Updates.....

Xavier will be going to Primary school next year. After much deliberation, we decided to register him at a school near our home. We will be doing this on Monday.

There was much talk about trying to register him at an elite school so that he might have a better head start. But the distance changed our minds. The nearest elite school is at least 20 minutes drive away and probably 30 minutes during peak traffic. If he were to take the school bus, he'd have to wake up very early as the bus will usually pick up the child staying furthest away from the school first. So we decided to enrol him in a school near our home to save him the trouble of commuting.

During recent months, we can observe each of the kids developing an interest of their own. Xavier is very artistic and has shown an interest in going to art school. This is something which I will develop him in. Keane has shown some interest in music but we feel he is more suited for something for physical. We will give him a couple of years before he lets us know where his interest resides. Ryan is just very into everything.....

Keane went for his 4th music lesson today. The first was pretty acceptable but the second terrible. I decided to withdraw him from the class after the 2nd lesson but since we had to give one month's notice, I got his dad to go with him for the 3rd one. Surprisingly, things turned out pretty well. Today I braved myself to bring him for his 4th lesson and I was pleasantly surprised, even proud of him. He was able to follow at least 80% of the class and lasted the full hour! We might let him stay on instead of pulling him out. But I'm wondering whether I should let him try his hand at gymnastics or something similar. We'll play it by ear.

Ryan has shown signs of being very selfish. It is probably natural for the youngest but it is getting a little out of hand. He doesn't like to share and has a tendency to want everything that other kids have. So whenever he sees Xavier or Keane doing something like reading or playing with a toy, he'd try to snatch the book or toy from them. If he is eating and you ask him to give you a bite of whatever he is eating, he'll stuff everything into his mouth. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.....

Keane still has some behavioural issues in school and we received an email from his teacher today. He still has some difficulty understanding what adults are saying to him. He cannot comprehend or distinguish a statement from a question. So when you ask him if he has washed his hands, he would say "Yes" and proceeds to wash his hands. I think it's an issue with comprehension. I decided to talk to him more often. Although he has shown much progress, he is still not showing signs of being able to cope with kindergarten next year. But I guess we have to accept his pace and just try to expose him to more interactive activities to help him.

Xavier has never had any issues in school until recently when he was put on time out for making a ruckus during class and disturbing his classmates. That is definitely a rare occurrence. His teacher is very impressed with how he can manage to change the date of the calendar in the classroom correctly everyday without fail. Whenever he is on medical leave, the calendar doesn't get updated correctly. This is something that we are very proud of. But personally, I'm a bit worried because he seems to be an easy target for school bullies. He is extremely shy, has high potential to be teacher's pet, intelligent, can be a bit proud sometimes (he likes to say school work is chicken feed when he knows how to do them). To me, these are signs of being a target for bullying. I'm a bit worried.

I'll just handle things the way I always do - let things work themselves out naturally.

Recently I've been facing pressure at work. From what I hear from a close friend/colleague, I'm putting unnecessary pressure on myself to perform. I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing. I am behind in my work and I'm not sure if it is because I'm not doing a good job or if there is just too much to do. It's tough to find yourself with new responsibilities which include some historical issues which have not been solved by your predecessor. I dedicate myself to my work but that eats away at family time. I try to tell myself not to feel guilty but it doesn't work all the time. I wonder if it's the same for all working moms or if I am just one of those who doesn't know how to prioritize?

I feel guilty whenever my colleagues say they are amazed at how I come with being a mother of 3 and having what many call a successful career. I give them a standard answer - I have a lot of help at home from a very supportive husband and a domestic helper. I don't contribute much to the day to day management of the household chores or kids daily activities. Does that make me a bad mom? Am I claiming too much credit for myself?

Whatever it is, I know that whenever I see my kids' faces light up when they see me, my day is complete. I don't think about anything else except that they love me so much that they are very happy to see me. That's all that matters really, isn't it?

Keane is not autistic

The teachers in school have been asking us to bring Keane for a professional diagnosis. I kept delaying the process subconsciously. I think I was fearful of the results. We finally went because this was brought up again during the recent parent teacher conference. We brought him to Thomson Medical Center and consulted the in house pediatrician Dr Ang Poon Liat. He was pretty cool about it. Said Keane was not autistic. Then he said something which reinforced my mindset. When I said that we wanted to find out whether Keane was normal, he said that normalcy is a very wide range. Some children are very intelligent and fast while others may be slower. It's a matter of what is acceptable to the parent that determines whether the child is normal in the parent's mind.

