping the line clear of snow. The children are waiting for you at Wellsworth station.."
"There's a huge Christmas tree, and at the bottom of the tree, there were lots of presents, it's like my Christmas tree, right mummy??..."

These are just some of the sentences he used while telling the story. I couldn't even remember them all, and had to re-watch the DVD to believe how accurate he was, from station names, to conversation among trains, to verbs he used. You would think a four years old could barely say something like, "Thomas is angry and he go away...", but Renzo exclaimed: "He then raced down the track, Thomas is cross!"

I almost burst into laughter when he finished the story with, "Then, next, the music.. 'They're two they're four they're six they're eight; Shunting trucks and hauling freight'.", well yes after each episode, the "Thomas and friends" song is played. He could sing that since he was 2+. I was pleasantly surprised with how much details he could remember from the story, he even used the correct tenses throughout, probably because he was simply reciting the whole script. And now I know why he suddenly likes to use the word "except for" recently, though he always pronounces it as "expect", instead of "except"..

Lastly, Renzo said, let me tell you one last story, it is "Chickens to School"..
This story is about how tired Thomas get confused and messed up three jobs, instead of sending "Chickens to market, Sheep to farm, Children to school", he unloaded sheep at the market, sent chickens to school and delivered children to the farm. He then got some much needed help from Edward and Percy to put things right finally.

He finished this story a little faster than the previous one, but this time, all in his own words. And I noticed that he's been using transition words frequently, such as "firstly", "later", "and then", "after that", "finally", etc.. Probably because in this story, Thomas has to do a few things in sequence step by step. And he has introduced a new word "embarrassed" into his vocabulary, when he talked about how Edward makes Gordon blush with embarrassment by telling others that he's always been helping Gordon up the hill. Although this time he didn't amuse me with long, complex and elaborate sentences, he still impressed me with all the details in absolutely perfect sequence. I could never remember where should Thomas deliver the chickens, sheep and children, he could tell that easily, and he could also remember how tired Thomas messed things up and sent them to wrong places. He even remembers the grey and red carriages added to carry chicken and sheep, on top of "Annie" and "Clarabel", the two carriages Thomas loves dearly for carrying passengers. Of course the color of these carriages is never mentioned in the episode, but solely based on Renzo's observation and memory.

It must have been the best one hour I've ever spent with my lovely boy, and I was swept off my feet by his beautiful stories. Renzo said he's going to tell me a new story tomorrow night, a long story called "Thomas and the sticky toffee", which is what he read from his story book. No words can describe how mesmerized I am and hopefully Daddy gets to hear his story too this time!

Renzo's potty training journey

"If you start potty-training your child at the age of 2, he/she will be trained by the age of 3; and if you start potty-training your child at the age of 3, he/she will be trained by the age of 3.." This is the best "excuse" we have (couldn't remember where we read it though), for not getting Renzo fully potty trained earlier..

Okay my point here is, starting before your child is truly ready doesn't mean you'll finish sooner. Renzo is pretty advanced in terms of his communication skill. His physical and cognitive skills were relatively well developed too when we sent him to full day childcare at 19 months. But the first and only concern we had back then, was that he's not potty trained, although he should be more or less ready for it.

Imagine at that time, he could already count from 1 - 10, recognize most of the alphabets, speak in simple sentences and follow most of the instructions, such as, "go sit on the potty", but nope, he would never tell anybody that he needs to pass urine or pass motion, neither at home, nor in school.

We introduced this potty to him since he was, 4 month old?

He passes motion in his potty most of the time since he was less than 1 year old. Usually he gives a physical or verbal sign when he's having a bowel movement, such as grunting or squatting. The potty is often placed right beside him as we have been consciously putting in efforts to train him ever since he started school.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out till he turned 3+, when teachers in school feedback that he's the only one in his class, who's still on diaper.

Unbelievable isn't it? For a kid who's able to read short stories, do basic additions, sing complicated lyrics and speak in full sentences with proper grammar, Renzo just refuses to express his needs to go to the toilet!

Trust me, those methods that most parents tried such as introducing funny potty stories/toys, or even fancy looking potties, rewarding stickers, etc, we had tried them all! Eventually, we had to wait patiently for another good 3-4 months, till one day, he suddenly told us that he doesn't want to wear diaper to school, because teachers will be angry. Well of course teachers are not angry with him, but from that day onwards, he's fully potty trained during day time! Till now, I  still have the feeling that the squat type of toilet bowl at my in laws place, might be the culprit, as he's using that at home daily but in school, it is the standard toilet bowl that he probably just didn't know how to use. And things got a lot better ever since we moved to our new house and started letting him sit on the toilet bowl with his potty seat on top.

We were delighted with the result, but it never crossed my mind to give away that stash of diapers just yet, because he still needs them at night.

