education

CASE 1

The seven-year-old, seven months into his Primary 1 year, looks longingly over the wall to where Day, Dee and two friends are making havoc.

At my place, they merrily scrawl chalk drawings on the ground, turn on the water hose and with a great deal of squealing wash away the drawings, they remove their shoes and jump in the puddles, trying to see who gets the biggest splash.

The boy, obedient to a fault, pulls his mother aside and whispers: Can I go and play?

Arms folded, she tells him: No! Your Chinese tuition teacher is coming and you have to finish your dinner.

Shadowing him is his maid, plate in hand, waiting to spoon the remaining rice morsels into his mouth, but he is no more enthusiastic about finishing his dinner than before.

He asks his mother again and again. She says no again and again.

He runs into the house, presses the button which opens the house gates and symbolically threatens to make a break for it.

His mother pulls him back and reprimands him: No! You have Chinese tuition at 7 o’ clock!

The time then: 630pm.

CASE 2

Day’s six-year-old friend comes over to play.

She is starting Primary 1 next year.

The kids are watching a DVD. The girl’s mother pulls out a notebook, scribbles some words on it and passes it to her.

She looks at it disinterestedly before tossing the book aside.

I look at the page which has three words written on it: Colour, make and door.

“She has spelling tomorrow,” says the girl’s mother. “Six words.”

One of those words, she tells me, is kangaroo.

Another is a phrase: Snake in the grass.

Day’s friend looks at the words, frowns as she memorises the letters then drones out the spelling as her mother recites the words. Her eyes have never left “Alvin and the Chipmunks” on TV.

She manages “make” and “door” but struggles with “colour”.

Her mother throws her the book, tells her sternly to write out the word many times.

Eyes still on the TV, in an act of rebellion, the girl scrawls doodles and throws the notebook back.

Mother scolds her.

I ask: “But how to teach her spelling when she is in front of the TV? How can she absorb?”

Mother replies: “She’s always like that. That’s how I teach her her spelling. Never mind, if she doesn't learn it now, I will make her learn at night. She has to get it right no matter what.”

Typically, this six-year-old sleeps at 11pm.

I talk to her later. She tells me: "I hate spelling". I tell her, in all sincerity: "If you can spell you can write. If you can write you can earn money. Spelling is one of the greatest joys in life."

She rolls her eyes.

MY THOUGHTS

I am seriously scared. These are not crazy women I read about in the newspapers. These are my friends.

lu flips

From back to front.

First flip, 26 July 2008, age 4 months and a week.

For the second time, I am fascinated at how every kid tackles their developmental milestones differently.

With Dee, I was intrigued at how she took The Flip so half-heartedly as compared to Day, who sought to tackle it with single-minded intensity.

With Lu now, I am again intrigued: At how she is even MORE half-hearted than her sister.

She doesn’t even try.

There were barely any attempts made (Dee at least would try and give up after a while), and it seems merely a matter of course for Lu: She turns her body to the right and suddenly discovers that she can very gently fall over onto her tummy. If she doesn't make it, oh well, there's always her fists to look at.

She doesn’t quite try to do anything; she just suddenly discovers that she can.

I’m curious to see if that holds true for her crawling and walking.

* Caterpillar and flower: Lu's bed mates. Trashy book: My bed mate. Yes I adore Judith McNaught and I find her infinitely more readable than Thomas Hardy so there.

1 + 3

I don’t go out much myself toting all 3 kids.

It’s just not very fun trying to keep a four-month-old, two and four-year-old in line.

If there’s one thing I’m grateful for, it’s that there’s always someone in the house to keep an eye on the kid(s) left behind.

However, I do have my occasional moments of madness: Maybe once a week.

For one, staying home all day can be mind-numbingly, achingly dull. Two, the kids love going out. Three, bringing three kids out alone makes me feel like I am damned capable.

And funnily, these outings (which always draw stares from passers-by: “Are these kids ALL hers?") turn out OK.

