Lleyton's foreign accent when speaking mandarin

Mummy decided to help Lleyton speak more Mandarin, and she thought a good way to start will be to improve Lleyton's articulation of chinese words. Hence, Mummy got Lleyton to try out a Mandarin tongue twister. Here are the results...

Daddy reckons that Lleyton has a good shot at winning the best Mandarin-speaking-foreigner contest, for his accent is so hilarious!

Leanne Standing Up

Leanne is now able to stand on her own, albeit with structural support to hold on to. This started when she was exactly 8 months old. The domestic helper screamed when she saw Leanne holding onto the edges of the cot, standing by her own. Daddy ran in and took the video above.

Thereafter, Daddy placed Leanne lying down, so as to prevent her from hurting herself, in the event that she fell. However, it was fruitless, as Leanne was soon back on her feet on her own, as shown in the video below.

Daddy with Lleyton on the bicycle at East Coast Park

Daddy on the bicycle with Lleyton at East Coast Park. Mummy had commented that Daddy and Lleyton were easy to spot as they were decked out in bright yellow and red respectively.

Lleyton & Leanne on the Merry-Go-Round

Leanne has come of age, to be able to sit upright, and as a reward, she was treated to her first merry-go-round ride! In actual fact, Lleyton was supposed to ride on the three-horse merry-go-round with Kellyn and Binbin. However, Binbin backed out, and Leanne was substituted in to fully utilise the $1 price for the musical ride.

Lleyton's Cookie Making Session

Mummy accompanied Lleyton for a cookie making session, where Lleyton moulded and decorated tiny cookies. Here's his works, and Lleyton washing up after the event.

Lleyton Biting into His Large Lollipop

As part of City Square Mall's promotions, sweets are given away. Lleyton was the lucky recipient of a large multi-couloured lollipop. Look at him biting at the lollipop.

Yes...biting...as he has not understood how best to ingest the huge sweet.

Photos from the Past Month

Daddy has finally decided to give up on the 2 year old macbook, in favour of the pc. Here are some of the photos from the past month..

Lleyton's New Bicycle

Lleyton has a new bicycle!

Daddy had wanted Lleyton to start learning to pedal, so and gradually cultivated his interest in cycling through a stepped process.

First, Daddy brought out the tricycle that Lleyton was handed down, and accompanied Lleyton for a short pedalling (or rather pushing) session in the garden.

Subsequently, Daddy brought Lleyton to cycle at the East Coast Park. Lleyton sat in a child seat in front of Daddy, as Daddy zoomed up and down the cycling tracks of ECP, showing Lleyton the sights by the sea, and how to use the bicyle's bell. Lleyton was hooked.

Next, Daddy brought Lleyton down to the basement carpark where the estate's bicycles are kept. They went from block to block, to look at each of the children bicycles, and probed Lleyton to find out which colour will he want his own bicycle to be in. Lleyton's bicycle is simple, "blue". When Daddy questioned "why not yellow? Yellow will be nice." Lleyton answered practically "No. Yellow bicycle is too big. Lleyton want small." He is obviously referring to the adult yellow bike which is clearly too large for him.

Finally, with Lleyton hooked, and his preferences known, Daddy went with Mummy to buy Lleyton his bicycle. Now, Lleyton is the proud owner of a 12" blue bicycle with a loud bell!

Parents-Teachers Meeting

On Friday, Daddy and Mummy went to Lleyton's school to meet the teachers. This is the first ever formal Parent-Teachers Meeting (PTM) that Daddy and Mummy have had to attend. Both took a day's leave for the event.

The sharing from the PTM were largely as expected, that Lleyton is generally okay. The details include comments that Lleyton is more talkative now, and a bit too much that he chats with his classmates when lessons are on-going or when the class is doing an assignment. He is also inadequate in colouring his worksheets, and he gets disinterested when the lessons were revised or repeated.

Nonetheless, Lleyton has shown immense enthusiam in physical activities, and listening to stories. He is also very eager and curious to find out more about the aftermath of stories (even after the stories have ended). Lleyton is sociable, and and communicate well with his classmates. His teacher has also commented that she is surprised that he can recognise all the mathematic numerals even when those have yet to be taught in class. On the same note, Lleyton has demonstrated great strength in his academics, especially in maths.

