Conquering fears

The nature of a cruise holiday is to do stuff. You have to be distracted or you realise that you're on a big floating device, very far away from land with only miles of ocean in sight. So there are choc-a-block activities for those interested.

Finally, JED are old enough to be interested in doing things. They hung a lot in the pool but at least, this time round, they were willing to try out the 'extreme' (in Evan's words) activities on the ship. It took a lot of convincing on Jordan's part to get her brothers up on the rock wall or into the surf. Both boys are a bit more fearful. They don't like roller coasters, they don't like heights, they don't like anything that will put their lives in danger.

For her, no adrenaline rush, no fun. But for the two more risk averse ones, the fears were plenty.

Rock wall:
What if I fall down?
What if the wind blows me off the ship?
What if I slam into the wall while coming down?
What if I get stuck up there?

With the I-Fly,
1. I don't like the noise (To be fair, it was loud. It was what I'd imagine plane engines sound like up close)
2. What if I get blown up and go splat on the top?
3. What if I get blown out of the chamber?
4. What if I splat on the side of the funnel? (They really have been watching too many cartoons)
5. What if I break my back?

With the Wave Rider,
1. What if my trunks fall off? (Apparently a very real concern)
2. What if water goes up my nose?
3. What if I drown?

But in every single case, their fears didn't materialise and they were ecstatic with relief at being alive after trying it out that more often than not, Evan wanted to do it again.

And now, Evan very proudly tells his friends that he rock climbed, got bounced and hit the wall coming down but survived and has some bruises to show for it.

Muffin's still less sure about it. Adrenaline kicks are over rated in his opinion. But at least, he went at it and did it.

Both, however, drew the line at circus school. Both were convinced they would fall off the trapeze and crack their skulls open.

Needless to say, Jordan was disappointed.

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To the parent of a first time camper

Dear Parent of child going off to camp for the first time,

I recently went through the first of my children going to camp. It was a somewhat surreal experience that I feel I ought to share. In a grand scheme of things, it is in preparation for the mother of all camps, 8 years from now for my eldest boy child.

We knew that it was coming but we didn't think it would be all that bad. After all, she has had sleepovers before.

But everyone did miss her and everyone felt her absence. She's home now though and we're back to regular programming.

There was a sobby (I am assured they were tears of joy) reunion but all is good in my world now and I can now objectively think back to the last three days.

So here's what I've learnt.

1. You will want your child to call home. Don't.
Packrat went to the briefing and reported that teachers were inundated with questions about whether their children could bring air-mattresses, sleeping bags, portable diffusers. They faced disgruntled parents when they informed them that the children would not have access to their mobile phones and that no, they could not queue up to use the coin phone either.

This caused much distress and I think this was where the camp experience differed from a sleepover. A sleepover would have involved the constant exchange between the parents on what funny things the kids were up to and this sometimes included photographs and videos. This time however, there was a complete cut off from our children.

But, now that she's home and she's told me what went on at camp, I think the teachers were indeed wise. After all, they have done this year in, year out.

She told me that she went to the sick bay on the first day. It was a bad headache, despite drinking gallons of water. And she stayed there for 3 hours, napping before she felt better and more human. It was at that point, that I realised that, had she been able to call home or get in touch with me, she would have told me about being in the sick bay, possibly been weepy about it and I would have immediately asked if she needed to come home. There would have been a possibility that she would have said yes and then, the camp would have been a slightly extended version of a day camp.

Because I didn't know, because she had no idea that coming home would have been an option, she got  over herself and her headache and went back out to play.

So, the radio silence was great. It prevented homesick children from indulging in their homesickness and anxious parents from finding reasons to bring said child home early. I suppose if she really were unwell, they would have called me. And headaches, in their book, weren't serious enough to warrant a potentially heart dropping phone call for me to receive.

2. You will want to spy on your child. (See Above)

With 240 ten year olds away from their parents for the first time, there were bound to be anxious parents. And because Singapore is small enough and the camp location was made known to the parents, some showed up, testing their prowess at stealth hunting and paparazzi level stalking. There were also parents who worried that their children needed creature comforts and attempted to show up under the guise of delivering them or simply delivering pizza. Whatever was necessary to gain access to the child. 

I asked her if she saw parents hiding in the bushes or pretending to be trees. After she finished laughing, she looked at me in all seriousness and asked if I had been one of those nosy parents. I said no. She said good. I asked her why. She said it would have been an interference on the part of the parents. She said it would have been embarrassing (She tried to soften the blow by saying she would have been happy to see me but even then...). And she said it was only for 3 days and if she could miss me and didn't beg her teachers to send her home and didn't run away from camp to come find me, I didn't need to stalk and spy on them. 

