Holiday Adventures 1: The One with Writing A Book

As part of their K2 project many years ago, the twins had to make a book from start to finish. They remember that, especially Jordan who actually goes back to kindy every year to talk to the K2 children about the book she wrote when she was their age.

Anyway, when the opportunity came up this holiday to 'write a book' at Writing Sprouts with their friends, both of them were keen to do so, though Jordan more than Evan. But he went along quite gamely and they ended up having so much fun that they couldn't wait to get dropped off in the morning. The workshop ran from 9.30 to 12 every day but they would clamour to be dropped off at 9.

I had to work so I didn't see much of what they did. But that also meant that all I had to go on was theirs and their friends' feedback.

One of the first things they did at the workshop was to learn to write acrostic poems. So when I asked what they thought about the workshop, they gave me an acrostic poem in response.

Fun.
Useful.
Noisy.
Neat
Yes.

Excellent.

To elaborate:

Fun:
They got to play games. They played charades and they played a version of Pictionary. They got to draw funny things on the board and it never ceases to amaze me how much we aren't on their wavelength. They get what each other draws. I have to look at it as a drawing and try and interpret from the oft-unclear scribbles what they are trying to communicate across. But with each other, they're so in-tuned with each other's frequencies that they get it before the unidentifiable squiggles are complete. It helped that all the children in the workshop were round about the same age so they got each other's humour. Therefore, it was fun.




Useful:
Well, they now know how to write an acrostic poem. But beyond that, Edna (who ran the workshop) gave them a lot of scaffolding about how to create a story. She taught them to use story maps, mountains, the 'hamburger' ingredients to writing a story. I asked Evan if they helped him. The matter-of-fact answer was "Yes, that's how I wrote the story".

Subtext: Duh, Mommy!

Now, to see if they actually do it when they have to write on their own. 

Noisy:
According to them, it was good noisy. Noisy because they got rowdy when they played games. Noisy because they got to read a crazy poem. Noisy because they got to talk to their friends about what they wanted to write. They got to discuss what they wanted to write. Evan and his friend Mark decided to join brains and co-create and co-write their book. They divvied the work, chatted about what needed to be done, how to do it, how to grow the story and eventually put it down and paper with illustrations.

It was happy noise.




Neat.
Neat not as in clean and tidy. Neat as in cool. Writing wasn't labourious composition. We have come to the sad conclusion that composition isn't really writing. But what they discovered during the workshop was that 'composition writing' wasn't the only form of 'acceptable' writing. Edna got them to create their stories as comics and learning how to write dialogue with the speech bubbles. I have since found scraps of paper round the house with comics scribbled on them. Not to be thrown away, I have been sternly warned.

They even got to write dedications for their books and they took that very seriously. I know that if I were a kid and I could write my every single page of my own book right up to the dedication page, I'd be absolutely chuffed too.

Evan's dedication was a bit unclear so I had to ask him about it again for Edna and he told me that it was for, in a nutshell, everyone in the family, because they were special. That was beyond thoughtful and neat, in my opinion.

Creating comics

Jordan's comic strip.

A story about Pencil Potter.

And Lord Correction Tape.

The Pencil family safe.

Yes:
Why yes? Yes to what?

In response to my questions, my 9 yos rolled their eyes at me. They roll their eyes far too much. Ophthalmic callisthenics, my favourite new term.

Anyway, yes was to all the regular questions. They had fun, they'd do it again, they had a great time.

This coming weekend, they get their published books and we get to go their book-reading session.

Having written a book. One thing to check off the bucket list and one thing off their Holiday Wish List of Fun.


Disclaimer: This post was written in collaboration with Writing Sprouts. Photos are from Writing Sprouts though it's our two cents' worth!

Writing Sprouts is an English Language Arts School for kids. Its specially crafted literacy programme leads kids to creative writing and the opportunity to self publish their work. Writing Sprouts conducts weekly classes, holiday workshops, private coaching, fun literacy events and more.

