First Covid19 self-test

Noelle’s first Covid test

We woke up with message that her school’s headmistress got Covid. 😓😓😥😥 Although the headmistress has been ‘alone’ most of the time in her room and her staff tested negative (as for now), to keep our mind at peace, we told Noelle to take THE test too. (She told me almost each day the students will walk pass by the headmistress when entering class.🙄🙄) Also, self-testing would be a norm in the future – so Noelle is the ‘lab rat’ for our family. 😂

And phew….it’s negative!

Photo: https://youtube.com/shorts/IKjWJsSvPCo?feature=share

>> Everyone has their different approaches in their ‘opening’ to the lockdown. In our family, we still remain as a cluster of 5. We do go out – mostly to outdoors. We haven’t dine in and we don’t do social gathering even a small one. This is important to us as our kids are not protected with vaccine.

Cave Villa @ Batu Caves

Besides climbing the steep flight of 272 steps, we visited Cave Villa (which is right beside Bath Caves) accidentally. It charges local RM5 per adult entry. We only paid for 3 persons. Never in our life we saw so many peacocks 🦚 (not even in KL bird park). And they are very beautiful and happily open up their beautiful feathers. There’s a small section of farm animals – like goose, ducks, chickens, rabbits and even iguana. But no feeding (I think if they allow feeding, we won’t dare also because the monkeys would probably come over and snatch the food). Peacocks are free to roam but this also mean that we had to be more careful of not stepping onto poop (which Noelle did 🤭🤣).

Besides the little animals, there are caves decorated with a large variety of statues. For the kids, it was eye opening as they get to have an idea about others’ religion. There is also a zig-zag walkway on the pond. We spent about 30 minutes in Cave Villa, similar time spent walking up and coming down the steep steps.

Video: https://youtu.be/uW-ALAx7nf0

Belajar membaca dan menulis suku kata

Actually I didn’t know how to start with teaching the preschooler (who has no experience in kindy) BM earlier this year. We went ‘ba be bi bo bu….etc’, but it didn’t really helped. Then we started reading a page a day on ‘Peter DAN Jane’ (which is fewer than 20 words), I started to see her improvement in weeks. Besides that, I also let her do some writing or copying on a daily basis.

She starts to recognise some words (through repetition) but still blurry though.

So, we got to focus on BM in the next three months so that she won’t go to school like a blind mice.

Anyway, there are a lot of pre school books in the market, which I do buy them but that isn’t enough to keep me going with Nikki who will stay at home till March next year. She does do those books that I buy, which I then cut out to do further stuff.

Sample: https://youtube.com/shorts/GV-isEFYm3k?feature=share

To set it straight: I blog for recording moments with my kids. I don’t earn from blogging and have NO obligation to anyone especially when I don’t know YOU. I am not responsible for how you feel or think about me. I don’t even respond to people whom I know and feel are toxic to me.

Our maiden visit to Kebun-kebun Bangsar

We have heard about this farm since pre-covid and didn’t have a chance to visit it. So, we decided to give it a try. 🤣

It’s located in Bangsar 🤣, smacked in between the big landed houses (ok, as neighbours, I understand why they protest the farm location but as a visitor, we like it very much🤭😆). The farm animals – chicken, turkey, peacock, sheep – are free to roam. Rabbits and goose are caged – but free to feed. Further in, there’s their vegetables farm and some cow (tied) over the hill. They have special pathway for us to walk (and everyone is left unattended and free entry, even animals feed – we get it from the front desk and leave our monies there). No vegetable sale today. They also created special spots for photo sessions.

We spent one and half hour there. The rabbits were less hungry compared to Rabbit Fun Land but Norrah found her new love for sheep. She was the first bravest one (of course after i showed her how to) who put the feed on her palms to feed the sheep.

Video: https://youtu.be/EKefAoa0Jo4

A morning trip to Pantai Telok Kemang, Port Dickson

We came here earlier this year before the ‘long’ lockdown. We have been hesitating – not because of the beach, but the crowd and the thought of using the public toilet 😛🤣 (kiasi ma, cannot meh?). With the system penggiliran, hubby took a day off (need to clear leave after all 🙄🙄) plus Noelle need not skip a day of school (she just need to complete the uploaded homework this week).

Since we came earlier in the year before, they CAN remember after all. I woke them up at 6am and we were out of home before 7.30am; arrived at the beach at 8.45am. We sort of know the itinerary – had them wearing swim wear at home, got their dress out before leaving the car and off they went to the beach! 🤣 We spent two hours there.

