Sharing the bed

I am a self-indulgent mother. I like time to myself. I like time to get my nails done or sit at cafe with a book and just read. But sometimes, there really isn't much time for these pockets of indulgence; what with our helper hospitalised and the general circus that is the house.

In the absence of Me-time, there is one thing that I look forward to every night. That is to sink into my bed, enjoy my very expensive mattress and luxuriate in it till I lose consciousness.

I love it so much that there have been nights where I have had to choose between air-conditioning in JED's room (their room is smaller and therefore cooler) and having the bed all to myself, I have chosen the latter even if it means that I sleep without air-conditioning.

That usually means not sleeping with Packrat. While I love to sleep beside him, I don't love fighting for space on the bed with JED.

Unfortunately, not moving into their room never guarantees that I get the bed all to myself all night long. By the early hours of the morning, there is at least one child on the bed with me, usually Muffin and by 6 am, Evan would have joined us and on occasion, because she wakes up alone in her big bed, Jordan traipses over too. That's when I get evicted because there is no space on the bed.

Mums with older children say I will miss them when they stop migrating over. But right now, I want to roll around my own bed, have my covers and pillows all to myself without having to worry that I would flatten or kick a kid in the face (as they have often done to me).

Simple dreams. Simple dreams.

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Outdoor classroom

It's nearing the end of term and I'm exhausted and ennui is my default state of being. Anything more than that requires too much effort. Thankfully, JED are too young to articulate that even though I think they feel a little bit of it as well. They've been hard at work every day in school rehearsing for their graduation concert.

So, this morning, I decided it was time to cut everyone some slack, myself included. Instead of the regular table work that we do in the mornings, I take them out to a little mound of a hilltop that is across the road from my bedroom and kitchen window. No one really goes there except for elderly people taking walks round a 50m track. But surrounding it are trees on slopes of grass.

I tell the twins we are doing work outside. They stare at me in disbelief. They wonder why I am not carting their books and furniture out. All I do is send them out slathered with insect repellant holding on to a clipboard and a pencil (no eraser even!).

We make it up as we go along. And they are most excited. I set them tasks.

1. Counting steps. They count the stairs they have to go up. The answers aren't the same. They run up and down, counting, till they can agree on the number. It's 33, they tell me, panting.

 
2. Write down ten things that they see. They have to look all around and find ten things. Instead of just standing still in one spot and looking round, I push them onto the grass slopes and tell them to find a spot, squat down and write down what they see. Jordan doesn't just write down the things she sees, she draws them, in exact numbers. Evan illustrates it by drawing a symbol of it beside the word.  The most interesting things on their list? Roots that look like vines (Evan). A Squirrel (Jordan).

3. Pick up sticks; while the twins are busy scavenging around for things to list, I ask Muffin to pick up 5 sticks. When he does so, I ask him to arrange it from longest to shortest.

The twins see him do that and want to pick up sticks too. I make it a bit more challenging for them. I tell them that between the two of them, they have to find forty sticks of varying lengths and thicknesses and line them up from the longest to the shortest sticks. I leave it to them how they will divide out the labour between them. Muffin joins in and eventually they arrange them in descending order.

4. Build a road.
With the forty sticks they had painstakingly arranged, the next thing I ask them to do is to line them in a way that will create a road across the ground. It doesn't have to be straight but it has to be a continuous path. They declare their road a curly-wurly one. Obviously, the forty sticks weren't enough and they had to scavenge for more. It eventually took them 61 sticks to build their road. Muffin contributed the mother of all sticks.

5. A Root walk.
When all is done, I tell them they can't use the stairs to go back down. Evan proposes we walk on the tree roots, all the way down. The trees surrounding us were tall, old ones and their roots snaked all over the ground. Evan states that there are crocodiles in the water and the only way to get to safety is to follow a root path all the way down to the bottom. It requires them to map out which root they were going to hop onto next.

Five tasks that take about an hour for them to complete. Along the way, they point out to me moss on trees, a woodlouse and a tiny snail shell. I get them to touch the moss on the tree roots and we observe a squirrel scampering up and down a tree. They are sweaty and their hands incredibly grubby from dealing with sticks and poking around moss. We get home with enough time to wash up, have a drink and put on socks and shoes before heading back down to catch the bus. They are chuffed announcing to all and sundry that they didn't do work and they spent the morning picking up sticks.

Fooled them.