It is located at 308 Telok Kurau Rd

Vibes@East Coast #01-03/04

​S423858
Tel: 6247 7173

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Exams are over and it's PLAY time! - A review for Kaboodle Kids-

The exams are finally over! Finally. We don't know how they did and we won't know for a while but for now, it's time to go a little bit berserk. The house is flooded with Young Scientists magazines and there is Lego and Magformers strewn all over. The noise level is also decibels higher.

But they deserve the break.

As a treat, I packed them all off one afternoon Kaboodle Kids one afternoon. It's an indoor play gym at Big Splash. Actually, I wanted to go more than they did. I was curious about it because it was a play gym unlike any other and that in itself piqued my interest. Here are 5 ways it was different.

1. It was all blue. Unlike other play gyms that are a cacophony of colours which sometimes assault your senses, this just had blue bits. Lots of blue bits.

2. And they truly were just bits. No ready made structures. There were no slides or ball pits (though you could technically build your own ball pit). All the bits fit and connected to each other. So it was up to JED and their friends how they were going to build stuff. That way, they built their own fun.

3. Everything was foam. Giant foam noodles, blocks, wheels, balls, everything. That meant they were light and the noodles were malleable but at the same time they were heavy enough (especially after it was built) to stand on its own. And if the entire structure collapsed onto anyone, everyone else laughed because it was comical and it didn't really hurt at all. In Muffin's words after his entire marble run collapsed onto him "Not pain!"

4. There was no set way to play. Evan spent a lot of his time building a giant spider or what I saw as a contraption a mad scientist would use to suck up your brain juices. Jordan and her friends, built a fort that became their castle and Muffin loved that the walls of the castle connected into a huge room length marble run.

5. The entire room was as messy or as built up as the children wanted it to be. At one point when Evan and the girls had concentrated all their efforts on building their structures, Muffin was racing back and forth, slip-sliding around in his socks because there was just so much space for him to do so.

We were there for a good 2 hours and it would have been longer if it wasn't closing time. The only way I managed to drag them out of there was to promise that they could go look for the chickens that roosted near the beach. I also had to promise that we would come back again.

I loved the place. Simple as that.

Primarily because
1. It was a play gym that subscribed to the same play philosophy as I do. Don't tell them what to do, just let them figure it out, do it play how they want to.

2. I could play too. I could build stuff too, me-sized and JED were thrilled because in most play gyms, Mommy's too big to follow them around inside not that Mommy would want to.

3. It was bright. There were windows all along the side which meant there was a lot of light. But that's just me. I have a thing for natural light.

4. It wasn't an entirely huge area that I lost sight of JED but big enough for them to lose each other and that meant lots of fun playing Hide and Seek.

5. It was near the beach. Anything near the beach makes me feel like I am home. That's what happens when you grow up in the East. Take the girl out of the East but never quite take the beach out of the girl.

Stalking the chickens barefoot, to be quieter. No chicken was fooled. 

The only issue I think I had with it was that there was a lot of unhappiness when other kids who had also paid to play came over and inadvertently destroyed what JED were doing. And when they got tired towards the later part of the day, the unhappiness turned into sullen moodiness. But then again, my message to them was suck it up and play with others or accept that your structures might get destroyed.

We'll probably go back again at some point and in truth, we think it'd be a great place to hold birthday parties because you get to book out the whole place and build and play to their heart's content.

If you pop by at Kaboodle Kids and mention you came by them through our blog (the Diaperblog), you'll get 10 % off regular admission rates  till the end of June.

Here's to lots of fun and lots of building.

Postscript: We are thankful for Kaboodle Kids sponsoring JED's visit and everything written here is our own two cents' worth. 

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Holiday Things to Do: Santa School (A Review)

When the twins went to The Giving Treehouse for their holiday camp, Muffin complained. He heard tales about lava lamps, kites and trampoline parks (though he was there for that bit) and wanted to know why he didn't have camp to go to. He's like I was as a child, I wanted to do everything my brothers did even though I wasn't old enough or ahem, I was a girl.

So when the opportunity for him to go to camp, he jumped at it. And better yet, it was a Christmas- Santa themed camp, by BlueTree Education, which thrilled him to bits. There were Christmas related songs, stories, make believe and most importantly, craft that kept him busy and happy.

