Why exams are important

It's exam time. Again.

And that's usually when creativity flourishes most. When there is real work to be done, the mind wanders and interesting ideas and creations surface. It isn't really necessity that was the mother of invention. I think, more possibly, boredom.

One day, Evan comes out of school with his finger encased in paper. He says it's a dragon's talon. His friend made it for him. And he asks if I can find out how to make them. We YouTube it, I learn it, I pass on the information to him and promptly forget how to do it. He goes on to make 10 talons; he has to make 10, after all he has 10 fingers and makes a couple more in case he chips a nail. He's become a grand master of it.

It's a thing in class now. They're all little dragons that have started to spout talons. Poor teachers. The only things I cautioned him against was to NOT do it during teaching or work time and please use rough paper rather than buying a clean sketch pad from the book store for this.

The annoying thing is that there are talons all over the house and he refuses to throw it out. He puts them them on to claw menacingly at Muffin when his brother annoys him.

Then, there was this.

It's a creature. Not enough legs to be an insect or an arachnid but enough to be an Evan creation. It's made out of staples, magnets and an eraser. All things you find on the study table especially when you're parked there for extended periods of time.

He tells me it's science. He uses the magnet because that's how you get the staples to hold on. The eraser is important because that's how you anchor the staples and it's what forms the body.

Ingenious though extremely annoying because of the high wastage of staples and the random staples lying around waiting to impale the random, unaware adult.

He's proud of his creations and he brings them to school to show his friends. Honestly, these are probably going to be the things he will remember learning in primary school, not so much the fanciful and impractical Chinese phrases that he's had to memorise by the boat load. 

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Organised vs free play

When I wrote the I cannot be a mom if... post, things were getting nuts.  Now things are crazy nuts. Jordan whines that I haven't gotten home in time to get her to bed in a while. Never mind that I'm with her in the mornings. Whatever it is, she complains that I'm not there. Muffin plaintively whines that I need to play with him and Evan keeps bugging me about helping him to somersauts on the bar at the exercise yard at the base of our block.

I bite my tongue and just try to be everywhere at once. Packrat assures me that they're fine even if I'm not there all the time. And I know it's true because I've seen it in their play. Left to their own devices, they fashion games.

One of my favourites, with a little help from me, is for them to play soldiers in a fort. Our helper has a fit when we do this because the fort is the foldable mattress that we lay every night on the floor by their bed just in case they fall off. Their weapons of choice, a basket of plastic balls that they excitedly launch out from behind the fortress walls at the 'enemy' aka Mommy or Papa. Little do they know that the 'enemy' bides their time and quietly stockpiles their own weapons (the pile of balls launched out)while waiting till they are out off ammunition. Only then do they retaliate, raining an entire basket of balls back into the fortress to loud squeals and screams. I was the enemy for a full hour before I had to leave for work and Packrat took over. When I left, they were so busy attacking Packrat, they hardly even noticed that I had left.

The other thing they do a lot of when I am not home is that they play outside. The twins recently learnt hopscotch and they spend a lot of time getting it right while Muffin blows bubbles till his cheeks hurt. But what they had a lot of fun with, that put a big fat grin on my face was when they found a big palm husk that doubled up like a sled and they proceeded to toboggan down a grassy slope near my parents. I did the exact same thing when I was their age.

There's very little planning that goes into these activities and because of that, it gives me at the very least 10-15 minutes to indulge them before I have to head out.

When I do have time, I try to make up for my absence by creating more unusual things for them to play with. This week, it was shaving foam and oats. Muffin hates weird textures. And because he does hate it, I find more reason for him to be exposed to it. So, we had basins of foam with toys or water beads hidden in it. Unfortunately, he only really got into it about 5 minutes before we needed to pack up. That being said, the twins had a wonderfully messy time spraying out shaving foam, colouring them, massaging through them treasure hunting.

I truly don't know what they like better. I suspect it's as long as I am hanging out with them, they're pretty okay either way. Although Evan did ask if he could play with more snow (shaving foam). Then again, he did also ask me to go with him to be his somersault spotter.

I can't wait for this crazy season to be a season past where I can be both again.

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I cannot be a mom if...

Occasionally, my schedule doesn't allow me to be at home all the time and sometimes requiring me to fly out of the house just as JED come home. At times like that, I  have to live on stolen moments with them. For the most part, I see them to the point that I want to dump them, take a book, head over to Starbucks and sit there, uninterrupted for an hour. 

But when it's crunch time, it's a totally different story. And I realised that no matter how busy and how much I'm in and out of the house, there are certain things that help me feel that I'm not ignoring or neglecting JED. In my mind, I know I am not. It's just that occasionally, my heart takes a bit more convincing. And if I can do the following, I'm good to go and last a day without seeing them. 

For Jordan, I can't be a mom if I can't tie up her hair. I don't know what it is, but with her, it's her hair. I have to find time to do it. And the more intricate I can do up her hair, the happier I am. I suspect that's a remnant of those by gone Barbie playing days. 

For Evan, I can't be a mom if I can't hang out with him and help him do things he otherwise worries he cannot do. Hang on the monkey bars, wheelbarrow walk around the house or handstands against the wall.

For Muffin, I can't be a mom if I can't take him out on my own at least once a week and just see the world through his eyes. It doesn't have to be a long outing. Half an hour at the park where he tosses bread at the fish, chases the birds or picks up leaves and seeds suffice.

And I can't be a mom if I have to go without seeing their ridiculously loopy grins or hear their chuckly ticklish laughter. It has gotten to the point that if I need to go out and I haven't had enough time with them, I descend upon them to tickle them. That always does the trick and I can always leave after that with a heart that feels slightly lighter.

