The Mother-Daughter Book Club

I'm over the moon with my latest books. Its for my little girl actually but if I had these books when I was growing up and spent time reading together with my mum, I reckon we would have a somewhat different (closer) relationship than now. Not that we're estranged but I wished we would connect better at some level. And that's what I will do differently with my girl.

I've come to love these books of late when I've taken interest in children literature. My most favorite bookstore on earth - BookXcess - are selling these two lovely book sets at unbelievable RM49.90 each (with 5 books in each set).

Set 1 (reading age 9+) contains Bridge to Terabithia, Ida B, Little Women, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Ella Enchanted.

Set 2 (reading age 10+) contains So B.It, The Luckiest Girl, Sister of the Bride, The Great Gilly Hopkins, The Secret Garden.

This set also comes with a book club kit by Dodson whom started a book club with her daughters and invited some other parents to share and discuss on the books they've read. The results were astounding - it not just any book club, its an avenue they've come to love and grow together. Brilliant! Heemm, that's an idea worth pursuing.

This is such a wonderful opportunity to have bonding moments with my gal through our love of reading together. I'm sure its a journey we both will cherish forever. What more these lovely books have impacted many successful people today and they say "everything I need to know I learned from a children book".

Bibik Oh Bibik

Can we Malaysians survive without our bibiks? Tough but possible with a bit of hair pulling, I suppose. Well, at least that's my story for the past week. And yep, that explains the M.I.A part. Our maid has gone back for good and left this mommy all the pleasures of keeping the house together. Yes, pleasures. My oh my, I can't hardly take a breather (on this note, I salute all housewives and standing ovation to those without maids - my cuz Ica for example).
As much as I appreciate having a maid, but I am relief she's gone. She was good with kids but slacking on houseworks. And to my surprise, a has been carear woman like me actually enjoyed cooking and cleaning though I wished sometimes I have ten pairs of hands! There's just not enough time and yes speaking of time, we need to be tip top on time management or your kids don't get feed nor clean clothes. So who is to say stay at home moms are not good with management skills. In fact I reckon being at home makes one good at some of the critical management skills - people (the art of negotiating, managing expectations and exerting influence to get your kids and even spouse to do what you want them to do) - time (like I said, you have hundred things to do in such a short time, so prioritize! and multi-task and constantly finding the most effective way to do things).
Now back to bibiks. Much debate on this lately. Should we continue to depend on them and should we pay them more? Because the demands of our work, we do need them and when you calculate per hour basis like say if they work effective 12 hours per day and 6 days per week with average RM500 per month = RM1.60 per hour. Wow, value for money, eh? But of course it comes with perks like food and shelter. So we Malaysians are lucky (esp those with super efficient maids) to have access to these blue collar workers. Still, we need to be tacky when to comes to handling our bibik. Can't be too nice and you can't be a slavedriver either. They are human with feelings and thoughts. And when its about raising our kids, we must shoulder that role and responsibility, not bibik's. Our values are ingrained and deep rooted in our kids or we have a society raised by maids!