the difference between an elder brother and an elder sister: where the elder sister consoles and soothes an inconsolable crying baby sister, the elder brother makes funny faces and silly sounds to make her laugh.

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there’s this scene in Dan In Real Life, starring steve carell (in an endearing role filled with endless pathos, reminiscent of steve martin in ‘father of the bride’, another favourite tearjerker), that struck me.

early on in the movie, his 15-year-old daughter declared her love for a boy after knowing him for 3 days, and as the rightful protecting father that he is, proceeds to ground her – for life.

Dan: And by the way, you’re grounded.
Cara: Oh yeah? For how long?
Dan: For life.
Jane: Dad, come on.
Cara: Yeah, this is humiliating!
Dan: Alright, you’re grounded for a month.
Cara: A month?! But… that’s worse than forever!

but he had to eat his words when he met marie (the beautiful juliette binoche), and fell in love with her after a morning of conversation – only to find out later that she’s his brother’s girlfriend. and so ensued an excruciating 3 days for him, stuck with her at his family gathering, repressing his feelings like a lovestruck 15-year-old. till the turning point in the movie where she breaks up with his brother, unable to repress her own growing feelings for him, and the entire family, including his daughters, discovered them kissing, resulting in a whirlwind of chaos.

Dan: I know I messed up.
Cara: Yup.
Jane: Yes you did.
Dan: So here is what I’m going to do. I am grounding myself for life. And so I will be with you–
Jane: You’re with us every day.
Dan: I’m not going anywhere. See, I got a little confused with Marie. That is over, okay? I kind of lost my head. I got a little stupid, because I love her. No, that’s not…I don’t love her. and that’s not what I meant. I mean, how could I love her? I’ve only known her..
Lily: Three days.
Dan: Yeah. And how can you know in three days? Well, no. Yes I do. I love her. I love her, I love her, I love her. I love her.

that part about grounding himself for life, man, that did it for me. there’s something heartbreaking in his attempts to be the übermensch single father – the self-sacrifice, the unconditional love, the rules and decisions that make him, as his 9-yr-old daughter says, “a great father but a bad dad” – but eventually succumbing to human fallibility.

i guess a single mother could make an equally compelling story – with more martyr-like panache for dramatic measure – but because he’s a single father, it brings out… a different kind of aww-factor fuzziness. yeah, i’m a sucker like that. coz for some strange – biological? evolutionary? – reason, we women have a soft spot for the nurturing male of the species, so much so that we even want to nurture the nurturing male. we can’t help it. just look as far back as the bedtime fairytales of yore, you’ll find more instances of stepmothers than stepfathers (refer to: snow white, cinderella, hansel & gretel, et al). from kings to woodcutters, they all seem to have these women (nevermind that they’re usually evil, vain, material and non-maternal) taking them into their open bosoms.

and, yes, in true fairytale fashion, dan did end up marrying marie. (except she’s not evil and they all love her, and i REALLY MUST STOP reading too much into those darn fairytales i read to aniq at night coz they’re screwing up with my brains).

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speaking of grounding, we’d ‘grounded’ the boy on sunday on account of his adamant refusal to partake in a weekend activity we’d subscribed him to for one hour. his excuse: he wanted to play with his toys. so fine, we told him, play with your toys all you want at home, but NO TV and NO following us out AT ALL. (we were going to shop for a birthday present before proceeding to the said birthday, where his cousin dadam was anticipating his arrival, so he’d be missing out on all the action.) he cried at the penalty. “too bad,” we told him. “that’s called Punishment, aniq.”

i mean, he has to learn that he simply can’t have his way all the time without some kind of repercussion, in this case, at the expense of fun time with his favourite cousin and the goodies that come with birthday parties. right?

sometimes i ask the husband, “is he spoilt? is he a spoilt brat?” i have my suspicions, but how exactly we’ve ‘spoilt’ him, i’m not too sure. it’s not like we give in to his whines or demands, we teach him to mind his Ps & Qs, we scold him whenever he does something wrong, praise him when he’s right… so what happened in between the acquiescent, eager-to-please baby he was and now? have we been too soft? could corporal punishment have its merits, after all?

in any case, when we came home, he was all kisses and hugs and, the cold, unforgiving mother that i am, i told him i was still angry. (i’m cruel, i know.) remnants of his remorse lingers the next day, smothering me all over with affection when i returned. “do you want go to the [subscribed weekend activity] on sunday?” “yes,” was his immediate response. “good boy,” i said.