The most fun bits for him were always the craft bits of the day. Over the five days, he made snow men, reindeer antlers, a reindeer that they then had to hunt for when they went reindeer hunting (for the sleigh not for food!) and eventually an impressive and beautiful snow globe.

He took a while to get used to the place. I suspect it had to do with being in a younger class where most kids had their parents there and I did the 'dump and go.' But as with all things Muffin, he was okay after a while.

For Muffin, a lot of processing happens internally so it's usually over a period of time that we see the full impact of anything. It was only on Day 3 of what he aptly termed as Santa School that we realised how much he'd internalised when he started giving me 'right-left- straight' instructions in the car (they learnt directions in order to guide the reindeers pulling Santa's sleigh) and ransacked our bookshelves for snowman books. We seem to be woefully short on that front. 

What tickled me most of all was when one of the teachers sent me a picture of Muffin being dressed up as a Christmas tree. When I asked him about it, he burst into gales of laughter and told me in sputters how he had to stand still while other children decorated him. He also added that he had a star grow out of his head but it wasn't there anymore because he bumped himself and the star dropped off, like the reindeer's antler, he added.

But in all seriousness, Santa School was really well thought out and the teachers were articulate, fun and played with the kids as if their own. They exuded confidence in dealing with the little ones and I knew that, despite Muffin's initial protests, he would be okay there. And when I came in to pick him up later the first day, he was chummy with "Snowman Sock Aunty" (Aunty Diana) and liked "Snowman Hairband Aunty" (Aunty Mabel).
And the craft! I've talked about the craft. But I can't stop talking about them because they were all oh-so-pretty. This year's Christmas tree is adorned with, not just the traditional baubles, but all the craft bits that JED have come home with and Santa School Christmas-ed up our house really nicely.



So was it a hit? I think it pretty much was, especially when he got to meet Santa and Santa gave him sweets. He did whisper to me that it wasn't the real Santa but that was okay by him. Did he want to go to Santa School again? Nope. Because Santa only comes once a year, at Christmas.

That's fair enough.

---
Santa School was run by BlueTree Eduction, a newly established enrichment centre, offering pre-primary and primary programmes. It's run by ex MOE teachers who want to create fun learning workshops during the holidays for preschoolers and primary school goers.

I had a look at the regular programmes that they run for the school going crowd as well and to be honest, I really wanted to do it too or teach it; a whole CSI episode to teach investigative writing? Complete with a dead Barbie doll, I wouldn't mind doing that even as an adult.  Anyway, for more of their programmes, keep an eye out on their Facebook page.

BlueTree Education is offering $50 off their regular programmes (for the first payment only) for all Diaperbag readers. Just let them know you came by through the Diaperbag.


Address: 271 Bukit Timah Road, Balmoral Plaza #02-15 Singapore 259708
Nearest MRT: Newton Bus Services
Balmoral Plaza Bus Stop): 48, 66, 67, 170R, 171, 700, 700A, 960
Contact number: +65 9106 4702
Website: http://bluetreeeducation.com

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Holiday things to do- A day camp with a difference (Review)

We've just passed the first week of the holidays and JED have done their fair share of lolling around. Evan and Packrat have had to recover from camp and Jordan, from her gym competition (which I shall blog about soon.) I'm loving all the random stuff that they have been able to do, sleep overs at grandma's, play dates with friends and they even had some new experiences in the week.

The Giving Treehouse Student Care Centre wrote to invite the twins to their holiday programme. I'm sticking to my guns about not having the kids swamped by holiday classes but this one was different. This one had a heart and it was something I could totally get behind.

The twins, together with their friend Kate, did only 3 out of the 5 day programme but it was enough for them to have a lot of fun and to come home a little bit more thoughtful. Each day was markedly different from the next.

I was very taken by the colours and vibrance of the place. There was a lot of green, inspired by Shel Silvertein's The Giving Tree (already a win in my book!) and an entire wall that was a chalk board for the kids to scrawl on. Obviously, that was what the twins descended on first.

What I liked about the programme was that it was obviously non-academic and these were things that I would have done with JED if I had the time, space and didn't have to worry about anything else. And in my book, that's what holidays are meant for. 

