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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The child becomes the teacher

Muffin has effectively completed the first term of Primary One. He's doing okay. He takes on everything with his usual cheeky outlook on life. Like his siblings before him, he isn't too big on homework.

Being the third child through primary education with older siblings whose academic demands regularly floor me, he ends up drawing the short end of the straw. On so many occasions, I've forgotten the spelling and ting xie and remember only to ask him the day after it's tested in school.

So I try to remember.

If I forget, I deputise one of the twins to go through his spelling with him. That often sends him to tears because there is actually something worse than the tiger mom. The Tiger Sister who is stricter and more demanding than the mom. She will berate him in a tone worthy of the Tiger Mom and lay down her strict expectations of his corrections.

But that's where the difference ends.

Unlike the Tiger Mom, the Tiger Sis will be taken in by his tears. She will cave and will try and carry  him. That's when she'll change her tact and surprisingly coax him into trying again. She's has also learnt that yelling at him doesn't work so she tries to be a little bit more encouraging so that she doesn't have to deal with his tears.

His worksheets then end up having encouraging words planted all over like her teacher does for her, I suppose. And she gets him to re-learn the spelling words he isn't clear of on the white board or with magnetic letters which I used to do for her.

In short, she has learnt some pedagogy.

He'd just as soon not do it if given the choice. His toys are still a big thing for him and he still spends long hours just re-connecting with his Lego and his Transformers toy or reading. 

So it's a fine line that we tread on. To make sure that he revises the stuff he has to for school but to give him time to read and be silly. This is where the Tiger Sis empathises with him and totally caves in; when he looks at her with puppy eyes and says he wants to just spend some time reading.

The young teacher still has much to learn.

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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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Unknown rewards

Jessica Lahey in her book, A Gift of Failure, tries to convince helicopter parents to wean off extrinsic rewards for behaviour. She asserts that this stunts the growth mindset in children where they do things because they are trying to figure things out rather than because they get rewarded for it. While I find it hard to adopt everything she says, I fully agree with her ideas.

She also talks about how, if it was necessary to reward, the rewards had to be inconsistent and rare enough not to form a pattern.

Fast forward to this upcoming weekend. Packrat and I are away this weekend. JED want to know if they can watch TV while we are away. As we are not around, we felt that it was only fair to put that decision into the ones who were caring for them in our absence. The twins were told that their TV privileges would only be made known to them during the weekend. How that decision was going to be made, was a secret. Not very democratic and transparent but child rearing rarely ever is.

These uncertainties brought about a sea change in their behaviour. Instead of the regular bickering and occasional-come-to-blows responses to each other, in the split second after the aforementioned pronouncement about television was made, they became helpful siblings who looked out for each other and were accommodating of each other.

When Muffin dropped his cup, Jordan scrambled to get it and Evan rushed to rinse it out as opposed to the usual "Muffin, why are you so clumsy?" accusation. The twins also wrote down a list of household duties that needed to be done and split it amongst themselves.


They even elected to read to Muffin before they fell asleep.

All this because they know that their TV privileges depended on their behaviour. But they weren't sure which aspects of their behaviour mattered the most. Being helpful, being caring and considerate, being nurturing, being neat... they didn't really know. So in face of the uncertainty, they did everything. We're not sure if it's sustainable but it's been interesting to see how they responded and we'll see what all the good intentions amount to by the time we get back.

At the same time, I'm leaving them a big series of books to hopefully distract themselves.

It's a lot less mess and less painful to clear up than leaving them Lego.

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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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An Ad Campaign

One of the series of books that JED have been incredibly enthralled by is Judy Blume's Fudge series. The dad in the book is in advertising (this series was obviously written in a different era) and there are references to advertisements, jingles and selling products in the book.

At the same time, I've been meaning to make some insect repellent out of essential oils. Today, I sat down and did it while they were doing their homework. Naturally, JED wanted to know what I was doing and wanted to help. While doing that, I asked if they wanted to come up with a name for the repellent I was making. That was how it started. JED, Jordan and Evan especially, wanted to 'invent' a new product to sell (In one of the books, Fudge as a pre-schooler obsesses about how he can make money). So we started talking about how to go about doing that.