I AM AN EMOTIONAL-BLACKMAIL FIEND, is what i am. if this were a fairytale, i’d be the stepmother.

+++++

since we’re on the topic of fairytales, and i clearly have a fascination at demystifying them, i leave you with this rhyme, an english translation at the end of a Perrault story to warn young girls with a propensity for attracting sexual predators (i’m sure you can easily guess which one).

Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, and charming—nevermind!
Now, as then, ’tis simple truth—
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!

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i didn’t realise the daddy twitpic-ed this. been trying to capture her in this position for some time, without success. i don’t know why, it just tickles my mommy funny-bone, the way she lies on her “stummy” (her brother’s word for stomach+tummy) with her hands squishing her cheeks.

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we’re not sure where she picks up her seemingly sudden jump in vocabulary each day – we suspect it could be from her brother, whom she interacts with (and mimics) everyday, or from her teachers in school. i’d bet more on the former.

last night our conversations went something like this:

M: auni, which colour do you like? (playing with stacking rings)
A: i yike geen. (“i like green”)
M: eh? (amused but bewildered – i’d only mentioned ‘green’ in passing the day before when we played with another set of stacking rings at home, but didn’t think she internalised it or anything, gee i gotta be more careful what i say around her or whaaat…)

M: sayang mummy tak?
A: yes. i yike ami… i yike daddy… i yike babang… i yike ama… i yike bibik… i yike, err… babang…
M: O-o

M: is it nice? sedap?
A: (sipping on an iced drink) nice! dap!
M: (affecting a grimace to show feigned disgust) no lah! NOT NICE! yuks!
A: NICE!!
M: nooo, not niiiiiceeee.
A: NIIIICE! I YIKE!!

she is turning into – *gasp* – her brother.

but i do think the second child tends to develop speech at a generally faster rate, thanks to the elder sibling as model.

as for the other behaviours, i’m still, errm, crossing my fingers.

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Pebbles Auni, originally uploaded by izadd.

am missing her today, coz it’s the first day back at work after the long CNY holiday and she’d usually be the first feet to pitter-patter over to our room and lay her head on my side of the bed, followed by her brother, but today i was out before either of them woke up, so something felt… amiss.

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sometimes it’s hard talking about the little things in your life you find pride in – be it your accomplishments, achievements, experiences, aspirations – without inadvertently offending someone.

because, – and perhaps i’m being a cynic here – people would really much rather hear the bad things that happen to you, all your imperfections and failures. because then you wouldn’t make them feel bad about themselves, for whatever reason.

in truth, it’s probably easier finding people – friends and strangers – willing to commiserate in your woes than share in your joys.

empathy is easy; mudita, or altruistic joy, not so.

and when it comes to parenting, ho boy, you REALLY gotta tiptoe on land mines on this one. coz nobody really wants to hear how well you’re doing, not really. not unless they ask. and certainly not when it strikes at their raw, exposed achilles’ heels.

human nature being the funny, illogical thing that it is, i get that, i really do.

(then again, if we keep shoving those achilles’ heels down people’s throats, we’re also shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak, aren’t we? but i guess some find catharsis in airing their hardships and little grievances, while others, well, simply prefer to conceal them; that way, they protect themselves from others – intentionally or unintentionally – belittling/ridiculing them. everybody has a different way of dealing with their heels, after all.)

so anyway, to dispel the notion that only happy, delightful things happen in the life of izadnhana, let me share bits of what everybody likes to hear – our less-than-ideal dealings with our less-than-ideal children.

the four-year old boy: where shall i begin?

