So Singapore!

Among the things learnt at the Singapore Discovery Centre

1) Learning to build an entire city on a small island: trying to figure out where the hospital, community centres, playground etc should be. Understanding that since there is less land space, housing apartments are built upwards, but only till a certain height.

2) Appreciating how Singapore has managed to make its disadvantages work. A nation of many races, having four official languages and still doing fine.

The place is a veritable storehouse of information interactively presented. The kids

tried their hand at being a commando, built cities, did a news report and saw themselves on television.

I liked the corridor of quotable quotes from school children on how they view the future:

A nine year old had this to say: Singaporeans will have get flowers as pets and travel in high tech bubbles that go pop when they arrive

Another one

and of course this would tickle a certain 11 yrold's funny bone!

Letting go...

The past 20 days have been very busy...My almost 13 yr old nephew, came a-visiting from Bangalore. All alone. He was treated like a prince (his words) by the Singapore Airlines staff who also upgraded him to a first class - you can imagine what his face book messages would have been like the next day!

So the boys had fun with their cousin, I've lost some hair and the neighbours are confused as to how many children I actually have!

We must have overdosed on the fun bit, because my 11 yr old caught a nasty throat infection and fever a day before the week-end began.

He got well soon and was understandably irritated at the enforced rest. I wondered aloud whether to give him an extra day of rest on Monday!

Me: "You need not go to school if you are feeling weak"

Him: "Okay' and a shrug

two seconds later,

Him: 'but I'm going to miss a lot, you know, I already missed school on Friday!"

Me: "It's just two days, I'll help you make up"

Him: "Okay!" and a shrug. (psst...can you tell that he LOVES talking?!!!!)

a minute later,

Him: "the teachers don't give us notes you know, you are supposed to listen to them in class"

I looked at him and smiled

Me: " And of course your friends would miss you too"

He smiled back, knowing that i had caught him out.

This morning he was fast asleep, and i thought I'll let him sleep in...I woke up the 6 yr old and pottered (love the mental image conjured here) around the kitchen...I turned to see my 11 yr old standing near me waiting for breakfast and i rushed to see which side the sun is rising from, because this boy never gets up on his own unless there is a cricket match/soccer match that day!

A sad Me: 'You want to go'

An emphatic Him: "Yes!" (absolutely takes after his father in the monosyllabic department)

And so I let him go, even though I wanted him to stay!

The 6 yr old gets his temperature taken, just as a precaution...(since the swine flu scare, the government had made it compulsory for every kid to carry a digital thermometer everyday)

Him: ' how much, amma?'

Me: '98'

Him: 'Celsius or fah..fabr...?

Me; '98 Fahrenheit'

Him: 'That means I need 2 more for hundred?!"

Me (deep sigh): "Yes! But since you are well enough, can you look after Anna and make sure that he does not go for his PE class?"

He happily confirms: 'Only PE?' and bounds off!

And I let him go too, even though he wanted to stay!

Can you tell, that I'm not ready for this letting go business?

click, click! The mother in me !

Wonderful mom! that's what someone called me recently...and i thought to myself "not really, G is frankly a better parent than me!" Though it helps that he doesn't have to multitask and think about nutrition and silly stuff like hygiene and discipline and laundry and too much computer time and ...(i'm running out of speed here)! Always nice to give credit where its due..that's how nice i am!



Having got the guilt out of the way, lets focus on the tag by Monika and Gauri on the 5 joys of being a mother...

here go my spontaneous five,

• Nothing is as beautiful as the moment when you realize you’ve given birth to a pulsating life. I'm incredibly proud of that...and the fact that noone can ever change it! I loved my babies when they were tiny...I loved the way they looked, their smell, and the fact that i was their whole world, even if it was in the role of a milk vendor...and I learnt from them, from the way they learnt to roll over, to crawl, to sit, to walk, and to talk, always picking up something new.

• I love how my 6 yrold still needs me ...his hugs and his snuggles, his innocent questions and his nature. I love the way my 11 yrold laughs and his witty remarks. His writing and his gruff way of showing affection...i love this stage because its fleeting by and i treasure these moments...

• I've been seeing the world through their eyes for a long time now and i love what i see. I'm constantly evolving as a person around them...

• I love the evenings when they return from school...they both have SO MUCH to tell me ...and life is so full of bounce when they are at home.

• I love the fact that i know how to bring a smile to their faces even if i was the one who made them cry/angry and I love that their hugs can make my bad day seem perfect!

I could go on and on, but then the tag must go on :)

tagging other lovely moms : madhumita (UAE) , prats (India), ps (Norwich), Joy (USA) and Sumana (India)

Rules:

Just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom/dad) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don't know any; google any country name and 'mom/dad' in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you've tagged them!) - and link back here and HBM and leave a comment.

