Every weekend for the past 6 months now, Summer has been going to this supplementary class on Saturdays at I Can Read (yes that is really the centre name).

I was initially hesitant to send her for the class because I hold quite a firm view that kids should have the freedom to choose what they want to learn and explore and should not be subjected to any undue stress and unhappiness at such a young age. Well I was forced to go for piano lessons for a good number of years as a kid with zero interest, and I still remember how much I detested lessons, practising and doing the theory work (all very much unwillingly), and so am quite adamant that my kids do not go through the same path.

Eventually Mama Toh convinced me somehow to just allow Summer to go for a trial lesson to see if she likes it or not. And if she didn’t, we wouldn’t force her to continue. So as usual, I relented, convinced that we will stop after 1 lesson. Afterall, which normal kid likes extra classes on Saturday mornings?

Rare MRT trip on the way home from I Can Read

Well, apparently my kid does. To everyone’s surprise.

She asked to be enrolled for the class, and overtime began to wake up in the morning asking if there was I Can Read today. If the answer was yes, she would respond with a resounding ‘Yay!’. Weird kid.

It got to a point whereby if she was throwing a tantrum, I could threaten her with NOT sending her to class if she doesn’t stop. And she stops. I know… what in the world right…

Anyway, the class curriculum seems to be all fun and games, but I have realized that she got pretty good with basic phonics, to the point where she can correctly identify what alphabet a particular word starts with based on its pronunciation. I tested her on remotely weird words like Naruto, Madagascar and Zootopia and surprisingly she got it right. Not entirely sure if credit should go to her childcare or to I Can Read (probably a mixture of both), but to make myself feel better about paying the fees for I Can Read I tend to be more inclined to the latter.

On the way to watch Zootopia, by the way.

Solo date for Zootopia

So the crux of this long post is finally here – in the last I Can Read lesson, the teacher told us that he will be promoting Summer to the next advanced class because she has satisfied the requirements for the current class and has grasped the required skills so far. 1 of 2 kids out of about 10 in the class to get promoted.

To be honest, most parents would be elated, floating in exhilaration on their kids being geniuses who can move ahead of her peers. And admittedly, I felt the same way too… for a good 10 seconds.

And then the potential consequences struck me.

– Will Summer be able to catch-up in her new class where all her classmates are about 2 years older than her?

– Will she be able to clique with the older kids?

– Will there be an increase in fees? Just kidding, there isn’t.

But all in all, I realized I was more concerned than happy about her progress, which to be honest I am not sure if I should be feeling this way as a parent.

I had a selfish thought and wished she didn’t have to progress so that she could stay happy in a comfortable environment, but almost immediately I slapped myself for such an idea.

Oh well, we’ll see how the new class progresses and update again.

On a side note, both kids have recovered and are up and running again!

Select photos from our weekend:

My wave is faster than your shutter speed

Bubbles are a great way to entertain kids... and an extremely cheap way

Thanks Summer... For chopping me away

I am quite an emotionally ambivalent person by nature (more so as I grow older), but this week just destroyed this balance by quite a fair bit.

If you have been following the news so far, this week presented to us 2 examples of life’s fragility in the form of unfortunate, and sad toddler passings.

1. The beheading of a 4 year old child in Taiwan 
2. The passing of Courageous Caitie

Maybe it’s the fact that both girls were of the same age as Summer, or perhaps seeing Courageous Caitie’s daily Facebook updates have already been part of my recent life, but whatever the case is, this has been a very rare week that I am deeply affected by news of any sort.

Whilst both sets of parents have been displaying admirable strength on social media coping with their loss, it is a fact that nobody will understand their pain or how unbearable the healing process will be for them. In fact, if I put myself in their shoes, I am not even confident that I will recover at all.

All thoughts go out to these two grieving families, and may the 2 little angels find eternal peace in Heaven.

On the back of this, it is probably a good time to do some self-reflection by revisiting your priorities.

