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.

Kudos to new teaching methods for Chinese

Recently MM Lee sparked off a torrent of debate when he acknowledged that he may have made a bad choice by assuming that we can learn 2 languages at the same level.

Some parents agree that we should make some changes in the teaching methods, in order to make learning Chinese more fun and interesting. Someone wrote to The Straits Times to disagree.

I'm sure my friend Gabriel would support the move wholeheartedly. I remember he had a hard time learning Chinese in school. My own experience wasn't that bad. But I distinctly remember that I had a Chinese teacher Ms Chong who made learning Chinese during my Secondary 3 year very fun. She used some English to explain certain Chinese phrases and these stuck to me for life, although I don't use them often.

I had the initial fear when I was selecting a child care center for Xavier. I knew that I wasn't that proficient in Chinese as I was in English. So I have to depend on someone else to teach my sons proper Chinese. Fortunately I picked the right center and both Xavier and Keane can speak Chinese. At least they can understand what we say to them and can respond pretty well. I don't ask for them to be scholars in the language but at least be able to hold a decent conversation and read most Chinese words.

Recently, after my trips to Shanghai and much project work related to China, I find that my Chinese has improved with increased usage. I can actually type in Chinese (thanks to hanyu pinyin!) Isn't that way cool? Ok, maybe I'm bragging a little but coming from a convent school, I think I've done pretty well. My teachers would have been proud!

The key to learning is to be unabashed about acknowledging your ignorance. Ask questions, find out whatever you don't know. Hunger for knowledge is the key to knowledge itself. Pride can only bring about the downfall of any man no matter how intelligent he is.

I feel that we should inculcate this sense of hunger in our children. That is the way to education. Dishing out tons of information will not help as much as if they did the research and carry out their own quest for knowledge. I believe that this is a fact that is gaining more recognition among our present educators. I will try my best to inculcate this in my kids as well. Although I must admit that the flesh is most weak.

This Saturday is the school concert. Xavier is pretty excited. Keane has been throwing tantrums in school during rehearsals. He might be pulled out last minute if he is not cooperative on Saturday. I don't blame the teachers. I ask God to help Keane make it to the performance. The fella has not had as much exposure or opportunities as Xavier.

Xavier is the real epitome of precious first born (FBC) without any intent. It just happened naturally like I described in an earlier entry. I'm trying to change things moving forward. No point moping about the past.

Anyway, shall keep one and all posted of the concert.....wish them luck!

Home is where I go

Returned home from Shanghai this morning.....

Spent the day or rather the afternoon with the kids. I crashed when I reached home. Thought I could last the whole day but boy was I wrong, so very wrong.

Woke up in time to go out for lunch - Xavier's favourite japanese food. The whole family loves japanese food. After a pretty enjoyable lunch, we went shopping for toys. The boys have a habit of browsing for a very long time bfore deciding on their buy. I think it's because they want everything and are unwilling to give up any. The process of elimination can be pretty interesting. Xavier started with Lego but ended up with a styracasaurus from the Dinosaur King collection.

Keane ended up with a bus. Ryan wanted Leo from Little Einsteins but it was deftly removed from his grasp.

On the way home Keane started saying "Anybulan" several times. It took several failed attempts before we realized he was pointing to an ambulance. The police car was a "Pussy Car" and traffic lights were "Trassic Lights". But he still managed to do coffeeshop perfectly. It was great to see him increase his vocabulary.

I crashed again after we came home in the afternoon. I wonder whether it was because I was tired or I was missing my caffeine fix.

My next trip to Shanghai may be in December, depending on my boss and how the project pans out over the next few weeks. I look forward to going back to this authentic japanese restaurant near the Holiday Inn Pudong Shanghai on Dong Fang Road. Reasonably priced and good. Pasta Fresca at the Thumb Plaza was also a good place. It would be very cold if I went back in December. Would need to be prepared.

No matter where I go, I will always return home....

Away from home......