- “i want sweet/toy/etc!! i waaaaaannnnttt…!! i waaaaannnntttt…..! *whine whine whine*”
yes, IT HAPPENS. The Whine. the items may differ, but the tone consistent. despite our repeated denying and ignoring, and reminders to “please ask nicely”, this “i want” syndrome persists. we’ve even renamed him Aniq Iwant. on my less accommodating days, i’d even give him a nice fat tweak on the ear. sometimes, a pants-wetting shout that would crack your eardrums. (yes, i shout. bad mum.) and nah, we’ve never given in to his whiny demands, preferring to let him cry it out and wallow in the misery of not getting what he wants. “THAT’S LIFE, ANIQ! YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT!”, i shout, quoting the wise words of the Rolling Stones. doesn’t mean he’s learnt his lesson though.

- “i dowan to bathe/go toilet!!”
with every ‘i want’, is an ‘i dowan’. anything routine is met with almost-violent objection. why do children resist baths as much as cats and dogs? that is the eternal question. we usually ‘trap’ him into bathing when he has to pee. (off with your clothes, into the shower you go, lightning-thunder-evil laughter!) and then we’d have him resist going to the toilet to pee. i told him if he holds his pee, stones will form inside, and then he wouldn’t be able to pee, and he’ll go to the hospital, and yes, you can die (he always likes a little gore injected into his potential ailments). he’d eventually have to pee at some point, of course, but holding his bladder can’t be a good thing. we’ve threatened putting him back on diapers, which makes him even madder. doesn’t mean he’s learnt his lesson though.

- “i dowan to eat/sleep!”
again, more routines, more ‘dowans’. there’ll be days when he wants proper food (ie. rice), days when he’d refuse it. he likes chicken skin. we told him, that’s why his inner elbow looks as gross as chicken skin (he’s got eczema). and they sleep late, my kids. on average, they’ll doze off at 11 – 11.30pm. the whole process – milk/water-drinking, peeing, toothbrushing, reading, talking, cajoling, threatening – takes about an hour each night. we could start the bedtime routine earlier, but no matter what we do, their body clock is stubborn that way. i know they should be trained to sleep earlier, but because we come back from work and get to spend so little time with them, we don’t have the heart to force them down earlier. bad, yes. good luck when they start morning session in school. so all of you with kids who sleep as early as 8pm, i say, WOW.

- “stop biting your nails!”
that’s me, swatting his hands out of his mouth for the trillionth time. there are times when i have to swat his FOOT out of his mouth. (actually, that bad habit is probably genetic, i’m pret-ty sure i used to perform such an acrobatic feat myself as a kid.) i tried telling him about disgusting germs lurking underneath those nails, travelling into his mouth, down his throat, into his stomach, invading his body (and yes, you’ll die!)… but then, he’ll forget. i never got around to getting that anti-nail-biting cream from the pharmacy.

- “i like game! i like tv!”
with an attention span shorter than a goldfish, video games (which i refuse to have anything to do with, but which he gets to play with abandon at his grandfather’s house) have a way of keeping him hooked. i hate it. sure, it keeps him focused and hones his hand-eye coordination, but at the detriment of a more important skill, ie. sitting down with a pencil and paper, which is OH SO UNEXCITING coz no guns are being shot and no bullets being dodged. barely 5 minutes at writing and he’d have wiggled his way out of his chair with an excuse i’d probably hear for the next 16 years: “i’m tired”. the tv thing, i think, is universal. i don’t know any kid who doesn’t like it, or NEED it. and i guess we need it ourselves too, coz how could we possibly NOT have a tv in the house?! unthinkable.

- “i like my friends, dong yi/vincent/lutfi..”
i know there are kids who are shy, but i say, shyness is really not so bad. consider this boy: he sees people or older kids, he barges right in and tries to play with them, which, i observe occasionally, irritates them. and when i do, i’d step in and pull him away. what else can you do? and another thing, these boys he befriends in school, they influence each other’s behaviour to some extent, and you see the bad ones surface, like the “leh”s at the end of sentences, the loudness, the rowdiness. his teacher called me the other day to tell me that he and his friends were scolded for shooting imaginary guns at the back of the class and causing a pitcher of water to spill. (he cried, HA HA!) and he’s only four! imagine being called up in primary-secondary school, for more serious misdeeds. his inclination as an extrovert could somehow attract him to groups of boys equally brash, playful, and mischievous. so, maybe it’s better to have a shy boy. a nerdy, bookish one. the bawah-ketiak-mak type. i don’t know.

