More Apps for the Ipod TOUCH : tech dino speaks again

Okay Okay Anonymous. It's an ipod TOUCH. I forgot to mention that small detail since there is only one Ipod you can touch, no? ;-O told you i'm a tech dino... which is why I LOVE the Balloonimal App i got for free this week. The lite version only allows you to inflate, poke, and burst a balloon dino sculpture but it's good enough for Val. After demonstrating to him only once, he cottoned on and knew he had to shake at certain steps to create the sculpture, and to poke the virtual pump to blow up the dino. Very intuitive app. Nice.



Another free app is the ABC Song. The illustration is nothing to wow about, but Val being so aural-driven, loves listening to it. The letters are shown on the window, a, b,c, and so on, as the girl sings. When she ends, she waves goodbye and Val waves back. Cute.



Last but definitely not least, The Surprise, a wonderful textless picture book with some animation (the sheep zips to and from places on his scooter). It's a nice tale of a sheep that dyes his own fur red, shaves it, and then knits it into a sweater for his giraff friend. Very simple, very touching, and Val understood it in a flash. This one is a paid app at US$0.99. :-)

Okay, the tech dino is off to do some proper work now!

Chinese trivia

Val is continuing to be the Chinese speaking monster. He wakes up one morning and asks, "Mama mai de shu zai na li?" (Where's the book that mama bought?) It surprised me so much that my eyes flew open in a sec.

It's heartening and amusing how much Chinese he speaks these days. Even K was surprised when she bumped into us at Parkway last Sunday and Val spoke to her in Mandarin. It seems that it's a rarity these days for children to speak in their mother tongues.

I'm glad that Grandma and Grandpa use relatively adult but funny Chinese words on him at home, resulting in him mimicking them. When Val slurps soup straight from the bowl, his Grandpa teases him, "Zhi xuan, nan zi han, zi ji he tang." (Manly Val is drinking soup on his own). So sometimes, Val would tell me that he is "nan zi han" (manly) which cracks me up totally.

Last night, while the entire family was lounging and chatting on a single king-sized bed (it's a family tradition), Val began to sing a Chinese ditty Wo you yi zhi xiao mao lu(I have a little donkey). Some words he sang clearly, those he didn't know he slurred or mumbled through, and then he invented some. The cuteness quotient completely hit the roof for me, as I laid in bed listening to the boy sing. My pride got a little deflated when I realised after that no one else had realised what he was singing! Goes to show how attuned my ears are to my son's natterings that no one else but Mommy can decipher him. Reminds me of that ad for a radio station - you know the one with a woman driving and her hearing only the good things from her instructor? :-) To me, Val's singing was of Pavarotti standard even if no one else could understand!


UPDATE:

I've asked Grandma to help me remember some of the sentences he's been stringing up so here're are some additions:

"Gong gong jiang, Zhixuan bu yao chuan mama xie" (Grandpa says Val not wear mom's shoes)

"Zhixuan niao bu gua zai zhe li, chou chou de, Zhi Xuan mo mo" (Val's diaper is hanging here, smelly, Val touch)

He hears the police siren as a police car speeds by and says: Bao qi lai, kan yi kan (Carry up and take a look)

His Royal HairCut

Val has been resisting a hair cut ever since our friendly neighbour gave him a shave months ago. So we've been trying to snip off bits here and there whenever we could but still his mop was looking so straggly that it was begging for a cut. As it turned out, the royal haircut was quite unplanned. We were on the free shuttle bus to Parkway when he suddenly proclaimed that he would like a hair cut. He didn't just say it once but twice and then some more. I thought that since he was so keen, we should go check it out.

Got to the only kids hair salon there and boy, i found out how expensive it is to have a kiddie haircut! $20 whopping dollars! I got all nervous about it. What if he took off halfway through the cut, leaving me $20 poorer and with a half-shaven boy?

Finally i decided, what the heck, let's just see if the lil one would even tolerate sitting in the seat. I asked the auntie (yes, she was a typical chinese speaking auntie in a hip kiddie salon) to buzz the razor next to his ear first. Surprisingly, not a flinch. I think the Barney stickers adorning the mirror, and the music filling the salon were too much distraction for the boy. The auntie then gave Val a giant milk bottle filled with sweets which he promptly clutched like his own, and he compliantly allowed her to put on the cape (which she called the Superman cape), and then his eyes were agog on the Barney video in front of him.

The auntie's flying hands went snip snip snip, buzz buzz buzz, snip snip snip, she sped around him, and even trimmed the hair behind his ears. All the while, Val had the most serious mien. He didn't smile one bit, he even frowned a lil. Yet he so bravely took it in, trying to focus hard on Barney, his milk bottle of sweets, and mommy who was going gaga taking videos. I really couldn't believe how well-behaved he was.

