RamblingMoo

Now that PiggyBeng is back in Penang and all of us are in KL, we normally have a MSN webcam session in the night so that the daddy can have a peek at his kiddos.

Last night Darrius was disturbing me while I was chatting with his daddy so to ward him off the PC I came up with an idea. PiggyBeng was using the PC in our room so I told him to show Darrius the new toy (a mini computer complete with a mouse) my brother gave him (which we have yet to show him) for his birthday earlier.

Guess what happened when Darrius saw the toy?

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Darrius: I want to play!!!!! I want to play!!!

Me: Can only play back in the bedroom in 129 (129 is how he address our Penang home)

Darrius:I want to go back to 129 now!!!!

Me: How to go back? Wait for daddy to come and bring you back lar

Darrius: I want to go now! I want to go into the screen!!!!

Me: Hey daddy! I think we need to get a transporter lar!

Darrius: I want to go into the screen and back to 129 now!!!

Me: You better be a good boy and go out and now so I’ll tell daddy to keep the computer for you

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See… he so desperate that he wanted to jump into the screen and go back to Penang…

Since Glennedine came unannounced in the middle of the night, there were some plans we had earlier which has to be shelved. As PiggyBeng did not get to arrive on time and Darrius went to the hospital with me, I can’t do a lot of stuff which I had planned together with PiggyBeng. So, we have to twist some of them around. One of the plans was to introduce the brother to the sister with a gift exchange.

On our previous trip KL, I asked Darrius what he would like his Mei-mei to give him when they met? As he is ‘infactuated’ with  anything that has wheels on, he told me he wanted a trolley bag just like one of those his classmates has. Coincidentally, PiggyBeng was on a biz trip to Brazil  so I took the opportunity to ask him to scout for one since he gets to transit in Singapore, Hong Kong, Chicago and Tokyo. Luckily PiggyBeng managed to find the ‘perfect’ gift in one of the duty free shops that sell many promotional products in Changi Airport on his flight home.

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Darrius’s actual birthday falls on 21st of November but we decided to give him a small celebration in his kindy a few days earlier as we need to travel back to KL on his actual birthday. Initially we thought of having the celebration tomorrow (Friday) but it is the kindy’s Children’s Day so I picked to do it yesterday (Wednesday) instead.

This year, the birthday boy made a special request for his birthday cake and this heavily preggy mama at 36 weeks gestation has to oblige to the request. The request is quite unusual but big and frumpy mama was extremely glad that it is not another Thomas the Tank cake!!! It definitely helped lessen the energy and effort as I am having problem standing for too long! In fact, I got a bad leg cramp on the night I completed the cakes!

So, this is the birthday boy’s cake for his 4th birthday…

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PiggyBeng was at home yesterday as he gets an off day for Deepavali which was on Saturday. Taking this opportunity, I asked him to send Darrius to school instead. Initially I wanted to stayed home but Darrius was making sad faces and insisted that I have to send him and refused to have his daddy to send him.

So, we all went together. I took the chance to point out who is this ‘tail boy’ that Darrius is afraid of to PiggyBeng when we were at the hall while the kids were playing waiting for assembly time. I told PiggyBeng to bring Darrius upso he can place his school bag at his table before joining the rest of the kids at the hall.

PiggyBeng then asked me to go away and allowed Darrius to follow Madam Leong to class. Darrius wanted to cry but PiggyBeng told him ‘go follow your lao-shi and don’t cry’. Funny thing is, Darrius did not cry (unlike when I leave him he will sure scream for me) and followed Madam Leong up to the class. He only glanced down at us with sad look on his face but move on….

This morning I had wanted to try the same tactic but I just can’t (soft hearted!) so I brought him to his class. I told him to be a good boy and he should not pick up any fight with ‘tail boy’. He nodded and after a while I went out and I told him I’ll be back later. I waved and walked off. He did not cry or scream for me…. Yahooooooooooooooooooo!

Finally! At Week 3, he is an independent boy in school!