- overall omg-can-you-stop-doing-that! behaviour
this ranges from kicking toys not meant to be kicked, to purposely doing whatever we JUST told him NOT to do, to… oh the list goes on. i get tired just trying to list them down.

so as you can see, all of the above are probably common tales of common parents dealing with common children. they may reveal our lack of disciplining, our lack of spending time with them, a lack of something-or-other, always, always a lack on our part.

and while this exercise of revealing the unpleasant side of my kid (and myself) brings little pleasure to me, perhaps it brings a bit of pleasure to you.

but they probably won’t live up to your EVEN worse stories, experiences, plights and predicaments, i’m sure. because someone ALWAYS has it worse than you, and you just. can’t. win.

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am looking at auni’s documentation of her first two weeks at the centre.

it reads something like this. (yes i’m typing it out. don’t call me crazy. i’m a mommy.)

day 1: went in the class independently… sat down for a while and walked to the dramatic corner… played with manipulatives… ate the chicken only.

day 2: went in the class. didn’t cry… sang some familiar songs… enjoyed the walk around the neighbourhood… played puzzles… ate rice but did not finish.

day 3: did not cry… had storytelling… played at blocks corner… had dory fish + rice + vege… able to relate to the story at storytime (Adam’s Daycare).

day 4: cried (!!)… settled down… played at fine motor corner… had chicken mushroom + rice… sat down well at storytime.

day 5: cried… had chinese lesson… went to the library corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… able to sing along with the book, ‘Wheels on the Bus’.

day 6: cried… settled and joined in the music & movement… explored with the discovery corner… chose a book for the class.

day 7: cried for a while… did painting on easel board… had fun exploring with water… had baked chicken + rice.

day 8: cried for a while but settled down… dramatization for the book ‘Wheels on the Bus’… played at the playground… able to answer questions when asked.

day 9: had music & movement… played at discovery corner… activity at the void deck… played at the chinese corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… sat well at storytime.

day 10: sang songs… played with dough… enjoyed herself at the swing… played at dramatic corner… had steamed egg… chose a book for the class.

we must have made her miss four days out of that two weeks, coz that’s all i have. (wait, actually, 5 + 5 weekdays do technically count as two weeks of school, right?)

and don’t worry, coz she’s been there a month now and has since been reported as going straight into her class with nary a tear. i wasn’t too worried about the crying thing anyway coz, well, she IS barely two years old, what can one expect? they’re dramatic like that! they have good days and they have bad days. heck, i’m 32 and even i want to burst into tears when i reach work everyday. (ok lah, exaggerating…)

also, for the most parts, she’s pretty easy-going by nature, and like most children, adaptable to changes.

when i leave for work in the mornings, she puckers up her lips and gives me a cheerful “bye bye!”, and that, well, makes me NOT cry when i reach work everyday. :D

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exactly 2 years ago, aniq had a milestone moment with his first visit to the dentist, at 2yrs 2mths old, and auni was, well, -2mths (ie. unborn!):

uh oh, i sense a cliche coming now —> “how time flies!”

it’s become a yearly routine and this being his third visit, he knows the drill, so to speak – come in, play with toys, talk to the doctor, sit in the reclining chair, open mouth, scrape, spit, brush, choose a reward from the treasure box.

of course, it helps that he gets HEAPS of praises from the friendly doc for his good teeth and behaviour. sheesh.

his canines have this greenish stain which we can’t remove with a toothbrush despite our nightly attempts. apparently it’s common among kids (actually, even more common are blackish ones instead of what doc described as aniq’s more ‘textbook’ green), and simply genetically inherited. case in point: his cousin, adam, came in right after, and was found to have the exact same green stains on his teeth. sooo, it just HAS to come from my chlorophyll-rich side of the family tree. (by the way, adam would need braces some day, coz his mouth is so small, his teeth would be overcrowding. braces! so cute, right?)

