Saturday, February 25, 2012

National Mail Centre - night excursion


We started our excursion with dinner, a birthday celebration and homeschool t-shirts for the kids


The mail centre was fully operational. We only got to see empty stations when we came in the morning on a previous trip.


Ean was only interested after he saw these boxes on tracks that reminded him of his trains.


The NMC staff provided us with shopping trolleys just in case our kids get tired.


Manual sorting


Machine doing the sorting


Han Koko helping Ean with his stamping


Explaining why certain letters get rejected and sent back to the sender.


Feeding in millions of letters daily


This machine sorts out letters accoording to postcode


Looking for our postcode in PD


More mail being brought in.


We spent 2hours in NMC, walking about its 4acre vicinity. This was one of the most educational visits I have been to. The staff were friendly and informative.


Taking a look at the first day cover that were distributed.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Bufori - excursion to a car factory @Kepong


Briefing



Meeting up with good friends was the highlight of the trip for the boys.


Ean was reminded of a train's flatbed when he saw this


Kevlar material for the car's body - 5x the strength of steel, lightweight and bullet proof


handling the material


showing possible colour combinations on the cars - red, gold, silver...


A V6 engine


car frame


car with body


car ready for the road


Vroom! Vroom!


Ean getting comfortable.


The session ended with a question "What is your dream?"
The kids were told an inspiring story of how the founder followed his dream and created a car manufacturing empire. Each and every child present was advised to chase their dreams.
More on Bufori here.

5 weeks to EDD


Books on getting educated on birthing gently.
Bottom 2 books are on loan from a wonderful homeschooling -pro gentle birth mom.
My pink Klinik Kesihatan booklet is on the bottom right. The pink booklet, my identification card, a police report on accidental home birth and marriage certificate is necessary when DH registers baby5's homebirth at JPN.

Birth ball and mat made from natural coconut fibres from the mom that cleared the haze and ignited the homebirth journey for me.
Birth Ball is lovingly used now and will be used during birthing. More on birth ball here.
Birth mat would be an alternative to the birth pool, to kneel or squat on while baby is received.

Now to decide what sort of diapers to get - most probably non-ecofriendly, disposable ones for the first 2 months and move on to washable ones when I get back to PD and fierce sunshine.

I have 5 weeks to go shopping for:
1)an inflatable pool that would fit in a 700sqf apartment but deep enough for water level to reach my armpits. More info on waterbirth here.
2)fishnet to scoop up poo
3)stock up fridge and kitchen with food to feed 4 kids and a hungry lactating mother
4)powdered rosemary to preserve placenta. More on lotus birth here.
5) shower curtain to line floors for quick clean up - I already have a stack of old towels ready to mop up spills and such

Ving Chun



Han was a fan of Ip Man since he was 3 and would watch the movie daily.


He refused to try out aikido when he turned 4 and when he finally relented when I asked him once again if he would like to start on getting proper training - after a rough and tumble session with his brothers, I grabbed the chance and signed the boys up for a trial class.


I was elated when I found a Ving Chun branch in Seremban - I had to keep to my resolution of restricting all activities to within Seremban -PD - Pengkalan Balak(Melaka)

The class was for Han but Fai was the more serious student. Fai was ready to take instructions, Han got distracted easily and was a handful for the sifu.
So now, after advice from the sifu, Fai is taking up Ving Chun with specific instructions to tutor Han at home.

Mangrove tree planting @ Sepang


Recycling paper

The kids tore newspaper into tiny pieces which were then soaked in water and blended into pulp.
The pulp was then drained on a fine wire mesh, sponged dry and left to dry out further in the sun.

After some video animation on environmentally friendly practices such as plastic bags in the sea would be detrimental to marine life, the kids got to plant mangrove pods into poly bags.
Fai refused to participate, saying that he has done this on his own in Port Dickson.

We had to pay for the programme and on the ride home, JY wryly commented "It is not worth the money. We could have easily Googled all the steps for recycling newspaper and done it at home"

So back home, I did some reflection .....
This trip didn't go too well because
1. we had been overscheduled - the car boot was still packed to the brim with stuff from Ipoh.
2. the kids' playground is at the mangrove tree by the beach and mangrove trees, roots, pods and all is something they encounter on a regular basis. With some coaching, Fai could have led the programme.


So this trip made me to resolve to cut back on travelling and to instead fully utilise what I already have in my backyard.

I Googled and found this website by WWF on mangrove actvities
All I need is to print out their actvity booklet and head for the nearest mangrove which is a 10minute walk away