With my sketchy knowledge about advertising, I talked them through the 3 phases.
1. Create the product.
2. Market the product.
3.  Sell the product.

Phase 1- Create the product.
1. We talked about the important features of what we were doing. We were going to create insect repellent. It would be made from essential oils. It would keep away mosquitoes and bugs. We needed a name for it. They came up with Monster Bug Spray and put it to a vote. It was a unanimous decision (Unanimous, a word they learnt from the book)

Here's the recipe.
- 14 oz of witch hazel
- 15 drops of citronella oil
- 12 drops of lavender oil
- 15 drops of lemongrass oil
- 15 drops of tea tree oil

They were little apothecaries. They dripped the oils with a little pipette and Muffin helped me pour the mixture into smaller bottles. They loved the smells of the oils wafting. They loved being the testers as I smeared overflowed drops onto them. Muffin made labels for the bottles carefully including a picture of a monster on each one before sticking them on.

Once we were done, Jordan and Evan insisted we start trying to sell it.

Phase 2- Market it.

I told them that people would only buy a product if they knew about it. So they had to advertise it and convince people that they needed it and how their lives would be much worse if they didn't. Jordan suggested making a poster to place outside our house (print media). Evan suggested making a video and posting it on Facebook (audio-visual and social media) so people knew about it.

 

(Watch till the end where there's even a wink!)

They wrote out the ad so that they wouldn't forget the lines. I added suggestions.
1. Speak in short sentences.
2. Make it catchy.
3. Have a slogan. (I had to explain what a slogan was so I showed them Nike's Just Do It and MacD's I'm lovin' it! slogans)

I give them credit for trying to incorporate all that into the script including a slogan at the end.
"Monster Bug Spray! Keeps the bugs away!"

Then they set up the scene for the advertisement. They moved in chairs and turned on the lights. Jordan wore a For Sale T-shirt and a wink. Evan, more introverted, gamely played her assistant but chimed in with a smile here and a word there. All I had to do was video it. So I did, trying my best not to let my giggles wobble the phone too much.

Phase 3- Sell it.

This is where we're at currently. Jordan's poster advertised that our current promotion was "Buy 1, Get 2 Free" whittled down from "Buy 1, Get 3 Free" which I told them would make us no money and we'd probably lose money that way.

We're going to put up the poster on our main door to attract customers apparently. Its attraction is that it's natural and home made by the family. I'm to put the video on FB (They've learnt of the existence of FB) so that the people who don't live around us will know about it and come from all over the world to buy it. (Fat hope.)

I'm not sure how many bottles we'll sell if any. I told JED that we'd have to trial it first to make sure it did indeed keep the bugs away (otherwise our advertisements would be lying) and the Health authorities would probably want to check that we didn't put anything bad in it. But whatever it is, we have a Beta version now.

Their first product and ad campaign, Monster Bug Spray ©️JED coming to a chemist near you, all in a day's work. I don't think we'll win a Clio Award though.

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Comic Drawing: The new past time

Part of JED's reading diet consists of my entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes as well as science comics. I'm not averse to letting them read comics though I have had people 'tsk!' me and tell me that they ought to be reading 'proper' books.

They love comics. They love Calvin. They want to get up to the same sort of shenanigans that Calvin gets up to like bathing in the toilet bowl (No.) . I remember all those years in college chuckling at Calvin and Hobbes and love that they derive such joy from it, though I suspect they don't get everything at this point.

Anyway, they all try to draw comics. It can't be that hard to write a story in a few panels, they think. They succeed to varying degrees but only Jordan will let me photograph them.

Then I find this link that provides blank comic templates. They have panels with speech/ thought bubbles and they have some with more panels and some with less. I print a stack and bring them home.

There is silence for 30 minutes with a lot of sniggering and Jordan produces this. Evan produces a self-deprecating one with his last panel ending off with a stick boy thinking "Scrap!" and cannot stop chuckling. But he crushes it up and throws it away, promising me a more coherent one soon. They beg for more comic paper.

