Mothering Corner

My mind is quite disturbed lately. I think most parents can feel the sadness of the incidents, and some of us may have worries about how to protect our kids.

Hubby can be very free with the kids, which means that he lets them walk around freely and doesn’t seem to have worries about them. But me on the other hand will follow my kids as close as possible because I know how it feels to have a kid missing from your side, and after reading so many sad news on the newspapers, I can’t bear to be careless.

Besides that, we have to do our part in protect our kids from sexual abuse as well. Some Asian are very conservative when it comes to this topic and some parents refuse to talk to their kids about this. If the kid is being abused, he or she might not know that they are being harmed. So, I was searching around and I found a very useful website that share lots of insights and tips on how to protect our kids from sexual abuse.

Frankly, the statistics worry me more, but it’s something to be shared among parents.

It is also likely that you know an abuser. The greatest risk to children doesn’t come from strangers but from friends and family.

• 30-40% of children are abused by family members.
• As many as 60% are abused by people the family trusts- abusers frequently try to form a trusting relationship with parents.
• Nearly 40% are abused by older or larger children.
• People who abuse children look and act just like every one else. In fact, they often go out of their way to appear trustworthy to gain access to children.
• Those who sexually abuse children are drawn to settings where they can gain easy access to children, such as sports leagues, faith centers, clubs, and schools.

“It can’t happen in my family. I could tell if someone I know is an abuser.”

Yet in more than 90% of sexual abuse cases the child and the child’s family know and trust the abuser.

But this site covers the other topics like how to minimize the risk, how to talk about it, and how to be alert about children being abused.

 Learn the signs.

• Physical signs of sexual abuse are not common, although redness, rashes or swelling in the genital area, urinary tract infections, or other such symptoms should be carefully investigated. Also, physical problems associated with anxiety, such as chronic stomach pain or headaches, may occur.
• Emotional or behavioral signals are more common. These can run from “too perfect” behavior, to withdrawal and depression, to unexplained anger and rebellion.
• Sexual behavior and language that are not age-appropriate can be a red flag.
• Be aware that in some children there are no signs whatsoever.

I think it’s a good site for all parents to read more about it. We can just think that things like this won’t happen to us and ignore all about it. Just take it as an info, but if you feel uneasy reading it, just bookmark the site and come back to it again next time.

My kids share a mini laptop which is actually a toy, but they can learn some songs, alphabet, numbers and etc with the laptop. It’s one of the thing I will ask them to bring along when we are going away so that I can use it to distract their attention away from my Dell! They like to “play” with my portable laptop but I try my best not to let them use it.

My Dell XPS is my favorite toy, without it, I can’t blog at all! Then all my blogs will be doom. So, it’s so nice to have toys like kids laptop. The one I have is very durable, it was dropped a hundred times, being stepped by the kids, being banged against the furniture but it is still ok. Funny hoh? It’s only about RM160 but the quality is great. As long as my kids leave my Dell alone, I don’t care what they are doing with theirs. LOL!

I used to have a  few Malay students who studied in Chinese schools. One of them does well in her studies, but some are not. I think it’s a great move for the parents to give their children an opportunity to learn Chinese and study in a stricter environment, but the children might not have the same opinion.

The reason I said this is I talked to a Standard 3 Malay girl, and she was complaining about not having enough time for her homework. She studies in the morning session, goes to religion classes in the afternoon and only be back home after 5.30pm. Then, she will have to do lots of homework, and the parents cannot help her in anything related to Chinese like Chinese, Maths, Science and etc. They can only help her out in subjects related to Bahasa Malaysia and English.

Frankly, I understand how she feels. I felt like that as well when I was in school. I had never done well in Chinese and I was struggling to cope with it. When I was in high school, I felt so relief I have only one subject written in Chinese! LOL!

I respect the decision of parents from other races to send their children to Chinese schools. Most of them know that it’s tougher in there, and there will be more homework, more exams, better results in Maths (in general, ok), more academic, and etc. But there is something else that parents will have to think about it too. How does the kid feel? It’s quite hard, because I have been through that. I thought of sending my kids to international school but hubby said they will be spoiled. Ok, then how about kebangsaan, but FIL wants all the grandchildren to know Chinese. Ok, I know, my kids can’t speak Chinese.

So, I have to send them to Chinese schools. I hope that my kids can cope with the school work because I might not be able to help them much in Chinese. You can forget about hubby who is traveling a lot too! So, there is another option. Tuition! No wonder kids nowadays have so many tuition classes! However, if possible, tuition will be the last solution. I don’t really like my kids to be tied up with lots of tuition.

Hubby has been away for the past 3 days and the kids miss him a lot. Even if I’m trying my best to play with them during the evening, things are not the same. When hubby is around, the kids will enjoy lots of playful games and they will have lots of fun catching ball, running around or just hitting the golf balls on the grass. I will only ask them to play with their tricycles because it’s so tiring running after the kids!