October 06, 2013, is probably a date other than our wedding anniversary, or Renzo's birthday, that we will never forget!! That night, Renzo insisted NOT to put on his diaper before we tucked him in bed.
Renzo said: "Mummy, I want to wear my underwear, I do not want to wear diaper. I will be very careful, I will control myself and not pass urine at night. You know, my pee pee is very funny, it will not come out at night, it will only come out in daytime!!!"

And.. he just did it!! I was a little nervous at first and checked on him a few times that night, and I was all prepared to bring him to the toilet at any time, but he didn't wake up till about 6am the next morning, he then rushed to toilet and passed urine on his own.. Since that night, he's been wearing his underwear and pajamas, with a waterproof sheet protecting his mattress, and he's formed a routine to use bathroom before he starts his day at about 640am every morning. Accidents happened for no more than 3 times in two months so hooray! I can finally pat myself on the back, now I won't need to think about diapers at all - at least, not for Renzo!

He bought himself a new Mickey Mouse book as a reward, using the money saved from diapers and boy, this is probably his biggest milestone achieved, that made us jump for joy!!

first assessment for little Renzo - I CAN READ

The highlight of the past busy weekend, was an assessment I scheduled for Renzo at I CAN READ school, to understand how's his progress in terms of reading, or simply put, to test his English skill.

We arrived at the school on time at 2:30pm and this lovely teacher who's going to conduct the assessment, was already standing at the door and waiting for Renzo. Daddy decided to let Mummy go in with Renzo since Mummy is always more concerned about Renzo's learning progress.

The assessment lasted for about 20 minutes or so. The teacher first asked Renzo about his name, his age, his school and his class, and lastly he was asked if he knows when is his birthday, which according to the teacher, not many kids could answer. The only thing he could not answer, is "which year were you born?", and the teacher jokingly commented, no answer is better than an answer of "a year of rooster, or dragon" that she got from most of the kids she assessed. And Renzo didn't seem to be disturbed by the teacher's strong Australian accent, he could understand and converse well.

Then she went on to flash a full page of items, there are 27 of them, and Renzo could recognize 26 of them (except for the word "witch" which we have never introduced to his vocabulary), and when he recognized "igloo", the teacher looked pleasantly surprised.

She then went on to test Renzo the first sound of all those 27 items, he got them 100% right.

The next page of questions are very repetitive, he has to read the letters from A - Z, and tell the teacher what sound does these letters make, and in my opinion, these questions either make the kids more confident, or bored. For Renzo's case, I guess he was a little bored.. LOL..

He was then tested on a handful of letters and their sounds randomly, again, not a challenge to this little 4 years old who grew up with Leapfrog..

Next he was asked to read a whole list of words, from simple ones like "THE", "ONE", to slightly tougher ones like "COUGH", "THOROUGH", Renzo did not complete that test as he was already exhausted (probably from the morning dip in the pool and 1 hour of piano class) and couldn't focus well. I noticed when he wasn't sure about his answer, the moment the teacher questioned, "Do you know that?", he will shake his head without any further attempt to figure it out. So if you are coaching your kid to read at home, boosting their confidence level is definitely the key! It doesn't matter if they could not pronounce correctly but try not to ask this kind of closed-ended questions, because it's very easy for them to give up trying and say no. Some of these words here, he could definitely read if they were put into a context of a story. So I strongly believe that Renzo reads mainly by sight words, his strong phonic foundation helps but it's not all about phonics, when they are not trained with a proper system on how to read, breaking down the words or relating them to something they know, is the way most people learn to read. For example, if they know how to read "rice", most likely they will figure out words like "price", "thrice"..

The last part of the assessment, was a short paragraph and a long paragraph for him to read, he finished 2/3 of the short one and we had to stop there as he didn't wish to continue anymore. Then the teacher proceeded on with the pronunciation of "ch", "sh" and "th", it was a breeze for him and he told me he learned all from his Leapfrog although I always thought he wasn't paying much attention to that disc which teaches blending of 2 letters like these. Lastly he was tested on the first sound, last sound and middle sound of words like "elephant", "fish", "hen", etc, I heard that kids usually struggle with middle sounds, but I bet Renzo's ability to recognize middle sounds, must be the clincher for the teacher to decide which class he's qualified to attend at the end.

Renzo looked absolutely ecstatic when I told him that the assessment is over and as promised, he can go and eat his chocolate icecream!

Back to the assessment result, the teacher had only one thing to say: " Mom, wow, I have to consult my senior colleague and come back to you again.."

