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Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

Read Roses Written Blues

Posted in Sense, tagged , , on November 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

 

I ended up with my own Roses Are Red poem because I could not quite agree with its ‘Violets are blue’ logic. Violets, to me, are not really that blue. They are reddish blue, perhaps. But not blue blue. Or true blue. Blue and red equally. Purple perfectly. And of course purple is a mix of red and blue. Violets are logically, literally, and therefore should be literature-ly purple. Not blue. I stood to have been corrected by myself, thank you very much. And now I stand to be corrected by anyone who dares to correct me with a better correctness than mine.

 

This is my blog, lest you forget.

 

I began changing it by first mental-scanning for a word that rhymes with sweet. It would have been nice to keep some of the poem’s original sense. And then I recalled Kitreena’s artwork today of a hummingbird. She spelled bird as b.r.d.e. Hmmm… oookayyy, let’s tweet the birdie shall we? And then I found this fancy post-it with a bird. Call it karma or sutra, I must have been a bird in my past life. And so I saw the blue skies. Blue violets can be on somebody else’s notes then. Haven’t got the blues for ya, violets!

 

‘Sugar is sweet.’ Sugar? That is such a processed sweetness. Can’t we have something a little bit more natural here? Like honey! I honestly think it goes better with birds, skies and all. Honey from bees, bees and birds fly, and they like clear blue skies as well. Plus, I don’t wanna be thinking of that sugar refinery in Felda Mukim Chuping or of a packet of Gula Prai when I get to the ‘Sugar is sweet, and so are you’ part in the poem!

 

Well, as you can see… I went through quite a bit of a thought-process for such a simple note for Kitreena. And oh yes, she is on the second rerun of her spaghetti boxed lunch from home. I made Spaghetti Carbonara but with some fresh chopped tomatoes and pickled artichokes the other day. Mama mia! Tanto gusto. Tutto belissimo. Abiss ito. Massu tido. Mmmuuuaaahhh! Buona notte, mia colibri!

 

 

Original version:

Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
and so are you.

 

 

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Bananarama Momma

Posted in Monchies, tagged on May 22, 2009| 1 Comment »

I am writing a looooong entry about what kind of Mom I am. But nothing deserves a publishing more than an entry about what kind of children I am Mommy-ing. So here…

For the past couple weeks now the Monchies and I have established a still-chaotic-work-in-progress bedtime routine. Before the l’ultimo bacio, we tell ourselves a bedtime story. Yes, we. The light will be dimmed, the Monchies tucked in the bunk bed – Kitreena on the top, and I will sit by Edrick in the bottom bed. I will start with the easiest part “Once upon a time, there was a…“ and the kids will fill in the blank – whoever is faster will get his choice of character’s story made up and told. And the story will go on from there. Ad-lib.

Surprisingly Edrick has been the faster one to come up with a noun for the blank. And Kitreena has been the more imaginative one, cooking up the storyline. And two nights ago Edrick filled in the blank with a banana. I put the banana into life by making him run really really fast for his life. Right away… Kitreena could see the monkeys chasing after him. It was such an intense phase in Mr. Banana’s life, I tell you, we could almost peel his pulse! I mean, feel his pulse.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Banana started panting, sweating and almost pee-ing in his peel. In his desperation to save his life from being eaten alive by the bananabaric monkeys, he was granted an idea by the Banana God watching him from up above the clouds over the banana republic. Mr. Banana thought of going bugil (naked) would save his life as he could run fasterer – so there! He peeled himself and kept on running!

The monkeys, running so fast so hungry, did not have time to see what had been thrown at them by Mr. Banana. And guess what? Predictably, the monkeys slipped on the peel and came tumbling down the hills, losing their special lunch that day. While Mr. Banana might not grow a new peel and would go bugil for the rest of his life, he was at least saved for another day by his quick (street-smart and strip-smart) thinking.

The End.

Last night it was Daddy’s turn to put Monchies to bed. I opted for the dishes! The kids came down to the kitchen to say goodnight to me and demanded the bedtime story. So after briefing Daddy with what it was all about, I initiated the story. Edrick got his way again by filling in the gap with an elephant who lost his trunk. I, trying to stay away from another action-packed-come-to-life stripping elephant, asked Edrick where he thought the elephant could get a new trunk.

“The trunk is on the tree, Mommy!”