Basically, she was telling me, in her 10 year old way that she needed this space to grow up. 

Wise one, my first born. 

3. You will underestimate your child. (Ditto the previous point)

Admittedly, I worried. I worried that she wouldn't be able to sleep in a sleeping bag. When I found out that someone snuck in a pillow (I didn't even think of getting her to pack beyond her packing list), I found myself wondering if she could sleep without a pillow. I found many other little things to wonder and worry about. Above all, I worried that she would not have a good time and she would be miserable.

Much as I hate to admit it, Packrat and the teachers were right. She had been fine and she came home brimming with excitement of all her achievements. She told me she abseiled down 7 storeys. She told me that she rolled her jacket into bundle and used it as a pillow. She slept like a baby. She, whose extent of cooking at home was to make a grilled cheese sandwich, was able to cook up her own meals on an open flame. She managed to also successfully put drops into her eyes like we taught her to at home. 

In short, not only did she survive camp, she thrived. 

So, my advice? Cede control, trust the school and child. 

And you'll get all the good bits. You'll get to hear the stories through triumphant rose-tinted glasses, you get to stand anxiously at the school gates waiting for that first glimpse of her and you get to get all the air squeezed out of you when she throws her arms around you and gives you a hug big enough to make up for all the time she was away.

I promise you. It'll be hard to do all these things. But it'll be worth it.

From a parent who survived her child being away at camp.

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Where have the Mogwais gone?

I didn't believe it when other parents told me that ten was the magic number. That it heralded a new stage of parenting. Where a switch gets flipped and cute, obedient young 'uns turn into surly, smart mouth, sassing tweens. It's like in the Gremlins. The Mogwais are cute and adorable and you want them as pets. But heed the warning.

Do not expose the Mogwai to bright lights or sunlight which will kill it, do not let it get wet, and never feed it after midnight. Feeding them after midnight makes the Mogwai turn into a Gremlin. Getting them wet causes them to multiply.

A tween is what you get when you feed the Mogwai after midnight. I think that happened the day the twins turned 10. We must have accidentally fed them at midnight.

Because my formerly sweet-natured twins turned Gremlin-like.

1. Language:
Where did they learn to be rhetorical?
When asked a question, the choice answers are "Obviously", "What do you think?", "Good luck with that."

Fighting words
"You're always cheating!" "I hate him/ her!", "I wish I were dead!"

2. Physical Aggression:
Shoving, hitting, spitting, anything at their disposal. When warned that the sibling might one day hit back, they ignore me. I'm told that they need to feel the physical pain of the sibling turning on them and socking them back as hard as they gave it.

3. The eyes.
Oh the eyes. The eye- rolling. The eye rolling that communicate "Are you kidding me?" "How stupid are you?" "How stupid is that?" "Who died and made you God?" all in a split second of ophthalmic calisthenics. I know it is necessary for tweens to be able to do that and I know JED  have it encoded in them to roll their eyes since I do it so effectively but it's still riling and it's too easy to say "Don't roll your eyes at me, young lady/man" But I run the risk of sounding like my dad.

4. The moods
The moods are getting dark and twisty and thunderous for now apparent reason. It could be all bright and shiny and all of a sudden, thunder clouds gather and we're all at the risk of being stuck and fried by lightning. Mercurial is a nice word to describe the climate in the house. Not quite global warming yet but definitely, climate change big time.

I know it'll get worse when the hormones catch up with the motor-mouths and the poor hapless 7 year old bears the brunt of it. Us adults, we understand treading on egg shells but it's a minefield for Muffin and he's getting a crash course on how one thing that works today won't work tomorrow.

He retaliates the only way he knows how. He matches their tempers and angers with tears but his physical size and 7 year old vocabulary puts him at a disadvantage.

We can only ride it out, shower them with affection when their moods are right, attempt to express understanding and empathy even when they are being difficult and explain why their behaviour isn't what we expect of them.

On days, there is still the sweetness and consideration they showed to each other as siblings.

 

On other days, the tween-ness is reflected in hilarious ways with illustrations that give us an insight about how they are processing information. Even the illustrations are filled with eye rolls.

On other days, I want to dig a hole in the ground and hide from the strafing and indulge in looking at cute baby pictures of them.

 But no such luck. It's about wearing the kevlar and hitting right out into the minefield and hope for the best.

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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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I Wanna Grow Up...

There's been a lot of talk about puberty lately.

For Jordan at least.

It came about because they had a talk in school recently about when it was necessary for girls to wear undergarments. The bits of information she came home with were hilarious and sometimes bordering on misinformation rather than information.


