Birthday card

Last night, Pumpkin slaved over a birthday card for one of her classmates. She wrote "Happy Birthday", she drew a birthday party scene with a birthday cake and children with party hats on and she used different colour markers to colour the picture. We put the card into a party bag together with some sweets and a little toy. And then what happens? When she gave the boy the party bag today, he was very happy with the toy but didn't want the birthday card and gave it back to her.

In the car on the way home, Tai Pi discovered the card and said, "Hey, you forgot to give him the card!"
Pumpkin said sheepishly, "He didn't want it."

He doesn't want it, fine! I'll give this lovely card a permanent home on my blog.

Let's play.... restaurant

Hello and welcome to our restaurant!

We have a very wide variety and we cook our food in many different ways.
You want potatoes? We have spisy patatoes, smash patatoes, boiled patatoes, hard patatoes and roust patatoes.
You prefer corn? We have spisy corn, roust corn, boiled corn, cold corn and hot corn.

And you will love our desserts. How about a Rainbow ice cream cone? or the all time favourite here - the Fear Factor ice cream cone with toppings of cockcroaches, catepillars and ants. Yum!!

Fun with inflatables!

If there is anything Singapore needs more of, it's indoor playgrounds so we don't have to get hot and sweaty and burnt. And last weekend, we had a ball of a time at an indoor playground. There was a fair taking place at the Singapore Expo where there were stalls and at one end, there was a big area occupied by many different types of inflatables - bouncy slides, bouncy playhouse, obstacle course, etc. It cost just $5 for half hour or $10 for unlimited play. Woo hoo!! We first went there on Friday night and then again on Sunday. The kids played for some 3 hours on Sunday, climbing, crawling, jumping; it's amazing how much energy kids have. After 3 hours of standing around, my body was aching! Unfortunately, the playground is not a permanent fixture so I can only hope that such fairs at the Expo will be a regular event.

Don't strain your brain sweetheart. Mummy & Daddy will do the thinking for you.

Am I too bo chap or are some parents in Singapore too involved in their children's lives? Today's newspapers had a letter from a reader writing in to say that the Ministry of Education should provide more information to help parents and students in their decision-making in regards to the choice of junior college.

You can read the full letter here.

I might be wrong but from the letter, I picture the writer to be a high strung control freak of a parent. Here is an excerpt from the letter:

"Helping your child choose a new school, in this case a junior college (JC), is a stressful process.
It is a balance of knowing her abilities and the right JC for her. When our daughter did reasonably well in her O levels, we thought she might have a chance of getting into the top JCs. We were also concerned that the order of her choices might be a factor in her final posting.
We therefore pored through the Ministry of Education (MOE) information booklet and called the hotline."

Isn't a 16-year-old fully capable of choosing a school for herself? I can just imagine it - this 16-year-old (my grandma was married at 16, for heaven's sake) sitting there while her anxious parents sweated over the information booklet (what, she illiterate?).

It's so tough you know, choosing a school for our baby. So many to choose from - 15, yes 15 junior colleges! Of course it is a much smaller number than the hundreds of primary schools and secondary schools that we had to pick from for our precious darling (oh, I can't begin to tell you the stress we experienced then), but still, it is a tough decision because the 2 years she spends in junior college could make or break her entire life you know so there's simply no room for mistakes.

Oh puh-lease!

When I was 12 years old, I made my own choice of secondary school and so did my friends. Same thing after the "O" levels and "A" levels. Pa only offered some advice at best; didn't pore over any information booklets, didn't call any hotlines. In having the freedom to make my own decisions, I learnt to be independent and to have confidence in my own judgement, and to accept the consequences of any mistakes or poor decisions I made.

And I thought a parent's duty was to bring up their child. Looks like some parents want their children to remain in their care forever - "you'll always be my little baby." Yeech!

Accepting myself

See lah, just one day after I resolved to pay more attention to Tai Pi's school work, we failed to follow the timetable (as usual) which says that she has to spend an hour on math revision (split into 2 half hour sessions to accommodate Winx Club - the timetable is built around a TV schedule) and an hour on Chinese revision on Saturdays. But at least I did make sure that she completed the corrections she had to do on some worksheets. And the good news is that she doesn't have any holiday homework. Looks like I chose the right school for her (and for me!).

So what were we doing instead? Tai Pi made a birthday card for a friend, the girls made jewelry boxes and in the afternoon we enjoyed a chocolate fondue with marshmallows. I also made this box thingy using a cereal carton, a button, ribbon and a piece of cord. It looks pretty good, doesn't it? but I'm not quite sure what to use it for.

So you see, there are so many better things to do than to study and I have too little discipline to follow the timetable (which I had set myself and it's a pretty unambitious one for that matter). So instead, I will be realistic in my expectations of Tai Pi and of myself. I will accept myself the way I am. The fact is that I hate homework and I never enjoyed studying. I realise now that those times when I turned into a monster while coaching Tai Pi, I was probably feeling resentful of having to deal with school work. And it really wouldn't be fair for me to demand more from Tai Pi than I demand of myself. So now I resolve to put in just enough effort for Tai Pi to achieve fair enough grades and the rest of the time, we will spend on activities that we really enjoy and which will give the girls happy memories of their childhood. There, I feel better already.

No poor people in Singapore?

