Stop being a busybody??

If you see someone 'disturbing' a cat in your estate, 'poking' it in the face and body with a long, thin blade of grass, causing the poor cat to jump at the grass everytime and seemingly 'fighting' against it, would you step forward to stop the person?  If you see the person in the lift standing by the buttons not holding the door for young children to enter the lift, would you suggest that he does it the next time?

Well, that's just what I did recently.  And they are just two examples of 'Mr. Civic-Minded' at work.  I frown upon people not holding the door for the person just a step behind.  Like a stern discipline master, I lambast those who fight shamelessly for seats in trains and slump straightaway into deep slumber, beating the elderly wearing a whole head of white hair.  These are just examples.  Of course, when put in those situations, I will be the first to offer assistance.

I engaged in an interesting discussion (it leaned precariously close into an argument) with Yen yesterday.  She asked me to 'close an eye to somethings'; to 'live and let live' on things,  for the sake of her and our young ones. She explained that it was in case those 'at fault' were to react poorly against me or the situation.  I was dumbfounded.  Do I turn a blind eye to these?

Yen asked me what I had intended to achieve by pointing out what should be done instead in those situations.  Well, to put things right, hopefully, at that time.  If not, then the next time such a situation occurs.  How?  By creating public awareness.  By slamming those who do wrong and pressurizing them into doing the right thing.  My wife then pointed out that by reacting to those situations, I did not seem that gracious too.

Perhaps.  Perhaps by reacting in frustration in the spur of the moment, I, like a man forced to make a decision with a pistol pointed at his temple, could not evaluate what was the best course of action to take.  I did not want to lose the opportunity to point out what should have been done.  Sigh.  Do I just accept things?  That some people are just the way they are, that they 'were not taught to be as thoughtful and will have to learn some other way' - as Yen put it?  Maybe that is my problem - that I am too much of a busybody?

Our Christmas tree

We are not Christians.  Well, at least not yet.  It had never been a family tradition to have a Christmas tree up during the Christmas holidays.  It was until I got married and moved into our current flat, which had a little more space and is seemingly less 'cluttered', that Yen and I purchased a Christmas tree and shopped for decorations.

I think I was saying that I wanted our children to know and 'feel' the celebrations for the festive occasions.  Well, somehow, I did not put up big red decorations for the Lunar New Year.  I wonder why?

Christmas these past few years have seen us set up a tree for the festival at home.  Thus far, our elder princess and prince have been obedient when told not to go near the tree, not to lay their hands on it.  So we decided to set it up again this year.  And we were going to involve our children henceforth.  How exciting it will be for them now, I thought.  I was right.

I have been telling them that we were going to put up the said tree soon, but we had not found the opportune time yet.  Rachel and Felix sure had their eyes glimmering with excitement when they saw the foreign-looking box containing the Christmas tree sitting in the living room after their nap on the past Sunday.

They could not wait to get started in helping out too.  From the word 'go', they wrapped their little hands all over the tree.  I had a hard time trying to tell them what to do whilst trying to figure it out myself too.  You cannot blame me for my predicament.  I see the tree for about a month annually and this is only our fourth meeting!

Our ever-enthusiastic children helped set the tree up and put the decorations on it.  Blame it on their height that they were constantly decorating the same place of the tree closest to them!  Yen and I had to constantly remind them to move to other places around the tree to hang their mini 'disco balls', 'snowflakes', etc. on different parts of the tree.

 

All these, too, while we tried to capture the precious moments of their joy on camera so that they can grow up and reminisce on these good times they had.

The result?  An exuberant pair of children, proud of their good work.  And a silent destroyer in the form of their young baby sister.

 

Taking a family photograph

I have always envied my friends who have family photographs displayed at home.  To me, it somehow examplifies the close bonds the family has built within itself across the years.  It is with joy too, to see the progress in the members of the family - the ageing (in a nice way!), the growing of the children, the addition of members, the upgrade of status (think education - taking a photograph after receiving a university degree by each child-member).

I have never had one taken.  That is why when my father passed on a few years ago, I felt a sense of void.  I felt regret, something that I normally tell myself not to have in life.  Regret that I had not been able to let my father lead a comfortable life before he moved on.  Regret that I had not given him the opportunity to see his elder son get married and let him carry his own grandchild.  Regret that he left us too little memories.

My father was a man of few words.  He rarely spoke to us.  Much less take photographs.  The only one that he left me was this 5R one of him at work.  Think he was not aware of someone taking that photograph and it was probably given to him as a souvenir of his long service with his former employer, Port of Singapore Authorities.

I respected him as my father.  However, I cannot say that we were extremely close as family.  We hardly did things together.  Sigh.  When I looked at my friends and their parents, I sometimes turn green...  But I digress.  I want a family photograph with my own family.  For memories.  For reminiscing later.

