I'm a full-time mummy

As a Chinese, I believe we should be able to use chopsticks, well if not all the time, at least we must be able to hold one with grace and use it properly. I was looking around for some nice cloth books for our kiddos when the sponsor generously offered two pairs of Training Chopsticks in exchange for my review on them. Well, why not right?

"We're a friendly online store which mainly providing educational toys, cloth books, family tee and other mother baby items. Owning a cute and active toddler of our own, we understand what a parent would need. We love to bring convenience for all busy parents to just browse online, place order and all items would be delivered to you by door step. niceVin, your family store."

Companies that earned my respect are those that offered products without even asking me! You know, as a mother of 3 kiddos, I never ever abused my mummy blogger status by trying to gain more items (there are people who think just because they have x number of kids, they must have x number of products as well). No, that's not me. I have 3 kiddos but their age gap is different. If you have a products that I think one of them or us in the family can use and try out, that's good enough for me. No need to supply to the whole family.

So anyway, like I mentioned earlier, companies that earned my respect are those that offered products without even asking me! Janice, one of the owner of niceVIN immediately said she's offering me 2 pairs of these Training Chopsticks since our 5 years old boy and 2.5 years old girl are in the solids eating stage and could very well be trying them out. I was just thinking in my mind it would be great for Benjamin to try this out and here she is offering me 2 pairs for both Benjamin and Alyson to try. Awesome!

Anyway, let me start of by describing to you guys a little more about these Training Chopsticks. It has 2 colors for you to choose: Pink and Green. Awesome again since Benjamin loves all things green (think soldier theme!) while Alyson loves all things pink (think princes-sy theme) These chopsticks are about 6 inches long, smooth to the touch and has a flat tip at the end to help you grasp the food properly. 

It has a rounded tab (either green or pink) about 2 inches from the top of the chopsticks where your child is supposed to rest their thumb on it to manoeuver the chopsticks. And just below the green / pink rounded tabs, there is about half an inch colored part where your child is supposed to place their index finger on it to hold one of the chopsticks in place while you move the other chopstick up and down.

These chopsticks are from Japan, so the instructions of course were in Japanese. And I don't read Japanese. Speaking basic words of it, yes, but reading definitely no-no. So I am annoyed I can't read the instructions!

To put these Training Chopsticks into practise, I brought them along for our family outing. We were having dinner at a Japanese restaurant and I was having some udon meal, so I let our kiddos tried out the chopsticks. Pictures below of our 5 years old boy trying the chopsticks for the first time in his life. Definitely need more practice looking at how he holds the chopsticks but not bad, he managed to pick up some food from his plate hahaha...

Our 2.5 years old girl finds it very amusing to see her big brother holding the new gadget and she gave hers a try as well. The chopsticks are a tad too big for her small hands but oh hey, she managed to pick up some food from her plate as well!

Pictures below taken few days later as we have our lunch - noodle and I noticed our girl had better finger grasp on the chopsticks already! With more practise I think it will be easy peasy for our kiddos to use the chopsticks!

Summary: The "Training Chopsticks" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, I love it and definitely has potential to be use again and again and to be passed down to the younger kiddos later on. I love the material, the attractive colors and the price is very affordable as well, worth the buy to let your child have a good training in using them. Recommended! 

You can get the "Training Chopsticks " from niceVIN Facebook page.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by niceVIN in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

I had previously reviewed some products offered by Lazada Malaysia  and then in December 2013, I received a voucher code from them which I used to redeem a total of 4 products for my review, 2 of which I had already reviewed and blogged about my feedback. This post is my feedback on the final 2 products:

About the company:
"Lazada Malaysia is poised to be the single largest online mall that is part of a global cyber chain already established in Europe. We have similar sites in China, India, Singapore and the Philippines with plans to move into other parts of the world. Lazada Malaysia will change the face of shopping by offering a user-friendly, convenient and trusted e-commerce platform. "

# 1 : FunWorld Assorted Blocks

I wanted to give this toy a try on our 2 years old girl. She never really had a toy of her own and she has been always hogging or toynapping her brother's toys so, yeah, I got this for these few reasons:

- To see whether she's open to playing toys like this

- Price is affordable in my opinion (for experimenting on a starter toy for her)

- It has 86 pieces of assorted tiles and blocks (alphabets, numbers, animals, plants)

I waited until Christmas before I let her open up this toy. She immediately started taking out the blocks and tiles and playing with it. I had to show it to her how to stack the tiles onto the black colored base and decorate a zoo-looking environment for her to have a feel with them.

