Beauty of nature, up closed.

A moth busy laying eggs in my garden. Too engrossed until I flip the leaf and went so near her, she just continued to lay eggs. 

Today's Harvest

Aloe Vera to treat sunburn

We just got back from Lombok, Indonesia and my son is burnt ! Poor boy looked like Zorro *lol*

Today (2 days after we were back)  His lips were swollen and his skin started peeling. So I asked my good friend via watsapp and she told me "Aloe Vera, you have that in your garden right?" 

Ah yes!!!! I do!! So I went and cut off one and applied for him. 

  

And 2 hours later his skin started to peel when we're having lunch at McD ( that explains the ice cream moustache)

And this was like 3 hours after applied. And I applied another round for him hopefully it will help him to recover faster. 

Ah....the wonders of gardening :)  you won't starve and you can heal too. 

Sasha Cook: Hidden treasure bomb

Headache thinking what to cook everyday. Even if my kids eat whatever I serve, I myself feel bored if I cook the same thing over and over again. So to make things "happening"I thought how to  combine food but also easy to prepare.

So tadaa!!!

My so called HIDDEN TREASURE BOMB

Haha what a name! But I cannot think of anything fancy. Aisay i should have dress it up more with cucumber or tomato slice or what not to make it more nicer. but nevermind la hor??? Anyway for own record (cos I usually forget after I blog it out) the ingredients are (in agak-agak qty)

Marinate Minced Meat (chic/pork) with:

Oyster sauce

Soya sauce

Sesame oil

Abit of sugar

Abit of pepper

Some chopped coriander

ShiaoXing wine

Fish paste (I bought from wet market) 

Hard boiled quail eggs

Egg

Breadcrumbs 

Here's both the meat and fish paste

Mash both of them up ,equal amount

Wrap the quail egg with the meat+fish paste

Dip in egg

Dip in breadcrumbs. 

Carefully place the bomb into oil. And fry it till its golden brown. 

Tadaa! 

Here's how it looks like when its sliced into 2. My kids love this.

I survived another day of cooking :) 

Plateless Refreshment

I was the emcee for an event yesterday. On top of that, I am also in charged of the refreshment. Since we are NGOs and we're so poor, we have to save and use whatever we have. I was planning to make it a plate-less refreshment session.
I have some toothpicks and also decorated celotape. This is what I did.

And just fold them into half. There, a mini flag. If you want, you can also cut a V in the middle to make it more attractive. 

And you can just poke it to your finger food like this.

This is what I got for the 5 minute refreshment session for 50 ppl.

And this was the stickiest food. I used some Daiso bento baran to separate the kuihs.

And everyone ate the kuih just like that without any plate and they thought I bought the mini flags. :D

This is what happen when you have someone very frugal handling the refreshment session *lol*

Trial and error

Every time I look out to my garden, I feel like a looser, there is nothing to harvest. Then as I was scrolling my phone, I realize that I harvested quite a lot of veg from my looser garden. So I did a compilation and to my surprise I really did planted quite a lot of veg in my garden. without realizing it, I have gone a long way this year. I learnt about gardening and also my life as a mother of an Aspie. Many trial and errors, but I'm not giving up. Gambateh Sasha!! 

Top left: My first radish

Top right: Japanese cucumber & mini cucumber

Bottom left: cherry  tomatoes

Bottom right: onions.

Top : Corn that was almost all pollinated, bottom left: baby corns

Bottom right: mini cucumbers, okras, roselles and Thai lemon.

Top left: Okras

Top right: failed beet root and carrot

Bottom left: Mugworth & okra&mint&lemon 

bottom right: okras and chilly

Top left: Cabbage

Top right : mulberries

Bottom left: okras 

bottom right: failed orange and purple carrots

Top left: Spag squash & kuchai & roselle& limau nipis

Top right: Okras & Thai lemon & endamame & kacang sepat & roselle

Bottom left : Kacang sepat 

Bottom right: Mustard 

Lastly left: spinach for Neighbour and right: snow dragon brinjals for grandma 

Confession of a Shopaholic Gardener

Hello.
My name is Sasha Tan.
And I have a confession.
I am a shopaholic.
Not any kind.
I am a Shopaholic Gardener.
I go shopping for plants almost every week.
Even if I don't buy any, I will go and just stand there and look at plants.
I guess that is my therapy.It takes my stress away (yeahlah.......... any excuse will do right?)
And when I get notification from KebunBahagiaBersama, I will click and read and then my hands itch. But I will "tahan".....and tahan......and tahan... until I have a few seeds in mind then I will order from her. And its worst when you pay yesterday, and you get it the next day!

