Monthly Archives: December 2011

My Key Performance Index(KPI) the ‘BEST’ Preschool/Daycare for Amirul & Widad

Another two days before we move into the new year 2012. Parents would be busy with their children school’s preparation. We are not left behind to find pre-school for Amirul and Daycare for Widad. Thinking about which is the BEST preschool for Amirul/Widad

Here is my OBJECTIVES for Amirul’s Preschool/Daycare

[1] Amirul at minimum rate can recognize, identify and correctly pronounce alphabets, numbers, jawi, colors, shape, etc

[2] Widad at minimum rate can recognize  alphabets, numbers, jawi, colors, shape, etc

[3] Amirul/Widad can develop good social skill with others than family members.

[4] Amirul/Widad at minimum rate can recite simple doa’

[5] Amirul/Widad happy when in the Preschool/Daycare. Jgn bler hantar pg preschool dier ckp xmo pg school

Here is my KPI for BEST Preschool/Daycare for Amirul & Widad.

Location
Preschool/Daycare’s locations to be close to our house and my office. This is easy to send and fetch Amirul/Widad. In the event of an emergency such as Amirul / Widad  catch a fever/vomit/fainted/ etc, I can immediately go to Preschool/Daycare from my office.

In case of your house is far from the Preschool/Daycare, at least should your immediate relative like parent-in-law or sibling nearby to attend your kids before you reach there.

Qualified and Caring Staff
I do not emphasize the qualifications of the teachers. She doesn’t  need to have a degree /masters in children’s education. Sufficient with the minimum requirements to become a preschool teacher; to attend courses related to preschool and learn first aid techniques. But, its a plus point if the teacher/caregiver have degree in children development/ children psychology. However my KPI are :

  • Teacher should be love the children.
  • High patience, they can handle children when they throw their tantrum
  • Creative with plenty of ideas and able to catch Amirul/Widad’s attention

Stimulating Curriculum
The Preschool/Daycare not necessarily using Montessori method and Preschool/Daycare that are not using Montessori Method not necessarily not good. As my KPI, the Preschool/Daycare

  • Have daily schedules that include plenty of time for physical activity, reading sessions, group programs, socializing, crafts, individual activities,meals, snacks, and free time.
  • Can encourages independence and inspires Amirul/Widad individuality and creativity

NOTE : Children’s learning methods are not only on the books, they learn what is around them.

2in1
Preschool plus Daycare.
Because I do not have a maid,and does not intend to hire a maid, the daycare is very important to me. My KPI criteria for Preschool/Daycare are:

  • I would prefer if the preschool is a house that has a wide area to Amirul play and learn. Outdoor activities is very important to boost up their creativity and interests
  • Clean and well-arranged. uncluttered and the floor / toilet not dirty
  • Safe - equipment like table and toys must be safe for play by children.

Preschool/Daycare Fees
After all above mention points, do not forget about the fees that you have to pay. Its very important because its will effecting your monthly expenses which you need to allocate on monthly basis. Its shouldn’t be a burden yet affordable with fulfill your criteria.

NOTE :

NOTE : Will update on Amirul/Widad current Preschool/Daycare.

KambingBujang.Com Videos at YouTube

KambingBujang’s Top Videos at YouTube


Medela FreeStyle : Sound of Medela FS’s Motor


Canon IXUS Review :  Amirul be Ultraman – Slow Motion


Medela FreeStyle : Multitasking with Medela FS

Speech Therapy Diary : Amirul Audiology Test

How To Boost Self-Confidence

Imagine: You were about to give a speech and suddenly you were lost for words.

A question:  How did you feel at the time you lost a your confidence when you needed the most?

If someone asked me, then my answer is I felt angry and regretful, and a little of bit shame.

If I could turn back the time.

I know there’re reasons, million reasons to what I called the freeze tradegy: you begin to mumbling for your speech when you have been training for hours before that, awkward moment comes  and you are sweating like a horse. To add salt to the wound, you begin to stutter, lost for words, and you embarassed yourself.

