I Work At Home

Everyday passes really slowly especially when my wife and son are away in Brisbane. I am alone in the house after work. I managed to go through some of the photos that my wife took in the laptop.

I recalled my son telling me that he works at home when I told him I was about to go to work in the morning.

Exactly what work does he do??

1. He cleans the dead leaves and twigs that falls into our fish pond at the back of the house. This is normally our driver's job but my son likes to help adults do chores. Maybe I can get him to wash the plates next time!...LOL! Washing plates is my most hated chore as both my brother and I were forced to wash up after dinner every night (we had to rotate everyday)!

2. He pretends that he is an excavator digging the soil that we put into this cut-into-half oil drum from my work place. We had to plaster the sharp edges of the drum so that he does not get cut.

My son normally would find worms and caterpillars and cut them up! We tried to let him cut the caterpillars only because they eat up my wife's plants whereas the earth worms help loosen the soil for the plants to grow better.

3. He is also the construction team coordinator. He instructs his shovel to scoop soil into the dump truck. The soil we have on the ground is mostly clay, so it is hard to dig and gets messy when it is wet.

We thought of building him a sand pit. However the thought of cats doing their business in the pit put off our idea. My friend also just reminded me that it would be very difficult to find clean sand in Palembang.

Wishing that I could reunite with my family in Brisbane soon, all that I could do now is to continue to browse through the many photos that my wife took throughout the 3 years we were in Palembang. I never really had time to go through all of them when they are around. Yes, 3 year olds do work at home!

Photos of the week - poses and facial expressions

Before I leave for Brisbane this weekend, thought of sharing some of my toddler's poses and facial expression photos....

Greedy for some cold and creamy indulgence!

This is how he will look like sporting a Santa Beard.

Doing some yoga in his sleep...

Drooling on his sleeves


Sleeping beauty??

"Beauty mate?"... as what the Aussies would say in their broad Ozzie accent...;)

Toddler Hair

Since my son was born, my wife has always opposed to cut his hair. She said she likes his hair long. I always tell her that if we were staying in a colder country it would be ok but Palembang is very very near the equator!

Anyway, for the past few weeks the weather has been a bit hot and yet my son's hair has reached his eye brows already. Hence, my wife decided to tie my son's hair up like this!

My little toddler does not seem to mind what his mom is doing to him (maybe when he grows up he will!). Therefore, every evening I will see him sporting this SAMURAI hairstyle.

He said to me, "I like to look like a whale shooting water from the top of my head!"

Train Drawings

My toddler son has had this "train infetuation" since he was 2. He has never been bored with his Thomas and Friends toys and loves reading about T&F stories. He also watches T&F DVDs for an hour everyday. The following are some of his "master pieces" from this 3 year old:

He uses like 10 pieces of A4 paper everyday to practice on his drawings. Fortunately I get to bring back lots of recycle paper from work. It is still too early to call him an ARTIST but at least he is developing his artistic skills (must be a trait from his old man, ha ha!).

PhotoBlog - Toddler Birthday Party

Birthday boy with his presents:

Construction Vehicles

(Can't really tell if this is a fake smile or not?)

Birthday Party with games... so hard to round up everybody!

The Menu:

1. Black forest cake
2. KFC
3. Pempeks (fish/flour local delicacy)
4. Home made Spaghetti
   

The decorations: many thanks to our driver for helping out

Getting On My Nerves

Me & my wife both came from "traditional" families where our parents used to spank or cane us when we were kids. It was believed to be the most effective disciplinary method according to old timers. However, after years of research and analyses, physcologists discovered that corporal punishment might lead to the development of "rebellious traits" when kids become teenagers. Spanking is believed to make children think that problems could be solves through violence.

We do not normally spank our toddler son but sometimes he just gets on our nerves. We read that warning them verbally "1-2-3" before spanking them like how our parents used to do to us in the past does not really help. Therefore, we had to resolve to a softer approach, which is coaxing. Sometimes he will listen. However, when he wears his "rebel hat", his cheekiness + refusal to follow orders + whining could drive us in sane!

I could still recall bending and hiding all my parent's canes when I was young so that I could get rid of the "pain punishments". We used to "run away" from the canes but they kept landed on our backsides no matter where we hid. My wife told me that she also did the same too and his brother even threatened her mom that he will report her to the authorities!

My parents never let us learn martial arts when we were young. They said we might mis-hit our kids but I think people who learn martial arts will be able to control their actions more?

We do not want to use the cane as a disciplinary tool, so we don't have any at home. We tend to give in to him often and not spank him (but not pamper him). We used to use our hands to spank him but thought it might land too hard on him. In the end we resorted to using a wooden spoon (used for stirring in a pot) in place of a cane. We want our son to treat us with respect and not fear. Whenever he acts mischeviously, I will warn him that it is not good to do so. If he still does not listen then I will try to use persuasion (sometimes a little bit of bribery & threats) & taking away his priviliges (keep his toys on top of the fridge or pretend to give them away).