Some of the tiles are VERY difficult to stack onto the base, same goes with taking them off. Some of the animal blocks and those shaped blocks are not compatible with each other, making it hard for us to stack or connect them together. It is quite frustrating at times trying to get them to stick.

Some of the animals cracked open and I had to celotape them back in order to prevent our girl from opening it, leaving it around and my OCD self just want it to be perfect as it is and also a bit phobic that kiddo might hurt themselves with the opened blocks.

One thing I like about this toy is they come together with a PVC zipper bag which you can use to store back the blocks when not in use. If you are looking for a cheap and simple toy, I guess this can serve its purpose. For more information on this product, go to: http://www.lazada.com.my/funworld-assorted-blocks-425524.html

# 2 : Innokids Capital Letters & Numbering Blocks Set

I have always been on the lookout for educational and fun products for our kiddos, so I am happy to be able to get this set which I meant to give to our almost 5 years old boy since he started his preK in early January 2014. Again, I kept this toy as his Christmas present and he was excited to be getting this toy though he is not familiar with alphabets yet.

After unpacking the box, I let our kiddos play around with the letters and number tiles, letting them get used to stacking and pulling it out by themselves.

Since our boy only learned up to letter F (sorry, this homeschooling mummy was real busy with baby Carolyn that it slowed down our homeschooling lessons) prior to his starting preK, I wrote the words 'STAR WARS' on a card and told our boy to find the matching letters and show to mummy when he's done so he can get his reward (a piece of chocolate cookie from me hahaha) Not bad, he managed to find the letters and redeemed his reward!

I like that the price for this toy is very affordable and the quality of the material in the 144 plastic bricks of letters and numbers tiles and the baseplates (6 pieces, 3 in blue, 3 in red) are sturdy and made of good quality plastic. Definitely has potential of being used again and again in future!

One pet peeve that I have for this toy is it does not have lowercase, if they do, that would totally be awesome educational material! I mean, I wouldn't mind paying more for this if it does come with lowercase as well.

This set also comes with a pack of 40 flash cards. Awesome! The illustrations on the flash cards are nice and easy on the eye. I use it for our 2 years old girl when our boy goes to his classes everyday. I just pulled out each card and showed to our girl and let her tell me what it was. So far, I skipped the numbers card as I don't think she's ready for it at the moment but otherwise, the rest of the cards are very good and educational!

For more information on this product, go to: http://www.lazada.com.my/innokids-capital-letters-numbering-blocks-set-464182.html

You can browse for more products at http://www.lazada.com.my/

I just want to share my feedback that the invoice does not reflect the delivery charges correctly when I placed my order for the items that I want to redeem. The voucher code does not cover the delivery charges so I was expecting to pay RM8 for the delivery of the items as stated in the invoice but when the items arrived, I found out I had to pay RM16. That is because the 4 items are separated into 2 dockets, whereby each docket costs RM8. I have already relayed my feedback on this matter to Lazada Malaysia so that other customers won’t get the similar situation in the future.

Do note that I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a voucher to redeem the products by Lazada Malaysia in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

I hope you enjoy reading my baby room review as much as I enjoy sneaking in my camera along with my baby and sheepishly taking pictures during the nursing session hehehehe....

MY FEEDBACK

Location: There is proper signage that will lead you to the baby room (the baby room I went to was located in the children's department - sorry, forgot which floor)

Facilities: There are a few nursing cubicles, each has a curtain to open and close from both outside and inside for some privacy though there is a hook inside you can sort of 'lock' the curtain to disallow people from pulling it open, dustbin, comfy sofa, a sink with mirror, baby diaper changing station and there is a comfy sofa outside the nursing cubicles as well. I didn't pay attention to the power outlet as being a breastfeeding mum who nursed directly, I never bother to look for all these power outlets :P

Comfort Level: The cubicle is OK, I am quite nervous with the curtain closing up the room I'm although I can hook it to stop people from outside from accidentally pulling open the curtain. The cubicle is spacious enough for me and 2 kiddos :)

If you are interested in my previous reviews, you can read them at my old blog as well which is at: http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/search/label/baby%20room