So we waited for another couple of minutes before the teacher re-entered the room, and shared this programmes recommendation chart with us. According to her, Renzo is ready to take I CAN READ Programme straight away, but problem is, that is a 1.5 hours lesson and he will be sitting in with another 6-7 kids who are definitely older than him, but some might not be able to read this well like him. For his age, it's hard to handle that. But if they were to put him at one level lower, which is the ICR Preliminary program, he will get bored easily so the best recommendation she could suggest, is to start him on the I CAN READ Programme but get him a one on one teacher, so that he could have one hour of lesson catered to him based on his pace, with the teacher's full attention. But such lessons cost around 80 dollars per hour and are only conducted during weekday afternoons, apparently we just couldn't afford to send Renzo for it.

I looked through the I CAN READ textbooks and I do love their system, their teachers (or at least the one who did assessment for Renzo), and most importantly, it addresses my concern about spelling, which I have no clue about how to teach Renzo at all. Daddy is never in favor of enrolling Renzo to any kind of enrichment class for now, he even thought the assessment questions are like "What is your favorite color?" kind. So we both agreed that Renzo's skill of reading based on phonics or breaking down the words, definitely requires reinforcement, but whether to reinforce by sending him for an enrichment lesson at I CAN READ or not, we will probably wait for another year to figure out..

the one and only one enrichment for Renzo - Piano

About exactly a year ago, we brought Renzo to Yamaha music school for his very first enrichment class, and 6 months later, we withdrew him from the class due to the fact that the class schedule didn't work out very well for us, and he was not enjoying the lessons due to change of class and teacher.

So this time, on October 06, 2013, we finally manage to send him for his real piano lesson with a private tutor staying near to our place.

I guess many parents have the same questions in mind like us, Yamaha music school or private tutor?

Here's a great read:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Forum/2/topic/008222/Number/0/site_id/1#import

You have to believe that there's always 2 sides of the coin so there's no real right or wrong. So let me just highlight the cons (skip the pros as I believe people are more concerned about the cons when comes to such kind of thing, LOL) of these 2 options:

Yamaha Music School:
- One parent is required to attend the class together with the kid, for kids aged 4-6 years old , which is definitely time consuming no matter how much we parents love music, or rather say love the bonding with our kids.
- They do not teach  CDEFG, instead they use Do Re Me, there's a huge difference here because under Yamaha,  teachers focus on ear training and music appreciation, and they do not really teach much about how to read the notes, that means if it is a piece of new music, students won't be able to play it right away simply because they could not read the repertoires independently
- Teachers could not focus much on each kid as they have a whole class to take care of, hence bad hand posture and loud playing habit become  more and more common among kids

Private teacher:
- Since parents are not attending the class, we might not get to understand what was taught each time during class
- more expensive?


So the answer is pretty clear, we are getting a private teacher for Renzo!! Don't get me wrong, Yamaha Music School is definitely great, it's just that we prefer a different approach and arrangement for Renzo in this case. And we quickly bought Renzo a new Yamaha U1 piano which makes him, and his didi Rynus super excited!

We are lucky enough to meet this great teacher introduced by my sister. My niece has been attending Yamaha Music School for 2 years but my sister had the exact same concerns like what I listed above, hence she decided to switch her to a private teacher. It's in a way tougher for my niece as she needs to forget about all she's learned under Yamaha, but she managed to adjust quickly and her improvement is so obvious that even I know nothing about piano, I can tell by looking at her videos recorded and sent to my sister by this super caring teacher! That action of recording and sharing class videos from the teacher, addressed the one biggest concern I have with private teacher instantly!

Renzo enjoyed his first lesson, and his strong interest in numbers and alphabets definitely helped as writing / coloring is required for his age, and he could read the lyrics on his own when comes to learning songs. Practicing the song he learned during piano lesson has been added to his daily study routine at night, and it's pretty fun to hear little Renzo asking frequently, "Mummy, did I wash my hands?", that basically means he has just washed his hands and he wants to play piano!

Renzo's Flower Artwork

One year after Renzo's ladybug artwork, I was faced with another challenge (starting to think art pieces is gonna be an annual event for me...). Mummy Chan WhatsApp-ed (is that even a verb?) me a picture a piece of paper with nothing but an outline of a flower and a purple ice-cream stick taped to it (which later i learned from Renzo that it was to be the stem of the flower), I was to think of how to decorate it and have Renzo bring it to his school for his teacher as a teacher's day present the next day.

My immediate idea was to make the flower a 3D one, as opposed to a simple color-pencil/crayon/poster color painting. And with 3D looks, there were a few ways to achieve it.

• get clay or plasticine and mold a flower, but judging from Renzo's handicraft, it would most probably be 95% my effort, not to mention that it would stick to the paper
• get colored paper and do a paper origami flower (try googling "Winson Chan Origami" and you'll see what i mean... and NO, i'm not THAT Winson Chan), but again, it'll mostly be effort on my end as Renzo wouldn't be able to manage the complexity of origami
• soak toilet paper in a 2:1 PVC glue to water mixture and after they dry and hardens, paint over with poster color... my preferred choice and it is very mold-able before it dries and i have had much experience doing it in my childhood days but unfortunately, it is time consuming and tedious 
• get colored beads/sand/confetti and just glue them on... which seems to be the best choice for this job

So I went to Daiso and purchased 3 items at $2 each and started work with Renzo straight away after my dinner and we were on a tight deadline... as opposed to the ladybug project from last year...