Officially, Darrius only attended school for 2 weeks but I have noted quite a lot of improvements beside the fighting and sharing part. For once, he told me he wanted to speak Mandarin and not ‘words’ as in alphabets! It started just 4 days into school when he came and asked me…

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Darrius: Mommy, what is ‘jo-kai’?

Me: ‘jo-kai’ means ‘Go away’. Why?

Darrius: The boy told me to ‘jo-kai’ just now.

Me: You disturb your classmate ah? That’s why he asked you to ‘jo-kai’?

Darrius: Silence

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Now he will greet us ‘Mama jao-ann’ and ‘Papa jao-ann’ when he wakes up and ‘Mama wan-ann’ and ‘Papa wan-ann’ when we tuck him in at night. He will always ask us what is the word in Mandarin when we spoke to him in English.

We are very pleased with his initiative to learn and the best part is, he is will try to answer us in Mandarin now! Not bad for someone who has not been spoken to with Mandarin for the past 4 years… this is indeed a great improvement that we can see after he attended this kindy. Even Madam Leong once feedback to me that Darrius is trying to speak Mandarin during lessons.

On most nights when we have our short chit-chat session before tucking him in, he will ask us a few words and want us to translate them into Mandarin words. He sure learns fast!

Now when I asked him to do something and if he refused he will tell me ‘wo-bu-yao’ (I don’t want) Or when I threaten him with the cane, he will tell me ‘wo-bu-you-teng-pian’ (I don’t want cane).

He will flip on the Chinese work sheets every now and then and will point the word to me and ask me how to read. We hung a simple Chinese characters poster on the wall and he will go there very often and look at it and tell me this is ’sui’ (water) or ‘di’ (ground).

Last night Darrius had this conversation with PiggyBeng…

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Darrius: Daddy, I want to play ’sui’. How to say play in Mandarin?

PiggyBeng: Play is ‘wan’. So you say ‘wo yao wan sui’. Understand?

Darrius: Daddy, wo yao wan sui (cheeky smile)

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Things are looking positive. At least one of our expectations is achieved… earlier than expected. We just need to guide him more (at the same time both of us are learning too) and hopefully he will be able to converse in Mandarin fluently in no time…

Way to go Darrius boy!

Just barely 2 weeks in kindy, Darrius has already made some ‘records’! It seems that some of the older kids are also afraid of him besides those few who want to disturb him… So, Darrius is not as ’simple’ as all of us thought he was!!!!

For the past few days I have been getting complains from Madam Leong each time I went to pick up Darrius. He told me Darrius has been wrecking havoc in class by disturbing some of his classmates. There is also another boy (with a pony tail) whom Darrius dislike from the beginning has been giving Darrius a hard time so both boys have been ‘fighting’ with each other. This boy just loves to disturb Darrius… by pinching him.

Darrius will complains about this boy each time he sees me. When his daddy asked him ‘how was school?’ The first thing he will tell his daddy is about this boy too and how he has been disturbed or pinched by him. So, the smart daddy told his son… must ‘pinch’ back! *slap head*

The situation got so bad that Darrius was being sent to another class so the rest could complete their final test/exam paper this morning… if I did not hear wrongly (coz what I heard from Madam Leong was the other pony tail boy got sent but when I asked Darrius, he said he was the one being sent to the ‘big boy’ class). Who ever got sent is not important but to know Darrius was one of the culprit really worries me.

This is only the second week and imagine the coming weekssssssss in the next 15 years that he will be in school….

Never have I thought that I’ll have to deal with exams so soon! I was told by Madam Leong that Darrius will have to join the rest of his classmates to do their 2nd semester exam this week which will last 4 days. Today will be Bahasa… something Darrius has no knowledge before!

Well, I tried not to be too stress up about it since Darrius only started like a week ago and even Madam Leong told me not to stress Darrius over his marks…. after all, he’s only 3 years old technically! Nevertheless, we still went through some revision over the weekend.