HOWZAT!!!!

The first day of school went off smoothly...new textbooks, new notebooks, new timetables...everything seems exciting and interesting, and its worth waiting till evening just to hear about who sat with whom and how many new children were there this time...

So the evening saw each child sharing some tidbit, the 11 yrold has a cricket tournament coming up where he is playing in 6 matches and of course very thrilled about it...while i see myself the only candidate for grabbing the hat of the cricket mum, soccer mum and keeping 6 yrold occupied well enough mum during the next 10 days. I'm also currently feeling very pleased with myself for having got through 2 weeks of holidays in one piece and more importantly having had fun all the way.

and then the 11 yrold says: 'amma, the princi is our english teacher'

me(pleasantly surprised) : 'Really? that's good news, she's an excellent english teacher"

11 yrold(contemplative): 'you know, she reminds me of you'

me(considerably elated and resembling a balloon, so puffed up with pride was I) trying to be nonchalant: "Why?"

11yrold : 'I can't read her handwriting on the board'

Tooooosh, that was the fastest a balloon ever deflated into oblivion!

And as you can see, the 11 yrold is good in delivering a yorker! (or whatever you call it)

when a wish came true!

When school starts after a two week break, it's going to be tough and exciting. Tough because the free spirit has to be caged into a routine, esp after all the unrestricted fun of the past days and exciting because it is after all a new year in school among familiar faces and different teachers.

We've had plenty to do the past 15 days, with libraries, waterparks, and the science centre being our favorite haunts, not to mention overdosing on high energy food. I really enjoy these days when there is no need to adhere to a set timetable and when we take the day as it comes. So it did not come as a surprise when the 6 yrold wished he could have extra holidays. :)

Still we thought we had prepared pretty well for the new term. Polished shoes, ironed uniforms and a packed school bag were set in its proper places, giving the first day of school its rightful importance; even though we all knew that the remaining weeks would be spent in the last minute flurry of packing school bags, and hunting for the right pair of socks at the last minute...



Monday morning dawned a bit too early and it was back to the routine of waking up with the birds and trying to coordinate your limbs which seemed to be having a mind of their own.





Lunchboxes packed, waterbottles filled and prayers said, we were ready and waiting for the bus, which never arrived.





Fifteen minutes later, we were still waiting...and i mentally prepared myself to drop them to school!





Finally i called the bus driver in irritation...and got a puzzled reply 'But school reopens on April 7th!!!'





A call to a friend confirmed the same...





Sheepish looks all round, a burst of laughter, a moan from the 11 yrold for having given up his precious sleep for nothing and a yell of delight from the 6 yrold who was quite thrilled that his wish came true!

Ok so i had forgotten the actual date, but really it's not my fault! Whoever reopens school on a Tuesday, anyway?

Small talk!

11 yrold : "Can i check the Arsenal website on your laptop'

Me(doing some small talk) : 'Fine....why? Is there an important arsenal match?

He nods and then a minute later, he adds : 'BTW, its 'ARE'senal not 'ARSE'nal!"

Thud, (*that was my jaw hitting the floor! anothe word joins my "think before you talk' vocab))

I enter the room to see a dedicated 6 yrold busy with his handwriting homework. Diligently drawing the T's, l's and b's with his trusted ruler.

Me (because i just can't keep my mouth shut): why do you need a ruler?!!!!

Rolling his eyes : "Beeeecause, my teacher wants NEAT handwriting!"

I give up!

In other news, I've been given the new nokia 5800, recently. And my son's drooling over it. It has a touch screen and i quite dislike seeing thumbprints all over my screen. (*cue for rolling eyes! that's what happens at home everytime i say that).

I'm still treating it like its a grenade, but other than that, it's pretty good.

So today while showing me some feature, 11 yrold enviously muttered "You are soo lucky! i wonder what you did to get it" (in other words, why i deserved it?)

sigh! Perhaps I should say "Sit down boy, this could take the whole day"!!!!

PS...his is an innocent question, but of course you, my imaginative readers, can interpret it in any way you want...:D

Puzzling effects...

What's this?

It is a picture of two adorable kittens with a yarn of wool. It is also a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle being puzzled over by a six yr-old and his mother...

Yes! We are very smart, thank you very much! Much to the amazement of the resident snorter who thought we couldn't do it...(*i think he was just jealous)

Little S has always been fascinated by puzzles since he was almost 2 years old. He's spent many a rainy day with Kaleidoscope, the puzzle made up of colored little squares, which i love too. But jigsaws are his favorite. It's addictive and a great stress buster. Solving it teaches one about perspectives, about tenacity and is good exercise for the mind. This was the first time, though, that he tried his hand at a 1000 piece puzzle.

