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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History hungry

We've always talked about how Jordan is Mini-Me because she's athletic, competitive and high strung. A girl after my own heart.

Evan has always been Packrat's doppelganger. The geek interests, the introvert and the mild endearing disposition.

A few months ago, I received confirmation of my genetic contribution to Evan. Our regular pick up ritual is the boys get into the car and mutter salutations before requesting for their audio book of the day to be put on. One day, this routine deviated. Evan got into the car and asked to talk rather than listen to the audio book.

He went on to tell me about Social Studies in school and Singapore during World War II. My mind flashed to me, having these conversations with my parents, when I did Social Studies in primary school. I was exactly the same age as Evan. I learnt from my mother how their house got requisitioned by the Japanese High Command. That they all ducked under the dining table when there were air raids; the same dining table I used for studying and now sits in my brother's house. I learnt then that my grandfather would set traps in the drains that had water flow in from the sea at high tide and how he caught fish and crab for the family that way. I learnt about the gory sight of heads put up on spikes as a warning of disobeying the Japanese.

I also remembered having discussions with my dad about the war, on the way to uni, where I spent a semester reading Singapore history.

In an instant, all this seemed relevant as my 10 year old fired a million questions about Singapore during the war. And I told him all the stories that my dad and mum as well as my grandmother told me about their lives during the war. I answered his questions about the European Theatre with what I could remember from days in freezing cold lecture halls 20 years ago. Perhaps, a primitive instinct 20 years ago pushed me to do all those course in preparation of a son not yet even a thought.

And the boy lapped it all up. He asked for books, more books and has started reading obsessively about war. War literature (it's amazing how much good juvenile war literature there is out there), fact books, a whole bunch of "I survived..." books and an old abandoned copy of a secondary school history text book. He literally paced the house waiting for the Amazon order to arrive with more history books in there. When it did, quiet descended upon the house. I let homework slide because I saw how he was devouring the books. There was always tomorrow for homework.

I didn't understand the obsession when it was Pokemon where he inhaled facts about Pokemon and could spit them out with such precision I wondered why he didn't put that much effort into his school work. But it's just how an obsession works. He's doing the same thing now for WWII history though because human nature and cruelty are involved, he doesn't get all of it himself and has questions that bother him somewhat. So we sit and chat about it. He asks questions, I try my best to answer it. I pull on things that he remembers, like visiting the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbour when he was little. And it makes more sense to him now. The attack, why it was surprising, why the Japanese did it. How that coincided with the attack on Singapore. Bit by bit, he's figuring it out.

He draws the line, though, at media. He'll read, he'll listen to stories about it but he won't watch it. Pity, I thought. I would have loved to have taken him to see Dunkirk.

But it is true. When there is interest, passion lies and the curiosity to know.

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The One Where Evan Hits Balls

Both Evan and Jordan do sport. Actually Muffin as well though the twins spend a lot more time on it.

But their narratives could not be any different.

Evan is not a natural athlete. As a baby, the doctors worried because his head lolled to one side for the longest time. As a toddler, he would fall over a lot and bump his head repeatedly on the same spot. Even as a tennis player, he is no where as good as many of the kids in his age group.

And that makes it hard for him.

It means that he has to work doubly hard to do what comes naturally to some and sometimes, it gets very disheartening. 

It means that there are some coaches that don't like that he isn't a ready made player, who has natural ability. They would yell at him because his footwork isn't what is to be expected of a 10 year old who plays x number of days a week. These were the coaches who would make him cry in frustration.

It means that in a team, he might not be seeded very high and might not get picked to play because he might weigh the team down.

But does he try. Try very hard, he does.

He works till rivets of sweat run down his face and he can't lift his feet anymore. He's learnt to be consistent while he works on power. On the days he doesn't play, he goes running with Packrat and is attempting the jump rope.

We do our part by putting him with coaches who will affirm his effort and encourage him along. We stay away from the coaches who only see him for what he is not. That isn't helpful, to anyone.

In his first ever league tournament, he knew he wasn't seeded very high and every time he played, he tried very hard and tried to make it count. When he couldn't kill the shot, he rallied till the opponent made a mistake and he always took stock of the players he played with. He learnt very quickly to place his shots out of reach of his opponents. And in that way, he won more points and in some of the matches, ended up carrying the 'higher' seeded partner he was playing with because his parter, while stronger was more inconsistent with his shots.

The day of the finals, when he helped the team place well, was a vindication for him; against the managers who would leave him out of line ups, against the coaches who thought him crap and even, to some extent, against us, for the times that we rolled our eyes at his seemingly uncoordinated ways.

I told Evan, the one thing I truly admired about him, is the fact that he's a cool cucumber. He looks cool on court. He doesn't let the stress get to him and he just goes on placing the shots where he needs to. When we commended him on being cool, he exclaimed that he was nervous as heck. That, I told him was excellent, that he doesn't let the nerves get to him. I told him the analogy was to be duck like; gliding along the water as if nothing gazed him  but actually paddling furiously underneath, away.

Someone said to us that Evan is probably learning more because he's isn't naturally gifted and things don't come easy to him. And like pediatricians used to tell us, as long as the milestones are achieved, it isn't about who gets there first.  It'll come in good time and he really is getting there. 

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The Running Man

 There's been a bug going round the house.

But it's the good sort of bug. It's a running bug.

Packrat runs a great deal. He runs to work out. He runs to clock steps. He runs to hatch Pokemon eggs.

And there is some truth about modeling behaviour because now JED want to run. Especially Evan.

