Visiting Melbourne: Through JED's eyes

As promised, this post is Melbourne through the eyes of JED. Or it could be titled "What to do with Melbourne with children" because this post is about what JED loved about Melbourne.

I shall state from the outset that the twins are very infatuated with Melbourne. Jordan is ready to move there. Forever. She wants to go to school there and go like now, now now.

To JED, Melbourne was about 7 things.

1. The cold weather

This was the most important. That is, once they got used to it. Muffin was the one that took the longest to relish it. It went in order of the amount of insulation they had in their bodies. And Muffin doesn't have any, at all.

But once they climatised, they ran around with jackets and even ventured as far as going to the beach twice. Something I wouldn't have even considered no matter how mild the winter was.

2. The animals. 

JED love animals. But as with most urban kids, they are scared of them. So it was funny when Evan wanted to feed ducks (his favourite animal in the world) and run away when the ducks approached him for more. It was similar with the guinea pigs that they could play with at the petting zoo. Evan wanted to have the guinea pig but was squealing about it being ticklish because of its claws. I liked the Open Range safari type animals more than the local Aussie ones and while I understood that it made sense for the joey to be head in in the pouch, I was grossed out by the fact that there were a pair of legs sticking out of Mama-Kanga's belly. No one got why I was grossed out so I was left alone to make faces.

3. The playgrounds

With the benefit of space, the playgrounds around Melbourne were awesome. And I don't mean it in the tween way, I mean it in the "jaw dropping, covet and want to steal it back to Singapore, talk about it all the time" way. 

Every day, we explored a new playground and every evening, there would be the request of going back to the same playground the next day. Because it was just that much fun. It didn't matter that they spent good long stretches of time at the playground, it was never enough. 

Even the adults were hard-pressed to  vote on which was the best playground. 

a. Parkville

Packrat and I loved Parkville because it was behind our old uni and where he lived. We also loved it because it showed great sensitivity to the landscape. It was just a playground plonked into a field. The architectures built the playground into the natural landscape with slopes and trails integrated. Then there was a large hill that we could scale and the Grey's Anatomy fan in me loved the fact that from the playground or the top of the hill, you could see medical helicopters landing on the hospital rooftop across the road. 

JED loved it because it was challenging, sprawling and so open to the imagination. They played hide and seek but gradually settled to play at the dam structure, which in itself was a stroke of genius. The kids could build a network of waterways in the sand and there was an irrigation system that they could work, pump water and dam before releasing it into their waterways. Over and over again, in different permutations. 

My only concern about the playground was that it was so sprawling that you couldn't quite keep an eye on the kids all the time from one spot. But other than that, we spent 2 days and had lunch there. Even then, it was really with a heavy heart to leave. And also to know that should we ever come back, the twins would be too old to enjoy it as much. 

b. St Kilda
St Kilda's a pretty bohemian part of Melbourne and it follows that the playground there is similarly so. It looked like a junkyard with odd pieces of wood structures painted in a cacophony of colours. There was a haphazard feel to it, it was challenging in places for the kids with an adrenaline junkie's dream of a flying fox that whizzed at top speed and only stopped with a mighty clang when it hit the end and caused the kid to rebound or get thrown off into wood chips (though we didn't see any kid get thrown off!)

Similar to the Parkville playground, even though we spent 3 hours there, JED didn't cover every inch of it. They climbed a tree, discovered secret tunnels built under the playground structures and tried to run up a skateboard run which was close to impossible. The playground was run by the city council and there were crates of free fruit for the kids. With places like these where you can see so much love and care has gone into creating it, I was happy that I could put in a donation to keep the place going or to help buy the next crate of fruit.

4. Fake snow
I badly wanted to drive up to Mt Buller for some snow even if we didn't ski. But the men, who were the designated drivers refused to budge. It was too long a drive to see mounds of ice and they couldn't imagine tetchy kids all the way there and disappointed kids back. The next alternative was an ice rink near the hotel that had a fake snow slope.