So, I think I will have to think of more activities for them so that our evening routine will not be too boring when hubby is not around. Maybe I should start playing actively with them and get a soccer net for them too. The Soccer Nets are not too expensive anyway, and they are portable as well. If I’m too lousy at the game, I will just keep it away and wait until hubby is back from traveling. Then he can play with the kids as he is great at sports. Unlike me, I’m only good at shopping and blogging.

Besides that, I will let the kids to more gardening. But due to the mosquitoes, it has been a while since we stepped our feet on the grass. The mosquitoes are attacking in swam, that’s why we stopped gardening. I’m out of idea, and you give me some suggestions?

I’m not against fairy tales, in fact, I grew up reading a lot of it. However, I did have some after effect of fairy tales like where is my prince charming or aren’t we going to live happily ever after? LOL!

My boy’s teacher is not so keen about fairy tales. I got her point. Kids as young as my boy may have difficulties in differentiating facts from fiction or fairy tales. Sometimes, it’s not easy to explain why dragon does not exist but it’s on TV or in the books. It took me a while to explain to him that dinosaurs are not here anymore because his daddy introduced some Jurassic Park to my boy and scared him a lot! I was so angry about it when I caught them watching. *smoke coming out*

That’s why I noticed that I don’t read fairy tales to my kids yet. They like books related to Barney, Peter and Jane, animals, and nursery rhymes. Luckily, they know that Barney and Elmo are toys.

So, I think I will put the fairy tales away until they are much older.

Some of my friends are still asking me why I am not moving out. Well, the day will come, but I’m not sure when will it be. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. I’m thinking about it all the time. But since my kids are still young and hubby travels a lot, it’s better to stay with my in laws for these few years. Besides, hubby and I haven’t agree of having my parents over to help me out! So if we move out, I will be all alone with the kids and maybe with a maid. I can trust my current maid, however, I’m not sure about the future ones!

So, no house is a good thing too. I don’t have to worry about home loans or anything. But if you are really tight lately, you can consider Oregon mortgage refinance, if you are from Oregon. It will you a temporary relief for getting your dream vacation, the Christmas gifts, working on your business or anything needs money urgently and you don’t have it. But getting an Oregon mortgage refinance will also mean that you are being tied up with another loan, ok?

So, no loan no worries, that doesn’t sound too bad. But staying with in laws need a lot of patience. I amazed myself that I can stay for so long too.

This is a sad news for the nation. I was secretly praying for the safety of Nurin, and at the same time, I was hoping that the killer would be caught sooner. But the reality is cruel, and even if the parents may deny the DNA results, it proved that she’s their missing daughter. Frankly, can someone’s teeth or birth marks or scars change?

Ok, I don’t want to discuss about this anyway. But I just hope that our police force can be more capable in capturing all those monsters in our society. I really feel that the world is not a safer place for the children anymore.

My kids are quite sensitive, especially my little gal. I’m doing my best to protect her from any allergy reaction, and besides the occasional skin allergy due to mosquito bites, she is doing fine. I don’t let my kids go into the store room, which was previously a fish pond but we converted that area into a store room. It’s something like a basement, but not too deep down inside.

Part of the reason why I don’t let them go in there is there are too many things in it and the moisture level could be quite high since we hardly open the door. We might be having some mold problem in there, since the smell is quite unpleasant sometimes. Of course, we can ask someone to perform the mold and mildew removal if needed. If you are wondering where can you find one in US, check out American Waterproofing because they provide mold removal services so that your house is safer and cleaner too,

But since our store room is not too serious yet, I guess I will ask my maid to clean it more often, right after the fasting season.

Hubby was borb premature. MIL has always “complained” that he’s the most difficult among his brothers and it’s not easy to take care of him during the first year. Besides low birth weight, hubby had lots of problems with feeding, sleeping, and he was a fussy little baby that gave MIL lots of headache.

Luckily, hubby was not one of those that required a long stay in ICU. It’s not easy taking care of a preemie in  ICU, and I guess most of us can still recall the little baby who lost her arm due to infection right? I was mentally prepared for my second baby as preemie due to placenta previa, and I did some study on it. Luckily, I managed to have “smooth” delivery at 38 weeks. As long as it’s more than 37 weeks of gestation, the baby born is no longer a preemie. I was so relief!

So, if you have a preemie before, please bear in mind that the chances of having another preemie is higher. So, take to your doctor about this.

I was trying to recall how did I get into university last time, and I can’t remember that I needed to submit any admission essay to be selected. How about you? Do you need admission essays to enter the college or university of your choice?

If you ever need one, you get easily get the admission essays from AdmissionsEssays.Com. They provide model essay development where you can easily draft out your essay with their model, or you can submit your draft to the editors for analysis and improvement.

However, personally, I still prefer to write my own essay. Maybe I’m a blogger now and I have been used to writing a lot.