I'm a full-time mummy

I gave birth to our 3rd kiddo on 30th September 2013 and returned home with our baby the next day. Since then, hubby basically took care of everything, bathing baby and our kiddos, feeding and everything while I focus on recuperating and breastfeeding our baby. My MIL took charge of cooking lunch meals for me and dinner for all of us. So blessed to have these wonderful people around me!

The other day I decided to mop our bedroom since it was quite messy with all the dust and food crumbs and our 4.5 years old boy wanted to help out. So I prepared a pail of water with a few drops of floor detergent and a mop and rinsed it dry a bit so that our boy can proceed to mop the floor. Normally when our boy offered to help out, I would reward him with a few coins so that he can save it up in his coin purse.

Once he was done mopping our bedroom, I asked him whether he would like to mop our staircase as well and he went 'Yes!', so off we go and I taught him how to mop the staircase and he did a very good job! Even my MIL praised him for helping out!

Of course I did another final round of mopping the floor in our bedroom and rewarded our boy with a few coins which he happily rushed off to his school bag and searched for his coin purse and immediately put in his rewards in it. Happy face sighted!

Ever since we attended the playgroup with my 2 kiddos, I realised the teachers have lots of creative and different craft ideas, very unique and they do make me think and feel more enthusiastic to get my kiddos to do the same back at home.

We have not yet tried anything at home with paper plates and coincidentally while trying to get some plastic containers in my plan to reorganise our kiddos' toys in our room, I ended up buying a stack of paper plates. So, off I go to scout on the Internet for some ideas to make cute children crafts and one that at the same time can teach my kiddos something, I hope!

So I found this cute craft idea: Making a basket using paper plate.

I got down to roughly drawing out the lines from the edge of the paper plate right down to the center piece of the paper plate. With the lines drawn, I let our 4.5 years old boy cut according to the lines. Then I helped to fold up the cut pieces and stapled each of the cut sides so they end up looking like a bowl/container. Finally, I stapled a ribbon across the paper plate basket. Job finish!

And what is the lesson to be learned from this paper plate basket? I decided to add in the learning part on this craft which is:

B is for basket.

Fun and easy peasy! Don't you think so?

**Personal notes: Apologies but due to my paranoia of privacy and security of myself, my family and my kiddos, I am not going to reveal what is the SAHM group I'm in, the playgroup name, the area and so on. Apologies but like I said, I am really paranoid and with info like this being shown in public, I hope you can understand my reasons for doing so.

I was sharing almost 2 weeks back of my feeling bittersweet as anytime now, I won't be bringing our 2 kiddos to their church playgroup sessions. Reason being our 3rd baby is due in middle of October and I will be busy then (at least for the first 2-3 months).

I still remember when we first joined the church outing to the fire station, I asked Ben whether he liked this class and he said 'Yes'. Now after almost a month of attending the playgroups religiously twice a week for 2 hours each time, I'm very thankful we found this playgroup sessions and we managed to attend the sessions even though for a month long (for now!)

He perks up whenever I said we are going to class tomorrow and he goes 'Is it the class with the slides?'. He still does not want to attend his Sunday school classes in our church (as parents are not allowed to be in the class) compared to this playgroup sessions which I will be together with Alyson as well.

At first our 4.5 years old boy is very hesitant and takes some time to warm up to the storytelling sessions - well, any activities that requires children to sit together away from their parents/caretakers but I noticed that Ben is getting better with each session. It takes less and less time for him to warm up to the sessions. The first time he whispered to me that he wants to go home and doesn't want to be in the class and stomps his feet on the floor. Second time, no more stomping but the whispering to go home is still there. The next few rounds, no more stomping and no more saying wants to go home. He sits through the storytelling session though he still doesn't participate in the singing sessions. It's all fine with me as I can definitely see his progress with each sessions!

I also think that some of the storytelling session contributed to these progress as I can see Ben's interests perking up the first time we listened and watched the storytelling about 'Five Little Monkeys that disturbs the crocodile'. The teacher uses a hand and finger puppets to illustrate the story and it got Ben's interests! Partly because we have this storyapp on our iPad but the cool thing is Ben remembered and recited the whole thing back to daddy during dinner time. The latest storytelling session on Joshua and the Walls of Jericho got Ben sitting still and listening and watching intently, I like that!

I also like that the crafts sessions are creative and different. So far, we made elephant trumpets (the day's lesson was on animals in the zoo), paper plate lantern (the day's storytelling was about history of mooncakes and how messages were passed through secret notes slipped into the mooncakes) and paper plate lion head (the day's storytelling was about Daniel and the Lions' Den). All crafts so far were closely related to the storytelling and lessons for the day. I like the idea and relativity of this!

We joined in 2 of the church outings so far in September, one to the fire station and the other to a pet shop in a shopping mall. We enjoyed ourselves very much in both outings.

Social wise? Well, Ben does not remember his friends' names yet but I noticed he has been sharing more often and introducing himself to other childrens in the class. He also approaches children and adults there without any shyness lately. A milestone nontheless!

So with all these positive progress and milestones achieved after each playgroup sessions, I do hope to still be able to lug my 2 kiddos and baby after October month to the mother's group outing, well there are no lessons or storytelling or crafts during the mother's group outing but at least kiddos get to have free-play sessions with the toys at the center. I'm just going to pray pray pray for things to work out to our favor!

**Personal notes: Apologies but due to my paranoia of privacy and security of myself, my family and my kiddos, I am not going to reveal what is the SAHM group I'm in, the playgroup name, the area and so on. Apologies but like I said, I am really paranoid and with info like this being shown in public, I hope you can understand my reasons for doing so.