Survey at PJ Civic Centre, Malaysia.

I am helping  a researcher friend to collect data on public’s knowledge about  Minggu Amanah Saham and basic financial knowledge on 13 June 2009, Saturday (8am- 5.45pm) at Petaling Jaya Civic Centre, in conjunction with a seminar to be held by the Malaysia Indian Business Association.

Do come and support me at the booth if you are around the corner. You won’t be going back empty handed. A lovely pen with clip and lanyard will accompany you home.

Back To Work.

I am starting to teach full time again in a school in Bangsar, Malaysia next Wednesday. Yeap, this time now I should be slaving my time, effort, blood and sweat there.

I am also looking for a room to rent nead Bangsar and Pusat Bandar Damansara.

Play dough Experiment- Day 5.

I have a confession to make- I don’t make good playdough that can last for months. So, this is a challenge and an experiment I set for myself. Today is the fifth day since I started making the playdough using a method found on the  internet. I’m sharing the recipe here with the readers.

Recipe

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 tbsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 cup boiling water
• food colouring
• vanilla essence

Mix all the dry ingredients into a cooking pot or saucepan. Then, pour the boiling water into the mixture and stir with a wooden spoon. I find that it helps well for the dough to form by putting the pot on the hob under minimal heat, keep on stirring for 1-2 minutes until a mixture of mashed potato consistency is obtained.

The dough should be done by now and it can be very hot, so use the wooden spoon to knead the dough into one big ball. Leave it to cool.

When your hands are able to stand the dough’s heat, put a few drops of colouring and essence, continue kneading until you get a colored and scented ball of play dough.

Store in a tight container.

Now, this is where my dough experiment failed the last time for two reasons:

1. The dough was in the fridge for a whole week.
2. Nobody touched the dough for a whole week.

I was not able to monitor the consisteny of the play dough the last time because I made and gave it to somebody else. This time I made the play dough and kept half at my house so that I can see the changes, if there is.

Today is Day 5 and this is the dough.

Bonding, vital for development.

Parent-baby bonding begins right from conceiving period, during pregnancy time and continues after birth. When baby is born, the bond should be maintained between dad-mum-baby to reduce baby’s stress levels, to smoothen present and future communication and most important of all so that the baby feels secure in a safe and intimate environment.

A few strategies are listed here to help new parents maintain the bond with their babies;

1. Massage
2. Skin-to-skin contact
3. Maintain eye contact
4. Sling carrying
5. Talk to baby regularly
6. Dance, listen to music and sway together
7. Singing and rhyming
8. Cuddling up and reading a book
9. Bouncing and rocking games
10. Don’t rush bathing time. Do it gently and affectionately.