And for the benefit of those who want to try it out with their kids, I'll list out the materials and steps :)

Materials

• Colored pipe cleaners (the one i got from Daiso is 50 pieces in assorted colors, eventually i used 2 silvers, 2 yellow and 2 greens)
• Starch Glue (Daiso packs them in 3s... picked it over other type because of the strength and also that it is not too liquid as this project requires a large surface area of glue and those runny ones will soak right though the paper
• deco sand (those gardening deco kind... bought a can of blue ones to be used as blue petals)
• scissors to cut the pipe cleaners
• pen... for writing...duh...
• paper with outline of a flower on it

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Step 1

Slap a generous slab of glue in the middle of the flower and spiral yellow pipe cleaners onto it as the pistil of the flower (if i got the anatomy of the flower correct...haha) and cut silver pipe cleaners and outline the petals of the flower.

Tip: Be really generous with the glue, you wouldn't want the pipe cleaners to move about later when you pour the blue deco sand onto the paper

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Step 2

Spiral 2 green pipe cleaners and then squeeze them near the center so the become over-shaped and kinda like leaves of the flower and again with lotsa glue, stick them where the leaves should be

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Step 3

The trickiest bit of the project

Pour the deco sand onto a small container (I just grab a plastic lid which was within reach), so that you can gauge how much of the sand would be poured onto the paper.

Lay a thin layer of glue on where you want the blue petals to be and gently pour the sand onto the glue

After completely covering all the petals, let the glue set for a while... (I gave Renzo a bath... lol) then dust away the remaining sand that were not held on by the glue. Stick an ice-cream stick between the leaves to make a flower stem if you want to.

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Step 4

Write your own greeting message... =)

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And we are done!

Hopefully Renzo's teacher Stella will like Renzo's little gift and HapPy TeAchERs' DaY to all the teacher at Renzo's school... and every other teacher out there!... You people affect eternity, you can never tell when and where your influence stops, so carry on teaching!

a new effective way to cultivate good habits in Renzo

When Renzo was 1.5 years old, he was reciting 三字经 together with us, he could not memorize 100% and his articulation wasn't really clear, of course he couldn't possibly understand a single word of it but I thought that was a pretty good start, to expose our little boy to some ancient, traditional Chinese Confucian classics, which might help him to learn morality, especially filial piety and respect for the elderly.

We did not pursue further to teach him more about it, because I personally feel that  三字经 focuses quite a lot on elements of Chinese history, which is not as relevant to his development at this stage. So instead, I started teaching him 弟子规 since he turned 4 last week. It is another book based on the ancient teaching of Chinese Confucius, that emphasizes the basic requisites for being a good person and guidelines for living in harmony with others.

It's amazing to see some pretty good result after Renzo started learning and reading 弟子规 for just a few days.

For example, after I explained "晨则省, 昏则定", meaning, in the morning I will greet my parents and at night I will wish them a good night, Renzo went to our helper and asked, "Aunty Jonalyn, may I have water please?" in a super polite tone, and after he finished the water, he returned the cup to our helper and said "Thank you Aunty Jonalyn, GOOD NIGHT!"

I bet that's the first time Renzo took the initiative to say Good Night to someone.

And nowadays when he's not behaving well, I could simply remind him to go and read his  弟子规, he will LISTEN, and FOLLOW without making any fuss at all!!

Now, he could read the first few verses fluently on his own, indeed, he understands and remembers these verses very well. Because when I asked him, 父母做什么，你要“须敬听"? (what do parents do, you will listen respectfully?), he answered immediately, "父母教, 须敬听 mummy!" (When my parents instruct me, I will listen respectfully).

Here's a video of him reading "父母呼 应勿缓 父母命 行勿懒 父母教 须敬听 父母责 须顺承"

Confucius emphasized that the basic moral values and virtues should be first taught to a child since young. Those values are to respect elders, respect brothers and sisters, respect wife and husband, respect the society and lastly respect the country as a whole. We often question why kids nowadays have no respect for anyone, I think probably it's because these great values are not instilled into their minds from young, instead we focus too much on creativity, imagination, self-esteem, or even academic records. I would strongly recommend 弟子规 to parents, have fun reading and learning together with your kids!!

best ever "job" offered to Renzo's parents? hopefully....

After we moved to our new house in Pasir Ris for almost 3 months, I finally have some time to think through one unsolved question that has been bothering us for the longest period of time:
Which primary school should we send Renzo to??