The cold, together with the speed thrilled JED to bits especially because the only way to stop was to crash headlong into a thick padded wall. Muffin and Jordan were the most adept. I came down screaming while Evan internalised all his fear with a constipated look on his face. It wasn't enough to totally get the snow jollies out of the way but it did go some way into assuaging it.

5. Rowing a boat
If at any time, a child suggests that rowing a boat would be fun, heavily indoctrinated by years of singing that insipid kid song, please say no. Against our better judgement, we agreed to row a boat down the duck pond. With 5 in the boat, the weight wasn't evenly spread out and that meant I spent half the time worried we might truly capsize. And never believe the children when they promise to help row because all they do is splatter water and complain their arms hurt. So rather than rowing, we spun in circles in the general direction of the current, bouncing off both banks and miraculously spun back to where we started. By then, there was water in the boat and JED had all been splashed by algey mucky water that was filled with duck pee.

6. Autumn leaves

There is a Chinese saying about fishing that goes along the lines of "even if can't catch fish, settle for the shrimp". It sounds better in Chinese. That was the philosophy that JED approached Melbourne winter. To them, winter meant snow. We spent the better part of the year dispelling that notion so they settled for the next best thing. Leaves.

Piles of leaves, leaf tracks, just shuffling and rustling in leaves, picking at them, comparing the different shades of yellow, orange and green was interesting enough that they left the adults alone.

 

7. Friends 

There was always fun to be had where ever they were because they were 5 of them, 4 of them of similar age. There were squabbles and differences but they tried hard to work it out for themselves and figured out the best dynamics amongst them. They didn't sleep together but played together, ate together and even celebrated their birthdays together.

The adults vowed that for as far as possible, we will try to bring them away together because these are what make for good memories for them. 

My takeaway from the entire trip was that fun didn't need to be expensive at all. So, no we didn't go and see the penguins. Nor did we take the windy Great Ocean Road or the coal spitting- tear inducing choo choo train round the Dandenongs. And it really didn't matter to JED nor their friends.

Every one needs more of these sorts of holidays. It does wonders for the soul.

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Small Business Enterprise

Jordan's exams are over. The semi-pall that has shrouded our house for the last few weeks has lifted. Somewhat.

Somewhat because Evan's exams aren't over yet. But it isn't stopping them from celebrating.

For Evan, any opportunity to play is a good thing. For Muffin, he is celebrating the fact that his play mates are free to play with him and he doesn't have to do work just so that his siblings don't complain that he is too free.

First order of business, was to literally, set up a business. Or rather 3 businesses.

Each kid decided on a business they were about to start.

Each kid came up with a business model including pricing, opening hours and rules and regulations.

Jordan set up a music school that promised that anyone could be a musician.
Evan set up a photo studio with his business partner, Eevee. 
Muffin was setting up a spa. He was CEO. Jordan was the massage therapist.

Working hours took into consideration school hours. Obviously, they weren't giving up their day jobs for this.

Their family benefits were great.  We got discounts and there were always freebies for those hapless enough to engage their services.

 

So we came home to signs on their door last night declaring their businesses closed for the day and early this morning, the sign had changed.

 

We found out that they subscribed to the belief that the 'early bird catches the worm' because they were all up at six this morning, voluntarily, for a business meeting before their businesses opened for the day.

Unfortunately, they didn't take factor in the size of their consumer base so there wasn't a lot of business to go around.

That didn't fuss them much. They closed early and went to the park.

 Their jobs certainly afforded them a great amount of work-life balance.

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Boys and Girls

Much as we try very hard not to stereotype the boys and girl at home, they inevitably show their differences in ways that were never schooled by us. It's amusing to see the differences so stark.

1. Language.
For Evan, language is functional. He would love the Chinese variety of English where articles are unnecessary. We try to get him to be a bit more effusive. But he goes straight to the point. And he reports the facts.

So, recently, when he thought his terrapin had escaped, he sent us a text to let us know. It was polite, formal and informative. All bits of relevant information were there.

Following his message was Jordan's. It was over-dramatic and read like the buttons got sticky on the emojis. It told us pretty much the same thing though we had to wade through the deluge of ellipses and emoticons. So effusive it wouldn't fit into one screen shot. 