I teach them to sign their names at the bottom of the strip like Watterson did. And I tell them how much I enjoy reading their comics, because I genuinely do.

And the best part is that they are each other's biggest fans. They wait anxiously for each other to finish and grab it from under the pen to read it. They chuckle, they laugh, they discuss how to make it funnier and that makes them laugh some more (it is often toilet humour, but I pretend not to hear it.)

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Lesson learnt

Despite the fact that it is a universally accepted truth that children in Primary One have no exams, there are these things called mini-tests. And in my book, when we are told ahead of time that there is a 'mini' test, files are sent home so that they can revise for it and that we are told that it will be a certain percentage of their final grade, IT IS AN EXAM. An exam by any other name is still an exam.

They did it mid-year too but since they had only been in school 5 months give or take at that point, the twins had no problems with it. This recent one, culminating the entire year's work required much more revision and because there was more to test, it was also a longer paper.

They survived relatively unscathed, except for their Chinese paper.

What we took away from it.

a. There is actually wisdom in setting practice papers for the children to do. Mistakes that were carelessly made were not specific to but more endemic to the end of the paper where I suspect they were mentally exhausted from the effort. Practice papers however, have to be timed. I should have known this. I have spent a lot of time doing this with my students but I had been under the false impression that kidlet exams didn't require the same amount of mental endurance.

b. Being pedantic is important. So many marks were lost because of punctuation and where upper case letters were required but were absent.

c. Reading instructions are important, even if it were in a language they aren't competent in. Or, the level of competence needed for Chinese had to be at least where they could read the instructions. Jordan dropped an entire grade because she chose to write the characters of the words rather than the number of the word, as specified. And because she had written the word inaccurately (see pt b.), marks got docked for it despite her knowing the answer.

d. We ought to allow our kids to get what they deserve. I wanted badly to go to school and take it up (see pt c.) with the teacher. After all, she did get the answer right. But two things stopped me.

i. The teacher could easily have decided that she should have docked all the marks in the section because Jordan hadn't followed instructions. Then, rather than helping her gain a better grade, I would have caused her to drop yet another grade.

ii. The girl's gotta learn. Stupid things like that can cost dearly. And in national exams eventually, the papers do not get returned for checking so making a mistake like that would mean irrevocable consequences.

So, she has had to stick with her- 1 mark shy of a higher grade- mark.

e. We know where their weaknesses are now. One of the things about assessment is that if done properly (meaning they test what has been taught rather than toss something out from left field at them), it can act as an indicator of what the child knows and doesn't know. So, instead of teaching ahead as Singaporean logic would dictate, we're going to spend an hour every day during the holidays building on what they haven't got a good grasp of. That way, they'll still have to listen in class at the beginning of next year and they might get a bit better at their multiplication and division. That's the plan.

Of course, the egos of my two 7 yos have deigned P1 work for babies. They can't wait to not be at the bottom of the school. Our response thus far has been, show me work with no mistakes then we'll break out some P2 stuff. Though in truth, if they could show us stuff without mistakes then they ought to use that time to read all those wonderful books on the shelves.

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The Sound of a Story

Books are a sensitive thing these days. The purists worry that the E-Book or the movie adaptation would stop people from reading the book book. I worry too, that my kids will not want to read because there are such easy alternatives. This is despite the fact that our house looks like a library and there are books everywhere.

But I discovered that it doesn't have to be an 'either...or' situation.

When we were in Perth and spent a lot of time driving, we discovered the best way to stop them for squabbling and asking the perennial "Are we there yet?" question was to put on stories for them. We had brought a set of Roald Dahl audio books with us.  And the minute we put them on, they were spell bound. We were spell bound. Packrat and I forgot to use the opportunity to chat with each other because we were intently listening to the stories of Charlie (and the Chocolate Factory), James (and the Giant Peach) and Danny (the Champion of the World) as well.

