Dog, cat, hamster or rabbit? I think I am going to commit the sin many parents did. Lately, I have been contemplating getting a pet for the kid! I never really kept any pets before. My family did kept a few dogs and cats during my younger years, but looking at their quality of life, I don’t think they qualified as pets (kampong animals were very deprived).

So I have never really taken care of any pets. And I didn’t intend to keep one too. I like animals, but not to the extend of loving them and showering them with tender loving care. I don’t believe I would diligently walk my dog daily, or play with it (somehow I can’t stand the smell). The cats are ungrateful creatures, and they like to scratch scratch. I am too lazy to wash the fish tank or change the water. Rabbits shit so much, and besides hopping around, I don’t know what else they are capable of doing. Small birds can’t be petted like dogs, and bigger ones like parrots are noisy, and I hate the idea of clipping their wings. I have found so many reasons to convince myself never to owe a pet.

But I am really thinking of getting one for the kid. I thought it would be great to get a furry pet for the child to pet, to care for, and to play with. I am finding myself getting rather absurd. Getting a pet for a child who doesn’t know how to take care of a pet and might probably innocently hit or hurt the pet,? And worst of all, getting a pet thinking that it would be a something that the child can play with.

I am eyeing on a rabbit. But I better stop at just eyeing for one, before I commit the misdeed of animal abuse.

My mother-in-law was filling me up with two recent brutal murder and rape cases in Malaysia yesterday. I don’t want to talk too much about them, gruesome and sad, you can read them here and here (via Living Gem, there are some great ideas on how to deal with the rapist).

Then she told me about how an acquaintance’s daughter got abducted in broad daylight outside Senai Airport. That girl was waiting for a bus to go home, a van pulled by, grabbed her inside and she was sent to the northern part of west Malaysia. She was almost sold into prostitution across the border at Kelantan, but didn’t because she was without a passport and later managed to escape.

I love girls, they always seem to shower this tenderly loves on their parents, but like what I mentioned before, daughters will always be mommy’s greatest worry. With all these sicko freaks lurking around (and the non psycho heart breaking boys), I don’t know how much risk I am prepared to take in raising the kid. This kind of assault is happening everywhere. These sickening psychos won’t even leave the children or babies alone, how not to worry.

The IKEA abduction case was dismissed as a pure misunderstanding. But just a few days later, there was a report about a toddler near abduction at his own apartment. The gate was left unlocked, the grandparents happened to walk away for a while, a stranger passed by, saw the opportunity and just removed the kid from the house. Luckily the grandfather returned to the living room in time, gave a chase and managed to retrieve the kid.

Most likely, that wasn’t a planned act. It is rare, but it does happen. How about leaving the kid in the library or some playground, while I do my shopping? Or let the kid roam in the toys section while I visit the fitting room. Let the kid walk to school or take public transport, instead of school bus or chauffeuring them personally? Allow the kid to return home late at night alone after catching a movie or attending a party? I hate to be a restrictive parent, I know I have to let go (just like nemo’s father), it is a risk I have to take someday, but don’t know if I can bear the consequences if misfortune struck.

We have heard some famous personalities talking about how their parents train them to be independent, or how they train their kids to be independent. They left their children somewhere in the mall, or on the way home, and let their children find their way home. What if the child is so unlucky and chanced upon a paedophile, a child trafficker, or any desperate person and become victimised. What can I do? Teach her to be smart? Be weary of strangers? Ignore all unauthorised personalities? Let her learn some karate chop and groin kicking stunts? Pray and worry everyday until she returns safely?

We finally had our first playgroup meeting this morning. It was a small group consisting of only 5 mommies and 7 children, but I think the kids quite enjoyed meeting each other. All the other mommies were such friendly and amiable people. At first, I was quite worried that they might have very high expectation and would like the playgroup to function like those commercial playgroup designed with lots of structure learning activities. Ah, turn out they are happy to do some simple singing sessions or walking in the park or just let the kids play among themselves. Nice company!