If I could make a checklist for Mums Going Out Solo with Three Young Kids, it’d look something like this:

* Everyone has to be in a good mood. The slightest bit of sleep deprivation from anyone (mum, especially, has to be super-bright and super-perky) and all bets are off. Best time: Mornings between 9am and 1pm, afternoons between 4pm and 6pm.

* Duration of outing: No more than two hours at one place or things start to go wrong.

* Climate is of the essence. Too hot, too sweaty, they don’t want to walk, I’m finished. Rain, I’m finished.

* At least two kids have to be independent walkers. Dee has since learnt that holding mummy’s hand is good enough and she no longer whines to be carried if I’m carrying Lu.

* It helps a lot if kids obey verbal instructions without requiring physical force (mum has no spare hands).

* All three kids must be content in their car seats.

* It helps if baby is content to sit in a stroller. Sometimes, I am left free to swing my arms as Day or Dee pushes Lu.



* Destination is crucial. It has to be a place where the Day and Dee can occupy themselves independently without me as Lu is stuck to me. Places which are out: Playgrounds which require me to hoist or lift or guide or follow, shopping centres where they can get lost easily, places which require lots of aimless walking (with potentially a long walk back to the car) like Botanic Gardens or the zoo. What’s perfect: East Coast Park – where they stick to one spot playing with sand, the fish farm – where they stick to one spot feeding fish, friend’s houses where they basically can't go anywhere.



* Eating, while not compulsory, is something the kids always end up doing because, well, we are in Singapore. Nothing too complicated. Best is finger snacks which are not sticky or full of sauce. Fries are great. I usually end up not eating because I have to do Lu. Here they autonomously share one bowl of sweet potato soup, perilously scooping up sweet soup and potato with tiny plastic spoons across a big expanse of table. I, Lu in my arms, hope for the best and what do you know? Not a spill.



* Mum has to put on rose-tinted glasses and launch into the expedition with boundless enthusiasm and optimism so there is no space left for regrets. She should laugh at everything that can possibly go wrong (shit spills, pee accidents, screaming quarrels etc) and chalk it up to “life experience”.

hole-in-one

By God, he’s done it.

KK’s gone and got his first (and hopefully not the last) golf hole-in-one.

For a golf idiot like me, I figure it’s sort of like the holy grail of golf: The player hits the ball from far far away, the ball lands, it magically rolls into the tiny hole and everyone rubs their eyes wondering if it had happened at all before raising a cheer.

It takes some skill and a helluva lot of luck, which led me to wonder if my husband (and us by association) is finally getting lucky.

For the record, the ace took place at the NSRCC golf course at Changi, on the Army Course hole 7, which is par 3 meaning (I think) that it takes a professional three strokes for the ball to get in.

His name, apparently, might be inscribed on the club’s board for posterity, something I laugh at since his golf handicap is 19.

If this were a charity tournament, he might have won a car.

But since it’s the Tunneling and Underground Construction Society of Singapore, he won a Mitsubishi inverter air-con: Which is more than either of us have ever won in our lives.

Everyone’s been congratulating him as if he’s just had his first child.

Me, I was so caught up in the glory of the moment I swept up the 3 kids and drove them to the club to catch papa during the post-event dinner.

racial harmony

Another whipper snapper of a day from Day’s out-of-the-box school. No belly dancing, but gastronomically incredible.

Last Friday, I lugged Dee along to Day’s school as we were invited for Racial Harmony Day: Technically defined as a day for schools to celebrate racial harmony and diversity.

I togged him up in his Indian outfit and swiped some chocolates (which my dad had brought back from Switzerland) for the party.

Yes, we were to bring along some culturally representative food item, but I confess to being awfully dismally ashamedly uncultural and I can’t think of one culturally representative thing I can cook.

Which makes me one of those typical maid-reared (useless in the household) Singaporean woman I suppose, because what made the day magical was that all the other mums – from other countries – are all domestic goddesses who each brought along a platter of home-made goodies.

From fairy cakes to bread-and-butter pudding to watermelon cake to exotic cookies to Danish goodies, my jaw didn’t stop moving.