Have you been spending enough time with your family?
Is checking the latest Facebook/Instagram update from people you don’t really know more important than having a conversation with your child?
Are your colleagues/friends catchup dinner and drinks sessions occurring more frequent than dinner with your folks?

If so, please take a moment to re-prioritise your life, before it’s too late.

Family is Everything

Including this in just in case my sisters-in-law get jealous

So we had a 3 day long Easter weekend which was rather… eventful for us.

To cut a long story short (and because I am still kinda lethargic and lazy), I shall condense our weekend in digestible short points.

The Good

1. Top of this list is probably the fact that my very own sister gave birth! To my very first niece and cousin to Summer and Zavier!

Say hello to baby Chloe!

Please remain this angelic for a long long time

2. Following Summer’s farcical failure from her rollerblading class, we bought her her very own pair of rollerblades and brought her to learn by herself via trial and error.

A happy girl who rolled her blades over my toes numerous times

3. We went for a good family meal at Punggol Reservoir where Summer went on 2 dates of her own… She is really growing up too fast.

The first was with a middle aged man which should have raised some alarms…

Just kidding, this is my Dad and Summer's grandpa

Subsequently we heaved a sigh of relief when she hung out with someone closer to her own age.

The Bad

Well there’s technically only one bad thing which happened, which unfortunately was bad enough to render the whole long weekend somewhat tiring.

Both of the kids fell sick.

Summer had a slight fever, cough and runny nose, but considering she still managed to look as chic as this while sporting a fever patch, you can tell it isn’t too much cause for concern.

Way to cool for a fever

Zavier on the other hand, was sick enough to warrant 2 visits to the paediatrician in 3 days. Flu, cough, fever which was diagnosed as bronchitis followed by puking, diarrhea and rashes which was diagnosed to be caused by the antibiotics for bronchitis. It’s been a tough week for this little boy.

Will guns take his mind off his pain?

Hopefully he recovers within the next day or so!

This illness episode has really kept me and Mama Toh having on-off sleep for the past few days, waking up intermittently to check on the kids.

It’s been tough… until I remembered my sister and brother-in-law are currently dealing with a new born for the first time in their lives.

Good luck with that guys!

I was just rummaging through my phone clearing space when I chanced upon a 2016 Resolutions list I casually made for the family on one of those long bus rides to work.

Quite an apt timing to rediscover this forgotten list, given that we are fast approaching the end of Q1.

Let’s see the list in its unabridged entirety and how we are faring on these Resolutions.

1. Summer to be 100% diaper-free.
The last time we tried in 2015, she woke up in the middle of the night half-drenched in pee. Having slept beside her, we were not spared either. This task requires extreme confidence and bravery to be attempted again.

[Q1 Review: Of all these Resolutions, this was the one I had the least faith in, due to a very wet bad experience earlier. Shockingly, we have achieved this, I think in some time in early March. Woohoo!]

The look of triumph (not the lingerie brand)

2. Not to watch any cartoon more than 3 times.
Didn’t really keep count in 2015 but I know for sure Beauty and the Beast must have been at least 10 times. I remember once when it was watched twice in a single day. There are times when she calls me Crazy Old Maurice already… you are magnanimously forgiven if you don’t know who that is.

[Q1 Review: This looks to be heading towards failure already. Pretty sure Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid have already gone on 2 runs… with three quarters of the year to go.]

3. Summer to be 100% self-fed.
Mealtimes always seem like watching a Manchester United match – full of promise at the start when Summer feeds herself, but falters after 10 minutes when she requests to be fed instead, where it turns painful until the end with her nibbles. I wonder what happened to that gusto she has whenever she is offered chocolates and sweets.

[Q1 Review: Still no change, it pretty much boils down to laziness for Summer. Seems like only her Grandma’s ferocity can make her finish her meal by herself, albeit in reluctance.]

This is what false hopes look like

4. Zavier to know his alphabets.
Just like all the other kiasu parents out there who wish the same for their 1 year old kids.

