i think we’ve established just how stressful registering a child for primary one is. well, for the majority of first-time parents anyway. to everyone who survived this year’s registration process, congratulations!

so, i finally got around to asking my mum how it was during her time when she had to register us for primary school. as it turned out, there *was* a priority and balloting system back then too. and here i was, thinking i was from a dinosaur era where such things didn’t exist, where it was all a simple process of enrolling within a certain distance from where you lived.

mum was teaching at an all-boys’ school when my brother turned primary one, and teachers had priority to register their children in the school where they taught. she transferred to another school nearby soon after, so when it was my turn to register for primary one, i had sibling priority for the all-girls’ school next door, which was affiliated to the all-boys’ one… so yeah, that’s the story. no regrets – loved the school, the teachers, the yellow pinafore, heck even the brown bloomers we had for P.E… (nostalgia is a funny thing, heh.)

(hmm actually, come to think of it, i don’t know why she didn’t just enrol me at the all-girls’ school where she was teaching then, that would’ve saved me SO much time/effort/headache now, seeing how (a) that school has since turned co-ed, (b) shifted to tampines from its original ceylon rd location, and (c) is highly-sought after by parents in this vicinity… ah well, i guess it wasn’t meant to be…)

she also mentioned briefly about the ‘graduate mother scheme’, where priority was given then to children whose mothers were degree holders. thankfully, this was abolished soon after it was implemented, because frankly, i found it a little appalling. i mean, seriously, first you get all mothers to stop at two kids, and when the higher-educated mothers were having fewer babies than lower-educated ones, you worry about the ‘lopsided procreation pattern’. then you use paper qualification as a measure of ‘intelligence genes’, and entice them to beget ‘intelligent’ citizens by giving them first choice of primary schools? maaan, that just reeks of…. well, you know, the ‘E’ word. (the opposite effect imagined in mike judge’s ‘Idiocracy’ – see movie intro.)

in any case, many non-graduate mothers did eventually churn out graduate children after all, so.. phooey.

aaanyway, back to the present time, where the primary school registration system continues to boggle the minds of many. i’d mentioned about doing parent volunteering in the hopes of stepping around the dreaded phase 2C, where it’s a free-for-all and luck plays a big part, like striking 4D or toto. i was having none of that, no siree bob.

and, i am ashamed to admit this.. we ended up each doing PV in two different schools. “WHAT in kiasu gods’ name?! are you MAD? that’s a total of 80 hours of your life!” yes, we’d narrowed down to two choices and we couldn’t decide, so we strategised – in a ‘let’s poke around both and see what each one offers’ kinda way. it was like dating two prospective partners at the same time, or an episode of “The Bachelor” without the rose-giving ceremony…

so within the year, i’d gone on learning journeys to various places (i think i learned more than i ever did during my accumulated years of excursions), did some library inventory (so thaaaat’s what school kids are reading these days, i discovered), talked to teachers, parents, students… while the husband did traffic duties, some e-learning session, talked to teachers, parents, students (and apparently, even canteen aunties)… we observed the culture, the environment, the programmes… and only on the last few days before the anticipated phase 2B did we eventually decide, after a lot of consideration.

one of the factors for choosing school Y over X was the overwhelming registration in the earlier phases for the latter school. it was obvious from the numbers that a balloting would have to take place, and that involved a risk since we live outside the 1-2km proximity. school X has a long history, and with many of its alumni from our generation having children of the same age seeking tradition, many slots were understandably filled up in the earlier phases.

i also presented our dilemma to a number of people whose opinions i value, and they were surprisingly unanimous in their advice. even aniq himself voiced his preference. and since school Y had the foresight to take in a comparatively smaller number of parent volunteers, our slots were confirmed, which meant no stressful balloting.

so there, voila – our firstborn officially has a place in primary school. we did what we could to secure a place for him, and … i hope it’s the right place for him to bloom. (or i’ll freakin’ stuff him in my old brown P.E. bloomers.)

and that ends our ‘exciting’ kancheong-first-time-parent milestone of registering a child for primary one. phew.

(now starting to think about our second round of decision-making, a few years down the road. do i want to see auni in a yellow pinafore being all demure like this? HELL YEAH I WOULD. i’ve always wanted to pass down this yellow-pinafored ‘tradition’ if i ever had a daughter. but hey, there’s still time to make me change my mind… :p)

(oh my goodness, almost 30 years later and i still have the same haircut?! LOL.)

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his second book creation – slightly higher in content and closer to his real ‘voice’.

