everything~joan.: Mini Milestones : Jasper's 48th month (Jasmine 75th)

Nov 2019

LL Concert day.
Jasper was told to wear long pants and a white t-shirt.
Because we know the songs are quite cultural, so we decided Jasmine can wear her kebaya! :)

Me too!

I couldn't button the last two, with much regrets.... Need a diet plan!

So in the morning, when getting ready Joshua said to Jasper that we will be cheering for him from off stage. He said that we should also remember to cheer for the girls on stage! @.@
Because they are pretty... @.@
The 3 girls are Ranice, Olivia and Dora.

That's my boy there!

When he said he gets to do the lion dance with Ezra I thought it's really a lion dance, but it's merely wearing the lion on their head walk to one side of the stage and sit down. -_-

I would say this performance is disappointing.

Although the stage decor is impressive and the kids had much fun here pretending to cook. BUT teacher also very quick at keeping all the props. Why!!

Paddy field.

The boy there that Jasper is dragging is Judah.

Right after it, we attended Liam's birthday party at Mc Donalds.

Both no school, LL break after concert and Jasmine I think on term break...

One morning Joshua was telling me about his dream, that there was a very annoying guy, Jasper quickly asked "is it me?" Hahahaha

So glad we could let them eat in the kitchen, although it feels a bit hot where the fan cannot reach everyone.

He likes to say sentences like "Jasper wants to eat egg" "Jasper wants some biscuits" I asked him why didn't he just say "I want ...." he said this way is fun.

Jasmine's drawing on white board. :)

And some drawings by Jasper!

This one belongs to Jasmine.

Jasmine;s arrangement of her doll house furnitures.

We tried to ask Jasper wear again the concert clothes for a proper photo but he refused to.

Baking with Ah Yi.

We thought Jasmine's bike broke as the seat came off when we tried to lift it to move it. So came to to fix at Decathlon

Went to playground together with Ah Yi while daddy works at home.

Ah Yi applied pressure on the opposite seat causing them to be lifted off their seat and they were very thrilled by the trick.

Set up Christmas tree.

Drawing on daddy's ipad.

Get ready for VA concert. Put on some make up for the first time. I accidentally made her eye brows too dark and tried to tone it down by wiping... but still quite black or dark. When her friends see her, they kept looking at her eye brows, haha.

First performance, a malay song.

Second performance, a dance!!!

My girl stood in the middle, she's so so cute!!

Strong Choice Award !

Teacher Laura

Teacher Angeline

Teacher Michelle

Teacher Jason

Dinner with mummy and koko at Di Wei Empire. Indirectly celebrating mummy's birthday. :)

Spent some time playing lego at lego shop.

Bought Frozen 2 book from Popular

Breakfast with Ah Ma before going to church.

Holiday at Cameron's Highland!
Stopped by Waterfall.

Jasmine is adventurous to follow us into dipping our feet into the water but Jasper just wants to stay safe and eat honey stars.

Jasmine wanted to explore the top of the waterfall, she spotted the stairs leading all the way up.
We didn't want to take her there and she seemed sad... so I went with her. We walked up all the way to the top and didn't see much interesting things... but most important thing is we did it. We arrived at the top and I'm glad I was able to explore with her. Being curious is good and should be highly encouraged. Self reminder not to be lazy about it. :)

Jasper is at the stage of non-stop pestering and asking questions, in the car and simply everywhere.

When arrived, this is our first stop for famous scones.

Then we went to our Airbnb. They call this airbnb the cold house or the cold room. Because the concrete floor is icy cold !

While Ah Ma rests, we took the kids out to strawberry farm few minutes away.

We exchanged for some tokens for them play with the kids rides, and games.

They have some animals like rabbits for sale for RM50.

They are not interested in harvesting strawberries. Weird.

That night, we had steamboat in airbnb.

The place is so roomy, we have one room to ourselves, one for Anne, one for mummy and still have a middle room that's unused.

This is living room.

At night, when we are putting them to bed, Joshua dropped a coin on the floor. Jasper was so kan cheong to see the coin (for what???) and knocked his head on the floor. It was quite loud.

Day 2, cooling day.

And we visited the Boh Tea plantation.

Tried to take some nice photos but in person the view is much nicer.

Jasmine felt very cold.