He may not be as fit. But he makes up in terms of doggedness. So slowly but surely, he's running.

It's as good a time as any to pick up running. After all, the twins have to run 1.6 km for school as part of their physical fitness test.

So they've been going out at all hours. I came home once in the middle of the afternoon to a relatively quiet house. When asked, both Jordan and Muffin said that Papa and Kor Kor went out for a 'run/walk' even though it looked sweltering out.

Packrat makes it fun for Evan. He lets Evan hold his phone and walk his Pokemon eggs, lets him catch whatever Pokemon pop up. They talk about how to run more efficiently and Packrat sets him small goals that make running much less daunting i.e. Run till the next traffic light. Run 4 lamp posts down. Run to the next bus stop. And the next thing Evan knows, he's completed 2 km without looking his lungs actually exploding.

Occasionally, the other two and I join in and we sometimes run to the grandparents' for dinner. But it's been pretty much a father-son activity and I'm happy to keep it that way.

I might have been the runner in a previous life but I don't like it as much. Running used to be our thing. But because my back's not been great and truthfully, because I've become lazy, I don't run as much. I did, however, agree to run the Star Wars Run with Packrat last weekend. The problem was that I had plain forgotten that we were doing the 10 km one. This left me scrambling as if it were a last minute exam I had to cram for. Unfortunately, lungs and legs don't work in the same way. And few people I know can run a 10 at a drop of a hat.

I survived it after running every other day for the last two weeks but looked like crap after that. I think I wanted to vomit at some point. But that would have been embarrassing. Packrat, on the other hand, looked a whole lot more chipper than I did and he talked about bringing Evan next year for the shorter run.

I think he's found his new running partner. I'm okay with that. I think it's also for the best.

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Out of the Box came 2 Bags

There was the mother of all storms yesterday.

Add to that, I had recently decided to commit myself to being the "Muber" driver and pick JED after school.

It has not been without its challenges and on top of that, my not-so-organised mind had not told them what to do when there was a storm.

So I brought ONE (not two or three as I should have done) umbrella into school to catch them. I found Muffin but Evan was no where in sight.

Eventually he sidled up, grinning and waving two plastic bags at me. He was late coming to look for Muffin because he had seen the rain and proceeded to

a. Go to the library and try to ring me. But the library was closed.
b. Procure plastic bags.

I kind of figured out why he had done that though I hadn't seen anyone with plastic bags over their heads since I, myself, was in primary school.

But I asked him anyway, why 2 plastic bags?

"One for myself and one for Muffin so that we would be able to walk out and look for you." he replied.

He said it would not keep the rest of him from getting wet but it was like the hood of the raincoat. He also promised that he wouldn't suffocate himself (Heedful of the warnings he'd read everywhere about plastic bags causing suffocation). Thereafter, putting on the plastic bag, looking both amused and full of importance.

 

Muffin followed suit and loped the bag over his head though his head being smaller caused the bag to cover his entire face. He proceeded to get a stern lecture from his brother about plastic bags and suffocation (mindful of everything he'd read about plastic bags causing suffocation). 

That he thought to call me. That he figured out a contingency in case I was still outside. And that he took matters into his own hands and tried as best as possible to equip his brother and himself for the possible traipse out into the rain. 

I am speechless and a little bit awed by him. 

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Tennis Lessons

Evan plays tennis.

He has for a few years but he's only taken it up more seriously in the last 6 or 7 months.

By no stretch of the imagination is he a good tennis player. But he enjoys the game. And he's learning oodles and oodles from it.

By that, I don't mean skill though his skill has markedly improved in the last few months as well.

What I do mean, is the real reasons kids ought to play sport. And none of them have got to do with achieving excellence and being 'scouted'.

In the recent months, he's encountered some situations that have made him angry enough to cry. In each of the situations, as a mother, the easiest thing to do was to remove him from the situation. To protect him from feeling so horrid.

Situation One.

He faced a coach who called it as he saw it. He told Evan that he wasn't a great player; he didn't have drive and it would be hard for him to ever become a good junior player. He also told Evan that everything he was doing was wrong. In one fell swoop, he decimated the forehand that Evan thought was much improved and tore him down for footwork that he had worked hard to learn. In a nutshell, he reduced everything Evan believed he had achieved in the last half a year to near nothing.

Not nice. But not untrue. No doubt, the delivery could have been better but the coach called a spade a spade.

Evan was beyond upset. He was hurt and humiliated.

I assumed that he wouldn't want to see that coach ever again. But recently, he asked if he could have another session with him. I warned him that he would call out his faults as he saw it and if I was going to pay for the session, I wanted to make sure Evan wasn't going to chuck another fit on court and waste the session.

He said he'd try. Try to do as the coach expected. In other words, he would try to adapt.

Situation Two.
Evan plays a practice match with another kid. This kid is much better but both kids make mistakes. Some of the mistakes were called, some weren't. The other kid made some mistakes that weren't called and as a result, Evan didn't get the points. He felt unfairly penalised.

Once again, the water works. He stalks on court. He is disagreeable and he storms off court.

Unacceptable, especially given that the other kid didn't have to give Evan a practice match. We were eating into some of the other kid's training time.

I force march him back on court to shake hands, despite him being close to losing it. I force him to thank his coach too. He does so, without meeting the coach's eyes.

We tell him that even with the points, he would have lost. The truth is that some times, there would be bad calls made. And even when that happens, there should not be McEnroe-brat-tantrum behaviour on court. It's something that happens; both on and off court.