(i must disclaim that this is purely a work of fiction because his daddy hardly ever speeds OR has ever been slapped with a speeding ticket by a traffic police.)

his teacher explained that he originally entitled it ‘Fast and Furious’, but seeing how his daddy supposedly got summoned – though one could argue that this would likely cause a reaction of fury from the daddy, or the traffic police, OR even the driver of the bus number 4017 who got overtaken – and there could well be copyright issues due to the movie of the same name, he was asked for another title. to which he replied, “ok lah! then ‘Fast and Fined’!” (i may have plagiarised.)

the cut-out vehicles and jolly traffic policeman were coloured on both sides, and glued between plastic (transparency?) sheets, so that you can flip them over the left and right pages to create a layered effect, which i thought was kinda cool. heh.

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author: aniq izhan
illustrator: aniq izhan

this isn’t so much of a storybook, as in, it doesn’t exactly have, well… a story.

each laminated page is replicated with the eponymous ‘ghost’ missing parts of his face, and cut-out holes to show the parts which suddenly appear with the accompanying text as the book progresses…

1. 2.
3. 4. 5.

(ps: please ignore/forgive the grammar mistake on the third page. i guess his ‘editor’ missed it out. :p)

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as part of the theme on ‘compassion’, the kids’ pre-school held a ‘charity drive’ where parents traded packs of powdered beverages and cereals for their kids’ pieces of work, and the items would then be donated to an old folks’ home, which the boy will be visiting tomorrow.

anyway, the boy’s teacher had been telling me about his storybook creations, and he’d given us a ’summary’ of them earlier himself, so we were pret-ty curious.

and boy, was i impressed – with ALL the K2 kids’ storybooks!

they were SO CUTE. i was practically squealing in delight at every one of them, scrawly writings and all.

look, there was even a pop-up book! with a happy ending! (“after some time, they got a baby. they lived happily ever after.” – obviously, written by a girl, and i gotta say, i really liked the ones written by the girls.)

like this one, by qaisara. the storyline and language were simple (a girl deals with her baby sister who always wants her things, by repeatedly denying them from her – until the final page when the baby wanted a hug and she accedes), but tugged at my heartstring the few seconds it took me to read it. (i am a wuss I KNOW IT.)

(postnote: his teacher told me that the baby is actually an imaginary one because the author is the youngest in the family, and i thought that just adds another dimension to the story – a girl’s longing for a baby sister. awww?)

ouh check out the ’super tornado’ book – more pop-ups! and if you know me, you’d know i’m crazy for pop-ups. (never mind that this is hardly sophisticated paper-engineering – but still! love it.)

the boy’s two books weren’t pop-ups, though. (darn!) both use a similar technique as the ant book above, with cut-outs and lamination. (more on that in the next blog post.)

i really have to hand it to their teachers for what i imagine must’ve been a tremendous task, of planning and helping every kid to generate ideas and come up with drafts for stories and illustrations, to the actual creative execution of each book (with its bindings and pasting and laminating, etc). i like that the kids experience and explore such outlets of creativity in pre-school, at the same time weaving in elements of literacy and a dash of fun.

and the sense of pride you see in their faces when they hold up their own creations or show them to their parents, is.. well yeah, priceless.

oh, the little ones were not left out – the girl’s playgroup class made some musical instruments out of recycled materials. very cute… but i like the storybooks better. (i think she liked them better too. )

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my first thought was: “sure or not? so effusive ah…”

i had a favourite english teacher in jc, as in, english english, from sheffield, UK, kind of english; the Mr Sheffield from The Nanny kind of english. he was also effusive when he marked my assessments. it made me love literature. (and him, lol.)

as for the boy, is there hope yet…?

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… who else will adore you as unconditionally, and without judgement?

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progressing all right. only his third lesson and swimming independently, albeit with floating board.

lesson #3, originally uploaded by izadd.

so fun.

meanwhile, the girl tangos…

my spot under the shade.

but next weekend the daddy’s working, which means mummy’s turn to get wet…

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the small training wheels on the bike we got him in december for his 5th birthday had gone wonky from.. err, ok, actually it was my fault – we were at east coast beach some time back and i, in a moment of impulse, tried out his bike for size, but my, hmm, considerable gluteus maximus weighed it down (the bike clearly was not ready for this jelly) and caused one of the training wheels to bend upwards, so technically he’d been riding on < 4 wheels ever since.

which was a good thing, coz it made him learn to balance much faster, and after seeing how he'd been zooming around with the training wheels barely touching the ground, the daddy removed them over the weekend.

once again, mommy's a genius.

he’s fascinated with speed. he’s already asked for a skateboard. and a motorbike. and let’s not forget, that “fe-lari” sports car…

at this point, i wish to launch into an introspective post about my many worries for him, The Firstborn. but… my anxieties need further evaluation, so let’s just say for now that i worry a lot about him (well, obviously not his physical or motor development), and maybe i’ll pen them down in another post.

