she has yet to learn how to decode words since the last post. but i have to say her preschool teachers have been doing a pretty good job teaching them letter recognition, because truthfully… i haven’t really done much. *ashamed*

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our latest read: “It’s Not Fair!” (by amy krouse rosenthal & tom lichtenheld).

i chose this one from the library because the title is one of those phrases the kids, especially the boy, dish out in generous amounts every day. life is SO full of injustices for a preschooler, isn’t it? i like that it shows different perspectives, from children to animals, and even inanimate objects, and teaches that not everything can be fair all the time – oftentimes, there is simply no solution, because it just… is.

the kids love it – their repeated demands for me to read it to them is testimony. and so is auni’s reading of it here:

!!

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her third lesson, all suited up. parents get to sit in for a bit.

at some point, they play these ‘contemporary’ songs for the kids to let loose and move their limbs while still listening to rhythm and instructions. you can tell from the shaky parts that i was trying very hard (and failing) to stifle my giggles… :p

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we’ve established that she’s chosen pink to be her favourite colour. (why this is so, let’s just leave it at evolution, or wildly-successful media marketing.) i suppose it’s only fair to respect her choice, just as she respects mine. at the very least, i’ve made my case for all the other colours out there in the world, but too bad, none made the cut…

it didn’t take much to get her enthusiastic about joining the class, especially with other girls wearing – yes, pink. well, if you can’t beat it, use it to your own advantage, i say…

she’s indicated that she’s keen on continuing after this trial class, so we’ll keep the option open. i’m happy to let her try out other things too. soccer, maybe? or taekwondo, perhaps?

i’d say she’s lucky to have an older brother from whom she picks up a certain hardiness through their interactions, while still keeping to her natural predisposition for singing, dancing, and typical girly chatter. which is all fine because what i ultimately want is to empower her with just the right amount of tough, for a healthy sense of self and individuality.

i have to admit though, those pastel pink leotards, stockings and tutus? they look SO DAMN cute. (i AM a sucker for girliness. really, i am.)

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being the hard-headed april-born Arian that she is, she’ll insist on putting together her own outfit, and will protest when we overrule her choice. many battles have taken place when we veto her decisions – especially in footwear, her final resistance at the door before one party concedes defeat – and are the usual cause of our delays.

here, modelling her brother’s grotty old crocs, just because it matches her shirt (she’s big on matching of colours, something i’m to blame for, really).

speaking of battles, have been reading amy/chua’s book on the Tiger Mother. while she may come across a little nuts (major momzilla alert!), i strangely empathise with her, agree with her opinions, admire her values, and envy her sheer tenacity.

there’s this chapter that i particularly liked, for her in-your-face honesty to her kids (and the reader), which reflects in her own way, her high regard for her kids and her resolute belief that they can and MUST do better, even in something as seemingly trivial as a birthday card.

(to put this in context and how it relates to another important story, you have to read the book holistically – and i recommend it, if anything, for her sense of humour.)

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

… Lulu handed me her “surprise”, which turned out to be a card. More accurately, it was a piece of paper folded crookedly in half, with a big happy face on the front. Inside, “Happy Birthday, Mommy! Love, Lulu” was scrawled in crayon above another happy face. The card couldn’t have taken Lulu more than twenty seconds to make.

I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one – one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”

“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.

I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled “Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!” I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday, Lulu – would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No – I got you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and eraser party favours that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.

“May I please be excused for a second?” Sophia asked in a small voice. “I need to do something.”

“Let me see it, Sophia. Hand it over.”

Eyes wide with terror, Sophia slowly pulled out her own card. It was bigger than Lulu’s, made of red construction paper, but while more effusive, equally empty. She had drawn a few flowers and written, “I love you! Happy Birthday to the Best Mommy in the World! #1 Mommy!”

“That’s nice, Sophia,” I said coldly, “but not good enough either. When I was your age, I wrote poems for my mother on her birthday. I got up early and cleaned the house and made her breakfast. I tried to think of creative ideas and made her coupons that said things like ‘One Free Car Wash’.”

“I wanted to make something better, but you said I had to play piano,” Sophia protested indignantly.

“You should have gotten up earlier,” I responded.

Later that night, I received two much better birthday cards, which I loved and still have.

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

personally, i doubt i’d have the heart to “throw” a birthday card back at my kids. i’d be lucky enough if they could write ‘happy birthday mummy’ without any help. heck, i’d be lucky to even get a card in the first place.

unfortunately, i’m too soft, and truthfully, not driven enough to go the Tiger Mother way. at five, i still let the boy wriggle his way out of boring tasks like writing or counting or reading or colouring after a few minutes. to add a musical instrument to that? unthinkable. (ms chua, by the way, makes each kid practice the piano and the violin respectively for hours on end without toilet breaks and even rents the hotel lobby pianos/brings the violin for the girls to practice during their family vacations. just so they don’t slack off.)

so, our battles are different.

for example, there’s this one thing that always makes me go absolutely ballistic – that is, when they make a terrific mess with their toys/books in one spot, then move on to do something else without cleaning up first. that’s when the roars and claws come out, and i’d maul them if i could, but i can’t – instead, i admonish them, threaten them, sweet talk them, bribe them, put them in the naughty corner and a few times when none of the above worked on the little one – yes, the hard-headed april-born Arian one – i plonk her outside the house, close the door and won’t let her in until she promises to clean up – which she invariably does, after some drama filled with tears and wails, scuttling back in like a tiny mouse released from a tiger’s paw. the brother has smartened up, though; he’d take it upon himself to either: a) complain to me about his sister’s mess (preemptive measure); b) scolds her (preventive measure); or c) simply volunteers to tidy up after her when he senses the impending wrath of the tiger (give up!).

maybe i should pick better, more worthwhile battles.

then again, i imagine there’ll be many, MANY more battles ahead of me as they grow older, and these right now are the easiest ones yet…

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round 2 of book-reading by auni.
title: Creeping Crawlers

good night, don’t let the (powerful) bed bugs bite!
(or worse, the dung beetles.)

