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. :D)

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the boy asked a a crucial question while i was in the shower – what’s the name of a certain female anatomy. had no choice but to answer him the dictionary version as there’s no child-fied female equivalent to ‘beberd’. “vagina? oh like china!” err. well, at least he knows his rhyming… and geography.”

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the best conversations with the lil boy almost always happen at bedtime. tonight’s topic: Tuhan. my tagline: “He’s Everywhere!”. marketed the concept of omnicience so well, it won him over. (of course, him being him, he just had to ask if Tuhan watches tv, to which my reply was, “if Tuhan watched tv, how is he going to watch you, auni, mummy, daddy and everybody else?” – mummy logic FTW!)

++++++

also among topics covered were of conception & growth, all because he asked if Tuhan made us. I love simplifying concepts to preschoolers & making things up along the way! the story concluded with: that’s why girls don’t have beberds & boys cannot have babies in their stomachs, and he has to grow up, finish school, work, marry a girl he luvvvs (which always gets him giggling) THEN have a baby. again, mummy logic FTW?

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bedtime conversations sometimes meander into the mystical (oftentimes murky, in my case), realms of the theological…

A: “Tuhan… Tuhan is… everywhere?”
M: “yes, EVERYWHERE!”
A: “Tuhan is here? in the room? on my bed?”
M: “yesss, he’s EVERYWHERE, aniq.”
A: “everywhere? inside the body? inside my heart also?”
M: *pause – i never thought he would think of his heart, or his body for that matters, as a physical residence, but…* “YES, of course he’s inside your heart, to protect you. that’s why you don’t need to be scared when you sleep! see, you are not alone, because he’s always watching you. you just say Bismillahirahmanirahim and don’t worry, no bad dreams, no nightmares. just say that before you sleep. (and must wash feet also.)”
A: *thinks* “then, Tuhan got watch tv or not?”
M: “no lahhh, how can he watch tv? he has to watch everyone. EVERYONE, aniq! how is he going to watch you, and auni, and mummy, and daddy, and your friends, and everybody if he’s watching tv??”
A: “ohhh. then can teach me how to say again… bis-mi-yah…?”

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was chatting with aniq over chicken nuggets and fries about what mummy did yesterday with her friends while he and his sister were with their daddy.

M: “oh, i went to watch a movie.”
A: “movie? girl movie?”
M: “yah.”
A: “no shooting? no fighting?”
M: “nope. it’s about girls, going shopping, wearing nice dresses.. love, boyfriend-girlfriend…”
A: “eee!”
M: “what eee! nanti you dah besar…”

(and so the conversation meandered to a topic we’ve visited a few times before.)

A: “mummy, why boy and girl must marry?”
M: “when you grow up, you’ll know lah.”

(now we know why our parents always tell us this – they didn’t know how to explain ha ha.)

A: “i want to marry you lah.”
M: “mana boleh. you have to choose someone your age. nanti you dah besar, you find someone you like, then you marry her.”
A: “then i choose batrisyah lah.”

(this, the mysterious batrisyah from his classroom. her name seems to crop up like a regular cast in a tv series.)

M: “you sure she likes you?”
A: “yes, she likes me.”
M: “how do you knowww?”
A: “i know lah.”
M: “but HOW do you knowww?”
A: “i KNOWWW.”
M: “yah, but HOWWWW?”
A: “I JUST KNOW LAHHHH.”

ahh, such is the conviction of a 4-year-old. (and to think Mr Big took 10 years to figure it out and finally marry Carrie.)

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