She read the Judy Blume books that deal with it; her favourite being Margaret who wants and NEEDS a bra and talks about getting periods. After the talks in school, she's gone back to reading them again. And I re-read it too because all I remembered from it was the chant, "I must, I must, I must increase my bust!" The charming thing about the book is that even though it's more than 40 years old, the anxieties mirror so clearly what goes on in the mind of a tween today.

Last week, Jordan got into the car and was very, very giggly. Her teacher had passed around a bra for the girls to look at and fiddle with. She went into great detail. One would have thought she had never seen one before!

Two days after, a growth spurt miraculously occurred in class and spread like wildfire across all 40 girls. All of a sudden, she was reporting that every other person in class had started wearing a bra too. I think it had to do very little to do with hormones and very much to do with all the discussion in class. Words are indeed powerful. So naturally, Jordan asked if she could have one too.

                                  

I gave her the same spiel my mother gave me. She'd have her whole life ahead of her to wear a bra. It would be hot to wear one under two layers of uniform as is. She didn't need to be in such a hurry. But there was no stopping her.

I guess if I thought hard enough about it, it was like that for me too, dying to be all growed up and wanting to have all the trappings of being a grown up. Envious of those taller and more mature than I was at that age. And like Jordan, I didn't listen to my mother when she tried to caution haste.

So, here we are. I have a Margaret at home now and I'm pretty sure she's asking God the same questions that Margaret did and promising to be good in exchange for some growth in that area.

And to counter all the misinformation she seems to be getting at school, I have ordered her some books to set the facts straight. The American Girl series for puberty is aptly titled The Care and Keeping of You which I really like because it really does normalise the entire process and answers questions in ways that make sense to these tweens.

While we wait for the books to arrive, I shall just sit back and watch this unfold, quietly lamenting the loss of my baby girl and the appearance of a full-fledged tween. 

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Note leaving

The whole family has taken to leaving notes for each other.

There are various functions for the note-leaving.

For me, it's a case of expediency.

It's convenient, it stops me from nagging till I turn blue in the face and the little reminders do in fact act as little triggers for them to do things. Sometimes we  do it because it's funny and it gets a rise out of them.

Sometimes, it's purely to remind me to do something. Regardless of how much we remind them to pass us stuff to sign the minute they get it, they often only remember just as they are going to bed or when I'm not home. I take comfort in the fact that Evan is very responsible and will remember things told to him so occasionally, I take advantage of it and ask him to leave a note to remind me to for instance, "pick his sister at 3 pm".

Tangentially, Evan needs better handwriting because he wouldn't really know if I 'sighed' on the form.

     

 

Other times, they do it because they've done something wrong and it's easier to confess it on paper than to face the music. Muffin has recently discovered the joys of procrastinating. So he'll read and sit and play even if he has work to do. A few days ago, despite the fact that he didn't do anything else and spent a good 4 hours just sitting at his desk (only to get up for the bathroom and have dinner) he hadn't finished his Chinese homework which included a five pages of exercises and two pages of writing. His siblings, having more experience with the wrath of mom 'orrhhed' at him to the point that he trembled with fear and then ominously warned him of imminent punishment i.e. (Mummy is going to kiiiiiilll you). In an attempt to pre-emptively placate a potentially angry mummy and avoid sudden 'death', he left a note on his board with multiple "very"s to highlight his recalcitrant behaviour. 

Procrastination at work

Unlike her brothers who leave notes for purely functional reasons, Jordan leaves me notes for everything. To tell me what happened in the day, to recount something bad that had happened, prayer requests, to apologise to me for sassing me, everything.

Funny how they don't leave Packrat notes.

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Revisiting Melbourne

We've been wanting to go back to Melbourne for a very long time. We moved back to Singapore close to 15 years ago and haven't been back for 10 years. Since JED were now old enough to appreciate Melbourne as where "Mommy and Daddy met and went to school", we thought it was a good time to do it.

We didn't expect to feel as nostalgic as we did when we got there. So this post is basically Melbourne, through our eyes, as opposed to the subsequent post, which will be Melbourne, through the eyes of JED.

What we generally did was to re-trace our lives in Melbourne, right from touch down.

There was
1. Breakfast at Thresherman's. 
We didn't eat here on a daily basis because we were poor students but on the occasion or when there was family in town, we'd come here for brunch. It was a 5 minute walk from our house. I remember giant fruit salad take away bowls, hot soup in the winter and farmer's breakfasts. Incidentally, when we bought the farmer's breakfast for JED, they complained it tasted weird. When we tried it, we realised that their definition of weird was our definition of 'fresh'.
 

2. Uni of course.
Because we were at Thresherman's, we were close to uni and since we couldn't check in to our apartment, we went to uni for a walk around. That's when all the feels came flooding back.

To humour JED, we recreated a photo we took when we got engaged and we took a photo at the stop light where we first met.