It hurts like katana sword comes, from behind, through your stomach.

I looked into myself to think about it and this are the reasons why me and people like me lost their self-confidence in front of audience:

  1.  Lack Of Exposure. If your job is needed to speak all the time with a certain audience, then you get enough exposure. But if your job is rotting yourself in front of a computer and suddenly you were asked to proactively speaking in front of people in a seminar, that would be a problem.
  2. Lack Of Knowledge. We have no idea how to turn an ugly moment around and bring rainbows to it. But if we have read books and deep knowledge about the topic, I’m sure that we will prevail. It’s like our brain tend to help us with critical outcome when we are trouble during that speech.
  3.  A Butterfly In Stomach. This is the ultimate reason why we lose our confidence. At this point, you feel like your whole system is malfunctioned. Your brain is failure to follow order. You feel like to run out of the hall and crying like a baby because you failed to attract your spectator and audience with words and once again, words have failed you and you keep blaming them. You failed to deliver your message to your, maybe, CEO, bosses, clients, students, or audiences.

Last month, I was participated in a workshop and my team leader appointed me to be a group representative to stand and speak in front of 100 participants.

I managed to deliver message and message received. Everyone understand what was all about, I didn’t bore them nor interest them, according to my leader’s feedback. More or less, I feel that nightmare — like million zombies tried to eat me – when I was on the stage.

Here’s some example of tasks that needs self-confidence especially in front of people:

  • Public Speaking.
  • Singing.
  • Opinions.
  • Lecturing.

In my opinion, there are four important points you need to brush up:

  1. Dress something nice.  Try to dress like a champion. It doesn’t matter people mockingly called you a fashionista or something similar to that. We are trying to develop values to our confidence. This is the small step for being self-confidence guy. My suggestion is try to observe what kind of fashion is trending right now or get the idea by just window-shopping at Jusco or Parkson.
  2. Don’t Give Up. One day of brief happiness doesn’t make a man entirely happy. One failure doesn’t make you a lifetime failure. Just don’t give up. We need to fail in order to succeed. Speak. Fail. Review back why you failed.
  3. Go To Class. One way to improve your skills in effective way is to go to class. Public speaking class teaches how not to be afraid when facing millions of audiences. They teach you how body languange actually plays  a part of gaining confidence. Classes provide knowledge, social interactivity, and antidote for scared-of-crowd desease that has been haunting a lot of people.
  4. Pretend Wear A Mask. Before you facing the audience, you take out something from your pocket: a mask and just playfully pretend that you’ll be wearing for 20 minutes presentation of team’s Key Performance Index review. Fear no more. You have been shielded and you’ll be a better presentator, your body is following your order, your voice is doing right, your vital points are well presented.
  5. Learn Something New. Learn something that absolutely far and unrelated with your field of work. In my opinion, if you really want to be creative, in dimensional way, you have to learn something completely new like playing instrument – guitar, piano, or drum; kayaking, or learn foreign language.

Conclusion. Self-confidence is really helping you a lot in your life, especially when being a father. May be you are afraid right now when dealing with audience.

So do I.

I always say to myself that why not give a chance for myself to face the fear.

Widad Milestones : 19 Months Old

Widad 19 Months old Milestones :

  • Understands instructions well; Adik takes off your shoes, Adik jom mandi, Adik nak eat, Adik, don’t get close to tv. Adik throw rubbish dlm dustbin. However, this little girl is so cheeky and disobedient and love to show her tantrums. Need to be patience when handle Adik
  • She can talks – Nak air, nak susu, nak milk, mama, yak. Abang wat, dady, mama. cat
  • She loves to plays with doll – She has few soft toys like bear, puss in boots, dodol
  • Recognize animals : Cat, dog, bird,
  • She loves to do things herself : eats using fork and spoon, washes her hand after eating, taking off her clothes when Mummy say; Jom Mandi, brushing her teeth tho she actually enjoy the taste of toothpaste, will inform us if his diaper is wet
  • Goes up and down the stairs confidently
  • Scribble with crayon everywhere.However, this Mummy hates when she found artworks on the wall/floor. I do not limit her imagination or  skills, I just wants Widad know that she need to scribble on the paper not wall or floor
  • Loves fighting over toys with Amirul. She once hit Amirul’s head using plastic golf club.
  • Fearless little girl.

