the P1s officially don’t have any exams, but they have some kind of english and math “assessments” instead, and since we’re clueless as to what to make the boy revise (!), we went through with him the whole slew of spelling words he’d been given from the start of the year, which took up more than this board, and then we kinda gave up three-quarters through, because we ran out of steam. but it turned out that there was no spelling after all, so, (a) phew, and (b) gah! we wasted all that effort. and so much chalk.

i’m so glad penmanship won’t be graded… it won’t, right?? O_O

****

one of the recurring jokes that crop up in our conversations with the kids is about “boyfriends” and “girlfriends”.

the boy can list out who Mummy’s Boyfriends (yes, plural) are..

#1: “Bu-noh!”
(“it’s BO-NO, not Bu-noh. ‘bunuh’ tu ‘kill’. i don’t want to kill him.”)

never mind that he looks a hundred years older now, he’ll always be this 80′s version in my mind.

#2: “The Vampire!”
(refer to the hottie in the middle, not the Cullen-wannabes at the sides.)

never mind that he’d think nothing of ravaging my womb into a bloody mess with his bare teeth (ref: Breaking Dawn), i’ll still forgive him.

#3: “Thor!”
(self-explanatory.)

i demand to know, WHY WAS HE NOT TOPLESS IN THE AVENGERS? WHY? WHY?! *does a Hulk smash* (no, Hulk being topless does NOT do it for me.)

#4: “that one, he sings like *makes deep, throaty voice*”
(i chuckled out loud at this, because i’d only made a passing remark once when a The National song came on during one of our drives, and well, i was surprised the boy actually remembered.)

ILY, MATT!

etc. (the list goes on. will need to introduce ryan gosling to them some day.)

and every time the subject of “boyfriends” crops up, especially when we tease the girl on her potential nuptials to Prince Charming ala Cinderella or Captain America (it would appear that the goody-goody, ‘clean-cut’ types appeal to her), she will do this:

*facepalm*

****

so anyway, we like asking the boy about his classmates, and we have established that there is a Smartest Girl in his class. we tease him that he should make friends with the Smartest Girl in class. because Smart Girls can help him with his schoolwork. and the Smartness can rub off on him. who knows, maybe even improve his penmanship. (hey i can hope, can’t i?) we get updates that Smartest Girl likes giving him little things, e.g. pencil, keychain, food.

M: aniq, when you grow up, you must marry a smart girl. your wife must be smart. then your children will be smart. remember, ok? marry a smart girl! THAT IS ALL.

D: yah, see, like daddy. *snickers*

M (who picks questionable mythical characters/hairy musicians as fantasy love interests): *gives the evil eye*

Boy: ……

M: and auni, when you grow up – marry a rich man. THAT IS ALL.

Boy: you mean like daddy?

M: ……

D: yah, rich what… rich with LURRVVEEEE.

Girl: *facepalm*

#greatparenting #educationyoucantgetinclassroom

(now, what’s the likelihood someone’ll get me that Thor action hero for Mother’s Day….?)

10

  

got terribly depressed last night after looking at pictures of beautifully-decorated bento lunches for kids.

i now have bento-envy.

but at 5.30am, you can forget about me even slathering peanut butter on a slice of bread, much less cut it into cute shapes of mice.

our lil fella is given $2 for his recess and i can only guess at what he’s eating in school every day. all i can get out of him is either “fishballs” or “pizza” or some unidentified, nameless food. occasionally the money goes to the bookshop. i ask if he can eat the flag erasers he buys.

then again, he’s not a fussy eater and has little appreciation for aesthetic details (i.e. gobbles up food without much thought of its presentation). plus, knowing him, it’s probably not ‘cool’ to bring a lunchbox to the canteen. (previous bags of sandwiches or snacks have come back unconsumed.) besides, he’s already declared me as “the best cook ever” with my occasional culinary serving of plain maggi mee, so i’ve pretty much set the bar low.

a kind friend, in an attempt to make me feel less guilty, assured me that giving him an allowance teaches him to be independent, and not expect life to be served to him in perfect little boxes. but that perfect little box (of carrot sticks and shaped sandwiches), to me, comes with thoughtfulness, love, and an A+ for sheer motherly effort.

never mind. let me just wallow in my bento-envy for now… (till the time i muster the energy to make a feeble attempt – hey who knows? stranger things have happened.)

i mean, srsly?? ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ bento lunch?! too much, i tell you. TOO MUCH.

