WW: New Life in Germany - Timmy is playing on the terrace

MM: Jackie Evancho - America's Got Talent

A new super star was born in the US show Amercia's Got Talent. Simply watch the video of 10 year young Jackie Evancho and be amazed by her fantastic voice!!

WW: One lazy lizard :)

WW: New Life in Germany - In our Garden

MM: Hansi Hinterseer - So ein schöner Tag

Isn't he a sexy sunny boy ;-) Hansi Hinterseer was a former ski champion after he stopped his skiing career, he changed his profession and started to sing full-time.
This song is called in englisch -Such a beautiful day-.

WW: My new dress

MM: Prince Ital Joe & Marky Mark - United

One of my favorite songs from the 90's. Prince Ital Joe featuring Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg, the famous actor, he even was the Calvin Klein underwear man in 1991!) with their song "United". They sing about a better understanding with all races.

Science: What babies know about numbers? Part II

A strong case for “baby number sense”

Were the babies really responding to the change in numerosity? It certainly seems so.

Babies reacted similarly when presented with pairs of small numbers (2 vs 3) and distant, large numbers (4 vs 12).

And researchers controlled for several, non-numerical variables that could have influenced babies—like the total surface area of the objects, the average area devoted to each object, the total luminance of each image, and the total area occupied by each group of objects.

So babies weren’t simply attending to the continuous extent of “stuff” in each image.

In fact, other experiments suggest that babies pay more attention to change in number than they do to changes in continuous extent or surface area (Cordes and Brannon 2008).

Nor is it all “in the eye.” If babies’ feats of numerical discrimination were confined to visible objects, we might suspect that the ability is domain specific—a specialization of the visual system rather than a more general conceptual ability. But babies aren’t one-trick ponies. In addition to distinguishing visual arrays, babies can also detect differences in the number of sounds and in the number of actions (Lipton and Spelke 2003; Wood and Spelke 2005).

Babies can even understand ordinality—the idea that numbers can be arranged in order of magnitude. When 11-month old babies were presented with sequences of numerosities, they could discriminate between sequences that increased and sequences that decreased (Brannon 2002).

Of course, this doesn’t mean that babies can distinguish any two numbers. There are limits. For instance:

• Six-month old babies have a hard time distinguishing two quantities if the ratio between them is less than 2:1. In other words, they can handle 8 vs. 16, but fail to distinguish 8 vs. 12 (Xu and Arriaga 2007; Lipton and Spelke 2003)
  
  
• Nine- and 10-month olds can make finer distinctions (8 vs. 12). But even these older babies don’t seem to discriminate between 8 and 10 (Xu and Arriaga 2004; Lipton and Spelke 2003)
  
  
• Babies don’t distinguish between increasing and decreasing sequences of numbers until the approach the end of their first year. When Elizabeth Brannon tested 9-month old babies, they failed the test (Brannon 2002)

Nevertheless, the results are pretty impressive. When babies look at a set of objects, they don’t just see a “bunch.” Babies have an approximate sense of number.

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Science: What babies know about numbers?

Image via Wikipedia

New experimental research reveals a fascinating new world of baby cognition, one in which babies can

• recognize the approximate difference between two numbers
• keep precise track of small numbers, and
• do simple subtraction and addition problems.

Moreover, when babies perform these feats they activate the same parts of the brain that are associated with mathematical thinking in adults.

What babies know about numerosity

Psychologists define “numerosity” as the number of things in a set.

Although we can get a precise measure of numerosity by counting, it’s possible to appreciate numerosity in a more approximate way.

For instance, if I ask you to glance in a crowded elevator and estimate how many people are there, you can probably make a pretty good guess.

Glance inside two elevators, and you’ll also be pretty good at guessing which one has more people in it.

All without counting.

It turns out that adult humans aren’t the only creatures who can pull this off. A variety of non-verbal creatures—including monkeys, rats, and human infants—can detect the approximate difference in magnitude between two sets (Dehaene 1999).

Show them two displays—one featuring 8 items and the other only 4 items—and they will respond differently depending on what they see.

And the difference is observable in the brain.

When 3-month old infants were shown a series of displays depicting different quantities of objects, the electrical activity of their brains changed in response (Izard et al 2008).

