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!!!