We didn't think it would last beyond the trip but they're still at it. Every time they are in the car, they ask for the various stories. We've since loaded more stories on for them. 

But it's also started them reading the books that previously would not hold their attention past the pictures.

Evan's favourites are The Charlie books though I have my reservations about the Glass Elevator which really reads like a sequel.

Jordan loves The Fantastic Mr Fox.

Both of them try to do different voices like the story tellers. Their latest is a really weird, Texas twang fake American accent like the president in Charlie and the Glass Elevator. And now, they head straight for the Roald Dahl books in the library. I suspect, it is easier for them to understand the book and not be so overwhelmed by the sheer number of words now that they know the gist of the story.

Even pre- reading Muffin loves everything and has taken to try to make James, the giant peach and the Old Green Grasshopper from play dough as well as writing the names of his favourite characters.   

 

To be honest, I never quite liked Roald Dahl. I was very disturbed at the fact that all those other kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ended up sucked up, tossed, stretched and ballooned (even if it were their fault). Plus Matilda, with the negligent parents and evil headmistress! But since JED don't seem to have such reservations, I'm keeping my mouth shut and letting them have their Roald Dahl fix.

We're looking at other audio books too so that we can eventually expand their listening and chapter book repertoire.

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A Sort of Review: Tackling hard issues like adoption

Adoption.

An extremely loaded word these days. And because it's been the centre of some very heated debates, people forget that adoption is in fact an emotionally charged issue, for everyone involved.

When Packrat and I were trying to have kids, we had to face the distinct possibility that we couldn't have any of our own. That started us talking about adopting. For some reason, I got it into my head that I wanted to adopt a child from Vietnam. Over the course of our discussion about adoption, it came to light that if we went through with it, there would be people in our immediate circles that would have frowned upon what we would have done. And even though we hadn't even begun the process at that point, I was indignant on behalf of the child that we could have potentially adopted. At the same time, it made us very aware of the obstacles we were to face if we went through with it.

Packrat constantly tells me that I need to be more like Teflon. I need to let things roll off my back. But I haven't ever been able to and the more I thought about adoption, the more I wondered and got angry at the imaginary comments that would be either whispered or blatantly said to us. "Why are you adopting? Why don't you just try a little bit harder? Aren't you scared that the baby you adopt has some strange disease or worse, was the offspring of some axe murderers? " I realised that these weren't just voices in my head because the few people I did mention something to, about our considerations, their comments approximated the above.

We never had to go through with adopting but those months when we pondered gave me a glimpse into what parents who adopt must go through. Granted most people would be thrilled and supportive but oh! the tongues that could and would wag, especially with the older generation. Packrat's response to all this was to shrug and to say that the only thing we could do, as teachers, was to make sure the next generation wouldn't react in the same way.

Enter Darren and Melanie.

2 1/2 years ago, they adopted Christian when he was about 3 1/2 months old. Darren stunned Packrat one day by whipping out his phone and asking "Want to see my son?" with no preamble whatsoever. After Packrat picked his jaw off the ground and told me about it, we rushed over to visit and brought Muffin along. In fact, we brought a whole bunch of Muffin's clothes and toys for Christian because Darren and Mel were given about a week to prepare for bringing Christian home. Every one including Muffin was excited about the new baby. He kept trying to put toys on Baby Christian.

Over the course of the last two years, Mel and I have had conversations about the various reactions she's experienced with Christian and some of them were unsurprisingly small-minded and mean. And that's where my admiration for Mel lies. Mel has dealt with the comments in a more constructive way than many others, myself included, would have done. While I am certain she has ranted and raved about people who have said mean things about her kid, like most of us do, she also went on to write The Adventures of Squirky to introduce the idea of adoption to children. I am sure part of it was to prepare herself and Darren for the time where they would have to talk to Christian about it. But at the same time, for her to write it meant that it was out there in Singapore, for many Singaporeans to pick up and read. And that is what will help to slowly change things.