And you know, the owner is so nice? when you buy 2, you get one free pokok Ketup-Ketup

and even free Petai , plucked fresh from their own Petai tree. 

You see how they make me keep coming back?

But it's okay. I tahan... and tahan samo....till next time... i tahan..

Because Of The Red Slide

Jayden loves to climb on top of the tunnel slide.  I can see that he felt so confident climbing and he has total control of his body. But however, dangerous is dangerous.  No matter how I tell him that it's dangerous, he might break his arm/leg if he falls down bla bla bla, he doesn't wanna listen. The day before yesterday, again I advised him. Again, he did it.A group of grandmas and uncle were there and they said ..

Uncle: haiyer... Climb like that ah..

Grandma 1: ya lor. I see also scared

Grandma2: what to do? Own mother sit here also not scared

Uncle: who is the mother?

Grandmas: neh.... Next to us lor

Me: :D

I know they were trying to hint to me and talking (bad) about me right in front of me, But I just kept quiet cos I'm so used to this kinda sarcasm stuff, and there is no need to explain to them cos they DON'T want to understand what the heck is a special kid, and also its time to go home.

So at night I spoke to JD...

Me: b... You know right..... I always tell you not to climb on top of the brown slide?

JD: red slide. Not brown.

Me: okay... The red slide.

JD: yeah

Me: you know.. Today when you were climbing, the uncle and aunties all were saying how dangerous it was, and how HIS mother didn't care

JD: you mean... They were talking about me?

Me: yeah... and they trying to say  that I'm not a good mother cos I allowed you to climb so dangerously like that *sad voice*

JD: ...... 

He kept quiet and went to bed. Yesterday, while we're in the car heading towards the playground I reminded him, "remember what I told you about the red slide okay?"

And he didn't climb on top of the red slide at all.

With the constant reminder that he might hurt himself, he didn't care. But when I mentioned that ppl were saying those things to me, and it hurt my feeling, he immediately stopped it. I was surprised and glad at the same time, because finally he stopped it and also because he understood that his actions can actually hurt my feeling. :) Because of the Red Slide, I truly agree that:

People always say that Asperger kids are really selfish people and they don't really care about other people's feeling. But actually they do. It's just that sometimes they "don't get it" especially with hints and sarcasm and even if they know, they just don't know how to react.  You just got to be direct and tell it straight to them and teach them how to read the cues.

The lil gifts

He used to tell me that he doesn't have any friends when he was in kindy. After 3 years, finally he has ONE friend in kindy and then they moved on to std1 and he has NO friends again. *haha*

So this year he started to have friends to play with during recess and it was a big relief for me. And now he has his own set of friends at the playground. That's another big relief. And recently he told me ...

JD: C gave this to me.

Me: oh... She gave everyone or only you? 

JD: only people who sit same row as her

Me: ah nice..... :D

And then another day he came home and shows me this...

Me: oh ! paper airplane!

JD: L.A gave this to me

Me: nice! Why he suddenly gave you this?

JD:  ermm I don't know. He just gave it to me.

And the same boy offered him some food when I picked him up after school. My son was very happy taking the food and forgot to thank him. As usual I have to say "b... I think you forgot to say something" and he said "xie xie"

And then he came back and he told me
JD: today I took someone's things

Me: oh no... Why? 

JD: I don't know.

Me: how can you not know why you take ppl's things?

JD: cos.... She push it to me. So I take it. 

Me: *lol* you mean she push it to you, to give you, and you took it.

JD: ya. The cake. *showed me this*

Me: then what about this and that? 

JD: I also took that from her. I mean she GAVE me.

Me: oh so nice lah yr friend. But did you say thank you? 

JD: ermm I forgot... Again.