22

  

the boy had to do a presentation on his favourite animal to his class, complete with a short script and a hand puppet, and we were to help him prepare as he would be graded. he has no qualms about speaking in front of his class (he clearly did not inherit my fear and loathing of addressing an audience), and although he tended to mix the sequence of his script, i cut him some slack because it was his first time after all.

the part that did get me worried, of all things, was the hand puppet, AND it wasn’t even going to be graded. it’s just that, i’m not very good at crafts. *sheepish* i even considered printing out a picture from the internet and giving him a sock to stick it on, it was that bad. besides, when was i to do this with him by the time i came home in the evenings?

so i brought my fail-mother woes to work, and casually asked if someone could make a hammerhead shark (who chooses THAT as a favourite animal, i ask you?!). a volunteer whipped around, asked for a box of tissue, scavenged some paper, brandished a pair of scissors, snipped, folded and pasted, and within lunchtime, produced this with nary a moment’s hesitation:

(… while i sat watching uselessly beside her with my jaws hanging.)

<– arm goes in the cut-out side of the tissue box and voila, HAND PUPPET.

i don’t know how he did for his presentation (it was earlier today), but i do know i need to go for some art & crafts class. and public speaking ones too.

heck, i should just GO BACK TO PRIMARY ONE. (coz they sure seem to be learning and doing a whole lot more than we used to.)

8

  

1) I fil anxious evry tyme speling day coms arround.
2) Aniq tinks lerning to spel is boring.
3) Sumbady ushually endds up gehting or gowing mad dewring speling tyme.
4) We ar allways glad wen ther ar no speling lissts fer da weeke.
5) Beeing perpechually worried abaut incorreck speling is stoopit.

(ps: it was pure torture trying to misspell all those words up there. definately definitely.)

6

  

had one of those rare lunch dates with the spouse on his day off – which means one of the rare times i get a free lunch on a workday.

i mulled, over my full set of Delifrance potato gratin, mushroom soup and tea, that when the boy starts dating in his teens, we may, in effect, be bearing the cost of an additional kid, i.e. his girlfriend.

because the boy will ask us for pocket money that will go into paying for his girlfriend’s food, her cinema tickets, gifts on her birthdays, etc.

well, those ARE what gentlemen/boys do… right?

but, the ever-optimistic spouse surmised, maybe the boy will be SO charming that future girlfriend/s will pay for him instead.

i, the ever-sceptic spouse, gave him this look. -_-

in any case, we recognise that teenagers WILL require a higher expenditure, and i wouldn’t afford to take sabbaticals later, compared to now when their needs are simpler, economic-wise.

speaking of pocket money, i had a mummy-fail moment on monday when i got a call in the morning from the boy in school telling me i’d forgotten to give him money for recess.

thankfully the school was near enough for me to drop by before going to work. left $2.50 and a pack of chocolate biscuits (as a peace offering) for him at the school office.

this must be the second time i forgot, so i must think of a system to remember, like a checklist near the door or something. the poor child is simply not fortunate enough to have one of those supermums who lovingly prepare lunchboxes filled with homemade goodness and wholesome treats on a daily basis. the most i manage is the occasional box of Milo and a ziplock bag of assorted snacks, which sometimes end up sadly unconsumed because he prefers the canteen foods he claims to all be “delicious”.

let’s just add that to my long list of mummy-fails…..

0

  

when i spoke to mum about my planned sabbatical, she was, as i’d expected, apprehensive. she comes, after all, from a generation of women who stoically worked their entire lives, to whom the concept of “no-pay-leave” was unheard of, who even rarely ever took sick leaves.

i could hear it whirring in her mind: “that’s a lot of lost income”, and she doesn’t say it out loud but she probably thinks i’m being frivolous. having worked from the time she was 18 all the way through her 50s, earning more than enough for us to be comfortably off, i don’t blame her for expecting me to do the same. nevermind that I’ve paid my dues in the same organisation for 10 years – heck, that’s even longer than my marriage – and a year off is but a small blip in the 30 more years of service I have till retirement.

and then she said maybe SHE should go back to work.

way to go with the guilt trip, mum!

in any case, everyone else i’ve spoken to have been surprisingly supportive – colleagues, fellow mummies, spouse – thank you for sharing, commiserating, understanding.

i can’t be sure if i’ll make much of a difference to these two in such a short span of a year – the risk of me driving them up the wall and vice versa is pretty high – but there’s a good chance i’ll come out a happier person.

0

  

“adik,” i said mournfully, pouring out Blueberry Morning cereal in her blue Mr Men bowl before leaving yesterday. “i’m going to work, you know. you want me to stay at home or not?”