Considering that the school is a veritable UN wth mums from so many countries, it’s no surprise.


* Flags representing every child’s country.

And I was ever so relieved that there was no space on the loaded table for my Swiss chocolates.

Not only that, some of the mums prepared charts with photos of the home they left behind and it was very instructive, for me at least.

Plus the principal - in usual generous form - presented all the mums with a box of Danish butter cookies and a rose. For simply turning up. I felt even more guilty about the silly chocolates.

Anyway here’s Day with his best friend, the sturdy boy on his left.

hair cut

I’m back to the hair of pre-Dee days: Short.

I said I’d never leave my hair long again and true enough, when my hair started scraping my collabones that was it.

This morning I dragged Dee – whose hair is even worse as her over-long fringe skimmed her cheeks – along to Vincent’s and his one-man show at Brisa Salon.



Our hair-cutting trip was memorable for two reasons:

One, I drove without fear to a strange faraway place (from East Coast to Lower Delta) and parked in a HDB multi-storey carpark. Yes the car was horribly crooked in the lot and I had to drive back in the pouring rain but key thing is, we made it without any bodily harm.

Two, Dee sat still.



Unlike the first time when she sat on my lap, she obediently sat on the black box on the hairdresser’s chair and, apart from insisting on holding my hand, sat unmoving for the duration of the haircut.

She only squirmed when Vincent started cutting her fringe and the hair got into her eyes but that’s completely understandable.

That’s us. Before…



And after.



She now looks a bit like a boy and I look a bit like a skinny giraffe (exposed over-long neck) but we are completely enjoying the breeze around our necks.

Now Vincent has become our family’s official hairdresser (for the girls anyway), it pains me to learn that he has obtained his taxi licence.

But even I have to admit that one short peak-hour trip driving a taxi, would cover the $21 he earned from us for an hour’s work on our hair. Plus he threw in a bottle of Yakult and Kinder Bueno chocolates for Dee.

little buddha

When she’s in his arms, he tells me: “I feel at peace. She’s like a little Buddha. I’ve never had this feeling with the other two.”

Lu, sweet Lu with the punk hair, is four months now.

How her father adores her. How we all adore her.

Not because she is particularly cute, precocious or clever but because she is just so contented (at least, relative to our experience with the 2 Ds)

When KK comes home at the end of the day, Lu smiles and quietly melts into his arms as if she’s been waiting for him all day.

Her grandfather says the same: “Yanyan (that’s what they call her) is different from Sheng Wen and Zijun. She is more ‘guai’.”

For everyone who’s known Day and Dee from the time they were babies, there is a discernible difference in personality.

Lu is incredibly tolerant.

The last few vaccinations, she didn’t cry. If we bathe her in cold water, she flinches but keeps quiet. Diaper dirty, nobody knows. When she is tired, she manages to sleep in her cot.

To be sure, she is not always angelic. She has been getting increasingly twitchy and loud. But in general, still sweet in disposition and still anybody’s girl, a fact for which I am grateful.

Last month’s milestones:

* Saliva waterfalls.

* Blowing raspberries and a lot of tongue gymnastics.



* Grabbing things like her skirts.



* Gaining strength in her neck and back so we pop her in the stroller now.

* Flipping from front to back (Ah! I’ve seen it and what happens is that she kicks until her backside is high in the air, sort of like a charging bull, then she unbalances and her backside falls to one side. Then she turns onto her back.)

With her sibs, she loves them both but Day, I think a little more.

Because he genuinely loves her to bits. He climbs into her cot, lies beside her to make her animal mobile “talk” to her in a falsetto, helps to peel off her diaper when it’s bath time, and generally admires her like we do.

She loves Dee too.

But Dee, when it comes to Lu, she does it because we want her to and not because she wants to. How I know? When she kisses or plays with Lu her eyes are on me.



Some people are just natural and some are not. I don’t fault Dee because she may well be like me: I don’t naturally care much for kids and babies.

But when Lu is of age to play with Dee, I hope with all my heart that the two get along.

i want to be a...