But for us, it was walking around, remembering what it was like to walk through the various buildings and hallways on the way to lectures, marvelling about the things that hadn't changed and the buildings that were new, bright and shiny.

There is something about old buildings, blue skies and trees that makes the heart rate slow and the blood pressure drop a bit.

3. The old apartment

No trip down memory lane would be complete without visiting the old house. We pointed out to the twins where we would BBQ, where we kept our dog for a while, where Packrat and their Uncle's bedroom was. We told them about Barry the neighbourhood cat who would surely be dead by now though it didn't stop us from looking in the same places that he would hang out.

3. Food

I warned Packrat that when it came to food, we might be a bit disappointed because we were students on a budget then and now that we are a bit older and more discerning, it could possibly be a case of "What did I just put in my mouth?".

There was Italian at Sofia's where it was about mass rather than quantity as well as taking up the challenge of the giant gelato. Even with 9 people, we didn't manage to finish the gelato nor the food but everyone was happy and left in a blissfully stupourous state.

There was also Vietnamese many times over, steaks for our carnivorous tribe and some Chinese thrown in for familiarity sake. For Packrat and myself, souvalkis were necessary because souvalkis remind us of our first real date. Unfortunately, it was a truly a situation where the eyes were larger than the tummy because we couldn't finish the souvalkis. We forgot to take into account the difference between 20 year old's and a 40 year old's appetite.

4. Friends

No pictures here but meeting up with ex students who have lived in Melbourne for longer than I did as well as ex-classmates was on the agenda. We visited their homes, ate where they ate and did what they did. Not touristy at all. In fact, it was these meet ups where we learnt of the reality that Melbourne is actually more costly to live than Singapore, that housing, transportation and even food ($3 for a box of plain rice is daylight robbery) is as costly if not more than in Singapore. A nice reality check for the grass is always greener sentiments.

And then, for me, there was
5. Ballet.

Not specifically for me but for Jordan, to meet my old ballet teacher and to take class in my old ballet school. Time stood still in the ballet school, right down to the carpeting and the ballet studios. Even the teachers. Jordan got to meet my old teacher and take some classes with her. What she taught Jordan, watching her teach class and instilling the same discipline and etiquette I remember from all those years ago, I felt I was an undergrad and the years had melted away. But I wasn't.

10 days of re-tracing our steps and then we had to pack up and come back to reality. But while it lasted, it was good.

Some would say that the past should stay in the past. But I think that occasionally, it's a good thing to touch base with the past. It reminds us of simpler times, what it's like to slow down a little bit, not to get too caught up in the things that actually don't matter and laugh some.

 

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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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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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Childlike enthusiasm

The nice thing about having kids is to see the world through their eyes rather than our own cynical ones.

In the last week or so, despite the fact that the twins have been ramping up for exams, they've been very excited about things happening in school. Things that an adult would yawn and roll eyes at.

For Evan, it's an emergency preparedness exercise. He's filled with importance because it's his job to lock all the windows and draw the blinds. And we all know how important that job is especially since Mas Selamat climbed out of an unlocked one.

He also very conscientiously packed his 'lock down' bag full of supplies (enough food and water for himself and some friends, how considerate). We were all briefed. There would be a cryptic message that they'll have to listen out for, along the lines of "The chicken has flown the coop, catch it!" that begins the lock down and a similarly innocuous "All clear" signal as well. So there were muttered prayers for good weather because any sort of attack on a school would only occur when there is good weather.

Jordan, on the other hand, has been a jumping bean because she got roped into auditioning for one of Packrat's student's film project. She thinks she's going to be on TV. She asks everyday if we've heard from the student. We tell her not to get her hopes up. We tell her that she won't be on TV or famous. But she can't hear that, while bouncing around excitedly.

At the same time, there's a concert in school. Where they get to sing and play the ukelele. I'm not sure how good she is at playing it or singing for that matter but every spare moment of the day has been dedicated to strumming and singing.

I would really like to be in school to watch both events happen but short of a Big Brother camera in school, I can only wait for them to recount them to me.

I like that they get excited over these little things. And their excitement is so genuine, you can't help get infected by it. Especially when half the time, we're snippy, cynical and critical of things around us like Trump managing to fail Easter.

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Books in the wild

One of the happy problems we have in the house is that we don't have enough shelf space. Even though we trade books with friends, we go to the library and second hand book stores, we still have enough books to run a library out of our house. With 3 kids of different age or interest, there are a lot of different kinds of books in the house. There are books everywhere. Our dining table could be piled high with books and JED would add on more.

Like I say, it's a happy problem to have.