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Bookworm club

When I came home from work one afternoon, I didn't find Jordan with her two brothers. No one knew where she was. Even when I called out, there was no reply. For a moment, I was worried that she had slipped out of the house with no one knowing. Then I found her. She was sitting atop our luggage by the window in my bathroom reading; oblivious to my calling out for her.

It was such a wonderful sight that I forgot to admonish her for not hearing me and causing me to worry.

One of the things that Packrat tells me is how, regardless on how his parents were tightfisted with money, they surrounded him with books. I know someone else, whom I admire greatly for knowing everything under the sun and is very learned, whose mother uneducated herself knew enough to bring him to the library all the time as a child. So, we surrounded JED with books and it was something we always tried to do with the children from before they knew how to hold the books right side up.

My happiest moments have been to wake up to everyone crowded onto my bed with Jordan holding court and reading to her brothers; her brothers silent in rapt attention or to wake up and find the whole house quiet only to discover all three in their room with books strewn all over the floor and them spellbound by whatever book they were reading/ looking at. 

Did we teach them to love reading? We didn't explicitly tell them reading was good for them. We just never stopped them.

1. We surrounded them with books. Hand me downs, ordering books off their book lists from school, Book Depository or Fishpond or Amazon or setting them free and wild in the library. I am often tempted to save costs and space by just getting them to borrow books from the library but I have also realised that like me, they re-read their books, over and over again.

2. We let them read anything. My mother was a literary snob. She wanted me to only read Austen and Bronte and Dickens. I resisted, mostly because I didn't understand them when I was young. She claimed that I couldn't just 'eat ice-cream' as meals (translated, don't read Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew or Sweet Dreams books, depending on how old I was), I needed a more 'nutritional' diet (LM Montgomery, Alcott, Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Shakespeare). I fought her on it and read whatever I wanted to though I did eventually get to her list quietly (I didn't want her to know that I had actually heard what she said). So with JED, we pick books that we want for them to read or we want them to read to them but we also let them pick books for themselves. Usually the latter consists of character books Disney Princesses and the likes. I don't like them but they do and that's what counts. It has also meant that Evan reads a lot of science related books, Jordan a great number of fairy/ princess books though that's slowly evolving and Muffin anything with bright pictures.

 3. We let them read anywhere. The way I love to unwind at meal times, when I'm eating alone is to eat with a book. And we let them do that too, as long as we aren't all sitting together eating and as long as it doesn't slow their eating to a point where the oil in the soup has coagulated on the surface and the noodles have become so soaked they are twice the size.



This has also meant that we trip over them all over the house reading and find their books everywhere including under my bed covers and in my work bag. The only time we stop them from reading is when they are walking and reading. Jordan does this a lot because she saw Belle do it in Beauty and the Beast.

4. We get them audio books. An alternative to us reading to them has been to buy them books with CDs. This keeps them quiet and not fighting when I'm busy or when they are tired in the car. These books are read by people who have great variation in tone and it becomes a whole experience for them with music associated with it. We don't have a lot of them because they are more costly than just the regular books but the ones we do have, have paid for themselves in terms of cost-per-use.

It's gotten more fun as well because the twins can now read for themselves and to Muffin when they feel so inclined. They are also able to tell us about what they have read especially Evan, teaching me random science-y things.

Then, I read this article and I really liked it, especially the point of how reading to them what they wanted was a way of individually honouring and respecting their choices. It's meant we read or re-read an average of 3 books a night but it's the one time and situation where when they ask, we don't say no.

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Mom the Reluctant House Help

This is the second time our helper has been out of action. And this time it's worse because she's been hospitalised with a mysterious localised pain under her right rib cage. That has meant, prior to the hospitalisation, she was already out of action and now, she isn't around.

That translates into Mommy springing into action and becoming all around house help, teacher, chauffeur, cook and logistics officer.

Even though we've had practice with it before, it's worse because it's term time and it's crunch time for Packrat and I.

The days are 5 am days to make sure that everything and everyone is ready so that I can leave immediately for work when they go off to school. It's also meant that I've had to figure out who can be home to get Muffin off the bus if I can't do it.

