Talking to Daddy
Haven’t been writing for so long, getting a bit rusty. Well, just wanted to make an update about something we talked about yesterday.
Lately, your behaviour hasn’t been the best. Your school work is unfinished, test results getting worse, notes from teachers about your sloppy work, from student care about you not finishing work and refusing to listen… What is happening? One of the things when we ask you what happen in school, your answer is either, “I can’t remember” or “Don’t know”. If we do get something out of you, it seems so unorganized. One moment you are talking about A, then trailed off to B which might be unrelated…
We have tried many ways to encourage you and it might work for a while, but your interests soon fade off. Recently, I got an app for the iPhone iRewardChart It lists and tracks all the good behaviour we want to encourage and offer a way to redeem the stars as a form of rewards like ice creams, phone time, extra pocket money etc. We have been using it since last week and it has been encouraging with you asking whether another behaviour can be added to earn more stars. There are however still some behaviour that needs improvement upon like not wasting time, no whining… On some days, you seem to take 3 steps forward but 4 steps back as you misbehaved or didn’t work hard on earning the stars.
Yesterday, on the way home, I remembered something I read from the book, “Parking Lot Rules & 75 Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children”. In it, one of the tip was to encourage your child to tell you 2 things of what happened in school, 1 good news and 1 bad news starting with the bad news first. The idea was simply to get our child into the habit of confiding to us the more important bad “news”, instead of keeping it to himself. So when I saw you when I reached home, I told you about this and said we will put it into the iRewardChart app. It wasn’t until when Jarrett went to sleep and when you were trying to read a book, that you started to tell me the news in school. Surprisingly, the bad news yesterday was you got into a fight… I tried to stay calm and got you to recount what actually happened. From what I gathered, while your friends and you were walking up the stairs to the fourth floor where the student care is, 2 of your friends got into a fight with one of the boys, you decided to help that boy and joined it. I don’t think it was really a fight, maybe some pushing and shoving, but the teacher stopped it and got everyone to write,“I will not make noise and keep quiet while going up the stairs”. I didn’t praise you for your “heroic” act, rather questioned you about whether fighting is right or wrong and cautioned you that school principals can make public punishment to those naughty students. Do you want to be labelled as a naughty child? Will your friends like to play with a naughty child? I hope you got the message of no fighting allowed. To get you to tell the truth about the bad news, I also added that if I got to hear these bad news from the teachers instead of from you directly, we will have to punish you. You got the message.
You had some trouble thinking about the good news, and came up with finding your missing water bottle, which you have left in school for several days. OK, accepted.
Just before you sleep, we went through again about the good and bad news, like what if there was no bad news? or good news? I gave some example of good news like, finishing your homework fast in the student care, getting good grades, getting a compliment from your teacher… If there was no bad news, then it’s fine. It was a nice father and son chat. As it was getting late, I tried to get you to sleep, you had one last bad news for me. You said you didn’t managed to finish your homework in StudentCare because you spend the remaining time talking to your friend. So I asked back, so what should you be doing and your answer is to finish work first. I am so glad that you are showing signs of thinking what the right actions should, hopefully you will follow through. Will continue to monitor your progress…
Posted by Daddy Peter | mid-morning | in 11 03 2010 |
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Happy 7th Birthday Ethan!
Happy birthday, Ethan! Today you are 7 years old. Since next week is the start of school exams, we have decided not to have a party instead we will just have cake and celebrate it together with your studentcare’s teachers and friends. For the cake design, you have chosen the animated Transformer, Optimus Prime. I will post some photos of the celebrations later this evening. May you continue to grow up strong and healthy. 
Posted by Daddy Peter | evening | in 22 10 2009 |
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What happened to your eye?
Everywhere you look nowadays, you can spot a kid playing with a yoyo, the fad is back again. A few years back, it was Yomega yoyo, now it’s Super Yoyo. All thanks to an anime titled, “Super Yoyo” that is showing on Okto on Thursday and Fridays. We got both of you a yoyo each, just the beginners version which is $9.90 each. Strings were cut to your height and both of you have been playing with it on and off, especially after catching an episode. In some episodes, they did some fancy tricks with the yoyo and naturally you wanted to try but you have yet to even do a basic move. So you will pretend, and just hold up your yoyo and do string tricks, sometimes to a point of entangling the string. I have to constantly remind you not to do that and just focus on the basics before moving to those tricks, but you still do.
Yesterday, we went to Jospin’s place to celebrate his birthday and one of the goody bag gift was a yoyo. This yoyo lights up when it’s thrown. As usual, I helped to cut the string to your height and you happily tried out the yoyo. When you threw the yoyo too hard and it broke upon hitting the ground, I tried putting it back and it did not fit properly. Maybe I should have just kept it or throw it thereafter because, while we were not looking, somehow you threw the yoyo and it hit just below your eye. You came to me and told me your yoyo hit you on the eye, I checked and you still looked ok, so I just give it a quick rub and send you back to play. When we were about to leave Jospin’s place, we noticed the red bruise under your right eye.