                     

On a side note, they found the terrapin wandering around the garden. 

2. Play. 

While Jordan is happy to engage the boys in rough play and can keep up with her brothers and their shenanigans, her preference for play is indoors and quiet (mostly). She still loves pretend play but her pretend play has evolved (whenever allowed) into playing dress-up for real. So, at a recent sleepover with her best friend, she and her BFF gave each other manicures and pedicures and then broke into her mum's make up kit and slathered enough eye shadow on their eyes to be on stage. Thankfully the mum thought it was hysterical and did not read them the riot act for spoiling her make-up.

For the record, I don't approve of manicures, pedicures or make up for 9 year olds but I think we all did it at some point in our childhood. 

The boys, taking advantage of the fact that their bossy sister was out were loud, gregarious and rough with one another. They chased each other, played Monkey in the Middle, worked collaboratively on some Lego project and were downstairs or at the playground. There was a lot of inappropriate toilet humour and they happily made a mess of the house. 

Similar to Jordan, there's a lot of pretend play as well but it includes make-believe swords or sabres and lots of sound effects that rain saliva pellets everywhere. 

At the end of the day though, both kinds of play require good bath after. One to remove all that make up and the other to remove all the stink, sweat and sand off thei

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Playing with Possibilities at the Playeum

I have an eight year old who is obsessed with the right answer. We didn't teach it but there's an inherent need to make sure the answer is right. So we try our best to send across the message that getting things wrong is okay and it's part of learning. Part of it is inherent, the other part of it is bred by our school system where there is always a right way, right answer and attaining that is highly rewarded. That's good for some things. But not so good for others.

In such a system, some things fall by the way side. Divergent Thinking is one of them. Divergent Thinking is the ability to see many answers to the same question. Not entirely the same thing as creativity but where new ideas and new ways of doing things come from. This idea, I learnt from Ken Robinson and is something that we struggle to make known to the twins, especially, who are already entrenched in this culture of right and wrong.

How do we do try to do that? We don't dictate how they play. When they ask what they ought to do next, we ask them to go figure it out for themselves. We find toys and opportunities for play that are open-ended.

One of the opportunities that was given to us recently was an invitation to  Playeum; The Children's Centre for Creativity at Gillman Barracks. Unlike most indoor play areas, there aren't set ways to play. The closest I've seen to this is Kaboodle Kids, a play gym entirely made out of foam blocks. But Playeum worked on a theme (The Art of Speed) rather than a particular type of play.

The entire centre was broken up into different spaces where you could do different things. The theme of speed basically meant that there were a lot of wheels associated with the play. Along side the wheels were troughs and troughs of Lego and play pieces for the children to assemble what they felt might work on the various ramps. 

And that, was the great testament to divergent play. No one knew what was the perfect way to build a contraption that would survive the steep ramp without an explosion of Lego all over the place. Every child, including mine, went back again and again, adapting their vehicles trying to figure out what worked better. Eventually Evan worked out that it was all in the wheels. The black wheels with threads offered too much traction and it didn't gain enough speed down the ramp; that meant it couldn't jump the divide between ramps and his creations often crashed and burned in what we started to fondly refer to as The Valley of Broken Dreams.

When he figured it out, he taught it to Muffin and Muffin ended up creating a zoom-worthy vehicle that ended up as a blur no matter how many shots we tried to take of it. It was interesting to note also that despite the fact that Evan told Muffin how to build his vehicle, their vehicles looked markedly different and while Muffin watched how Evan built his, he went off to create his own.

 

We were late to family lunch because we stayed longer that we'd expected to at the Playeum and while regaling what JED did there, a question that surfaced was "So what did Jordan do since it was all Lego and cars?" My instinctive retort that needed to be suppressed was "Who says girls can't play with cars (and Lego)?".

Because that was precisely what Jordan did for most part of it; play with the cars and later on with Lego and marbles. I had expected her to be at the Workshop table where there was a buffet of recyclable materials, fabrics, glue, markers etc. And that in itself was a terrible assumption on my part. She didn't even venture there because she was busy trying to race cars down another set of tracks; in this space, you could adapt the tracks as well as create the vehicles. She twisted, propped up, laid flat, looped and curled the track, watched how her car responded to it and adjusted it accordingly. We have a million pictures of her building a mini roller coaster for her car without it going off the rails and none of the Workshop area, unfortunately.