We tell him that regardless of bad calls, there has to be respect for the rules and etiquette of the game. We tell him that there has to be respect for the other player and gracious losing. He sobbed all the way home.
  
It really did hurt to see him so upset and distressed. For a split second, I, the mother and bystander, wanted to run away from it all. Quit. I wanted him to do the same. But what would have been the point then? What would I have modelled for him? That running away was a solution? No.

I swallowed my own mommy distress and walked him through what was going on.

He was better after a good cry. He could talk about it after that.  He still felt that it was unfair but he accepted it.  He looked forward to playing again today. He acknowledged that he wouldn't like it if his opponent didn't shake hands at the end of the game.

There are so many lessons to be learnt here. Our hope is that he enjoys the sport enough to continue and occasionally pick up a few more of these lessons, even if they cause him momentary pain and dissonance. 

Game, Set, Match. 

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First week of school? No tears, no fuss, no big deal

Our youngest is no longer a pre-schooler. On the 3rd of January, he joined the ranks of a primary school going child. And unlike the twins, he seems to have taken to it like a fish to water. I suspect, that has got to do with him having seen his older siblings go through it. He couldn't quite understand what the fuss was about and why he had to wait so long to do things.

When asked what he did the first week, he told us that there were a lot of lines and a lot of waiting.
1. Waiting to line up.
2. Waiting for the class to quiet before anything happens
3. Lining up to buy food.
4. Lining up to put the plates back.
5. Lining up for the bathrooms after putting the plates back because evidently, everyone needs to pee after returning their dishes.
6. Waiting to go back to class after going to recess.
7. Lining up for the right bus.
8. Waiting to get on the right bus.

Has he learnt anything substantial in the last two weeks of school? Learning to queue, obviously. And also learning how join the shortest line at recess to maximise time in the playground. He also learnt how to make change.

Outside of school, he learnt how to cook a meal from scratch. Slicing, dicing, sauteing, the works. And he learnt that a little kindness goes a long way. He cooked the meal from start to finish for his brother and that won him the choice of television programmes for the entire day.

 

What he learnt in the first two week of school wouldn't have helped him survive if he were marooned on a desert island but those are good survival skills to learn. Did he learn any reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic? I'm not certain of that bit but that'll come because Singapore. 

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Elections 2016: Evan's Perspective

In the run up to today, we've talked a lot about the US Presidential Elections in our household. JED hear it over the radio on BBC and they talk about it at a child-like level in school. Of all 3, Evan is the most interested in it. Jordan thinks it funny because I rant about Trump.

A few nights ago, at bedtime prayers, we added in praying for the American people and that they would make a wise decision at the polls. They asked questions. Most of them fuelled by crazy hearsay nine year old style. Trump has a nuclear weapon, Trump is going to kill people and so on. We clarified their misconceptions. It was in a sense, their introduction into political science by way of Trump vs Clinton.

Today is a day that will go down in infamy. I exaggerate. But not by much.

Evan rang me at the office. His bus driver told him that Trump had won. He needed to confirm if it was true because his bus driver speaks Chinese and Evan wasn't sure if he understood him right.


His questions to me were rapid fire.
1. Is Donald Trump going to start a war?
2. If he does, is it going to be World War III?
3. Is Donald Trump Hitler?
4. If people say he is like Hitler, then why did other people choose him?
5. Was Hilary Clinton really so lousy?
6. How come Donald Trump won?

His questions were a mixture of thought and hear say but there was also some fear. I liked hearing his questions. Mindful of Packrat's warnings about giving them glib answers like "Donald Trump is an idiot" I tried to explain to him that hopefully, there would be no war because there's too much at stake (though his 9 yo mind didn't buy that). that no, Trump isn't Hitler (Hitler actually killed many people) and how there were problems in the USA that made it possible for Trump to actually happen. I tried to explain how democracy worked. But I could only do so much over the phone.

I'm not sure how much of it he understood but he did try to make sense of it. When he did, he rang off but not before reminding me to get a newspaper so that he could read more.

Well, if nothing else, I'll credit Trump for my son's political awakening.

But if left to me, I wish it were Bartlet for America.

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A booklist for the reluctant reader

Last year, I wrote about how we enticed Evan to read by introducing him to audio books. He's still not as voracious as his sister who finished tome of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a week with school, training and a full schedule. But he's come along very nicely and pleased us immensely when he bugged usto go to the library to borrow books for him. 

So I decided that it may not be a bad idea to record the list of books that he started off with in case there are other reluctant readers out there that need a bit of encouraging. 

Of course, his perennial favourites are the Harry Potter Series and science comics (but those don't count because those are in bad English!). He took it very seriously when we told him that he could read the Cursed Child's script till he finished Deathly Hallows. Two days later, he was done with Deathly Hallows, rearing to start on Cursed Child. 

The beginning of the Harry Potter mania

                                  

Jumping ahead and reading the Cursed Child on launch day. 

                                   

But Harry Potter worked for him because he had the audio books as initial scaffolding; to get used to the length and the language. 

The ones he picked up by himself were
1. The A- Z Mysteries by Ron Roy.
They are straightforward and simple mysteries. Each book has an alliterative title. The Absent Author, the Talking T-Rex. The titles were enough to draw him in.

I think he liked it because it followed a particular formula and the chapters were short and easy enough for him to get through. The characters in the book carried through into the next book so he felt he knew the characters quite well by the end of the 3 week library loan period. And the sense of achievement from being able to read 2 or 3 of these in a day was tremendous for him. There are Super Editions which he didn't enjoy as much even though he read them as well.