From the session, Daddy has also found out that Lleyton does conform to the normal diet and sleeping routine in school, despite recently being picky about found at home, and not wanting to take afternoon naps on weekends.

On the whole, Daddy is pleased that Lleyton has developed well over the past year that he has spent in school. Keep it up, young man!

Lleyton's 1st Mathematics Class

Some weeks ago, Daddy commented that since Lleyton is able to rationalise and think logically, he should be ready for mathematics. Hence, Daddy gave Lleyton his first Mathematics class this evening. It was a 45 mins intensive session during Lleyton was first told to lay out all the number cards (1 to 10) in sequence, next to identify all the cards of the same number, before arranging them nicely. Subsequently, Lleyton had to go through a stack of 12-15 picture cards, each with different number of objects (from 1 to 7), count the objects, before picking the corresponding number card.

Daddy has set out to stop at 5, but Lleyton demonstrated an ability to go further, so Daddy went along. From the number 7 onwards, Daddy could sense that Lleyton's attention dwindling, hence decided to stop at 7. At this juncture, Lleyton began to lose focus and could not count properly; his fingers were not following the objects on the card, and he was merely mouthing the sequence from 1 to 10. Daddy decided to round up the session with the final phase, which required Lleyton to redo each of the number matching that he had gone through earlier in the class.

After two matches, Lleyton lost focus again, and started playing with the box (from which the cards come) instead of matching the cards. Thus, Daddy took away the box, and told Lleyton to resume his counting. At this point, Lleyton broke down into tears, and lamented that Daddy was scolding him...Daddy was soon able to soothe the young boy's nerves, and made Lleyton complete all the matches. The reward for Lleyton's first mathematics class? A chilled bottle of vitagen!

Daddy has realised that this is hard work...from the design of the curriculum, the delivery, to the management of the boy's emotions, all require forward planning and deep thinking. No wonder, Daddy felt so fatigued after the class. Now that the stage has been set, the next class on thursday night should be easier...we hope!

Why there are fewer photos and videos recently...

Many followers will have noticed the drop in photo and video count recently, as more posts become text-based. This is primarily due to a technical problem with Daddy's macbook. The battery has appeared to be damaged, and thus the macbook can only be operated when connected to a power supply. Hence, syncing of photos and videos are done at a less frequent basis.

Furthermore, the battery issue has resulted in Daddy using the lenovo thinkpad more often instead of the macbook, where the photos are stored.

However, Daddy is aware of followers who will like to see Leanne's recent photos and clips of Lleyton playing with Leanne, and will endeavour to put those on the blog as soon as practicable.

Lleyton's Swimming Progress

Lleyton has been attending swim classes for the past month. Although, Daddy is not pleased with his lack of progress, Daddy has been convinced by Mummy to give the swim coach some more time. Hence, Daddy will extend the probation of the private swim instructor for another 4 lessons.

Daddy's main quip is that Lleyton's level of proficiency is largely still the same as he was before he started lessons, and that there is no clear sign that things will improve in the coming weeks or months. When probed, the instructor has replied that the kids can only go further after they know how to hold their breathe in water, otherwise they will just be put through "water confidence" exercises. That really irked Daddy, as Lleyton will not need a private swim coach (charging moderately high rates) to let Lleyton play in the pool, as Daddy and Mummy have been already doing that for the past two years. To worsen things, the instructor has told Daddy to teach Lleyton to hold his breathe. Daddy has been thinking hard, if Daddy is able to teach Lleyton to do so efficiently, what will the swim instructor be necessary for?

Daddy has quietly decided that he will inform the swim instructor this weekend that he has 4 more lessons to show some improvement in the kids' standards, or his employment will be terminated. Daddy is adamant that when a private coach is hired, his training regime and pace has to be customised according to the standards and competencies of the student, rather than impose a slow common pace to all his students, in the hope of dragging the lessons over a longer period.