[Q1 Review: Seriously? Why did I even make such lofty and ambitious Resolutions?]

Looks like it's still Lego for now

5. Summer to learn how to write her alphabets.
Just like all the other kiasu parents out there who wish the same for their 4 year old kids.

[Q1 Review: Getting there, slowly but surely. A lot of credit has to go to her school though. Now to make her recognize that she needs to write her alphabets from left to right… once she proudly showed us her name written as Summer Hot instead of Summer Toh.]

6. Less princessy fits from Summer.
A few months ago my daughter actually went into a public meltdown when I made the unforgivable mistake of… wearing the wrong pair of shoes for her to school (she has about 10 pairs). Looked like a scene straight out of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

[Q1 Review: A lot of improvement here over the past few months! But it seems like now Zavier is the one starting to learn how to throw fits. Is this a family hereditary trait from Mama Toh?]

7. More family-oriented activities.
Our weekend family activities have mainly revolved around going for meals, shop for an hour wherever we are, and then home again. Whilst this can still be considered as quality family time, it has come to a point where Summer now recognizes each shopping centre we are at, which I cannot decide whether to be happy about (due to her impressive memory), or sad about (due to the fact that we only bring them shopping). Right now I am more inclined to feel the latter.

[Q1 Review: Pleasingly, especially to my wallet, shopping has been reduced greatly. Instead we have taken upon a new hobby, cooking, led by Summer who now claims to want to be a chef when she grows up.]

Well she does have Gordon Ramsay's temper

8. Summer to start doing household chores regularly.
Admittedly, I am already quite blessed with Summer already taking interest in some simple chores, such as Magi-cleaning the floor or helping to load clothes into the washing machine. Problem is, she does it only when she is in the best kind of mood, which of course occurs only occasionally. Very occasionally.

[Q1 Review: Same same no change, it’s still more of a fun thing to Summer than anything else. But hey, if she thinks housework is fun I am not going to convince her otherwise.]

9. Zavier to sleep through the night.
The bulk of work here probably lies with Mama Toh. I will strive to do my part by sleeping through the night myself so that I don’t make any noise to wake Zavier up.

[Q1 Review: Who am I kidding?]

10. A family hug every night.
Don’t laugh, no matter how cheesy this might sound. Amazingly, this daily routine (started since last week) was conceived by Summer and not her cheesy parents. Probably one of the most understated actions – it absolutely banishes any grudges/quarrels/negativity we might have built up over the day.

[Q1 Review: Well I’m ashamed to admit that this hasn’t happened, mostly because we kinda forgot about it and are always in a rush to off the lights and shush the kids to sleep. Definitely needs to be worked on again.]

Just like this!

Over the weekend, little Summer received her first ‘official’ failure, but of course we didn’t use that word whilst breaking the news to her.

Here it is, in its official glory

You see, 2 weeks ago when we went to Canopy at Bishan Park for dinner, we chanced upon a group of kiddos learning how to rollerblade. This intrigued Summer, and she pleaded that we sign her up for classes.

Admiring her proactive nature and frankly relieved that it wasn’t your usual run-of-the-mill piano or ballet class, I promptly signed her up for the next available weekend class.

In the process of doing so, I was advised that this was merely going to be an introduction class for beginners who have never put on a pair of rollerblades in their lives. And at the end of it, the instructor will assess whether the student can progress to the next level (i.e. pass or fail).

That was warning sign number 1.

Also, the staff advised me that even though she made an exception for me to admit Summer who is not yet 4 years old, the class is typically for kids between 4-7 years old.

That was warning sign number 2.

Pleased, I brought Summer down to Skateline (which is also the company organizing the class) to buy her protective guards for her lessons. There, the shop attendant commented after looking at Summer, that they normally do not admit such physically small kids to their lessons as they would have difficulty in standing up.

And there you have it, warning sign number 3.

Despite all these put-offs, I was determined not to ruin Summer’s aspirations of being a world class rollerblader and went ahead with the lesson.

