Our Recycling Corner

I've been feeling off my game lately, and it's not just because I'm sick as I write this.  I've been in a state of  busy work glorification in the office and at home, and it's boring the heck out of me.

I miss getting creative.  Not that I'm artistic.  I just need to create something - a strategy at work or a play idea with my daughter.  

Or a recycling corner in my home.  I'm not kidding.  It's these little things that make me feel productive.  

 

This is an odd little wall in the kitchen next to a screen door that leads to the utility area.  It needed to be a useful spot to put our trash cans, water dispenser and kitchen stools:

Montessori gave me the idea to turn it into another area of the home that encourages order and self-sufficiency:  Everything is easily accessible here for a little one:

The paper recycling bin.  A lot of Ladybug Girl's used artwork ends up here:

The glass and plastic bin:

When the garbage trucks come, these are emptied.  The paper bin gets full easily and so the contents are transferred to an area outside - we also have 3 large segregated trash bins in the garage ready for pick-up.  Sometimes mamang bote-dyayro comes and yaya uses this to fund her phone load.  Win-win.

Some months ago we had a recycling drive at work to fund newborn health kits for Unicef.  This gave me a kick in the pants to get started recycling at home.  All too often going green is all gloom-and-doom, but here was a sweet reminder I loved watching:

The Smallest Room

If you're a Montessori-convert like I am, you'd be interested to know that they don't teach about the earth being in danger at preschool.  The first important step is to encourage love for nature, not fear.  There's a lot of outside work and play and learning the names of things first.

We've done the same at our home and I've steered clear of the heavy readings on dwindling habitats, pollution, etc.  But there are still a lot of books that do positive teaching to go green.  Her favourites:

But nothing really beats modelling behaviour at home.  A late start, but an important one.  Nothing like an easy creative solution to energize you for more.  Know what I mean?

Time to get back in the game.

Toys From Leftover Construction Scraps

In the last days of our small renovation project, we had a lot of construction stuff hanging around.  So I asked Rex the super handyman to whip this up:

A balance beam!  I'm looking forward to DIYing a cute pattern on it.

How I Accidentally Raised A Reader

There are a few perks in being a full-time corporate mom, and accidentally raising a reader is one of them.

There's a lot of anxiety about reading skills when you're a parent.  When I was in college, I had a part-time job teaching a reading proficiency course for grade 4-7 elementary students (Prosec).  Every first day I would ask "how many of you were forced by your parents to be here?"

Almost everyone was.

Sadly by the time they hit that age, reading is forced drudgery in school.  Sure, you can learn to be good at it -  but if you don't love it, you will lose the skill eventually.

So this post should really be titled: How I Got My Child to Love Reading.  And this is why being a working mom helped.

Reading was bonding.  When you regularly come home long after the sun is down, sometimes all you have is a book.

"Ta!"
  

It became our sacred bonding activity which I threw my energies at, taking my time and doing the voices and all.  I had no choice: at this age reading was an entirely dependent activity.  And a little of that working mom guilt added fuel to the fire.

I started reading to her when she was six months.  Not gonna lie: sometimes it was a huge effort to read the inane baby books over and over.  Please tell me you understand.

Bears hug, rabbits tickle, fish kisszzzzzzzzzzz….

At two years old, the stories were more fun for me

Time was too short to learn through phonics (sounding out letters to form words).  Because I had enraptured my daughter during our special reading time, when she was two I casually started to point to the words while I read them.

I had come across mymommyology's inspiring experience with Your Baby Can Read, which was gifted to us by Ladybug Girl's ninang.   Unfortunately it needed more devoted attention than a working mom could give.  The last thing I wanted to do was to whip out flashcards at 8 pm.

But following the same principles of building familiarity of words, I kept pointing.  Pretty soon at three years old, she was sight-reading and starting to read on her own.  Her toddler school teacher said she would even read the agenda on the board.  I was amazed!

 

Kids have different strengths, but I really believe love of stories and learning can come naturally.  And that's what reading is all about when it's done together.

I knew we hit a milestone when one night, at three, she shushed my attempt to read a story aloud with "ssssshh, mommy, be quiet.  I'm trying to read".  It has come to that - the ingrate!  Haha.  Nowadays we quietly read at bedtime side-by-side, and then I still read her a last book.  In my teaching stint, I read somewhere that parents should read aloud to kids until age 10!

But reading has been a lifesaver.  I can leave her notes if she wakes up and I already left for work.  I set up an email account on the iPad which both her daddy and I use to send her messages during the day (while she replies with "ok" or "ffgggggggbbbbbggggg").

Reading helped my nervous Dove prepare mentally for new experiences.  Like her first plane trip at two years old:

Yes, we would plop down inside the airport and read the "Airport" book.