“YES!” she said decisively. sweet, sweet child.

but somewhere between 9.30am to 7pm at the workdesk, my resolve wavered.

i thought of all the work that would have to be redistributed. the others who too have kids, and their own personal struggles. i thought of how selfish i was being, abandoning the sea of perpetually unfinished work. how was i worse off than others? why should i deserve a sabbatical? how do i justify myself? would i be scoffed at and told to stop whining and be an adult?

my mental health is in the balance and i’m doubting myself.

i had a dream last night, i was in some avant garde, minimalist shop in town, sitting impatiently for the husband to have his haircut at a salon. i’d been waiting and waiting and it was almost 10pm before he sauntered in from nowhere, relaxed, hair still uncut. and i started going crazy hysterical. “it’s almost 10! i have to get home! the kids must sleep! I DON’T HAVE TIME! I DON’T HAVE TIME!! don’t you get it, I DON’T HAVE TIME!!” i might have stormed out of the salon, i don’t remember, because the alarm clock rang.

i’d just barked at the kid (and chewed off his head) to read off his malay spelling list before he left for school at 6am, in a ridiculous fit of frustration. i didn’t have the time/energy to wrestle it out of him last night.

am i losing it?

somewhere between 5.30am to 9am, the dilemma continues.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

0

  

“Miss Kinnian teeches me how to spel better. She says look at a werd and close your eyes and say it over and over again until you remember. I have lots of truble with ‘through’ that you say THREW and ‘enough’ and ‘tough’ that you dont say ENEW and TEW. You got to say ENUFF and TUFF. Thats how I use to rite it before I started to get smart. Im mixed up but Miss Kinnian says dont worry spelling is not suppose to make sence.”

- extracted from ‘Flowers for Algernon’, Daniel Keyes

#currentread #ootdmatchesbookcover #FREAK

*********

the boy was down with one of those 24-hr stomach flus on tuesday, at around 1 in the morning. it was to be his first MC from school.

at 6am he cried out, “but today i got spelling!”

yeah, that was my first thought too, ha ha.

*********

he did his spelling yesterday, all ten words in one go. and got them all correct. (feough. phew.)

next week’s spelling’s going to be tuffer tougher.

*********

a bit on ‘Flowers for Algernon’: it is a story of Charlie, a 32-yr-old with a low IQ, who undergoes an experimental brain surgery to artificially increase his intelligence. the result is a rapid rise to great intellectual heights. like a modern-day creation of Frankenstein’s, he begins to question his existence, and what makes up humanity since it soon becomes clear that intelligence alone does not fulfil the criteria.

a subset of the story is the far-reaching repercussions of childhood traumas on one’s psyche. one of the memories Charlie gains from his new-found clarity of mind is of constantly being pushed – and punished – by his mother when he was young, to accomplish tasks other kids his age had already mastered, to no avail, and even to detrimental effect. all the doctors told her to give up hope that he would ever become smart. she eventually sent him away to a facility for the mentally-challenged, for the sake of giving her younger daughter of normal intelligence – aptly named Norma – a normal childhood. for Charlie, these memories and events have remained fuzzy all his life, but when they finally emerge from his subconscious, there is pain, anger, grief and disillusionment in place of blissful ignorance.

the part where Charlie’s mother tried to teach him to read, and him trying so hard to please her yet only succeeding to make her even angrier, made me so, so sad. :(

i ended the book last night feeling wretched.

#greatread

*********

i gave the boy extra kisses in the morning. i know i’m sometimes hard on him.

they test my patience, each in different ways. but i am just grateful they are normal, average children.

*********

but seriously, i swear i don’t know what to do about my spelling-nazi-ness!

(brain surgery, anyone…?)

0

  

they seem to fly through one milestone after another in a flurry, as if in a hurry to grow up and be less reliant on us…

was it not just yesterday that we reached that exciting milestone that is peeing in a potty?

no no, i’m not complaining, not at all. in fact, please, keep growing. i’d even petition for you to skip the whole dreaded business of teenagehood and go straight on to mature adulthood if i could. but i suppose that’s why milestones are necessary in the first place, to prepare them for that full bloom ahead…

++++++

and so, here he is, one of the 38,600 children this week to reach that exciting milestone that is P1.