I still couldn't believe I had the courage to read up on the tedious Primary One Registration Exercise procedure 2 years ago, when Renzo was not even 2 years old. But somehow I felt my hard work gets paid off now, because it didn't take me too long to come to the conclusion this time, surprisingly my decision is exactly the same as before:
 
And on August 13, 2012, I received the best ever "job offer" from that first choice school, I am accepted as a parent volunteer with the school!!!!!!

Why do I consider PV (parent volunteer) for this school?
- the school has a history of balloting for those staying within 1km, and we are staying between 1-2km, as long as we fall under Phase2C, we will have to go through balloting. In order to have a peace of mind before P1 registration madness drives me nuts in 2016, I have to secure a space for Renzo under Phase2B
- it is a good way to understand the school better, as I will be working directly with the teachers, students, and other parents. I have heard about parents not sending kids to the school of choice eventually because they have different views about the school's culture and environment after getting to know the school more through PV work
- the school is 5 bus stops away from our house, and there are 5 direct buses going there
- the school has an in-house student care service, although there's no guarantee we could enroll Renzo as there's limited space, at least there is a possibility for us to leave him there without worrying about what is he going to do at home after school, and our helper will be able to focus on housework and fetching Rynus from childcare center by then
- some popular schools do not guarantee a seat for those staying far, even if parents clock a total of 600 hours parent volunteering work instead of the standard 40 hours. I am not exaggerating, read it here. At least the school we are interested in is willing to take in all applications under Phase2B based on history, so why not?
- the 2nd choice for us is also a good choice in actual fact, academic record is not my priority but I do have a 1st choice in mind for various reasons, I want to try my best at least so I won't regret one day

 Then on August 19, just today, a piece of news with regards to Primary One Registration Exercise has been announced, and I got some information to share from these 2 different resources, talking about the same thing of course, on MOE site, and todayonline.

I gobbled up a pack of Loacker's hazelnut cream wafer (30g/154kcal) right after reading this news, seriously, I was lost, and stressed out.

After some further readings and checking with my fellow mummy friends, I figured out that there's really nothing much I should worry about at this stage. What does this piece of news mean and what kind of actual impact it will have for Phase2B, I have no idea and I believe it takes time before I could have a clearer picture. Whether Renzo is able to get into this school under Phase2B, I am not sure, but I definitely can't wait to start clocking my hours and getting to know more about the school that hopefully my sons, or even their children will be studying at in years to come!!

Little Renzo is 4!!!!

Almost 13 years ago, when I fell in love with Daddy Chan, I thought he must be the last man I love in my life.. I was wrong.. When we welcomed Renzo Chan into our lives on August 12, 2009, I learned what is "love at first sight", it still feels like just yesterday. And today, our baby Renzo, turns FOUR.

The past four years have been the most fun, exhausting, and memorable years of my life. Our Renzo has made me a better person. Why I said so? Because my dear boy, you have taught (or should I say trained) me to be a mummy, probably the most challenging role in the world!!

Over the years, I've changed from someone who's afraid of lighting a match, to a mummy who can whip up a hearty meal for the family despite tight work schedule; from someone who enjoys 10 hours of beauty sleep at night, to a mummy who is very used to 3 to 7 times of wake-ups at night, with a total of 6 hours disrupted sleep daily, for a continuous 2.5 years; from someone who thought not having a baby girl is a tragedy in life, to a mummy who appreciates, adores and cherishes boys much more; from someone who has zero tolerance to any kind of noise made by kids, to a mummy who thinks every action from kids (okay honestly, my kids only) is cute and sweet; from someone who cried for help during confinement month, to a mummy who is so confident in taking care of little ones and even dream about opening a childcare center. And most importantly, you gave me the courage to bring another beautiful baby boy, Rynus Chan, to our family. The "curse and swear" of never wanting another baby after that 17 hours of painful labor, became nothing, compared to all the joys and laughter you've brought to us.

We are so blessed to have you in our lives little Renzo, even though you are growing up far too quickly,  we are so lucky to be the ones to love, nurture and watch you grow into a lovely little man!

cheeky? funny? dramatic? LOGICAL!!!

My sister in law often comments that Renzo is a cheeky boy with lots of antic patterns that resemble her husband, that's Daddy Chan's elder brother, Renzo Chan's uncle...
I always say my Renzo is super funny and he admits that also, he has this good sense of humor from young, and I've blogged about that a few times here, and here.. On a side note, he thinks Rynus Di Di is "a bit funny" only, apparently he believes he is the funniest!
His speech and drama teacher in school was shocked to find out the quiet looking boy who's been sitting at one corner for 6 weeks during his class, is indeed just as dramatic as him, one minute hearty laughs, next second teary eyes...
But my sister said if  she needs to describe Renzo in one word, that word must be... LOGICAL!!

Now, I just have to agree with her 100%! Proofs?

