two sisters

We used to draw a lot, the kids and I. I even kept a drawing book in my bag.

Times change. We don’t draw so much these days.

For the adult, drawing requires time and a certain set of mind to relax, divert and focus on something quite out-of-the-box.

These days, I have had to settle into a routine which does not quite allow for leisurely drawing moments; a routine of ferrying this or that one, attending to things like school tests and admin, domestic chores and work.

So when we do sit down to draw now, it’s an event.

The last thing we did was several weeks (or months?) ago, me and the girls. (Day doesn’t draw much these days)

It’s two sisters. Inspired by something I saw somewhere, I drew one.



Then the two girls decided to follow suit.





It was a good afternoon.

a big tv

The moment our little TV went kaput, KK went out and got us a 40-inch giant.



I have little faith.

For the little Samsung was not even three years old when it suddenly blacked out and refused to re-start.

I was all for reclaiming our 10-year-old box TV (not flat screen) from my mum's, which is still broadcasting beautifully. All the box TVs work great.

But no. KK wants to get a clearer glimpse of the soccer ball from a piece of flat-screen machinery which I fear will die on us in three years or less.

That's how electrical devices work these days, no? To encourage quick turnover?

The kids celebrate the big screen and sound which they can finally hear, by popping in the Cars 2 DVD.

Now watching TV in our home is rather appealing.

I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

terraria

The latest game to hit the household is Terraria.



It’s one of the broadest games I have ever seen (not that I have seen many) and it covers everything from building to fighting to collecting to exploring.

I don’t really understand it.

Here’s the thing: It was Teng (again) who introduced it to Day.

Why I pick that out, is because I think an adult, an adult perceived as “cool” who is close by, has a profound influence on kids.

Most little boys think Teng is incredibly cool. Including Day.

Teng has had a silent (in that he mostly ignores Day) but very pervasive effect on Day since young.

Day prays for the nights he can play Terraria together with Teng, as in Teng is at my folks and Day is at home but they are both playing in the same “world” onscreen. God I can’t even express that properly.

When KK makes Day sleep early and cut short his time in his fantasy world where he fights alongside Teng, Day sobs buckets into his pillow. It is deeply dramatic.

Day doesn’t even want to go out with us to eat dinner sometimes, in case he misses the window in which he can catch Teng online, in Terraria.

And Day, who is always coaching his sisters in one thing or another, has spread the Terraria bug to Jo!



My not understanding or liking games doesn't mean gaming is a bad thing.

But still I wish, I wish, I wish so hard my athletic super-chef sociable brother is in Singapore to balance out the nerdiness.

CHOON!!!!! COME HOME!!!!! FOR GOOD!!!!!

three

It's very hard to get a photo of the trio in one shot nowadays.

They don't co-operate.

So every such shot is precious.

trikora

In what would have been our first wind-chasing trip since the kids came along, Trikora in Bintan was to have given KK his first rip-roaring gusting taste of kite-surfing.

(Yes he has to go overseas to learn it)

Trikora, a beach apparently so extreme that two Singaporeans who went swimming in the sea died last month when 1.5 metre waves dragged them to their graves.

Our reality: A beach so still a piece of tissue wouldn’t flutter.


* KK and kiting instructor discussing the dismal state of wind as someone tries pathetically to have a go outside

But we are oh so good at making the best out of the bad.

THE BAD: The Bintan Cabana, a two-bedroom villa with scummy sinks and so little furniture we had to eat sitting on the floor.



BUT: The bedrooms had aircon! It was so great I took five hours worth of naps on Day 1 (and three hours on Day 2) and the girls gushed about being able to sleep in aircon.

THE BAD: Food at the Bintan Cabana which consists of stale bread, what looks like leftovers from the day before and bad buffets.
BUT: We bring our own gas burner to cook! Instant noodles and Campbell soups! It was so great the girls gush about how the (junk) food was one of their favourite parts of the trip!






* And lots of junk (ice cream and chips) from the convenience store

THE BAD: Nothing to do. Devoid of the usual entertainment of all kind. There is no Internet, no Tab, no iPhone, no recreational facilities and very few people. It is a very, very quiet resort.
BUT: We entertain each other! Day discovers the lovely mudflats unearthed every time the tide goes out and spends hours in the water searching for fish and crabs. We see starfish, hermit crabs and other creatures which make the girls squeal and wail. We all have a go on the swings hanging from the trees by the beach.


* Tide's out


* Tide's in


* With cup in hand, checking out what the adults are trying to catch



We actually all had a very peaceful time.

the end of day's piano

Why I wrote the last post is really because of this: Day no longer wants piano lessons.

He writes it very succinctly in his own little blog post here, a post which I had asked him to write so he is clear about why he wants to quit.

(Please don't leave comments on his blog! It'll freak him out!)

It is sad. There have been so many of what I had thought of as happy little piano milestones in his young life, from picking-out-a-tune to music class.