So the highlights for us were 

1. The Trampoline Park (Jordan and Evan)

An entire hour of non-stop bouncing and challenging each other to see who could jump the highest, twirl the most number of times or somersault into a pool of foam had the kids drenched in sweat. Evan's frustration was that he couldn't get up to the top of the mattress no matter how high he jumped. But his efforts did make him look like a basketballer ready to dunk a shot. 

2. Making stuff (Evan)
Some time ago, we made lava lamps at home out of recycled bottles, cooking oil, colouring and Alka Seltzer. We've since thrown those away and he's been bugging us to do it again. I've been hedging because it's a lot of oil to use. So, the fact that The Giving Treehouse's programme included the making of lava lamps, sold the progamme to him in a heart beat. He didn't even ask about what else we were going to do. Lava lamping was good enough for him.

Their weird humour surfaced with the Alka Seltzer bubbling in the oil and colour mixtures. Small eruptions were 小龙包 and large eruptions were obviously, 大龙包. I didn't get it but they seemed to think it was hilarious.

Making the lava lamps

Making kites. 

3. Helping Others. (My favourite)

Evan wanted to do the camp because of the lava lamps, Jordan wanted to do the camp because of the day at the Trampoline Park and I wanted them to do the camp because their last day there had them going to Willing Hearts to help prepare meals for delivery. After Evan's whole 'poor people are Muslim' thing, I really needed for them to see more of this part of Singapore that features so little in their psyche and helping at Willing Hearts was a good start to it. They had to slice food for cooking and then label the boxes. It wasn't very hard work but it was hot, tedious and repetitive. They stuck to it though and Jordan announced that she had helped prepare meals for people who needed food. 

So by Friday, the twins felt very accomplished. In Evan's words, they had had an exercise day, a 'make things' day and a helping day. I couldn't have summed it up better.

My only reservation about going to The Giving Treehouse was that it was in the East and we lived on the other side of the island. But it turned out to be well worth the commute.

The Giving Treehouse is essentially an after school care centre and if I were a working mom and my kids were in school in the East, this would really be the place I would send them to. The coaches were great; they hung out with the kids, talked to them at their level and played with them. The centre was filled with books and games and everything was welcoming. I had a look at their regular after school schedule and there was conscious effort to always include time to do things that were beyond just the books. All good things.

Having grown up in the East, I've always believed that the best things are in the East and this pretty much reinforces it for me.

Now, if only I could convince Packrat that moving to the East was viable.

The Giving Tree House is at Laguna Park. (https://www.facebook.com/thegivingtreehouse)
5000F Marine Parade Road, 
#01-24 Laguna Park
Singapore 449289

T: 6448 5700
M: 9150 5756
It is a Before/ After School Student Centre and there is the option of doing ad-hoc drop-offs too.

The twins were offered a week at The Giving Tree House's holiday programme. There are four more weeks of it and I'd do it too if we didn't live so far away. Anyway, that's pretty much testament of our opinions of the programme.

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Holiday things to do- heART for art (A Giveaway)

The holidays have arrived and I have been asked, with deep seated panic, by other parents 'WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE KIDS DURING THE HOLIDAYS?'  and then followed by the question, what sort of holiday classes the twins will attend. For most part, I try not to send them for classes, for a variety of reasons.
a. They are generally expensive when I have to multiply them by two or three.
b. Holidays are meant to be just that, holidays- away from structured classes and time.
c. This article together with others about free play vs summer camps echo quite loudly in my head.

I have, occasionally, signed up for classes for JED. It happens when the children are genuinely interested, ask to attend them and we can find space in our budget for them. The other situation is usually when we have to travel and JED are parked with the grand-maters. In that situation, the grand-maters and carers often need some time away from what can be very demanding children so we build in time-outs and breathers for them (the carers not JED) by sending them off for a few hours every day.

When I have to pick holiday programmes for them, my general rule of thumb is that they have to be non-academic, fun and either invokes creativity or are creative and they have to have to pass muster by said child.