I love that all 3 read. It's the advantage of having a no TV, no gadget rule in the house. There's not much else to do especially at meal times. The grandparents have complained that it's disrespectful to read at the dinner table. So I tell JED that they can read when they are eating alone but when the family sits down for dinner, there are to be no books.

So, anyway, books, all around.

Friends have asked for ideas on what to get their kids to read and frankly I don't know. I look at required book lists (sometimes the books on these lists need to be re-looked at!), browse through curated lists of bloggers and read reviews of books to get a feel of what's out there but it doesn't always work. A best-seller might be a best seller with many kids but not necessarily JED.

I asked them to pick a bunch of their favourite books right now, books that they might want their friends to read as well and this is what they came up with.

We start with the littlest. Perhaps in the last 6 months or so has Muffin taken to reading on his own and reading chapter books. Part of it is him seeing his siblings do it. He still likes pictures in his books but he's less intimidated by the word-picture ratio skewing greatly toward the words rather than pictures. He likes humour, toilet humour, silly humour, laugh out loud ha-ha humour. His favourites right now are junior chapter series like Eerie Elementary (which he has independently drawn parallels to Harry Potter), the Yeti Files (where he learnt the word Cryptid; a creature that has been hidden and there's no proof of its existence) and ha-ha funny Kung-Pow Chicken complete with all its puns. When he reads, the world disappears and he won't know if you're yelling for him because there's a fire.

It's still hard for him to read. He would still rather play with his Lego but more and more so, when the house is quiet and we seek him out, he's hiding somewhere reading.

Evan.
Evan's an action reader. He likes action in his books. Something has to be happening. His perennial favourites are still the Potter books which I have no issue with but his repertoire has definitely expanded since last year. There's still the silly Wimpy Kid books that he likes but he has also taken to Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider. I had a lot to do with that because I liked them too and I would read them and tell him excitedly what was going to happen in the book I was reading. And he would read to find out. That's been fun for us; conversations about Alex Rider. He's also dabbled with Famous Five and the adventures series for the same reasons. Strangely though, he's not so keen to read the Morpurgo books because his writing is based during the wars and he doesn't like suffering. When I asked why he chose these books to feature, he said that a lot of the other books he reads, his sister or brother would also choose. So these were the ones that were quintessentially him.

And then there's Jordan; the one who doesn't do toys anymore and lamented the fact that she didn't get enough books for Christmas and too many clothes.

Her reading repertoire is anything she gets her hands on. She loves her graphic novels and reads and re-reads them. She loves her Land of Stories fantasy genre books and the Morpugo books I got for Evan, she read them. I asked if she felt sad for the characters and her reply was that sometimes but they always learnt to live on (life lesson there). The book that recently got to her was Wonder about a kid her age having to go to school but having severe crano-facial deformities and how he struggled in school. 3/4 way through it, I found her reading Beezus and Ramona and she said she needed a break  to read something not so sad. She's since finished Wonder and has gone to immerse herself in some fantasy because I think the real world got too real for her. A friend of ours gave us Graveyard Book for the twins as a birth present. Literally, at birth. Coraline and Graveyard Book were their keepsakes and she recently finished Graveyard Book. We listened to it in the car too and I just want to say, Neil Gaiman's voice is a nice voice. The book though, is heartbreakingly sad but it did occur to me that all these things are sad because I'm an adult and I see it through the eyes of a mom or with the understanding of the suffering or pain. For them, for most part, it's just a story.

Tangentially, we're teaching the twins to take public transport. When the time comes for us to allow them onto public transport on their own, Packrat has decreed that Jordan shall not be allowed to bring a book. Because if she does, she might accidentally find herself in Pasir Ris because for her, the world does melt and disappear when she reads.

So there, the books that are currently inundating my house and surfacing in strange places like under my pillow and in my bathroom. I suspect I enable a lot of this too because I'm constantly adding books into my Amazon cart and similar to them being in the library, new books magically appear on the shelves.

I am, afterall, the Book Santa and the acquirer of books from the library.

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Conversations in the car

I've read so many articles about car rides being the best opportunity to talk to our children. Something about being in the car, in transit, the enclosed space that makes it ideal. I must add, however, that this only works when there isn't traffic to contend with.

Anyway, JED spend a lot of time listening to audio books in the car. Because of that, there is quiet and Packrat and I can catch up with one another. But sometimes, it's also nice to not have anything on and just chat with which ever kid in the car.

With Evan, his sentimentality and soft side surfaces during these conversations.

Evan: My class was very sad today.

Mommy: Why? Did you get punished?

Evan: We had to set free our tank full of mealworms.

Mommy: But they've become meal-bugs right? (Mommy is not very precise with science terms)

Evan: Not all. Some of them are still meal-babies (picking up from me) and some are still pupa. So they are helpless against the birds.

