I was so upset when my little Claire peed on the floor instead of in the toilet, but what else can I do? I couldn’t do anything for the things just happened but to clean it. For several times, I advised her to tell me if she wants to pee but still, everything doesn’t always work according to my plan. Or probably there were times when Claire spilt the milk on the floor because she was too focus on the DVD lesson I gave her while drinking milk.

So here I come with an idea, instead of being angry, I gave her a brainy punishment and teaching chores at the same time. Every time she peed on the floor or spilt the milk, I gave her tissue to wipe the floor. After finished wiping it, I asked her to throw away the wet tissue in the garbage box. If she peed on the floor, I also asked her to wash her own underwear. The main thing is not the result since she was only 2 years old, but what can she learn from it?

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Do you know that most of our children are smart and intelligent by birth! Probably some of you will not believe it, but if the process went in a normal way, our children are smart. But again, some of you will continue saying that you children are not that smart compared with other children.

Is that their fault? No! It’s our fault as parents, since God gave us the same brain, but all we have to do is to give good nutrition so that the free brain we got can develop in a good way. Other important thing is STIMULATION. Without stimulation, they did not get an opportunity to develop their brain functions in a normal manner.

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Parents usually want to have a brilliant children but the question is how? To increase children’s intelligences, there are 3 things that are important to remember:

1. Genetics: we could not do anything with it… we can call it a blessing

2. Environment: including

• Nutrition: exclusive breast milk for 6 months and other nutritious food after 6 months of breast milk. The formation of organs and body will not wait for the food, so if the baby is not eating properly, the brain development also will slow down, so giving proper and nutritious food for your baby is a must.
• Stimulation: there are many parents said to me that it is useless to read, to play, to teach baby since they couldn’t understand. For your information, baby’s brain is like a sponge, it’s ready to absorb much information from us, parents. When we give them information, it looks like they don’t understand, but actually, they save the information in their brain and they will use it later when whey grown up.
• Psychological: baby’s brain can develop in a better way if they live in a loving family, where they can be loved, can be hugged, can be kissed without any conditions.

3. Balance brain, left and right brain can work in a balance way.

 With that in mind, I think we can increase our baby’s multiple intelligences.

Baby’s brain is like a sponge, it will absorb everything, every information you gave them and here is the proof of it.

Claire can finish 80 pieces of puzzle within 9 minutes 53 secs!

At first I couldn’t believe that she can do the puzzle but we practice almost every day and within 5 days, she can do it for the first time for 15 minutes. And from that time on, she showed a great improvement with her record is 9 minutes 23 secs. So this is a great example that if you stimulate your baby, she will absorb every thing and she will store the data in her brain, use it again when she needs it.

Step by step to introduce puzzle to baby:

1. Introduce her with 2-3 pieces of puzzle for the first time.
2. Show her how to put the puzzle in the right place so that her brain will make connection. By the time you repeat, she will understand how to put the puzzle in the right place.
3. Learn about color is a great step to do.
4. After she can differentiate color, ask her which part has the same with the color she holds at that time. When she learn about color, she can have a great improvement for doing the puzzle.
5. After that you can use the 6 pieces, then increase the number to 9 pieces, 12 pieces, and so on.
6. After several times of doing it, I believe your baby will be much brainy than ever!

Give a try and tell me how it works for you!

To see Claire doing it, click here.

In the past 3 years, I’ve been trying to read for my baby, but my baby is still 2.5 years, how come? Well I read since she was on my womb.

“That sounds so silly, is that really working?” said most of my friend laughing at me for doing that.

When I was pregnant, I was living in Japan and my doctor gave me a bunch of articles about communicating with your baby since she was in the womb. There is a tool as well to make your voice louder for baby’s ear, but at that time, I didn’t buy it because it was so expensive, but I still playing music using earphone and put in on my belly, after that I read for her.

After 3 years of doing that, I think I can give a proof that teaching your baby to read is really working! 

At first, I didn’t really realize, but several months ago, when she was 2.5 years old, she can read 1 book of 8 pages.  That’s amazing since I’m not a native English speaker and I’ve been speaking with my baby with 3 different languages, even so, she still can memorize the words I’m saying when I read for her.

Check her on YouTube link here

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