When she's 17..

According to Miss R ,when she's 17 she'll be doing the followings :

1.Go to college ( where she'll party all the time ..(yikes!) ).

2.Work as a chef 

3.Drive a car ( a honda)

4.Buy herself a cellphone.

The future chef decorating a cake

The finished product - done Rhianna's way

Well..honestly,I'm not in a hurry to see her reach 17.Anyway,She said she'll still stay with mommy forever...funny girl.

Jekyll n Hyde

I'm a speech language pathologist who works with special needs children in early intervention program.People often say that Rhianna is lucky to have a mom who is an SLP.I think my profession is both a blessing AND a curse to Rhianna.

When her father is always happy with her overall progress, I often find other areas to work on.

Rhianna is doing great in kindergarten. She finished top 5 students in the 5 year old class last semester.Her academic skills is on par with her hearing peers and in some subjects,even better.So of course we are happy but I'm still worried about her social skill.

She tends to be a bit shy with new friends and she often needs plenty of warm up time.If the social situation gets too stressful for her,she will just observe and not participate or she will just play alone.

People (her father included) told me to let her be.She will develop better skills in good time.
At moments like this..inside,I will be like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.As a mother I agree (that's Dr.Jekyll). I should accept her and give her time and enough support to develop her confidence level.
As a therapist, I itch to intervene.In the end Mr Hyde wins.

So we are trying a few things like joining more after school activities, planning more play dates and role playing different social situation.
So, no rest for the weary...my poor child.

Things that I should do..

1.Smile more and frown less.
2.Work less and play more (according to Rhianna)
3.Eat more cupcakes (according to Rhianna)
4.Take more walks
5.Kiss and cuddle my child more (Rhianna disagrees on this)
6.Laugh more
7.Worry less

That's all we could think of for now.We'll post photos of our recent road trip soon.Have a good day everyone!

She's 5!

Rhianna turned 5 on Mother's day..So mom didn't get to rest on that day.Rhianna was busy planning her party at least a month before the actual date.She browsed the internet with me and selected the cakes that she liked for her two parties- at home and at school.She invited her friends from day care, prepared the goodie bags and made thank you cards which we will send out to our guests.This was the first time that she actively participated in her parties preparation.

For home party,we decided to have it at our apartment's swimming pool and we invited the neighbours' children and our friends.Luckily we prepared plenty of food as the children were pretty hungry after swimming.A couple of friends brought cakes so we ended up with more cakes than we could eat.It was lovely to see how many good friends turned up.It reminded me of how much Rhianna is cherished by others as well.

Cake 1 - A princess crown cake,selected by Rhianna.It was pretty and tasted surprisingly very good 

Cake 2 - A jelly cake lovingly made by one of our friends.Cooling and refreshing.

Cake 3 - A chocolate cake brought by a good friend of ours.This one was adults' favourite!

Barbie cupcakes by another friend. Rhianna loved them!

The children enjoying their cakes after a good swim

Kids having fun in the pool

The birthday girl's goofy face

So many cakes to choose from.She ended up eating too much cakes for the next 2 days

Checking out the mountain of gifts from our wonderful friends later in the evening

Checking out her new bike before bedtime.See the "I'm tired but I don't want to go to bed" look?

This is from her party at school on Monday.Great effort from the teachers and all the children had fun!

In the end, Miss R had tremendous fun with her friends on her birthday.It is wonderful to see that she is making friends everywhere and she actually enjoys spending time with them.
It is bittersweet watching her grow and watching her develop her personality.She's growing more and more confident and she's coming up with new ideas everyday.I'm grateful for all that she's learned and for her amazing progress...I just wish that she would remain my baby a bit longer.

A chance to help others

I always say that my daughter was sent to me for a purpose.I've learned a lot of life's lessons just by raising her.Her deafness is what makes her special.

We are so fortunate to be able to have her bilaterally implanted and to have her progress at such amazing speed.There are many others who are not so fortunate in Malaysia.We don't have insurance coverage for CI operations  here. Some children will get fundings  from the ministry of health and some from sick children's fund but it is very limited.

Recently I was approached by the group of doctors who are responsible for bringing CI technology to Malaysia.They are a group of passionate doctors and wonderful people who have been helping deaf children in Malaysia hear for over ten years.They are currently trying to propose to the government to provide more funding for CI operations so that more children will receive the benefit.

So we put together a video that chronicles Rhianna's hearing journey from the time that she was signing until the time that she is stringing many words to form complex sentences.It was amazing to see how far she has come and how hard she works to achieve all this.We hope to show people the endless possibilities for these children when they have this miraculous technology.So we are hoping to get free CIs for many more children in this country.

Now, maybe I understand God's plans better.