She can't look!

An interesting observation was that despite the number of times their cars crashed, broke into a million pieces, the kids just went back the drawing board and tried again, always adjusting, always swoping out parts and using different things to see if it worked better.

Jordan and Evan also tried their hands at building their own marble runs while taking a break from the ramps and cars. Even with this, they used ribbons, straightened and twisted paper clips to 'tie' the 'tracks'. Tracks here being old tubes of cardboard or plastic pipes or tubing. Evan got a bit frustrated when his creations wouldn't hold but there was a gleam of satisfaction every time he dropped a marble in and it came out at the bottom.

So they ended up with a morning of play which wasn't dictated by anyone. It was just theirs. When asked which section they liked the most, they were unanimous in their vagueness. They all liked 'building the stuff', which was really all they did.

There were other areas as well though JED didn't spend a lot of time there. It wasn't as if they weren't as fun. In fact, the Dark Room was one of my favourite areas  because I love shadows and making pictures or shadows. There was also the Workshop space I mentioned earlier where we could make whatever it is we wanted with the available tools. Packrat spent much of his time building cars to try and outdo the boys. I don't know if he succeeded though.



At the end of the day, one thing Ken Robinson had said resounded "if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original" and it had truly been a morning of their coming up with their own original creations and where there was no right or wrong way to do it. Any place that does that is good for anyone's soul.

Details of how to get to Playeum and other nitty gritty but important pieces information. 

Location:
Blk 47 Malan Road
Gillman Barracks #01-21/23

It's near the Hort Park and it quite far into the barracks so be prepared to trek and clock steps or drive.

Mon to Fri from 7:00am to 5:00pm

First Hour Free Parking

$0.50 per 30 min for the Second hour

$3.00 per hour for the Third hour onwards or part thereof

Saturdays from 7:00am to 11:00am

Free Parking from 11:00am to 7:00pm

$0.50 per 30 min

Mon to Fri from 5:00pm to 7:00am (next day)

Saturdays from 7:00pm to 7:00am (next day)

$0.50 per 30min (capped at $2.00)

Parking is free on Sundays so that was great. 

Ticketing:
Child (1-12): $20 (It's a non-profit organisation but they have to keep putting out resources and pay for utilities!)
Accompanying adult: You play for free.
Not open on Mondays and Christmas meaning Haze days are a great time to visit them.

We are most thankful to Playeum for the the time and space to create, tinker and make without instruction manuals!

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Keeping entertained

School has started and with that homework.

But that seems to have caused JED to play more furiously. Often, it's home-lunch-homework/ Chinese tuition and then play.

They've come up with some hilarious play activities.

At the start of every school year, the kids are often involved in setting up class rules. So Jordan's done a version for the house There are Bible rules that sound like the 10 commandments paraphrased and then some grammatically questionable house or 'family' rules which also include  "Never say 'boring' or 'stupid' to your family." She nags everyone to keep the rules. Doesn't sound like play but to her it is and wait till I tell you about the school she has created. (Next post)

Excellent.

The boys, who have been influenced by Packrat, are going through a Transformers phase. They constantly pretend that they can transform from vehicle to robot. Muffin hands me his play pipes and demands that I make him 'smokestacks'. I did not know he knew what smokestacks were. I failed miserably and when I admitted defeat, he said comfortingly that they were guns instead.

At the same time, Evan has had a thing about looking out for Transformers' decals on cars. He's asked if we could get one for our car. Our reply was that he could do it to his own car next time. No, he wasn't going to 'beng' our car. Instead, they decided to badge themselves. They shaded the badges off a Transformers box and scotch taped them onto themselves. When in school, the increasingly tattered insignias are stuck onto the wall and stuck back on their shirts once they'd changed out of school clothes.

Evan has chosen to be a Decepticon able to transform across vehicles and Muffin, an Autobot who had similar powers. The house has been filled with noises of the 'vehicles' transforming.