You know, it meant a lot to me and to him I receive small small gifts like these from his friends. I don't know if I'm being crazy or what, it's like finally they have accepted him and starting to like him. Otherwise why they give him things right? *syiok sendiri mode* 

Pencils

There was once when I found JD having a meltdown and crying in the canteen after school. I kept asking him what happened and he just said "pencil.... pencil........" and "keep breaking.......". Then I found out that all his pencils kept breaking and he couldn't catch up copying what teacher said. When he calmed down, then I found out there was another reason (as usual), it was related to the pencil, and it is also related to the pencil lead kept breaking but the real reason was because the bully in his class laughed at him and called him names when he couldn't copy in time. His teacher knew about him, and she told him do not worry. She helped him to write the words in his book to be done as homework. So that night, I taught him how to deal with pencils (bring more la, and also change the sharpener, and be careful not to drop the pencils and also when no choice, he can use his black colour pencil to write) and also how to deal with the bully ( just act like as if the bully is crazy laughing by himself and not care what he says, learn to say "So What????").

Few days ago, he told me that he needed help with his homework. When he opened up his book, I asked him which part he doesn't know how to do and he said :

JD: dunno? I never copy

Me: how do you expect me to help you, if you didn't copy the question??Where is the question from? Textbook?

JD: .... No. Blackboard..

Me: What!!!!!! How am I supposed to help you now? Why didn't you copy the question?!!!

JD: Because....... All my pencil broke. So I cannot copy. :(

Me: *blood boil* AGAIN????? My God! I gave you 5 pencils and all of it is broken? And you have your emergency pencil box with another 2 more pencils inside. This is not the first time that this happened. You know very well you can use your black colour pencil to write too right?!Tomorrow, you go to school and copy from C. Do you understand me? Or you tell yr teacher that you didn't copy on time because your pencil broke......(*mumble to myself* Kek sei ngo lor.... Really make me

High blood pressure. Wanna explode edi...)

And then he said "mami.........." and he gave me this. Then he told me that he was too worried and forgotten about the extra pencil and his black colour pencil.

*sigh* *breath in breath out*

And then I gave him 10 pencils to bring to school everyday. What to do? keep reminding him about it and probably a few more times, then maybe he will remember.

From "That Boy" To "Jayden"

I have not been actively bringing them to the playground cos I was either busy working or cooking before I pick him up from school and I'll usually just bring him home right after school. But since he stopped attending one-to-one therapy session, and Dr. advised to let him mix more or attend group social therapy (only once a month), I guess going to the playground is the best option besides another bigger social group therapy (which is his school. We figure that being in school for more than 5 hours each day is better training than attending once a month and expensive therapy :P )

So before I pick him up, I have to cook faster, work faster, clean the house faster so that everything will be done before that. And right after school it's playground time. At first, everyone ignored him and his brother. With a lil help from me to introduce him to the rest of the peeps and showing him how to ask if he can play along/join in, finally he blend in.

There were times when he had minor meltdowns in the playground when some kid scolded him for not knowing how to play certain games and also when he cannot kick the ball properly. Once, he was crying cos he hit some kids and they complaint about him hitting them. But when I asked him why he did so he said "we were playing bad guy and good guy. They asked me to be bad guy. I thought bad guys hit people? So I hit them. But they scold me when I hit them! Mami, how to play and be bad guy???" .  

All these scenario is sad, but it's okay cos it's part of the "real challenge". So we will go home, and I will talk to him before we sleep and teach him what to do next time. Like the bad guy scenario I have to acknowledge his feeling (I know you were upset about what happened in playground today. But can you tell me why did you hit them?) and then teach him to just "pretend to shoot them". And he said "oh... that's how you be bad guy?" I am glad he listened to me and  knows how to improve himself.

One thing that we need to do each time before we go to the playground is to remind him of the "rules". For example: no showing tongue, no pushing, no arguing, no crying, must play with other ppl and not ownself. However he got used to it after some time and he began to tell me the rules even before we step into the playground now.

It has been about near to 2 months since we go to the playground everyday after school and he really look forward to go and play with his FRIENDS. Finally, he can call them friends and not just "those people". Maybe he is happy that he finally got accepted and got invited to play along rather than just walking around nearby hoping to be invited and get real sad when we're on our way home.

Yesterday, he played so happily and when we were getting into our car, two of his friends said "BYE JAYDEN!!! BYE JAYDEN!" and he said "BYE SHAUN! BYE DAVID!" And they went "BYE JAYDEN! BYE JAYDEN!" and he said :"BYE SHAUN! BYE DAVID" and they went "BYE JAYDEN!" and he said "haiyer.. why they say so many times bye?" *lol* when nobody said bye he said he has no friends. But friends say bye for too many times, he said they say it too many times. But I know deep inside, he was very happy.

