Growing Crystals at Home

I have a few packets of borax sitting in my drawer. I bought them after Missy requested me to make her slime after watching them on Youtube channel. My colleague suggested me to use laundry detergent (Dynamo for blueish hue) but I was not very keen towards the idea of using liquid detergent for a kid to play with. Clear glue seemed to be a great option but this promise was still kept pending as I got out a little of hand for the past few months before we wrapped up for year-end holidays.

When I googled on other usages of borax for kids, I stumbled upon growing borax crystal and I thought it was great for Missy to somehow know what crystallization is about. Since it requires boiling water, most of the steps were managed by myself including the shaping of pipe cleaners into the shapes and initial of the names mentioned by little lady boss which she wanted to present her crystal to from grandparents, grandaunts, aunts and her little baby cousin Issac.

What will be needed:

Pipe cleaners

Boiling water: Borax (I used a ratio of 2 cups to 9 tbs borax as per recommended from the sources I visited)

String (I used ordinary sewing thread)

Stick (I used lidi sticks)

Glass jar/bottle (heatproof)

Pegs/clips (to fasten the thread onto the stick) - not necessarily needed

  

Diluting the boiling water with the borax is not difficult, totally contrary to what I have thought earlier. Next, the pipe cleaners will be immersed in the water-borax solution with the aid of a string and stick. Provide some gap in between of the pipe cleaners in case you are immersing more than one, and avoid the pipe cleaner to touch the base of the solution in the jar. Come back the next morning and you will be able to see beautiful crystals. In fact, crystals can be seen gradually forming within a couple of hours. It is as easy as it sounds. 

Missy was very happy with her 3 crystal hearts and decided to give 2 of them to grandma (on top of a baby breath bouquet on the exact day - 051017) and yi-yi as birthday gifts because coincidentally October is their birth month and another coincidence, daddy willingly agrees to be her messenger since he will be flying over for work the following day (231017) :). 

38 Months

Abby turns 38 months (3y 2m) today.

Weight

14.7kg

Height/Length

99cm

Teeth

20 pearly whites, both upper second molars have finally made their way out.

Motor Skills

Loves playing with mommy’s lip balm (to which she called lipstick) and eyebrow pencil and pretend to put them on her eyebrow and lips.

Communication and Social Skills

• She was keen to own a mini luggage bag and said “Mommy has big big luggage upstairs, I want a small small one for Abby (myself)” 210917
• We upgraded her to a big girl’s car seat on her birthday and whenever she chanced upon her old one which we placed in the dining hall, she would try to get in and declare “Oh, this is Mabel’s chair, so small”. If you wonder why Mabel, she has somehow generalised all babies as Mabel, the only baby girl she get to know better who is the granddaughter of aunt’s acquaintance (240917)
• This little girl loves to frequent Giant because that is the nearest shopping place near home. She saw me wearing a green tee with some curvy letter on it and probably feeling amazed and said “Wow, mommy you wearing Giant sam-sam (i.e shirt)” simply because the green colour has the same scheme as Giant’s and coincidentally Giant’s name was written joined together in a flowing manner too. LOL (240917).
• This cheeky little girl once commented “silly momma”. When I deliberately look at her and asked ‘What were you saying, could you say that again?’, she quickly answered “nice momma”, grinning away (041017).
• She saw a group of primary school student going around the housing area with a lantern on the weekend before Mid-Autumn celebration. My curious cat asked ‘why are they playing with a little bit of fire?’
• She intended to hide the toys to spare herself from daddy’s scolding “put toys at ah-poh’s house, no let daddy see” (071017)
• Loves giving step-by-step instruction even when she was playing on her own (071017).
• On another occasion, she pretended to tie her own hair. This vain pot went “first, put rubber band my hand, and put some hair. All done” LOL too bad I didn't manage to capture the video of her (171017).
• I heard her farted and teased her immediately “Oops, how if you poop on the bed?” She quirkily answered “don't worry, poo poo in potty” (081017)
• I was helping her to change into pyjamas and apparently, the neck-hole was slightly smaller than her usual ones and she made a conclusion “Oh, my (hair)clip blocked the way” (081017)
• I handed her a glue stick and she commented “like lipstick, mommy” (151017)
• Loves to use “too much” all the time to explain huge/great amount instead of “more or a lot”. “I want to play too much bubbles”, “I want to watch the video too much”  (171017, 011117).

Emotional Development

• Good in convincing. Her tagline would be “Don't worry, trust me”. She has been jumping over my leg one day but I refused to. She convinced me and say “Trust me, me no break your bones” (031017)
• Still using me as I, and would repeat after us when we corrected her before repeating the same mistake.
• She wanted to negotiate for some candy but at the same time worrying that she might get “black tooth” after some threatening and eventually resolved by concluding “but this is Vitamin C” (081017)

Food and Feeding

• Would say her prayers before meal/milk fix without needed to be reminded perpetually. Once, after putting the bottle teat into her mouth, she pulled it out in a jiff and say “Oops, mommy, I ‘gotten’ (i.e forgotten) to ‘ghan xie’ (i.e say thanks)”- 141017

Her Firsts

• She surprised me for being able to go all on her own all the way to go up the stage (we were seated at the most behind of the hall) to receive her present (3^rd prize in kids activity) during my workplace’s Family Day (220917).