Renzo: "I don't like Daddy because, when I am naughty, Daddy will beat me, and When I am not naughty, Daddy will not beat me!"
(of course! beat you for what when you are behaving well??!!)

Renzo: "Mummy, Daddy cannot hug me to sleep, because, boys can not like boys, boys can only like girls!!"
(*grin*, my secret plan of getting him start up his family early seems much more achievable now!!)

Renzo: "Mummy, why areoplane can fly? Is it because it has wings?"
(great guess kid, luckily Daddy is very knowledgeable in this area and he can definitely throw you a lot of technical mumbo jumbos at any time, ready when you are!)

Renzo: "Last time, my Daddy forgot to put sunblock, that's why it's so painful! So, I am putting on moonblock for Rynus!"
(moonblock?? makes sense though since it's late at night and he can only see the moon instead of the sun!)

Renzo: "Daddy, I don't want to eat because I am not hungry. You know? Because my tummy is not making that noise..."
(right, wait till you hear your tummy growling, that's probably extreme hunger my boy!)

Renzo: "Wait Daddy, you cannot go huh, because, why no seat belt huh??"
(Oops, Daddy forgot to fasten Renzo's seat belt after putting him into baby car seat..)

Renzo: "When I was one year old like Rynus, I can't walk, I crawl only.. And I can not run also you know, because, I cannot walk!"

(so true right? How to run without being able to walk??!!)
 

Renzo: "Mummy I am not so sleepy because I never yawn, okay I am going to yawn a bit later.." 

(YAWN!.. he just sighed and fell asleep in minutes, all as planned...)
 

Renzo: "Mummy, if you don't dig my nose, can die one?"
(suffocate to death from thick mucus? very sad my dirty boy...)

Renzo: "The green bean soup is very hot, some people will stir it, I stir it one time and it's still so hot!"
(yup yup you got it right, keep stirring boy!!)

Renzo: "Wait mummy, I cannot talk, swallow first!!"
(okie my bad.. shouldn't talk to him when he's eating.. 食不言寝不语）

Renzo: "I don't like army, I don't want to go to army, because it's not fun, people inside huh, can shoot!"
(no choice my boy, protect your country and be proud!)

Renzo: "Daddy, why your car runs faster than the moon? It's because you car don't know how to wait for the moon!!! 哈.哈.哈"
(err... what?!!)

The list just goes on and on... Kids at this age usually ask tons of questions everyday, so does Renzo. Many parents "complain" about the never ending questions from their kids but I simply enjoy talking to this little boy, because he just have so many logical ideas to share and most of the time, we end up laughing non-stop together!

Sweet Renzo Kor Kor

Since the day little Rynus joined the Chan family, our attention has to be shared between the two boys. Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, it didn't take too long for Renzo to get re-adjusted, and by now Rynus has turned ONE, I am proud to say Renzo has been coping way better than expected. He loves his Rynus Di Di although he still insists Renzo is Mummy's 宝贝，and Rynus belongs to Daddy.

During day time, Renzo enjoys his school life at the child care center. Rynus has to spend a whole day alone with our helper at home. So after Renzo comes home from school, the brothers could spend a couple of hours playing together, well fighting together also ^_^. Renzo only let Rynus touch toys we specifically mentioned "bought for Di Di". Yes he has this super good memory that he could easily identify toys we bought for Rynus and usually he doesn't even touch them. But then, he will shout and stop Rynus from touching toys belong to Renzo, which makes baby Rynus a little upset sometimes. 

Recently, he finally started to share his toys and maybe he just realized that there's no way to play all his 101 Thomas trains at the same time. Yesterday, I observed that Renzo allowed Rynus to play with some of his legos, and he even reminded his little brother that those pieces are very dangerous for Rynus as he's only one year old and he might accidentally swallow them. If you wonder did Renzo say that to Rynus? Yes those are his exact words, he really talks like an adult now!!

And when it comes to bedtime routine, before we had Rynus, Renzo was getting 100% attention from me. I used to bathe him, read with him, talk to him and sleep together with him. But now, Daddy has to settle everything for Renzo while I feed Rynus and coax him to sleep. Last night, after Daddy turned off the light, hugged/kissed Renzo and said good night, Renzo asked, "What are you doing Mummy? Can you come over here?". I told him that I am carrying Rynus and can only go to him after Rynus is asleep, he said "妈妈，我要你坐在这边，那样我就很开心了!"..

OMG I almost burst into tears when I heard that, little Renzo understands that I can't put Rynus down but all he asked for, was to have me sitting on his bed while carrying Rynus, so that he could fall asleep happily! He's such a sweet darling, isn't he?!!

He requested me to take a photo of him hugging his Rynus!

And look at how he plays with his Rynus Di Di, so loving and caring right?!!

Happy father's day to the wonderful dad!