Or the first time she met Cinderella in Disneyland:

She's never watched any movie because she's afraid of the villains and ominous music.   Books help!

And because of reading, I get some glorious quiet time of my own now.  When things go quiet in our house, she can be found plopped down reading in a random spot.

Ladybug Girl is going through a "sensitive period" in reading now.   At five, she has started to graduate from picture books into chapter books.

Santa's gifts this year were books: complete set of Nate the Great.  These are the best beginner chapter books ever!

Ivy+Bean.  I tried them after seeing Daphne Osena's blog post, but I didn't like them as much.
It tries to be cheeky and funny, but the defiance and naughty escapades are tricks that turn me off

She likes reference books, too.  I bought a couple of books on Cooking, Art, History, Animals, Human Body - you get the picture.  I thought she would use them for her grade school years but perhaps if it's around then it's something to be curious about.

Cooking for Kids 

The Human Body (Usborne First Encyclopedia)

There are downsides to reading early, though.  Some books should have parental guidance written on them!

• She has started to say "you, dork!".  (Ivy+Bean)
• Had a nightmare after reading about Viking raids (Usborne Time Traveller: Vikings)
• During prayer for a new baby sister, she asks "does daddy have sperm?" (The Human Body)
• Running out of space and spending a small fortune on books because there are no public libraries

Our humble library beginnings

And this keeps growing!  Aack!

I guess getting to buy all those books is a working mom perk too.  We don't get much of them, so I need the self-gratification- hahaha.

If only handwriting and beginning math were as natural!

Fun Baths: The Preschool Roundup

We've entered a new stage in our fun baths in the last year or so.  While our toddler baths round-up usually had me jumping in so I could bathe her and bond with her, now she's learning to take baths on her own.  Two completely honest words about this : THANK GOD.

Surprisingly, it's possible to have thirty minutes while the kids have more fun without you - thanks to simple ideas and a preschooler's growing imagination.  

Make It Fun: Eating Out With Kids

Having a preschooler brings back childhood memories when I was bored to death during meals.  Eating was such drudgery.  Sure, parents could force you to participate in conversation but that was never long and grown-ups go back to talking to each other over the kids' heads.  As a mom, I know I do.

I see now it's worse for an only-child like Ladybug Girl.  When we're with a big group, the kids entertain each other and I finally enjoy some adult conversation.  But out with just us, she sighs and drags her feet when it's time to eat.

I grew up with no table manners because I would read for entertainment at the dinner table.  A generation later, my daughter does the same with her iPad:

Sometimes I load it with a few new videos but it's a last resort for some contented dining

 Oh, she still has a lot of fun with it at our expense.

But when it's time for other conversations apart from "can-you-tell-me-that-story-again-six-more-times", I've always had a handy art bag with me.   I try to change it up and make it smaller, which is a good thing in its evolution.  It's been so useful, I thought I'd share more ideas.

Here's what our art bag has looked like for about six months now.

Pens, Washi Tape, Paper, Price Stickers, Small Notebook, Dice

Artzooka sticker sheets are a no-brainer suggestion when you want a final, final extension on chika.

Turning her water jug into a pirate

My phone into a bug

The cafe's fortune plant into a robot

The plane's spoon into another bug

And a simple square drawing into a great house.

The Muji pens are still getting the job done without rolling under tables, thanks to their hexagon shape.

We leave thank-you notes for our servers

Sometimes I pop in a book or mini-puzzle in my bag at the last-minute.

The puzzle gifts come in handy for these moments!

Helpful also for patiently waiting before mass starts.
(Did you notice that Baby Alive goes where we go now?)

This enormous book choice was super last-minute.  Crazy mom. 

I can't run out of these cheap price stickers.  With a little imagination they're magic.

She's copying the book cover using stickers.
Washi tape is even handier.  I keep one in my bag always.

Making our own game board with the back of the restaurant's placemat

We play before and after eating

Now she "makes" one all by herself

With pen caps as our tokens

Our latest addition is a complete set of number sticks which we've started to use to play more games. 

Making the stairs practice

Beating Daddy at "trick questions" that I use to practice memorising the number pairs that make the sum of 10.
"What is this plus this?"  or "If one part of ten is this, what's the other part?"
He doesn't know the rods, so she beats him easily every time

The score card:

Ladybug Girl: 6, Daddy: 0

It may seem pretty fussy, why we need all this just to eat!  But it's not just about boredom or beating the iPad zombie effect - we've always had issues with feeding because our petite little girl has not hit the 15th percentile since being born.  It's true that all those Moriamin vitamins I took only made me fat, when she turned out to be naturally small.  All our stressed-out force feeding hasn't helped her love eating either.

So as in most things I'm discovering in parenting, getting playful is just the solution.  Care to share your own tips and tricks?