I have 3 very different children. Each of them are adorable in their own way. Each of them intelligent. My colleague asked me how I manage to have enough love for all my children. I remember that I told Xavier this before Keane was born:
We are having another baby. Daddy and Mummy will love this baby but it doesn't mean we love you any less. Our love will grow so that we have more love to give to this new baby. The love we have for you is still there and will not be any less.

I don't know how to explain but that's how it is. I love my children equally. I love that Xavier is so mature and can take care of his brothers. I love his artistry and creativity. I love how determined he is to complete constructing his lego set. I love Keane for his innocence. I love how he is so fussy about his dressing. I love how he loves his brothers and how he doesn't hit them no matter how upset he is with them. I love how he answers my questions on who he loves with a resounding YES! "Do you love Daddy? YES! Do you love Mummy? YES!" I love how Ryan will always want me to carry him when I am around. I love how Ryan is cheeky and mischievious. I love how he shows his intelligence with naughty pranks and tricks.

Sometimes I feel guilty about not spending enough time with my children due to my work. But I don't blame my work. It's my choice to have a balance between my work and my kids. I will not work during weekends, unless they are asleep. I will not work if my kids need me - when they are sick, when they are celebrating their birthdays.

I registered Keane for music classes today. He will start next week and I will accompany him every Saturday. I hope the music will help him calm down but most importantly I hope he enjoys himself and have fun.

Will keep you updated......

A natural death

My blog is dying a natural death.......and to think I started out with such ambition!

To any surviving fans, please accept my sincerest apologies. I'll try AGAIN.

Recently I've been busy with work which involves a fair amount of travelling. That made me more enthusiastic about spending time with my kids.

Ryan has just embarked on his journey through the terrible twos....and boy can I tell that it is going to be hard for everyone. We think he is the most intelligent of the three which makes him the hardest to handle most times.

Xavier has emerged like a prince from the woods. He is now very matured and pretty grown up about a lot of issues. He is showing an interestingly creative nature which we are trying to bloom.

Keane has made the best progress. And we know for a fact that it is because we are spending more time with him than before. Me anyway. Now I know he was seeking attention with his tantrums. I feel totally guilty about it and am trying to make amends.

I'll post more stories soon.............I hope.

Back to School....with Dad

It's official...I'm lazy. It's been exactly a month since my last post. I have so many things I wanted to say but I just didn't get round to it, giving one lame excuse after another.

Today is the first day of school for Ryan. Hubby sent the kids to school - Xavier after a 2 week break, Keane after a super long weekend of fun and Ryan for the first time. We decided not to use the school bus service because it was not worth it for 3 kids. S$130 each per month works out to be S$390 per month for us. This is more than what the hubby spends on petrol each month! So he agreed to be the chauffeur.

Keane behaved like it was the first day of school for him. The change of routine, from school bus to daddy driven car, had a huge impact on him. He thought that they were going out this morning instead of going to school. Given that he is already 3.5 years old, it was difficult to accept his behaviour. Especially when Xavier didn't behave this way when he was the same age. I kind of suspected this would happen but didn't want to voice out against the good intentions of cost cutting. We're giving it another day. If he still throws a tantrum, I'm sending him to school. The funny thing is that he was having a whale of a time when his dad went to pick him up.

I heard that Ryan was enjoying himself in school and wasn't reliant on the help who was on standby in school. But when his daddy picked him up, he grumbled a bit. I guess he didn't the attention. Xavier said he enjoyed himself in school. I guess he missed his friends over the holidays.

Some stories....

Xavier recalled something from a long time ago accurately and I praised him for his superb memory. He said "I'm an elephant". On another incident, he forgot something and he said "I'm a tiger today, not an elephant".

We have Japanese food regularly because it is one of Xavier's favourite food. He can eat 2 pieces of Tamago sushi (egg sushi), 2 pieces of Kani sushi (crabstick sushi), 3 pieces of Tamago senzai (egg sushi without the rice), 2 pieces of Kani Mayo maki (crabstick seaweed roll with mayonnaise) and 1 California temaki (California handroll) by himself. It's a good thing that sushi is healthy. Keane would attack the chocolate ice cream even before he has his rice. The guy can finish one Chicken Katsu Don (Chicken chop with egg on rice) by himself. Keane is a typical Chinese guy, must have rice or noodles and doesn't eat bread at all.

I took some leave during Christmas week and went back to work for one day before taking another break before the New Year. On the day I was in office, Xavier called and asked me when I was going home. I said I had work to do and will not be home so early. He said "Can you do your work faster? Then come home earlier." He made me feel so inefficient! He definitely has the potential of being a tyrannical boss.

The last month was full of activities. A trip to the zoo, a trip to the bird park, a trip to Downtown East (indoor playground) interspersed with outings to the shopping malls. The kids had a lot of fun and it is evident.