Jordan's request for holiday programmes usually run along the lines of arty or dancey classes and over the years, we've figured out how to pick the good ones for her. We've also figured out a way of weeding out the duds.

Arty classes cannot
a. Be large- Art work, especially on canvas requires some supervision. If a class is too big, the pieces come back looking like they fell off a production line or in a total mess. 

b. Have right and wrong- I once had an art teacher who complained about how the twins had done things wrong. All they had done was to add their own personal flourishes into the art piece. That got them labelled as 'disobedient'.

c. Be uniformed- Usually there is a theme for art classes but when a child decides to use his fingers to do dots rather than a paintbrush, it should not result in a scolding. Art at this point is about allowing a child to explore the various mediums of the form.

d. Expect you to pay for the ridiculous- We're done with dance camps where we have to end up paying for tickets and costumes for End of Camp show pieces. 


The classes that worked were always the ones that
a. Had teachers or facilitators that made the children feel comfortable and spoke to the children at their level. They were also the ones that how to relate to children.

b.Had structure. It wasn't that creative and fun meant free for all. Little ones thrive on structure because they have an idea of what to expect and where they were headed to next.

c. Had activities pitched at the child's levels. That showed that they weren't just out to fleece the parents but had some sort of understanding as to what a 3 or 4 or 5 year old was capable of and how long the attention span was for that demographic.


So, Jordan and my choice of an art studio is heART studio. It's small but the ambience is cheery and the teachers engage. In my book, any place that can convince 'does not like new experiences' Evan to do try something different (we sent both of them at the same time) is a win in my book. No tears, excitement at being able to muck about with chalk and get dirty meant Mommy was quickly forgotten.

Jordan loved playing the the chalk on canvas and loved how she was shown to get her pinks just right.

All this and the interesting one- day camps they had made it on top of my list for art holiday programmes.

Even 3 year old Muffin who at that point hadn't gone for anything of this sort allowed Packrat to leave him for 3 hours where he splattered and painted on a canvas and surprised us with a space ship, Mars (in his words) and Earth. My favourite part of his painting was actually the stars.

Jordan and Evan haven't been back to heART in a while though they had a lot of fun there and remember it fondly.  Muffin has since gone back again for another of their vacation programmes where he got to paint Obi-wan Kenobi. He would have gone back for every repeat session if I had let him because he wanted to do a collection of Star Wars paintings.  

So, because it's the holidays coming up and to celebrate the beginning of it, Diaperbag is giving away two holiday camp classes from the many available;

•  A Canvas Painting session of Mr or Miss Fox from Mr Fox's Adventures-  for 3 to 4 year olds 
• A Canvas and Clay session of  Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer one for 7 year olds and above. 

Both classes are on 12 December at 1.30 pm to 4 pm.

Here's how to win one.  
1. What's the one favourite thing that you or your kid likes to draw? (I love drawing snails. I don't know why. All my notes from JC and uni days are filled with snails) Do this by 24 November 2014. 
2. Leave us your name and email address so that we can contact you. 
3. Check out heART Studio's FB page and like it so that you get updates on their courses. 

Some thing to note:

• The child has to be within the age range for the specific workshop. 
• No repeat winners are allowed. 
• Winners will be notified by email, through the email address provided. (So don't forget to leave one!) 
• Winners must confirm by reply email or phone call, within three days. Otherwise, we'll take it as you aren't interested and give it to someone else
• The workshops have been specifically picked by heART Studio so they can't be swoped for another  day or another workshop. 
• No existing students allowed, we want to let the uninitiated have an opportunity. 
• This giveaway is open to Singapore residents only.

Schedule for Dec 8 to 12

Schedule for Dec 15 to 19 

heART Studio very kindly gave JED an art session for each of them in exchange for this post. But the two cents worth of opinions here are ours. 

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Learning and Comfort Zones

The twins love stories.

Jordan loves writing and reading them. Evan loves reading them, listening to them and creating them in his head. He may not have the patience Jordan has to write it all out but his imagination is wilder than hers at times. We know this because the monsters that hide under their bed at bed time are huge and scary to him. Even Muffin, whom we've had to teach to 'pluck' bad dreams out of his head and throw out the window.

