Lunch and Dinner

Nov 8, 2009

My son is 4 years old now. I have been feeding him personally while he is taking lunch and dinner until recently. He is still developing his fine motor skills and I figure we should give him more exercise of his fine motor skills by letting him feed himself. It is a bit late but better late than never.

The problem of letting him eat himself is the worry that he is not eating enough. At least if I feed him, I control how much food he eats. I guess I can half let him eat himself and half feed him. That way he practice his fine motor skills and I can force him to finish his food if there is still some food left.

I also have problem occupying him meaningfully when he is not going to school. He watches TV most of the time, Nickelodeon and cartoon network. Dora Explorer, Diego, Max and Ruby, Ni Hao Kai Lan etc and He loves watching spongebob. Nowadays, when taking his meals, I will switch off the TV so that he concentrates on his meals. My friends, if you are able to engage your preschool kids off TV, let me know how. I learnt about phonics from a Montessori teacher and is teaching him about the sound each letter makes and he manage to read 4 books from the Fitzroy reader series using this phonics method from Montessori.  These I do when he takes break from TV.

Used to be that I have to appeal to his taste when he was younger because if he does not like the food, he does not eat it. Now, I can force him to try new food and he usually listens to me. At least if he likes the food, he will continue to eat it. The important thing is he tries the food.

His usual staple now includes macaroni and cheese, rice with chicken nuggets and fish sticks, rice with scrambled egg, rice with 2 length of sausages, 4 hard-boiled eggs, 2 or 3 pancakes, bread with butter, instant noodles,  subway soups like broccoli with cheddar cheese, dumpling soup, chicken soup etc, hotdog with bread, spaghetti, pizza, rice with roasted chicken, pretzels. I am trying to let him try more food if possible.

It is a God-given responsibility of mine to feed him, clothe him and take good care of him as he is my son. I learnt from a radio broadcast that just as God the father gave man structure to his environment, parents also need to provide structure to their children in their daily routines. I guess that I need to do that and more. Nurturing my son will be my greater responsibility other than the role of a care giver.

About language, health insurance

Sept 9, 2009

These words were new to me:

Sucker is lollipop.

Flash light refers to torch light.

Gas refers to petrol.

Americans pronounce diaper as di-per.

Experience with american health insurance:

There was a time when my son and I did not have health insurance in the previous year and my son was running a fever. So, I picked up the phone and called a nearby clinic and asked how much would it cost to treat the sickness without health insurance. The answer: one hundred plus dollars. So, we ended up in a will county health department and ended up paying seventy plus dollars for treatment. Eventually, we bought health insurance for my son and I.

Health insurance is a must in US. Just in case when there is an illness or need for hospitalization, we need health insurance so that we don't have to fork out a huge sum of money upfront. I heard from the news that there are many americans who go bankrupt because of an illness, even for those with health insurance because their illness was not covered in their health insurance.

We pray that God will grant us good health

Sense of importance

Aug 20, 2009

Another blog theme came to my mind while I was washing my dishes. About a sense of importance. And it is about washing dishes and cooking. Most of the time, my wife is the one who cooks while I am the one who washes the dishes. Thoughts came to my mind that what she is doing something value added while I am not. She contributes to the fulfillment of our tummies while I am doing a menial task of cleaning up the mess. As we talked about it, my wife pointed out that we are just doing what we are best at doing, not about who is doing the more important task. Granted washing dishes is menial while cooking seems more prestigious. After all, you heard of cooking competitions to select the best chef but not competition of who best washes the dishes. But that should not make me feel less important because washing dishes is a chore that has to be done and it's a matter of dividing the household chores to whoever does it best.

Our sense of importance should not be based on what we do or not do or not even on what we are able to do or not able to do. If God sends his Son to die on the cross to die for me, doesn't that make me a very important person? I am important to God and that's what counts.

John 3

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - niv

16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. -kjv