It is a fascinating thing to sit down with these odd shaped pieces and coax them into forming the complete picture. At first they are just meaningless shapes, and it's difficult to make sense of the mayhem. But we figured it out, me and my little helper. We started with the border, because the border pieces have one flat edge, thereby making it easier for us to start. It was not very easy because the fur looked almost the same. Sometimes, I would hold the piece the wrong way, and then lil S would slap his forehead and put it…right there where it belonged.

Every time S returned from school, he would wash up and bounce into the room, first to check how much i got done without him and then to try and beat me at it...

Sometimes it just wouldn't move forward. And then miraculously, when we tackled it after some time or the next day, we seemed to instantly find that missing piece. And everything would fall into place for a while. So much like life, isn't it?

Little by little, piece by piece, we finished it. And the look of satisfaction on his face when he fitted in that last piece was worth recording. He didn't know I had completed it hours before but had messed it up a bit, just so that he could have the satisfaction of finishing his very own "big people' puzzle.

And as usual because i just can't help it, i think of associations.

Of Scrabble boards. Of incredibly lazy evenings, of worry free minds and easy laughter, of a family bonding over a scrabble game, which my sister would invariably win.

I hope that my kids too would weave happy associations around certain things. I'm sure they could never look at a football without thinking of G, of all those evenings spent kicking the dratted ball or watching the games together. Maybe the 11 yrold would look at books and remember the books devoured together by him and me?

And perhaps, jigsaw puzzles would do the same for my 6 yrold. Sometimes, i look beyond and see a young man buying a puzzle for his child, and telling him "See this? i used to do that with my mom". sigh!

*a happy Sigh!

There you go again, my wistful heart...why peer into a whimsical future when you have such a beautiful present....?

So tell me, since i'm a curious cat sometimes....are there certain things which bring back an instant happy recollection for you?

Forget-me-not....

I walked all the way to the MRT station with the family only to realise that I've left my mobile outside the door. Ignoring the outbursts, i hurried back to find my trusty phone waiting patiently for me. This phone has survived many such scares. Leave alone woman-handling it by shoving it under umpteen things in the purse, I've left it behind in various shops, only to get a call from the owner to collect it back...That's the advantage of saving a number under 'home'.

I've always been err...absentminded ...Coincidentally, I married a guy who's equally so..He's misplaced 3 sun glares, one of which he placed on the roof of his car and then drove off...He sometimes forgets which grades the kids are in (I NEVER forget that!!)...I have to remind him about his Mom's b'day (he's never forgotten mine, though i think my sister reminds him!)...A sneaking suspicion that he uses this excuse very effectively when it comes to finishing the 'to-do' list

I think that marriage to him has definitely given me more than two kids......its increased my tendency to umm...forget...my son carries the legacy on...he drops the towel into the dustbin and the tissue paper on the hanger...not to mention the numerous waterbottles he loses at school each year...

There was this time when i sat in my car only to see a stranger there...the guy's jaw dropped...my eyes popped out...you see, it happened to be someone else's car...he was too busy sweating(probably his wife was due back any minute) by which time i had made good my escape to my own car where my driver (a necessity 'cos a car in my control is always out of control) was hyperventilating (i like this word!!!)'cos the memsahib had lost her head!!...Come on now, its not my fault all Esteems look the same...

Once I boarded an aircraft only to realise that my seat was also issued to another gentleman...gravely shook my head at the sad, sorry state of the airlines' management, i really rubbed it in...when a harried steward enters and informs me that I've managed to board the wrong flight!!! Oops, I did it again!!! If looks could kill, i definitely died with all the glares when I finally boarded the right flight...They had been kept waiting while the crew was tracing the elusive Suma...

At family functions, where everyone is always related to someone, I get to hear a lot of "don't u know me, i am your father's aunt's cousin's daughter-in-law",Huh!!! I'm always tense at such gatherings and once ended up introducing my husband to another man (whom i knew as a relation-in-law on my sis's side) who replied " I should know him my dear, I'm his uncle"! He in turn happened to be related in some way to somebody's somebody on my husband's side...(Blush...Blush...the only excuse...we were "just married"!!!So blame it on temporary amnesia ;)

I think that moving to Singapore has put my hubby more at ease...less chances of me sitting in someone else's car...even less chances of me locking myself out of the house with the keys inside...it's a door which cannot be locked unless you have the key!!!

Sigh...And you know what, I had to make that trip home again, i had forgotten to lock the house this time!!!

Psst...hubby seems to think it's selective loss of memory...'cos according to him I still remember the things he's done or not done and the growing list includes stuff from 13 years ago!!!...Hrrumph...(i hope that came out as a snort)...