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come, tooth fairy~!, originally uploaded by izadd.

his wobbly tooth finally dropped! well, technically, it got knocked out, thanks to him bumping into his sister by accident. whoops. :p

this was taken after his initial shock at the amount of blood that spilled out of his gum. yes, there were some tears involved, lol. so much for being gungho and teasingly shaking the tooth at me and laughing when i CRINGE.

told him that it’s ok, happens to every kid, and when we were small, ours dropped too. my grandma even extracted one with a string! (sadism runs in the family, apparently.)

the daddy gave him a container to keep the tooth and ALL the future milk teeth that will eventually drop off. to make him feel better, we even told him to put the tooth under his pillow… (so, what IS the market price these days?)

and so we hit another milestone.

do you remember when YOUR first tooth dropped?

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the kids are going through a chameleon phase, and when i say chameleon phase, i’m not saying they’re creeping around, blending with the background and changing colours or anything.

it happens that i’d picked out eric carle’s ‘The Mixed-up Chameleon’ the other day and the kids just loved it; then we went to the library and found this really adorable book about a sad Blue Chameleon which we all enjoyed as well; then i found this book at popular bookshop about how Chameleons are Cool, and now i know that chameleons don’t change colours to match their surroundings but actually do so to reflect their mood (though they’re mostly grumpy). and heck, just to complete the ‘theme’, i’m almost a step away from making paper mache chameleons and finding a real life chameleon as a pet (but they live in madagascar – see, another useful trivia from a kids’ book, right there). but… that’d be bordering on obsession.

here i interrupt this story briefly to mention that auni had also, during the above-mentioned library trip, decided to insist on borrowing this malay book called ‘Musang yang Licik dengan Ayam Betina Katik’. i’d chuckled at her choice, but indulged her anyway, and when i read to them in my best impression of a storyteller on a Suria channel’s children’s programme, they were SO tickled. i figured it must be due to: (a) the words ‘licik’ and ‘katik’ (you gotta admit, they’re funny-sounding words); (b) mummy’s a great storyteller (the ghosts of cikgus past seemed to have possessed me); (c) me reading aloud a malay book is quite the novelty (maybe i should read Berita Harian aloud to them on a daily basis – but nah, that’s like reading one bad story after another…); or (d) it was a good story – well, it’s basically the same ol’ premise of cunning fox trying to outdo a hen, finally catches the hen, but hen outdoes fox, fox gets his retribution, moral of the story, the end. reaaaally mind-blowing stuff.

so back to the chameleons.

now, if you’re around my age and have grown up with 80’s pop music, the first thing that’ll pop into your head when you hear the word ‘chameleon’ would be Culture Club’s classic number one hit, ‘Karma Chameleon’. come on, ‘fess up, it was, wasn’t it??

well, i’m afraid that was also what happened with the daddy. like on auto-mode (and repeat mode), he’d go “karma karma karma karma, karma chameleonnnn…!” everytime the kids shove one of the chameleon books under his nose. of course, the kids think he’s nuts.

so, being the ever-resourceful net-savvy daddy that he is, he typed in ‘karma chameleon’ in youtube, and played the video to enlighten the kids and further immerse them in the ‘theme’. needless to say, they were quite fascinated. i mean, wouldn’t you if you were a kid and saw this?

a clown of indeterminate gender in make-up with a funny hat and psychedelic costume singing on a boat with other circus freaks! plus, hello, catchy tune? yes, they asked to repeat it a few times.

so during bedtime yesterday, after the youtube sing-a-long session, the boy asked – “mummy, what is ka-ma?” well, i said, it’s like when you do something good to someone, something good will happen to you, and if you do something bad to someone, something bad will happen to you.

and whaddaya know? he exclaimed, “OH I KNOW I KNOW! like this book, right??” and promptly dug out ‘Musang yang Licik dengan Ayam Betina Katik’ and flipped it open to this page:

for a while my jaw dropped – it totally did NOT occur to me to make that connection myself, because the context and language i’d explained the concept in was different, but yeah, i told him, dammit, he’s right. and he beamed.

looks like si ibu yang cilik licik was outdone by her anak katik after all.

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i guess i spoke too soon – “inspired” by discussions on the merits of the Peter & Jane series, i managed to persuade aniq to try it out one evening, by insisting that it’s “VERY EASY”.

it took a week of frustrations (on both sides) as we plodded through book 1a before he surprisingly picked up speed and went on to 1b.

i think one of the challenges i faced teaching the kid (other than the typically boyish playfulness and impatience) was having a younger sibling interrupt us ever so often – e.g. she’d demand for HER book to be read, or ask for a drink, or chatter on and on, or be plain mischievous and cheeky, as evident in the video below:

in any case, i have to say i feel a liiiitle bit relieved at having made actual progress in our “thorny but exciting” road to literacy.

