2 EXPERIMENTS

Experiment #1.

I've mentioned earlier that I will experiment with "school" again and it did.

Since yesterday, I told him we have to go to school.  Even if it's just for therapy.

Results ... slept really late, about 1.30am.  Woke up at 5.30am and refused to go back to sleep until I told him that he can stay at home.  I gave in quickly because I didn't want to have him repeatedly waking up in the morning like the last time (posted HERE).

I have goodwill people telling me that if I keep this up, he will not be going out and that he will have an upper hand over me.  I feel lousy when people say that.  It's as if I cannot discipline Jonathan.

He's a smart boy.  If he knows I'm forcing him to go, he will resort to all ways just to prevent it from happening so much so that now his into "since I'm not going to school, I might as well don't go out at all".

So it's been like this.  Sometimes he stays home for a straight 3 days and then he will willingly step out of the house for a half hour stroll or have dinner with us at the foodcourt @ the market.

And...

This morning, because I needed to go to the market to buy something, he refused to sit on his buggy, straightening his body and started crying.  I hate it when he cries.  The secretion will start building up and the throat becomes noisy for the rest of the day.

Physically, it's really strenuous to carry him whenever he straightens his body.  I've almost hurt myself trying to prevent him from hurting himself.  Moreover, my left arm that cracked 10 years ago is now not as strong as it used to be.

So sue me la for not making him go to school.  I'm really tired of this.

EXPERIMENT #2:

Since he didn't want to go out today, we decided it's time for a long awaited hair cut.

I've never cut Jonathan's hair.  It's always Harith who does it.  Today Jonathan refused to have his hair cut.  Refused to let me carry him to the bathroom.  But after much struggle, I picked up him in one big scoop and carried him to the bathroom.

So I cut with much difficulty.  The hair looks neat now, albeit a little messy cut but still I'm happy with the results.

No photos cos he's lying down.  Can't see much while he's on the mat.

But at least I'm glad I'm not sitting on the chair holding him up, which can be quite tiring.

PEOPLE FIRST: EMPOWERING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

For the last 13 years, Jonathan has been featured twice on television.  One for the President's Start Charity where funds are raised through a television program and distributed to more than 40 charities selected by the President of Singapore.

the other was a documentary by a group of university students who had a final year project to complete and decided to use this opportunity to raise awareness about children with special needs in Singapore.

You can watch the documentary HERE.

MORGAN'S WONDERLAND, together with BLOGGERS UNITE have come together to encourage bloggers to share their experiences on empowering people with disabilities.

I'm glad I could share my experiences on being Jonathan's caregiver.  It's a joy to see university students doing the early intervention courses telling me that they have learned alot with my sharing.

I hope more awareness will be reached throughout the world.  More so, I'm very thankful that there are places like Morgan's Wonderland where many children and adults with special needs can have a place to have fun and enjoy rides where other theme parks don't offer.

2 MINUTES

I think I have already posted this photo (that was taken early this year) but I'm not sure if I did heh heh.  Anyway, I know Jonathan loves to stand.  Especially so whenever we come home from a stroll or somewhere, he will always like me to carry him upright from the buggy.  Then we will end up standing like the picture above.

Last night, I stood with him in the same manner, doing weight bearing and allow his weight down to this feet.  I sang some of his favourite songs and wala!  He stood with me for 2 minutes.

And of course after that, my back couldn't take it anymore.  But at least we achieved "something".

BIRTHDAY CARDS DONE ... THANKFULLY!

I still owed my friend 2 more birthday cards that I promised to give her in June.  But we didn't get to meet.

Thank God she reminded a few days ago because their birthdays are in August and September!  Man...I'm not good at prioritizing!

So here are the cards I finished.  I used my Pazzles Inspiration Creative Cutter.  I'm only featuring 2 because the third one is for my friend whose birthday is in November and when I mailed the cards to her today, I sealed her card and marked on the envelope (can't remember exactly what I wrote hee hee) : "TO BE OPENED BY CELL GROUP MEMBERS WHEN THEY SIGN/WRITE ON THE CARD FOR MABEL'S BIRTHDAY. MABEL IS NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE THE CARD UNTIL NOVEMBER."  haahaha  (Sorry Mabel).

In the Pazzles work page, I put a small letter E below another circle and weld them together at the top creating this effect.  So the top is joined.