I know I've been lazy, and haven't been updating my blog as often as I wished I did. I admit my laziness without shame.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind rush. I was in Shanghai for the week of Oct 19. Then I cam home for the weekend before departing for 10 days in Manila.
I came back last night and I'm flying out to Shanghai again for another week.

Some people may call it jet setting. Others think it's a pure torture. Well, I'd like to think of it as an adventure and escape.

Personally, I like to travel and despite the complains I hear people make when they have to travel, I secretly think that they relish the travel but they want to make it seem like a sacrifice when they have to travel for work. Hence the whining about the travel.

I like to travel because I can see the world. Something which I love. I enjoy freedom and the ability to move about on my own. The downside is I miss my kids. The upside is I miss my kids. Why do I say that? Well, I miss having them around but then again I don't miss having them around to create a ruckus. Am I trying to shirk responsibilities as a mom? Yeah.....kidding.

I packed my bags at 6 today and rushed home to be with my kids whom I've not seen in 10 days. All of us went to the shopping mall near our home for a meal. Well, dinner for the hubby and myself. Dessert for the kids. Oh the joy they expressed when they saw me walk into the day this evening totally swept me away. And filled me with guilt. How can I want to be away from these 3 adorable monsters? That's a question I cannot really put my finger to. I mean, I love them, don't think otherwise. They are the love of my life. But I don't want to be with them 24 hours. I wouldn't be able to take it. Am I a bad mom?

I dislike travelling with colleagues. That puts the trip into a whole new ballgame which comes with a truckload of obligations. I mean, if you are in a group, you'd feel obliged to have breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Maybe go out together. To me, that's pretty painful. I admit that I'm a travel anti-social. Actually I am pretty much a selective anti-social. I like to wake up at my own time, eat breakfast on my own, read a book while I eat, then move at my own pace. Sometimes I feel dragged down by others. Having to wait for everyone to turn up for breakfast, to finish eating the last morsel of cereal or drinking that last drop of coffee. Yes, everyone will say, don't worry, you don't have to wait for us. But somehow, you know it is easier said then done. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

This week I'll be travelling with someone I didn't really want to travel with. My boss. I'm going to try to go on my own for once. He thinks he's taking care of me when we have meals and all together, but really, I wish I was alone. I just want to do my own thing, you know. I'm not someone who must have company all the time. I prefer to be free by myself. Am I weird?

I watched the movie Julie & Julia or vice versa on the plane. This girl was so determined to blog her way through a book of more than 500 recipes in a year and she succeeded. And she put me to shame. She took her blogging as a serious project and she made it as an official writer as a result. Will that ever happen to me? I wish. Are you out there reading this? Are you a publisher? Do you think I'm good enough?

Keane is making huge progress in his speech. Maybe it's because I haven't really seen him in 2 weeks. He can instruct me to "Go bathe" when he saw me near the bathroom. He could also say short phrases like "Watch Out!" and "Oh wow!". To me, that's great. The most fantastic achievement I saw him make was to say "coffeeshop" accurately today. Music to my hears.

Ryan's begnning to show signs of readiness for toilet training. He can make mm-mm noises when he needs to poop. He will then sit on the trainer toilet seat and do his stuff. He's cool. The other day, when I was away, he attempted to make his way out of the play pen by climbing over the edge. He fell and never did it again. That involved some crying and stuff but he recovered very fast.

Xavier is showing signs of having good perspective. He can draw cars with the wheels in the right place and in the correct size relative to the body of the car. Is that also perspective? Not too sure....but you get what I mean. I think that's excellent.

Nov 28 is the year end school graduation ceremony cum celebration for Xavier and Keane. They are performing during the concert. It's Keane's first public performance and I'm looking forward to it. He missed his chance last year because the teachers were worried that he'd do his own thing and not follow the group. He had a habit of making off on his own to explore. The teachers wouldn't have the ability to hold him back. Bit like his old mom, don't you think?

Well I have to go back to work now.....it's been a hell of a day but it ain't over till the fat lady sings and this fat lady ain't singing none yet....