I'm a full-time mummy

I came across this article from UK which I must definitely share with you guys as I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here:

"Almost half of children who took part in a food poll failed to identify how 10 types of fruit were grown, with some believing bananas were made in factories. One in 10 of the youngsters, who were aged six to 10, had no idea that apples grow on trees. And more than one in four thought strawberries grew underground, while one in 10 thought they came from trees and some believed they just popped up in the fridge.

According to the poll of 1,000 kids by muffin firm The Fabulous Bakers, one in 10 children also thought chocolate bars grew on trees and a handful reckoned honey came from cows. Watermelons left the youngsters completely baffled with guesses ranging from underground, on trees and in bushes. Mangoes fared better with more than half knowing they grew on trees.

But the survey found some adults were just as bad. More than a quarter of grown-ups had no idea that bananas grew on a massive plant and one in ten thought grapes were picked from trees. Victoria Willis of The Fabulous Bakers said: “It is really important that people know exactly where the food we put into our bodies comes from."

As a parent to 3 kiddos with age range of 2 to 6.5 years old, I played YouTube videos and download documentaries onto our player to show our kiddos on how food are made, for example, where the orange juice came from, durians that we eat in Malaysia, and so on.

Sometimes when we drove past places during a family outing, I would also point out to our kiddos whenever I see any interesting fruits growing in the area (tomatoes, bananas, papayas, durians, petai, durians and more) For example, there was this one time during our outing to a nearby park, I saw a banana tree and immediately beckoned our kiddos to come over and investigate the tree.

I remembered one time during our trip to Phuket few months back, we stopped by at the roadside to eat some durians and we saw a buffalo in the paddy field nearby. What an awesome teaching and learning moment, to explain to our kiddos why the buffalo is there, what its purpose was and how it can help etc.

I also have some books on my iPad on lots of educational materials such as how chocolate was made, about rice, corn and many many more.

I think it is important that our kiddos know where their food came from. In this modern days where everything is served fast and immediate, it is all the more important that we as parents should ensure that our kiddos are educated and exposed to as much information as possible.

If you feel you are not knowledgable enough, then Google or YouTube for sites and videos and show to your kiddos, watch together and use it as a learning opportunities and bonding time together as well.

How about you? What do you think?

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it revolves around these few angpows:

What do they all have in common?

Hibiscus.

Malaysia' own national flower.

The red one that is. There's a light pink one which is South Korea's national flower. The red of the petals symbolizes the courage, life, and rapid growth of the Malaysian, and the five petals represent the five Rukun Negara of Malaysia.

I remembered back when I was in primary school (no Internet, no Google, no Youtube, heck not even PC), we rely on natural resources whenever we were assigned with homework. To bring a type of flower, to bring a type of spice, to bring a type of plants, to bring a type of fruits and so on.

I remembered asking my late father to look for flowers for me. Something different from the usual ones that my classmates brought. They brought bougainvilla (bunga kertas), orchid (which my late mum planted but was not flowering at that moment), bunga tahi ayam, kemboja and don't know what else. He rode his motorbike around our old neighborhood (terrace houses where there is small plot of garden for people to plant stuff) looking for these beautiful flowers. I was so happy when he brought home some!

So I brought hibiscus. And very happy to be the different one.

Till today, whenever I see a hibiscus flower, I will remembered my childhood memories. And I will make sure to tell this story to our kiddos, so that he knows and be proud of our own national flower. (refer comments for the few designs)

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

Ever since I started kindergarten at 6 years old, I have been attending public schools (main language is Bahasa Malaysia) and during my earlier years, I mixed around with a lot of Malay friends and even spoke Bahasa with my elder brother at home (he also attends public schools), even to this day. So Bahasa Malaysia used to be my main language other than Cantonese and later on English (brushed up more when I met my hubby then boyfriend through snail mails, I had to practise and brush up my English as he doesn't speak Cantonese) Anyway, I think it is fun to be able to practise back and sharing what I know with those of you who are interested.

And so, here goes our next lesson: Sick / Healthy

For those of you who are more often on Facebook, you can also find the tutorials on my Facebook fan page. I have created a "Let's Learn Bahasa & Cantonese!" album to store the phrases. Enjoy learning!

 ** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.