Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Cayen has been sick since Wednesday. It all started weird on Wednesday when I saw that he couldn't finish his favourite Kaya bread and was a little listless on his way to school.  By noon, teacher has called to say he's running a fever. So we brought him home to rest. All seemed well till the next morning when he woke up all red and burning. My parents quickly brought him to the PD when he was given some medicine to bring down the high fever of 39 degrees. Because he was so sick, he was allowed to watch his favourite cartoons on Nic Junior during his waking hours. And his energy level oscillated wildly within every four hour slot. He would be his normal self half an hour after each medication, and back to being weak and irritable half an hour before time of the next medication. And strangely, he started to deplore taking medicine and resisted all attempts to put any cold cloth or cooling patch on his forehead. Hence, his fever couldn't come down.  By Friday morni...

Ah Pa was on leave on Thursday so he thought since he had time, perhaps he could bring Cayen back to Mindchamps for a visit . Cayen was initially agreeable until he reached the ground floor of the building and wanted to back off thereafter. Still, Ah Pa brought him up since they were already so near. He went up and saw the principal who was surprised but happy to see him. However, Cayen wasn't so eager to proceed further.  Ah Pa brought him into the class and his ex classmates were ecstatic to see him. They in fact started chanting his name in great fanfare. However, Cayen wasn't reciprocating. He in fact tried to hide. He muttered to Ah Pa, "这不是我的学校了，我要走了” He wasn't ready to let his old Chinese teacher hold either. (When I heard this, my heart almost broke for him.) So Ah Pa had no choice but to bring him out of the classroom. However, the kids continued to chant his name so much so that his teacher led the train of kids out to  look for him. Then they sw...

After watching Paw Patrol and Blaze and the monster machines, he's very into volcanos and machinery. So he was all ears when I went through those pages in the picture dictionary and that was a good start. Today , I tried to educate him about the gemstones. But this was not easy as he kept calling them rocks and how he's going to crush them using jack hammer and drill. Focus was not on the colours but all about the crushing. So I kept repeating "gemstones or crystals" Then he suddenly asked ," gem as in Kaya and Jam?? " We said , "no, gem as in gem. Not Jam." Then I tried to educate him , "diamond is the hardest material on earth . It takes a diamond to cut a diamond" Cayen asked, " a diamond to cut a diamond? Why? Can't I use a jack hammer and a drill?"  I told him that a diamond is the hardest and you can't cut a  hard object with something softer. Da quipped on the side, " I think can crus...

I didn't hear from the teacher much in the last one week. I guessed it's because she has taken leave as her own kid is starting preschool but silently I had hoped it's because Cayen has been behaving better. Well, before my silent congratulation to myself, I got this message today...  Teacher:  Hi Mummy, just letting you know that Cayen cried this morning after lunch because I reprimanded him from throwing things in the dustbin. He threw our number cards in the bin without us knowing. He also likes to mess and mix up things like toys and teaching aids in class (even taking out things on display board or peeling things off the wall). So things will either messed up or go missing in the class and he would tell us where he placed them (behind the board, at the back of the bookshelf, or in any other wrong places). The worst part is the bin. 😓 We will be lucky to retrieve the items if we caught him. But unfortunate if Aunty has already cleared the bin. Since he is very smart an...

爸：Cayen, 你越来越像阿妈了. 妈：这样很好啊，比较好看 爸：Cayen, 阿爸帅吗？ C： 帅 ... .. 我也很帅！  （哈哈！真不要脸） ------ 爸：明天要去银行拿钱包红包 妈：不用去，我这里有，可以先拿去 爸：你不讲我怎么懂你有 C：我有！ 爸：你有cash 啊？ C：我有cash card !  (Wah!! Really savvy )

This year, I finally managed to get him to wear new clothes as I managed to source for Paw Patrol clothes online at the 11th hour. I scooped up three shirts and one pyjamas since it might be the only thing he would wear and indeed he loved it. On day 1, he was up to his usual antics during visitings. One would have thought one year old means one year wiser but unfortunately history still repeated itself. He went and squeezed whatever packet drinks he could find on the table. This year he squeezed 3 packets. And again, when people have him the red packets, he either refused and said 'no' or purposely tried to open it to see the contents.  And then because he purposely banged into me on a kiddy ride, he had earned his first caning of the year.  This year, his highlight should be the toy gun he found that kept him entertained for one whole hour. And to earn his Ba Kwa , he actually sang the new year song he learned in school as well.  http://youtu.be/_Cd6M2TgbvY...