Notice that the letters are double-layered.  The first set in purple are original size.  Through Pazzles, I could create another path around the original sized letters to make another set letters 0.03cm larger.  Then I split the text and cut them out separately, the larger letters I used grey cardstock.  Pasted them together and they have the layered effect.  I used sticky foam to give make them look 3-D.
Note:  If you manually enlarge the letters, they don't fit perfectly.

I always have a hard time matching papers.  This last card took me a while to decide what to use.

The name ESTHER was cut out from the Happy Birthday patterned paper.  But it felt "empty" even with the backing insert.  So I decided to cut out the name again on the yellow textured cardstock and inserted them into the cut out words.  The orange wavy trimming is from Doodlebugs.

This is what I did to "insert" the yellow ESTHER into the cut out words.  Actually pasted them onto the insert.

Feeling "empty" again, I decided to cut out some "gifts" from another pattern paper and pasted them inside the card.

Note:  All the pattern papers and single color cardstock used here are either from SEI or American Craft.

I'm actually quite happy with the outcome.  The Pazzles have some functions that are quite similar to the Adobe Illustrator and with Pazzles, I learned to to adopt the same method of some of the functions into my Illustrator work and vice versa.

Come November then I'll show you what I did for Mabel's card.


Thanks for dropping by!

NEW CURTAINS FOR JONATHAN'S ROOM

I must admit, I'm not a "sewing" person.  My 2nd sister, came back for a visit from USA and during that one week she was here (last week of June), she offered to sew Jonathan a new set of curtains.

And so said my ta jie to me:"It's either you do it now, or you have to pay for a new set or wait for another 2 years for er jie to come back."  haahaha

I took the measurements, told her how many pleats and still got it wrong..haha.  You can see why at the end of this post.

We went to Joo Chia Complex to buy the curtain materials.  Alot of materials to choose from but I just couldn't find anything suitable for young teens until I saw this.

Well...it's more for a kid but doesn't matter.  I would love to have this if I had my own room...haha.  Cost of material (for approx 7 yards) SGD30.  Heavy cotton/canvas type.

My 2nd sister is the one who actually sews curtains.  She did the measuring and cutting and on request from my ta jie (1st sister), she let my ta jie sew the curtains.

Good job on the workmanship.

The seamstress my er jie (right) and her apprentice ta jie (left)

One side up

Both sides now

You can see why I said I'm not good at sewing.  I think each side should have 2 more pleats.  So instead of 15 pleats, I told my sister 13 pleats.  But it doesn't matter.  Still covers the whole window.

And for the record, they did the job in 4 hours or less!  Amazing!

Thanks Aunty Arina and Aunty Emmy!

MUSIC TIME

I was in the mood to sing today.  Harith was in the mood to play his violin today (much to my delight!!!!  I always love it when he plays).

When Harith went to the market to get us some breakfast (didn't feel like eating bread ... heh heh), I took out the uke to sing some songs.  And guess what ... the prince scooted away!  hahaha.

Anyway, I had to go buy my paper supplies so after returning home, Harith started playing songs on the violin and for half to one hour, both Jonathan and I were enjoying the music coming out of the music room.

Then we did a duet.  And the prince wanted in on the action.

Here ... we are getting ready to bow...

But I can't play the violin so it was just squeaky sound.  It's hard to hold his hand and the violin on the left.  But I did rest the violin on Jonathan's shoulder just to give him a feel.

Then, we tried the uke.

As you can see, he was smiling more while playing the violin.  Maybe it was strumming the uke with his fingers that he stopped smiling.  uh oh..pain pain... haha.  Harith said cos he didn't have to do much work bowing. haha

Obviously he chose the violin as the preferred musical instrument :)

MODELS FOR MY SHIRTS

I have the pleasure of reading Rachel's journal about the shirts I printed for her children HERE.

So funny...but I'm just so so happy that Aaron, Maddison and Samuel (apart from his poo-poo situation) modelled for me.

For the closeup of the shirts, CLICK HERE.

Thanks Rachel!!!

UNDER HOUSE DETENTION

I'm under house detention.

This comes whenever I mention "SCHOOL".

Whether any conversation is related to Jonathan or not, as long as the word "SCHOOL" is mentioned, it sets off an alarm and then I'm placed under arrest.

I.E.  No going out.  Well...I can still go but one of us has to stay home with the prince and most of the time it will be moi.

He was all ok this morning to go downstairs for a walk until my girlfriend called.  We talked about sending our children to school and the sensitive-ear-detective heard it and there!

I'm being "punished"  haha.  It was the same during that week of disturbed sleep.  He just refuses to go out even for a stroll.