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book-reading by auni.
title: Alive and Not Alive – an “I Know Opposites” series.

(you can test her on other objects too – she can pretty much tell them apart. :D)

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two and a half years, and we have her insisting she doesn’t need a pull-up for bedtime (but not before asking to pee at least three times before going to sleep!). she’s been going without in the day for three months now, but we put her to bed in them just in case, and they’ve been dry in the morning for the past few weeks, and i probably should’ve just let her go without it earlier coz it’s irresponsible to the environment and all, i mean, what DO you do with dry-but-used overnight pull-ups anyway, right?! you don’t, say… recycle a dry-but-used sanitary pad, after all. O_o

so i figure, my slight reluctance to let go of her pull-ups was for a solely sentimental reason – it’s most likely the last diapered baby bum we’d ever have. you know, all puffy and cushiony and, like j.lo’s best assets, looks SO good in tights and pants.

now, let’s hope she proves herself right in the morning…

update: aaaandd she’s dry!

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every day i pose the same question to the both of them: “what did you do in school today?” and so far, the girl has been more forthcoming with her replies, varying them each day, sometimes answering “play toys”, or “i sing”, or “i draw”, or “i eat”, or “my friend cry” (nothing to do with what she did but a reply it is).

one of the things she readily picks up is the singing part. there’s this one particular song they sing in centres before every meal, a merry little ditty that mixes english and chinese and which i have NO IDEA half of what it means, other than that it asks all their teachers and friends to join them in the meal and to enjoy the food together… or something. obviously her so-called chinese is all rubbish, and i should probably rectify this with a proper ‘doa sebelum makan’, but… oh well.

i’d video-ed her for fun and simply suggested she say “thank you” at the end of each song, and out of the blue, she amended it herself with a “thank you everyone” (!) AND a bow, so that just… tickled me.

ohhh, little girl.

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somehow, baa baa black sheep has associated itself with a carefree big bad wolf, and doe, a deer, induces much emotion.

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auni dancing to vampire weekend’s giving up the gun.

enjoy your long (vampire) weekend!!

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(a little note: about the part on the rattlesnake, coincidentally, an episode of The Pink Panther was shown after we’d read this a few times together, where the panther accidentally stole a basket containing a baby instead of food during a picnic scene and in an effort to pacify the said baby, now crying, he’d removed the end of the rattlesnake’s tail to give to the baby as a rattle, and i guess this left such an impression with the kids that they associate it with this particular rattlesnake every time.)

(also, another note: they will inevitably ask the same question in every story with illustrations – “where’s the daddy/mummy/baby?” not sure why but there’s always a concern for the whereabouts of a missing family member in the story.)

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was discussing insurance for the girl the other day (her brother’s was done when he was two too), and our financial advisor estimated we’d need a cool $85k in 16 years time if she were to go for a local tertiary education – i mean, IF we’re fortunate enough for her to want to pursue it, that is. (well, a mom’s gotta hope.)

made me wonder how much my parent forked out for mine, coz i have NO idea. they’d split costs – mom paid for my brother’s overseas education, dad paid for my local one. and i was fortunate enough to not have to repay any student loans whatsoever either. (dear dad, thank you for giving me my education. and while i’m at it, thank you too for paying for my driving lessons. and basically, for everything you spent on me. as my brother would constantly remind me, i was a spoilt princess – still am, yeah i know. :S)

so anyway, we’d settled on a whole life and term policy thing, same as her brother’s. i don’t know, i’m generally not very good with money (seeing how i’ve not been made to handle much of it in my life growing up), and just hope that things will work out for them in the future…

meanwhile, in the present, was updated of the girl’s progress in child care (she’s in a half-day programme for now). all good things so far. she especially likes the home corner and dress up corner (oh the gurly gurl she is turning out to be), storytelling and art, conversing with friends and teachers, discovering things, always the one to help distribute others’ water bottles… and i’ll spare you of the superlative adjectives her enthusiastic teachers had for her. :p

one thing the teacher DID ask me to work on with her was fine motor skill, in particular threading work, which she, for some reason, did not like doing. i’m guessing she doesn’t have the patience yet for it, but since it seemed like another activity we could do together at home, what the heck…

and the last thing we talked about was toilet training, which we all agreed she was pretty ready for. the past few weeks, she’d cooperated on the potty before bedtime, and the previous weekend she’d woken up, walked straight to our bed and asked to pee in the toilet, so i think all that reading of Princess Polly’s Potty came to fruition after all. well, that and the fact she has her older brother to model upon, and me, whom she follows to the toilet all the time to observe. (yes, that open-door policy still stands here at izadnhana’s abode, sigh.)

and so, am happy to report that this was her third day in preschool undiapered, and doing pretty okay (minor mishaps, ie. half-accidents, notwithstanding).

so yey to less diaper wastage! (and to mother earth, sorry we didn’t get started sooner).

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no! i most certainly did NOT teach her how to apply cosmetics! i swear! it is all mimicry!

in any case, she seems to have a knack at lipglossing sans mirror, just like me. won’t be long before she too can do it WHILE driving.

it’s, err, genetic.

*no alien figurines were harmed during the filming of this video.

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