Dealing with a tween...

Definition of a Tween - A child between 10 n 12 years of age, too old to be a child but too young to be a teenager.

I have one at home and I am beginning to struggle. She is temperamental and moody half of the time. Only channel 8 dramas and Nickalodeon teenage serials seem to cheer her up. I had to remind her papa not to irritate her but tonight I got really irritated!

She has always been an independent student with above average results. Her weakest link is English composition. She does not have the natural flair for writing and she is also not an avid reader. A friend of mine told me about an upcoming 2 day creative writing course by Mindchamps in June. I decided to sign her up as I think it is important to tackle her weakness before the crucial PSLE next year,

She was totally against the idea when I mentioned it. I had to put my foot down and told her she has to go for it until she shows me more effort in improving her writing skills. Her face turned as black as " Bao Qin Tian" and she walked out of my room. Even Jacob noticed something was amiss when he came out from the shower. I had 2 choices - to confront her for her bad attitude or to ignore it until she cools down on her own. I decided on the latter after bouts of deep breathing. I went ahead to revise Chinese with both of them. Despite her cold demeanor, she did as she was told during the revision, but without speaking a word to me!

As expected, the savior to our little cold war was the 9pm channel 8 drama! I had allow her to relax after her revision while I continued with Jacob. When I was done and went to check on her, she happily rattled on about the characters in the new drama and did not seem to remember the earlier angry episode against me. A classic mood swing that is getting more frequent. I acted normally and decided to enjoy her jovial moments while it last. The key thing is - I have achieved my objective to sending her to the course. I cannot imagine what do I have to deal with when she becomes a teenager! I pray for patience and guidance from above and will probably start looking at guidebooks on how to deal with TWEENS!

Start of my 3 mths gardening leave!

I am free!!!

After 6 months of unhappiness at work, God finally answered my prayers and blessed me with a new job offer! I resigned on Wednesday and will enjoy 3 months of gardening leave. I am very excited about the new opportunity and hope I will be able to live up to the expectations of my new bosses! Meanwhile, I have exciting plans lined up for myself...

- Start "play-by-ear" piano class... with the aim to be able to play " A Thousand Years" and " Above All" in 3 month's time!
- Start Zumba classes and lose some weight!
- Maldives trip with family
- Cambodia mission trip with Yiling
- KL trip with family to visit my sis.
- Bangkok shopping trip with Sis-in-law
- Lots of Tai Tai hi tea sessions with galfrds...

I am very very very thankful!!!