Whatever. No fighting noises and definitely taking to heart Jordan's rules of no complaining of boredom.

Excellent.

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Home Made Play # 3: Ice creatm stick catapults

One of Muffin's favourite games that he keeps going back to is Angry Birds Jenga where there are birds, catapults and blocks. He has an even greater love for it now because he has a few Star Wars Angry Birds pieces. It is one game that he can be left playing all by himself for hours.

The only problem is that he would willingly forgo playground time just to continue building  and destroying structures. And because we generally like that the kids are out of the house, out in the open, we don't like it when he opts for the indoor choice.

Then I found something that could be made with ice cream sticks, rubber bands and a bottle cap. Very imaginatively, it was called the Ice Cream Stick Catapult. But it was a great discovery because it pretty much took as long to make as it took the glue to dry under the bottle cap. And instead of launching birds, Muffin could bring down his catapult and launch beans. We used black beans and green beans. Black beans being a better choice. (We'll explain that later)

We didn't use a bottle cap because Muffin was too impatient and it was almost time for him to get to school. That meant improvising with a plastic spoon.

Did it hold his attention as long as the Angry Birds set did? We don't really know because his school bus came before he tired of it. He didn't let me bring it home though. He insisted that it had to be brought to school for show and tell. And it hasn't come back since. I suspect it's taken up residence in his classroom and I'm pretty sure it's being used to launch balled up paper, erasers and goodness knows what else the little ones can get their hands on. 

It's just occurred to me, while writing the last line that should Evan bring said catapult to school, it would likely be a bigger hit.  But it would almost certainly guarantee me an irate phone call from his teacher about how I had put a weapon into my son's hands and his entire class had taken cue from him and were launching all sorts of things at each other and teachers. 7 year olds are much more creative in their destruction and play. It would have pretty much guaranteed a full scale class war.

Thankfully, Evan hasn't seen it yet though I have plans to make one for each one of them. Then we can have a challenge to see who is able to launch the beans the furthest and we could be single-handedly responsible for an entire patch of bean sprouts growing in the grass patches.

Incidentally, we don't encourage the use of green beans especially if said child using it is young or lacks coordination. Muffin ended up looking over the catapult as he launched the beans. It meant beans flying straight into his nose and giving me a bit of a panic attack. Thankfully, he had a runny nose and we managed to blow out the beans together with his snot.

But even that, he found very amusing and declared the black beans the ones to use because 'my nose holes are not so big as the black beans.'

Spot on observation, my young baked good.

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Relishing Kampong play

One of the things I loved about Enid Blyton's boarding school stories was that there was always a half-term holiday. In Singapore, I suppose that amounts to the week break in March and September. Even then, the terms always felt a bit too long and by week 6, we would be wilting and limping along.

Thankfully, the last two weeks have had days off in abundance. Last week, there was the National Day long weekend and this week ended on Wednesday. It's meant that JED have had a lot of time to play.

The school-going twins have come home reporting that many of their friends have been or are still out of town. Effectively, if any primary school (bar Primary 6) child were to skip school on Tuesday and Wednesday, they would have been off from last Thursday till the coming Monday. 10 days. 10 days is a good and decent length for a holiday. Of course, the twins wanted to go and stay in a hotel or take an airplane; both of which we said a flat no to.

It's drawn attention to the fact that the twins, because of school and their age, are beginning to want the same things that their classmates have. And the last thing we want to do is to raise expectant children who think nothing about holidaying overseas every chance they get and also expect money to be spent keeping them occupied and happy.

So, in response to their plea to stay in a hotel or to go on holiday over the National Day weekend, we took them to a roof-top picnic where they could watch the national flag being flown in for the National anthem, the fly by and eventually, the fireworks. It was where they also ate frozen tubes of colouring (a blast from the past from our own childhood days), sat on the ground and ate fried rice out of plastic bowls and chased each other till they were drenched in sweat. They came to the conclusion that playing catch on a roof top was loads of fun, fried rice tasted better while sitting out in the open and out of a plastic bowl and that Mommy was right, those frozen things tasted foul.

