Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

It’s nearly been one month since he started Primary one. He’s still eating chicken rice as of now. Or rather, he has not tried anything else. Also, he now has enough time to eat chicken rice, and then go to the pond later to play with his friends.  To date, he’s had two brushes as well, literally. First, it was for a misunderstanding where two boys thought they were supposed to be first in line and the other boy bit him when they were heading down the stairs. Apparently it all started when the boy “cut his queue” , and when he would not listen and go back to his original position,  Cayen stepped right back in front of him but not before kicking him.   Second incident, he was playing with his friend when someone ran fast from behind and pushed him down. He fell flat and cut his nose, elbows and knees.  Looks like Primary One is not going to be a bed of roses when it comes to scratches and wounds, particularly in a boy’s school.  As of now, he’s had his first chinese spelling and will ha

Every time Ah Gong leaves the house, he will ask “Ah Gong, where are you going?”.  One day, he repeated his question .. this time in a knowing way.  C:  Ah Gong, where are you going? Mahjong? Ah Gong: Yes C: You have money?  (We rolled over laughing. How did he know money is required?) —  Today, we were preparing to go out for a birthday party but he didn’t know. So he asked me.. C: Ah Ma, where are we going ?  Then he cheekily added , “Mahjong?”  — Cayson went to the party .. at one point, I saw him chasing two girls .. screaming “我是霸王龙”（I am T Rex)..  I hope they are just playing catch ...  Somehow I feel like I need to tell him, this is not the way to chase girls... (女孩子不是这样追的).  — He likes to lift heavy things and exclaim that he’s “muscle man” ! He sure is quite strong for his size.  — He’s pretty much fearless. He climbed up the slopes very quickly and slides down the slides without hesitation. He must be the youngest kid on that slide. It was double the usual height but he was c

Is chinese language really so hard to learn ? As a kid, I have no issues with chinese till secondary school as we speak mainly Chinese and dialect at home when I was young. I only started disliking it after I got to secondary school as there’s just a lot of memorising and rote learning and it ceased to be enjoyable.  Now I am facing the same issue with the kids who don’t seem to get chinese though we do speak it at home. For instance, I have repeated the reading of the same book to Cayson for weeks but he simply cannot remember the chinese word for hippo , beaver and crocodile despite knowing the English equivalent. For crocodile, he would call it a shark in chinese 鲨鱼 which is on the next page. And he can’t recall it five minutes after I corrected him. As I repeated myself calmly for the 100th time , I reminded myself he’s really good in jigsaw puzzles for his age and he’s got very high empathy skills and hence, not being able to grasp these chinese words is really no big deal at this

Cayen ate  chicken rice again but the only difference was that he only had $2 today. So when asked what he drank, he said he had no money to buy drink, he then hugged his water bottle and said he had only this. (No money for mogu mogu.. haha). (Recap: he had asked for $2 for Mon, Wed and Fri and for $2.50 on 2 treat days on Tue and Thu.) Hence, he renegotiated. How about $2.50 for Mon, Wed and Fri?  I was half expecting that he would say $2 for Tue and Thu but he had proposed $3 for these two days instead.  —  I asked him if he had anything he didn’t know in class. He said he didn’t know how to walk to the canteen from his classroom. So I told him to follow the group. But wait, he’s standing at the front of the line, so I think the P4s are leading the pack. I asked him if he had tried PE since he wore the PE shirt the previous day. But he said they didn’t go eventually as the computer was spoilt and they were delayed by 15min.  Then I asked what he did whilst waiting in the hall. He sa

First time waking up at 6am today. Didn’t dilly dally at all for once hence, was ready by 6.30am, way ahead of time, he had some time to appreciate dawn to sunrise since he’s so early.  He managed to spend $2.40 out of $3 today , on chicken rice and a bottle of mogu mogu (whatever that is). He said he will buy ice cream tomorrow , so Ah Pa told him that his floating rate pocket money will get cut tomorrow. Cayen negotiated and got Mon, Wed and Fri to be $2.00 whilst Tues and Thu to be $2.50, so he has a bit of a treat for two days. Cayen 1. Ah Pa 0. 

Ah Pa brought Cayson to the supermarket. As usual, Cayson tried to reach for the escalator railing but Ah Pa stopped him as he’s worried that his fingers might be trapped in it as he’s a tat too short for it. Pa: no holding Cayson  C: need.... Later baby fall down. Baby die. No more baby. Ah Pa will cry. Pa: ???  Auntie standing behind them couldn’t help laughing. (Think he picked up the concept from me. I usually will warn him not to do certain dangerous things by saying .. this is dangerous. don’t do this.. later die, no more ah pa, no more ah ma. He basically parroted it right back) —- I was washing my hands at the tap. Cayson suddenly said, “don’t waste water. Later Ah Pa scold you!”  (Ah Pa is quite innocent cox usually I’m the one nagging Cayen for turning on the tap for too long and wasting water).  — I was remarking to Ah Po how good Cayson is with jigsaw puzzles. Ah Po agreed , saying how she sometimes also don’t know and needs to take very long to piece it all together.  We d

The two brothers set off for school , new in a different way. For Cayen, it’s a whole new experience in a new setting whilst for Cayson, he’s returning to the old school compound after two weeks at a temp campus to a new classroom and new chinese teacher.  On the way to school, Cayen suddenly asked me about this cloud in the sky, looking long and curvy (like a rainbow). I tried to explain that an airplane has flown past. He wouldn’t take it for an answer. “How could a plane go up and come down so quickly? It’s a curve, not a straight line.” That seemed valid so I started googling for some answers but to no avail. I suspect it’s really from a plane , and that’s a word for it .. “Contrail” or Condensation trail. Anyway, this conversation lasted all the way whilst we were in the car. First time he’s so awake in the morning after all these years. I take the questioning as a good sign of things to come in Primary school.  For Cayen, we didn’t know much about what he went through as we were

2018 has been a year of milestones, for the family and for myself.  2018 started with Cayson starting preschool (and crying for a good one month) but he soon got used to it. His friendliness and cuteness made him very endearing to all, he was an unofficial “mascot” for school visitors.  Q3 was fun as I visited Dubai and Abu Dhabi officially for the first time with the family. Apart from South Africa, this is probably the next most exotic experience I’ve had. This is also the quarter that Cayson and Cayen performed on the stage in school for national day and I must say Cayson was quite a natural.  Q4 was super eventful with me leaving Citi after 13 years for a brand new experience and adventure. This was also the quarter of many firsts for Cayen , from staying overnight in school for confidence camp for the first time , his first piano exam, his first ability to swim, his first big stage graduation concert. We also added more lessons for Cayen this year in order to try to occupy his tim