Although one of our guidelines stated that we shan’t make comparison between the kids, but it is really difficult not too. I shall secretly make one here. Yauyau was such a whiney baby. The moment I was out of her sight, or when she sensed that I was gone, she started complaining. That was one of the primary reasons why I really need to get this playgroup started, she has to meet more people, learn to mingle, understand that mama is always around somewhere and the others will not eat her up.

We have decided to meet on Thursday at 10am in future. The hosting issue has not been finalised, because we really couldn’t decide if we (those staying at my estate) are willing to travel to Holland or Bt Timah area for rotation hosting. I am sort of lazy to move around, but I am fine with it too. Anyway, it would be at our estate until we finally got bored of it and decides to move somewhere else. Do drop me a note if you are keen to join us.

I was talking about premium preschool during my last post, because my friend A and I was chatting over this issue of whether it is necessary to enrol the kids into such establishments, especially when they charges seven to eight hundred plus dollars or more a month.

Actually, we were talking about when we started writing composition during our primary school days, and what we wrote about. I still remember very clearly my first composition was about a dog. We weren’t really writing a passage, it was like writing several relevant sentences and joining them together, like:

I have a dog.
My dog is brown colour.
My dog is call Doggy. (Actually, my dogs were Oscar, 狼狗，狐狸狗 and GaoBu“狗母”, but they weren’t very nice names.)
He likes to eat bones.
I like to pat Doggy and I love him.

I am quite sure I wrote something like that in primary two or primary three. But I heard that children nowadays are expected to write essays when they entered primary one. Essays ok, not short sentences. I have also heard rumours saying that teachers will summon parents of kids who don’t really know how to spell or write proper sentences and lecture them over not equipping the kids with the necessary command of English. Might only be rumours, but the excerpt below probably isn’t rumour:

Excerpt:

Gabriel Ching, seven, Anglo-Chinese School (Primary)

I am Gabriel and I am seven years old. Last year, I was in Primary 1. I like my school very much. I was very excited about starting school. I packed my bag the night before. I put in my books, pencil box, water bottle, a jacket and a snack for recess. I woke up at 6:30am and my daddy took me to school. I had been to my school before so I knew what it looked like. When I reached school, I saw a very tall clock tower with no numbers on its face. There were many students in the auditorium. I had never seen so many students before. The auditorium was gigantic. I said goodbye to my daddy and a teacher showed me where to sit. We sang some songs and the principal talked to us. We then lined up and walked to our classroom. I liked my classroom because the board at the back was decorated with sea creatures. My form teacher took me to my table. Each of us had one green table and a maroon chair to ourselves. I felt like a big boy. - Young Parents

That was what got my friend A and I nervous. We probably didn’t even write like that when we were in primary six. I only learnt the word “auditorium” during my JC years. But that might because my previous school never had one. Anyway, that was from a primary two student. I wonder what the English lesson is like nowadays. Children reading long passages? Answering comprehension questions? Writing ESSAYS? What if my children never learn English prior to her primary education, or what if my child only knows ABC to XYX and a handful of vocabularies? Can such a child survive? Oh yes, and I think the lower primary kids do challenging problem sums nowadays. I don’t know how a child without reasonably good English could even understand what the question is testing him.

Anyway, that got us to the topic of those premium preschools. Parents always like to measure the effectiveness of their curriculum by assessing whether their kids are independent, confident and speech competency. And my friend A told me, her friend’s child who refuse to speak at 18 months was sent to MMI and now at 24 months, talks non-stop. My friend A also visited some of these preschool, found out that their language lessons are mainly taught by native speakers - the kids talk with an ang moh accent or Mainland Chinese accent. I guess that is one reason why parents don’t hesitate to dig deep into their pockets; beside getting less nervous attacks, they are really satisfied with the curriculum and consider it worth for money.

1. Mommies enquired and discussed about sending little kids to establishments like Cherrybrooks, Chiltern House, Pat’s Schoolhouse and Eton Schoolhouse. Oh, the new hot preschool now is the one at Creative Technology.

2. Besides the premiere preschool, the kids also attend enrichment in movement, music, craft, swimming, yoga or languages at Julia Gabriel, Growing up Gifted, Shichida, Berries, and Gymboree.