But come to think of it, he's actually putting himself under house detention!  LOL!

Well...as a compensation, Jonathan slept well again last night, of which I'm thankful for.   We woke up almost 12 noon today.  It's funny when you have the whole week of waking hours in the night, you take the same amount of time or sometimes longer to recover from that.

At least I could spend some time with Harith watching football this morning (Germany vs Spain).  A boring game actually haha.

At least one of us can do errands :)

So it's official ... "SCHOOL" is not allowed to be spoken at home.....

LAST NIGHT WAS BETTER

I'm experimenting ... I'm guessing if what my gut feeling says is right.  So I'm experimenting.

Last night before Jonathan went to sleep, I told him.  "Sleep well.  Tomorrow you will be staying home.  We are not going anywhere.  Daddy is working."  No mention of the word "school".

He slept.  So did I (after days of disturbed sleep.  I was getting physically drained).  Not even bothering to get up to watch the semi-finals between the Netherlands and Uruguay (not that I really bothered at all ... haha).

Harith woke me up ask if I wanted to leave the computer on.  That was around 4am.  Groggily I got up, turned everything off, he helped me.  Went to the loo and I went back to sleep.

All these done while our prince was sleeping.  I didn't even want to change his diaper, fearing he will wake up and not go back to sleep!

But sleep he did.  At 6am I woke up to check on him and changed his diaper.  He woke up, looked around and after changing, went back to sleep.

Woke up at 10.30am.

It was good.  Now the gut feeling is almost confirmed.  But I still want to experiment just to be doubly sure.

Just one more night of good sleep and then I'll try it again.

ALSEEP ... AWAKE ... ASLEEP ... AWAKE ... ALSEEP

For the past one week, Jonathan's sleeping pattern changed.  A couple of days after the bird incident whereby he kept waking up at 6am, this time around, he wakes up at 3 or 4 am.  Then proceed to ask for milk, staying up for another half to one hour and return to sleep only to wake up at around 6am and finally going back to sleep around 7am.  Waking only at 11am.

The most tiring one was just 2 nights ago.  He woke up at 4.30am and didn't go back to sleep until 7am.

That night, it just so happened that I couldn't sleep.  I chose to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway on Youtube and when I was finally going to dose off, Jonathan woke up.  I remembered checking my mobile that it was almost 4.30am.  And that was it for me.  Surprisingly, I was fully awake and alert.  I should thank God for giving me strength to stay up with Jonathan.  He finally went back to sleep around 7am and both of us didn't wake up till 11am.

What does he do during those waking hours?  He will just look around his room, as if finding something.  He will grunt a little or just asks me to carry him in a hugging manner while he burrows under my arms (that's his favourite position).

Physically, both of us are tired.  I don't know what caused this change of sleeping pattern.  But my gut feeling is it's about school.  I've been telling him since the week before school started that he has to go back to school.  Sometimes when he gets me all mad, I will "threaten" him that he should just go to school and not spend his hours watching television at home.

Wrong move?  I'm not sure.  But that probably got to him.  He would look at me with pleading eyes and once, even had tears coming out.  I've journaled about this countless times (one such post HERE).

So to see if school is reason why he's been waking up in the wee hours of the night, before he slept, I told him that we will be staying home tomorrow.  Nothing mention about the word "school".

Will see how tonight goes and I will journal about it tomorrow.

CARD MADE USING PAZZLES CREATIVE CUTTER

Further to my PAZZLE post HERE, this is the card that was totally made using the Pazzle Inspiration.  It's to accompany the gift that my niece is giving to her friend.  This morning, it left for USA with the tshirts that I printed HERE.

Used Bazzill dark green cardstock and DCWV glitter pattern paper and organza ribbons.  That's all!

The Pazzle did all the cutting for me.  All I need to do was draw 2 circles in the software, link one end and weld (merge/join) the ends so they become linked and come out like this:

Then I did the fonts and mirrored one of the S-ses and cut it out on the green cardstock.  For the name SOPHIA, I used the glitter pattern paper.

Now...I don't have to buy alpha stickers anymore.  I can use whatever font I want that is "cuttable".

Soon I will explore into more difficult details to make my remaining birthday cards and 5 bookmarks!

The only drawback is that the Pazzle makes squishy noises when cutting that when I work near Jonathan, he keeps turning to look where the sound is coming from.  It can be quite loud sometimes...haha

But, so far, i still love the machine!

SHIRTS IN JUNE

Remember this post and the partially hidden romper that I printed for a friend?