A few months back, I received an invitation for the twins (and Muffin) to take part in a writing workshop. That one was called EnchantINK and had to do with princesses and princes. It would have been totally up Jordan's alley except for the fact that we were away at that poin. We got invited again, for this June break and the workshop was aptly called Monster HuntINK which I loved. The group running it was called Monsters Under The Bed and the name stuck with JED.

So we went, reservations and all.

1. The twins would be too young. After all, they have had only about 6 months of primary school under their belt.

2. It was 3 hours long per session and it was going to be 3 hours of writing based activity. Would they lose interest and start to fidget?

3. Evan hates writing of any length. How would he survive this?

We were banking on the content and the interest in the topic to get them through it.

Both Packrat and I sat in for it. And the problem with us sitting in was that we couldn't take off our teacher hats and began looking at the sessions from a pedagogical point of view. And as with teachers observing other classes, we came up with things that we felt could have done better.

1. The younger children flailed a little bit. Most, like the twins, had not been taught the elements of composition. They had an idea of how they wanted to create their monster and their story but they needed help connecting the dots. Scaffolding. 

2. The lead trainers were great but they got college students to facilitate the groups and 18 year olds don't really understand the pedagogical needs of 6-7 year olds. After all, they are students themselves. 

3. The younger ones and the ones with less writing exposure just couldn't keep up. Packrat found himself, informally facilitating a discussion between two 9 year olds because they had no idea how and where to start.

And when we talked about it, we decided that it would have been better if 

1. The older and more able kids be grouped separately from the younger bunch. That meant the smaller ones could do the same theme but simplified and perhaps a more active variation of 'monster-making'. 

2. There were more physical and role-playing activities; less writing even if this were a writing workshop. This is just so that the kids get to expend some energy, be moving around. Some kids think better kinesthetically and not everyone communicates their imaginations through pencil and paper. 

3. Make sure the student facilitators were up to the needs of the kids or have them with the older kids and the main trainers helping the littler ones. 

But that's us being pedantic teacher types. 

And that's where the kids surprised us. Despite what we saw as taxing for them, all of JED including Muffin, loved it and couldn't wait to get back. They loved

1. All the monsters that were introduced. So they sat through a 30 minute presentation of the different monsters in literature. Evan was enthralled. It was his kind of thing. 

2. Talking to the older trainers about their favourite monsters and bringing books they had with monsters in it to show the trainers. 

                                

3. Creating the monster, coming up with its weaknesses and a plan to defeat the monster. Of course, when Jordan does it in bright metallic pink, it does take some of the 'fear factor' out of the monster. 

4. Dressing up in somewhat Halloween get up.

5. Having a full run of Old Parliament House.

 

Chocolates, just in case. Just in case she, the Monster Hunter, got hungry.

We have Jordan's work because Evan's became crumpled and unreadable plus he claimed his monster was invisible so whatever he wrote couldn't show up in the photograph. He did write in pencil and it was very faint. But his monster was an invisible one and how you tracked it down was to bring a pail of paint with you. He could have written the script for a Scooby Doo episode!

Jordan's plan to trap the monster. We especially liked the 'hide somewhere safe' part.

At the end of all that, both stood at the front of the cafe where we were based and read their end product out loud for everyone to hear. They were proud of their work and we were proud of them. So despite our reservations that it was a class too old for them, they survived it pretty well with whatever 'weapons' they had and came out from it, a little wiser and a little bolder.

That in itself was pretty metaphorical. Small kids with only wits, facing off huge beasts of sorts  MacGyver-ing their way through it and ultimately emerging successful in their own right.

But the best things about the workshop was
1. How it implicitly taught the kids how to break down something potentially scary and intimidating into smaller bits (the monster, its characteristics and eventually how to defeat it) thereby making the problem more manageable. That way, it didn't seem so big and frightening anymore.  So, the meta-idea of the workshop was great and something of more value that the writing that they did.

2. The lead trainer, Eugene and Evan became great pals. They talked, for hours about monsters leading to Eugene giving Evan a book about monsters. Packrat realised only then, that he had the same book. Game geeks (more specifcially, role-playing geeks) and all. It made Evan feel so important and he spent the whole day reading up on the monsters he liked (the hydra and the choker and goodness knows what else). 