As usual, it was hard to get him to sleep. We were just talking and he suddenly started singing, C: row row row your boat , gently down the stream. If you see a crocodile, don't forget to snap. C: row row row your boat , gently down the stream. If you see a lion, don't forget to roar. Me: Haha, who taught you ?  C: I taught myself  Me: what if you see a rabbit? C: row row row your boat , gently down the stream. If you see a rabbit, don't forget to hop. Not sure if it's original but the lyrics are quite funny... Haha. Anyway, it's amazing what kids can do with a mandarin orange box .. Once again, I'm convinced the best toys are the ones that can be recreated into anything ..

Today I had a morning call so I tried to get him to school earlier. Little did I know that by being 15minutes early , he arrived to see none of his regular teachers around. So he had no choice but to sit with the teacher taking attendance alongside the other early kids. I wonder if he's able to sit still for the entire duration till his teachers arrive.  As his English teacher has been on leave,  we haven't been getting regular watsapp updates . This has resulted in perhaps a false sense of security that all was  well.  Then, today, another picture arrived, showing that he was up to no good again.  The irony is that I have always been preaching for him to save water, water electricity and to save paper . And he, for one, is extremely into the concept of reducing, recycling and reusing.  Nonetheless, for some reason, when it comes to toilet roll, he's like our cats, who simply can't resist playing with it! 

To celebrate Chinese New Year, they were to wear their Chinese New Year clothes and to bring some ingredients to eat hotpot. Cayen was responsible for chicken soup and toufu.  But once again, he was reluctant to wear the Chinese New Year costume (in fact he always wants to wear those few pieces of home clothes!) despite that I placed lots of cookies , gummy and other treats inside the pockets of the costume. I don't know why he is so picky about everything from food to clothes to shoes.  But eventually his persuasive teacher managed to convince him after a while. Yeah! At least the costume didn't go to waste.  When he's home, we asked him about his hotpot lunch in school.  阿爸：火锅好吃吗？ 宇恒：好吃但是我吃很少，因为我不喜欢吃菜. 阿爸：为什么你不吃菜？那么你有没有吃豆腐？ 宇恒：没有 阿爸：你带豆腐你没吃？ 宇恒：老师吃，老师喜欢吃豆腐！

Me: who do you like more? Ms Irish or Zhao laoshi or both ?  C: both  (Not bad.. Last Mth, he said Ms Irish only)  Me: is it because they always hug you ? C: yes ...  Me: who else you hug? C: Ryan, Alexander and Janelle  Me: why you hug them? C: I love them but they don't know  Me: huh? Why they don't know? C: it's a secret  Me: then what happen after you hug them? C: they run away !  Me: ???  One sided affair is tough my boy .. Haha.

Cayen has had a persistent cough and phlegm for very long. Despite taking around 2-3 bottles of the western medicine, it didn't get better. And at night  during that period, he kept asking for extra serving of milk , which only made the phlegm worse, as he sometimes may puke the next morning.  So last month, we stopped all extra milk servings and Western medicine and switched to simply drinking pear and Chuan Bei soup every other day. The cough actually subsided to a big extent and he was no longer coughing so often. But the phelgm remains as we could hear from the occasional cough.  As such, we decided to bring him to this Chinese Tuina (massage) for kids that was supposed to be very effective. First, we took a number to see a Chinese physician and she advised against eating "cooling foods" like oranges, watermelon and mango. No bird nest too. Then massage was prescribed for three days.  Unfortunately, what we didn't expect was that Cayen was completely adverse to a...