That's me in my best outfit gearing up for Summer

And when the lesson started, I slowly began to realize why the warning signs came. Because indeed, Summer started to struggle.

From wearing the guards

To wearing the rollerblades

Summer needed help in basically… everything. And when the lesson started proper, out of shyness she didn’t respond to the instructor or even look at him.

This was beginning to look bad. And then she started whining ‘Papa Papa Papa…’, which honestly got on my nerves a little. Why couldn’t she just get on with her class herself?!

This went on for some time, until the instructor (out of despair, I suspect) suggested that I join in the class to boost her confidence.

And so I did.

And lo and behold, she started to pick up instructions, and even managed to walk quite confidently in her pair of rollerblades!

Grouchy before look

Happy After Look

I credit the change in attitude to my participation, thank you very much.

At the end of it all, she even mustered a few laughs on the last exercise.

The other girl in class was... 8 years old

All in all, she had fun, albeit it came towards the end of the class. And shockingly, even though I was mentally prepared for the instructor telling me she has to repeat the same class a few times, I wasn’t ready for a report card stamped with ‘FAILED’.

I mean, come on, these are just young kids trying to chase an interest. Is there really a need to brand them as failures? What in the world?

Try telling this face that she failed

No, I decided that I will not let this shatter her dreams of learning to rollerblade.

What I am going to do, is to buy her her own pair of rollerblades, and then teach her on my own accord.

Now that I have been a pseudo-instructor for approximately 45 minutes, I should be qualified enough.

Passion should NEVER be deterred!

You might have heard the common grouse parents have in recent years, stating how terrible their kids are in Mandarin/Chinese, very much unlike how we grew up to become effectively bilingual. For most of us, at least.

Yesterday, it struck me that this phenomena has happened with my own kid.

You see, the realisation hit me when Summer played teacher to me and little Zavier on the whiteboard, a recently recurring night activity while the 3 of us wait for Mama Toh to finish her lengthy night beauty regime/beauty shower/pseudo-spa.

Something like this

For the fun of it, I decided to ask her to give us a Chinese lesson, which she gladly agreed to (I don’t think she realized her limitation yet).

While it progressed fine, for the first sentence or so at least, she eventually started to stutter and paused… ultimately replacing words she didn’t know with English. You know, like what teachers will call Rojak language.

I was quite shocked, given that my parents speak to both my kids in Mandarin on a daily basis. But I guess on hindsight that isn’t quite enough.

So on the spot, I decreed (strong word, I know) that every alternate weekday would be a Mandarin day, whereby we ONLY speak in Mandarin at home.

Let’s hope this works.

Their Mandarin should be as good as their outfit

A couple of days ago, I was chatting with a brother (you know, not the blood-related kind) who happens to also work in the same firm as me when we somehow moved on to the topic of hands-off parents. He shared a story of his friend, and if memory serves me well, the gist of it goes somewhat like this:

– Friend (Mum) has a toddler but plays no part in taking care of the kid
– Toddler only wants either the Dad or helper to carry or play with
– One fine day over a potluck Mum tells my friend that her kid hates cheese when my friend offered the kid some homemade cheese tarts
– Kid proceeds to devour a few cheese tarts enthusiastically right after Mum makes that statement
– Everyone laughs at Mum for not knowing her kid at all
– Mum is nonchalant about it, says that that was what her helper told her

I laughed at this story for a while, and so did my friend, let’s call him Guang (Hi Guang!). Slowly we began telling similar stories of our respective friends/acquaintances and I realized that such irresponsible parenting exists more often than I thought it would. As both of us are pretty hands-on fathers, the more we talked about our opposites, the more free-flowing our vulgarities spewed.

Parents – it’s time to grow up and start acting like one.

Undeniably, life was simpler, cheaper and less stressful before having kids. This is a universal fact for all parents.

Do I miss the times when I can:

– Go out for drinks after work with friends and colleagues?
– Have a date night every Friday with Mama Toh?
– Catch a weekly movie every Saturday?
– Stay up every Saturday/Sunday to catch Man Utd games and subsequently drink enough beer to numb myself from the frustration?