I was making use of this month-long break to tidy up my things that I had just stashed away in my study last week when I came across this receipt.  To my pleasant surprise, it was one dated 14 Dec 2004, from a phtography studio.  The package I bought was for photography services of some basic photograph-package.  Excited, I called the company (had to make sure that it was still in operation) to check that it honoured my receipt.  I then proceeded to make an appointment for a family photography shoot the following Sunday.

Fast forward.  Today was the day.  It was a huge challenge getting my three jewels co-operating in front of the camera.  Torturous at times.  I almost pulled some hair off my scalp this afternoon and got a quick hair-trim.  But we managed to get through it and I came back a happy man.  I will not get to hang up the pictures on my wall so soon, but it will be in time for Christmas, I think.  Great!  One more milestone reached in my family's journey.

What English is that?

No, you've guessed it wrong.  I am not writing this in support of our Government's Speak Good English movement.  Sure, there is quite a bit of wrong signages everywhere.  Perhaps those who manufacture the signages ought to have professional English checkers.  Then, end of story.  No more problem.  I am actually writing about the English on books teaching English to our impressionable infants and toddlers, our future.

We as parents buy toys that, hopefully, teach our children things as they play.  This is especially so for books.  But I have come across some play-stuff that need our attention, rectification (probably).  This is a set of flashcards that teaches children English as well as Chinese languages, showing the intended audience pictures of the words.  Not sure its place of origin. (If you are thinking about China, I urge you not to always condemn goods from China.  It is not fair!)

Where does my problem with it stem from?  Take a look at this one:

A 'washer' is defined as a 'washing machine' in 'dictionary.com'.  However, in this part of the world we are, we are taught that the item pictured is a 'washing machine'.  Children may be confused with the different terms used to identify the same thing at the young age they are at.  Another example:

Isn't it a laptop?  The word 'computer' is more generally used to point to the personal computer, or desktop.  The one with a Central Processing Unit and a monitor, where a separate keyboard and mouse is normally attached to make it work.  Confused.  Think that's all?  You're wrong.  Look:

The former shows, when, a bell (clock).  The latter shows a clock (alarm clock) as well.  And both are not actually bells!  You have made me a confused child!  More:

'Counter'?  'Scoop'?  'Dentifrice'?  'Handset'?  Aren't they more commonly known here as 'calculator', 'ladle', 'toothpaste' and 'mobile phone' (okay okay, many call it 'handphone', but that's the South-east Asian term for the item!) here?  Can we not see that it is a tube of toothpaste in the second picture here?  Why make it difficult with 'dentifrice' - 'a paste, powder, liquid, or other preparation for cleaning the teeth'?

I reckon that as parents, we have to play a bigger part in the learning of our young children.  We cannot just buy stuff and hope for our children to learn the correct things from them.  We have to step in to discern between right and wrong too.  Else, our children may learn the wrong things and it will be difficult for them to 'unlearn' these things later...

School's out!

School's out, officially today!  No more books, no more classes and studies, no more teachers for children - all until the end of the year, at least.  No need to worry about our children's results and behaviour in school for children.  Sounds all good, but is it really?
Sorry, I beg to differ.  Being at home most times this month, it is the beginning of a nightmarish end of the end for me.  How?  You see, the way HDB flats are built these days are revolving around the concept of little estates.  A few block of flats will be built in a oval-shaped manner, or sporadically around some amenities like car parks, badminton courts, playgrounds, multi-purpose halls, etc.  Great idea?  Perhaps not.

When children have their holiday breaks, as experienced over the past few years I have stayed here, they have nowhere to 'hang out'.  The best place would be the playground and badminton court area.  Healthy lifestyle, so what is the problem?  It is when they let their hair down and get so engaged with their games that they create excessive noise, screaming and shouting for hours, on a daily basis on weekdays.  The noise is enclosed within the blocks and is brought upwards.  I stay on the upper floot of my block not too near (at least not next to the amenities) and I still get it quite bad.  I cannot imagine if my block of flats is any closer to the heat of the action.

Along with that, they play football at the multi-purpose hall area.  I am fine with them 'dirtying the walls', but I frown at the noise created and the safety-hazard they  pose when they play on and children / old folks walk close to the hall.  They are sometimes oblivious to the people / things around...  sigh...  Not to mention the vulgarities they spout!  Puts us adults to shame with their wonderful vocabulary, sometimes...

What can we do about it then?  Short of rounding them up and putting them behind bars for 'disrupting public serenity' (don't think there is such a law)?  Can their parents sign them up for some holiday class that will take their time away until parents take them home after work?  (Isn't that akin to childcare / studentcare?  Don't they want to lay of learning and books for this time?)  Or can some organisation come out with some novel idea that engage them?  Somebody?  Anybody?...