We went for the tea factory tour, it is brief & short, then we all had to walk down to our car.

Jasper has been collecting leaves all the time, and I told him to keep in his cap.

Went for lunch, back to airbnb to rest.. and afternoon we went out to the Time Capsule Museum

Mummy told some stories from her childhood which is extra special to all of us. :)

And bought some honey outside the museum We regret didn't get the kids to the honey place before 5pm, we were buying vegetables... there were guys there willing to explain about bees to kids. By the time we arrived, they have finished work.

Anyway next for us is bumping into a fun fair next to the shopping mall.

Digger machine, it is not easy!

So we were trying to limit the kids to their allocated rides but because Ah Ma was so generous that Jasper accidentally took one more ride vs Jasmine.
Jasper wanted car ride while Jasmine wanted one more round of the spinning ride. So we said Jasper go for car ride first, then Jasmine spinning ride. She sat out when Jasper was at his ride.
When it's her turn to go on spinning ride, mummy suddenly told Jasper to hop on too.
Jasmine felt unfair!
I tried to cheer her up for buying her the car ride as well, but Jasper also join in.. so she was still unhappy.
When we were leaving, she teared up.
So we all went to the mall first while Joshua bought extra tokens to take her on the ride of her choice. In total we spent more than RM70 here!

This is us at dinner.

We got some free balloons at the mall and Jasper stuffs it into the back of his shirt to pretend is his sword... little did we know it got so tangled up in his tail... that he pulled and pulled to no avail, he finally asked for our help to remove the balloon. I was shocked to see the tangled hair... after removing it, I saw one bunch of hair that he pulled out in the process. Sigh... I feel so sad about it. His tail is now thinner because of what happened.

Jasper checking on all the leaves he picked from morning. The next day he decided to throw away.

Last day, went to playground nearby in the morning after our breakfast.

Met some children and their dog here. The kids were afraid and worried when the dog was near. Actually I was scared too.

Group photo before check out.

Back in Subang Jaya, watched Frozen 2 !

Even Jasper could follow through the movie till the end!

That weekend on 23rd November, we all drove to JB and here we celebrated Jasper's birthday at the DC Superhero shop!

I asked him to choose his birthday cake, there were superman rainbow cake but he was very firm on getting the wonder woman cupcake.

They also went to Hello Kitty Town together with Jolene.
We were actually quite tired after lunch and decided to take the kids to airbnb for afternoon nap.
But Evelyn and koko last minute called us to say they can bring in one more kid for free... they asked for Jasmine. But we said if they take one, they have to take both. After much long and heated discussion (poor planning as always), we all stayed back, leaving Anne and mummy to check into airbnb.
So Evelyn paid extra to take jasmine & jasper in. We also found out last minute that we ourselves need to pay if we want to enter together with the kids. @.@ No way... so we didn't. Koko and Evelyn went in with 3 kids, leaving me and Joshua lingering at the shops outside. It's a dead town, a few shops to spend time in and there are no air con. I managed to find a nice kebaya top for Joshua and then a H&M dress for jasmine. All in all about RM65. It's half outdoor and suddenly as we were leaving it rained heavily. It's not the best experience.

On the way to airbnb, they both has crashed...We all squeezed into CRV. Jasmine actually is sitting behind Evelyn.

That night we attended wedding dinner of Mei Shan, my cousin.

Typical wedding dinner, boring...

As usual I forced myself to take the kids to say hi to all uncles aunties and cousins etc.

After breakfast (food was not nice), before check out from airbnb, we let them play at the playground. Cannot enter pool because I didn't pack swimwear.

In this playground there was a spiral slide.
Jasmine suddenly decided to climb up the slide but because it is straight spiral, it was not easy.
She tried so many times... eventually I took out her dress as it was in her way.
She tried with sandals and then Joshua checked and said she should remove sandals so that her feet can get a good grip. True enough after remove sandals she could immediately go up!
We were big on teaching them not to give up. So I was really happy that she did it!
It really is showing her that as long as we dont give up, we can achieve our goal.

As I thought that's the end... next thing we know Jasmine was attempting to climb up with sandals on!
I asked her whether she was sure, she said yes. So she kept trying... she was sweating so much but didn't give up.
I eventually went in and let her step on my palm and pushed her up. Phew.
I thought yeay we did it, lets go!
I turned back to see, she was trying again to go up without external help. -_-
And guess what, she managed to do it!!!! She did it !!! With sandals she climbed up on her own!