Knowing that the last two days have been a holiday for them (PSLE Oral Exams mean P1s to P5s get to stay home and wrestle with their online learning platforms) but not for Papa, they knew not to hound us for a hotel stay. They did however try to  angle an indoor play gym session with their friends. It isn't that I have anything against indoor play gyms; In fact, I actually quite like them because I can leave them to it (except when Muffin jumps about too much and throws up). But  Packrat and I had long decided that if we didn't need to spend money entertaining them, we wouldn't. Our logic has always been why pay money to choose recycled air and an artificial play environment when the outdoors is haze free and free free? On top of that, there is so much literature out there about the 'over-protected' kid and the helicopter parent that emphasises free play, extensively.

So, in response to their constant mewing about indoor play gyms, I took them, to where I went every time we were on vacation. The beach. Granted the beach was much cleaner and less polluted back then but after I swept the area for broken glass shards, I left them to it. They jumped waves, got sand in their clothes and also got, quite obviously, very wet. It was about picking up sticks, digging up sand and generally, trying to empty the ocean.

Their only bug bear was that it was a trip cut short because of extremely ominous storm clouds that quickly dissolved into big, hail like drops pelting down at us. They did however get to experience getting soaked by the rain, sitting on newspapers in the car and having pools of water swilling around in their shoes.

All in, we did nothing special over the last ten days but played the way I remember play to be when I was a child. It had more to do with neighbours and friends, imagining games and playing make belief than gadgets, gizmos and a padded room full of plastic balls. And just as I did 30 years ago, when I called them in to dinner, they refused to come home. Eventually they did so reluctantly, under duress, but immediately begged to go back out again after dinner. To do what? Use torchlights to hunt snails and cockroaches. And they were bringing salt with them to see what it would do to the snail.

Ewww... Sure, go ahead (The after dinner play session) but NO salt (That would be just plain cruel to the snail) and don't forget to wash the cockroach juice off your fingers, JED!

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Enforced play

I read a lot of articles that make me nervous. And it's got to do with school. But it doesn't have to do with them keeping up with school though I do worry about that some times. It's got to do with how  our system keeps them indoors and seated at the table for too much time. And how, that isn't a healthy thing. Sitting at the table is synonymous with doing work, doing work is synonymous with learning things and learning things is a good thing therefore being indoors and sitting at the table is a good thing.

But the contrary, according to the articles, seems to be true. How to keep the kids from fidgeting in class? Send them out to play. How to keep the kids focused in class? Send them out to play. How to keep them from becoming myopic? Send them out to play.

So even though I have been part of the system, I find it difficult to accept the long table hours that JED (more Jordan and Evan and in particular, Jordan) have to sit through daily. I get why some of it is necessary but it boggles the mind, especially in the face of all the research out there, why the majority of educators and policy makers out there seem to be missing the point. It cannot be that they don't read the same papers or articles that I do. I'll probably be accused of being myopic in some way; not being able to see the big picture and all that. And because of that, I worry for JED, that they aren't getting what they need.

So, for now, I try to provide them all the outdoor time they need by juggling their needs. I let them do silly things like form rainbow loom jump ropes to jump over, hang off exercise yard equipment (though it scares the living daylights of me) and take them from walks that extend beyond 1 km in the night. That is above and beyond PE and other organised play.

Recently, I made the call for Jordan not to complete her homework because it would have taken her all the way to dinner without a break. I sent her out to the playground downstairs to muck about. And for now, I can still do it because homework is relatively non-emergent and there were no other co-curricular committments. I realised later that night, with a sinking heart, how it was a battle I was definitely going to lose. It was more a matter of when I would finally have to cave rather than whether I would cave. And that weighed very heavily on me.

Packrat and I were recently discussing a future holiday we were planning to take and I pointed out that it would be dependent on whether the twins (who would be Primary 3 or 4 by then) had holiday classes at that point. His response was " they will not go to those classes then." Brave fighting words. I don't know if we'll be able to say that at that point. We'll try as hell though and hopefully the stuff I read starts sieving through the policy makers' and teachers filter bubbles as well.

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