Well, yes.

But would I rather these 2 monkeys not come into my life?

Scratching her feet just like any Princess would

Absolutely not.

And slowly, the Yes from the first question about missing your non-parenthood life becomes weaker and weaker as I build more memories as a bigger family.

Like what Mama Toh used to grouse about, many parents still think that the occasional date night is important for a relationship to continue being strong.

Yes, I agree, with an emphasis on ‘occasional‘.

Wedding anniversaries, birthdays, the occasional team dinner/farewell drinks. Yes, these are fine. At least to me.

Month-saries are for secondary school kids. Weekly drinks till late are for single people who want to mingle. We shouldn’t even be bringing up clubbing.

The bottom line is, and I don’t know why this isn’t blatantly clear enough, that as parents we have a lifelong responsibility to our kids.

If you want to enjoy yourself without your kids, by all means take a day off work (I advise to do so legally through leave application) to go for whatever movie or fancy lunch. But at the end of it all, do yourselves and your kids a favor – pick them from school and ask them how their day went.

Just remember guys, time is best present you can give to your kids.

Eventually there will be a day when your kids are all too grown up and teenage angst takes over. By then they wouldn’t even want to go out with you or talk to you in full sentences.

And when that happens, all you can do is to look back at old photos to reminisce about the old times.

Assuming you even bother taking photos of them when they are young, of course.

Unless you are me. I will still force my kids to sit this with me when they are 16.

Exhale…… What a rant.

Grandma Toh (that’s my Mum) has been bugging us for weeks, on an almost daily basis, to bring Summer for a haircut now, complaining that fringe has  reached a length of such epic proportions that it will affect her sight.

Yes, Grandma Toh sometimes has the tendency to exaggerate slightly...

I wasn’t all that keen given that I actually wanted Summer to grow out her fringe like millions of other girls out there, and well, if the below hairstyle is possible, who are we to complain about a little over-grown fringe?

I'm guessing this functions as a bullet-proof helmet as well

Alas, like all men out there, I am severely allergic to nagging, especially from Grandma and Mama Toh. And so for my own peace, I succumbed and brought Summer out for a haircut at Junction 8.

When it comes to haircuts, I am notoriously cheap (Mama Toh will say that I am actually cheap on a lot of other things as well but that’s another thing altogether). How cheap? I actually spent a good 7 years telling a Malay neighborhood barber shop that I am (still) a University student just to score a student price of $8… saving a grand $1 from the full adult price. Win. I wonder how the good old barber actually gave me the benefit of the doubt for 7 years straight.

Anyway after all too many concurrences of the barber only opening shop at his desire, and many wasted trips for me, I have since upgraded to QB House, paying $10 (now $12) for the efficiency, which over time is well worth it. If there’s one worse thing about me than my cheapness, it must be my impatience.

Due to my allegiance with QB House, this has also naturally been the place we have been bringing Summer for her bi-monthly cuts so far, which somehow only happened on weekday mornings when we were on leave. And it turns out, QB House is uber crowded on weekends. There must have been at least 15 people queuing for a haircut at that time. Unbelievable! I did a mental calculation and if QB House’s claim of 10 minutes per cut was true, we would have to wait at least 2 hours for Summer to get her 2 minute fringe trim.

At this juncture I had a couple of options:

A. Queue for QB House and contemplate life for the next 2 hours
B. Go for Jean Yip next door and wait zero minutes while spending double for a 2 minute fringe trim
C. Go home and return another day, whenever that is
D. Go home and attempt to cut Summer’s hair myself

Given my lack of skills (D) was quickly ruled out and a vision of Grandma Toh’s angry face swiftly put an end to my procrastinating choice of (C).

The mental dilemma finally ended when my impatience won over my cheapness, and Summer went ahead with a $22 cut (more like a quick trim but the word cut makes me feel better paying so much) at Jean Yip.