2. Encyclopedia Brown

Packrat introduced this series to the twins. He read it as a child and wanted to be a detective after that. Both twins lapped it up though Evan was more intent on trying to figure out how Encyclopedia managed to solve the mysteries instead of reading the explanation for it. But the fact that there was an explanation was pretty cool and both Packrat and I took part in trying to figure out the mysteries as well. 

Right now, he's back on Harry Potter. Well, after the 8th book, he won't have that anymore unless he re-reads them which is he likely to do too. As with his sister, there's a sense that he's feeling a bit lost as to what to read after he's done here. He wants to go back to the A-Z and Encyclopaedia Brown types but I'm hoping he's willing to push his boundaries a little bit more than that.

3. How to Train A Dragon Series by Cressida Cowell

Evan read some of these last year but listened to the entire audio book series. It was the first series of books he fell in love with. I could never get into them but both Packrat and he loved them and would talk about them at length. They aren't as tome-like as Potter but definitely more than the chapter books above. He keeps them all in a box by his bed and is territorial over them. Nothing can go in that box except for the Dragon books and now his Potter books. Potentially a set that we could get him to revisit now that he's older and has a longer reader span. 

I'm toying with Alex Rider and some of the Morpugo books but we'll see what bites we get.  

It's not a long list but it was a list that worked for him and it's a great improvement from last year. I don't expect him to be reading Arthur Conan Doyle anytime soon but I'm happy he's read more books this year than he has fingers and toes. 

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The Tooth Fairy

Muffin is growing up fast. He's shot up so quickly in the last few months that he's become gangly and clumsy. He's also started losing his milk teeth.

The first tooth he lost was at the gym. He left it on the bench but he couldn't find it after.

Tonight, he dropped his second tooth. We have been telling him, the last few days, to not swallow his tooth so that we could stick it under his pillow like the Jordan and Evan did.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. The tooth found the most inopportune time to fall out; as Muffin was rinsing his mouth after brushing his teeth. So it swirled in the sink and went down the drain pipe before anyone could react.

Evan tried. He tried to cover the hole in the sink. But the tooth slipped right through his fingers.

Muffin howled. It wasn't one tooth he was mourning. It was two. And he cried so pitifully, his usually combative brother came running to get us.

No amount of carrying and consoling soothed his distress.

Right till Evan offered him one of his own milk teeth (that he knows I keep in a container), to lay under his pillow so that the tooth-fairy would come.

Even with that, it took him another 10 to 15 minutes of sobbing, gulping and hiccoughing before he picked a tooth, laid it in the box and slipped it under his pillow. And then he cried himself to sleep.

But at least there was recourse.

Evan, the brother who fights so bitterly with him sometimes, rose to the occasion, put aside his own grumpiness and showed kindness and compassion. He did ask me to return him his tooth once we were done with it. To which, I gladly acceded. After all, the tooth was his.

So not only did we leave a note and 2 $1 coins for Muffin, we told him in the note that his big brother helped to make it happen and that he had a wonderful big brother. So we were leaving an extra $1 that he was to give to his big brother for helping him feel better. 

Sometimes, we don't give Evan enough credit. He's the oft-misunderstood, bullied, overshadowed middle brother. But he always, always rises to the occasion when it matters the most.

Like tonight, where he saved the day and was the tooth fairy through and through.

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Ducks of a feather

Evan has a thing for ducks.

It all started when we bought him a duck when he was a baby. A duck blankie.

It was what soothed him to sleep, thumb in his mouth, twiddling a corner.

We used to do this thing where we would throw the blankie over his head and like Pavlov's dog, he would grab it, tumble over and stick his thumb into his mouth. It didn't matter if it was hard ground that he was going to tumble into. His ducks have seen many adventures; travelling the world with him and being thrown out the window by Muffin!

He's 9 now. He's stopped sucking his thumb but he still loves his Duck Duck. And his duck duck collection has spawned. There's the original Duck Duck but there is also Papa Duck Duck and a whole host of siblings whom he loves as well, though not so much as original threadbare Duck Duck.

But this love for ducks doesn't end with his soft blankies. Because he loves his Duck Duck family, he has a soft spot for all ducks. His face goes all gentle and full of love when he plays with them or talks to them. He loves ducks in a pond and he loves seeing them waddle around. But more than that, it has become a social cause for him. 

He will not eat roast duck. He loved the Peranakan Salted Veg and Duck soup till he realised one of the key ingredients in the soup was duck. Similarly, the boy who loves roast meat would not eat duck rice and even went as far as glare at Jordan for wanting to eat roast duck rice. 

When I told him about foie gras, the outrage radiated from him and the look of disgust was epic. "Why would anyone be so cruel?" he asked. The poor ducks or geese. To him, they are literally birds of a feather. 

It might be something he doesn't grow out of. It might become one of those quirky things that he can tell people about himself. "I don't eat duck because I had these furry duck blankies when I was a kid."

And since I don't eat shark's fin because I can't bear the thought of drowning, suffocating sharks, I'm going to be on his side for this one, despite the fact that his sister waxes lyrical about how yummy the duck tastes. 

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Weight of the World

Evan is a worry wart. He worries about everything. He is the 'glass is half empty' kind of boy. He worried when we travelled without him, that the plane would crash. He worried when I was sick because I might be more sick when he lets on. Recently, his worries have become more concrete and it's been keeping him up at night.

