Learning to Spell

Claire has been doing spelling since the start of this year - are there specific methods to learn to spell? I teach her to recite the letters and then the word as she writes them so that they 'register' in her brain. Is this a good method?

cold & coughing away

I always know its trouble - when the OTHER family falls ill. Though we do not meet often (once every two weeks, maybe - even that is too much), there is a 'carrier' who will bring the germs and viruses over to my household. It normally starts with the children and then DH... and I'm usually the last to get hit. But since I am pregnant now (there are many articles explaining why pregnant women get sick more easily - just google it), I got infected before DH and I'm glad to say *touch wood* that the children got a much milder version.

It started last week - with a horrible feeling in the throat and before I knew it, I lost my voice *almost completely* - conversations were reduced to whispers and I bet the children were glad that I couldn't SHOUT at them when they did something dangerous! I started off with laryngitis and then, drippy nose - I've got my voice back now but now the throat is always itchy, the nose is stuffy and the phlegm is greenish. *YUCKS* but I guess that means I'm on the way to recovery. But I hate it, really, really hate it. Hope I recover before we leave for our cruise this weekend... :{ I am actually looking forward to the trip - though we have cruised before many times, this will be the first time we go on a Royal Caribbean cruise and obviously, its a first for the kids - Claire is excited as its a early birthday trip for her. We can't cruise any later, partly because there are not many cruises scheduled from now to her birthday and also because women beyond 24 weeks are not allowed on board - How silly, isn't it? Considering that airlines do permit flying up to 32 weeks or something, with a DR's certification. And oh, the OTHER (copycat) family is also going to go on a cruise after this - I really wonder why she find so much joy 'copying' what we do.

primary school registration

Recently, there has been a furore among parents with young children over plans by the education ministry to 'review' the current primary school registration process as the current system gives priority to certain groups of people, much to the chagrin of others.

I belong to a group who has some 'slight advantage' over others as I graduated from one of the local top schools - that 'automatically' qualifies Claire for a place for the school. Never mind that we stay a good 30 - 40 mins drive away from the school. However, being a single gender school, we will need to seek alternative schools for the boys, adding to our logistics woe in the future. Our current residence is in a private estate and the nearest school is 1.3km away. We have started looking at properties nearer to school for Claire, which means that we will have to move out of our comfort zone in the east. To make matters worse, property prices have escalated to ridiculous levels with suburban properties going above S$1,000 psf - meaning a 1,000 sq ft private apartment would easily cost S$1m!

Thus, I am advocating a complete scrap of the current system and replacing with the following:

Phase 1 - citizen families with 3 or more kids get to select the school of their choice. this has multiple benefits, namely boosting our declining birth rate and eventually, reducing  our dependence on FOREIGN TALENT and simply more reasonable logistically since parents will only need to choose 1 school for their children (if they have children of both genders).

Phase 2 - citizen families with 2 kids (as above)

Phase 3 - citizen families with 1 kid to ballot if required (i.e. demand more than supply), otherwise automatic enrollment as well; if there is a need to differentiate between locally born and bred citizens, then one more ballot for those whose fathers have served their NS obligations since it is a sacrifice that our men has undertaken.

Phase 4 - remaining spaces open for balloting for PRs then foreigners.

This is essentially a 'Singaporeans First' policy. I have to stress that I am NOT against foreign immigrants - I am, however, against freeloaders. There are ample reports on the internet about migrants who make plans to give up their PR status (or even citizenship since some countries have a U-turn policies for those who gave up their citizenship earlier) once their offsprings are due for NS or when they find greener pastures in other countries. Since we are born and bred here, as with our children, in a way, we have no other choices. PRs and foreigners on the other hand, can opt for international schools, an option not available to us. Many of them opt for local schools simply because of the cost.

A registration process like I suggested will even out the playing field for every citizen - no more alumni/old boy/old girl priority, no issues of property prices escalating further around popular schools, no more exploiting poor parents' precious time doing meaningless, mundane tasks as parent volunteers.

The downside, however, would be for couples who have trouble conceiving - these groups may feel marginalized though its no fault of theirs. For these individuals, the govt. can do more to help them with fertility treatment since these are people who are willing to have more children but are unable to. However, it must be noted that there has to be a cut-off age for such help since it is medically proven that egg quality deteriorates as women ages. This may in turn encourage more couples to get married and start their family at a younger age.

not very successful

I guess its pretty obvious that I'm not able to blog as often as I'd like to even though its what I set out to do. Between shuttling the children to and fro school, catching up with work in the office and occasionally cooking a meal or two, I can barely find time to do anything else. It doesn't help that I need more sleep than normal now or that I'm not very good at managing my time. :|

Just for the record, Chace at 30 months, only has 19 teeth and is still not potty trained. I'm a believer that the child will achieve a milestone when he/she is ready and thus I'm not worried. The grandmas, on the other hand, have been bugging me to toilet train him particularly because Claire was off diapers in the day when she was about 18 months. However, he is way before schedule for other milestones e.g. speech and motor skills so that, in itself, really isn't a cause for concern.

As for Claire, she is starting to realize that school is not all fun and play. Other than having to bring back 'homework' (this term's theme is on plants so she had to bring back some seedlings to grow), preparing for 'Speech & Tell' bi-weekly and spelling every week. Fortunately, the feedback from the teacher has been good so far. She is also continuing with her music lessons as its appears up to now, that she truly enjoys them. We are also thinking of starting her on golf lessons and maybe at some point, some self-defence classes as well now that she will be up against 2 brothers in the future. :P

#3 is also progressive well in general though some red flags have been raised - I'm choose to be positive about the situation since many of my friends have had false scares in their most recent pregnancies.