Starting Tweedle Wink..

@ 1 year 8 months 1 week and 2 days old..by mommy..

Call me a kiasu mom..yes, we enrolled Isabel to Twiddle Wink last week. It has never come to my mind that I needed to send Isabel to any enrichment centres/ schools at such an early age.

When Darren was at this age, I "homeschooled" him by teaching him myself and brought him to playgroups. I didn't see the reason why I needed to send him "outside" to learn while the mommy here can do a little bit teaching here and there for him..(I am not a teacher by profession and I was doing it trial and error..more for my own fun learning togethter with him..) It was until I conceived Isabel and have no energy to continue the "teaching" part and he was already 3.5 years old, only then we decided to send him to nursery.

But Isabel is totally differnt. First of all, I don't have the luxury to spend so much time with her. Sad to say that I hardly spend any "quality time" with her. Everyday to me is rushing and rushing, just to handle their basic needs, for 2 kids. Honestly I feel bad, but I really couldn't bring out the energy, motivation and time.

Surprisingly, despite the very little "teaching" time I have for her, she is learning fast...on her own, especially this 2 months. Probably due to her improvement in speech development (or maybe ipad), she mastered A-Z, 1-10, major body parts (even eyebrow), colours, shapes, animals + pets and other day to day items on her own. I am amazed...all of us are amazed...

Only then, I realised that if I don't continue tapping on this potential of hers, it will be a waste. She is really like a sponge. She is absorbing information every minute and she is learning fast. I don't want to waste this golden opportunity of hers to learn more things, important skills and lifelong skills.

Then, right brain training came to my mind. Surveyed a few and Shichida needs 6-9 months waiting period. I don't want to waste this 6-9 monts of hers, so we chose Twiddle Wink. We attended their workshop and there and then, we signed her up.

It is expensive...very expensive I think..but this is something that we can provide her at this age as this is the golden period for her to train her right brain. Once she reached 6-7years old, no matter how rich you are also, the effect will not be as good as now. This is the best time for right brain training.

It was a "stressful" decision. Of course hubby strongly supported this decision. It was me, that wonders..is it worth it? However, we never know if we don't try it out. I don't have the skills and materials to do it myself, I also don't have the knowledge to do it too. So, we have to let other people earn the money lor. Anyway, it was a good mother daughter bonding time too.

So, Isabel attended her first lesson this week and I was proud to say that she is responding well to it. Luckily we brought her there last week and she has already familiarised with the environment. So, she has no fear when we first reached there. She even called the teacher "jia jia". Hahaha...so cute of her...

Though I still need to always attract her attention back to the teacher and tv, it was not that bad after all. She will do some of the activities, then started to roam around again. She especially likes the animal stickers on the wall and kept saying "elephant, jifaff (girrafe), jibra (zebra)". She also likes the barney outside the play area. She tried many times going to the door and wanted to go out and look for the Barney.

Overall, we still manage to get her attention when needed and one thing good about her (mommy feels proud of her) is she is willing to give back the "item" and help put back into the box after the activity is finished. She will not want to hold it on and refuse to give back.

She is definitely very happy there. She has fun exploring the place. Though I felt very tired after the session, it is worth it. Firstly, that 1 hour is a very productive bonding time for us; secondly, it gives me motivation to spend more time teaching Isabel at home. (I am setting up a learning area for Isabel in the guest room). I am learning too and I intend to teach Darren using the same information too.

Well, hope that this program will benefit Isabel and make the money well spent. I still think it is really expensive..