We've been trying to encourage the twins to read the newspaper or watch bits of the news on television. Over the Chinese New Year, while out at lunch, Evan caught Channel News Asia on TV in the restaurant. While he couldn't hear anything, he could read that there had been an earthquake in Christchurch and Taiwan. He also saw glimpses of a documentary about the Paris attacks and something about the Zika virus. On top of that, he had read somewhere about MERS and Ebola. He knows there isn't a cure and that they die a horrible death and it's contagious.

His questions to me over the new year were whether Ebola existed in Singapore and what happens if we got Ebola in Singapore? Has there been anyone in Singapore that got infected by Ebola. I try and convince him we won't because we are not in the African continent.

"But what if...?" is his response.

I try many tactics.

I try to just hold him and explain to him the situation with just facts. We've managed to keep ourselves Ebola free very effectively.He wants to know if there is a cure. I tell him they're working hard on a vaccine and are almost there. "But no cure/ vaccine right now, right?" Sigh.

I try to use humour. No, you won't get MERS because you need a camel to sneeze on you. That got him to laugh but unfortunately, he knows that monkeys carry Ebola and there are monkeys all over Singapore and he knows it.

I try to explain to him that worrying about things didn't really work and often they made things worse. What would help him sleep and what would actually make things better if he could try and come up with solutions. In the short term, ways to help himself not worry about it (i.e. think through the facts - use logic) and in the long term, ways he could help other children and people who might worry about the same thing (i.e. we told him how scientists and researchers from other countries were trying to figure out the cure for Ebola). After all, he has said that he wants to be scientist.

I teach him to pray for God to take away his worries so that he doesn't need to think about them. He tells me God hasn't heard his prayers. I tell him that perhaps God wants him to do something about it because God's ways of answering prayers doesn't necessarily mean praying and the problem disappears!

When all else fails, I lie beside him at night and let him hold my hand tight while he tosses and turns till eventually he gives in to his tiredness.

I tell myself that it's not a bad thing that he worries because that means he's introspective and thinks about things. But it's hard to watch him struggle with these worries because he's a not yet 9 year old boy who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

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Listening when our kids say NO.

We did wrong by Evan. And we apologised to him for it. That was after being angry with him when we were actually angry at ourselves for making that mistake.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened a few weeks ago. Packrat was part of the millions of fans breathlessly waiting for it, watching and re-watching the trailers and more importantly, showing it to JED. When it did open, he brought Muffin to the first show. Both he and Muffin dressed up and he was so proud of the fact that Muffin loved the entire experience.

But what he really wanted to do was to share it with Evan, his geek-buddy. Unfortunately, Evan wasn't all that keen. He gave us a long list of reasons.

1. He didn't like shows that weren't cartoons.

2. He didn't like going to the movies because it was loud.

3. He didn't want to go because it might be scary.

4. He didn't want to go because it would be too long.

We didn't give up though and we kept trying to organise an outing to see it. Eventually, Evan caved. This was after choosing to go to Gardens By the Bay, going ice skating with the neighbours and playdates over Star Wars. That should have given us a clue but as thick headed parents who thought we knew better, we ignored it.

45 minutes into it, I get a message from Packrat that it had been a waste of money and they were on the way home. When I got home, there were 3 teary-eyed children and a thin lipped Packrat. Jordan and Muffin were upset because they had been dragged out of the movie half way. Evan was teary-eyed because he felt that he had disappointed his father and had wasted his dad's money. He was seen trying to pry open his piggy bank to pay his father back the money for the movie tickets.

Packrat was upset because he felt that it was his fault. I'm with him on it. Not so much that it was his fault but that it was ours.

We hadn't trusted our son when he said he wouldn't like the show. Packrat couldn't accept it because it. was. Star Wars. I couldn't accept that because he loves watching stuff at home on television. It's his favourite past time. So how could it be that he wouldn't like watching Star Wars on the big screen? We had forgotten that it was dark and it was loud and he couldn't run out when it got scary or intense.

We hadn't respected him when he said he didn't want to go and bullied him into it. We had forgotten that we had a serious upper hand in this and could pretty much use the force to bend his will and make him go to the movie just because.

And we were both deeply ashamed of what we had done. Packrat apologised to him for not trusting his judgement and I hugged him tight and told him that we ought to believe him the next time he tells us he doesn't want to do something because he's eight and he's old enough to know himself. I don't know if he will remember this incident when he grows up but whatever it is, we hope he forgives us.

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Multi-sensorial reading for the reluctant reader

Before the biological clock kicked in making me want kids, on one of those occasions when a hapless elder asked why I wasn't having kids yet, I flippantly retorted " not until someone can guarantee they won't hate books". I don't think the hapless elder understood that there was some genuine fear in that statement. She probably thought I was just being rude. I really wasn't. Not entirely anyway.

I spend a lot of time and money ordering books for JED. People tell me to go to the library but they like re-reading their books so much that we end up always borrowing the same books and they are reluctant to grow their repertoire at all. We discovered last year that audio books were a great way to introduce new books to them. And we haven't looked back since especially now that we've discovered this brilliant app called Overdrive that allows you to borrow electronic and audio versions of the book from your local library. I download the audio version and blue tooth it to the car radio and the kids are spell bound.