I'm happy that Rachel has gotten them from Valerie...at last!  I really hope her kids can wear them.

Here's what I did for them:

Rachel had just given birth to a son, Samuel.  I couldn't resist adding the last sentence haha.

I couldn't print a romper for Samuel and leave his brother and sister out.

And while Valerie was here in Singapore, I decided to give her kids a young volunteer tshirts:

While my sister and her family were still vacationing here in June; my niece, Samantha, wanted a I HEART SINGAPORE shirt.  They saw one at Chinatown but the design was I HEART SG.  And of course each time she wears that shirt, she will have to answer this question : "What is SG?"  haha.  They ended up not buying it.

So who else to print one for Samantha but her Auntie Bie!  haha.

And while I was in the I HEART SINGAPORE mood, I printed some coasters for Sally to bring home.  I think I'll also print some for my other sister, Arina, who lives in Memphis (should have done that while she was here for the week...)

And just last week, got an email from Sally to help design something for Samantha's best friend who was leaving Knoxville for Chicago.

This is what I came up with and printed for her:

I found the phrase about the stars and it was really appropriate.  It's sad that her best friend is leaving but I hope she'll like this design.  I also put the "SS" on the front as crest.

I've made a card to accompany the gift.  It was made using the Pazzle Inspiration Creative Cutter.   I'm enjoying the machine and the design process.  Will journal about it another day.

Thanks for dropping by  :)

HE TRIES TO MAKE IT WORK

Lately, Jonathan has been trying to find ways to make things work for him.  there are countless incidents but I remember these most vividly.

1. Loose tooth fell into his mouth.  He couldn't get it out because he was lying on the mat on his back.  What did he do?  Turned his head to face down on the mat.  Use his hand to rub his cheek.  Did it for a few times, did not succeed.  But when i propped him up later, he pushed it out with his tongue.
   
2. I ask him to reach for his shirt that was behind him.  He makes a full spin, position himself where his hands can reach and on the 4th try, caught hold of the shirt.  Sometimes, he will use his legs to move the shirt nearer to him.

MY NEW TOY ~ PAZZLES INSPIRATION CREATIVE CUTTER

I have a brand new toy.  The PAZZLE INSPIRATION.  Thanks to Scrap-n-Crop.com for giving me such a great machine at a GREAT! price.

I experimented with it today and succeeded in cutting out letters and numbers.

I got the Pazzle from Valerie (SnC) on 23rd June but didn't get to use it till now.

Comes with cutting mat backing, manuals, installation program and one blade.

Today I had some time and because I needed to try out something for Jonathan's teacher, it was time to take it out from the box.

The Pazzle software by far is easy to use.  I know how to work on Adobe Illustrator CS3 so this program is kinda like the AI.  And also because I have a cutting machine for my tshirts, it was easy to handle from here.

So I created a few words and numbers and sent for cutting.

The finished cut.  Today, I used a medium weight cardstock and it cut out perfectly.  Love the results.

I still haven't tried the more advanced tools and functions, like uploading my own graphics and cutting them out.  But in the meantime, I'm very happy with this results.

It follows almost whatever true type fonts I have on my computer.  But cannot cut chinese words.  That doesn't matter.  Will probably experiment it with that later on and see if I can link it with Adobe Illustrator.

But for now, just starting to use it, I should say I'm happy with the Pazzles.

ANOTHER TOOTH IS OUT

Jonathan's tooth was loose last night.  I tried to pull it out but it just wouldn't budge.  Instead, it kind of pierced the gum and blood just wouldn't stop flowing.  I finally gave up and decided that leaving it to fall out on its own is the best.

And it did come off this afternoon.  While he was lying down on the mat, I saw blood coming out.  Opened his mouth and the tooth was missing.  Searched everywhere around him, no tooth.  Asked him many questions, no satisfied answers came out.  In the meantime, his hands and feet turned cold and pale.

I put my finger in his mouth but felt nothing.  Yet while he is lying down, he kept turning his face downwards, facing the mat.  I also kept hearing grinding sound.  Called H and he suggested I prop him up and check his mouth again.

Sat him up and then opened his mouth with my finger.  Told him that if the tooth was in the mouth, he has to use his tongue to push it out.  Suddenly, the tooth just popped out from his front tooth and out fell the baby tooth.  haha.

THANK YOU LORD!

The funny thing was he was doing all he could, on his own, to allow the baby tooth to come out of his mouth when he couldn't do it with his hands.  That was smart.