Isn't she awesome!!???

As a celebration, we decided to let them go into the pool without swimwear! Crazy decision but the kids really love it!

Half way Jasper needed to pee. Hahaha.

No towel whatsoever, just put back on their clothes and quickly go back to the airbnb to bath.

Back and next day immediately is Lick Hung prep class. I didn't have time to prepare, when she put on this dress I realised it is so long. And forgot to buy black socks. I must say we were very unprepared, like I didn't know the yellow lanyard was for the kid to wear. Admin staff told us is for parents! And I forgot to brief Jasmine that her class is 1F.

First day pick up! She was so cheerful! The Teacher Ng saw me and said I should've told her her class is 1F and why didn't wear lanyard etc. Apparently they didn't know where she belong until they open her pencil case to see her name sticker. And later on Jasmine told me she almost teared that time, but she did not.

She was very excited to show me the classroom, where she sits, the toilet, canteen and the assembly hall. She jokingly said that she doesn't want to go to VA already because no "after school class".

We tried almost all the staircase to go up and she realised it's the wrong way. But finally we found the right stairs that leads to the hall.
Suddenly she said she needed to pee, we went to the toilet only realised it was the squat down toilet! Teacher Ng passed by I asked her, she said all toilets are squat down. WHat??

So we rushed to Aeon Big, used the toilet there and bought the cheapest white uniform top and 2 pairs of black socks.That night I also taught her how to pee when squat down.
I took half day off the whole week, we eat lunch together and spend the evenings together. :)

Went to pick Jasper from LL in evening.

At night when playing with Jasper, Jasmine starting to show some emotions.. anger... wanting her own privacy.

She also had written a note that she has a terrible home and doesn't know her family at all. Such strong words and really had me worried. I spoke to her and she told me she doesn't want the big container to be placed under the wooden table.. so I moved it into the drum room. You can see it on the left in the photo below. Then she said Jasper disturbed her a lot... so I suggested that she can do her own stuffs in the drum room with the door closed if she doesn't mind that this room doesn't have a fan and provided she must inform us. She felt better after that she said to me she wrote the note wrongly because our home is not terrible. Phew!!!

See the blue umbrella there?
One day Jasper (believe he was inspired by the Barney video) asked me whether I can buy him umbrella. I said ok. He said he wants a green one to himself and blue one for jeje. Specific.
So I bought during the 11.11 sale and he has been looking forward to it ever since. When I told him it's arrived while we were in JB, he was so excited to go home (on 24 Nov) to play with it.
He told Ah Yi that he is not scared of the rain because he has umbrella and then he laughs to himself.

Day 2 of Lick Hung. I altered the dress to be shorter. With the new blouse and black socks, and a simple hair tie, she looks great!!

They line up here everyday. These are just the standard 1 students that comes for the prep class.

Send jeje in the morning together.

She managed to pee squating down!! My champion!!

Again, spent the afternoon with me and then go to pick up Jasper together.

Jasper likes to wear the bag like me. Hehe.

Jasmine said that teacher showed them the sports field and warned them not to go there on their own because there might be some wild monkeys. Then Jasmine said it was very hot and she said "老师我的头发很热" but teacher didn't respond. :)

Daddy pick up.

Jasper likes to wear this green gown.

Random morning found him sleeping on Joshua's chest like this.

Went to Sushi Tei for my birthday. :)

I built this lego train station with Jasmine in one whole afternoon. First time we build it, it was fun!

It was a present from mummy few years ago.

Celebrate Jasper's 4th birthday at Little Legend.

With a dinosaur cake i ordered from Shin Mei.
Joshua didn't open the cover properly and wiped off some of the cream design, sigh.

Wait at Family Mart after buying vitamins at Pharmacy Fair, before pick Jasper.

Joshua took them to playground and Jasper learnt to paddle on the big bike with jeje guiding him. :)

They too made some friends and play happily with them.

This month, we were again met with a crossroad, Lick Hung or Victory Academy?

Jasmine attended the Lick Hung 2 weeks preparation class from 25th November to 6th December.

