Santa's Loot

Singaporean parents are often rightly and wrongly accused of trying to substitute gifts and toys for love and attention. The usual adage is children in Singapore are spoilt because their parents spoil them. Their parents spoil them because in lieu of time spent with them, they buy them gifts to 'bribe' them.

I've chanced upon another explanation for it. Having said this, I don't want to spoil my children, I don't want them turning out like rude brats. But I have the feeling that they will be very privileged because I'm such a sucker. Being away from them of course, makes me miss them. I look at photos on Facebook and videos on my phone as my way of keeping them in my mind. I don't SMS home or ring home because it costs too much and our child-minders always encourage to take the time to enjoy one another and not worry about the kids. So we don't ring home. Anyway, my other explanation for children being spoilt by gifts from their parents is this- they do it so that even when they are away from their kids, they're doing something for them. And it works on different levels. To make them feel less guilty, to make them feel that they are connecting, to help justify their being away (ok, the last one doesn't work for me but to each his own...)

So, the bulk of my shopping has been for the kids. I have enough clothes for them till they are 4 I think. They have enough clothes to fill an entire check-in luggage. Tops, bottoms, dresses, pjs. All very cute, all very cheap. Well, some of it belongs to their cousin but most of it is theirs. And are they out of clothes? Nope. Well, not really is. I think Evan is, but not Jordan because she gets hand-me-downs from her cousin. But Evan has pants which are too short for him and t-shirts which cannot be pulled over his head without eliciting panic from the boy when the t-shirt rim is caught on his forehead, especially when there is a bump there (and that is often).

We also found a playhouse for them, so we're carting that back too. Thankfully we've got a lot of weight allowance but are only allowed 4 bags. And the playhouse is taking the place of one bag. One bag belongs to them and their loot. So we have 2 bags for ourselves. One bag is for the dirty clothes that we have to bring back, so we're down to one bag. Packrat has declared a moratorium on shopping, also because he can't look at another store and is all shopped out but I keep thinking, we haven't done FAO Schwarz for them and so on. But I think even Santa's gonna have problems bringing them the loot we have for them here so I should stop.

Plus deep down inside, I know they really won't know that we bought them so much stuff. I think they'll just be happy that Papa and Ah Me are home. I know I will be. But I dread the flight. The long long flight. Can't we teleport the kids here?

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