But I accept his decision. He's stopped piano lessons with por-por for two weeks now.

Does he touch the piano? Yes. But I ignore him completely.

Now, am I being very wise in letting him go his own way?

Or am I giving up on young child who doesn't know better?

Day's piano swansong:

mummy dominatrix

* I am aware dominatrix is not exactly the right word. But I like the sound of it. And it connotes domination!

True, this one.

A little kid, I won’t say boy or girl, grows up with a terribly bossy and dominating mother.

Mum wants to turn kid into a musical and academic powerhouse.

The housewife – of course – tortures and drills the kid from young.

Kid plays the violin, the best instrument of torture, from young. Mum makes kid practise hours a day. I’m not sure how these sessions go but it is probably not too pleasant.

Mum also drills kid in homework, schoolwork, what have you.

The perfect horror story.

Fast-forward 15 years.

The kid is a national treasure, one of the top musical prodigies in the land. The kid, still a teenager, plays a difficult solo concert with the national symphony orchestra.

Kid reveals that he/she has to take an A level paper the next day but what do you know? Kid isn’t the least bit fazed. Of course, kid aces both concert and paper.

Kid now loves the violin. Kid also went to the top schools and would be perfect scholarship material even without the music. Kid is a completely independent top-achiever (mum has done her job) who will continue to make headline news.

Success, the kind of story whereby the kid would say, in a newspaper interview: I owe it all to my mum. If not for her, I would be mediocre.

Sometimes I think of stories like these. I have three healthy lumps of clay at my feet. Three perfect opportunities to sculpt three outstanding citizens.

It’s that argument: Kids don’t like to work. But it’s the parent’s job to make the kid see the value of it, by pushing them through the first few difficult hoops, so they can continue to jump through difficult hoops for the rest of their life.

Well, I just can’t do it!

I just don’t have the guts to do something which is just as likely to result in an emotionally scarred and traumatized adult.

Plus it’s not something which I am, or which I believe in.

If anything, I would want my kids to say: I am successful because my parents supported me in determining my own path.

Still. I wonder, if I were more of a mummy dominatrix, whether the kids would reach much higher than if I left them alone.

calling each other

What should siblings call each other?

In my family, both my younger brothers call me “ga-jae” (Cantonese for elder sister). And Jun is gor-gor to youngest Teng.

In KK’s family, they call each other Brother and Sister. As in: “Eh brother, are you going out?”

In our family. Well.

I wish she called him gor-gor, but she doesn't.



Everybody calls everybody David and Jody and Lulu. So Lu calls her older siblings David and Jody.

I didn’t even think of teaching them to call each other gor-gor or jae-jae.

My mum is horrified at the sheer rudeness of it all: No, cannot!

KK gives a token sigh and shake of his head.

I suppose I could wrangle them into calling each other properly. But as long as they don’t call us Sher Maine and Kheng, I think I’m still OK.

snapshot

It's hateful.

I hate it when editors call me and beg me to take on stories which I initially reject because I know I cannot meet the deadline, and then I accede because I'm too damned nice. (And the pay, at nearly a dollar a word, is damned good.)

I hate it when they bug, bug, bug me for the damn story and I take so damned long with it because I know the reason why they called me in the first place is because I can deliver a great piece but I am stuck, stuck, stuck. That is, the dreaded verbal constipation which requires me to sit at the computer terminal for 50 minutes thinking and then writing for 10 minutes. That's my crazy style except when I blog.

I hate when I keep pushing Day, Jo and Lu off, shouting at them nastily and angrily because they are disturbing me and I cannot write when a kid is hugging me from behind.

I hate it when I have to work during kid time (afternoons). Vice-versa, I hate it when kids intrude during work time (after 10pm). I just hate it when my daily schedule goes awry.

Right now I just want to read them a book.

But I have to do what I do next-best: Send a compromised piece. As long as it meets the deadline.

(In this instance this working from home thing sucks. Having to work under pressure with kids underfoot brings out my ugliest side because they don't get that I want to f*&cking get the freaking piece out of the way so I can properly spend time with them. Of course they don't. They disturb me, I scream, I fling things around, I bang the door and lock it. Ugh. I'm really not being fair to them. Stupid is as stupid gets. This is bad work management)

a day out...

... with kaining and kaiqin.

jo's ting xie

The tears, all these tears.

Jo is getting the worst academic start on her Mandarin road.

It’s Ting Xie.

Same teacher as Day, same ideology of giving the kids crazy difficult words to learn which I cannot write myself.


* Jo's word list

Does it work?

Not really.

The words fall through their memory sieve a week after they learn it.

And what it does is create the idea that Chinese is full of fiendishly difficult words.

With Day, however, this teacher’s crazy Ting Xie was alright.

He’s always been academic in a manner which sits well in the Singapore system.

He learn his Ting Xie within 30 minutes. He didn’t take it too seriously. KK would set the timer and he’d be on his own.

