When Bonnie was still a wee lil baby, I used to plan that when she’s a lot bigger, I would like to have baking projects with her. Cookies or cakes. 2 days ago, managed to get her to help me bake some cookies. Though she wanted to mix the cookie dough, I let her sprinkle the coloured sugar rice instead.

The assistant deep in concentration.

Ready to be baked.

First batch came out a bit burnt.

Rows of sweet chocolate chips cookies.

This is one of the nice things about having girls. Not saying boys can’t help, but this is what I thought of when I imagine having a daughter.

Nowadays, when ever I get angry at Bonnie when she does something naughty she would go and look at my face and say, “Mommmmmyy…. Jangan mayah!!” or Mommy jangan marah for mommy don’t be cross. How can I be cross for long like that? LOL But I would say, “Mestilah, mommy marah, Bonnie nakal” , Of course mommy is cross, you are being naughty. If I was near her where she could touch my cheeks, she would do that. “heeee, sayang mommy.” while caressing my cheek. She is nearly 3 and she has learnt how to get away with things with her charm. LOL

She has got a temper like mine too, that make things funny at times when we squabble with each other. She’s still young and small yet she is already starting to argue with me. Told her daddy that soon she’d be immune to my “barks”.

Anyway, as I mentioned a few months back that I am going to get Bonnie a toy laptop. I haven’t done so. I have checked a few places to buy one here, but unfortunately most of them are in Hungarian. I mean the laptop. Since I’d be the one to be around her when she plays, I need to understand something. So have to order from either UK or the US. I’d rather order from the UK.

I have this toy laptop already set in mind. First I wanted Dora Vtech laptop. Then I figured since Bonnie doesn’t know the character perhaps I should get her a Pooh Vtech laptop instead. Then again, the laptop doesn’t come with a mouse. You know kids, they like to imitate mommy and daddy on their computers or laptops. I am afraid she might notice something amiss if there’s no mouse. So Dora laptop back on the list. Then I saw another Vtech laptop. My laptop for UK or Tote n Go for the US market. It has 30 over activities which she can explore using until she is 5-6 years old. Dora laptop only has 11. Not only that, the mouse is quite nearly the same to a real mouse.

Found somewhere I can order, either ebay or amazon. These two places are the only ones I can find sellers willing to deliver to Hungary. First this one here. Already think that I will order it.

Then I saw this one. Hoo… It looks so… well… Bonnie (sweet).

Unfortunately, none delivers here. I was rather disappointed actually. Nevertheless, it’s okay. I will order the other one. Hopefully she plays long enough.

Update: Bought her the pink one. Ordered from the US. So hopefully will be here in 2 weeks. Told Bonnie that mommy ordered her a laptop. She looked around and asked. “hol? hol? hol a laptop?” Guess, told her too early.

I posted this on another blog to recommend others a great book. But since it has got to do with teaching Bonnie, I post some parts of it here too. I ordered this particular book early last week from Amazon.uk  ans I mentioned in my last post, and it arrived yesterday morning. I didn’t want to buy toys, so looked for some kind of educational aid that can help me teach her. Then I found this. Teach your child to read by Siegfried Engelmann.

The book teaches children starting from the age of 3 and 1/2 to read using phonic system. 1 lesson a day in a 15-20 minute session. Which means the entire reading course will need about 3-4 months to finish or less even depending on how eager the child I suppose.

I thought the book would be a small medium sized book, but it was large, well, large enough because of the big fonts they use. Anyway, what made me choose this book is because of the 64 reviews I read on Amazon from parents who have tried with their children with age ranging from 2.5 to 6. Can read them here. It got great reviews.

Despite thinking that it is too early for Bonnie since it is recommended for children 3.5 and up, I started on Bonnie today. Just to give it a try. Well, I like it somehow. She was able to make the sound “mmm”, “sss” and “aaa” when I point on “m”, “s” and “a”. It’s a good start. Only that I found out that she needs less time than 15 minutes. Could not sit longer than 5-6 minutes.

I am rather happy with the buy seeing that she at least shows that she can remember the sounds. So in case you or anyone you know is looking for a book on how to help your child read, this may be the right book.

I started reading as early as 3 years old. I was considered the bookworm of the family. Though I am far from that now, but I still read more than 20-30 books a year. Various kinds of books. Having being able to read at such a young age, I figured, maybe I can do the same with Bonnie. I started out quite early with her. When she was just about 5-6 months old, I started making flashcards of the alphabets and a few simple words like Mommy, Daddy and Bonnie. Everyday, I showed her those cards about less than a minute, a few sessions a day.