Mommy: I think that's what happens to bugs in the wild.

Evan: Yes, these are spoilt meal bugs. In class, they have 40 boys who squash every ant that goes near them. We have made them helpless and now, we're sending them into the wild to die!

 Yes, it's an analogy to something bigger but I didn't think it was the right time while he was having 'empty tank syndrome'.

This morning, it was Jordan.

She was talking about how Mommy was her best sleep buddy. I apologised that there are days that I can't tuck her in because I'm at work but when I can, I would. And so the conversation ensued.

Mommy: Anyway, at some point, you're going to be too big for me to tuck you in. Imagine if you were married and I came to tuck you into bed. Your husband wouldn't be amused. (visions of Love you Forever- the book that creeped me out because the mum would sneak into her adult kid's room at night to sing lullabies to him came to mind!)

Jordan: Okay, then you can sleep next door.

Mommy: Erm, you'll need to check with your husband on that okay? He may not want your parents in the same house.

Jordan: I'll need to start thinking critically now. For a good reason. Like.... My father makes good ribs.

Mommy: He'll say we can go over to your parents to have good ribs.

Jordan: Okay, maybe if he doesn't agree, we can live near you and pop by whenever we have time. But I think it'll be better if you live with us.

Dear Jordan's Future husband,
You've been forewarned.
Don't say I never tell you.

Yours,
Jordan's Mom. 

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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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Cinderella Syndrome

Jordan suffers from the Cinderella Syndrome.

She keeps losing her shoes.

Unfortunately, there isn't a Prince Charming that comes knocking at the door to fit her shoe on her foot.

I don't think he would waste his time.

She keeps losing her school shoes. Those aren't couture enough for Prince Charming to bother with.

At Primary 1 orientation, we were told to label our children's belongings. We were told repeatedly. And it wasn't just to label their books and bottles but their uniforms and shoes.

Even better if we did their socks too.

To illustrate their point, they told us about how children would return home with only one shoe on and none the wiser. It sounded like an urban legend that spread from generation to generation and got wilder and more exaggerated with each re-telling.

Then one day after gym, Jordan climbs into the car and just before we drive off, she squeals for the car to stop and hops out, running back to the gym. Bewildered, we wait for her to reappear. Panting, she explains that she forgot her slippers and was about to go home barefoot.

Okay.

Perhaps, it's a gymnast thing. After all, they spend all their time bare feet and they get used to the feel of the ground under their very very very black feet. So it doesn't occur to them that anything is amiss when they leave without their original footwear.

Since then, she's lost 2 pairs of school shoes. We've figured that there is a higher possibility for her to lose her shoes because she takes them off. Which means, there's a higher possibility she leaves them somewhere and not take them with her. The agreement has been that her allowance will be docked, to help pay for new shoes. Especially since they were brand new, this last time round.

If only she did a sport where she could keep her shoes on. It would be cheaper for everyone involved. In so so so many ways!

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Fake news

JED hear snippets of things in school. They aren't all right because there's the 'telephone game' effect where things get lost in translation.

They tell it to each other and then, it must be true because they are not the only ones who know it. (self-perpetuating prophecy)

Their version of the world is a hilarious one.

Jordan: A King got poisoned.
Me: Really? In one of your stories?
Jordan: No, in an airport. A king got poisoned in an airport and died.
Me: A KIM got poisoned. A guy, his name was KIM, he got poisoned in the airport and died.

That led to a whole discussion about North Korea and somehow the conversation led to North Korea having nuclear weapons.


Me: The world gets very upset when North Korea tests its nuclear weapons.
Evan: What do you mean test?
Me: They launch it to see how far it can fly and whether it can hit its target.
Evan (slightly disturbed): Where do they test it? 
Me: Usually, they launch it over water.
Evan: Then the missile drops into the water and everything explodes?
Jordan: Then BOOM, all the fish die?
Me: Yes or they mutate with 3 eyes.

Muffin (walking in): What? There are 3 eyed fish in North Korea? Cool!

A little while later.
Jordan (singing): There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
Me: What?
Jordan: The nuclear missile hit the sea. So there's a hole in the bottom of the sea!

Alternative News.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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A $1.60 lesson

Muffin's turned 7.

How did that happen?

Anyway, he really is growing up and we're seeing signs of it everywhere.

1. He's become more shy with strangers though still extremely cheeky and rubber-faced with us.

2. At the same time, he's become more rambunctious. Rough playing with his friends and having a whale of a time.

3. He's learning to problem solve quite effectively.
When daunted, this small one finds a way around it. Faced with difficult words to spell, he doesn't give up taking down information as would have some of my other kids, he approximates. So his school diary is a hoot to read and it has to be read out loud so that we know what word he's phonologically spelled out.

