why making food cute / fun for kids...

Recently I have a few friends who've been browsing through my facebook photos, asked me the same question, "How do you have the time to make cute breakfast for your son every morning?!". So yes, after Renzo entered Primary School since January 2016, I've been preparing his breakfast every morning and some time around the Lunar New Year period, I challenged myself to make cute "Monkey" breakfast to welcome the year of Monkey. Then I decided to get more adventurous and started to make his breakfast cute and fun. You can view all pictures on my instagram page @breadfastforkids

And here are the reasons why:

1. To give him a wonderful childhood memory
My mother isn't a breakfast person so I remember my dad being the one who wakes up early to prepare breakfast for us since young. My mother-in-law doesn't cook so Daddy Chan's breakfast is usually just 2 pieces of bread with jam. Well don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about anything and our parents are the greatest in our eyes! What I am trying to say is, I want to create this memory for the kids that although mummy needs to work and cannot be at home with them, I still try my best to cook for them whenever I can, after all, happiness is home made when comes to food, at least that's how I feel. Now when I ask Renzo about what makes him love mummy, one of the things he would definitely mention, is that Mummy makes yummy food, especially cute breakfast for him!

 

2. To allow that extra 10-20 minutes of sleep
Nope of course I am not referring to myself, I need to wake up 30 minutes earlier every morning just to prepare Renzo's breakfast. But that allows Renzo to sleep in for an extra 10-20 minutes at least. His school bus comes at 645am and I usually wake him up by 620am, so he has maximum 15 minutes to finish his breakfast. Parents I know of mostly complain about how hard it is to get their kids ready during their morning routine. And Renzo being a rather slow boy in doing everything, will probably take 30 minutes to finish his breakfast, if I do not serve him something that can perk him up instantaneously.  By giving him a "wake up surprise", usually he gets excited and more awake to bolt down his food very quickly.

3. To make up for not being able to make lunch bento
I started off by packing his lunchbox for recess, but after a week, he told me he prefers to buy food at the canteen, which is definitely a great news because everyone knows that packing food is really not easy. Especially if I want something better looking, all the cute stuff I put inside his lunchbox usually cannot survive till recess. So I told myself to make those cute stuff for breakfast instead, which is indeed a lot easier as I do not need to worry about him getting an "angry bird pizza" without eyes, or a "Olaf" egg that looks like "Baymax" in a frozen themed bento.

4. To get him appreciate life more
Yes this is like a bonus point which I didn't expect initially. Our morning chat during breakfast gets more and more interesting nowadays when Renzo started guessing about what ingredients are being used for making the character. And once in a while he would make little twists here and there.
He once turned a plain pancake into a "cookie".

He once turned a Donald duck into a "rooster".

He enjoyed making burger for himself and Daddy.

He borrowed a cooking book from library to try out different recipes.

"自己的生活如此苟且，孩子怎么会有诗和远方的田野. 一个没有幸福感的母亲，怎么会培养出有幸福感的孩子。漫漫人生路，若是没有一颗快乐心，那孩子的未来会成个什么样！一个阳光快乐的妈妈，就是一座鸟语花香的天堂。谁也没有资格，在孩子心里种下灰色的种子"
I believe providing him with nice food is a way to demonstrate my attitude towards life in front of him.  So that he understands with a little bit more efforts, we can turn simple bread and butter into something beautiful and lively. Although it's tiring, we can do it as long as we are willing to. That's the way to cultivate resilience and perseverance in children. I do wish he could get influenced by my positive vibes and apply that to his daily life too, so he will always strive to perfect his work and life.

And, just a few tips to share with those mummies who might be interested to try:
1. If you want to make something elaborate and intricate like these:

You need at least 30 - 60 minutes, nope I am not kidding but cutting Nori (seaweed) can get harder than expected if you want certain kind of result that even stencils can't help to achieve (eg, Elsa's eyebrow). So I would say it's not worth the efforts especially if you are new in making cute bentos. By the time you are done, food are usually cold.

2. Nicer looking food = more healthy. Sad yes but that's just the truth. I already avoided processed meat like sausage and ham, even Nutella is banned although it's one of the best ingredient for making easy and quick bento, and kids would sure love it but nope, after reading about how unhealthy it is, I stopped buying it completely.