Mel sent us a signed copy of  Why Am I Blue? for Muffin recently and JED descended upon it. We read the book together so that I could explain certain things to Muffin and the twins read it on their own. It's still sitting on our dining table and that, in our family, is high praise. It means the book is still being read and flipped through at meal times so often it is futile to keep it on the shelf.

I asked JED what they thought about the book and the twins reply was that it was special. Muffin was still trying to understand why Squirky was blue.

Anyway, there are many reasons why they thought the book was special.
1. The Mommy and Daddy are like us. (Meaning they are Asian). They don't have very many Asian based books so it was novel to see the characters in the book drawn like them.

2. The book isn't just about being happy. Muffin was very fixated on the part where Squirky and Emma were both in tears. (Once again, while they have read books where someone is chucking a fit or there is little bit of sadness or gloominess in it, they've never experienced a book where the characters are genuinely upset and distraught.)

3. There was no ending to the book (It is a series of 6 books).

4. The book had questions and answers at the back. "Are we supposed to be able to answer these questions, Mommy?" (It is an FAQ to help parents deal with the questions that their young adopted children may ask; though the twins, newly introduced into the world of comprehension exercises worried that it was the longest comprehension passage in the world.)

This last point is what makes the book truly great. It is what makes it more than just a kid's picture book. The questions do not just help parents who are unable to answer difficult questions. It also gives other parents an idea of what might go through the mind of an adopted child or any other child wrestling with the concept for the first time and how to talk about different types of families to their own children.

Much of the resistance and taboo in society regarding this issue isn't going to go away even if we clubbed every single person over the head. (I have thought about that but there just aren't enough clubs out there). The way to actually do it is through little people like JED, who are still tiny enough that their prejudices haven't yet been formed. With stories like that, about people that look like them doing something so simply extraordinary, it becomes a slightly easier feat.

For Packrat and myself, it was an opportunity to talk to the twins about how there are different ways families are set up; that the children don't really have to be born of the parents for parents to love them. Both were fascinated by the idea though they couldn't fully wrap their heads round the idea.

Jordan couldn't really see the difference between adopting Squirky and Squirky being a pet. (We told her that Squirky was more than just a pet and Emma saw him as a brother. Evan chimed in that pets didn't need to go to school but Squirky did.)

Evan couldn't understand why Squirky needed to find his real parents if Mummy and Papa were there and loved him so much. (We asked Evan about the times he stayed at Grandma's house and was perfectly happy there and he still wanted to know where Mommy and Papa were.)

Muffin wasn't sure he liked Squirky being so blue and couldn't understand why Squirky was part of the family since he was so blue. (We asked him if Evan or Jordan were blue or red or purple, would they still be his brother and sister?)

I don't think we've fully made a dent in helping them understand the myriad of issues behind it but I do like that it gave us the opportunity to talk about some things that we don't generally talk about and at the end of it, they still wanted to go back to the book again.

That in my book, is what makes a good book.

Squirky's adventures will be available to the public from 23 August onwards and everyone is welcome to its launch. It promises to be great fun.

Melanie sent us a signed copy of the book as a gift. We reviewed it because we can never resist a good book and this is more than just a good book. So, there was no monetary compensation in any way and all views and opinions here are ours and JED's two cents worth. 

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The club

The twins have two neighbours whom they have literally grown up with. One is a year older and the other was in their kindy class and now is in the same school as Jordan. Sufficed to say, they are thick as thieves and are often up to no good. They also treat each others' home as their own and one has even stayed over even though her house is a corridor and a lift ride away.

Their new thing is the night walk. On Fridays, we bundle them all up into the car and set them free somewhere they can use their torches and come up with stories to scare each other with. Last time round it was a nearby park connector and last night, it was the Botanic Gardens.

What amuses us is how their play and interaction with each other has changed, Muffin included. Where it was once parallel play, their play is fully interactive, imaginary and plot based. And during last night's walk, the older four have decided that they all belonged to a club and part of what they did was to find 'suspicious' things during night walks.

When I overheard the hushed discussions about the club, the thought in my head was 'how they have grown up.' Some of my favourite books growing up were about children who had secret clubs with club houses and passwords. And now, the twins were old enough to form their own.

