Five minutes' peace

As any mother knows, it is a luxury to be left alone by the kids even for a few minutes. I can't read the papers, blog, take a shower or even use the toilet without the girls yelling for me or coming to talk to me. So when I saw this book, Five Minutes' Peace, which tells of a Mummy Elephant whose three little ones would not give her even five minutes' peace, I knew I had to get the book. I wanted the girls to understand how it feels for me to be constantly hounded by them and how much I, like the Mummy Elephant, would appreciate just five minutes' peace.

Last evening, I read the book to Pumpkin and Sai Pi (Tai Pi had read it by herself earlier), and as I read the story, I could see that Pumpkin recognised herself in the book and there was a look of guilt on her face. Sai Pi just thought it was a funny book. This morning, as the girls went Mummy this and Mummy that, I reminded them of the story and asked them if they would ever give me five minutes' peace.

Tai Pi had this to say:
"We'll give you two minutes' peace. Do you know why we don't give you five minutes' peace? Because we like you so much [Tai Pi hugs me at this point] and we want to spend a lot of time with you."
Aww... now how am I to argue against this?

Our favourite stories

A few weeks ago, I found this book at Borders which I read when I was a child - The Five Chinese Brothers. It is exactly the same as I remember it. I loved this book and now the girls can enjoy it too. It is based on the classic Chinese tale of the, I think it is 10 brothers but here it is just 5. I love the illustration, especially the part where the first brother holds the sea in his mouth while desperately trying to get the naughty boy to come back to shore. It is hilarious!

When I buy books for the girls, I like to get them funny stories. We have a good laugh and I think these funny stories are somehow more imaginative. Some of our favourite funny stories are "Not Now, Bernard" and "The Hill and The Rock" both by David McKee, Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, and there's "Bad Bad Barney Bear" by Tony Ross which is the funniest children's story I've ever read. I like to think that these stories help the girls develop a good sense of humour.


Talk about imaginative tales, nothing beats Hayao Miyazaki's films. He is one of greatest animators and film directors ever. His stories and characters are very compelling and full of imagination. He is a true genius. We have a whole collection of his films which we have not finished watching. My favourite is My Neighbour Totoro which does have much of a plot but is very captivating and we have the Mandarin version to give the girls more exposure to Mandarin. The girls' current fave Miyazaki film is The Castle of Cagliostro. I've not watched it yet so I think we'll put it on this afternoon... another wet day with nothing much to do....