A little celebration

"I can go by 5.15pm today, dear; wait for me, okay?" Yen told me that day.  "Sure," I replied, not thinking too much of it.  These days, I'll wait for her to fetch her back if the children can stay until five-plus in the evening and if she does not need to stay too long after work on days that I do not need to work at nights.

I called her to inform her that I had reached the play-school and picked the children up that Friday.  "Meet you in five minutes at block 4?  I'm going to pick something up," she suggested.  I had no reason to say 'no' to her request, and dutifully picked her up five minutes later.  Wait.  She had a box in a plastic bag.  One that resembled a box of a cake.  Oh yes, how can I be so muddle-headed to forget that my thirty-third birthday was the next week?

I did not ask her about the box and continued on our journey home.  She revealed that we had to be home soon and change the children out of their uniforms, so that we could go to Jurong Point for dinner with the children's uncle and aunt - Eddie and Hui Jun.  It is all shaping up now - they have not forgotten my birthday, whilst I have totally disregarded its existence!  They had 'conspired' about it, behind my back too!  Ha!

We took a leisurely walk with the children and my mother to our destination.  It isn't often we walk as a little family for a little distance along the pathways, you see, much less to Jurong Point, which I avoid like the plague due to its massive crowd.  The walk was nice, with our three gems mostly obedient.

Eddie and Hui Jun were a little late as they were caught with some last minute work.  We queued up outside Swensens' first and they arrived soon after.  It was nice to have the company of your loved ones over dinner, which I seldom get these days with them on weekdays.

When we were done with our main courses, I was expecting to go.  Little did I realise that they had a little surprise planned - they ordered an ice-cream for me and another one for the children, getting a waiter from the restaurant to stick a lit candle on my ice-cream and singing a birthday song for me.  Interestingly enough, mine was the fourth birthday song we heard in the matter of a couple of hours there as three other groups had someone celebrate their birthdays there too!  Seems like Swensens is the choice for birthday celebrations these days!

That had to be all.  We could retire to bed now, I thought.  How wrong was I!  Eddie asked nonchalantly if I drove and offered to send us back in his car when I revealed that I hadn't.  Oh well, how could we turn down the ride?  He dropped us at the 'Loading / Unloading' bay of our block.  He got out of the car.  I was puzzled.  It was then that I remembered the birthday cake Yen had brought home!

So Part Two of this 'operation' was underway.  Yen brought the cake out and lit the candles.  They sang me the birthday song and I had to complete the process by blowing out the candles, cutting the cake and eatting the cake.  These are things that our two elder children were familiar with after so long in play-school, and something Kayleen will see again soon when we celebrate her birthday in a couple of weeks.

It was a nice surprise, successfully planned and executed, masterminded by my lovely wife.  A nice moment to savour.  =)

Project Literacy

It is no secret - I fear that my own children cannot read and write.  Being an educator for the past few years, I think I have seen quite a little to nudge me into thinking so.  I have seen children, in classes which I teach or otherwise, not being able to muster reading simple words of their appropriate 'reading age'.  I have seen students who veer clear from learning, simply because they are not able to comprehend what they are to do, and give up on themselves totally henceforth.

On the other end of the scale, I have witnessed how some children excel time and again, scoring more than satisfactory results during their PSLE.  Too early to test them and judge them, we say?  Perhaps it is really so, but we cannot change the fact that they will have to sit for the dreaded four-lettered (no, not the swear-word!) examination when they reach the end of their primary school education.

I had thought long and hard about it, and have decided to take it upon myself to create readers in my children.  It is true that children are inquisitive.  Look at my younger princess - even when she cannot comprehend what is written in the books, she sits at the table or on the floor to browse through the books that once belonged to her elder siblings.

