I'm a full-time mummy

I have been cutting down on doing product reviews ever since our 3rd kiddo came along in end of Sept 2013 and especially now with 4th kiddo due at end of 2016. I do still accept review pitches but only when time permits and if it is something that I can see it being useful and beneficial to our family. Also, as busy as I am with 3 kiddos, being preggy, home cooking, taking care of hubby's administration site of the business and swamped up with managing my FB page and blog, I just can't say no to reviewing good books, what more from a big brand name like Scholastic! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes!

Title: Scholastic - Bodhi and Friends series (Hello, Hey, Hi! and See You Later)
Publisher: Scholastic Singapore
ISBN: 978-981-47-2998-7 (Hello, Hey, Hi!)
ISBN: 978-981-47-2999-4 (See You Later)
Paperback: 24 pages (each book comes with a DVD)

Description from the product page:

"Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, presents a brand new book series “Bodhi and Friends” for kids ages 4 and up with the release of its first two sing-along books – Hello, Hey, Hi! and See You Later at its Book Preview Party held in Malaysia – the first across Asia.

This brand new book series is designed to provide a creative preschool educational program with adventure, music, fun, as well as the essential building blocks for early childhood.

The Bodhi and Friends books is a great series to be introduced to kids ages 4 and up as it is designed to help children to learn English phonics, vocabulary, grammar, listening skills while instilling a genuine love of language in them. "

We received a copy of 'Hello, Hey, Hi!' and 'See You Later' for our review and the first person being enthralled by the colorful sight of the book is our youngest kraken, who at 2.5 years old now is fascinated with books as she tried to emulate her older sister who is flipping through book at 4.5 years old and making up her own stories as she goes along and her older brother who at 7 years old can read books at his own pace. Each book comes with a sing-along DVD of the song, very very catchy indeed!

However, I'm not sure whether it is because of my Zoom player app or what, the song ends abruptly. Usually when we hear songs, there would be a few seconds of music lingering on before fading off, but the songs from these 2 books cuts off abruptly. I have yet to get other app to try the DVD again though.

Hey there, I’ll see you later.

S E E   Y O U later.

Even I find myself spelling out the letters as I sing along with our kiddos. Very catchy indeed!

As a stay-at-home mother who is ehem.. stuck at home with our kiddos most of the time, I find these books entertaining and educational as well. Apart from getting your kids to learn as they sing and enjoy along with the upbeat songs, I also can't help but noticed the subtlety in teaching children about manners as well. To say goodbye, to share toys, to greet others with good manners and so on. So these books are not just plain sing-along song, there's more to it!

The illustrations are cute and eye-catching. Reminded our girls of the Disney Palace pets characters actually. The wordings on each page is big and easy on the eyes.

If you are observant like me (ehem, ehem..) you can also make use of the books to teach your child to name the objects on the page, to count how many friends of Bodhi in a particular page, to ask your child what do they think Bodhi and its friends are doing on the page (Going to school? Playing? Having a picnic? and more), to tell the time, to pay attention to the sky (dark = night time, raining etc), to name the colors on the rainbow, so much more learning opportunities if you just pay attention to the details in the book!

Thank you to Scholastic for the opportunities given to us to review these books!

The book is available at all major bookstores.

For more information on the Bodhi and Friends book series, visit Scholastic’s website or Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ScholasticAsia

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with copies of the books 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. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

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I came across this article which I must definitely share with you all. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here.

"A baby is seen poking its tongue out in an amazing ultrasound scan. But while the image may appear to capture a cheeky pose, Ocea Varney was unable to close her mouth after being born with a congenital defect which meant her tongue was enlarged.

Medics diagnosed the potentially fatal condition after she was born and Ocea, now 18-months, has undergone surgery to shrink its size. But the condition was only picked up after the baby's mum Melanie Varney insisted to doctors that was something wrong with her daughter.

 Melanie 28, said: "You could even see Ocea's tongue sticking out on the ultrasound. I remember the technician saying 'look how cute she is, she's sticking her tongue out at you'. "When she was born it was the first thing I noticed - I thought it was cute at first, but it caused some serious complications."

Melanie, from Vancouver, Canada said doctors, nurses and even strangers told her it looked cute, but she was bigger than her twin sister and her oversized tongue caused complications with feeding. After her birth, along with twin sister Indigo, nurses kept her in the NICU for a week to monitor her low glucose levels.

 Melanie added: "The moment I gave birth to Ocea I thought she looked different to my other kids. Obviously she had her tongue sticking out, but she was bigger than her sister. When we were out at the store we would get comments about her tongue poking out - most of them said she was cute but others thought she was being rude.

"A couple of times people said it looked like she was thirsty and panting, as if she was some sort of dog. But she was miserable with it - I would try and breast feed her but she just couldn't latch on. It kept me up all night either trying or worrying."

 Melanie claimed after three months of doctors telling her and husband Gabby Mason, 30, it was just a phase, the family resorted to their own research. From Googling her symptoms they came across another girl with a similar story who had been diagnosed with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome- a congenital overgrowth disorder.