as you can probably tell, he was VERY psyched to start his P1 life. being in a new environment and making new friends and having access to ‘big children’ – these things have always thrilled him. (what’s that? studying? meh, that’s just a distraction…)

at the school, we were quite impressed that there were hardly any display of first-day jitters or anxiety or nervousness or clinginess or tearfulness normally associated with first-days (i’m talking about the children AND parents here). we reckon that’s the upside of having already been to pre-school. another thing we observed, they were such a well-behaved, orderly bunch. (for now.) and oh-so-cute. (for now.)

the first thing he asked after he alighted from his school bus and met me by the canteen was: “can i buy something?” i think to him, primary school is a kind of ‘freedom’ – getting to hold on to his own money, having the autonomy to choose and decide for himself what to buy without mummy perpetually nagging or ordering him at his side. (instead, he had a P5 buddy to do that, ha ha. nahhh, he was very nice and all big-brotherly. we didn’t have to worry at all.)

“don’t worry,” assured one of the teachers to a bunch of parents peering from behind the barricade surrounding the canteen during recess time, all their eyes searching the blue sea of little uniforms for a glimpse of their kid.

“i’m not worried; i’m just CURIOUS,” i muttered, chuckling at how preposterous we parents must seem, waving at our kids like mad visitors at a zoo.

some, like me, got promptly IGNORED.

LOL.

oh well.

+++++

as soon as i got home, i smothered the girl with kisses and inhaled her heady sweet-sour scent all over her body. “i’ve got one more,” i rejoiced. maybe it’s a last child/only daughter thing, but i got sentimental imagining her first day of primary school in the future, in her oversized uniform and oversized school bag, coz obviously, she too will be as tiny as i was back then.

(like this tiny:)

yes, i’m afraid with the girl, i’d prefer the growing up to go juuuustt a teeny little bit slower. (although her streak of independence, while totally charming now, is quite a force to be reckoned with…!)

0

  

when i was briefing him after school on the timetable i drew up for this week, he actually negotiated/bargained with me to reduce his 4.00-5.30 slot by half an hour, and thereby increasing the 5.30-6.30pm slot by half an hour.

first day of school already so clever ah?

ok lah, since it’s your first week, i give you chance…

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

0

  

been tetchy the whole day, fretting over tomorrow’s Big Event that is The First Day Of P1. can’t help but feel… nervous. and cranky. and tetchy.

new bag packed with list of books, new shoes and socks set by the door, new uniform hanging on the door knob, allowance of two dollars (in small change) tucked in new money pouch.

the boy has to be in the school hall by 7.15am, and we have to be up by 5.30am because his school bus is scheduled to be at our block by – ugh – 6.10am.

i don’t know how i ever made it through school. what a horrible feeling. it’s like preparing to be sent to the gallows.

BUT THAT’S JUST ME.

the boy, well he is /quote/ SO very excited /unquote/.

we’re still undecided whether to send him to a student care centre nearby after school, or just keep him at home with a routine timetable (although this option runs the risk of driving his grandma up the wall in the afternoons).

guess we’ll have to work it out over the next few days..

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

0

  

it is Day 3 of Mission Possible: Bedtime Protocol.

with the boy starting P1 in the morning session come 3rd january, there is no choice but to start getting him used to sleeping early. well, at least earlier than usual anyway.

i’ve been way too lenient in allowing them the habit of a late bedtime. by the time we’re done with their nightly routines, they’d still be rolling around in bed till ohhh i don’t know…. 11-ish? that’s VERY BAD, ok. especially for their… brain development and what-not. i don’t know how and why their tiny bodies have such a ridiculous reserve of energy, EVERY DAY.

i guess, partly why i allow for the late bedtime is because of my working-mother guilt, for having only a few hours with them after i come home in the evenings. partly, i myself have the bad habit of sleeping late. my nocturnal habits are even harder to break as i age.

anyway, it’s been working okay so far, after the initial resistance and excuses and protests. and i now find myself with more time in my hands at night to do things.

like, blog about this:

i’ve watched one episode of charlie & lola some time back, and while it certainly is quite charming with their BBC accents (which i try my level best to imitate when reading their books aloud ha ha), i’ve resisted the kids’ pleas to add the printed series to our collection thus far because: 1) i can find any number of charlie & lola books at the library (and probably have borrowed the entire collection); 2) i didn’t want to encourage them to watch even more tv, even if it’s BBC-endorsed (i know, twisted logic); 3) i’m a bit iffy on lola’s excessive use of superlatives (although i know children have the same tendency to exaggerate like so, but still); 4) it took me a few books before realising charlie is actually a boy (ok this has little to do with my point).

but then, there are undoubtedly good bits in their stories, and the kids really extremely especially like them so very truly much (;p) and would often remember certain episodes or words or phrases in the books, so i relented and got them (and ok fine, myself) this, in a pop-up version. also since it goes with our theme for this week.

plus, have i mentioned how much i appreciate good paper engineering?