Hooking up with...
 

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Giveaway Closed: Painting Castles in the Rain

There have been  quite a few mums talking blogging about being Full Time Working Moms and how they juggle their jobs, their kids and their lives. I'm not sure I qualify as a Full Time Working Mom because I don't clock regular 9-5 hours but my days are packed full and I have to actively carve out portions of time for the children.

Those portions of time are known as 'protected time' by my bosses and they know that should they hazard to call during those times, they are likely to get an Ondine who is frazzled, stand off-ish and makes no qualms about sounding like she needs to get off the phone. The nature of my job can end up with me working round the clock even if I don't head into the office; that is why the 'protected time' is necessary.

Unfortunately, there are times that this isn't enough. Accountants have tax seasons, businesses have the ends of the financial year and teachers have exam seasons. During the exam seasons, I teach two or three times more than I usually do. That means much less time with JED.  When they were much younger and my sense of obligation was much greater than my sense of affection for them, I felt more guilt than anything when the peak season hit. These days, it's different. In the last 5 1/2 years I have developed a serious love affair with JED and I am resentful when anything takes me away from them for an extended period of time.

At an outing to the beach with my aunt once, I lamented that these were the things I would miss when I went back to work. Her response was that I did these things because I did go to work and had I not been going to work, it would be unlikely that I would put in so much effort into taking them out.True that.

So, when it is crunch time like this, I feel more of a need to do something special with them; perhaps to compensate for the little time I have to spend with them. Last week, I took two hours out and went hunting for organic sausages to make our "Sausage Monsters". This week, I decided I was going to organise a play date. It wasn't going to be a play date where the kids just came together to play, although that would be fun too, but a painting play date. JED love mucking about with paint. We have a big stairway area that serves as their 'mucking about' place. I had also found online a craft store called CraftPlay; they sold castles made out of recycled box materials and I thought it would be fun for JED and their friends to paint them all. There would be enough to go around. On top of that, when I wrote to Craft Play telling them that I needed the castles for a play date, they sent me two additional towers. Evan took possession of those towers and declared them the guard posts (he doesn't know the word sentry yet).

Jordan, Chloe (our neighbour), Faith (Jordan's friend), Evan and Muffin were vibrating on the spot rearing to go as I got things ready. Excited little children make great helpers as we lay brown paper on the ground and got them to tape the pieces together. That way, they could sit on relatively clean floor, we protect the floor and they had additional surfaces to paint on.

There was little bickering as each busied themselves painting the various towers. Occasional bits of conversation involved discussing which part of the castle it was that they were busy with; the Queen's bedroom (Jordan), the dining room (Faith), the dungeon (Evan).

 

At the end of it, I asked each little one what they had most fun with.
Jordan: Painting with my friends and making every wall of my tower a different colour.
Evan: Painting under the umbrellas and mixing the water till it got yucky! (The rain was coming in and rather than move the entire exercise somewhere else, I put out big golf umbrellas so that they could hide under it.
Faith: The big bowls of paint and the cheese bunnies (Cheese bunnies were the snack of choice)
Chloe: Painting under the umbrella and painting big towers. Easy to paint.
Muffin: Paint on my feet!

By the end of it, there was paint on all the surfaces, faces, legs, arms, hands and feet. But the final product was bright and in happy colours. Each was proud of what they had done and told anyone who would listen what they had done.

The other mommies were all happy because the kids had been occupied for the previous two hours and they were hungry and cooperative when they went home. As for the JED kids, they were clamouring for another play date like that, with friends and with big pieces of stuff that they could pain.

For me, I had to go; had to take a shower, had no time for dinner and had to catch the train to work. But as I left the house, JED happily waved at me across their dinner bowls and I felt at peace, that I had had my fun with them and I could go to work in happy albeit exhausted peace.

So, what do I think of the Full Time Work Mom schtick? I don't love it but it is my lot in life now. I am thankful that my current job, while requiring me to work ridiculous hours, also gives me little time outs to plan and do things with JED. It is a lot about assuaging my own guilt and resentment. Packrat assures me that they don't mind that I am not around (in fact, they enjoy the fact that the Nazi task master disguised as their mom is occasionally absent and they get to run amok!). But when I know that they are happy and they know that Mommy loves them, I am okay to leave them and go to work.

Linking up with

Updated:
When we sent pictures of our craft date to Craft Play, they were most thrilled. As a thank you, they're sending us another set of castles.

Since we've had our fun with our castle painting, we're passing this on to a reader who promises to make some kid's / kids day by letting them muck about and throw some paint onto a castle.

We're going to pick a winner for this somewhat randomly, as long as;

1. You leave a comment below, answering the following question, that will most likely feed into our latent fantasies.

- If you could live in a castle and design a room or a suite or rooms, how would you do so?-

When I asked Jordan this, she said she wanted it rainbow coloured.

2. "Like" the CraftPlay page on Facebook here

3. Share the FB link you saw this post on!

We're going to let you channel the Duchess of Cambridge and Martha Stewart for a week and choose a reader to give the castle away to next Monday, the 25th of March 2013.

---
And we have a winner!
We've decided it to give it to the reader who thought about indulging herself instead of her kids. It's always good to dream for ourselves once in a while!

Anyway, Adora Tan, consider your dream heard. Now, if only we knew Santa!

So CraftPlay will have to do. They will be in touch with you soon!


Technorati Tags: JED, FTWM, play date, Craft Play

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