Itch itch!

“Eeeek!” Rachel screamed.  “What is this?”  she asked curiously, pointing to the many red dots spread across Kayleen’s back.  Yen and I took a closer look.  Yes, what was it?  Was it some kind of illness she picked up from her week at the play-school?

The dots were like rashes.  I checked her rashes against some pictures I found on the Internet when I searched for ‘childhood skin conditions’.  HFMD?  No.  Chicken pox?  Definitely not.  A match with a few more pictures proved a failed attempt.  And thankfully too.  So what was it really?  I told Yen that we would bring her to the doctor’s if her condition worsened the next day.

I forgot that it was the holidays - Hari Raya Haji.  Polyclinics close on that day!  Fortunately there are two clinics in the neighbouring Pioneer Mall.  We found that her condition had not improved the evening of the holiday – the rashes have spread to the front of the body, her neck and also her calves.  Though I would still consider them mild, we decided to bring her to the opened clinic for a visit.

The rashes do not see too obvious in the pictures, no thanks to the bright lights the pictures were taken under.  But if you do notice the red spots, redden them by five to ten times in your imagination and you'd get a better idea of what we had seen..

The wait was not too long as we had made a telephone call to the clinic to get a queue number prior to our visit.  The doctor who saw Kayleen decided straightaway that it was not the dreaded HFMD, nor was it chicken pox or anything very serious.  He did not attempt to guess what it was; merely said it was some allergy.  He issued our younger princess with two days’ medical leave and some medication.

Kayleen still seemed a little restless.  Other than that, she is fine today.  She is not scratching on the rashes as much today.  We have not used any other the medication the doctor had prescribed for our princess, thanks to advice from Yen (Mommy knows best!).  The episode raised another mini-alarm in our household – just another day in the life of a parent with three young children, I guess…

Print, print, everywhere

"Look, daddy!  'Stop'!" Felix exclaimed excitedly.  That followed the most adorable laughter from Rachel and him.  I smile.  "Yes, daddy stopped the car...  How do you spell the word?" I replied.  I was secretly glad that they could recognise and spell the word, at the ages four and three respectively.  I am not sure if I could have spelt the word when I was their age.  No, I don't think I could.

Yes, their play-school has played their part in teaching them to read, to recognise letters.  I reckon the 'Hi-5!' and other CDs must have aided their learning.  The Government and everyone else chip in by displaying signages (some worded) in numerous places.  Yen and I would make use of these to try teach our elder children to recognise those words and if possible, try spell them.

I go a step further.  I try to seize every opportunity I can to help them spell words.  If they are learning and remembering due to phonics, that is great.  Else, I try to make them repeat after me.  To me, a word learnt now at their tender age means a word less to learn for spelling, or whatever, later.  Felix can spell quite a few names of animals, many simple words (like 'go', 'team', 'love', etc.) and 'one' to 'ten', with aplomb!  Now, even some of my former students cannot do that in primary three / four!

I tried to list out the words that Felix can spell, and at age three, the number of words amaze me.  I lost count.  Sure, I worry that it is memory work mostly.  I know that when I read with him, and he constantly get words that he should be able to pronounce wrong.  But there is a long way ahead, a long time to learn.

Just today, I decided that since the walls of the passageway leading to their room is bare, and we have bought a few wall charts for them, I should make use of the charts to decorate the wall.  In the same way, I hope my two elder children and later, Kayleen, will always stop by and recall the words and how they are spelt.

I have seen it somewhere that some take greater effort, by labelling the things around the house and sticking them on the things (e.g. Stick the word 'Refrigerator' and its chinese characters on the item itself).  At this moment, I need not do that.  But who knows, in a year or two, I'll make it into a game and ask the children to stick the words onto the items by themselves.  *Tsk tsk*

I think I have bought more of such charts and stashed them somewhere earlier.  Better find them soon and put them up.  Bought them anyway - better make the money 'money well spent'!   They enjoy reading and listening to us read to them.  Again, I make a conscious effort to make them lead me through the words and help them when they are stuck.  I'll be glad if they can finish books (albeit short ones) by themselves a little later.

I am a little worried at their ability to converse in Mandarin, though.  Our children seem to prefer using the English language, even when we speak to them in Mandarin.  Not that there is anything wrong, but we want them to be effectively bilingual.  Not to mention that it is still going to be tested later in school.  We have bought them Chinese CDs, tried speaking to them and insisting that they answer in Mandarin...  Ha.  Starting to see the anxiety parents have when their children take examinations.

Does anyone tried sucessfully for their children to converse in mother tongue?  Do give me some ideas.  Or is tuition classes the way to turn to??