For example, babies were presented with a continuous stream of images, each depicting 4 objects. From image to image, the objects were arranged differently. But the total number of objects remained the same.

Infants subjected to this program showed signs of boredom.

But their brain activity (as measured by event-related potentials, or ERPs) would perk up if they were next presented with an image showing 8 objects.

What’s more, the part of the brain that was activated was the same region that lights up when adults process information about numbers (Izard et al 2008).

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MM: Peter Schilling - Major Tom

I listened to this song from 1983 to 1984 every morning before i went to school and was disappointed as the radio station suddenly didn't play it anymore (later i got to know that it was because the song dropped out of the TOP TEN list ;) ).

The song is called Major Tom from Peter Schilling and it's about the major of a space ship.

Happy Music Monday!

Things to sell - second hand - 90% new

Already SOLD

Already SOLD

Already SOLD

Already SOLD

Most of the electric items are still available... update the list with new pictures and prices in a few hours :)

MM: Billy Joel - We didn't start the fire!

Billy Joel and his song We didn't start the fire! Actual like at the time when the song was released (early 1990s) when you look at the current political environment USA - China, South - North Korea, Western Countries - Iran

It's a recap of the history from 1949 - 1990 as well.

Soon moving back to Germany - Clearance of Household items

Image via Wikipedia

Now it has been more than two years since i came to meet my girlfriend in May 2008 in Kuala Lumpur and we have been grown in the last two years to a small family with our Baby-Boy Tim. In the next two or three weeks we will move to Germany and settle there for another new start of our life.

As always when you have to move there are items which you can't take along with you.

In case you are from Kuala Lumpur or have some friends, relatives or know someone who would like to buy some of our items, simply comment on this post with your e-mail and we will reply to you as soon as possible. Ideally give us in your comment already which items you want...

All items are in good conditions, most of the items are less than 24 months and we sell a lot of our items for less than 50% of their actual retail price in the shopping center (Carrefour, Jusco, Tesco, Giant).

1 Blender - 20 RM

2 single bed frames - 2 x 70 RM

2 small study tables - 2 x 20 RM

1 book rack - 15 RM

1 boiling water kettle - 25 RM

1 office (study) chair - 30 RM (1 1/2 year old)

1 rice cooker

1 bread toasting machine - 25 RM

several cups (1 - 3 RM)

plates (2 - 5 RM)

spoon and forks (as a set 8 RM)

We will add more items next Tuesday when we cleared all questions with the person from our moving company.

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WW: timmy is on the float

MM: David Hasselhoff - Looking for Freedom

20 years ago this was my favorite song from David Hasselhoff - Looking for Freedom. At that time David Hasselhoff had his glorious time with the series "K.I.T.T." - the intelligent, speaking car. Afterwards Hasselhoff was one of the main actor beside Pamela Anderson in "Baywatch". In the last few years he was more often mentioned in the news because of his alcohol problems than of his former success in the music or movie scenes.

MM: John Farnham - You're the voice

This is John Farnham's famous song - You're the voice - from 1986. Was exactly my time when i 've been 10 years old (but didn't understand English yet). It's just the melody of the music that makes me feel good every time i listen to that song. After i learned English, i understood additionally the message of his song:

Be yourself, stand up and show that You're the voice ;)

Video about EEC syndrome

This video contains the most important issues persons are facing who "suffer" from the EEC syndrome (Ectrodactyly-ectodermal-dysplasia-cleft-Syndrome). The video is presented by the National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias (NFED).



At the moment we don't see such severe problems like many of these kids in the video but it will take another year to fully recognize the different problems which he might face in the future:

• Hair growth
• missing teeth (at the moment it could be that two teeth are missing as they didn't grow yet but should have been there already)
• growth (at the lower level for its age group)

The problems that we are facing is less his hands and fingers as most persons don't recognize them because you usually look in the face of a baby ;)

It will be more about finding the right doctors and get an appropriate treatment for all the "problems" that might come. And the time it will take to heal his wounds as he is an active boy who likes to crawl, walk and clap his hands.

Information about the EEC-Syndrome of our son

Image via Wikipedia

We wanted to share some information about the EEC-Syndrome (Ectrodactyly-ectodermal-dysplasia-cleft-Syndrome) of our son as there is a high possibility that he might have this kind of genetic disorder.