P/S: so am i. :D

Brinjal

I used to have one brinjal plant given by the nursery lady but it didn't survive. And then I restarted growing some with seeds. And I waited so long for it to grow cos it was stunted. And finally I have my first brinjal grown from seed. A Terung Giant Naga Putih. Was attacked by aphids but I manage to save it using Neem Oil (you can buy from Indian Sundry Shop) + Dishwashing Liquid + Water. Still waiting to harvest it :P

And then my other brinjal plant bought from Pasar Tani Kelana Jaya grew and gave me a fruit. This was the growing process from day to day. Amazing isn't it? 

And to my surprise, I got another brinjal grew out of nowhere.

 And it's flowering now. Brinjal plant has both male and female reproductive organs in the same flower. So if there is a helpful insect rumming around that particular flower, then I will be lucky to get brinjals. :)

The Characteristic Of Autism

I have readers asking me, "I suspect that my child is autistic, but I am not sure whether is he or not". Here are the guideline from a poster that I have seen in UMMC.

Usually the moms will be the first to notice something is different. My advice, stop guessing and get a professional advice. Don't simply listen to Tom, Dick & Harry and waste your time.

When I told my friends that I wanted to get my son checked out last time, they asked me not to go and get him labelled "so what if he is labelled? Are you going to spend the time and money and go for all the therapies?". I am glad I went ahead with my own instinct and got help for my son. Now I looked back for the past one year, I wanna laugh at myself for crying like a mad woman for weeks and nearly went bonkers.

If you want a better view of the poster, you can download it here -->http://www.infosihat.gov.my/infosihat/media/Poster/A/pdf/52_Autism.pdf

The Cure For Autism

Many parents asked:
Why need to go therapy for so long? So expensive!
Why is he not improving? he went to 3 therapies edi leh! 
Why is he like that????? *pull hair*
Should I give him this medicine. I heard it can cure Autism.

Its just Vitamins. Not medicine. So it's alright.
Why, why,why,why,why,why.When,When,When,When.

So here is the medicine that I have invented.

         A big pill of patience, a pill of Love and a pill of time.

Take it for maybe a year or two, and hopefully YOU will learn to accept that autism is a lifelong thing, and they are no less than any other kid out there, and probably you can learn how to help your kid to use what they have and maximize the full potential cos the sky is the limit no matter whether they are just regular or special kid.

Sew A Dumpling Five Stones

A friend asked me if I know how to sew "five stones" that looked like a pyramid cos she wants to sew for her kids to play. So I quickly snip snip some fabric and did this tutorial.

Cut a fabric and fold it into half. If you can cut and fold and make a perfect square, that's better. Sew an L shape and leave a corner to be opened. Or if you're joining 2 pieces of cloth, then sew 3 sides and leave one side opened.

Flip the fabric outwards. (flip it inside out)

And fold the opening the other way round like this. Make sure that the sewing is right in the middle like this.

You can either sew half of the opening first then fill it up with seeds , or fill them up an then sew up the opening.

And you will get a five stone just like this. And after I'm done, I thought "hey it looks like a dumpling! So appropriate since its Chinese dumpling festival.

And here's the complete set of dumpling five stones.

This reminds me of my first ever project that I have sold. I used to make five stones and sell them for rm1 for a set or 30cents for single five stones when I was in standard 1. Haha yeah I keep selling and selling until my grandma find out that I have been using her rice to fill the five stones up. *lol* after that, I started making other things to sell.

****important notice******
Saga seeds are highly poisonous if its biten/opened. Please ensure kids are old enough to understand and won't put saga seeds into the mouth.

Words

I've been reading this parenting book called "How to talk to your kids so they can learn". I'm just half way through and I kept telling myself "ah.. that's what I did/say all the time.  Why didn't I read this book earlier?" and some  "Yeah, I do that. So it is the right way, alright! " So yeah, I could have been better and I guess I'm not too late to start now. But it takes alot of patience (and alot of hair dyes and facials too)  and I hope I can change my parenting style.