Play n Learn

• I have introduced her to the traffic light colour concept and apparently, she understood and shows great interest and threw us questions like “when can we move?” (Upon red light), “we can go now, why stop?” (when waited for vehicles in front of us to move upon green light), “why need to stop? No red light here” (at the T junction/roundabout) – (270917)
• Can complete a simple jigsaw puzzle on her own (280917)
• Can make simple justification based on her observation when we were doing some worksheets on the weather. When she saw a heart image on the girl’s tee shirt, she grabbed a heart doily nearby and put it on her chest and say “I love you, mommy” (151017).
• She has mastered ‘Rock, Scissor, paper’ and played it with the old-school rhythm Mommy taught her (181017)
• She is at the age of when her curiosity perks up and her understanding has expanded by leaps and bounds. Whenever she heard any words or saw something, she ask asked you repeatedly until she is fully satisfied. Among her questions I can recall was “What spout, mommy?” (asking me what spout means after listening to I’m a little teapot song – 181017), “why daddy needs a belt?” (to which she has been asking until now despite us explaining numerous times, I have to figure out a better way to explain to our Little Miss Curious soon)
• She gets dizzy pretty easily inside a moving car. I asked her “are you dizzy?”. She nodded and after a while, she responded “after me bigger, no more dizzy” (181017).
• Her da-gu rang me up when I was still at work at 4ish in the afternoon telling me that Missy cried and said that she misses me. At home, I told hub about it and daddy teased her. Daddy asked ‘How did you cry?’. “Awuuuu” she answered. Daddy rolled his eyes ‘how come sounded like a dog?’ She quipped instantly “NO, like a BIG BAD WOLF!” ROTFL (201017).

Records

• Visited a swimming pool for a second time and this time at Western Beach Resort, she has finally garnered the courage to go into the pool and liked it very much (220917).
• I taught her once and she can tell yeh-yeh’s and popo’s name now (121017).
• Developed a fever, with cough and flu and thank God she recovered in less than 2 days (171017).

Sleeping Patterns

• Still bob-bob to sleep despite we hinted her to wean but we decided to let nature to take its course. I released her from bob bob one night and excused myself to the washroom. She was reluctant and asked me to “shh shh here, mommy”. When she was half asleep, I released her from bob-bob and I found her lying down on the floor and waited in dark in front of the door (260917).

Toilet Training

• She has been rather consistent in keeping herself dry throughout the night, I can say. There was an extended relative who passed me a pack of unfinished diapers one Sunday in the church, I thanked and accepted her kind gesture nicely before my girl running towards me and kept asking me “why need diapers, mommy? NO diapers! I don’t need diapers, I am a big girl now” (011017)

Dear Abby

It was a heartbreaking moment when I reprimanded our girl last night. It was not the first time I get her to stand at the naughty corner nor the first time I ‘rotan’ her for misbehaving. But, it was not easy to explain, re-explain and eventually swinging the cane on her thigh when she actually thought all she did was all right. She has been going out with her grandaunt all these while and come home with a set of new toy almost all the time. We have reminded her numerous times not to buy any more toys prior to this and she even received her punishment because of the similar issue before this but I think it was reasonable enough as she was reprimanded because she excused herself with ‘Abby needs that’ (her favourite tagline these days and usually she will come up to this when she has nothing else to say) or ‘Abby got not enough toys’ (Well, can't blame her totally as we adults are using the same old excuse when it comes to clothing or cosmetics :P). Most of the time, I would listen and eventually tolerated and advised her nicely but I can hardly tolerate to these two reasons when her stash of toys at home is barely played twice!. I was so crossed the moment she said this as if we have not given her to pick her own toys prior to this and not to mention, she already has a few similar sets at home. All we wanted her to learn about being grateful and most of all, not to be greedy and taking things for granted. 

Picture was taken on 231017 at Mimpian Jadi Resort in conjunction with my workplace's Family Day. Missy's little wish was granted when my colleague passed by and she was allowed to go up for photographs :) 

But last night, granduncle/aunt just couldn't let her go home empty handed as usual. I think the adults might have somehow taught her to tell her to get a toy her mommy ‘would fancy’, as to make her feel less guilty from disobeying. And this little fella without a second thought picked up a cake baking set and happily exclaimed ‘Mommy, I have bought you a present!’ the moment we picked her home last night. Upon reaching home, I explained for a length of time before I whipped Mr. Rotan on her thigh for three times. It was heartbreaking when she non-stop explaining to me that she simply wanted to buy me a present :( She even repeated the same thing when she apologized and hugged me and hub before our bedtime stories. I was shattered deep inside.

In fact, we have reminded her grandaunt not to pamper her too much and we wouldn't mind her going to have a few pieces of chips and relented her to have some ice-cream/chocolates occasionally. Last week, she bought a Little Pony Capsules during her outing (with reminders of not to buy) and I am grateful that she told me everything upon coming home. She told me that grandaunt/uncle asked her to leave her toy at their place in order to be spared from her daddy’s scolding. Sigh.

It is definitely not easy to be a parent these days, huh? I totally understand the reason behind her grandaunt/uncle intention and I know that at the age of 3, I couldn't expect my precious girl to resist her temptations when convinced by her favorite adults either. Dear Abby, Mommy simply hoping that you could grow up in good virtues and faith. You are lucky (in fact too lucky) to be surrounded by so many generous family members around you. But, learning to love God more, learning to appreciate, share and embrace are what truly matters. Love you to the moon and back, princess :)