3. Own baby Bjorn, Maya Wrap, MIM sarong sling, water mesh, Ergo, hip seat and also a backpack. Some mommies only has one kid, and some have many kids, but they all love baby wearing and also buy the similar slings in different fabric or prints to match with their outfits.

4. Buying an Aprica stroller is quite common, but is considering getting an Aprica car seat as well. If I am not wrong, it isn’t found in Singapore, so, intending to have the car seat ship over from Japan (opps, according to mb, can be found in Robinsons).

5. Asking around for the best O&G and paed. Price is not important, as long as they are good. How come no one ask about the best polyclinics or gynea in public hospital? Ok, sometimes, but very rarely asked.

6. Talks about bringing the kids downstairs, or outside the house to play with water or receive private swimming lesson? Public swimming pool is hardly heard.

The list goes on. Sometime I must wonder if Singapore is really getting so affluent that we are able to spend such a tidy sum on the kids. Blessed are those who could provide the best to their kids, and kudos to those who are also able to provide the best to their kids in non material ways.

How many ticks have you gotten from the 6 above? I had a chat with my friend A yesterday. We were both complaining about getting ends meet and being just barely able to balance our accounts, even though the family’s total income is reasonably sound. No more “extra money” since the child arrives. My friend A couldn’t give up her job because she needs the income in order to provide for the kid. She will slave for her, to give her the best education during the precious first 6 years of the daughter’s life. Parents are most willing to spend to last cent (and maybe go digging somewhere else) to ensure their kids well being and education are not compromised in any ways.

I take yauyau’s bath time seriously, because she is a smelly baby, and also because she picked up a lot of her tricks during her tub time.

She practiced her initial sitting skills by holding on to the edge of the tub. There was a period of time when she was extremely quiet, and she broke the silence by having little conversation with her rubber mates. She also learnt how to stand and squat in the tub. I am rather puzzled why the bath time seems so dear to her, but there is no point pondering over the amazing power of the bath tub.

So lately, I have incorporated some learning activities into her bath time. The toilet is our classroom. I found this cap from the laundry fabric softener bottle to act as the kid’s cup. It has a wide mouth and a slimmer body, which fits perfectly into the child’s small palm. I thought I would teach her how to fill up the cup and play dumping water out of it. It seems an easy task to me, and also something rather fun. But she didn’t manage to learn that trick. She discovered something else.

She decided a cup must act like a cup, and hence begun practicing drinking water. I never knew she likes to drink water so much. And yes, the wash cloth, she has been sucking water from it too. When I gave her a sippy cup or bottle, she won’t drink so diligently. Anyway, the tub is a good place to practice drinking from cup, at least no wet floor to mop.

The 15days of Chinese New Year is almost up. We still have a lot of sweetmeat, cookies and titbits at home. There are quite a few packets of large size Twisties, Mamee, Cheezels and other savoury crackers lying around, all opened, but unfinished. We tried to preserve their freshness by tying rubber bands round the openings.

Lately, we have seen the kid touching and handling these half finished packets of junk food. Of course I didn’t allow her to those foods, too much salt. We quietly consented her playing with them as long as she didn’t try to open or squash the content. Hey, she was really very “obedient”, never protested or tried to rip off the seal. But her intense interest in those packets got us suspicious; there must be something sneaky going on to make her so contented.

So we observed her. She was playing with the packaging, turning it here and there. Then she stuck her index finger into the opening (which is half exposed as we tied the rubber band further down), gave it a few swipes, then poked the savoury coated finger into her mouth, lick lick. Yummy! She had been cleaning all the exposed inner wall of the packaging secretly throughout this Chinese New Year. And I only just found that out a few days ago, when I let her played with my last packet of empty Mamee noodle wrapper on our way home from Sentosa. Later, I also discovered that she has been scavenging the rubbish bin for empty packet drinks.

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If there is really such a thing as “止尿片”, I will be among the first one to rush to the departmental stores and get it. This 止尿片will stop the kid from urinating, holding the waste product in the bladder until the parents bring the kid to shh shhh. Doesn’t even need to change wet diaper, we only need a single piece to last us thru the infancy and toddlers years, till the kid is fully toilet trained.