4.  He's learning to be responsible.
He's also learning that whining and obsessing about a problem doesn't help him. His wallet strap broke as a result of rough-housing with his friends. I hear later that his friend is the one that broke it. But all Muffin did was to be matter-of-fact about it. He tells me his wallet strap broke and could he have $1.60 to buy a new one.

It did puzzle me how he knew it was $1.60.

His friend's mom filled in the blanks when she apologetically told me that her son broke it. Apparently, the strap broke during recess. All the boys were stunned and wondered if they were going to get into trouble or if Muffin would cry. Muffin didn't. He suggested going to the bookstore to see if he could buy another. They discovered it was $1.60. However,  this was post recess meal and all the boys, Muffin included, on emptying out their wallets discovered they didn't have $1.60 to pool together.

So Muffin decided he would break into his savings and buy one for himself. When the boy came to school with a replacement for Muffin, Muffin declined. He said he had his own money and he'd buy it for himself, otherwise his friend would be short of one for himself. Another of their friends was clamouring for it and Muffin suggested he give it to the other friend.

The story amused me but also made my day. Muffin is truly growing up and he's growing up great.

With this figured out, who really needs to learn how to spell neighbourhood?

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Flunking

One of the things that kids today are not allowed to do a lot of is to fail. We try our darndest to protect them against failing. Offering them pre-emptive help, berating them for failing and instilling the fear of failing in them because that leads to them not doing well and not doing well causes them to not be able to get into good schools and not getting into good schools causes them to not get good jobs and then they will be broke and homeless. Or so the cautionary tale goes.

It's hard not to get sucked into it. It's so much part of our vocabulary. It leaves our lips before we can stop ourselves.

One of JED came home with a badly done math paper and hides it from us. Another of JED calls from school to dejectedly inform me of failing Chinese. Another had an entire page of math streaked with angry red crosses.

How do we respond?

The immediate, instinctive reaction is the Tiger Mom one.
1. To be accusatory: WHY DID YOU FAIL?
2.  To be reactive: More with the tuition!
3. To be punitive: No more toys, no more TV.
4. To be self-flagellating: It's my fault. I haven't done enough work with them. I haven't been home enough.

But then, when those thoughts have been processed, the lingering question is "To what end?". Would more tuition help? Would punishment help? Would my sitting beside them all the time be of advantage to them?

Then the more reasonable Mom struggles to take control.
1. Failing is good. At least JED learn to fail. Learn to cope with failing. I did have a 'gua gua gua' moment when the math paper was discovered. Because that's something so rare in our lives.
2. Failing allows for introspection. Why did they fail? Lack of preparation? Lack of comprehension? Lack of motivation?
3. Failing allows for longer term solutions. How can it be fixed? Should WE fix it? Or should the child learn to fix it?

The latter is really hard to do. It isn't as solution-oriented. The outcomes take a long time to surface. And we really do struggle to not be reactive. It's so easy to panic. It's so easy to get sucked into the vortex of grade obsession.

So the important thing is for us to remember is that in the larger scheme of things, what's failing a test in primary school? What's failing a test full stop? Do we do more harm than good when we prevent them from failing when it isn't of great consequence? Conversely, would a perfect school record be indicative of anything else later on in life?

What are we going to do about the little fails that JED have encountered?
1. We've figured that the math fail was about being reluctant to go the distance. To read the question in its entirety. To slowly break it down. When we sit at the table and help deconstruct the question, everything works. Unfortunately, exam entry usually prohibits a parent sitting beside the child so said child just has to learn to do it without us there. How do we do that? Model the sum and set many others. As with sport, much of math is about repetitive memory. Hopefully.

2. Chinese- well, that's an uphill battle. When I've figured out that one, you'll be the first to know.

3. Fearing the fails- The constant reiteration that they have to tell us if they don't do well because we need to work with them to figure out why it happened. Hiding it from us does none of that. They also need to take responsibility for the fail. And also the undying promise to each of them that we love them for who they are and not what they can do. That while we may berate them when they don't do well, it doesn't take away from how much we love them.

To which, all 3 dissolved into puddles of grateful tears of relief.

For us, when JED fail, we have to learn to not take it personally and by 'we', I actually mean me because Packrat is more chill about it. And the most important question to ask is...

"So, what's next?"

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A love story

This is a story about a duck and an elephant.

Duck Duck and Amelia (Ellie for short) were given to twin babies 10 Christmases ago. Duck Duck went to the boy and Ellie to the girl. Both of them loved the twins immediately and adopted them as pets. Duck Duck and Ellie were inseparable from their pets.

They went on the same dream adventures, possibly because they slept with their pets every single night and when their pets got older, they went on real adventures together.