Surprise surprise.

morning glory

More on Day and his blossoming! Once the ball starts rolling it doesn’t stop.

This growing up, however, is initiated.

Basically I got fed up with having to attend to him every morning like a slave: Pestering him to wake up, pestering him to let me brush his teeth, pestering him to tell me what he wanted to eat and pestering him to come over so I could change him and pestering him to get moving out of the door.

What he used to do was play with his trains, as I buzzed around him.

So I put up a reward chart. He wanted to call it “David’s Morning Glory” for some strange reason. It works very well on him, gives him something to focus on.



From the moment I wake him up, six things he has to do in chronological order:

ONE: Brush his teeth himself (Does he do a good job? I don’t care since I do the job properly at night. Anyway it makes him feel GOOD)



TWO: Make the bed (Put here, pull there and it’s done. Hack job but hey, it makes him feel GOOD)



THREE: Make and eat breakfast at the table (Can he butter his bread and make his own Milo? It can get messy but again, he feels GOOD!)

FOUR: Wear his school uniform (Can he? He takes a rather long time with the buttons but I’d rather he be slightly late than help him with it)



FIVE: Fill his water bottle



SIX: Pack his school bag

The entire exercise, he has to do entirely himself apart from cooking breakfast if required, and of course, he has to feel like he’s a damn capable boy. I throw lots of “wows” and “great jobs” his way.

All done, he gets a star sticker. Five stars, I buy him a book. Two books later, he doesn't get any more rewards but hopefully the habit sticks. It's great to be able to create good habits when they are so young and impressionable!

My dream: That one day I don’t even have to wake up and I can snore right through their morning ministrations. I’m a bum at heart.

boy in the loo

While on the subject of Day’s growing up, there is one particular milestone – an important one which defines him as Boy and not just Child - which he has crossed: When we go out sans KK, he saunters into the male toilet on his own as I, Dee and Lu wait outside.

First time a few months back, I stopped at the Gents and asked him hopefully if he wanted to enter.

He ran in and ran out, grabbed my hand and headed for the Ladies.

Eventually one day, he went into the Gents and came out a while later with a huge smile.



I’m not quite sure what he does in there and the entire time he’s in, I stand outside with the girls worrying, wondering if he is observing toilet etiquette.

If he aims properly, if he wipes, if he washes his hands, if he looks at other men, if they look at him. The one thing that always comes to mind: What if he doesn’t emerge? What do I do?

Curious, I also ask him: Do you pee into a toilet bowl in a cubicle? Or do you pee into a urinal? Aren’t you a little short? Do you know how to flush a urinal? Is it an individual urinal or some sort of communal drain?

Day steeples his fingers: “I pee into the triangle, it’s like a cliff.”

Huh? Is that a urinal?

growing up

Four years old.

That, I think, is the magic mark when Day embraced independence and left my side.

By “left my side”, I mean he hardly needs me, as he shapes his own world and finds his own way, solo.

Manifestations of Independence

He is happy without me. Up until early this year, he still cried every morning when I sent him to school. Now, he waves me on. Afternoons, he runs over to the neighbour’s place on his own for hours on end, with no adult escort, preferring the company of his friends instead of his mother. What do they do? I have no idea, he refuses to say. What do they watch (they are always watching TV)? I have no idea. Increasingly, I have no idea what is going into his head.

It’s no longer important to him that I know what is going on his life. In fact, he has reached the stage where he would rather I did not. If I were to ask him any question on what he did when I was not around – “What did you do in school? How was music class? What games did you play with the neighbours?” – his response is consistently lackadaisical and disinterested. “Nothing,” at best. Silence, at worst. He is already showing the universal reluctance of children to share information with their parents.

He can go out with any adult, including my friends. We – mum and dad - do not have to be there.

Nights, on the occasion I lie down with them for hugs, he tells me: “Mummy, go, you have to work.”

There is hardly anything I need to do for him now, apart from wiping his backside (OK that’s major).