When Daddy Chan was disciplining Renzo for his mischievous behavior last Saturday night, Renzo whined and declared (secretly to me), "I don't love daddy anymore, I will not say happy mother's day and give happy mother's day present to daddy!!!". Oh well of course he meant "happy father's day".. So just in case my dearest hubby is not getting anything from Renzo tonight, since the teachers in school will definitely help them prepare the father's day present, let me just share this lovely mother's day present from Renzo with Daddy first ^_^...

I am not trying to make fun of Daddy Chan here. Just that little Renzo has this incredibly good memory and he is a man of his word. There was this time when my mother-in-law "threatened' him that she's not going to bring him home after school if he insists to take bus 69 instead of 34 every time, so that night, Renzo casually mentioned that he's not coming home with grandma the next day and he will wait for me to pick him up, guess what? The next day, my poor mother-in-law had to call me from school as Renzo really refused to follow her home and even told her "Nainai, yesterday, you said you will not pick me up, and I will have to wait for mummy to come and be the last one to leave school!!"

In my eyes, Daddy Chan has been a great father to the 2 boys and not just that, he's the best ever husband who always supports me, and "Mummy knows the best" is his favorite phrase all the time when comes to kids upbringing! Being the first among his group of friends to get married and have kids, I know it's a very challenging experience and he's been handling it so well! I admire his patience, and energy in running around the playground with the kids, carrying them up and down, sweating like a cow but coming back with a big smile telling me how fun and enjoyable experience he had. When comes to their upbringing, he told me to be the angel in our kids' eyes and he will always be the bad man. He said, "It's alright for them to hate me when they are young, because I will shout, I will scold, I will beat, I will really discipline and teach them what is right and wrong through the hard approach, as long as they all love you and go to you for best comfort". 

Many people might have the impression that Daddy Chan is a great gamer and would definitely be sharing his full collection of games with the boys in the very near future, but I know it's not just that. The boys will be learning so many other stuff from their daddy! I am always impressed with his extensive science knowledge, interesting trivia facts, effective basketball drills and amazing tolerance level in handling his partner, yes that's me! And he even has plans to teach the boys how to save & invest at the age of 5? Or write their own piece of web app code at the age of 10?  I am sure the boys will get some of these really good traits from their daddy.

Happy father's day to you my dear!!!

Little Renzo is working hard to improve his Chinese

About 2 years ago, I wrote a post on Renzo's Mandarin and although we were pretty impressed with his ability to sing Chinese songs or even recite "三字经" at young age, we have to admit that his Chinese didn't improve much for the past 2 years, with our all English speaking environment at home. 

In fact Renzo has quite a big problem dealing with people who speaks Chinese. You know it's pretty common in Singapore to have strangers who try to strike conversation with him in Chinese, he usually gets pretty angry and responds in a very rude manner. He loves to talk to people who speaks English, and somehow he has this concept that all Malays, Indians and Caucasians can definitely speak English, thus he has a strong preference to communicate and interact with them.

Knowing that he definitely needs to brush up his Chinese language in our bilingual society, we put him into Chinese class (form teacher teaches Chinese) at his childcare for the past 2 years. And this year when we were given a chance to choose between English and Chinese class, we picked English class instead as he's not been adapting well in school, and we suspected language barrier might be the major roadblock.

Now he's doing better under the English form teacher, and his Chinese teacher this year is one of the best teachers in the school. So somehow we noticed that he starts to get more and more confident in speaking Chinese at home. Although he's still speaking with a strong ang moh (Caucasian) accent, his Chinese articulation is very accurate, just like his English. His teacher once mentioned that he was helping to teach other kids how to pronounce "红毛丹" (rambutan) in school! The only problem is that he's using a lot of "direct translation" from English to Chinese which makes his sentences less fluent, and more hilarious. For example, "I want to throw this into the dustbin"，becomes 我要丢这个去里面在垃圾桶 instead of 我要把这个丢进垃圾桶里面 in Renzo's language.

Last night, he happily told us, "我是一个火车，爸爸是树，妈妈是一个球，Rynus是一个小松鼠". He always self proclaim he is the longest wheel train simply because he loves trains so much! We asked him why daddy is a tree, he answered it's because daddy is growing taller and taller, yes in his eyes, and in his little heart, daddy is a tall and strong man! And when we asked him why he thinks Rynus is a squirrel, he said: "因为，我不知道他是什么shape的!".. Well not much logic here but at least that's a good try!

Of course I got pretty upset and "complained" to daddy that I must be too fat to be described as a BALL. Renzo immediately "corrected" me, "不是的妈妈，妈妈是一个球，不过，不是一个胖胖的球!".. Awww how sweet!!!!! My son knows what I was complaining about. But then he followed by, "是一个球，就像一个大西瓜!".. Gosh, is watermelon any "slimmer" than a ball then?!!