And the only reasons I haven't really reduced into a puddle and shoved my head into the ground ostrich-like style are

1. The twins are older.
They respond to instruction. And if that fails, they respond to threats. They also know that Mommy is really not in the mood to be pissed off. So the only one that actually does the pissing off is Muffin. And he's learnt also to do as instructed because Mommy's not very merciful when stressed. The twins have been helpful picking up laundry, making beds, making breakfast and keeping toys.They also try to get Muffin to help on my behalf, usually ending in him in tears because he doesn't take kindly to being told by them what to do.

2. The village around me that chips in to help.
There is great benefit living near the parentals. The grandparents let us drop them off so that we can run errands or see said helper in hospital. For the week, dinner is at their house so that it is one less thing I have to worry about. Our neighbour who is happy to help us pick up the kids from the school bus and keep them with her if necessary. She pops down to help me in the mornings just so that we can get everyone out of the house in time. That means that the number of times I have needed to channel the F1 driver has been reduced. Could. Not. Be. More. Thankful.

3. Thank goodness for frozen reserves.
I love leaving myself surprises. The last time we made salmon potato patties, we froze an entire batch. That meant that all that is necessary to do is to stick the patties into the grill and Evan would have a filling tea after school.

4. Let some things slide.
The house isn't immaculate. The twins do not do as much work as they usually would. What I did was to actually keep them all in one room this morning and tell them to play with the door shut. That way, the mess gets limited and they cannot shirk the responsibility of the mess because all 3 are in there and all 3 are party to the mess. That gave me time to finish cleaning up after breakfast. By the time I was done, they were sweaty and more than ready for a bath. That worked out. Bed times have also become slightly later because it has had to take into account us coming home from the grandparents' from dinner and my needing to unpack and wash up their day's rubbish.

5. Give ample time for everything.
I have been up at 5 every morning to get the kids ready. Rather than rush, forget things and be shorter-tempered, I wake up earlier, put on some music in the kitchen and start doing the necessary. By the time they are up at 7, most things are done and I actually have little pockets of time to cuddle them, accede to ridiculous requests like replacement batteries for remote control cars (Evan), look for his lion hat (Muffin), look for her colour pencils because she HAS to have the right colours for the dolphin she is colouring (Jordan).


6. Most importantly, an extremely supportive and helpful Packrat.
Exhausted from my day that began at 5 am and had not stopped and being faced with overflowing baskets of dirty laundry, I am torn between the need to sleep (my eyes closed over dinner) and the need to see empty laundry baskets (that is one thing I can't let slide. There is smell associated with it!). Packrat, equally exhausted gallantly steps in and volunteers to wait till the laundry is done to hang it up before heading to bed. That way, all I needed to do was to dump everything into the machine, climb into bed and lose consciousness in ten seconds. I know he went to bed quite late as a result and and I am thankful for him doing that and watching JED while I was at work on Saturday. It couldn't have been easy for him because when I came home, he had the stressed out look of someone who was alone with 3 kids under 7 who weren't particularly cooperative.

I know my brother would say it builds character. And part of me enjoys having the house and JED to ourselves but the other part of me is exhausted and crying out for some reprieve and possibly a vacation that comes with "all you can go for" spas.

Till then, I shall just keep repeating "this too shall end."

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How to Survive travelling with JED -A Review and Discount Code-

We are vacation whores. We live for vacations. Pre-kids, the way we got from one school term to another was to look forward to the vacation that demarcated a break. We do the same thing now, except we bring JED with us. We still spend quite a bit of time travelling without JED. Travelling with and without them are different experiences and we do both for different reasons.

The first time we travelled with just the twins, we were extremely stressed about everything. We suffered from the Goldilocks syndrome. We worried about the food, the water, whether we brought enough, whether we brought too little or that we had brought too much and were too weighed down. 

We are off for an epic 28 day vacation in less than a month's time and I've had to start thinking about what to pack. With 3 kids, I can't pack the night before anymore. 

People with less than 3 kids ask how we manage such long breaks with them without wanting to drop them off at the orphanage on the way home.

We've had 6 years of doing it and while we haven't gotten it down pat, we've discovered a couple of tricks that actually make things easier.

1. We vacuum seal all their clothes either according to kid or according to location, depending on how far, how long or how complicated the trip is. On shorter trips where space and volume of clothes aren't a concern, I allocate a bag of clothes for each of them. I have to use my JED Packs connections to benefit us when we travel as well.

2. Where ever possible, we stay at serviced apartments or just apartments in general. Airbnb is our best friend because it allows us to book apartments for the entire family at a fraction of the cost of a hotel stay and it's reliable. By doing that, we get to do laundry and we can cook and occasionally even do a barbie.