Why now

Could be age. Could be that at four years old, kids just… grow up.

Could be the birth of Lu taking up more of my time, and Dee entering her needy phase, such that he does not want to tax mama any more than what’s absolutely necessary. Like wiping the backside.

I miss him but I love it.

I love that he is cruising nicely into boyhood, I love that I can let go, I love that he can find his own way without hiding behind me, I even love that he is starting to keep parts of his life separate from mine.

He was safe in the nest, now he's ready to fly.

mirrors

What they say about children making us better people, I find truer everyday.

These days, they are like mirrors, particularly Day.

I am not quite amused when I order Day to go to bed and he, eyes rolling, chest heaving and with a very audible “tsk”, throws the book he is reading onto the bed and yells “Haiya, forGET it!”

(In recent memory, my temper fits have been many and frequent)

KK and my mum are both highly amused. “ForGET it” with that distinctive emphasis on the GET is a distinctive trait belonging to only one person in this household.

I am even more appalled when he unleashes his anger by damaging property. Like throwing and rattling things in what resembles an epileptic fit, arms and shoulders all stiff with rage. I tend to do that when I lose it with Dee.

Suffice to say, as easygoing as I may appear in public, I was regretfully a temper-throwing bitch at home (my parents would know) and while I have mellowed considerably since the children came along – sort of like smokers who quit smoking for their kids – the old cravings erupt now and then.

(It's a good thing I haven't done anything worse. As ridiculous as it may sound, I am mighty pleased I have never used a single expletive in their presence. I glory in the poetry of expletives and when I gleefully unleash them on KK nowadays, he preachily scolds me for using such language because I'm now a Mum)

What do I do when I lose it?

I try my level best to become a better person of course!

I talk to Day so he addresses the root of what’s frustrating him, instead of feeling out of control and taking it out on something else. (when I talk to him I feel like I'm talking to myself)

And I hope the kids mirror their papa, who has the disposition of a rock. Nothing moves him.

On the other side, however, it is wonderful when they reflect our good.

delaying sleep

* If anyone has any ideas on how to deal with this, pray share. We are at a bit of a loss and a cursory search on the Net doesn't show anything useful.



We put Dee to bed at 830pm.

She just fell asleep at 1am.

She has been doing this sleep-delaying thing for weeks now and I do mean delay, meaning anything from two to five hours.

Is she sleepy?

For sure. Her nap was short (she had delayed sleep for nearly 2 hours and ended up sleeping for a while). She was yawning and rubbing her eyes at 8pm.

She plain refuses to sleep. Fights it valiantly.

I wouldn't care (after all she isn't bothering anyone in the time she is awake and in bed) except that there is hell to pay the next day.

If left on her own, she'd wake up at noon, miss her afternoon nap, be screaming all day.

Basically, her sleep routine - that cornerstone for sane mothers and happy children - is shot to bits.

Would she sleep if I lay down with her, make her feel warm and secure and loved?

No. My presence, in fact, seems to galvanise her into more activity.

What about warm comforting rituals?

Been there, done that. All is good until the point she has to turn in.

Can I command her / scold her / smack her / maybe even cane her into sleep submission?

We have done all but cane, but to be honest, punishing a child into sleeping sounds absolutely ridiculous.

Imagine the deranged mother standing over her with a big stick going: "SLEEP NOW! CLOSE YOUR EYES AND CLOSE YOUR MOUTH AND SLEEP NOW! IF YOU DO NOT SLEEP IN 10 MINUTES TIME I WILL WHACK YOU!"

What I have had to do, and which is becoming an unfortunate ritual, is to put her to bed alone - sans Day - close the doors and let her scream herself to sleep.

She always goes down within 15 minutes. But what if she never feels secure sleeping for the rest of her life?

Are other kids like that? And how to deal with it sensibly and civilly?

13 years

On the 13th anniversary of our first date and the 5th anniversary of our marriage, I have nearly forgotten what our wedding rings look like and I certainly have no idea what the inscription – so carefully worded when we chose the rings – say.

We don’t wear them.