Cultivate Breastfeeding into your Parenting Life

image

image

(1) Mom’ Milk Protect Baby from Ilness

(2) Food that have all nutrients for baby:protein, fat, carbo, iron

(3) Colestreum – the best food for newborn baby

(4) Malaysia – have low percentage for baby exclusivly brestfeed

(5) Mother’s Smart Choice Programme – to increase knowledge and skills pertaining brestfeeding and mom’s milk to new-moms

Life Is A Learning Curve

Photo: TonyHall

 Life is a learning curve to what some people always say. It’s true in many ways.

Life is the greatest teacher. The older you are, the more experience you get.

But, if you don’t take lessons from tragic incidents or memorial events in your life, unfortunately, you missed the opportunity, to learn something valuable.

Our world seems to accept that our knowledge is measured by a piece of paper.

If you’re a degree holder, people look you in an entirely different way.

Now hear me this: It’s just formality and academical. Just because you have completed doing degree or master’s degree, doesn’t mean you know everything. It’s just a beginning. Lessons in life take a long, long time to learn — well, a lifetime.

Let’s say that you have good self-initiatives to improve yourself, you will go to public speaking class, foreign language class, writing class, singing class, and even go to surau or mosque to hear some motivational, religious speech.

You always trying to improve the area of weaknesses.

Introduction to lifelong learning. According to Wikipedia – Lifelong Learning or LLL, is the continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual. It occurs through experiences encountered in the course of a lifetime.

LLL is divided into two:

  • Formal: training, counseling, tutoring, mentorship, apprenticeship
  • Informal: experience and situation.

Benefits of lifelong learning

1. Protect your head. My head and your head and every father’s head are the most valuable asset. They become more valuable than others when you give fuel to them, by doing something that can also lower your risk of getting Alzheimer — like reading books, playing instrument, analyzing problems, doing research, brain teaser games and etc.

Here some other things keep your head protected: Regular exercise, Healthy diet, Mental stimulation, Quality sleep, Stress management, An active social life [via HelpGuide]

2. Your intelligence is superior to others. Jogging is a fitness exercise for your physical body. Lifelong learning is a fitness exercise for your intelligence. While others keep decreasing because they are too lazy, yours is increasing handsomely because you schedule ‘your jogging for brain’ activity accordingly.

3. Earn more money. If a father keeps improving himself, some people will get impressed by it. Eventually, the father have no problem to bring more money to his family because [1] his writing is doing well and landed a freelance job, [2] a foreign language class he’s attending finally gets him paid as a part-time translator job, and [3] his public speaking training gets him invitations to give inspirational speeches in many events.

4. Increase your confidence. LLL increases your confidence. Now a father can overcome the stress of continuous crying of his baby because he knows a solution to that matters. His balance between work and life is becoming more stable, because his confidence musters like the way it should.

5. Self-satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment.  A father feels his life full with colors of happiness, because he realizes how much satisfying when doing something that can benefit to himself and his family.

From daddy’s POV. 

In my opinions, a father should have LLL plan in his mind, at least. Job as a father — like other paid job — needs to be sharpened to keep the competency level at its best. Reading is a good thing to know something you’re don’t know. You have a curious feeling inside of you that wants to come out. You read about sleeping pattern just to know whether your son has been sleeping well as recommended. You even take extra mile, unconventional way by watching YouTube videos to get ideas for useful activities, and indirectly improve your son’s motoring skill, intelligence, and learning ability.

Taking advice from the older ones prevent you from the same thing happened happen your life. As you know, not all the advices are usable or appropriate. May be the advices are against your family policy and constitution. Make your decision only for what’s good for your family.

Conclusion: Learning is a continuing process. A father must be knowledgeable. A father must know about almost everything. It’s a bullet vest when your son fires questions like a machine gun.