3. We've also learned to either order online and ship to where ever we are headed, only in the USA or we bring what is needed. While I hate over packing, I hate being stranded even more. So, I spend a great amount of time looking for travel size bottles of whatever I need. Someone said just buy the travel bottles from Watsons and transfer whatever we needed from the big bottles we have at home. We did that once. But until today, I have a couple of travel sized Watson's toiletries bottles sitting on my bathroom counter top with unidentifiable stuff inside likely to give me some sort of rash.

4. I also found that the best place to find the travel sized kid friendly toiletries and essentials I needed was at an expo. Only with my travel list complete do I ever feel that I am ready to travel and can officially be excited about it!

5. To make sure before hand that whatever we are bringing for JED- milk, diapers, vitamins, food, medicine or toiletries- are things that they aren't allergic to. Nothing increases the stress of travelling with kids as much as travelling with sick kids.

6. The last thing I do that helps with the stress is to actually get the older kids to look after themselves where ever possible. The twins are now at the age where they carry their own bags and they actually do like to take ownership of what they have in there. They consciously check that they have an extra set of clothes, toys or books, wipes, plasters, tissue paper and sanitiser.

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So, at a recent kid expo that I went to, I spent an inordinate amount of time at one booth. I was riveted by shelves of products from Human Nature.

It was like Christmas come early. Everything on the shelves was organic, naturally scented, they smelt great (the Kids Nature Shampoo smelt of divine tangerine and while I have never really like the smell of pineapple scented products, it made me change my mind) and most importantly, for the reason I was there, most things came in travel sized bottles. Christine, the owner of Human Nature was happy to let me have some of the travel size versions to try out and I chose what I needed for travelling.

The first on my request list was obviously 2 bottles of Kids Nature Shampoo (one in each of the scents, Pineapple Pawikan and Tangerine Tarsier) and 2 bottles of Kids All Natural Spray Sanitiser that were 50 ml bottles so the twins could take them aboard the plane in their trolley bags. When I let the twins pick the ones they wanted, Jordan naturally gravitated towards the pink Candy Cane flavour one and kept wanting to use it. She had over clean hands and the air around her smelt like candy cane. Evan was the opposite. He liked it so much, he refused to use it unless necessary lest it ran out before the trip and what if he needed to sanitise his hands then? (Evan's worry wart nature surfaces at strange times!) 

Since we were going to be away for close to a month and since we had rented apartments with laundry equipment, I also chose 1 bottle of Tough Love 100% Natural Laundry Detergent that was naturally scented with grapefruit and orange and 1 bottle of Tough Love Natural Dishwashing Liquid also scented with grapefruit and orange.

I wondered whether or not to bring the laundry detergent because at 900ml, it was a little bit on the hefty side. But where we were going to be staying for most of the time was an island which meant, anything that was not grown on the island  was priced in the 'daylight robbery' category. Packrat insisted that since we had so much luggage space (5 people meant 10 pieces of luggage weighing 23 kg each!) and the amount of space and weight we save in packing clothes, we could bring the detergent. I was happy to oblige.

The dishwashing liquid, I was most definitely bringing. Muffin still drinks milk from his sippy cup while we are out and I hate the idea of milk going bad and curdling into yogurt in his sipper in my bag. The twins drop their water bottles with unbelievable frequency requiring them to be rinsed out as often so the 250 ml bottle was going into the diaper bag when we got there and it would stay there till it ran out or we came back, whichever happens first.

In accordance to Rule number 5, I've test run both dishwashing liquid and detergent even though we're not leaving for another month as well as the shower gel. Pragmatically, I needed to make sure that JED weren't allergic to it, though unlikely since it was 99.97% natural and 100% free from harmful chemicals. And everything passed with colours. JED loved the shampoo and voted initially to bring both. Eventually, the Mommy's executive decision was to bring the Tangerine but it was a tough decision. There was nary an itch or rash in sight. And when the clothes came out of the machine, they didn't smell cloyingly sweet . They just smelt crisp and clean with a slight whiff of orange with the winds blew right.

All in, I was happy to have gone to the expo and discovered Human Nature. Not only did I find all the travel sized toiletries I needed, I found a new brand that was going to save me money off international shipping. JED are addicted to the shampoos and I'm going to be ordering more for them!