A few days ago I sidle up to KK and before I can get a word out, he says: “I’m playing golf on Sunday.”

“Oh. What’s the date?” I ask.

He pauses. “Oh.”

Still, he plays golf.

When he leaves for his game, he kisses us all goodbye and says – to Day not to me! - “I’ll miss you Day, and baby Lulu. And mei-mei. And mummy.”

I remark: “Do you realize the order in which you said goodbye? It’s telling isn’t it?”

He laughs. I roll my eyes.

He is father more than husband.

I am mother more than wife.

That is where we are now, but hopefully that is not where we will stay!

wanting dee

A stranger asked me to give him my daughter.

The middle-aged Indian man clapped his eyes on Dee, cupped his hands on her chubby shoulders and said, smiling all the while: “Please, give me your daughter. I’ll give her back to you in three years, four years.”

We – me and friends JJ and Lim Chun – at first thought it was said in jest.

Just a benign passing tourist who was enjoying the airport Terminal 3, like us, and who wanted to have some fun.

I joked: “No, I love her too much!”

My friends also joked: “What about the baby?” to which he replied: “No she’s too young.”

But as we pushed Day and Dee along in the luggage trolley, it became apparent that he wasn’t jesting when he followed alongside, repeating his earnest plea for Dee with what (to me) increasingly appeared to be a mad glint in his eye.

My smile wavered then disappeared. I told him brusquely: “No!”

He asked: “How about the boy?”

“No!” Thankfully, he left it when an accompanying gaggle of what appeared to be female relatives or friends, waved him over to stop harassing us.

I was unnerved, my protective instincts bared. Until Lim Chun suggested that the stranger may have lost a child himself.

It was an odd moment in an otherwise goofy outing to the airport with my two musician pals, who cracked up at everything the kids said and did. It’s great when people enjoy the children!

JJ, Day and Dee fighting over chocolate ice cream.



Lu in Lim Chun’s protective embrace.

dee's home

The magic pill which an eminent paediatrician dispensed for my phlegmy daughter: Take Dee out of school.

Funny: $216 worth of consultation and yet more nebulizing treatment, but this is his bottomline solution.

I heeded it.

That very afternoon (23 June) as I collected Day from school, I told Dee’s teachers: She’s out.

I am not going to pay through my nose (over $400 to two paediatricians in less than a month for this particularly stubborn cough) for Dee to regularly see the doctor, miss X number of days of school and still have to pay her hefty fees.

Truthfully, the regular doctor’s visits - underlined by months of phlegm - only started after she started school in April, so the latest paed (a cough expert no less) was probably right.

He made no bones about it.

Straight after I narrated her cough history from the piece of paper (I had faithfully noted down all her dates with the doctor and medications), he looked at me and asked: “Is she in school?”

I said yes.

The white-haired gentleman, genial until this point, fixed me with his gaze and asked point-blank: “Why?”

I, taken aback, looked askance and stammered: “Er, because I have another baby and you see, I do freelance writing and I need time in the morning to do my work…”

“Well then you have to change something,” he said. “Get someone to help. Don’t write. She is only two years old and she has to stay home. She can’t go to school for the next 2 weeks to break the cycle and get rid of the phlegm, and then I suggest she doesn’t go back to school again until she is older because she can very easily get re-infected.”

For the matter, Dee did pass Lu some sort of virus which gave her a clogged nose.

And so, happily, because I never intended to send Dee to school in the first place (it was KK) and because I do have a choice, I took Dee out immediately.

I figure, less time to do work, less money earned, but also less to spend (no need to pay her school fees).

And how has Dee been?

Ecstatic, I should say, in the past week.

She takes her own sweet time to eat her breakfast, plays couch potato, does her usual jig-saws, games and drawing, goes out with me and the neighbour, and she is quite the angel because she has my undivided attention (Lu sleeps quite a bit in the mornings).

Does she miss school? Not a whit. She says: “I’m scared of school. I’m scared of Teacher Sharon.”

Funny. She sure seemed fine when she was in it.