If all necessary measures have been taken but he still refused to obey, I had to smack his backside with the wooden spoon (not too hard though). I know that it is not painful but he will always break into tears. Sometimes we hit him with the wooden spoon on his palm.

I hope he does not use this post againts us in the future as proof of receiving corporal punishment from his parents!

Sharing

Sharing things is something rather difficult to teach kids. We have told our toddler son many times before we visit friends houses how to behave and he was rather receptive except for the SHARING part.

It is normal that he is possessive with his own toys but sometimes even when visiting other friends' houses, he tries to OWN toys that belong to others.

However, it was strange to find that he was willing to SHARE this toy car with his friend and play in harmony. Look at this loving photo. Hope he has learnt the art of sharing and REMEMBERS to share in his upcoming visits!

Cycling In Palembang

For the past few weeks my toddler always asked to go cycling in his tri-cycle outdoors. He used to cycle only in-doors in our limited living room area but since the day we brought him out to the field with his bike, he never wanted to cycle indoors any more.

This made it a bit difficult for us because in Palembang there are no bike paths. He had to cycle on the bumpy concrete block paved roads to this open area here in the photo to cycle properly.

He insisted to cycle on the road but under supervision. We had to carry his bike home sometimes when he gets tired and his bike also "overturned" one time when he rode too near to the side of the road (sandy part).

The design of his tri-cycle is also a bit weird. I think the position of the pedals obstructs the movement of his feet. Maybe it is the angle of the frame? I hate pushing him uphill on the road (too much of a backache for me because of my height - having to bend down like a prawn)!

Wished we had more gardens and bike tracks here in Palembang for little kids to ride their bikes.

Toddlers & Accidents

Perhaps when you first read the title of this post, you might be thinking of a post about accidents that could happen to toddlers?... well, it is not.



Since my kid started to watch "Thomas & Friends" the train series, he has learnt a lot about accidents because the stories often have lots of eventful things happening, including accidents. They even have a song called, "Accidents Can Happen"!

At first, he loved accidents because he thought it was part of life to have accidents (well, he was right in a certain sense anyway). After some explanations, he gradually understood that people do get hurt during accidents and everyone should try to prevent accidents from happening.



However, as a kid full of imagination he still likes to "create his own accident scenes" and gets his "friends" to come and save the victim. This photo shows you his story about a train that fell off a collapsed bridge.

So when I asked him, "Did anyone get hurt?" he just answered "no" and continued playing while singing his Accident song," Accidents happen, sometimes just like that". His made-belief accident scene will always come with stories containing the following words:

1. Crashed
2. Smashed
3. Tumbled
4. Collapsed
5. Bent
6. Surprised
7. Saved
8. Oh, No!
9. Help!
10. Cinders & Ashes! (I don't think I even know how to say that word when I was in primary school)
    

The Wonders of Thomas & Friends

Thomas & Friends (also called Thomas & the Tank Engines) is an animated children series about trains and engines that worked on the Island of Sodor.

We found the show to be very educational for our 2 year old toddler. He likes to watch the show on DVDs and also Youtube downloads on a daily basis. It keeps him occupied while my wife tries to have some blogging / internet time. We try not to use it as a "babysitter", so sometimes I also watch the show together with him. Our son has learnt a lot of words and phrases from the show. He also tend to speak like the trains, engines and people there, which made life very entertaining. He learnt his numbers from the trains and equipment's numbers too!

For those who does not know who Thomas is?..... Thomas is a cheeky, fussy little engine who wears #1 on his side. Joining him in his adventures on the Island of Sodor are his engine friends:

1. The cheerful green train Percy,


2. The moody red train James,


3. The proud but boastful blue colored train Gordon,


4. The coaches Annie and Clarabel,


5. Bertie the Bus,


6. Terence the Tractor,


7. Harold the Helicopter,


8. Jack the Front Loader (Shovel),


9. Cranky the Crane,


10. and last but not least, Sir Topham Hatt, the Superintendent of the railroad, is the kindly boss who keeps everyone in order.

There are also many other construction machines and trains that I won't list out one by one. We bought our toddler some of the die cast metal trains. Would you imagine what a fortune we would have spent if we bought them all??!!

Here's a bit about Thomas & Friends' history: The Tank Engine and his friends are based on the Railway Series of books written by an Englishman, Reverend W. Awdry. The stories were created in 1942 to entertain the Reverend's son, Christopher, who was confined to bed with the measles. That Christmas, a simple wooden train named Thomas was made for Christopher. This led to the creation of even more stories about Thomas Train and his railway friends. Reverend Awdry published 26 books before retiring in 1973. In the early 1980s, Christopher continued in his father's footsteps. He began creating Railway stories for his own young son and published his first story in 1983. In all, 40 Railway Series books were published.