This morning, it was more obvious. It looked like someone punch you in the eye. Mummy helped to apply the Zambak, hopefully, it’ll help. Please be more careful when you are playing the yoyo. Master the basic and the rest will follow easily, it’s the same with everything else in life. A solid foundation is very important.
Posted by Daddy Peter | lunch time | in 06 09 2009 |
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Tomorrow got no school, tomorrow got no school….
You said,
“Tomorrow got no school
Tomorrow got no school
Tomorrow got no school
Tomorrow got no school
Tomorrow got school”
...while you were sitting at the back passenger seat. Mummy was driving, with Gorgor at the front passenger seat, we were wondering what are you talking about. Later when we picked up Daddy, you said the same thing again. But the difference is that Daddy saw your action, you were closing each finger when you say, “Tomorrow got no school” till you reach the little finger, you said “Tomorrow got school”.
I guess the teachers must have told you about the school closure on Monday and Tuesday and had everyone count down their little fingers from the thumb referring to Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday no school, till it reaches the little fingers there’s school on Wednesday.
Next the funniest part is that on Saturday, you said,
“Today got no school
Today got no school
Today got no school
Today got no school
Today got school”
Hahahaha…
Posted by Daddy Peter | late at night | in 02 09 2009 |
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Singapore Kite Festival 09
Daddy saw the advertisement for Singapore Kite Festival on a cab a few days back and noted it in my iPhone. When the day came, we were worried about whether we can still go with the weather being so crazy. Fortunately, it was sunny on Sat and after your nap, we made our way to West Coast Park. We didn’t tell both of you and leave it as a surprise. When we arrive, we were greeted by a massive traffic jam. Many cars were illegally parked & we were in a long queue of cars heading to a fully packed car park. Since Uncle Jerome & Auntie Yeeju stay in a condo nearby, we asked whether it was ok for us to park at their place. When we got the ok, I dropped everyone off outside the park and drove over to their place. Then rode my Strida to meet you.
It was a beautiful sight. Kites of all shapes and sizes filled the skies. Small kites, super big kites, kites in the shape of an Octopus, Oriental Opera Mask, Eagle etc.
We brought our kite too, a regular kite with Superman printed on it.
It’s bigger than the free kite that was given at the event and a lot more easier to fly. Within a short while and it was “Up, Up and Away!” Little did we know that it was doing the Away part… :( When it was up, I handed over the spool to you and help to fly the small complimentary kite. Before I can get the small kite, we turned to check on you and saw you holding on to a very loose string. We searched the sky for our kite but it was futile, “Superman” has flown away. I guess what happened was our string most likely has crossed with another kite string. With so many kites in the skies, accidents happens, and that’s how the string got cut.
Without Superman, we were left with the complimentary kite. It was quite a challenge. We managed to get it up but couldn’t get it to stay up when we lost control and it spiralled back down to Earth. Since we had no luck, and Jarrett was asking to eat, we called it a day. Here’s some more of the photos we took or some you took.
Posted by Daddy Peter | late at night | in 31 08 2009 |
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What are you trying to do?
I think earlier’s episode, you cried for nearly an hour. It all started when you asked to take the story book from your bedroom while Gor Gor was doing his homework. You insisted to have 3 of the piggy books while Mummy took only 2. Mummy said she will read the 2 books first and to take the 3rd book later but you started to throw tantrum, you just stood there and sulk and said you don’t want Mummy. When Daddy finally finished with Gor Gor, getting him to do his homework and a bit of break time with the iPhone, we went ahead with our bedtime stories. Usually, you will join us but today, you just stood there. Soon we were finished and I could hear Mummy shouting at you. The reason for it was you were using your tongue to lick our spare handphone which you took from our drawer. Eeek…. What were you thinking? Mummy tried to get you to gurgle water but you refused! That’s where it started going downhill.
Mummy gave you the option to 1) gurgle water or 2) brushing teeth/tongue or 3) using the hanky to wipe your tongue and teeth. But you said no to all. In the end she had to force it using the hanky to wipe your tongue and warned you not to bite her finger cos there was once you bite her thumb real hard that she screamed!