Keane has started to sleep with us recently. Together with Xavier. I know it may be strange to some that we have 2 of our kids sleeping with us. Trust me, it's not something that I wanted. I'm paying the price for some convenience which I enjoyed when Xavier was a baby. We started putting him to sleep on our bed when he was 4 months old because I found it very inconvenient to get out of bed and carry him from the baby cot to feed him at night. That convenience turned out to be very expensive. He has been sleeping on our bed since then - it's been 5 years. And now, we have Keane joining us. I feel Keane decided to join us because he wanted the attention as well. He is starting to develop his personality and asserting himself. I suspect he thinks we have a lot of fun after he goes to bed previously. So he decided to join us and have some of the fun as well.

Keane has super sixth sense. He knows when we have plans to do something, like having supper, after the kids are asleep. So he will refuse to go to bed. He will hang around the living room and play until we give up. We will either bring him along with us, if we are extremely hungry, or we will abandon our plans and go to sleep with him after he gives up, which is typically after a couple of hours.

Ryan has started to show his personality. He is a very vivacious boy. Loves having good fun and would try to snatch toys from his siblings. He can scurry away very quickly if he meets with objections. He's intelligent in that way. That's what they say about kids born in the year of the Rat. Xavier can attest to that. He recounted part of the story where the Rat jumped off the Ox and the Ox came in second in the race to be the animals on the Chinese horoscope. My son, the Rat, jumped off me, the Ox and I became second. Such comforting thoughts.

I look forward to 2010 and will try to make it better than 2009......

Missing!!!!!!

Had a acare today. Went out for dinner at the coffeeshop nearby. Xavier and Keane were looking at the game machines while we sat down to decide what we want to order. In less then 5 minutes, we saw Xavier by himself and Keane was no where in sight.

I almost freaked out. We went around the area to look for him. After a couple of rounds, we decided to expand the perimeter. I started to panic. What if something untoward happened to my son? What if someone grabbed him and made off? What if he ran onto the road and got knocked down by a car? My tears started to surface and my heart started pounding.

I held on to Xavier's hand and started to run. Luckily an old man saw my frantic movements and asked me if I was looking for a little boy. I said YES! He pointed towards our block and said he went towards that direction. I started yelling for Keane. One second later I saw him with a lady about 20 metres away. I ran toward my son and felt nothing but relief when he saw me and cried Mummy.

Surprisingly he was very calm and didn't display any signs of stress. After explaining the consequences to him, Keane began to show some signs of regret. The scariest was that he actually crossed the road in the carpark. Thank God nothing happened to him.

It was our oversight. We took things for granted. We should have sat them down before letting them play with the game machine. At least they will know where to look for us. We shouldn't have sat behind the pillar without keeping them in sight. I guess Keane wandered off because he couldn't see us.

This is a warning to us. And boy did we learn. Thank God it was a small warning. I cannot imagine what could have happened. It's too scary.

Lesson: Never ever take things for granted.

Violence in School!!!

We received a call from Keane's teacher yesterday. Apparently he was behaving slightly violently or rough towards his classmates. He wrapped his arm around one of the kids' neck. He grabbed and fell himself on another. Given Keane's built and weight, it would have hurt....like hell.

So Ms Chong called up, "not to complain", but to find out what kind of television programs Keane watches at home. Tom and Jerry was identified as the culprit. Mindless chasing, hitting of each other and miraculous recoveries which make violence look as comfortable as a feather pillow.

I admit our negligence. When Xavier was younger, we restricted his viewing to Playhouse Disney, The Wiggles and Tiny Planet. He only upgraded to Cartoon Network late last year. Unfortunately that meant a free and early upgrade for Keane and Ryan. Which is bad news. Children mimic actions very easily. And it is dangerous when they do not have a value system to judge these actions before executing them.

To learn from my mistake, I strongly recommend control over television programs and even computer or Internet games. Keep them wholesome until the child demonstrates his value system and of course, make sure that value system holds the correct values!

So we asked Xavier to cooperate by watching only Playhouse Disney when Keane and Ryan are at home or awake. He has agreed. Thankfully he is mature and also has the big brother nature in him. I think it's also due to his education from school and wholesome programs.

Nowadays the television programs are varied and we can see more adult themes incorporated into children's programs. What used to be wholesome and innocent, Ala Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, has now mutated into mindless and violent shows. Look at what happened to Mickey Mouse clubber Britney Spears and you know what I mean, though the violence may not apply in her case? I wouldn't know as I'm not a fan.