They haven't figured out the manifesto of the club but it does have a name; the Neighbour Adventurers. They have however decided that there shall be a club house, there will be a password and the club house will be a tent or made out of boxes. In the clubhouse, there will be games like Uno, chess, checkers and there will be tables and chairs. But that's about it. Whether they are going to solve mysteries or go on adventures or basically just be busy-bodies, we don't know yet.


Time to start them on Secret Seven, Famous Five, the Five Find-Outers among other books.

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Learning and Comfort Zones

The twins love stories.

Jordan loves writing and reading them. Evan loves reading them, listening to them and creating them in his head. He may not have the patience Jordan has to write it all out but his imagination is wilder than hers at times. We know this because the monsters that hide under their bed at bed time are huge and scary to him. Even Muffin, whom we've had to teach to 'pluck' bad dreams out of his head and throw out the window.

A few months back, I received an invitation for the twins (and Muffin) to take part in a writing workshop. That one was called EnchantINK and had to do with princesses and princes. It would have been totally up Jordan's alley except for the fact that we were away at that poin. We got invited again, for this June break and the workshop was aptly called Monster HuntINK which I loved. The group running it was called Monsters Under The Bed and the name stuck with JED.

So we went, reservations and all.

1. The twins would be too young. After all, they have had only about 6 months of primary school under their belt.

2. It was 3 hours long per session and it was going to be 3 hours of writing based activity. Would they lose interest and start to fidget?

3. Evan hates writing of any length. How would he survive this?

We were banking on the content and the interest in the topic to get them through it.

Both Packrat and I sat in for it. And the problem with us sitting in was that we couldn't take off our teacher hats and began looking at the sessions from a pedagogical point of view. And as with teachers observing other classes, we came up with things that we felt could have done better.

1. The younger children flailed a little bit. Most, like the twins, had not been taught the elements of composition. They had an idea of how they wanted to create their monster and their story but they needed help connecting the dots. Scaffolding. 

2. The lead trainers were great but they got college students to facilitate the groups and 18 year olds don't really understand the pedagogical needs of 6-7 year olds. After all, they are students themselves. 

3. The younger ones and the ones with less writing exposure just couldn't keep up. Packrat found himself, informally facilitating a discussion between two 9 year olds because they had no idea how and where to start.

And when we talked about it, we decided that it would have been better if 

1. The older and more able kids be grouped separately from the younger bunch. That meant the smaller ones could do the same theme but simplified and perhaps a more active variation of 'monster-making'. 

2. There were more physical and role-playing activities; less writing even if this were a writing workshop. This is just so that the kids get to expend some energy, be moving around. Some kids think better kinesthetically and not everyone communicates their imaginations through pencil and paper. 

3. Make sure the student facilitators were up to the needs of the kids or have them with the older kids and the main trainers helping the littler ones. 

But that's us being pedantic teacher types. 

And that's where the kids surprised us. Despite what we saw as taxing for them, all of JED including Muffin, loved it and couldn't wait to get back. They loved

1. All the monsters that were introduced. So they sat through a 30 minute presentation of the different monsters in literature. Evan was enthralled. It was his kind of thing. 

2. Talking to the older trainers about their favourite monsters and bringing books they had with monsters in it to show the trainers. 

                                

3. Creating the monster, coming up with its weaknesses and a plan to defeat the monster. Of course, when Jordan does it in bright metallic pink, it does take some of the 'fear factor' out of the monster. 

4. Dressing up in somewhat Halloween get up.

5. Having a full run of Old Parliament House.

 

Chocolates, just in case. Just in case she, the Monster Hunter, got hungry.

We have Jordan's work because Evan's became crumpled and unreadable plus he claimed his monster was invisible so whatever he wrote couldn't show up in the photograph. He did write in pencil and it was very faint. But his monster was an invisible one and how you tracked it down was to bring a pail of paint with you. He could have written the script for a Scooby Doo episode!