So,  how did they over come the bits that were beyond them? They asked what they could then simply and blissfully ignored what they couldn't, going on to the bits that they could do. That's a pretty good skill to have picked up too.

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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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-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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Choosing my battles

I took a nap this afternoon. Fighting a sinus infection meant I was woozy and in no condition to play with JED.When I woke up and was conscious enough to go out and look for them, I discovered that tired little Muffin had fallen asleep. I felt bad because I hadn't caught up with him the entire day and I wasn't going to be able to do so till tomorrow morning.

It drove home the point that for me, as a mom, sleep was important. It was one reason why I stopped teaching at school. I couldn't teach and parent on 4 hours of sleep a night. I don't get very much more sleep now but I don't have to be coherent on my feet for long stretches of the day and that goes a long way in helping me. It might sound selfish but I am much less cranky, much more willing to do fun things with JED and much more tolerant of their rubbish and shenanigans.

Tangentially, there have been many in the family who have suggested that I night train Muffin. That way, I wouldn't need to waste money on diapers and that money could go towards something else. While austerity is a big deal to me, this was one thing I was reluctant to do. Night training Muffin meant that I would have to get up to bring him to the bathroom. I remember when we were intensively night training the twins, Packrat and I would take turns to get up and haul them to the bathroom. By morning, both of us looked as if we were battling a newborn again. And truthfully and others may disagree and judge me for saying this but all that night training wasn't really worth it. Till now, the twins still go through the night with more than occasional accidents and that actually means we have a lot more laundry to do in the mornings. The amount of Febreeze we use on their bed and the number of times their sheets get washed, I am certain, comes up to the same amount as their diapers cost.

And the truth of the matter is that the diapers that Muffin is using aren't exactly the most expensive on the market. He uses Drypers and it is a somewhat recent discovery. When the twins were little, Packrat refused to go anywhere near Drypers. Then, they had plastic tape, that when we removed sounded like poor quality scotch tape; that also meant that they didn't re-stick well . So we stayed well away till I saw a sample of their new ones with the flex tape that works like velcro. On top of that, the prints were adorable. Acorns (Muffin started off on the L size) and elephants (The L size he is on now), what's not to like?

Now it was easier to convince Packrat to switch to Drypers since they were reasonably priced and  often sold on offer as a two pack. That two pack, because we only use one a night, lasts a long time. And the ditzy me also loves the fact that there are elephants on his bum. Hang on, I've said that already.

                                    

Because he is much older and he only uses the one diaper a night, I don't worry so much about diaper rash. But I have realised that when Muffin strips off his own diaper in the morning (he doesn't like the feel of it on) and I sleepily grope his bum (Ok, I'm his mom and I'm allowed to!) to check if his diaper is full, I've been met more than once with an exceptionally dry bum. 

So why would I want to go through the trouble of night training him right now? I will freely admit that when the nice people at Drypers sent me a couple of packets to test drive on him, I was most thrilled that I had more reason to hold off the night training that I'm constantly nagged about. 

I think he will go through the night dry when he is ready for it and I'm not going to push it to just save money. The only reason I would love for him to go diaper-less is more about the carbon footprint than the cost to my pocket. And if he isn't ready, all that washing and laundering will similarly contribute to the already large carbon footprint.  I am also quite sure that my coping mechanisms to deal with the sleep deprivation will similarly balloon the carbon footprint. Once again, first world problems. I would love to buy diaper credits if such a thing still existed (It did a while ago but I can't find seem to find the site anymore). 

So apart from that, I make little apology for choosing sleep, sanity and diapers over deprivation, insanity and wet beds. That way, I wake up in the mornings a little cheerier and much more willing to plan adventures with them. 

Disclaimer:  Muffin's diapers were a gift from Drypers and neither he nor I got any monetary compensation for it. Apparently, if you go to the Drypers Singapore Facebook Page and ask nicely, they might give you a couple of samples too.


Technorati Tags: JED, night training, Drypers

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