In less than 10 minutes, he was transformed. He looked so handsome i nearly blubbered withjoy. Oh.... his face now clear for all to see. Ahh.... those $20 down the drain in minutes, literally $2 a minute if you are calculative about it. But wait, he even sat through the vacuuming session as the auntie sucked up all the hair bits on him. The auntie then offered to gel up his hair - no thanks. She then proffered temporary hair colour in psychedelic shades (for free) - No thanks! When we were about to return the giant milk bottle, he asked for a sweet and gave the bottle back without a fuss.

I finally breathed when he came off the chair, he was quite aware of his own achievement judging by that look on his face. The clincher? He got to choose a sticker and a balloon as well!

Stumped by Transformer

Someone passed me a brand new Transformer toy yesterday - Ironhide this autobot is called. for me, my only experience with Transformer has been to watch them on TV as cartoons and more recently as 'reel' life bots in cinema. It was my first time MANhandling one - - it completely boggled me, i must confess. all those small, moving parts make me nervous - i am afraid Val might gobble them up, but more afraid that i would inadvertently break them - they just seem so fragile. Of course, i hadn't meant to give it to Val but the minute i brought it home, there was no chance of hiding it. He demanded that it be opened ASAP. so i gently undid the packaging (cos i am thinking of giving it to a nephew!), and let him play with it for a while.

When he fell asleep, i began the task of repacking the autobot, cos i really don't want him to keep it. The aim was to magick it away in the steal of the night, hopefully when he wakes up he won't remember it. Cross fingers.

That was when the hard part came. I don't have issues with it when the autobot is still an untransformed truck but when the arms and legs come 'alive' i was lost lost lost. The illustrated instructions helped me nought. Which child can understand those intricate, complex drawings?!!! in the end, i just junked the paper and began wrestling the autobot back into its original (and less threatening) form. Boy, oh boy, it felt worse than that stupefying PSLE math question that's got everyone in a tizzy. I felt like a complete idiot as i shoved, twisted, bent, and manipulated the increasingly irritating bits. At times, the door broke off, the windshield popped out. thankfully, they all got fixed back 'cept for one small piece that popped out and i just threw away cos it would be a hazard to any child.

But finally i did put everything back into place - at the expense of a good half hour. Okay, now you see what a gadget illiterate i am. Gosh. i stealthily placed it back into the plastic box the exact way it came, and voila! a brand new toy for my nephew. Now, the trick is to wrap it up so Val don't see it and recall that he once, for one brief hour, had Ironhide as his.

going App over the iPod: the tech dinosaur speaks

I know i know, I am a slow slow slow adopter of new technology. I was among the latest in the peers to get a pager, a computer, a mobile, and now of course, an iPod (the iPhone will have to wait till M1 starts selling them officially!).

This week, I finally laid my hands on one - shsssh! it was barter trade for freelance services rendered. So imagine my excitement when i received the pod encased in its plastic home and began downloading apps! I went for free apps first of course, and then asked a colleague (veteran iPod user and a mom with 2 kids) what kiddy apps to download. And voila! i am offically an ipod Mom who brings home, not delightful sweets or toys for the babe, but new apps on the pod.

It's interesting to compare what Val likes versus what my colleagues' kids prefer. Val is obviously more aural, more into action, sounds, and movement. He is impatient to let me read a flipbook but loves the Wheels on the Bus app. He loves to see the wheels rolling back and forth. More importantly, he loves that he can actually stop or move the bus with his tiny fingers! it's really amazing what those guys at Apple have done to create the ipod/iphone's incredibly intuitive user interface. I have used phones with touch functions, but it's my first time seeing the extent to which you can control things, and the ease with which Val picked it up. So it's pretty impressive for this tech dinosaur.



One of the top paid App is The Little Red Hen. I love the illustrations, but i love the CANTONESE voice over even more! Cracks me up everytime i listen to it. Val, of course, has no patience for it so i basically bought the app for myself. I do hope though that when he's older he might appreciate it. It's strange that for printed books, he has patience to wait for me to narrate yet for the ipod he somehow knows that it can do more and perhaps demands more?



Anyways, i foresee myself getting hooked, and joining the legions of ipod/iphone parents who have discovered the joys of having e-books on the go, to entertain their fussies whereever they are. So i'll be blogging more about the apps i find in future.

Nyt nyt!

Toilet training

Val's childcare has apparently begun toilet training the toddlers in his class. That's why we have noticed that he uses just one disposable diaper a day in school instead of the usual 3. It's great cos he spends so much time in school so the toilet training shd be more effective than if we tried it only in the evenings and weekends. We're also trying to reinforce it by bringing him to the loo regularly. I even bought a silly sticker that goes into the bottom of his potty, and changes colour when he tinkles into it.