The one who loves the audio books the most is Evan. He's an auditory learner, he sponges up what he hears (not so good for us when us adults talk and use non-kosher language) and thoroughly immerses himself in it. After the Roald Dahl that we started with, we moved to the How to Train a Dragon series which he loved and got him started on the novels after. His How to Train a Dragon series is a very well-worn, well loved set. Jordan and Muffin however, only just tolerated the 11 book series and jointly put their foot down when he wanted to re-listen to the entire set again once he was complete. They and myself included were Dragon-ed out by then.

The thing with audio books is that how riveting it is depends very much on the reader. We tried to distract them with Kipling's Just-So stories which I had read to them before but they wouldn't bite because the reader was a yawn. We tried many others but we kept falling back on the Roald Dahls and Dragon ones. We had the Harry Potter books in store but we had initially wanted to wait till next year when they were a bit older but with all that bickering in the car, we caved and started them on it.

Can I just say that the Potter series is great? Stephen Fry reads the books and he does different voices and he makes his voice echo-ey or ghoul like depending on what was needed. The twins love it. Muffin isn't as keen on it but we suspect it's because the story is so dense, he finds it difficult to keep up.

Evan started to ask for random car rides just so that he could hear more of the story until I told him he could open the book to where he stopped in the car and read on. This was a holiday morning and at 11am that morning, he was still in pyjamas because he hadn't stopped reading. It was then that I recalled how big a phenomenon the Potter books were when they released, to the point that television viewership numbers always dropped after a Potter book got released.

Based on what he had heard and read in the first book, Evan came up with his version of Hogwarts. It was truly comprehensive with the towers, the dungeons, the 3-headed dog and even the Philosopher's Stone, only missing out the Quidditch pitch which he said he would work on next.

To round it all off, we sat with them and watched the movie. Now, that was a bit too intense for them, especially the ending though Packrat and I realised that watching it with JED was a different experience from when we saw it for the very first time all those years ago. All the special effects were readily appreciated. The highlight of the movie was obviously any part that had flying brooms for Evan and Jordan wanted to go to a school where the staircases moved. Muffin wanted a hat like the Sorting Hat which could talk.

Unfortunately, not all book experiences can be multi-sensorial. But it really isn't a bad place to start.

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The bigger person

Today, I looked at Evan through new eyes.

We've always known that he's a gentle soul and recently, we were wondering if he was a little bit too gentle. He's at the age where the boys rough house a lot but he doesn't and stays away from those that do. He claims he doesn't like those who play rough and are aggressive.

But after today, I've decided I'm going to leave it because he's a better kid than that.

Scene:

A pair of girls teased him. He wasn't happy and came to tell me. I told him to ignore them. They continued to tease him. So he took a jar of fake insects and tossed them in the direction of the girls. One of the girls retaliated and hit him really hard. That was when we had to step in.

Girl's dad demands she apologises for what she did. Girl refuses. Girl's dad calls Evan over.

Evan goes over, reluctantly.

Girl's dad invites Evan to hit her back. As hard as he wants too, since she wouldn't apologise.

Evan shakes his head, whispers 'no need', holds his head up and walks away, despite repeated invitations to hit back.

Girl's dad points out to girl that was the right way to behave, that instead of escalating the situation, he turns his back to it. Girl hangs head in shame and cries.

She comes up later on and whispers an apology to Evan, by which time, Evan has forgotten and forgiven her.

- End of Scene-

So proud, my heart could sing.

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Captain Kantang

Kantang means potato.

Evan is a total kantang. In every sense of the word.

We met with his teachers today and no surprise that the subject he struggles most with is Chinese and the teacher basically told us that his biggest problems are comprehension and sentence construction. No surprise once again. We're told the old adage; read to him, expose him, speak to him, let him watch Chinese stuff. Basically, as the teacher very succinctly and hysterically put it, 'no input, no output.'

Basically, he's living up to the expectations of him being totally anglo. In other words, kantang.

The local phrase for someone who is Asian but is totally anglo. Because the anglo-white stereotype is one where many potatoes are eaten.

And once again, that's Evan, described to a T.

He does love his kantang. If I let him, he would eat it every meal of the day in any form. Shepherd's Pie, hash brown, mashed. Cubed and fried Asian style with carrots and minced pork atop rice.

There's no convincing him that it's high carb and he should cut down on it.

It explains the chubbed up version of Evan.

And since he was home today while we were waiting in the sweltering heat to see his teachers, it was perfect time for him to learn to cook his favourite kantang dish.
 
Happy is the boy who has his kantang.

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Sailing, sailing home

Evan didn't have much of a March break. He spent 4 out of 5 days of the break in Sembawang. Boondocks, Singapore style.

He was there sailing. After the fiasco with his CCA selection and not getting into the sailing CCA, we promised that he could try out sailing for himself during the holidays.

So we went the distance, literally, and signed him up for a kiddy sailing camp that the SAF Yacht Club offered.

We barely saw him those 4 days. He left after breakfast and came home for dinner and being inebriated by the sea air and sun, he would fall asleep soon after.

But he had fun.

Highlights for him:
1. Being thrown into the sea and made to swim 50 m to shore. He imagined sharks and swamp things lurking in the water.

2. Playing with sand while he waited for his friends to return.

3. Actually being on the water and sailing.

4. Learning all the different parts of the boat. The easiest way to piss him off was to go "the left side of the boat" or the "front of the boat". That would elicit an irritated hiss, "It's the PORT side, MOMMY!" or "It's the BOW of the BOAT!"

5. Being able to master the knots he was taught.

Things he didn't like but we thought built character:

1. Theory lessons about the weather, clouds, reading the current from the waves and knot tying.

2. Being hit one too many times on the head by the boom. He learned pretty quick that he had to duck.We console him and tell him at least he didn't get hit by the boom and end up in the water like another of his course mates.