Anyway we have to really thank Renzo's school and teacher for their incredible hard work. It's still tougher to teach Renzo Chinese than English, but we can definitely conquer, together!!

This is what he learned in school, and all credits must go to his Chinese teacher, 戴老师!!

Maybe homeschooling is easier for Renzo

No I have absolutely no idea how homeschooling works, I was just thinking out loud because this morning, Renzo was making noise again on his way to school.

He said: "If I go to school later, I am not going to do anything! If I stay at home, I will do anything!!!"

I seriously have no clue what's the logic behind his thought, but one thing he's very right about, is that up to now, at 3 years 8 months of age, he still doesn't seem to enjoy going to school, and in fact he's not behaving well there. He's not able to express his needs such as requesting permission to go to washroom, or asking for second helping during meal time. He is the only one in his class who is not fully toilet trained till now. Taking off the socks and shoes and put them on the shoe rack is the simplest task every kid does in the morning, he's still struggling with it (mentally not physically though). The feedback from his English speech & drama teacher clearly indicated that his participation in class is poor though he has no problem with his pronunciation and performance, at all..

But at home, everyone knows how talkative he is. Not just that, he's quite willing to study, I meant the real kind of study that basically lasts for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour per session. He knows which particular book he wants to read, even for those books that he has read or touched for no more than 3 times, he remembers the title, as well as the size, and the color of the book so it's very easy for him to describe what he wants, and for us to dig out from his bookshelf. He likes to write, especially numbers, He can write letters and words independently also but when he's not in the mood, tracing is an easier alternative as he knows writing on his own seems tougher. He loves doing math, although at this moment he's not strong with subtraction, his concept of addition is pretty good and he even tried 2 digits addition with daddy 2 weeks ago.

Teaching him, at home, seems pretty easy for us so far, no scolding, no shouting, no disciplining and he just follows. I do feel bad when I hear about school teachers' concerns over Renzo, because there's simply nothing much I can do, as he doesn't seem to have those issues at home.

Here's a video of Renzo reading a book that Daddy has read to him for no more than 3 times a few months back. He grabbed it last night and started reading. I was in a shock that only till he flipped to page 2, I managed to take out my camera. I stopped videoing after he's done with page 2 but he continued till he finished page 4.

In any case, homeschooling is never possible since we both need to work, and of course we do trust our well-developed education system a lot more. We are just hoping that we could do more to help Renzo love going to school soon!

bye for now, yamaha music school..

Renzo has been attending "Music Wonderland" class at Yamaha Music School since last September. We started him with that course in hoping that he could appreciate music through listening and slowly progress on to Yamaha Junior Course in this coming October.

He was doing relatively well when he first started the course. We've met another Aug 2009 boy with his mother we got to know through internet, and that made Renzo more interested in the lessons as he felt like he already has a friend there. Unfortunately, due to work commitment, we could not continue him with the Tuesday 7pm class any more, and we finally made a tough decision, to switch him to the only other available slot at 6pm on Saturday. I don't know how good the course is but I know he could memorize most of the songs he learned during class, and he seemed to be in good mood all the time during that period. He even insisted to take a cab and attend his last Tuesday night lesson despite a super heavy downpour.

I have to admit, changing him to Saturday class is truly a bad move. First of all, Saturday schedule does work better for us as both Daddy Chan and I work 5 days a week, that means we can take turns to accompany him for lessons. But 6pm is not a good timing for Renzo. He is either having his nap, or being extremely tired and distracted at that time. Secondly, Renzo being a very "single-minded" boy, is not adapting well to the new environment and somehow, he keeps mentioning about his Tuesday class teacher and expressing his willingness to follow only that teacher.

After observing Renzo and discussing with Daddy Chan for a few weeks, we finally made a even tougher decision, to withdraw Renzo from the Music Wonderland course for now, and wait till October, before we decide if to enroll him again (since the schedule might not work for us still), or wait for another year and start him on private tuition (either with Yamaha teacher or outside tutor).

I find it a tough decision because being a persistent and determined mummy, I never like to give up easily this way, especially when comes to education. But then, we know for sure that the purpose of sending Renzo for piano lesson, is not for him to pass different grades and become a pianist, or to hope that he could grow up to be a more dignified and noble person. We just want him to enjoy his time while learning something new and fun! And seeing his response to his new Saturday lessons, I am more afraid that he will soon lose his interest in music (though I am not even sure how interested he is now, LOL)...

A close friend of mine, who is very talented and good at playing piano, suggested me to start Renzo at the age of 5 - 7, and meanwhile, bringing him to concerts to cultivate interest, might be a good idea. The decision we made to withdraw him from the lesson for now, really buys me a little more time to decide on what brand/model of piano/electone to get for him (I've been in a dilemma on what to buy for a year), and let's hope his new teacher will be able to advise me by then. And for now, we just want to let him focus on what he really enjoys first, such as working on math activity book!