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And to give everyone the chance to enjoy the goodness of Human Nature, Human Nature is giving all Diaperbag readers and their friends a storewide discount of 15%. Just use the code HNDB15 by 27 October 2013.

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Disclaimer: Some people might roll their eyes at the fact that I'm bringing stuff that I don't really need to. Hotels provide shampoos and bath gels and we can easily buy detergent there. Generally, with kids who have sensitive eczema proned skin, I don't take chances, especially when the climate's markedly different.

I received the Human Nature products for purposes of this review; all opinions are my own.

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Mom the Rehearsal Mistress

 The twins graduate kindergarten in about a month and to celebrate it, they wear little mini caps and gowns, walk onto stage, receive their scroll (conferring them honours for finger painting, playground and sand play), take a bow and curtsy before strolling off. After that, they put on their dancing shoes and do a song and dance for us. From what I've gathered,  they've been rehearsing hard at school.

Jordan came home brandishing a piece of paper. She explained that she had to learn everything on the paper and say it without it. She had lines essentially. She was one of the three narrators for their performance and she had to be word perfect by November 2.

I had flashbacks to the time in secondary school where I had to emcee my school's Awards Night concert. I had no one to really help me and it terrified me massively. I remember muttering the lines every night as I fell asleep. 

So for Jordan, the most important thing is to treat it like it's a normal thing. People go up on stage and speak all the time. Right. Well, at least I can try and make it as painless as possible.


So, how do I help her?

So my job has been to make sure that she can pronounce words like "environment", "practically", "sumptuous" and that she says words like "salmon" correctly. It's taken me back to teacher training days where we were taught to pronounce words like "pronunciation", "vehicle" and "restaurant".

For Jordan, who still doesn't understand grammar rules implicitly, she remembers the big words but not the verbs and articles which hold no meaning for her.

I get her to stand on a raised platform. A chair, a stool, she wanted the dining table but I was slightly worried about the fan lopping off her top part of her head among other things. We all gather on the floor and watch her.

I tell her to look at us in the eyes.

Her brother balances a lion atop her head and this time I don't take it down. I tell her to keep the lion on her head. It helps her stand straight and not "goyang' like a palm tree.  She's learnt the meaning of the word "goyang" since.

After a week of practicing, the hardest bit is getting the lines out of her without the script and with minimal prompting. I've taken to contextualising her lines by asking her questions that would lead to the lines as answers. So far, it's helping but that soon will have to go.

It's coming along.

All I know is that being a stage mom and rehearsal mistress is hard work. 

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Mom the Research Coordinator

It was suggested that I do a series on the roles of the moms. We've seen all the cliche wall papers on Facebook about what a is, apart from just being the person who has given birth to the child.

And we also know this from the fact that our kids begin most sentences with "Mommy, can you __________ (insert action).

So, this shall be my next series.

Last week, it occurred to me that I was Evan's research coordinator. Evan loves science experiments (ex-P-riments, in his words). The problem is that he's still a little bit young to figure out the stuff needed to set up the experiments. Usually, he pulls out his Big Book of Science Experiments and randomly points to something that has sparked off his interest. We've done the Coke-Mentos experiments, water experiments, shaving foam ones as well and others that I cannot remember. His idea of my spending time with him is to do experiments with him. And we did just that, this time with inspiration from Gingerbread Mum's Milk Magic.

It had to be full fat milk. The fat globules in the milk were key to the experiment. What we did was to add food colouring into it first. The food colouring stays as a darkened dot in the milk, though the colour does slowly bleed out a little and swirls around prettily. It reminded me of the chromatography we used to do in the chem lab. That, in itself got lots of "WOW!" and "AWESOME!" (I hate it when everything is "AWESOME!" but that is another post altogether) but introduce a drop of soap detergent by way of a q-tip and colour explosions begin to occur.

So apparently detergent weakens the bonds between the fat and the proteins in the milk and the fat and soap apparently do some sort of fat bumping gymnastics which causes the colours to bump around, much to the amazement of the twins. Muffin just liked swirling the colours around but Evan and Jordan wanted to know what caused it and they kept trying to figure it out for themselves, trying it in water instead of milk, more soap, less soap, changing it to new milk claiming their swamp coloured milk had too much soap in it.

When we explained it to Evan, he could rattle it off. How much of it he understood of it, I really don't know but I do love that he's such a science geek and finding new experiments for him to do. We're going to try the erupting volcano one next but he doesn't know it yet.