3. Sailing around in circles, literally. He got annoyed at the wind getting in the way of the direction he was meant to head. (There's a life lesson in that somewhere)

4. Getting sea sick because the patrolling power boats rocked the bath tubs they were in.

5. Having to eat chicken every day for lunch or going hungry. (He has a strange aversion toward chicken right now)

By the end of it, he was browned to a crisp and definitely had more than the FDA recommended amount of Vitamin D.

 Can he sail? According to the coaches, he sailed decently and could get the boat going the direction they were supposed to head. Will he do the next course? We don't know yet. We're hedging because it's really far. He'd hedging because he worries about being sea sick (telling him that upchucking in the sea was ok and a great way to see fish up close and personal didn't seem to appeal much to him).

We'll revisit it before the next course begins.

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The quest for the elusive CCA

I've been waiting a long time to write this post about Evan and his quest for a CCA and it's taken such a long time because we've had to apply for the CCAs and wait for the results to be released.

Most schools don't have CCAs for P1s and P2s. Evan's school, however, is one of those that do allow the younger kids to do CCAs if they wanted to try stuff out.

When I was in primary school, I went through a gamut of CCAs or ECAs as it was known then. I dabbled in most of it except Red Cross and gymnastics (not for the want of trying but because my mom thought I might crack my head at gym). So between Primary 3 to Primary 6, I ended up trying out basketball, badminton, track and field, swimming, the school angklung ensemble (where my musical instrument was 2 halves of a coconut) and library. I didn't particularly excel in any of them at that point but I had a lot of fun trying them out and aching in places I didn't know could ache till the following week.

But the point was I figured out from all of it that I was crap at basketball, would involuntarily burst out giggling when I had to rally too long for badminton, had absolutely no sense of rhythm and hated running (famous last words) because it gave me a stitch.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem how CCAs are run these days.

Evan was in tennis last year and it was an eye opening experience to find out that the kids in his tennis group trained outside as well. My naive mind wondered why they were doing so if school was already providing the training. The answer was that school training was insufficient if you wanted to be on the school team.

Anyway, we have no ambitions for Evan to be on the school tennis team. He picked up tennis in kindy, he liked it and had fun. It taught him hand-eye coordination that I never really had so we let him keep playing.

FDA's daily recommended dosage of Vitamin D.

This year, when the CCAs had their open house, he said he didn't mind tennis but was very interested in trying sailing. Despite the paranoid, crazy Mommy fears that ran in my head, "What if he gets hit by a boom and falls unconscious in the water?" "What if a rogue wave takes him out?", I told him Packrat and I would talk about it (distance was an issue) before putting him down for it. Eventually we let him. He was interested, it would teach him things that we couldn't teach him on a regular day and he would be out in the sun. But most importantly, because he wanted to do it.

He also asked us to put down chess. The boy likes playing chess and that's where my greatest failure as a mother lies. I. DO. NOT. KNOW. HOW. TO. PLAY. CHESS. and I have no inclination to learn it to play with him. The solution he came up with, join the chess club.

There we were, his choices with tennis as the default 3rd because I explained to him that between sailing and tennis, tennis was easier for him to do classes outside of school so we would try out sailing.

Unfortunately, he did not get any of his choices because everything was over-subscribed. Even the supposedly non-sport, chess. And every where I turned and asked, I was told that if he had done some classes outside, chess, tennis or sailing, he would have been guaranteed entry into the CCA of his choice.

Leading to the question then, why would I want him to do it at school if we could do it on our own? And while I understood the importance and need for the kids to win awards and medals for the school, shouldn't there also be the understanding that some kids really want to try out these things for the heck of it? For the child, it is hardly ever about joining canoeing and rowing so that they might get picked up by an Ivy league school in need of scullers.  For the kid, it's about trying new things, deciding if he likes it or not and having fun figuring that out.

Then, try explaining to a child who had decided he wanted to pick up sailing because he thought it would one day allow him to captain cruise ships that he couldn't because there weren't enough spots and the spots that were there ended up being given to kids who had had prior training. When I told him that he could try again next year, he sobbed about how he would be too old and there would always be kids that would have more training than he did.

Now, there's a lesson in life for him.

I was ready for him to have more free time this year, with no CCA commitments and no picking him up from school in the evenings. In fact, that sounded quite appealing. More time for him to play with the neighbours. Less driving around for me.

For good or for bad, Evan likes doing things a certain way. Even though they were told that CCAs weren't compulsory, he saw that all his friends had a CCA and didn't want to be left out. So, we looked at what was left. Chinese Culture Club and Rugby, realistically. No golf (too costly), No strings (no musical talent), no dance (But I'm not Jordan, Mommy!). From that list of two, Chinese Culture Club got axed almost immediately ("You subject me to Chinese tuition and you want me to do this?" his eyes silently accused).

So, we were left with rugby which we were in two minds over. On the one hand, I grew up with rugby player brothers and thinking all boys ought to play rugby. On the other hand, I grew up with front row seats to not just the nose bleeds but dislocated shoulders, knees, busted noses, broken heads and teeth. Evan, himself, was convinced that he would get a nose bleed from playing the sport.

But he really wanted a CCA and this was all that I could conjure out of my hat. So he agreed to try it after Packrat likened it to playing catching with a ball. It also helped that he had some class friends with him, equally lost.