(omg it’s 1.40am, gah! brain development fail, hana!)

0

  

boy: “mummy, i want to tell you something. i like to hang out with you.”
me: “reaaally? why??”
boy: “ya lah, get to jalan-jalan, have fun…”
me: “even when i scold you so much?”
boy: “it’s ok, i don’t mind.”
me: !! “good. then i can scold you even more.”
boy: “some times i don’t mind…”

i’m not sure what brought about this line of conversation. we were walking around vivocity, me holding his hand tightly so he wouldn’t run off into the crowd. it’d been quite a day:

i’d brought them to the office in the morning. (they’ve been asking to come to work with me again ever since.)

i’d brought them on board a docked ship in the afternoon.

i’d bought them books from the floating book fair. (but no, NOT any more of those princess ones she’s holding, please!) then, more books from the lovely Page One bookstore. (which now I hear is GOING TO CLOSE DOWN WTH?!)

i’d brought them to watch the latest ‘Alvin & The Chipmunks’ movie, even though their high-pitched singing GRATED ON MY NERVES OMG.

i’d brought them to the playground and a dinner of disgusting fried fast food.

i guess, i like hanging out with them too.

(until the end of the day when THEY grate on my nerves and i’ve had enough of scolding them. :D)

===================================

i’m not sure if that conversation earlier had anything to do with me telling him the story of ‘Room’ (by emma.donoghue). his interest was piqued when he read the title on the cover and asked me what it was about. so i’d been telling him the story in bits and pieces as i progressed through the pages. i’d finally reached the conclusion of the book the night before, and he was in rapt attention as i told it to him in the car on the way to the office that day.

i could see how compelling the storyline would be to him: it’s written in the voice of a 5-year-old boy, who has never been outside of the room (or rather, the windowless garden shed) where he was born. his mother was abducted 7 years ago, and had been kept captive in the 11ft-by-11ft room by her kidnapper ever since. she was repeatedly raped, impregnated, then gave birth to the boy and raised him all by herself as best as she could under the dire circumstances. she never allowed her captor to touch, or even look at the boy, all his life.

you might think that being locked in a room your entire life, never knowing the outside world (or even believing or understanding that there is one), would be a truly horrific thing. but to the boy, the room was his world, and it was enough, because he had his mother. like a protective womb, the room for him was safe and secure, even as he lies in the wardrobe at night while the kidnapper makes his mother’s bed creak. she was everything to him – his playmate, his teacher, his friend, his nurturer (he’s still breastfed at 5, and there’s a brief touching part near the end when they’re out in the world and he bids goodbye to his mother’s breasts, a symbolic ‘weaning’ off his dependency on her). she invents games to keep him active, tells him stories, teaches him to read, uses recycled materials for crafts, establishes a routine and good habits.

i imagined living in a closed room with an active, curious child, with limited resources to keep him engaged all day, every day – i would DEFINITELY go mad in less than a week.

but then i read this – the real case of elisabeth.fritzl, locked and abused in the basement of her house by her own father FOR 24 YEARS, and gave birth to 7 children in that span of time. the eldest child was 19 by the time they were released. it’s a miracle she did not go mad.

the human will to survive is an amazing thing.

for the boy, perhaps the story of Room drove home the point to be thankful for his life, his possessions, his freedom, and opportunities.

and hopefully, for his mummy, who tries to provide him all those things, and more.

===================================

i am my mother’s only one,
it’s enough

only love is all maroon
gluey feathers on a flume
sky is womb, and she’s the moon

- bon iver, ‘flume’

0

  

it’s sunday afternoon and i just had a second call from aniq’s friends from school, wanting to speak to him. first (at seven in the morning while I was still asleep!) was a boy; the recent one, a girl. (ie: batrisyah. ahem!) both times he was unavailable.

mummy’s new role: telephone operator. O_o

he’s already committed both parents’ mobile numbers to memory for some time (in case he gets lost, he can ask to borrow a stranger’s handphone, he says – although i bet if it were an iphone, he’d end up playing ‘angry birds’ than call either one of us).

and since his class’ graduation last week, he’s taken down a bunch of his friends’ numbers from school, including his teacher’s and laoshi’s. some of the numbers even have no names. very smart.

so what do six-year-olds talk about over the phone?

looks like mummy will have to start honing her phone-eavesdropping skill early….

0