I have planned a multi-pronged approach to achieving my goal.  My children, like most others, love watching television programmes.  Before anyone judges us and lament that 'too much television is not good for children', especially at their tender age, I had thought of capitalising their 'love' to maximum effect.  We let them enjoy their dose of cartoon shows on Playhouse Disney (not a lot nowadays, since they are away in play-school most of the weekdays), rather than soap operas or drama serials where they may not learn anything from at their age.

I have converted myself into an avid fan of the channel and its shows when they are around too.  I have to say that I have learnt a few things from the programmes!  Other than that channel, we have invested quite heavily earlier on quite a few Hi-5!, Barney and other types of education CDs to entertain them, sometimes during the weekends.

You might have seen the pictures of the books I had taken earlier.  Then again, there could be books which are bought, but left as 'white elephants'.  I take it upon myself to read with at least my elder two children now when I am at home, to read with them before I put them to sleep.  Rachel and Felix enjoy reading, no doubt about that.  They will always ask to read a book before they hit the sack, and frown when we tell them that it is too late.

From time to time, when Rachel and Felix come across print on signages, they will read them aloud.  I help them with the ones they do not know and ask them to spell words that I think children at their age can handle.  The last I counted, Felix can spell quite an impressive amount of words.  In fact, he showed me that he has better concentration and memory by beating his elder sister to mastering spelling of words 'one' to 'ten' and understanding that rhymes mean spellings are similar (for example: he mastered spelling the word 'eight' quite fast, and remembered well when I told him that 'night' is spelt similarly).

My latest approach deals with phonics and phonetic awareness using word blends.  Not being 'trained' in phonics, this is not easy.  Thankfully, their play-school teachers have been doing their fair share to teach our children and I add in my part on blends.  I am working on simple ending blends at the moment and it seems to work out well.  The A5 pieces of recycled paper are used to write some blends and pasted onto the frames of their bed.  Rachel and Felix will blabber off at the words before they go to bed after reading.  That has, thankfully, reinforced their pronunciation and learning.

My next target will be to start getting Rachel to read the newspapers with me.  Her current year's teacher at the play-school does that with her former students (I have seen her do that) and has announced to Rachel, "You have to start reading newspapers."  The coming years will show if all my efforts will bear fruit.  My fingers are crossed!

New Year's resolutions?

People always make New Years resolutions.  It happens annually, whether they manage to achieve what they set out to accomplish.  Or if they even try to take steps towards it at all.  What is yours?

I do not have the habit to make resolutions.  Life rarely lets us manipulate our ways through situations anyway.  I tried years before but I had lived my life not remembering the resolutions that had been carefully carved out in that same year.  So I gave up.  What matters most, I reasoned, is to live a life without having to regret the decisions we made, years later.

Perhaps I should be more responsible.  Not that I have not been, most times in my life!  I should try to set some goals for this year and work towards them.  "Failing to plan is planning to fail", says a wise adage.  Do you agree?

Last year, without making my plans announced aloud, I had planned to leave the Ministry of Education to spend more time with my three adorable children.  Check.  I had planned to continue working with students and assist a few to achieving relative success in their PSLE.  Check.  Seems like a good year for me then!

This time round, I think I want to make resolutions for my family.  And I should resolve to better myself, personally.  So there I have the preliminary vows I have for myself in 2011:

1.  Spend more QUALITY (not just quantity) time with my three gems and my beloved wife!
2.  Be more patient.  It is a virtue that had eluded me in 2010!
3.  Be extra careful on the roads!  (I somehow have this feeling recently that I'll get into trouble one of these days and knock someone down, touch wood!)
4.  Make an effort to meet with friends who matter) once every two to three months.  (Someone needs to make the effort.  I'll do it if it has to be me!)
5.  Scutinise my expenses!

There are just too many things that I want to do this new year.  Let me start with these five.  It may be too many, but then again, let me just start off somewhere, lest I do not get moving at all!  Do feel free to call me and catch up on life with me, my friends.  Feel inspired to make 2011 a good year.  Let us take control of our lives!