Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

As his classmates speak mainly English and we have somehow read more English books during bedtime reading , Cayen's Chinese has deteriorated a lot. Hence, to rejuvenate his interest, we started to read a lot more Chinese books at night. 80% Chinese and 20% English.  Also, Ah Pa started to teach him how to play Chinese chess so now he needs to learn how to read the characters in order to play.  This is also a good game as it requires him to stop and think - very good to practise impulse control and strategic thinking. I think he really likes the game as he would initiate it as one of the games we can play after dinner and we have been playing a lot last week as I was not feeling well and it's a good quiet game to play.  Lastly, to encourage reading, I told him that Chinese also has sight words (actually I don't know for sure). So as I read Chinese books, I pause to let him identify the few commonly recurring words. I started with 了 ，as he's quite tickled that every page ...

Today , during storytime, Cayen played with a blue stress ball .. And suddenly asked me, "Ah Po gave me a fruit, it's purple, what is it?" Me: erm, a mangosteen ?  C: no.. It's purple .. Like Tinkie Winky .. Like this (he pointed to some purple thing).. Purple  Me: what's the color inside? C: White . Purple outside.  Me: mangosteen ?  C: no ! Purple.  Me : a grape ? The one that you peel the skin? C: no .. (Points to the stress ball) how can it be a grape ? That is small. (Gave me a super exasperated look ) It is round like this, round  like the Sun [i was secretly impressed with his comparatives] . And big.  Me : plum ?  C: no, that is blue. This is purple. Me: erm , it's purple on the outside but white on the inside. I don't know.. At this juncture, C got up and tried to go outside , he muttered , "I will go ask Ah Po"  To prevent the bedtime routine from extending further, I  quickly asked him to ask Ah Pa. Ah Pa asked him, "is it 山竹?...