The rule though was that if they were to sleep together with their pets, every week, they had a bath so that they would always be fresh and clean.

Duck Duck and Ellie were a source of comfort for their pets and they would always be sought out when their pets were upset or ill. Their pets would also include them in the games and Duck Duck and Ellie were happy. Duck Duck was always amused when they played Duck Duck Goose and would look suspiciously around to see if a Goose actually showed up.

As their pets got older, they included Duck Duck and Ellie in a lot more things. Both became very well-read as their pets read to them. Duck Duck's favourite books included Super Diaper Baby and the Tree House Series and Ellie was warned not to be like her name sake naughty Amelia Jane. Occasionally, they stowed away to school though that happened more with Ellie than Duck Duck.

And when their pets went on vacation, Duck Duck and Ellie got to go as well. Both of them have their own passports and thankfully, when they travelled to the United States with their pets, there wasn't any of the current nonsense about visas and aliens from other countries. Their pets would have been very distressed if they were told that Duck Duck and Ellie could not enter the country with them.

 

 

Now, the problem was that Duck Duck and Ellie were growing old and they were beginning to look their age. Their frequent baths had made their skins a lot thinner. Ellie had even gone to Build-A-Bear one day to get stuffed because she was rapidly losing weight. It had been gently suggested that Duck Duck and Ellie take residence by the side of the bed and start to take things a little bit slower; perhaps not travel as much and to cut back on rigorous activities which included bathing.

But their pets who loved them dearly were heartbroken to even think about Duck Duck and Ellie in that way. "We don't want anyone else!" they cried, sobbing their hearts out. "No one can ever replace them!" they wailed.

Both Duck Duck and Ellie have promised their pets that they'll still be around and will still love them but perhaps, as their pets grow older themselves, to perhaps just hang out at home and lead quieter lives. Their pets would have nothing to do with that though they have been noticeably a lot gentler and a lot more loving with the two seniors in their lives.

For never has there been a story of more love than this of Duck Duck, Ellie and their twin pets.

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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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Odyssey

There's been radio silence.

There's a reason for it. Every couple of years, we take the kids on what has become a traditional odyssey of sorts.

To date, our odysseys have been to the North American continent and this one was no different.

It was meant to herald the beginning of Muffin's primary school life. We did a similar one to Hawaii when the twins were entering primary school.

Our vacation this time was unabashedly non-educational. There was going to be no value in it in terms of exposing them to new lands, new cultures, geography or scenery. We went with one intention; to go on the Disney Cruise, which itself was just about indulgence and comfort. Add on to that, being in the theme park city of the world, we spent the rest of our time in theme parks, riding roller coasters and soaking in everything make believe and computer generated. In other words, we did not go to the United States, we went on a themepark holiday.

But JED had a great time as did we. And it wasn't true that they didn't learn anything. This trip was a first for them in many ways.

1. They had to look after themselves and they did so in a myriad of ways.
In Orlando, they slept in the upstairs bedroom while we were downstairs. They were in charge of getting themselves ready in the morning without any prompting. Many a morning, they appeared at my bedroom door all ready to head to the parks.

2. They had to look after each other.
On occasion, we would leave them alone to get groceries, get dinner and even do a spot of shopping. My paranoid imagination had them fighting and hurting each other or me coming home to a house on fire. But none of that played up. They watched TV, cleared the table at the designated time (as monitored by Evan), brought everything into the kitchen with no mess and nothing broken (supervised by Jordan) and then trooped up to wash up (closely watched by a hawk-like Muffin).

3. They looked after their own things.
For children who have a helper in the house, they can be awfully spoilt and messy. But on vacation and with my declaration that I wasn't going to pick up after them, after the nth time they were unable to find their toys or their pyjamas smelt funky because they left them in a pile together with a wet towel, almost everything got folded away or put away nicely. It wasn't perfect but it was good enough.

Granted, there was the non-Facebook- non Disneyfied version. That included
a) a bout of food poisoning which required a jab and quarantine
b) a hacking cough (that lasted all holiday and made it back 3 continents)
c) bad food (Poor Chinaman Muffin had nothing much to eat except for fries, hash browns, sausages and chicken tenders and even that got old quite quickly)
d) the occasional bad weather (either too hot or too cold)
e) too much walking causing exhausted, painful feet, whiny children too heavy to carry
g) bad airport queues causing us to almost miss on flights on multiple occasions
f) 13 hour long transatlantic flights with our girl child who was unable to sleep, kept throwing up and eventually only settled sleeping on the cabin floor at the back of the plane.

But even then, we miss it.

So, posterity, the a video that JED and Packrat worked very hard to make.



It'll be a holiday we all will be talking about for a long time to come.

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