I bet you know some persons who "suffer" from the same condition. Mainly these are the persons with cleft lips/palate which gets to be operated while they are babies or young toddlers.

Timmy doesn't have the cleft lips but he has only nine fingers and they are split in the middle (imagine a lobster's claw).

As we will go back to Germany in a few weeks, we have to make several decisions on who shall perform the surgeries and if we should perform the surgeries as there are always risks for such small babies.

The information about the surgery which we got from the Hospital in Kuala Lumpur looks like this:

• several hours for each operation
• at least 2 or 3 operations for each hand
• healing process takes several weeks

We will publish tomorrow a video from one of the biggest EEC-Syndrome self-help groups in America.

There you can see how the kids hands, mouth and feet will look like before the surgery, after the surgery and during the healing process.

(Just saw that Jessica Simpson seems to be an ambassador for Kids with cleft lips and palate. She is supporting "Operation Smile" a foundation who provides free surgeries for those kids.)

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ww : Timmy is on the float!

MM: Bobby McFerrin - Spontaneous Inventions (Improvisation with the audience)

What happens when a singer includes the audience and asked them to give a word or to take part in his improvisations.

A fantastic Bobby McFerrin (he sang in 1988 the Number 1 Billboard hit "Don't worry, be happy") and his Spontaneous Inventions! You won't regret watching it even our baby Timmy liked it!

WW: Photo update

Some pictures from this week (after his 3 day fever)

MM: Lin Yu Chun - The Ellen DeGeneres Show 4/21/2010

Lin Yu Chun, the new star discovered at Taiwan's singing talent show Super Star Avenue (like American Idol), has been invited by many US talk shows this week. We picked his performance at The Ellen DeGeneres Show from 21st April.

In the beginning you can listen to the short interview (around 1 minute), afterwards Lin Yu Chun performs a fantastic song from Whitney Houston "One moment in time".

You will love his voice and him :-)

DIY felt craft : Bunny finger puppet for 'Guess How Much I Love You'

I sewed the bunny finger puppet and show to Timmy while reading him the story 'Guess How Much I Love You'. The finger puppet makes the story more interesting for Timmy and attracts him to listen to the story.

WW: Funny Twin babies in rabbit costume

3-Day-Fever: The 1st severe viral infection for our son

Image via Wikipedia

The scientific name of the three day fever is Roseola Infantum or exanthema subitum. 3-day fever is a mild viral illness of sudden onset and short duration that most commonly affects young children, generally under two years old.

The early sign of 3 day fever (roseola infantum) is a sudden high fever (can go up to 40 degrees) and that normally lasts for three to five days. When the fever disappears, the rash will appear. This usually begins on the trunk, spreading to the legs and neck. The rash may last for few days.

There is no specific treatment or vaccines for Three Day Fever (roseola infantum), it usually goes away without any treatment.

These few days, Timmy was infected by Roseola Infantum, he had suddenly a very high fever after we came back shopping from midnight 12/04/2010 on. During the fever time, it wasn't easy to make him sleep and he cried very often. We used wet and cold wash cloth to mop his chest, back, armpit, legs and head, in order to reduce his high temperature. We did not know what caused his high fever, there was totally no sign of it (or perhaps we did not notice it).

Thanks to Monica from Turn-u-off for her tip to use ice packs (we haven't been sure if this would be too cold for him but it was definitely good for reducing his fever!)

About 2 days later (around 15/04), the fever was gone, and the rash showed up the first time on his head. Initially we thought it's some bites from ants (at that time we did not know about Roseola Infantum). But the rashes showed up more and more. It covered the neck, slowly to the chest and back, finally his arms and legs were covered. Honestly, it's scary to see that, and for sure it is the first time we experience this. These rashes are totally different which Timmy had several weeks ago.

Then I immediately checked from the internet about the symptoms, and finally found out it must be the 3 day fever. Then i was relieved to read that after the rashes, Timmy will be recovered. I checked the english information for my hubby to know about this sickness (my information was in chinese). After reading it, both of us felt no more so worried.

Here, i will post the photos. Don't be shocked when you see the photos.

12/4 - Timmy was already inactive in the mall.

13/4 - Having high fever (up to 40 Celsius).