I hope it's not too late to reverse the damage done to Keane and Ryan. Ryan is also showing an unusual tendency towards inflicting pain on others. He walks around with weapons like a toy baseball bat or the cane and swings the weapons at anything and almost anyone. And he laughs after he hits a target! Is that normal? I seriously don't think so......

He also favours pinching although he only pinches people he is familiar with, meaning not me! He pinches his dad and the helper. I like to think that he doesn't pinch me cos he adores me. Why? Because I'm a sucker for his cries and never fails to release him from his playpen prison whenever I'm home. I do that because I don't want him to feel deprived of freedom and abuse it when he gets freedom in childcare next year. Keane used to be "locked up" in the playpen before he went to childcare. Once he started attending childcare, he behaved like he never saw the light of day before. He would run out of his class and even attempted to run out of the school compounds! Breaking Out of Alcatraz in the making. Now you know why I prefer to let Ryan enjoy his freedom whenever he gets the chance.

Hey, I'm getting the hang of blogging again.....**evil smile and snigger**....hope the feeling lasts!!!! Later....

Curtains up......

Yesterday was the long awaited school concert. The theme was journey through the ages. We had pseudo box seats in the upper gallery. The view of the entire stage was good but the seats were positioned such that we had to crane our necks to get a good view.

Nonetheless, we waited with anticipation and fear for Keane's item - Cavemen Dance. While we waited we had fears that he would throw a tantrum and be pulled out of the dance at the last minute. What if he cried halfway through the dance? What if he ran off the stage in the middle?

After the initial speeches, graduation of K2 students and introduction events, the concert finally began. After the snowball dance by some of Xavier's classmates, it was time for the Cavemen Dance. While the group was getting ready backstage, we could hear Keane shouting. Oh no....was it beginning already?

The curtains parted and there we saw our baby dressed like a caveman holding onto a club. He looked so adorable with his spiky hair. He looked around and then yelled "Hello!" and waved to the audience. The audience fell in love with all the little cavemen and cave women. The music started and they started their routine. Each time just before they had to changed what they were doing, Keane would shout "Stop" and then move on to the next step. It was amazing that he could remember all the steps on cue. He kept looking around and then saw us and shouted "Daddy! Mummy!" He wanted to walk towards us but I signalled for him to continue with his dance. To my amazement, he did. It was totally unexpected behaviour. He went through the entire dance and did everything correctly. He was right on cue. We were very proud. Of course, he still had to show his individualism at the end of the dance. Instead of running off to the side like the rest of his friends, he chose to explore. Tried to come towards us. After we told him to go back again, he decided to check out the microphone to the laughter of the audience. All in all, it was an excellent performance by Keane and he made us very proud.

After several other dances, we finally came to Xavier's Spice Kids dance. He looked very cool with his red Levi's t-shirt, woolly cap, 501 jeans and black suede shoes. Xavier did very well too, as expected. He never had any issues with performing over the past 3 years and he didn't this time either. In fact, he also did an excellent job. Remembered all the steps on cue and executed them well. He also had a good time, smiling as he was dancing. Xavier was cool personified.

During the finale, Keane threw a tantrum as he wanted to come down the stage to his dad. He was pulled away from the stage and pacified to wait for his turn. As he came back on stage with his classmates, he was crying. In fact, he was grumbling more than crying. He still doesn't express his needs verbally and chooses to grumble or cry whenever he is upset. When he was handed over to us, he was still grumbling a little. He calmed down when we started taking his photos.

After a quick snack at the tea buffet, and ordering concert rehearsal photos, we left to bring both of them for a treat. It was a reward for an excellent job by both of them. We went for japanese food - Xavier's favourtie and ordered Keane's must-have chocolate ice-cream. Both of them had a fantastic time.

I realized that Keane thrived on praises, like all kids. Even though he doesn't express himself often, it is evident that he absorbs everything that goes on around him. He never fails to surprise us with one or two unexpected observations, which are becoming less rare nowadays. This is something I am grateful for. He is making headway, albeit minute and slow progress. I told myself that I will spend more time with him and lavish him with praises more often. I hope this will help him make more progress towards his speech development.

I had a super long weekend - I took the afternoon off on Thursday as I was unwell, it was a public holiday on Friday. I didn't work at all from Thursday afternoon. I'm going to download my emails and go through the routine pc check by the company. Better to do it on Sunday than Monday in the office. The remaining month of 2009 will be a hectic one and I can't wait for it all to come to an end. 2010 promises to be exciting and one without resolutions. I've learnt that my resolutions never sustain themselves due to my lack of effort. I realize that I live for the moment and I am not good at planning ahead with my personal life. Workwise, of course I plan and make headway almost to plan. Don't ask me why the difference.......more analysis next week.