Bonnie had very short focus span, unfortunately. She could not focus on the cards, but instead she looked at my face and laughed. LOL I went on this for a few months. Then I put the task at a stand still, thinking that she might be a wee bit too early for that.

Then I started again when she was a year plus. I pasted alphabets everywhere in the room. When ever we pass an alphabet I say what letter it is. Well, actually it worked a bit. When I asked where’s “A” she pointed at “A”. When I asked where is “B” she pointed at it. So she could recognize a little. Though that time I was staying with my mil, all I could say is that, I was in a kind of depression most of the time to have enough motivation to do anything worthwhile.

Then I took a different approach. Since she loves singing. I taught her to sing the ABC song. Yes, she could sing the song near perfect when she was 2. Now she is 2 years and 7 months old, she can sing it much much better. With a little bit of pronunciation probs though. Once she was able to sing, I started to show her the letters and each time we sing, I point to each letter. But she didnt’ get the concept. LOL. She just jabbed on random letters when she sang. Gosh! LOL.

I’m still doing it though. I haven’t given up. I just ordered a “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” book from Amazon. Got great reviews from parents. So I will read it to know what I need to do. Though I have a different goal in mind now. I want to teach her to read, but at what age she starts to read it does not matter any more.

Different children learn at a different pace. I have the same parents as my brother, but he didn’t start to read much, much later than 3 years old. Perhaps Bonnie is just not cut for it, but I still love her nevertheless.

Currently, these are the other things that would keep her occupied for sometime. The other one thing being the tv. She would be able to put them together, feel happy of her achievement and do over again. We are glad that she found it interesting. So far since the first puzzle she got weeks ago, she has not gone tired of them yet. In a way it is a good choice to buy her jigsaw puzzles. She can do all except one of the puzzles above alone. Good thing about these things is that, you just need to buy more challenging ones. That will keep her attention.

I always speak to Bonnie in Malay. English occassionally and there would be times when I had to speak in Hungarian. Most of these times, she would only reply back in Hungarian. Yes, she understands all three languages so far.

However, there would be times when she surprises me when she suddenly say something in Malay or in English, without even being prompted. When we were on holiday at Balaton (will post pictures later), she was playing at the door, holding the door handle, and hung on to it. Then she said, “macam ponyet” She meant to say, “macam monyet”, or like monkey. She never used those words before. Then out of the blue she said it. Guess she remembers what I say, when ever she climbs anything. Or when we prepare to go out, after she managed to put on her sandals she called out, “Let’s go!”. It is true, we really have to be careful of what we say because though they seem not to heed what we say, but they are listening and remember.

My only concern was, which I voiced out to her daddy quite frequently was her mixing up the languages. I wonder whether it was a mistake to teach all three languages at the same time. When I say, Bonnie come and sleep in Malay, once she answered, “Nem akarok tidurni”. LOL, she mixed malay and hungarian saying “I don’t want to sleep”. Or “másik horse” mixing English and Hungarian, “another horse”.

As I have written before, we would like to send her to a nursery, this September. Where they have a playgroup in German. We know the owner, so most probably this will happen. Hopefully. But it made me wonder whether once she goes there, she would come back and decorate her speech with some German words. Boy, then I’d be in trouble. LOL As it is, it can be hard for me to understand her sometimes when she speaks Hungarian to me. If her daddy is at home at least I can ask what in the world she is talking about.

I am not put off from the effort to make her speak malay to me though. I can just but hope that she would speak without the confusion later on. Which I believe will happen.

Nowadays, Bonnie has a way of calling me. “mommykam”. In Hungarian when you ad -ka at the end of a word it will mean little something. Bonnieka means little Bonnie. If add the -m will show possession. Mommykam means my little mother. LOL. She would go and say, “Szia, mommykam” when she comes back from anywhere. I assume that she must have immitated people calling her that. The thing is she calls only me that and not to her daddy.

Last weekend we spent the entire day out with friends. They have 2 daughters. One Bonnie’s age, the other 1 year younger. We went to the zoo and the later to Margaret Island or Márgit Sziget.

Ticket to feed the Elephant. For one ticket it’s about RM 1.50. Just a rough calculation. We get 2 apples and 1 carrot to feed 2 elephants. Get to pat the Elephants too. Was a wonderful experience to be close to such great animals.

She was really a brave child. She loved the animals and she insisted on wanting to feed the giraffe and elephant. Most children her age would cower away and refuse.

Couple of pictures with her friends. Izzah and Huda.

After the zoo, we went to Margit sziget.

That’s a musical fountain. People sunbathing all over the island. Wearing bikinis even as if it’s a beach. As an asian I can never understand why do one need to sunbathe. It’s really unhealthy in the long run.