Jo is a completely different child.

And what makes Ting Xie ultra-tough for her is two things:

One, she isn’t as academically intuitive as her brother, not when it comes to Ting Xie anyway. The first few Ting Xie learning sessions at home took over two hours.



Two, she is a perfectionist. If she hasn’t learnt her Ting Xie, she would rather not go to school (which did happen once, in which case the Teacher capitulated and said she would change the Ting Xie day)

Should I blame the teacher?

I think not. This is the teacher and this is what she believes is the best way to teach, and while I may express that her Ting Xie is making Jo hate Chinese, I certainly won’t expect her to change her pedagogy on my behalf.

What we are more concerned with is not even Chinese (although it’s probably necessary for us now to take some sort of kiasu action. Urgh)

It’s Jo’s response to failure.

The mere thought of it induces paralysis. If she knows she is not perfect, she will not even attempt.

And her response to stress.

She can’t take it.

The timer which Day uses even today to time his writing practice makes her panic. The first time we put in front of her, she kept eyeing it as her face progressively crumpled by the minute. You could almost imagine her tunnel vision zooming in and focusing on the face of the timer as it ticked relentlessly away like a bomb.

And when KK used to give her Ting Xie, she could not take his demeanour either, which was stern, but he never even raised his voice. Tears used to rain down on the paper when he taught her.



KK says: I think we need to send her to Australia.

random shots...

... from around the house.

Girls taking turns at the peephole to see if papa is home yet.



The Straits Times gets a new reader. That and 8 Days (my must-read mag which is always lying around the house).

I wish I were a Wall Street Journal-National Geographic kind of girl. But no, I'm very low-brow. And so, they read the junk I read.

lu brushes her teeth

Boring as hell. It takes her so long. But it makes me proud.

My little girl takes three minutes to brush her teeth! (Wrongly and very earnestly)

tent

We got ourselves a tent!





Only thing is, the man says: Windsurfing doesn't feel the same anymore.

So we might not need a tent to sleep and hang out in (as we wait for him) after all.

Man, mid-life crisis - if this is what it is - is expensive.

Maybe we could just hang out to play with the sand.

camera fun

And this is about as clever as I can get with the camera.

anniversary notes

We run off for another date. This one being to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the day we registered our marriage on 020202 (yes yes gimmicky) at the Victoria Concert Hall.


* Our backs circa 2002

Notes:

* KK remembers the day. Not I.

* Jo asks plaintively “but don’t you like us?” when I tell her papa and mama have to go off for a dinner. They’re really not used to us abandoning them to go off on our own.

* My sentimental palate craves for the crumbed golden mushrooms and country fried steak which I and KK used to share at TGIFridays while we were dating young ‘uns, but the whole menu is completely different! I am shattered. Then again I haven't returned to TGIFridays in over 15 years.



* Post-dinner, KK shops for a new phone to replace his iPhone – the super-strong gorilla glass had shattered after a drop on the tarmac. I had kindly offered to cling wrap the phone so he can continue using it since it is completely functional, but he decides to buy a Samsung Note.



* Home, KK revels in the amazing abilities of the Note to understand his verbal commands – it understands the Singapore accent! – and, while staring deeply at the phone, tests it out by sending me a lovey-dovey SMS which he carefully and loudly recites.


* Loving the Note. I'm left out in the cold!

wakeboarding

KK’s really gone off.

What with the cycling and windsurfing, the newest bee in his bonnet is kitesurfing. Which basically involves flying a gigantic kite on a surfboard out at sea.

He's never done it, but to get there, he decides to get a preliminary feel of it by giving wakeboarding a shot, which he's also never done.

He takes off from work after lunch one day and pulls the whole family with him to Ski 360 at the East Coast Park, which offers a wakeboarding-like experience except that instead of a boat it’s a cable line pulling you along.

He says: I also want the kids to learn that there’s no giving up.



The presumption is that he would have a hard time.

I, a wakeboarding widow this time, diligently play my role and plumb the kids with the relevant teasers: See how difficult it is? See how everyone is falling in the water? Papa’s not going to give up. He’s going to keep going until he goes one round. Persistence! Perseverance! Never give up!

(Sometimes, I sound so ridiculous, pretentious and forced on paper I sicken myself.)


* Me and kids, doing nothing

Only thing is, well, it’s more like two things.

One, the girls lose interest after 20 minutes and start watching Peppa Pig on the Galaxy Tab. Only Day continues faithfully running at the side of the lagoon, following his Papa around and dropping (ridiculous) bits of advice like “Lean back, papa! Lean back!”

Two, KK doesn’t actually have a hard time. He gets up, gets it and completes one round after 30 minutes.



I say I’m the one who will really prove the perseverance point, because I’m sure I’d still be falling flat on my face into the water at the start point at the end of the hour.

But see, I’m not going to prove it because I have already given up. No thanks.