Darrius only needs to remember words from N to Z. Since he has no problems with English and alphabets, it was quite easy to teach him. I just wrote all the wordings on his easel and we recite from there from time to time. After a few rounds, he can read all the words except that he can’t spell them all… but that’s good enough since there won’t be any spelling test involved.

I also photocopied some of the pages from the book the school is using and let Darrius do some practices. He can grasp most of them so I was quite happy. However, he can be quite careless so I just hope he will see properly before writing his answers on his test papers!

All the best to you my dearest Darrius boi!

This morning we had to go through the morning routine again in the school. Again, Darrius refused to let me go off sit in the other room so I have to stay with him for 30 minutes after the first lesson started. Today, he has to do some revision for the up coming exam… yeah… EXAM even for 4 years old! Madam Leong told me to not stress Darrius since he did not follow the lessons earlier when the term started. Nevertheless, I am going to do some revision with him. *kiasuism*

I left him with Madam Leong around 9am and Darrius started screaming for me but I walked on… heavy hearted. Just got to get used to it lor…

When I returned to pick him up around 11am, I quietly went to the class and peep at him. The class was having some singing and dancing session and Darrius was one of the spectators since he is not taking part in the school concert.  I could hear his laughters… *so happy*

Then around 11.20am I went to fetch him and Madam Leong told me Darrius refused to eat the cake given to him during break time but he finished the bento I packed for him. Today he refused to let Madam Leong help him pee again… *sigh* He said he wanted me to help him wor…

I managed to have a short chat with Madam Leong and she told me she can ’see through’ Darrius by now. Once in a while he will shed some crocodile tears and call out for me but will be ok after being distracted. Madam Leong said that Darrius sometimes will cry without tears… just to get attention… *haiyo* This boy of mine ah…. I really don’t know how to handle him. Madam Leong also told me that Darrius has no problem mixing with the other kids so there should not be much problems in fitting in… which is good news for me.

Well, guess there will be more to come…

Today is the 3rd day Darrius attending kindy… well actually the 6th day if I take into account the 3 days of trial. Therefore, he should be able to adjust to the routine now since there are not much things are expected of him. After all, we are treating this as a play school (without much playing in the curriculum though) and since it is almost the end of the term… there’s nothing much to do.

Like the last two mornings, Darrius still very reluctant to wake up even with the alarm clock beeping away. I have to bug him and threaten him so that he will leave the bed. The first thing he will tell me when I said ‘you gotta go to school later‘ is ‘I don’t want to go to school, later mommy go away’. Then I’ll have to go through the same prep talk like I do every morning. In fact, PiggyBeng already prep him the night before.

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Darrius was still reluctant to wake up this morning despite the loud noise from the alarm clock. In fact he slept through it! As I was downstair preparing and since it was a rainy morning, I let him slumber on if the noise from the alarm failed to deter him… Finally I have to go up and bug him to wake up. He put on a struggle and I have to coax him before he relented. *sigh* This boy…

I stayed with him for about half and hour before Madam Leong told me to let her handle Darrius. Of course the little monkey started to cry when he can’t see me outside the class. I went to hide in another room but went back to check on him when he did not stop crying. Madam Leong told me to just leave Darrius to her and I went back to the other room. Darrius quiet down after a while and I went over to peep… he was busy doing something next to Madam Leong… yeah, she distracted him with some ‘chores’.

When it was time for tea break, I went to peep at him again. He started crying again and refused anything that Madam Leong offered him. Today they had porridge and some cordial drinks. I saw Madam Leong opened up Darrius’s bento box and started to feed him but that little monkey refused to eat. True enough when I check after the class, all the sandwiches were untouched except 1 slice which was half bitten!

Anyway, I decided to do it… I left the school and went home! Yeah, it was a heavy decision but I told myself, I just gotta do it… sooner or later.

I went back an hour later and I could heard Darrius’s cries when I walked up to his classroom. *haiyo* When he saw me, he cried even louder and said ‘mommy go away’ ‘ I don’t want mommy to go away….’. His face was so red from the crying!

Well, I’m not going to give in to his cries… will have to do it again tomorrow!