Jordan's plan to trap the monster. We especially liked the 'hide somewhere safe' part.

At the end of all that, both stood at the front of the cafe where we were based and read their end product out loud for everyone to hear. They were proud of their work and we were proud of them. So despite our reservations that it was a class too old for them, they survived it pretty well with whatever 'weapons' they had and came out from it, a little wiser and a little bolder.

That in itself was pretty metaphorical. Small kids with only wits, facing off huge beasts of sorts  MacGyver-ing their way through it and ultimately emerging successful in their own right.

But the best things about the workshop was
1. How it implicitly taught the kids how to break down something potentially scary and intimidating into smaller bits (the monster, its characteristics and eventually how to defeat it) thereby making the problem more manageable. That way, it didn't seem so big and frightening anymore.  So, the meta-idea of the workshop was great and something of more value that the writing that they did.

2. The lead trainer, Eugene and Evan became great pals. They talked, for hours about monsters leading to Eugene giving Evan a book about monsters. Packrat realised only then, that he had the same book. Game geeks (more specifcially, role-playing geeks) and all. It made Evan feel so important and he spent the whole day reading up on the monsters he liked (the hydra and the choker and goodness knows what else). 



So,  how did they over come the bits that were beyond them? They asked what they could then simply and blissfully ignored what they couldn't, going on to the bits that they could do. That's a pretty good skill to have picked up too.

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-Updated- Jordan's first book review- Imaginary Friends (A Giveaway too!)

When we were thinking about having kids or rather coming up with reasons why we would possibly not want kids, one of the reasons being tossed about was "What if they hate reading?"

It was as stupid a reason as it sounded but under all that ridiculousness was an ounce of truth and fear. 

Fast forward to 2014. I am happy to say that JED all have a love affair with books and stories to the point that we don't have enough book shelves for them. (I've tried to borrow books from the library but the problem is that the kids, especially Muffin get so attached to them that there is much bawling that accompanies any attempt to return the book!)

The one with the most ardent love affair with books is Jordan. 

If you asked her to introduce herself, her spiel would go something like that. "Hi, I am Jordan. I am six years old. I like drawing and reading. When I grow up, I would like to be an author. " 

The girl laps it all up. Her reading repertoire is a constantly growing and an interesting one. We've seen her spend hours engrossed in Packrat's 544 page Firefly Anniversary coffee table book. But then she could also spend the same amount of time with her Disney Princess stories. Recently, she even added Calvin and Hobbes into her reading diet. This is over and above whatever ballerina books, Geronimo Stilton books and Enid Blytons that we have lying around. We've lost her in our house before because she was so engrossed in her reading, she did not hear us tear the house apart looking for her.

We've had friends who have frowned upon the fact that she has Disney Princess books and fancies herself a princess. While we don't actively encourage it, we don't discourage it either because we think it's part of her world and we 've seen the stories that she weaves, on paper and in play. More often than not, they are more than just about the princess marrying the prince.  The scraps that she scribble and illustrate her stories on leave us little insights into the worlds that she creates in her head.

So it was of little surprise to us when Aunty Mel sent Jordan a copy of her book Imaginary Friends and she totally lost herself in it. Her eyes lit up when she received a package in the mail addressed to her and they positively glowed when she saw that it was a book. Aunty Mel's book was basically a collection of 26 short stories about 26 Imaginary Friends, ranging from A to Z. And for the next week, any free time she had and some time she didn't, she was with Aunty Mel and her 26 Imaginary Friends. She read it at meal times, she read it when she was supposed to be doing her homework, she even brought it to school.

When she had enough time with the book and I managed to wrestle the book from her (I had the electronic version but I'm old school and wanted her version!), I read it and asked her about what she liked about it. 

Mommy: So, what did you like about Aunty Mel's book?

Jordan: I liked the pictures. Aunty Mel said I could colour them if I wanted to. 

Mommy: Was there anything else you liked about it? 

Jordan: The stories had conflict and they had interesting characters. Aunty C (her kindy teacher) said all good books must have that.