Lesson is not some kind of numbers and figures that you’ve been rewarded after three years of struggling to get a decent degree in a university.

If you’re getting comfort by knowing that you’re superior to anyone else around you just because you have the scroll of education, then you haven’t been learning anything.

Some good articles about lifelong learning

Desa Water Park trip worth RM94.50

Entrance Fee : RM 24 (Adult) / RM17 (Child)
Total Paid : RM65

Foods : RM 14.50 (3 Nasik Lemak + 2 Fishballs)

Tube Rental : RM 15

 

[1] The theme park not as big as Sunway Lagoon but it worth for money that you paid for. At least you can spend up to 5-6 hours there

[2] The foods :  Expensive, not variety, tasteless

[3] The theme park is located next to Indah Water sewage plant – smelly

[4] The theme park tile flooring is quite harmful. I found needle and the gap between mosaic quite big. Amirul scratched his elbow

Photo taken under water using Olympus

[5] Attractions :

Shock Wave – Mr Hubby enjoy this the most. He can lay on the float sambil silang kaki menikmati shockwave. Geram je tengok tau.

Where is Mr Hubby???

  • Super Tube – Ride and scream and feel the excitement completely by myself. Mr Hubby took care of Amirul & Widad
  • Suft Shark – Similar to  Super Tube but kid version. Main ngn Amirul and Widad. Nice
  • Action River – Buat satu round with single tube. Ok la. But i prefer the one at Sunway Lagoon. Beside the river there were trees, so that rase damai jer, windy, shady,
  • Water Factory – Amirul and Widad play area

Photos :

Mummy complete with goggle,Adik complete with life jacket and noodle. Safety 1st. :D

Abang main pistol air.

Daddy

Widad – tak takut air, boleh floating skit2,

Little Girl Joins The Dark Side

This video is quite old but interesting to post. So, what if, my son turned into the dark side? Steps to bring my son to the light side.

2. First, tell him that the dark side will eat you alive from inside.

3. Second, I will fight until the end of my life. That’s what I’m doing for the love ones.

4. If succeed, I fill his life with joy and pray that he will not say yes to the dark side anymore.

5. If failed, I disbanded him and refused him as my inheritance.

6. What if your son turn into the dark side?

Cencaru Sumbat Goreng

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Ingredients:

(1) 10 Red Chillis

(2) 5 Chilli Padi

(3) 3 serai

(4) 1 pc bombay onion

(5) 3 pcs garlics

(6) pinch of salt & sugar

(7) kelapa parut

(8) limau kasturi

(9) ikan cencaru

Methods

(1) in blender – put all the ingredients

(2) blended well

(3) goreng ikan cencaru half cook.tos

(4) sumbat inti then goreng sampai masak

Amirul Started Stammering; What Do I Do?

Alhamdulillah, after nearly 1 year attending speech therapy session at Putrajaya Hospital; Amirul is a good talker now. His new nursery’ environment also helping him a lots. His has many friends to talk to and teachers teaches him in correct way. He talks better compare before he attended the speech therapy. However, lately he is having this new problem : STAMMERING / GAGAP

It’s really annoying to me, and i really get angry everytime he start stammering. I’m not sure why suddenly this problem happened as Amirul is very good with his vocabulary. He do not have any problem in articulating words except for words consisting m,b, and p. Maybe lidah Amirul pendek skit as his speech therapy claim.

What is stammering speech? - According to Stammering.org
[1] is putting extra effort into saying his words
[2] has tense and jerky speech
[3] cannot seem to get started, no sound comes out for several seconds (“… I got a teddy”)
[4] is stretching sounds in a word (“I want a ssstory”)
[5] is repeating parts of words several times (“mu-mu-mu-mu-mummy”)
[6] stops what he is saying half way through his sentence.