It has been ages since I last visited a park or go anywhere with my father (dinner at restaurants not counted). This was done fairly often during my childhood days; it was an affair involving our whole extended family. The grandparents couldn’t “play” on the beach, go swimming or had any fun with us. They just sat there and watched us, looked after our belongings and chased away the pesky crows. But they were happy to be there nevertheless. Most probably because they felt no one has forgotten about their existence. I told myself I would do the same too when I have my own kids - picnic or excursions with the grand parents. But as we entered the society, too busy working, too busy looking after our sick parent and grandparents, too busy enjoying couple time. No more picnics or outings.

I still planned to fulfil my childhood goal. I don’t want my father to think that I don’t treasure his company; neither do I want my kids to forget about me when they start their families in future. So it is best I start now, before my father lost his zest in all these trips, and also before the teenage kid find us parents as embarrassing companion. Must inculcate this early, start conditioning yauyau as soon as possible.

So, to Sentosa, off we go! Tuesday was a very very hot day. The sun was merciless but we still chose to visit Sentosa on that day to see the “Sentosa Flowers 2005”, the inaugural floral and botanical extravaganza. My father was very excited about the flowers (he used to be orchid farmer) and also being able to take unlimited pictures using my sis digital camera.

It was so warm that afternoon; I was on a constant lookout for shady patches, hiding under some tents, some trees or some bushes. Yauyau probably didn’t understood what “hot” meant, she was very game and struggle to walk about under the sun, which meant I have to brave the heat to catch her.

The flowers at the Fountain Garden were colourful and beautiful, though I expected more varieties and more exotic exhibits. But the kid was interested in something else. She was captivated by the fountain, and wanted to go touch touch the water. I badly wanted to take some nice photos of her with the blooms, she just wouldn’t cooperate. So, most of the photos showed her backside facing me, or half her head cut off, because she was moving away to the fountain again.

Besides the fountain, I realised she has this fondness with fallen leaves too. She spent a great deal of time playing and picking up dried leaves. I predict that she would earn those “leaf collector” brownie’s badge effortlessly next time.

There was this huge monstrous looking butterfly walking around. This kid didn’t like stranger touching her, but was so fascinated by this monster insect that she wanted to go touch touch it’s legs. Of course we stopped her, what if she decided to hug the legs and toppled the wobbly butterflyman who was standing on stilts.

While the many (a huge number) young staffs around the fountain garden area were extremely helpful to me, offering help to carry the stroller or point out where the ramps are, I was quite surprised to find the area quite wheelchair unfriendly, which means stroller unfriendly. The ramps were already quite scarce, and some available ones were cordoned off. It was a pain to move around. Then we decided to take a round trip on the monorail. The escalator wasn’t moving, so I thought I would take the wheelchair lift. I pressed the green button to move the platform, I heard the “clark” engaged sound, followed by some whirring sound, but the platform remained stationary. It wasn’t working either. Luckily some strong Chinese tourist helped me carry my very heavy stroller up the escalator. Next, I realised the door of the monorail is also very narrow. I could only barely push my stroller in. I don’t think a wheelchair would ever be able to go through it.

Next time, go to Sentosa with either a very lightweight and slim stroller or go with a strong companion to lift the baby’s vehicle if you plan to bring one along. But overall, I still want to visit Sentosa again. There is a lot of place to take photos, and a lot of place for the kid to run. That restaurant on the boat looks interesting; I want to have dinner there one of these days.

My baby has grown into a little kid. She looked so boyboy during her earlier months, glad that she appears more girlish now. She has lost her cute curlie curls, only slightly wavy hair can be found. She doesn’t frown so much now, her deep thinker like frown lines on her forehead were gone too. A small cluster of freckles like birthmark showed up above her left ankle some months ago, I hope they won’t grow bigger. She has grown a bit chubbier from her scrawny orignal form and loosing some of the baby fats again recently.

An almost totally different child!