There're hits and misses of course. The teachers told Grandma that yesterday while dancing in class, a piece of poop dropped out of his pants. it was hilarious they said. Today the same happened at home! but it was not ONE piece of poop, it was blobs of poop (with strands of green veggies in them!) all around the hall area and guess WHO had to clean it up!?! Anyhow, he's definitely doing better telling us he wants to pee then to poop. i'm usually good at reading his facial expressions and spotting that slight pause in action, and elongated butt as signs of wanting to poop. But of course, we don't always guess right! We're not making a fuss of cleaning up his poop - cos i'm afraid it might put him off being diaperless. I fear he might ever become those "can't poop without diaper" kids.... poor things.....

disciplinary problems

so the time has come.... the naughtiness in Val has finally reared its ugly head at his childcare centre. it's been a few months since we first put him there. initially he cried whenever we left him there in the mornings. but these days he's really happy, and adores his teacher Valerie who seemed to bond with him from Day One. Grandma says in the afternoons when its time to go home, he actually dawdles, loiters about, and basically tries to delay the going home process, squirrelling into the playhouses to hide from grandma. He simply prefers to be outside the house where he's not cooped up, and where there's plenty to play. But now that he's finally comfortable with this environment, his royal naughtiness has surfaced. last week, he scratched claira his classmate, and today, he apparently beat a 4-year old girl till she cowered in a corner, petrified of the lil boy. gosh. i cringe whenever i hear these reports (note, the teachers never complain, they just very kindly tell us what happened). Worse, Val apparently refused to apologise. Double cringe....

We have always taken the route of encouraging him to tell us when he does something wrong. and usually at home, he gives me an "uh-oh" look when he's done bad things. most of the times, he has said sorry and admitted that he did it. So i'm not sure why today he was adamant. When i came home, i tried talking gently to him to ask him what happened in school, assuring him that i wasn't going to punish him but really wanted to know what made him do it. he admitted he beat someone but didn't tell me who, and why..... hmmm.... i only could pray with him and ask Jesus to calm him and help to quieten his soul so that he wouldn't do it again tomorrow. Sigh... discipline is a tough one isn't it?

catch the moon!

Val and his $1.80 lantern
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

Val has a book called Seven Ways to Catch the Moon! he loves catching the moon in a hot air balloon, on a magic carpet, or on a witch's broom. Last week we brought him down to the carpark area to celebrate the full moon with the kiddies in the 'hood. it was great fun. He loved his cheapo lantern from Carrefour ($1.80 with flashing LED lights inside and traditional paper on the outside), but i suspect he loved seeing the older kids burn down their paper lanterns even more! Happy belated Mid-Autumn to you!

we're still around ... just busy busy busy

blowing momma a raspberry
Originally uploaded by tumbleweeed

the boy has sprouted since the last we blogged. He's still at the same weight but has stretched taller. He's had a bout of flu recently but has sprung back to his lively (naughty) self. The surprising thing is how much he natters on in Mandarin (!), speaking whole sentences and pronouncing his words quite well. I think it's the grandparents and also the two Chinese nationals working at the childcare who are the nannies assisting the English speaking teachers. It's a lil weird but i think it's good thing for now since English is so much easier to pick up and so he could do with some Mandarin for now. Okay, back to my paper - obviously it's the reason why i'm even blogging, cos i was desperately looking for a distraction. @#$%^&*

Warming Up

There's a plan hatching in the house - to deliver the lil one to a childcare centre up on the hill, behind our place. It's a small little semi-detached house on Jalan Pari K, with a lovely outdoor playground and there's no air-conditioning in sight - a boon in these times of H1N1... But for Mr Anti Social, this plan must not be made known to him. Instead, we've had to sneak it up to him. For the past week, grandma's been casually walking him up to the place, and "accidentally" stopping by to chat to the teachers. He cottoned on quickly and wailed each time. Today, the whole family trooped up the "hill" (okay it's a slope!) with him. At first he wailed, but once he saw the miniature kitchen in the yard, he was enthralled and busied himself "washing hands" at the sink. We stood by hopefully, eagerly, waiting to catch signs of him being sociable. Alas, the minute the other kiddies came out to play, he scurried out of the kitchen's window in an attempt to escape human contact. Sigh! But at least he didn't cry. He likes the outdoor play area for sure, and he EVEN held onto a teacher's hand briefly. but after half an hour, he was ready to say "GO!" still, he didn't forget his manners, and waved goodbye to the teachers. We'll have to keep doing this for a while, and then harden up our hearts to leave him there. Arggh. Grandpa's already voted himself out of the game. He can't stand hearing Val bawl. No such luck for the rest of us! Wish us best of luck!