Yes, my daughter, not yet 4, has already had a more expensive hair cut than I ever had in my 32 years of existence.

Vain pot grinning

To be fair, the hairdresser was really patient, asking for feedback regularly and being really gentle and careful with Summer. Not sure if he was just feeling guilty for charging $22 for a quick trim and hence trying to extend time, making me feel better, but at least it made Summer sit still.

Generally pleased with the experience but given the relatively easy trim for a generic hairstyle, QB House will still be my go-to next time. On a weekday morning.

Obviously she is pleased

And so bonus/promotion/pay rise season is here again, and Mama Toh and I were discussing how much income we need monthly for me to become a full-time househusband, which has been my wish ever since we had a kid.

Well the discussion was pretty much one-sided, with Mama Toh shutting me up with a conclusive statement that she will never allow me to be a househusband.

I wept in my heart for a while, but lit up when she sort of insinuated, ‘unless you still have money coming in somehow’. All is not lost afterall!

Full-time with these two? Anytime!

Presented with this sliver of hope, I proceeded to spend a good 30 minutes of my day fantasizing about what my daily schedule will look like should I really fulfil my wish of being a stay-home father.

With Mama Toh’s blessings, of course. An with an income stream somehow, of course.

5 a.m. – Wake up for a quick workout
5.30 a.m. – Shower and meditate
6 a.m. – Work on income stream 1 (whatever that is)
6.45 a.m. – Prepare breakfast for the family and wake kids up
7.45 a.m. – Send kids to school and Mama Toh to work
8.30 a.m. – Put clothes to wash and vacuum/mop the floor
9.45 a.m. – Grocery shop at the supermarket
10.30 a.m. – Casual reading
11.30 a.m. – Prepare a quick and cheap lunch for one (me)
1 p.m. – Work on income stream 2 (whatever that is)
3 p.m. – Go for a short jog
4 p.m. – Any residual housework
5 p.m. – Pick kids up from school

There you have it, the perfect day of a househusband.

Make it happen!

Summer’s school held its annual Chinese New Year celebration on Monday, and you bet she wasn’t the only one excited about it. Because parents were invited as well, it gave me a very valid excuse to take a day off from work and effectively enjoy another long weekend. Whoop!

By Summer’s demand, we brought Zavier along. For some reason, Summer has always loved showing off her little brother to her classmates, not unlike how we used to show off our latest toys in Primary School.

‘Everybody say hello to my didi!!’
‘This is my didi!’
‘Look at my didi!’

The only thing more amazing than her patience is repeating such chants is the patience of her classmates in repeating their fascinated replies.

‘Look at Summer’s didi!’
‘Hello Summer’s didi!’
‘Wa Summer’s didi is here!’

Kids never seem to get sick of repetition. I should know, I have involuntarily gone through at least 10 showings of Frozen.

We were almost late but thankfully still managed to squeeze into the school before the lion dance commenced. All the kids were sitting in anticipation of what is very possibly the first up-close lion dance they are going to see in their lives.

We're here!

And then the real fun started when the drums started beating and 2 lions made their way into the school.

Unexpectedly, at least to me, several kids began bawling at the sight of the lions approaching. It was almost as if they had seen their first examination paper of their lives.

Some of the teachers were hugging and consoling 3 kids each and to be honest, it was quite a funny sight.

Mayhem ensues

But amazingly the cries died down when the lions started to regurgitate out sweets (in addition to the usual lettuce and oranges). Candy seems to be the best method to solve any cries.

New mayhem in the rush for candy

After which all kids proceeded to their own classrooms to engage in artwork with their parents.

The sad thing is, some kids did not manage to partake in the activity because well, their parents did not come to the event.

Note to parents: ALWAYS make the effort to turn up for school events. It means the world to your kids.

Since Summer’s best friend was one of those who didn’t have her parents at the event, we decided to include her in our artwork activity!

BFFs

And so here you have it! The completed product!

Act chio