In this unperfect world, we always want to have the best in everything, we want to be the best in everything, but I think that is impossible. Just like other parents, we also want to have the good looking boy, we want to have the cute charming girl, but when the reality is not the same, we put on label to our children based on their appearance to express our dissatisfaction. But one thing you need to remember that this is a bullying.

“Hey you, big nose!”

“Ow, you fatty cow”

We didn’t realize that by the time we put on label like that, it will be like a destructive weapon that can explode in the future. Our children will not have a good self-confidence, they will think that other people also have the same opinion just like you, their parents.

As they grow up, they will think to themselves, “I have to change my appearance, so that my parents and other people will not make fun of me anymore. ” Well that’s the positive way, but there is a possibility that our children can take the negative way, “I’m no body, I’m overweight, I don’t have a good looking face, I’ll just stay here, at home so that no one can make fun of me. ” The worst thing is they can kill themselves to end the sorrow.

If our children take the positive way, that’s good. But if they took the negative way, it will be very difficult for them to change their way of thinking about themselves. I found some children with this kind of behavior and it is very difficult to speak with them because they always refer to what their parents said when they were young.

Michael Jackson also had this kind of problem, I think. I read in several articles that his father called him with “Big nose”. This might be funny if we do that to our children, but as I said before, we can count this as a bullying. Michael succeed to change his nose even thought it cost him thousand  of dollars, but how about other children out there who face this kind of problem and decided to end their life?

Nowadays, parents are too busy with their own stuff, working, chores, parenting, thus they don’t even have time to read a bed time story for their children. Some of them also said that they don’t like to read, so they don’t want to read for their children. But the truth is bed time story can give children a basic idea about reading a story with parents and to make children love books and of course love reading it!

It is true, that to exchange time and energy to read, you can buy an expensive reading machine for your children so that children can learn to read with that machine. Quite good, but still it is not the same if children’re doing it with you instead of machine.

If we don’t read for our children, we can not blame them if they don’t like to read, because the reading habit is not on their list when they’re growing up and they will miss many information they can get from reading.

As far as I know, bed time story has a huge advantage for you and your children:

1. It will build a reading habit for our children
2. It will increase the number of vocabulary
3. It will increase the creativity and imagination as the book will show pictures and children can visualize them in their brain
4. It will increase the bondage between you and your children

Check out children’s face when we’re doing the the bed time story. They will be so excited about the story! Their brain is hoping to absorb some more and more information. So, I really hope that you have a better perspective about reading a story to your children.

Claire swimming

During my pregnancy, I used to go to a book store to find a perfect book for my reading time. At that time, my husband found a great VCD about human body and he said I should buy it.

Thinking about the price, I thought it was not that expensive anyway so I decided to buy the VCD and watched it as soon as I got back home and I was so surprise to find out that baby can swim inside the water! She can automatically move her arm and legs and there is something inside her nose that can prevent water from coming into the nose.

It was so amazing….. I was thinking about to try it with my own baby as soon as she is born.

So, after I gave birth to my baby, I decided to wait until she is 3 months old and we went to the swimming pool around our apartment. At the first time, I just put her little foot inside the water, to make sure that she’s OK with the water temperature. But unfortunately, she cried. Probably because it was the first experience for her.

But later on, I decided to swim together instead of holding her on the side of the pool. I think that way could give her a secure feeling, and see…. she’s really fine with me in the water now…

The question is, why we should take our baby to swim? Is that really important? 

Here, I will give some explanations about this:

1. It is healthy. If she’s healthy, you can teach her anything and she will absorb it right away.
2. When baby is swimming, she will move her entire body and the oxigent will flow into the blood circulation and the oxigent in the blood will flow into the brain. In this case, the brain will get more oxigent which is very good for the brain development
3. Baby will move her left leg with right right arm, right leg with left and it will balance her brain. Baby who has a balance brain will be cleverer than a baby who is stronger in her left brain or right brain only.
4. Swimming will increace the bondage between you and your baby
5. Baby will learn to trust you wholeheartedly and become a full confident baby.

Looking at those advantage, don’t wait anylonger…. let’s go swimming…

Claire Likes to Read

Oh…. how I love to read books….

When I was still an undergraduate student, I used to stay in the library, simply to read books, textbooks, or just to fell asleep… but one thing I know, I love to be surrounded by books.

Going back home to Indonesia, I really miss my library in Japan,.. I really miss spending time searching books and get ideas from it. So now, all I can do is just go to the book store around the apartment and read some books there, it’s kinda fun, you know.

Since I gave birth to my baby girl, I didn’t really have time to read for myself and started to read for her. Most of my friend who knew about this will give a short comment, “She doesn’t even understand anyway, why should you spend your time reading books for her?”

At first, I think, well, yeah,…. probably that’s true. She doesn’t understand. But the most important thing is not about whether she understand or not, it is about building a reading habit for my baby. Time passing by, and now, before going to sleep, she always said, “Mom,…. book, book,..” When she woke up, usually I found her reading a book (reading,… or probably just looking… I don’t know).

So, can we say that reading for baby is useless??? Certainly no…. IT IS AN INVESTMENT FOR YOUR BABY’S FUTURE.

Now I also know that what I’ve done for my little baby create something that is called “the Reading Mother”

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be –
I had a Mother who read for me…

Strickland Gillilan