More info on stammering for toddlers under 5 via Stammering.org
How to HELP stammering child?
[1] Don’t be overly critical of your child’s speech or insist on precise or correct speech
[2] Listen attentively to what your child is saying
[3] Avoid reacting negatively when your child stutters, correcting your child’s speech, or completing your child’s sentences
Tips above taken from Webmd.com which i think the most effective and appropriate for Amirul. Baby steps to correct Amirul’s stammering problem from getting worse.
For Me, I NEED:
[1] to be more patience.
[2] take a deep breathe and listen to what Amirul wants to say.
[3] Be patience and wait when hetalks and express to his needs
[4] jangan dok sebok and cepat  nak marahhhhhh.
[5] Jadi mummy kena banyak sabar la Huda.

Bolognese Spaghetti


Ingredients :
[1] 1 tin of Prego Traditional Pasta Source
[2] 1 tin of Prego Cheese  &  Herbs Pasta Source
[3] 3 table spoon of chilli source
[4] 1 pinch of salt – optional
[5] 3 tablespoon of black pepper
[6] Mince meat
[7] 1 tin of button mushroom
[8] Angel hair Spaghetti - cook as in instructions

Methods – Bolognese Source

[1] Add Prego Traditional & Cheese & Herbs Pasta Source in the pan
[2] Add mince meat
[3] Add chili source
[4] Add black pepper
[5] Add button mushroom
[6] Stir and cook till all the ingredients well blended

Taaaaddaaa. DONE!!

Thanks to Anggun for this secret recipes from Secret Recipes. Its now, no more secret.. huhuh

 

How I Choose A Smartphone

One day, my wife found hard to make decision between choosing item A and item B, then her friend suggested to try Grid Analysis and she said

“What? Do we really need that deep fried analysis to be adopted to our life? Formality is so boring!”

“Wait, there’s something good in it. Let’s try!” I reply in excitement.

So I tried.

I’ve read thoroughly the link, do the study, take 1 minute per word reading to improve my understanding towards the method.

What is Grid Analysis actually mean? When you have more than two choices that you can basically compare the criteria or the feature of the product itself.

The basic comparison. Using this tool, you can compare the two or more item that are in the same line of product.

I name three product can be compared, shoulder to shoulder:

  1. Cars: SUV, Sedan, 4×4 wheel
  2. Personal Computer: Desktop PC, Laptop, or Tablet.
  3. Smartphone: Brand comparison that available in the market.

The choice. For this post, I was searching for perfect smartphone, that I drive myself crazy with mumbling and gibberish swears for a long time and I came up with three choices:

  1. iPhone 4s [Review: link to engadget]
  2. Samsung Galaxy S2 [Review: link to engadget]
  3. Motorola Atrix / Atrix 2 [Review: link to engadget]

All reviews I had read was on Engadget. Hope you can broaden your knowledge about smartphones on multiple sources.

Before I continue with heavy explanation and analysis (this is heavy for me), I am the person who likes:

  1. Reading
  2. Writing
  3. Playing Games
  4. Watching Movies

REMINDER: Before you start doing analysis — well — analyze yourself first. See what you are and how a smartphone can fit with your personality.

Steps

Forgive me as I ripped off the text exactly from the article (I let the laziness came in):

1. List all the options as the row labels on the table, and list the factors that you need to consider as the column headings.

2. Next, work your way down the column of your table, scoring each option for each of the factors in your decision. Score each option from 0 (poor) to 5 (very good). Note that you do not have to have different score for each option – if none of them are good for a particular factor in your decision, then all option should score 0.

3. The next step is to work out the relative importance of the factors in your decision. Show these as numbers from, say, 0 to 5, where 0 means that the factor is absolutely unimportant in the final decision, and 5 means that it is very important. (it’s perfectly acceptable to have factors with the same importance)

4. Now multiply each of our scores from step 2 by the values for relative importance of the factor that you calculated in step 3. This will give you weighted score for each option/factor combination.

5. Finally, add up these weighted score for each of your options. The option that scores the highest winner.

—

My analysis. Below are the criteria that I’m looking for to buy a smartphone:

Data and Wifi Connections. 