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-Updated- Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? A Review, a Giveaway and the Winners!

Every morning, the twins and I sit down and get some work done. This is just to get them used to a homework routine where they sit down, do table work and be serious about what they are doing. When we are hard at work, Muffin feels extremely left out. We try to time his bath at that time so that he is busy and distracted. Unfortunately, his bath doesn't last for an entire hour; he would end up being very shriveled and prune like if it did.

Anyway, I've tried to split my time between him and the twins. We play little games that are 2-3 minute long so that I can pop back easily to see what the twins are up to. It's not so much watching the tennis match, as it is being the tennis ball going back and forth.

His ways of occupying himself include climbing all over me, lying on the ground playing with his lion and tiger or attempting to draw cocoons, caterpillars, sting rays and sharks on his Etch-a-Sketch. What he really likes is when I  cut up pictures and do craft with him; glue being his favourite toy. The problem with giving a three year old glue, however, is that it gets used with impunity and ends up every where.

But generally, the rule of thumb is that he likes 'doing' things. Last week, I tried something new with him and he had a lot of fun with it. We've repeated it a couple of times and he's had to fight his brother and sister for it.

I'm going off tangent here but I love shopping. But since JED, the shopping has been severely limited to things for them rather things that I like and want for myself. And one of the things I love for them are well-made toys. With 3 of them, I'm big on toys are that durable; that can endure the abuse that they unleash on it. I'm also big on toys that don't limit the way they can play with them; character toys, toys requiring batteries, I'm not so big on. Toys that they have to manipulate, that they can play with on their own and with each other are a big check, in my book. One of the brands I've fallen in love with are the toys from Learning Resources. The twins recently got a solar powered cash register for their birthday from there; a toy that didn't require batteries and they spent hours playing supermarket checkout; it warranted an exploration of what else they had. 

And then, enter The Mind Store, a  Singapore seller that sells toys (Learning Resources and Educational Insights among others) that fit my criteria. I spent hours looking at the website, wishing for all the money, space and time in the world to buy and use all the toys with JED. Recently, they were nice enough to send me a cookie jar full of alphabet cookies.

Evan's first question was whether he could eat the cookies. Jordan broke out her cooking set and insisted on baking some of the cookies most narcissistically in her name. Here she is, glazing her cookies with a brush.

And Muffin, Muffin just claimed it for himself. After all, his siblings were supposed to be busy with their homework. Of course, there was the constant imploring of "Mommy, play with me". So I did, I got him to find the cookies to spell his name.

On top of that, the set came with instructions, suggested games and game cards. One of games had pictures of his favourite animals with their names albeit with a letter missing. This is probably to help teach the little ones phonics; simple d (consonant)- o (vowel)- g (consonant) words. But Muffin, being an expert schooled by Youtube did not want or need my help or guidance in trying to sound out the "d" in "dog" . In fact, he swatted me away when I tried to help him.  While able to do that, he obviously, he had no idea of what reading meant because instead of going d-o-g,  "dog", he would go d-o-g, " 狗" or c-a-t , " 猫"; letter recognition and individual phonetic recognition present but no real understanding of how the letters are put together to make a word.

But then again, he's only 3 and probably uses more of his brain to figure out which tree is safe to climb. 

Anyway, the verdict.

In my book, this set is a win.

1. Is it durable? It's made out of hard plastic and no matter how much he throws it and tosses it, they just bounce back at him. That in itself entertained him for quite a while.

2. Could they be played with, more than one way? Yes. Muffin lined them up and made them into alphabet trains. He placed them on plates and served them to everyone as cookies. Jordan did the same thing though her presentation was more sophisticated and hers went in the 'oven' first.


3. Could the game be played without me? Yes it could. There were more than enough pieces to go round. Both Evan and Jordan wanted to play with Muffin after they were done with their work. The games in the set were self-explanatory. They categorised all the letters according to colour. Evan laid out all the alphabet cards and Jordan told him to go look for the letters to match the cards. He obediently did. This left me time actually have breakfast and read a little bit while JED played around me.

4. The set could be played by all three of them and the twins requested to do their school spelling with the letters. (That's where the one problem with the set came up. Insufficient letters to properly spell more complicated sight words that had double consonants or vowels in them)

And the million dollar question: Would I have bought this set if they didn't send me one? Probably. It's $35.90. I may have waited another 2 months or so, to use whatever spare change I might have to pay for it (it's non-essential in a sense!) but I would have eventually got it. 

