I am so glad it's the weekend! I am honestly going completely nuts trying to cope with work/home/kid/self…so glad, so happy but am going to be so terrified when Sunday comes..sigh sigh sigh.
ilovemaxmax > Haha..we parents ah…we "complain" either way! But i suppose, active, reserved, happy or even grumpy - they are all observing everything around them and learning as much as they can.
PY > yah, kiasuparents..I go there to really roll over and laugh at chiefkiasu's language! but no, never participate in the forums there cos I am unkiasu *straightface*..btw, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you! Still can celebrate, cos u are still young.
tien > hmm..so u wanna Q for Nanyang Kindy? i don't think the Tien i know would do that..heh…Won't mention names here, but I went to check out a church preschool and they told me, "we are so popular..our registrations open in (month) and if you want, you can try to Q. First come first served hor!"…needless to say, i struck them out of my (short)list when I heard the word Q. i don't believe in queuing for food so i won't believe in queuing for a preschool. it's either there's a space there for us (destiny) or there isn't. Oh and there's one thing. If the place u put your kid in has childcare, that means they come under MCYS - you can use your BB Bonus to pay for the fees and claim a subsidy of $300 for a working mum - take it like a 50% discount on the fees with a subsidy (sup sup sui!). If it's purely a kindergarten facility, i.e. no childcare, it's under the purview of MOE. In which case, you don't get to use your BB Bonus. Recently also, in Nov 2010, MOE has started to implement an accreditation framework. Possibly have to wait up to a year to see if this is any way one can gauge the quality of teaching/centre.
http://moe.gov.sg/education/preschool/spark/. BTW, there is a helpful link to "kindergarten profiles" under the same page, RH ("For Parents")..take note that this does not "cover" the MCYS childcare/pre-nursery places..but if you wanna take a long shot all the way to K1..good idea to work backwards.
funzee > carefree and singapore is an anomaly. sad but the truth. however, and i say this by really straining myself...we could always work towards drawing them out of the shell (like my little snail here), making sure we nurture their individual talents and being there for them. think the last bit is the part that requires the largest amt of sacrifice. SF said it well that the more we try to pretend that we don't live in a stressful bubble..the less helpful we would be when one day, we wake up to the sordid reality of pressure. instead, learn to dwell and triumph in our given environment. so slow cooker it is and hopefully the taste of it all would be better. this is the nihilistic me speaking.
76 > when we hired the helper, MOM was so good at this..they asked us to complete this employer orientation thing. i forgot what it is called. and that was when i became crystal clear why we needed a maid. it was not to be second mum - but help to the mum. therefore, although my present maid loves Dre a lot and has asked to do things for her e.g. change her diaper or bathe her for us, we have resisted all that. she only handles the cooking and cleaning - and that's very essential to keeping my sanity in check since i do work quite a fair bit now and i cannot karang kabut with the washing of my delicate work wear/ironing etc. but no matter how tired i am, i would still do the diaper changes, the meal planning for Dre and so on so forth..btw, i was looking at your nickname - don't be dejected always k! u are one of the most positive mums i see around here!
gal > the web is a good tool..after i make all these "home-made" toys…and she has played with them till she is bored stiff - i feel sayang to throw these away. hahaha, idea idea..anyone here wanna exchange home-made toys? i've quite a lot of hand-made puppets that go along with the story books / sorting, alphabet, number stuff..forget melissa & doug!…(but i warn u the quality is worse than Made in China)…bwahahahaha…as for the tearing bit, live with it..just a phase as with a lot of other things.
famela > once the two As are much bigger (like Sarah's Elgin)..they can all help you mark MCQs…
sotong_mum > i don't wanna go dotty over the potty. anyway, i've been so baby-led on so many things..i will just wait for the day she says the word/sentence/gibberish whatever and hopefully, that would be painless as your experience with 1R!