Mommy: What were your favourite titles?

Jordan: Y is for Yogi the Yodelling Yak. I also liked L is for Lucy the Lucky Leek. So many of the same letters! (Giggles)

Mommy: Did you read all the stories? 

Jordan: I read some of them. Some I liked. Some I didn't understand. 

Mommy: Of the stories you read, which one did you like the most?

Jordan: I liked "B is for Bertie the Bored Butterfly."

Mommy: Can you tell me why?

Jordan: Because Bertie didn't like crowds and the boy was kind. He saved the butterfly from the Butterfly Park. And Bertie now lives in a small garden. 

Mommy: Is there anything else you liked about the book?

Jordan: Aunty Mel had a pink water bottle named Janet when she was 8 years old. She is like me. I have Elly but not the eraser (E is for Elly the Egotistical Eraser). 

Jordan: Mommy, you ask too many questions. Can I ask you one?

Mommy: What is it? 

Jordan: What did YOU like about the stories?

Mommy: I liked the fact that Aunty Mel made animals and things alive and interesting. I liked that Aunty Mel used them to tell us stories about what sometimes happens in our lives. 

Jordan: Huh?

Mommy: Never mind. When you grow older, you will understand it a lot more.

So there we had it. Jordan did her first book review and most of it was spot on.

Because the stories were mainly written for an adult audience, she obviously didn't get quite a bit of it. But it was sometimes wickedly funny and snarky with morals like "If office politics get too ridiculous, just get outta there." that totally resounded with me. Our joint favourite was "O for Olivia the Overachieving Octopus". 

She loved it because her new school bag has an octopus on it that looks like Olivia. The story had to do with the Sea King, King Neptune, a character she is familiar with and she knew enough to not like the restless daughter and feel sorry for Olivia. I loved it because it was a good reminder. That not one thing should define who I am. I learnt it in uni but as a mother and a somewhat ambitious person, I sometimes forget that as well.

Of course, there were phrases that were slightly mature for her age like "Never be too smug about success or good fortune; you'll never know when shit hits the fan". That required a lot of explaining but it was like reading Aesop's fables with her but much less macabre and far more enjoyable. 

I actually suspect that those bits, the moral of the story lines, were actually her favourite parts because it appealed to the big and naggy sister in her. She would try them out on Evan, only to get a rude brush off and an evil glare. 

But when all was said and done, reading Aunty Mel's book made me slightly wistful. I had dreams at various points in my life to write various books but life always got in the way. Mel did it admirably and did it most imaginatively, succintly and enjoyably. All this while looking after a toddler, which is no mean feat. 

It also made me want to take out my whole Calvin and Hobbes collection to re-read and also  reminded me of the times when I had imaginary friends and tea parties with them. 

So, if you, like me, would like a chance to read some stories of seemingly childish kid things and their shenanigans and think about your own childhood, the lessons you learnt while you played with your friends real or otherwise, here's an opportunity to do so. And you will be amongst the first in Singapore to get your hands on the books! (They are only released this coming weekend in Singapore.)

Mel is very generously giving away 5 signed copies of her book to Diaperbag readers with friends like hers. 

All you have to do is to 

1. Let us know who your imaginary friend was/ is and how it/he/she was your best friend in the comments below. Please leave us your name and an email address so that we can contact you if we pick your entry. 

2. Pop over to Imaginary Friends' Facebook page and 'like' the page so that you can get to know the Friends a little bit better. 

3. And if you really like this book or knows someone who might, please share this post with them!

Share with us your imaginary friend tale by 14 April 2014.

This giveaway is only open to readers from Singapore. 

If you really want a copy of the book and we didn't pick you, do not fret. The books will be available at $10.70 at all major bookstores from next week on!

- Melanie, the author of Imaginary Friends, has decided that each and every entry deserves a copy of the book, so congratulations to everyone who took part! Melanie will be contacting you soon!-

 

Disclaimer: We received a copy of Imaginary Friends but all opinions expressed are entirely Jordan's and mine. They are in no way influenced by any external sources.

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