So, for those who have an ongoing love-hate (love the items but hate the price) relationship with well-made, educational toys, The Mind Store has  decided to offer Diaperbag readers three $10 vouchers* to shop at their store. Here's how you can win one.



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1. "Like" The Mind Store on Facebook  then head over to The Mind Store's Online Store and have a look around.

2. Leave a comment here about what got your drooling at the store (Don't forget to do so by 17 October 2013). Be sure you leave your name and email address so that we can actually get in touch with you.

3. Share this post on your public wall so that your friends know that these great learning aids and toys exist out there!

Q. E. D.
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And the winners are...
1. Mel
2. Jeanette
3. Andrew

Hurray for you all! The Mind Store will be contacting you soon!

* Vouchers will only be valid for Learning Resources and Educational Insights items

Disclaimer: We got a complimentary jar of ABC cookies for this review. No other monetary compensation had been received. The views and pictures are all Diaperbag's. 

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Capturing Concern

There's a bug going round our house. It began with Evan on Wednesday night, causing us to end up in Emergency at 3 am in the morning and him to miss his excursion to the zoo. Jordan fell on Saturday evening. Her symptoms were different but she was similarly miserable. Muffin is the last man standing and we don't have much hope but for now, he goes around being the doctor.

He worries about his sister. Why she won't play with him. He worries about his brother. The brother that fights him on everything seems to be too lethargic to fight back and gives him whatever he wants, however much Muffin pushes his buttons.

So he goes around with a stethoscope and his 'doctor' box. He listens to Jordan's chest and when she says her tummy hurts, he listens to that too. He gives Evan an injection but before he does so, he tells him "Kor Kor, don't cry. Is good for you. Make you feel better. I not putting anything in your bum bum" (The boy remembers all too well the medicine that got shoved up his bum rather unceremoniously.)

It's nice  to see him all concerned even though they fight like cats most of the time. Grandma commented that he 'could' become a doctor. Okay, if he wanted to but the hours and grunge work suck and if a patient threw up in front of him, he would join the patient, gag and throw up too. And of course, his bedside manner would need work, especially if he roared at patients. But I'm not going to push it.

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Capturing Friendships

Friendships at this age is simple but fleeting.

I don't have any friends from kindergarten or rather I don't remember anyone from kindergarten. At. All. 

Evan has a BFF. He talks about her all the time. For the longest time, he tried to get us to organise a play date with her. It took us months to coordinate it.

That day was today.

The entire day was spent dreaming up things he would show her and do with her. Playground was on the top of his list. Followed by his various prized possessions.

His BFF is a cute as a button, down to earth kind of girl. She even included Muffin in all the games they played. She only left because she was hungry and all of them had early morning field trip adventures tomorrow. 

Very aware that Evan and her would no longer be classmates, she had asked her mother if they could still play together when they had gone to separate schools. 

I really hope they would. 

Friends at this point are nothing more than playmates. They don't really confide in each other yet. They exchange information and instructions. But it is heartwarming nonetheless to see them with their friends. When I asked Evan why he was best friends with her, he didn't know but had a goofy grin. 

He is lucky because he has two best friends and a sister. Even though he's got a BFF, he is still close to his first friend from kindy, Chloe, also our neighbour.

For as long as possible, may they grow up together and share many adventures together.

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Capturing Faith

The one area that fascinates me with JED is their belief in God. I know their faith is actually a reflection of our faith because they aren't old enough to fully understand God yet but even then, their faith is touching.

We see snippets of it when one of them hurts themselves and the other two (or at least one of the older ones) would pray that 'God takes away the pain.'

They know how to pray for things that matter, like their school to remain open

Of course, we also see them use it for more mercenary purposes like "God, please bring me a pair of binoculars for my birthday."

Recently, there has been a great amount of concern expressed over Satan and how we will know it is Satan since he can take many forms. It took me a long time to explain to them, particularly Evan that while Satan was powerful, God was even more powerful and God was on our side.

He then drew a parallel to the Transformers. God was the leader of the Autobots and Satan was the leader of the Decepticons. Strangely apt.

 And then, there was Jordan who drew God. How wonderful that in all the bright colours and beauty, God was placed in the middle. They seemed to have pretty much hit the nail on its head.

I hope that JED will always have the faith of little children.

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