I paid the RM130 somewhere in August or September but forgot it was for 2 weeks instead of 1.

So I had paid for a 1 week full day class at Eileen Leong's kindy at Puchong, to learn cooking & science.. and had to shift it to the following week, which is the Eco Brick class.

Anyway.. from 25 Nov all the way till 6th December.. our hearts were so troubled because we saw how Jasmine enjoyed the Lick Hung prep class, something I didn't expect her to.

She made a friend named Ava who sits next to her. Ava gave her some stickers and lollipops the next day. This is something she didn't get at VA, the big group of kids her age to mingle with. They were also disallowed to bring presents and snacks to share with friends. I think that this is all part and parcel of building great childhood school memories together. With too much restrictions, too little variations (one sch about 100-200 kids vs Lick Hung school 2k kids), and too little facilities (no outdoor at all), she may not have the exposure of the kind of childhood we want them to have.

Things all started like this, during Q3 2019, Orion's mum suddenly got in touch with me about Super Sharkz swim class. Orion signed up and we have been seeing each other during wednesday night classes. We talked and she told me about Real Kids where Orion even learnt how to play piano! I was then thinking how come LL or VA don't have music lessons?? We pay so much?

So we decided clearly we will send Jasper to Summer Academy next year, no more LL But Jasmine shall continue with VA. That's what we thought then.

Then... came the 2 weeks prep class.

Trial Day 1 : After sending Jasmine (we were late...) I bumped into Wei Wong, Leann and Benjamin's parents. We talked and I told them Jasmine is just here for some exposure, they laughed etc.. I heard they paid for canteen catering and already confirm which daycare to send to, what arrangements they made etc. All just good information for me. Jessie told me she was queueing at the bookstore, there's a list of exercise books to purchase and total cost is about RM120.

Very cheap compared to what we pay at VA. Of course Jessie sent me the list, she's my angel. She also told me text books all will be loan from school, no need to buy. Wow. Impressive.

She even told me canteen catering is RM80 a month and kid have a tag with them to collect food everyday.

When I go to pick Jasmine, she took me to her class again, I saw the stack of exercise books on teacher's table, I found Jasmine's and saw her works. Reminds me a lot of my childhood days.

Trial Day 2 : We were running late again! Bumped into Jessie at the gate and she helped me to extract Jasmine and send her past the gate. She's awesome. She told me that Jasmine has sat down with her class at the basketball court.

I found parking and went in to stalk. I saw the canteen food being prepared. Asked Jasmine which she ate, she said she wanted noodles but the uncle gave her rice.

Jessie said she goes there when the class ends to spy whether the kid able to follow daycare teacher to walk to daycare. Need to cross road cos Orion goes to Literasi. And I know that Wei Wong goes to another one called Brainchild, where the groups are smaller.

She said in Literasi the kdis will do some exercise book, have some tuition and then watch tv.

I went to line up at bookstore, and when it's my turn I backed out. I really was not sure if I should buy all those books. Our plan was for Jasmine to attend Lick Hung in January as a new student until she needs to start VA. So those books will only get used for 2 weeks? Or should we just withdraw from VA?

Trial Day 3 : I dropped off Jasmine together with Jasper. Then when the discipline teacher was closing the gate, I heard other 2 parents asking him some questions. He was generous to explain it and I can't believe I listened for half an hour! He said their cheer leading team goes for international competition (Singapore, Korea, China). They have hip hop, fencing, robotics, violin, chinese drums, traditional dance, latin dance, chess, speech & drama.... Discipline teacher say he encouraged the kids to eat lunch at canteen on their own before the class.

Jessie sent me a file that covers all kinds of curricular activities offered by Lick Hung, it is too impressive! Jessie said she already joined the class chat group which is where she got this information.

Jessie told me "you can still consider"
That really got me thinking.... I said to her I have to consider the good things at VA too... I did seriously discuss this with Jasmine when we were having lunch, I explained the differences of both schools and asked her which she choose, she said both. Not helping. When I said she can only choose 1, she said "you choose for me la". @.@ Not helping too. So I am hanging half way.