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i’d been growing a liiiiittttle anxious that the boy is ending his K1 year and turning 5 in a few months’ time, and was still resisting our nudges to start reading independently.

sure, he knows his ABCs (occasionally mixing up the small letters ‘b’ and ‘d’, and a few others, especially when distracted – and boyyy is he easily distracted), and would randomly seek my confirmation that ’snake’ starts with ’s’, or ‘finger’ starts with ‘f’, or ‘Honda’ starts with ‘h’, or Toyota starts with ‘t’. (his current fascination is car brands, btw – according to him, we drive a ‘Honda e-way’, and a Beetle is a ‘Boxdragon’, which i repeatedly try to correct with the german pronunciation of ‘Volkswagen’, which in turn confuses him more since ‘V’ is ‘F’ and ‘W’ is ‘V’ in german… and his favourite car? a PROTON. gawwwwd, run me down with a Boxdragon, now!)

so anyway, i’d attempted an evergreen beginner-readers’ classic, the Peter & Jane series, which i’d read to him since he was still a crawling mass, but perhaps the too-early introduction, plus the antiquated illustrations and the stilted flow of words, did not interest him very much to pursue the perusal of Peter, Jane and their dog’s antics and adventures.

his preschool curriculum doesn’t impose spelling tests or rigourous worksheets, which i’m quite thankful for actually, coz mummy thinks he spends plenty of time in school in the day already and all she wants to do after coming home from work is play and talk and not have stressful evenings of drilling and cajoling a preschooler to “finish up his homework”, coz there’ll be a disgusting amount of years ahead yet for that. :S

having said that, i AM amazed at kids his age or younger already adept at doing spelling and math and various languages in other preschools. and VERY intimidated.

i think aniq’s reluctance to read probably has to do with a lack of confidence, of getting things wrong or from having been compared to his older cousins or friends who are already skilled readers. but a few factors are slowly helping him overcome this.

first, the sense of competitiveness he feels with his sister, who is admittedly displaying a quick grasp of language and literacy. and second, the lure of a reward….. now i KNOWWWW early childhood educators out there are probably GASPING in disapproval at this; that one should not ‘bribe’ a child to learn a skill that should be an intrinsic reward by itself, blablabla, but aww, what’s a little carrot at the end of the stick, i say? ;p oh stoppit, i DO all the other things i’m supposed to do too; bedtime stories, reading aloud, heaps of encouragement and praise, going to the library, be seen reading myself, blablabla, heyyy i’ve done the googling. but maybe some kids are just motivated… erm, differently?

in any case, this was the first book he’d agreed to read aloud in full, and it was quite an exasperating task to get him to recognise the words, what with his attention span. but after i’d video-ed him a few times, he felt more confident and let’s hope he moves on to other more, hmm, ‘exciting’ books, yes?

feel free to guess whether he memorised most, if not the entire thing, instead of actually reading the words, hehe.

oh, and so what WAS his reward?

it was on sale. (yeah, corrupt AND stingy parents. tsk.)

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aniq & auni, originally uploaded by izadd.

wanted to write down something brief about their sibling relationship.

i’d sometimes get angry at the little one for not putting away her things (toys/pencils/books) and would threaten her with The Naughty Corner, with the usual ‘countdown’ – “i’m going to count to ten… ONE! TWO!…” – ok, that’s more of a ‘count UP’, isn’t it? – at which the big brother will invariably, for some unknown reason, jump in to rescue his sister – “never mind! waitt… i help auni!” – and proceed to put away her things for her.

i’m not sure WHY he does it, when he himself gets into hot soup for forgetting to put away HIS things and i’d threaten him The Naughty Corner + ‘count UP’, with plenty of protests and resistance from him.

(disclaimer about The Naughty Corner: it is not some dark, dingy dungeon or anything that i banish them to, really. it’s just a corner at the balcony where the Punishee is sent to remain and reflect – in loud teary wails – till he/she decides to rectify themselves.)

however heartening it is to witness his sense of empathy for his sister, i’m wondering if it’s a good idea to let him clear up after her every time, because the other day she nonchalantly responded to my nagging at her mess, “wait abang help me keep.”

!!

***************

there were other caught instances of sibling affection:

- i’d scolded the little one for something (again!) and she went all drama and wailed to high heavens, and the brother, who was watching tv, called out to her – “come, come,” and she trundled over, where he hugged her… (while still watching the tv ha ha.)

- i’d be distracted with something and the little one would want to pee, so off to the toilet her brother would go with her, instruct her out of her pants and pullups, hoist her up her stool and training seat on the toilet bowl. (at this point i’d come in chuckling.)

- little one was napping on the sofa the other evening and he sniffed her face and smooched her.

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made aniq stay up to write cards for his teachers and lao shis. managed only four before he gave up. (sorry Teacher Sandra, whoever you are.)

as he’d written in all his (almost legible) cards, Thank You, teachers.

(i gotta say, those cheap cheap cartoon stickers from pasar malams are damn useful. )

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