Next we tried our best not to talk to you and get you to calm down. It didn’t work! Arghh!! Finally, I told Mummy to let you stay with me in the room. You continued crying and was getting destructive by throwing things onto the floor and even tearing up a piece of paper. I repeatedly told you to stop, once you stop crying, we’ll look for Mummy. Since your cries was so loud, I had to close windows. To make sure you get the message that I am ignoring you until you learn to calm down, I even turn on some music on my mac. Finally, seeing that we’re not giving in to your cries, you calmed down and promise not to cry anymore but that was after crying for an hour. I let you out to Mummy. She talked to you about your behaviour and you said sorry and you understand what went wrong and what you should do and should not do.
Why you behaviour this way…. we don’t know. Maybe it’s because our neighbour jinxed it by saying that you were good boy when he saw you this morning?!?! I hope you have learned the lesson.
Posted by Daddy Peter | late at night | in 25 08 2009 |
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Another pleasant surprise!
Yesterday, we were at Jurong Bird Park… it was not the usual casual trip to the bird park. The main reason why we were there was have our photos taken. :D
A few weeks back at the Zoo, we saw a photo contest for Zoo members. So we decided to just take part by sending in our entry. Initially we wanted to send in the photo of just the 2 of you taken while feeding the giraffes. But upon reading the entry requirements, it was supposed to be a family shot, we used another photo of all of us instead.
I had forgotten about the contest when Gwen from Singapore Zoo called to say that our family was selected as contest winner. I still remember I told her “it’s a pleasant surprise”. After her call, when it finally sank in that we won, I was jumping up and down! The prize?
- 2 Year Wildlife Unlimited Plus Family membership to the Zoo, Bird Park and Night Safari
- $140 Singapore Zoo Retail vouchers
- The most exciting part is that our family will be the new faces of their brand new membership campaign!
So yesterday, was the first of 3 shoots. It was quite a great experience for everyone. We got to have an exclusive buggy ride tour of the Bird Park, multiple opportunities to feed the birds! Ok, on the bird feeding park, Jarrett was a bit braver than you on that. Nevertheless, it was a great day of fun! At first it was a bit awkward to have the photographer just snapping photos after photos of us. But we got used to it and just enjoy the whole experience. Next week will be the Zoo and Night Safari. That will be fun as we love the Zoo. Another nice part is we heard they will pass us all the photos taken during the 3 trips. We will post some when it’s given to us. Now we are eager to see how the campaign looks like. :D
Posted by Daddy Peter | mid-afternoon | in 16 08 2009 |
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Surprise!
Yesterday evening, we had a surprise for both Ethan and you. Guess what it was?
Posted by Daddy Peter | evening | in 04 08 2009 |
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Wearing socks to sleep
Since you are a baby I always help you to wear socks to sleep, but ever since you know how to remove the socks yourself, I was never successful in getting you to wear your socks to sleep. I think that was when you are not even one year old.
Recently, I started to get you to wear socks again after one morning you woke up to see a huge mosquito bite near your knee cap. It was swollen so badly that I have to bring you to see doctor. The doctor also had a shock to see such a big and swollen mositque bite. So you were given anitbiotics and medicine for anti-itch and a cream to apply.
That night I told you because you didn’t wear your socks that why the mosquito bite you. You happily let me help you to wear your socks. Subsequently, you even initiate and wear it yourself. But sometimes, you took it out in the middle of the night. That didn’t last very long and you refused to wear socks before you sleep again, not unless I threaten you that no Wii game or to take away your favourite toys, like Transformers, Bakugan, super-yoyo or cannot play Daddy’s iphone. Sometimes such threat has no effect at all. So at night I will try to help you wear after you have fallen asleep but very often you will take it out and you can even place it nicely on the side of your bed!
So why do I insist that you have to wear socks to sleep? You may get the answers from here:
Posted by Mummy Wendy | late at night | in 25 07 2009 |
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A cut at the back of your head
Earlier, after your lunch, when Mummy and Daddy were in the kitchen washing the plates, Jarrett suddenly ran to us saying, “Gor gor is crying! He fall down.” I went to take a look and found you crying,
with your hand holding the back of your head, blood flowing down your hair. Upon closer look, I saw the cut and got you to put down your blood stained hands. Using the wet towel Mummy brought over, I just kept applying pressure to stop the bleeding. After changing 2 towels, the bleeding finally stopped. To get you distracted and not think about the pain, we turned on the TV to let you catch Ben 10 Alien Force.
That did the trick and you stopped crying, allowing us to use the ice to reduce the swelling. Just to be on the safe side, Mummy brought you to the clinic nearby to have the doctor take a look. Luckily, it’s not that serious, he used some “glue” to go over the cut and advised us to monitor you over the next few days. Also, no swimming for the next few days, so we’ll miss one lesson tomorrow.
We’re on our way home after some shopping at the Mall. Now, you are feeling ok. Hope you’ll recover quickly.
Posted by Daddy Peter | evening | in 25 07 2009 |
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