16/4 - Fever was gone, rashes appeared, started from head & neck.

16/4 - During the night, rashes getting more and more on the body (not itchy, no scratching!)

17/4 - No more like red dots, just covered with red rash.

18/04 - After getting again nearly 39 Celsius fever (during the night) the rash is nearly invisible since the afternoon (no pic yet)

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MM: Declan Galbraith - An Angel

When i first heard Declan Galbraith's song, it was "Tell Me Why". Then i really love his voice and i started to search for his other songs. And i found this "An Angel". I listened to this song non-stop, it's such a beautiful song.

I wish you all enjoy this song!

Make your blog green and carbon neutral, join us!

Being part of the initiative “My blog is carbon neutral” is an active contribution to help the environment! All you have to do is described here. Make it happen - make it green!

“My blog is carbon neutral” is an initiative, originally started in Germany by the “Make it Green” programme, that has the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We plant a tree for your blog and thereby neutralise your blog’s carbon footprint for the next 50 years! Everyone can make a small contribution to the environment. Every tree counts!

Just write a short blog post about our programme “My blog is carbon neutral” and include one of the buttons. Send the link to your blog to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de and we plant a tree for you, neutralising the carbon dioxide emissions of your blog. The trees will be planted in the spring of 2010 by the Arbor Day Foundation. For more information about how and where the trees are planted, see the NEWS section.

Just a few easy steps to make it green:

1. Write a blog post about the initiative + insert your favourite button
2. E-mail the link to your post to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de
3. We plant a tree for your blog in Plumas’!

MM: The Wiggles - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

This Music Monday represents Australia's favorite children's music group "The Wiggles". The Wiggles sing famous nursery rhymes and own songs which are focused on babies & kids. The song have the certain fun factor which attracts adults and kids to sing along (ear worm).
This week we choose Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star from The Wiggles.

Have a great Music Monday and listen to this song together with your kids :-)

Baby Timmy having fun at swimming pool

Homemade baby food: Mashed potato + Broccoli + Egg yolk

This is the new food combination that i made for Timmy, he loves it and finished all of it :-)

I hope your baby will enjoy this as well.

Easy homemade baby food recipe:

Ingredients:
mini potatoes
broccoli florets
egg yolk

Instructions:
1. Steam the potatoes and broccoli until soft.
2. Boil the egg, and take out the egg yolk.
3. Mash the potatoes, broccoli and egg yolk.
4. Add a bit water.

Voila, now the food is ready for your adorable baby. Enjoy!

WW: Mirror game

31/1/2010 - 11 months

Baby first time flying with airplane

On 23rd March 2010 was the big day for Timmy as we headed to the Senai Airport to take our flight back to Kuala Lumpur. It's always difficult to travel with kids under 2 years in the airplane. They don't know yet how to react when you get the pressure in the ears.

The best tips when you fly the first time with your baby

• Take a pacifier with you and put it in the mouth of your baby when the airplane starts to take off (and lands) and look that your baby is sucking it until you don't feel anymore pressure in your own ears
• Give your baby something to eat, so that it chews during the take off and landing
• Take a bottle with fluids (water, fruit juice, milk) and feed your baby, so that it always sucks the fluids during the time when the airplane takes off or lands

We tried both methods and only the last one worked for some minutes. After we landed in Kuala Lumpur, Timmy hit with his hands on his heads. This meant for us that it wasn't completely successful and he might have been dizzy or got a headache. For luck he didn't have any other severe symptoms because after one day with a lot of sleeping he felt already better and didn't show anymore signs of hitting with his hands on his head.

Having breakfast at Marry Brown, Senai airport, Johor Bahru.

After having baby bites (biscuits), Timmy fell asleep in grandpa's arm.

Waiting for the airplane at gate 4 in the Senai airport, Johor Bahru. The plane was delayed for 20 minutes. :(

Yeah....finally we're on the plane, and Timmy was playful and curious about the beauty sitting behind us ;-)

Again talkative with the beauty behind us :)

Arrival at the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) in Kuala Lumpur

Playing games at the airport in Kuala Lumpur - "Touch your body parts" (here: ear) :-)

Sleeping in the bus to KL Sentral after the exciting first flight an hour ago

Driving back home from KL Sentral in the taxi