National Day Vocabulary

The twins are finally old enough to have fun with National Day. Schools in Singapore are given a National Day directive to imbue patriotism into their students and nationalise them. And it starts at playschool. So, at school, they have National Day songs blaring every morning and art and craft for the week has been flag making.

So much so that the twins have quite a comprehensive national day vocabulary. They know "Flag" and that there are "5 stars and a Crescent moon" on the flag. They know Singapore. Jordan, at Packrat's school was very taken with students waving flags during community singing, so much so that when she finally managed to procure a flag off a student suckered by her big eyes and her pitiful request for the student's flag, she insisted we return to the hall and "Sing Singapore".

Evan is happy to yell at flags when he sees them and declares to the world that they are "Singapore flag"s.

Of course, inadvertently, we've added to their vocabulary by taking them to see the fireworks and of course, the flyby.

The fly-by was a huge hit. The boy couldn't keep still and was jumping up and down shouting "Chinook helicopter" which we had taught him earlier but had reminded him would be flying by with the flag. Jordan chimed in with "Apache helicopter" since we figured it was only right to teach them that there were actually Apaches escorting the Chinook.















I'm very proud of the fact that they know that there are two different types of helos. Of course, Packrat wanted to teach them Huey but since there weren't any at the Parade, I didn't think it was all that necessary.

On top of that, they now shout incoherent words on top of their voices more so than usual because they saw the Parade Commander do that and Grandpa asked Evan if he wanted to be one. Being the mother that I am, I told him not to bother because then he'd have his Saturdays all burnt and have a sore throat for a month after. That didn't stop him from marching around like a Nazi soldier on speed though as he tried to mimic the columns and columns of people marching past while Mommy dissed the fact that some of the formations weren't straight and one of the Guard of Honour carrying a Colours flag got the full flag unceremoniously in his face and couldn't get it off fast enough.
























The finale fireworks also added quite a few words to the twins' vocabulary. "Fireworks boom boom boom" and "Scared fireworks" being the primary phrases repeated ad nauseum with the end of the parade. Evan decided the sound was just too much for him and went crazy with each comet and mine burst.

























Packrat and I have decided that we will allow our children to enjoy National Day with their rose tinted eyes for as long as possible and we will not, on our part, for as much as we can, try not to breed our cynical, non-patriotic streak in them for as long as we can. We do draw the line at singing the national anthem as the helo flies by although more out of the fact that I have realised that after more than a decade of singing the only song in Malay I know, I don't actually know the real words to it and have ad-libbed it badly most of my life.


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