I rolled right over on the kitchen floor laughing as I was imagining an elephant with a wooden trunk and a tree with an elephant trunk!

And for some reason another trunk came to mind. But that was for my bedtime story.

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Of What A Fool Is Full Of

Posted in Monchies, Sense, tagged on March 29, 2009| 4 Comments »

I found myself in a difficult sitch yesterday. No, I am not going to use the word difficult. And I am not going to use the word sitch either, it’s so Kim Possible. So, here: I found myself in a challengingly awkward situation yesterday. If spending an afternoon with parents of Kitreena’s classmates was not awkward enough, try this…a mom made a statement that sent me speechless and almost thankful that my daughter is NOT the smartest kid in her class.

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It got me thinking, nevertheless, of how brutally competitive parents can be when it comes to what they themselves have failed to achieve in school. It is not about letting children develop at their own pace anymore, is it? And if your kid happens to be one who can read at the speed of light, oi! God forbids if you don’t make it known.

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But really, how do you respond to statements like:

  • “Oh, my son is the best reader in the class! I send him to Kumon. Why don’t you send yours to Kumon or Smart Reader, etc. to improve her reading ability?”

    (You believe in ‘Ain’t no matter where they begin, matters where they end’ kinda philosophy. And no, you don’t mind if your kid ends up reading price barcodes with an infra-red reader at Wal-Mart either…as long as she knows how to earn a living.)

 

  • “My son has the most “Spot-On’s” in the class now! 12 altogether.”

 

(Your daughter just got her 15th Spot-On. Yes, you are proud of your daughter, and would love to smirk off the other mom’s crowing. But you know those Spot-On’s are not a ticket to Harvard. Puhleeeassse!)

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If school and life have taught me anything at all, the very least I know is that the highest valued achievements are immeasureable. One can be the richest man standing, measured by hundreds of billion dollars in his pocket. But if he is full of nothing but himself, he is full of nothing.

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Rule 74: Don’t Blame Your Parents

Posted in Write On, tagged on March 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

“When we’re little, most of us assume our parents are good at the job. Unless they’re really dreadful, it doesn’t occur to us that they don’t always know what they’re doing. As we got older, we notice that our friends’ parents do things a bit differently. Maybe we’re envious, maybe we think we’re the lucky ones. Probably a bit of both. As we get older still, it may start to dawn on us that our parents are getting some bits really wrong.

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That’s what happened to me. Quite early on I realized that my father was seriously bucking the trend by not actually being there at all. Before long I realized that my mother was in very different ways similarly hopeless, and she struggled to cope or to show any affection to us.

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Now, in my case, things were sufficiently bad that I had to face up to them. Either I spent my life bitterly blaming my parents for all my problems, or I moved on. I chose to recognize that my mother was just not even slightly cut out to be a parent, and that for someone like her, being a single parent to six children was too big a task. If I were airlifted into another life where I was required to manage a football team, or an oil rig, or a classroom full of 30 troubled kids, I would perform similarly badly. All of us have things we just can’t do. Maybe my mother only realized too late that being a parent wasn’t her thing.

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So I forgave her, and got on with my life. It saved me from becoming bitter and twisted, and it enabled me to put right the damage in a positive frame of mind. If you really feel that someone has ruined the first 20 years of your life, the only sensible thing to do is to make sure they don’t ruin the next 50 or so as well.

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Funnily enough, it’s often the people with the best parents who find it hardest to stop blaming them from the odd shortcoming. If your parents are basically pretty good at the job, it’s somehow tempting to blame them for not being absolutely perfect. But why should they be perfect? And, indeed, how can anyone be expected not to put a foot wrong in 18 years?

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Your parents are only human, and it’s very likely that somewhere along the way they did a few things that caused you real upset or difficulties. That’s what happens when people with no training spend 18 years in the job. The odd thing goes wrong. They were only doing their best, and they couldn’t help it. But you can help it: you can choose to stop blaming them and to forgive them. In fact, what’s even to forgive? They weren’t getting it wrong on purpose, they just made a few mistakes.

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It’s too late to put things right by blaming your parents. But it’s not too late to let it go, recognize that their hearts were in the right place, and quietly sort out any residual damage yourself.”

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How can anyone be expected
not to put a foot wrong in 18 years?

Rule 74
Richard Templar
The Rules of Love

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