Smartphone is synonymous with constant internet connection. Without it would benothing. Most of people put it as number one priority. Speed and sustainability are everything especially for businessmen, email dependent, facebook and twitter junkies, state-of-always-connected to the internet people.

But not for me.

I’m more to reading stuff: off line articles and novels,writing on the go, watching videos, and playing games. So I concluded that I don’t need such constant internet connection. It dries up my productive anyway.

Performance & Productivity

Smartphone is also synonymous with performance. Smartphone with lack of performance is no smartphone at all.

While I’m looking for the performance at best, I consider the smartphone that can brings, at least, modest productivity.

I’m also not looking for a very high performance that can play Ninja Gaiden or latest Modern Warfare on my palm.

Enough that I can release my anger playing with a simple survival game. What I’m looking for is the one that can deliver easy reading and writing.

Usability, UI friendly,and Design.

User interface must be cool, the gadget must be friendly user, and I guess, you must be wanted to show off of your smartphone to your friend — how much sexy she can hold, for example. I dont want to bleed my eyes everytime I glimpse at own smartphone. Even a milisecond.

So I should stay away from those bulky, horrible smartphones – like Sony Ericsson.

Apps Ecosystem.

There are only two apps ecosystems available in the market.

Apple and Android.

And Symbian. And Window Phone7. And Blackberry OS. And PalmOS .And Meego. And Bada. And what?

That’s more than two. But Apple and Android are the ones that seem available to me. The rest are not because their ecosystems are not strong enough to make my heart skipped a beat.

Settings and Tweaks

This feature is provided by OS developer to give you control on your control, in term of setting and tweaking your phone, to satisfy with your personal taste.

This is one of the vital factors to have in a smartphone to be in my pocket.

Tell me, who don’t want to your own smartphone to follow your own personal taste? It’s like creating your own little world inside that small rectangle box.

Battery, Hardware, and all.

Hear me this: I want to play games all day long, I want to watch movies in marathon mode, and I want to free writing until my hands burn out. And I want to do it on my smartphone. The battery and the hardware should hold up to my needs

Affordability

Of course. Since I have two children that always maintain my upkeep high, I have to looking for cheapest one yet can still deliver performance.

Extra Features

If a smartphones can bring extra feature that will be good. But not essential as the points above.

 Table of decision

Factors before putting appropriate weights

Factors
Data & Wifi Connection
Performance & Productivity
Usablility
Apps Ecosystem
Settings And Tweaks
Battery and Hardware and All
Affordable
Extra features
Weights








iPhone 4s
5
5
5
5
2
3
2
5
Samsung S2
4
4
4
3
5
5
3
3
Atrix
4
4
4
3
3
5
3
4

Factors after putting appropriate weights

Factors
Data & Wifi Connection
Performance & Productivity
Usablility & Extra Features
Apps Ecosystem
Settings And Tweaks
Battery and Hardware and All
Affordable
Extra Features
Total
Weights
3
4
4
5
5
5
5
2

iPhone 4s
15
20
20
25
10
15
10
10
125
Samsung S2
12
16
16
15
25
25
15
6
130
Atrix
12
16
16
15
15
25
15
8
122

Score:

  1. iPhone 4s: 117
  2. Samsung Galaxy S2 : 130
  3. Motorola Atrix : 122

From the grid analysis, the winner is Samsung Galaxy S2.

Again. Find your interest first, then find your smartphone. I bet most of the reader will be choosing iPhone 4s

More Analysis

Grid analysis can be used on day-to-day operation in being-a-father job. The decisions that I can think right now are:

  1. Choosing the right nursery.
  2. Choosing the right, affordable car for your family yet can deliver arousing jealousy among your neighbors, friends, and family.
  3. Choosing the right internet service provider that benefits to all your family members as well as your needs.

Conclusion. Base on my result, it was difficult to do and I felt it’s a little bit overrated from doing that analysis. But I realized, it is the right tool for me to make a decision and I feel less r

At least, I was using a tool before making a decision.

So daddy and mommy, what is your solution when having difficulties choosing item A and item B in your daily life?

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