but the stains were easily removed with the right tools (doc said to DIY with a toothpick next time). the ‘gappy’-ness of his teeth makes it hard for food to get stuck in between, so they’re generally easy to clean. remember when you aunties called him ‘madonniq’? turned out to be a good thing after all, heh.

pronounced as cavity-free, his good-as-new, post-polished teeth (i’m not kidding, they look awesome, sigh – dear aniq, please pleaseeee don’t ever mar them with smokes and coffee in the future) were photographed by the doc, and then it was auni’s turn.

okaaay, so ALL the doc managed with our wriggly worm of a girl was count her teeth (16) and made her promise to let mummy or daddy brush them every night (to which she nodded in a very ‘macam paham’ way), before she successfully made like a slippery eel and slid out of her daddy’s clutches on the reclining chair, and ran off to play in the wendy house at the waiting room.

better luck next year, doc.

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M: auni, tadi makan apa? (what did you eat today?)
A: asi! (nasi = rice)
M: lagi? (some more?)
A: eeken! (chicken, obviously, duh) ayam! (she has, as at last check, on 3 feb 2000hrs, decided to answer this instead of ‘eeken’.)
M: lagi?
A: opok! (keropok = fish cracker)
M: eh? sedap? (nice?)
A: dap!
M: pandai! (clever)

and when asked the various body parts in malay, she will obligingly twitch or point accordingly. yesterday, she saw her oma half-undressed and went, “eh, tak alu!” (no shame!).

ah. there is hope yet for you, my young padawan.

=========

M: aniq, ‘fish’ dalam melayu apa? (what is ‘fish’ in malay?)
A: …
M: (prompting with first syllable of ‘ikan’) eeee…?
A: eeee… er san!
M: O-O <--- (talk about culture shock.)

=========

in any case, they're both smitten by upin & ipin, you know, identical twin pre-schoolers who are the cutest cartoon characters, like EVUH, hailing from a fictional kampung in malaysia. (well, there was Lat the Kampung Boy back in the days - remember him? - but upin & ipin are so... arrrgh, DEM CUTE, and there are two of 'em!) the husband and i totally approve of the series, more so since the dialogue's so chuckle-worthy and in malay, and, i mean, WHO NEEDS TO LEARN SPANISH LAH, RIGHT?

so smitten by the characters and their antics, that even the little one has taken to mimicking the dialogue. a particular one that stuck to her was where the token effeminate youth in the kampung insists that his name's not Salleh but Sally, and attempts to spell it out: "S-I-L-L-Y", dismissing his misspelling with a flick of his limp wrist, "apa jer lah, tak kuasa aku." ("whatever!" - another thing about the beauty of localised humour - the english version simply does not translate sufficiently. right? betul betul betul?)

maybe i should send them to a kampung in malaysia, if anything, to brush up on their malay.

speaking of kampungs, the other night, in one of my meandering discussions with the little boy after an episode of upin & ipin, i described to him how in kampungs, they have no toilets with a flushing system, and potty business had to be done in an outhouse or behind bushes in the forest. (AS IF i know anything about rural life, hah! but mothers being mothers, must sound convincing and knowledgeable lah, right? betul betul betul?)

M: ingat tak, citer upin ipin, kawan cucu tok dalang sakit perut, nak pegi toilet tapi dia takut pasal dah malam abih tempat dia jauh? ahhh.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. kat kampung takde toilet.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. macam gitu. abih ingat tak, kawan cucu tok dalang nak berak, dia sembunyi belakang semak-samun? (at this point, even i can’t believe i just said ‘semak-samun’, an almost archaic word for thicket/undergrowth.)
A: why??
M: ye lah. pasal takde toilet!!

you can imagine how this conversation went on – endlessly.

like this bridge we trekked last weekend, in our attempt to bring the children close to nature.

well, as close as we could get to the semak-semak, anyway. no potty business going on here, though. it’s as sterile as everything typically singaporean is.

and mummy – again, ever-convincing and knowledgeable – explained away the many whys. sometimes with more than a “ye laah”.

yes. trees and branches may fall. take care.

berhati-hati di semak-samun, kenak-kanak.

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