So finally here we are, after what feels like a very complicated process to get in some play, committed to being at school early Saturday morning for this year at least. If he comes away from the year with a bit more ball sense, the Saturday morning wake ups which make me want to take a nap right about now, will be worth it.

When I thought about the twins going to school and the stresses we might have to face, trying to get Evan into a CCA that he was interested in trying, never, ever crossed my mind. Such first world problems.

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Coming into their own- Evan

The first weekend of the holidays had the twins going off separately to do their own thing. As twins, they started off doing everything together and being clones of one another. As they got older and because they were first in different classes and then different schools, they began to do different things and go their separate ways. We see this as a good thing. Especially when the things they choose to do are so different.

Evan chose, very excitedly, to go to camp with Packrat. His school organised a Father-Son Camp and Evan wanted badly to sleep in a tent and be at a camp fire. Packrat's response was luke warm, filled with bad memories of NS field camps. But the enthusiasm of his son was something that he couldn't say no to.

So they spent the weekend out in Sembawang where occasionally mobile phones get the "Welcome to Celcom" message.

When he came back, I asked him to write down words and thoughts about the camp. From all that, this is what we surmised.
The things he enjoyed about camp:

1. Playing catch with his friends.
Any time he had while waiting for the next activity to begin, he would do what other 7 year olds did- he played catching with his friends. And they did a lot of that, complete with monkey photos.

2. Skipping.

A first for him where we realised that the kid had remarkable air time. Just like his dad. With such utter glee at that. 

3. Hop Scotch
Both father and son came home raving about Sembawang Park. I guess that's going to be on our holiday 'to-do' list.

4. Eating.
Food is of greatest priority to Evan. He embodies the saying "A hungry man (boy) is a grumpy man (boy)". So as long as he is well fed and his tummy is filled, he's a happy camper.

5. Playing with Papa.
This was what the camp was meant to do. Dad- son bonding and on this alone, they fulfilled the objective, by the buckets. Now more than ever, Evan is Packrat's little shadow, always wanting to hang out with him, do stuff with him and asking for him when he isn't around.



What he didn't like about the camp (much shorter but much more loudly articulated):

1. The toilets
While they weren't spoilt, they weren't clean and there was a smell. So in his words, they were 'disgusting'. He refused to use the toilet if it wasn't necessary and he figured out very quickly when it wasn't necessary.

2. The showers
Open showers with cold water and muddy floors. He declared a moratorium on baths on the second day because he knew I was picking them up late at night. But that meant, the car had an unholy smell to it and the clothes had to go straight into the wash. Leaving it till the next morning would have caused our home to require a HAZMAT team come in to decontaminate it.

Looking dirty and scruffy because of the moratorium on showers

3. Sleeping in tents

While he was all excited to go camping because he could sleep in a tent, he really didn't like sleeping in the tent. It was uncomfortable and he was lying on the ground; despite the yoga mat that I had sent with them and the sleeping bag. When he came home, he rolled around on his bed and relished it, declaring how he missed it.

All in, I'd say the camp was a good thing for him. 

He got to experience 'ponding' first hand when the rains threatened to literally wash the camp away and he was, in a sense, gently pushed beyond his comfort zone; Evan's body shuts down at 8.30pm but at camp they kept going and going and he really didn't have much of a choice so he kept going till he literally crashed.

We tell him how NS would be much more uncomfortable, how Papa won't be there and how he'll be playing catching of another sort with his friends. His response is to pray that there will be no war. He also swears that he isn't going back again, ever. But in spite of that, he wears a huge smile when he looks at the pictures of the camp and he does this repeatedly. He also talks about the camp at every chance he gets.

So, no matter how vociferous his complaints have been about camp, I'm proud of him because no matter how miserable he was when it rained out or uncomfortable it was, he had fun in the things that he did and he never once asked to go home. That to me, is achievement unlocked for Evan.

Perhaps by the time Muffin is his age, he and Packrat (more importantly) will be ready to go again. But then, who am I to say since I wasn't the one out there with him?

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Challenging the stereotypes

One of the most frustrating parts about being a teacher is realising that my students bought lock stock and barrel the racial/ religious stereotypes that were virulent in Singapore. I have lectured, nagged, corrected, ranted and raved at them for making grievous assertions.

Evan came home announcing that there was a food drive in school where they were supposed to bring can food to donate to the underprivileged. While Evan tried to explain the mechanics of the food drive to me, I felt the familiar sensation of my blood boiling. But I had to remind myself that this was my son and he was 7 years old and he was reporting a message he had been told in school.

He had said "We need to buy can food to give to the poor people. And the food must be Halal because the poor people are Muslims."

In my mind, this was a precursor to the ignorant assertions I hear from 17 year olds about how all Muslims are terrorists and all poor people live in Africa. I am very sure that their stereotypes come from bits and pieces of misinformation as well.

I don't think his teacher actually said any of that to him. I suspect the message was that
a. We are running a can food donation drive for the underprivileged.
b. Please make sure the can food is Halal so that if the underprivileged we are going to give the can food to are Muslim, they can eat it too.

So, donning my teacher hat, I proceeded to try to correct the misinformation and explained to him that it wasn't that all poor people were Muslim and that it was so that we could bless everyone equally with our donation.

I could see he was having a bit of a hard time understanding everything I was explaining to him but he tried to correct himself later on. And he was very pleased with the stash of can food he had picked out. Of course, he's footing half the bill so perhaps, when I tell him that he owes me $6, he isn't going to be so pleased.

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