At work, someone sent me a PowerPoint slideshow which compares the life of poor starving Africans with that of more fortunate societies like ours, such as how we might complain when we receive a pair of Addidas when what we really wanted was a pair of Nikes and in the meantime, the poor in Africa are using flattened PET bottles as sandals. It ends with the message to complain less and give more. I played the slideshow for the girls this morning and they were shocked at the images (maybe a bit too much for them) but they understood. Just this morning, Pumpkin was complaining because I had said we would have marshmallows in the afternoon but she had wanted them in the morning, but after watching the slideshow, she is thankful just to have marshmallows and has stopped her whining.

Later on, Pumpkin asked me "How can poor people be in Singapore?"
Me: "Why not?"
Pumpkin: "Poor people must be in poor country."
Me: "What makes you think there are no poor people in Singapore?"
Pumpkin: "Because I only saw one poor people in Singapore."
She was referring to a man we drove pass last Sunday on our way to Taekwondo class. He was walking along the roadside carrying a toddler and pushing a stroller in which sat 2 other young children. All four of them looked like they had not had a bath in weeks, their faces and clothes all grey with dirt. It was really sad. I was so shocked I didn't have the presence of mind to stop and give them some money.

Me: "What do you want to do next time we see the poor man?"
Pumpkin: "I want to help him, give him things to make him happy, like my old slippers."

I think we learnt an important lesson today.

4 years 3 terms to PSLE

It's been 5 months since I started blogging and I have been having so much fun I almost forgot how this blog was born out of my frustration and anxiety over Tai Pi's school work. Flashback - it is Oct 2005, Tai Pi's exams are around the corner and I only just discovered how bad she is at math because the irresponsible mother that I am I hadn't bothered to check her work all the while. So then came a period of intense coaching during which I turned into a crazed woman, screaming, crying, banging the table. Fortunately just before Tai Pi's exams, with Kong Kong's help, I came to my senses. So now I am back to being my old bo chap self; didn't even look into Tai Pi's organiser to see what homework she had till 2 months into the new year. But somehow, I have a feeling that closer to exam time, I'm going to turn into Mr Hyde again. Poor Tai Pi. But no, I cannot let that happen again. So today, on the last day of school term one, I resolve to pay more attention to Tai Pi's school work and not to resort to last minute mugging. My blog title will be a reminder.

Anyway, just a couple of days back, Tai Pi's teacher called to ask about some form that Tai Pi was supposed to hand over but seemed to have lost (typical of Tai Pi). At the same time, she told me that she considered Tai Pi to be a "high performing student" - fwah, my Tai Pi is a high performer leh!

Witness the joys of parenthood

After Taekwondo class this morning, I brought the girls for a haircut. We went to Suntec City where there is a kids section featuring kids related retail shops including a kids hairdresser. We had to wait quite a bit at the hairdresser because the salon was having a very difficult customer - a little boy, maybe 2 years old, screaming like a pig being slaughtered while the hairdresser took a little snip here and a little snip there. The little boy was being held by his mother, a hip stylish looking lady with blonde streaks in her hair. As I stood there waiting with Pumpkin, the lady, without looking at us, said "Can you all please stop staring." I suppose she could be referring to Pumpkin and I although I wasn't quite looking her way. I wanted to say to her "OK, we'll stop staring if your son stops screaming." But I'm not so mean lah and I felt a bit sorry for her (at least up until she made that very unnecessary remark). But maybe I shouldn't feel sorry for her - maybe her son's that way because he has been over-protected like many kids in Singapore. Incidentally, later on the salon had another screaming wailing customer and it was yet another little boy - what kind of men are we breeding in Singapore?

While the girls were having their haircuts, I witnessed an argument taking place just outside a shop nearby. Now I've seen lovers quarrelling in public but here was an argument between a man and his maid. "You are lying. Where were you at 7pm?" "I was home already. sob sob"....."I know his pattern. He doesn't poo poo everyday. You're lying.".... The man had his toddler son (the one who doesn't poo poo everyday) with him and the boy seemed oblivious to what was going on; was probably used to it. If I were the shop assistant, I would have said to the man "Excuse me sir, please could you make a scene elsewhere? You're scaring away my customers."

While I was sitting there, I also saw a frumpy-looking lady walk pass me with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. I suppose she was feeding her child and was walking about searching for her child. I will never understand why parents allow their children to walk and run about during meal times. They are raising spoilt brats I tell you.

Now I know why the mall has a section just for kids/families - so that the rest of the shoppers would be spared these horrors!

Where's the logic?

It was just in the news that the Singapore Gahmen or some authority or other is now thinking of making it mandatory for school buses to have seat belts. I think this may be a reaction to a recent accident where a school bus ferrying a busload of primary school children overturned on its side. No one suffered any serious injury.

If they do make it mandatory for school buses to install seat belts, that may lead to higher school bus fees which already have been increasing ever so often, much to the chagrin of parents.

Now my question is why the authorities bother looking into seat belts on buses when many children and even babies are not strapped in or using child seats when travelling in a car? A child or baby sitting on an adult's lap in the front passenger seat is not an uncommon sight here. I should think that the risk of serious injury and death is much higher in the case of a car accident than a bus accident. I doubt you could suffer any serious injury in a bus accident unless the bus falls off a cliff. So unless it was a bus travelling up Genting Highlands I really don't think seat belts are all that necessary.

Shouldn't the authorities first focus on safe car travel and strictly enforce the belt up and child seat law? It doesn't seem that they actually enforce that law so if they do introduce the bus seat belt regulation, it's likely they wouldn't enforce that either. Why bother passing laws that you don't enforce??!