Trial Day 4 : I had a tough time discussing with Wei Chee about LH or VA. She said she will be very sure that she will send to LH and not VA. Why go to a school that pays so much when they are so young? I felt that was hard to take in... but after some thoughts I understood where she's coming from..... Then Jessie is so cute, she asked me at night 9pm "any change in decision?" I told her I am so troubled... Jasmine is an emotional girl, I worry that in Lick Hung no one will pay attention to help her sort through her heartaches. She can just burst into tears in the car when she think we were not listening to her stories.

Trial Day 5 : I asked Jessie if they have a back up plan if Orion not happy in Lick Hung. She says no. Her husband is quite firm on Lick Hung all the way. I told her I need a quiet meditation to make a proper decision... So I asked Jessie further on how the kids will settle their lunches if they sign up for the after school activities etc. She said Literasi have philipino maid to help clean the kids and send them back to sch after lunch.

Jessie told me to take my time to consider.. the worse scenario is I still have 2 more weeks in January to test out... I told her Jasmine already befriended a girl name Ava, she gave a chocolate to Jasmine and said "you are my friend". Isn't that too cute?

And those curricular activities are so impressive. If we send to VA I have to pay more to send her to those classes and have to find time to fetch her around. If LH then I just focus on helping her go through the difficult school culture, homework etc.. and in this big school she gets to make more friends which will perhaps last a lifetime! This is a complete change in my perspective.. and Joshua's too. Now public sch seems to provide more wholistic school experience and private is more "specialisd" and "niche".

And this is a high performance school, people long to be taken into this sch until use fake address. I just simply apply and got it, and seems like I am not appreciating it enough. Then Jessie said the kid of RealKids school group COO, the grandfather is the founder. They last minute decided to attend LH but didn't register early enough, now they have been going to LH everyday to beg for a seat! She thinks that if they donate like 50 air cons the kid may get in. The mother wanted the kid to learn chinese.

You can tell the situation gets more and more intensed until i cannot think of other things. I am troubled everyday and talks to Joshua about it all the time. We are really back and forth, now we prefer LH, later we will prefer VA, vice versa.

Sunday Jessie said to me she can help me get into the class whatsapp group. I told her hold on first as I have not fully decided... Jessie said her husband stop her from discussing about school because he say so many hundreds of kids can survive, so why their son cannot? Oops. I told Jessie... if I dont have the VA 15% pioneer discount to BURN, I would've said LH 100% now. @.@ In my simulation the discounts is about RM14k for 5 years of study. My savings is 35k if Jasmine stays through till standard 6, net savings 17k.... I regret sending Jasmine to VA too early and utilizing the pioneer discount too soon.

I asked Julia... she said I need to decided and send them a written response by 1st week of December.... So I made the below table of both LH and VA's pros and cons. The yellow highlights are the MAIN reason on our decision. Jasmine will attend Lick Hung. Yes we burnt VA discount but then we will be free to choose any private school to send for secondary school ! Maybe there are better ones because we are not 100% happy with VA.

Trial Day 6 : So I joined the class 1F whatsapp group. Thanks to Jessie for all these.

I also then realised arrival at school is 7.10am and class starts at 7.30am!! That's a big change.

Trial Day 7 : We have sticked to decision of LH for more than 48 hours. So finally I wrote the withdrawal email to VA. No more turning back! And not giving up, once we go in, we will last till Standard 6, UPSR.

I start to feel emotional and tear up a lot when I secretly keep Jasmine's VA school bag, lunch bag and uniforms into the cabinet. And I think of ways to change our living room where the kids have more space to do art.. since chinese sch probably won't encourage it.

Trial Day 8 : I called Literasi, theirs is 24 per class and the owner/ teacher Yap sounds so strict & fierce. She wanted to be sure Jasmine is the kind who can sit still. And they dont let the kids have any down time or play time.. say 5.00pm just watch tv and wait for parents to arrive. -_-

I called Brainchild next and felt so much better. They currently have only less than 5 standard 1 kids

They serve home cooked food, their aunty cooks in USJ14 kitchen and bring over to SS19. RM470 a month.

Trial Day 9 : I went to check out Brainchild after picking Jasmine up. And what a pleasure to learn that Leann also comes to Brainchild! Coming here they dont need to cross the road, plus point.

Simple house. The walls are dirty because of kids drawings. Teachers are quite nice and soft spoke. I followed Teacher Kew to pick the kids, she's nice.