I made these toast arts for one week, and some of them, like the Captain Jake and Ice Cream cone, were made with food coloring. Seeing the colors being added into food, is quite... gross.. I totally do not want to make them once again, unless I am willing to source for natural food dye options using fruits and vegetables.

3. The easiest ingredient to work with in my humble opinion, are white bread, breakfast buns, seaweed, hard boiled eggs and fruits. Quick ones take about 10 minutes so it's not hard to make, the hardest part is to think about what to make, often I tell myself to repeat my menu especially when my creativity as running thin at time. So when I started with Disney Tsim Tsim theme, it kept me inspired for a good 3 weeks easily.

Will I continue when school re-opens in another week time? Of course, why not?!

What's for kids during this June school holiday..

Renzo's June school holiday has officially kicked start last week on May 28, and we went for a 3D2N trip to Malaysia Legoland to "celebrate" his holiday + Rynus didi's birthday. It's Renzo's 4th time and Rynus' 3rd time there and we had loads of fun as the boys have grown a bit older to try out more rides.

Anyway so, after that trip, Renzo is back on his usual routine again as Daddy and Mummy goes to work, Rynus didi goes to full day childcare. And his "usual routine" basically means, to spend the whole day at home with our helper. I do not give him any assessment but he just automatically works on a few pages everyday, which is really great, and there's time allocated for piano practise too, other than that, it's just play, play, and play.

I know many parents have planned a long list of activities for their kids during the school holiday period, SAHMs have the privilege to keep their little ones occupied with daily programs, and even FTWMs are often seen taking a few days leaves on a weekly basis, in order to bring their kids out for some fun. But for us, we prefer to let Renzo stick to his routine and luckily he's a homely person, he can easily spend a few hours customizing his own gundam model from a set of 20 years old gundam models Daddy used to build as a kid. And by the time we are home after work, he can proudly present us with his new creation, such as a 4-headed-dragon-transformer-alike-robot (now I know it's not true that once gundams are built, they are only for display).

You see, keeping him at home for the entire day isn't really that bad. I meant there are so many other kids who have to continue going to student care, although it's probably a full day of play at the center too. But Renzo definitely can enjoy much more freedom at his comfy own house! So instead of cracking our head to decide on what to do with him outside, well you don't have to as there's this popular blogger who shared more than 100 activities for kids which you can find on this awesome blog here, I've planned one single activity to keep Renzo occupied at home, which is, to help with household chores!

Let's face it, since we hired our 1st helper back in 2009, we have never done any real household chores, except for cooking of course as I love to cook for my family. I think back on what I used to do during my school holidays. My dad is a very hands on person who cooks his own meal and washes his own clothes at the age of 65 now. So I remember we had to come up with our own schedule during school holidays, and the schedule mainly comprises 2 tasks (of course besides completing any homework from school): housework, and writing book reviews. I benefit greatly from such good habits since young so I wish my kids could do the same too. Therefore I worked with my helper to come up with a list of items which Renzo could participate daily.

1. Pick Up Their Room — The boys have a rather neat and tidy room but their wardrobe is pretty much overloaded, oh yes the boys are rather fashionable and enjoy picking up their favorite pieces at H&M and Cotton On kids. Renzo's task is to take all his clothes out and sort them accordingly, pack away those no longer wearing for donation.
2. Laundry – Laundry is one of the most tedious chores in my personal opinion but it's also the best task to train great time management and organization skills. I am certain that the washing machine is enough to keep him excited for a period of time.

3. Wipe down piano — It's his own possession and probably he could develop more love and affection towards this most expensive piece of "furniture" in our house.
4. Empty Trashes — The rubbish chute is right outside our door so it probably takes a few seconds for him to hoist trashes into the dumpster. And the bonus part is, he gets to learn about recycled materials this way too.
5. Wash Dishes – He's done it before, stand on a stool at the kitchen sink and wash his own nonbreakable dishes is a piece of cake to him.
6. Organize Bookshelf — We have a number of bookshelves at home, with the biggest one recently added into the living room. It would be super cool if this little one manages to figure out a way to sort out his books nicely.

Renzo got a "Gotcha" book from his school, and he's so eager to collect 15 signatures from us so he could redeem a Gotcha Badge. Now I start to feel proud about the school holiday plan I mapped out for him, because he will definitely be able to achieve his goal before the end of his holiday!