Buying food on his own in school......

After 3 days of "catered" recess, which was nothing more than cake or bread with water, Xavier was able to buy food on his own in the canteen. He would have a buddy from a senior class to help him for 3 days.

Xavier was very excited at the prospects. He was given $2 and used a small coin pouch to carry his money. The first 2 days went without much of a hitch. He would buy some noodles or rice with dishes. On the 3rd day, his buddy asked if he wanted to share Milo with him. Xavier agreed and the buddy asked for $0.50 from him. He then went to buy a cup of Milo which he proceeded to drink by himself. Xavier drinks only the water he brings to school during recess, which is probably why he didn't drink any of the Milo. Daddy got a bit upset because taking money from someone to buy something together was not his concept of sharing. Sharing was giving part of what you have to someone else. So the instructions to Xavier was to never ever give money to anyone without prior consent from his parents.

Xavier has a nature like many kids. He can eat the same thing day in and day out as long as he likes it. So it has been food from Chinatown Mixed Rice (sell rice with dishes) or Chinatown Noodles or something (noodle stall). I've not heard of any variation so far. There are many stalls in the school canteen but my boy will stick to these two.

Another interesting lesson he learnt was how to inform the stall keeper about the size of the dish before specifying the dish itself when he orders. The day he ordered noodles, he wanted a big plate because the regular sized plate was too small. He told the auntie at the stall that he wanted noodles but before he could say "big plate", the auntie turned around and gave him a regular sized plate. It's all about grammar. In English or Chinese - "I'd like a large plate of noodles". In Singlish "Noodles, big plate". My son is showing signs of Singlish....definitely.

Another incident related to buying food resulted in him having to carry several coins instead of a $2 note or 2 $1 coins to school. He gave the auntie $1 for a $0.70 plate of noodles and promptly left with his noodles, forgetting about his change. After that day, he had to carry sufficient $0.50, $0.20 and $0.10 coins so that he can give the exact change to the stall keeper. That was a cheap $0.30 lesson well learnt. You would have thought the stall keeper in a school would have been more honest. But maybe he was given a large sized plate which cost $1.00 instead of a regular sized one. But I'm sure he would know the difference between a regular sized plate and a large sized plate. His comment about the regular sized plate was "So small only! Not enough!".....positive demonstration of his Singlish.

No other mishaps about recess have been reported....so far.....