Despite it being a common condition - affecting one in 14,000 babies worldwide - very few doctors knew about it. Thanks to some further research, Melanie found a specialist in Brisbane, Australia where she was living at the time and made the trip to see him. She said: "As soon as the doctor saw her, he told us it was BWS - it was heart-breaking to hear she had the condition. But after three months, at least we finally had a diagnosis and could start doing something about it. She instantly had blood tests to check whether she had any tumours, which she didn't."

The most common characteristics of BWS are:

• a large body size,
  
• enlarged organs,
  
• enlarged tongue,
  
• midline abdominal wall defects and
  
• neonatal hypoglycaemia.

Melanie and Gabby moved their twins and their two-year-old son Joey back to Canada so they could be closer to family. At just seven months old, Ocea had tongue corrective surgery in Missouri and continues to visit the hospital every six weeks to be screened for tumours.

Children with BWS are at an increased risk for developing various types of tumours, particularly liver and kidney tumours, and as many as 20 per cent of babies born with the disorder will develop cancer. Shortly after Ocea's diagnosis, Melanie created the website How Big BWS with the help of her friend Tricia Surles - whose two-year-old daughter Lane also has the condition - to inform and educate families and medical professionals.

They have already arranged a How Big Is Yours? day which encourages people to post selfies of themselves sticking their tongues out. Melanie added: Our goal is to raise awareness about this syndrome. Up to a quarter of sufferers develop cancer so it's important that an early diagnosis is made. We want doctors to recognise BWS and ensure families know there is a support network out there for them. If that means getting people to pull a silly face then that's worth it.""

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With the recent uproar on Harambe, the endangered gorilla who had to be killed in order to save the life of a little boy who fell into the enclosure, this will be my final posting with a compiled list of articles of what I have read so far.

So many what ifs, whys, could haves, would haves...

It's sad that a gorilla had to be killed. Those who have been asking why not tranquilize? Well, it takes time to go into effect with a big sized gorilla and might make the gorilla agitated and provoked it to hurt the child. If it works, it might cause gorilla to faint on top/squashed the child. Too high dose might killed the gorilla instantly. (Source: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/05/29/gorilla-shot-at-zoo/)

There is also explanation from an experienced person who has worked with many gorillas before on why the zookeepers did not use treats or distract the gorilla to get the child back. (Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1203379103029809&set=a.136952966339100.18704.100000731932790&type=3&pnref=story)

You should also read what has Harambe's previous caretaker said of him as I personally think he knows the gorilla way better than any other experts out there who has never spent time with Harambe (Source: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/05/31/harambes-caretaker-he-like-one-my-sons/85216356/)

It's sad that the child can breached through the barriers. The boy went over a stainless steel rail that's a little more than 3 feet high, with vertical bars every eight feet. He made his way through the bushes to the edge of the moat, a distance of approximately 4 feet. From there, he dropped 15 feet to the moat, into a foot and a half of water. (Source: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/05/30/usda-review-gorillas-death-zoo-look-safety-exhibits/85165924/)

Those who said the gorilla is dragging the child across the water, how else do you expect a wild animal to move a child? Of course we don't get to see the whole 10 mins video but based on the videos I've seen, the gorilla is protecting the child from the commotion outside. Of course, I am no expert at all so feel free to disagree with my observations.

If the gorilla wants to hurt the child, it would've done so when the child fell into its enclosure, breaching its territory, not taking 10 minutes ordeal to be killed in the end. Apparently gorillas will display signs of attack when they feel threatened or provoked which was not shown when it approached the child. (Source: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/science/animal-behaviour-expert-says-silverback-gorilla-harambe-was-not-trying-to-harm-defenceless-child/news-story/94d83332fbb86df234989f66ae621d67)

Parents, we all know, none of us are perfect. We don't and can't 100% watch after our kiddos all at once, but we can try to minimize any untoward incidents and make sure that while any outing remains a fun and happy one for the family, we also have to be aware of our surroundings as well.

Teach your child about endangered species, zoos, conservation efforts, what to do when you are out and about, dangers and risks etc.

Everyone, a beautiful endangered animal is gone. It will never be brought back to life again. Let's learn from this and double/triple up our watch over our kiddos and others as well, if you happened to observe any children during your outing who are acting very curious and wanting to observe things closer, alert the caretakers of the child.

An article to remind us that social media shaming won't bring back Harambe... http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2016/05/30/cincinnati-zoo-gorilla-harambe-death-child-parents-shaming-column/85165572/

I'm also sharing these articles with you for some real-life events:

• Gorilla Carries 3-Year-Old Boy to Safety After He Fell Into Enclosure in 1996 Incident

• Amazing moment ape saved tiny boy who fell into his enclosure

• Zoo exhibit breaches rare but can have deadly outcomes
  

A bit more info about the boy's mother and I really pitied those on FB having same names as her. (Source: http://heavy.com/news/2016/05/michelle-gregg-cincinnati-zoo-mother-mom-name-gorilla-harambe-facebook-photos-son-petition/)

** 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.