We went around the Island on an electric buggy car. Was real fun. Bringing the Malaysian habit along with us. LOL Lazy to walk. Further we needed it if we would like to cover most of the Island. On foot that would not be posssible.

Our friend’s buggy. Was really fun. A bit too expensive, but we didnt’ mind.

Hope to go on this kind of outings again. Not this weekend though. Bonnie’s grandfather is coming with his wife to take Bonnie out for a walk.

Haven’t been updating here lately. Was rather busy.We spent the weekend outside of Budapest. In Nograd. We spent time with DH’s colleague, and some time in the weekend house. The colleague has a daughter only 2 months younger than Bonnie. We wanted them to play together. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Playing with the swing.

The daddies and their daughters. Sweet isn’t it ?We were walking to the lake. I won’t put up the little girl’s picture that shows her face clearly up here because I believe her parents are very particular in this matter.

The lake. There was a part where you have to pay to enter. They say it’s cleaner to swim there. The friend took their little girl for a dip. We didn’t though since we didn’t prepare for that. Maybe next time. Boy, was I feeling out of place among the bikini clad people there. LOL Was the only Asian in fact that people stared sometimes. Oh well. It was DH experience to be stared at back home in Malaysia, now it’s mine. I do mind but getting used to it.

Had our lunch and dinner at the end of the garden. Lucky people to have such a nice weekend house.

This is the weekend house we where we had spent the other half of the weekend. Bigger than the friend’s place. Since this is a real peasant’s house in a Hungarian village. When we reached there, we were rather tired. We saw that there was a small event nearby, and there was a horse cart ride. Typical of us, thinking maybe tomorrow they would have it again so Bonnie could go on the horse cart ride but nope, that was the only day. Oh well, next time. Even if there would be no event next time, perhaps we could just ask for a ride when we see a horse cart passes by the house next time.

Bonnie giving her funny pose.

All together, the weekend was enjoyable.

Gosh, I am smiling thinking of how Bonnie would say, “Mi ez? hmm?”. In English, “What’s this? hmm?” It’s funny actually. She would go and point things and ask “Mi ez?hmm?” I answer. She points and ask again “mi ez?hmm?” I answer. The “hmm?” was funny lol. It’s like it’s compulsory when ever she asks a question. Not possible to record it, since it should come natural. Now everytime she started asking me “mi ez?” I’ll be chorusing along the “hmm??” with her.

Here’s her Chocolate dipped strawberry smile. Happy weekend people!

Usually, when we go out, we would be out for at least 1 hour and the most 2 hours. Today we were out for 1 1/2 hours. Had to go out early in the morning because of the warm weather these days. Yup, summer already in. Can’t help feeling how short Spring was. So here are some today’s pictures. What we do when we go out. Click the images for bigger view. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. Taken using the camera from my phone.

Running.Bonnie chasing the pigeons. I know, it’s a sport for all children about her age. Told her the only pigeon you ever gonna catch is a dead one. LOL

Climbing. She’s a good climber. I don’t remember myself being this active. Maybe yes, I used to go and play at the playground in front of my house when I was a child. I was a frequent visitor then. Felt like I owned the place since we lived just opposite. Go early, come back late.

Jumping. We dubbed her “Ugri Fulés” after a hungarian animation character. Which means “jumping ears”. Because the character is a rabbit. It’s one of her favourite series currently.

Sliding. Of course. Never forget.She also played in the sandbox and played with the swings. No pictures from those activities.

As we go for a walk around the area, there’s a place where there are small snails. So that’s where her snail collecting activity commenced every time. She called them “Édes Csiga” or “sweet or cute snail”. I know a few things about snails but I don’t see what’s so cute or sweet about them. LOL Maybe these ones are rather cute since they are so tiny.

Another usual activity is walking at the church area. The church is quite an old Catholic church was built in the early 20th century. We admire the flowers there. That’s a toy dog. A friend of mine gave it to her, and she likes it. She calls it “tutta”. “Kutya” is hungarian for dog. Sounds like hindi, for hindi, “kutta” is dog. Bonnie loves dog or any animal for that matter. We cannot have dogs plus no way I would say okay, so, a toy one is acceptable.

We would go inside the church too. It’s cool inside. No offense my Muslim readers. We just go in because Bonnie likes to play with the echo. The high roof or dome made the place to produce echoes. Suppose it would be nice to listen to the choir. But sure hurts the ears when she screamed.

So that’s what we used to do when we go for walks and play. We would take another route when we go for walks when we go the three of us. Her daddy, she and I.

We came back, had lunch, she takes her nap. That’s the best part for me.