So one of the advise was using jokes or funny terms/words to make them learn. And this is one thing that I have been doing. I use my kids terms or funny terms to make them try new food. For example this:

I just bought this bun for JD last night. I said "have a custard bun" and he said "what bun? Bleargh" without even looking at it.

And then I tried again "Wow! A Hypno Bun!" And he went "where where? Wowwwwwwwwwwwww"  and he brought it to school today.

So yeah, the word that you choose to use will determine the outcome/reaction. So being a lil creative will make your life as a parent easier. Try it :)

Sasha Cooks: Fried mini Lion Head Meatballs.

I ran out of idea what to cook for dinner. So I went and scroll WanTanMien's youtube page and then saw this recipe for Fried Mini Lion Head Meatballs. The name caught my attention and after viewing the video, I thought "Hey, I can do that!"

(Don't worry about not being able to catch up, she even wrote down the ingredients in her video description)

And so I did today.

This was my dish for tonight together with ABC soup.

The taste is somewhat like Siu Mai with sauce and so my kids ate them up (they usually do not eat much meat)

I'm quite happy with it but I think I could have done better , maybe marinate the meat longer.

And since there is only one dish, there's no left over and cleaning was easier.

I better go and scroll more easy recipes like this. hehe

Lost a textbook?

My son lost his textbook the other day and when I went to see his teacher, she was pretty upset and was complaining about JD being careless and not responsible towards his own thing. At the same time I reminded her that the girl sitting in front of him also lost her book. The teacher made a big fuss over it and said that we can't find it anywhere and she must order it for us and we gotto wait a long time for it.

I went and looked for my friend and borrowed her son's book and photostated the book so he can catch up with the lesson and also ordered from his teacher. And guess what? I found the same textbook in Popular bookstore ikano. . Same price, same content. And the only difference is that the back if the book was not printed with the sentence "tidak boleh dijual".

So I bought the book and went to see the teacher the next day and told her I manage to buy the book from the bookstore. Boy oh boy... Was she surprised. But, since it's "very troublesome to cancel the order", I told her to carry on with the order while my son uses the book that I bought for him. Case close.

And then a few other friends also posted in fb over the same worries and also the same problem with the teachers.

So sharing here with my readers, if your kid so happened to loose the textbook, do not worry and run around like a headless chicken looking for the textbook. Just go to Popular Bookstore in Ikano and look for it.

Then and now

I used to give him alot of food to bring for recess. Cos he doesn't have friends, so for that 20 mins he would just sit alone and stuff himself with food. :(

Soon, he started to have leftover. Then I found out he ate less, cos he finally has friends to play with. :)
I was jumping in joy and throwing my hands up and say "YES! YES! YES! my son got friends to play with now! (only imagining hehe )

I asked him " aren't you hungry?" He replied "yes, but then if I eat, then I got no time to play catching anymore. Can you give me less food?". 

Slowly, I reduced his food. From food with packet drink, down to just one packet of snack (biscuit or bread). Sometimes he would also buy drink from the canteen. Another milestone for him, cos he just refused to buy anything from school when I'm not with him.

Top: Then

Bottom Left: Just a pack of biscuit and a packet drink

Bottom Right: Now.

Lost and relieved

Backdated post...

Jayden front teeth was shaky until one day he was trying to remove the string on the "packet bread from market" with his teeth and he accidentally yanked his teeth senget. Then onwards, his gums were swollen and his teeth was senget and shaky. And then onwards he had a hard time eating.

And then on Friday night, while I was folding clothes he asked me to help him remove his teeth for him. I said "ok, let me finish folding my laundry and I'll go get the thread and help him yank it out. Not even 5 minutes, he came running "mami mami... My tooth!" And his mouth were bleeding so I rushed him to the toilet and helped him clean up. And then he told me that he accidentally yanked it out when he was playing with his pillow. *lol* but he was extremely happy that its out. He quickly asked me to put into his tooth album, write the date and also take a pic of him and his tooth, and also the new baby tooth that pushed his old tooth out.

Ever since his tooth was off, he looks happier (don't forget much funnier with the missing tooth!!" And he can eat faster too. I asked him "are you glad that your tooth is out?" He said "yes!!" I said "b... You look so cute with a missing tooth. Finally u are cuter than Justin. Wanna loose another tooth and be much much cuter than justin?" And he replied "hehe yes!! "