Less crowd, public toilet not so occupied – managed to get them shower off the sand and got them dress in less than 10 minutes (imagine the commando mummy in the toilet)! 🤣

I brought sandwich, so we had early lunch in the car before heading to Seremban to pack dinner (beef noodles), siu pau and curry chicken bun (for besok). 🤣🤣

Half day trip is better than nothing. 🤣🤣

Video: https://youtu.be/LYA-jYnpZn0

Re-visited Rabbit Fun Land

The last we came here was 9 Sept 2018 (as per facebook’s memory)! 🤣 Three years back, we paid RM32 for everyone’s entry. Today we paid RM60 for 5 persons (RM12 per person – above 2 years old). We bought food from the farm too to feed the pets. No outside food for the pets allowed; reasonably said that it might cause problems to their animals. (I actually checked with them before coming).

Since it was 3 years ago, the kids have vague memory about it. Moreover, the farm has changed too. They used to have an enclosure where rabbits run freely; now they don’t. All animals except some goats are kept in cage. The kids love the rabbits and deers most. The goats are hungry and ‘scary’ to them! 🤣 They have other farm animals such as ostriches, peacocks, cows, goose and ponies.

Their cafe has also renovated and served ‘fresh’ food (as they are promoting). We were still with our no dine-in policy; so we had our picnic in car after our farm visit. The farm ensure a policy of mask on and visitors must be vaccinated. The farm is quite big. They have a play area – but our kids know that they weren’t allowed to play there (by mummy😛) at the moment.

It was an hour drive from our place; but no fuss by the kids. They were happy with the journey and the morning in the farm. We spent 2 hours there!

Video: https://youtu.be/U-QqfrFKJ2o

Making pancakes by soon-to-be 9yo

9yo teaches us how to make pancake from scratch (self recorded and edited by her)

There are four parts to it:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Back to school!

Noelle goes back to school.

After six months lapse of psychical schooling, she’s back to school today. Not a difficult and not a simple decision 🤣 (what am I talking?)

Learning wise, I don’t think she drops out even if I continue to keep her at home. She has been consistent and discipline in her virtual learning so far.

But she needs more morale and emotional support from teachers and friends; plus an environment out of home (without her family members). School is essential for her to build self-independence and socialise; not pure education.

She does keep in contact with her bff. They are separated into different grouping, Noelle says she still wants to go to school despite knowing last week that her BFF didn’t go school. Some how I am happy that she isn’t into peer pressure.

We have done all measures to keep everyone safe so far. We don’t dine in, gathering nor get into confined places for extended time. We have been following SOP. School and office (for papa) would be an ‘essential’ to us. Like KNS (why always you? 😛) says, we can’t hold the ‘guilt’ forever if anytime one of us at home is affected by the virus.

Positivism in the pandemic

Things that my kids taught me while in the pandemics:

• we don’t need a big physical house but a warm home to be happy
• we don’t necessarily have to travel around to enjoy ‘holiday’ but to just feel contented by pretend play holiday
• we don’t need luxurious food but only nutritious food to keep our body healthy and our tummy filled
• we don’t need indulgence to fill our boredom but activities to keep us occupied
• kids can still have a good childhood despite just staying at home
• we don’t need to add in more things in our life but to make use of things we already have
• we adjust our ‘lifestyle’ with the flow; we don’t have to be stagnant at just one decision/goal
• we reward ourselves occasionally to recognise our ‘achievements’, be it small or big
• we learn to manage anxiety in life and don’t suck up to a bad emotion
• while our world become physically smaller, our learning expands on a daily basis. I am happy to see all the little progress of the kids (be it the 4yo, 6yo or 9yo) on day-to-day

Most importantly, we are lucky to be still healthy and get to spend time together.

Mummy’s saloon FINALLY activated

After 8yo+ of parenting, this is my FIRST time cutting their hair. 🤣🤣🤣 I think I should have started it much earlier. 😛

This is one length hair style. So, it is pretty simple. With my flower eyes, I hope the length is ‘straight’. 😛 Hubby has to hold torch 🔦 light so that I don’t miss out the tiny bits. 🤣

They asked how much I am charging them. I told them RM25. Noelle really went to search for her savings box key so that she can pay me. 🤣🤣 Nikki was ‘smarter’ – she took specimen (fake money) RM25 and gave me! 🙄🙄🤣🤣

Not enough time to cut Norrah’s. I told her tomorrow – if she wants🙄🙄🤣🤣. She says she want wor….😂😂😂

Video: https://youtu.be/0PhzadHChvc