Raising Rockstar

#73

One fine day with Lego…

Miss: Red Brick? Grey Brick? Tire thing? I don’t know what this is. Ko-ko. What is this? Oh, you’re building – Ok, I won’t talk to you.

Rockstar: You know, you could actually help me. It’s your Lego, you chose it.

Miss: Yeah, but it’s too hard. I need to put Red Brick on Grey Brick.

Rockstar: You don’t have to do that. That’s not part of the car.

Miss: But I want to.

Rockstar: I give up. You’re not helping and it’s yours. I’m going to watch Youtube.

Miss: AL-so Ko-ko, you have to build things while watching TV. 

Rockstar: Why.

Miss: Because I say you can’t watch Youtube. 

Rockstar: Bye bye. I am going to watch Youtube.

Miss: Mummy! Tell Ko-ko he cannot watch Youtube.

Me: Um.. Why?

Miss: Because I don’t want him to.  

Rockstar: Who made you Queen of Everything?

Miss: I just am. 

(Both of them glare at each other. Then both burst out laughing. Rockstar walks off. Interestingly, he doesn’t immediately go on Youtube, he picks up a book to read.)

This day the Miss decided she would eat the parmesan cheese straight out of the jar, in this restaurant. But I said she couldn’t eat directly from the serving spoon, and so she’s doing…….. That. Seriously. The spoons never touched, either. (But then she also ate everything in the jar so technically that’s moot…)

Also, for the first time in several years, I had to get a new tree (fortunately they’re currently 50% off at Indigo). Because Her Highness says girls “need” their own tree. “Because the boys will have a very different way of decorating trees.”

The Miss…. loves sports. She loves balls, balloons, bats, water, scaling rock-climbing walls, any physical activity involving ninja weapons… so you can imagine her excitement at the epiphany that there exists a Day of Sports. What appears to be a School-Wide Orgy of a Holiday Involving All Manner Of……SPORTS.

Yup. Sounds about right.

And so, with barely-contained trepidation excitement, we make our first-time journey to the Hong Kong Football Club (don’t get me started about when she discovers there is An Actual Club of Things Football).

<DRRRRRRummmmmmm-ROLLLLL……>

OMG. Can This Be? An Actual Whole FIELD of Activity Stations Devoted To………….

(Oh right, and there’s my current best friend (who, dear readers, it will come as no surprise to you, is none other than a super-active BOY with a big bro who is ALSO super-active))

*DELIGHT*

What’s she doing?

Keeping a very close eye on her Egg & Spoon

(For this Egg & Spoon race with a little something extra, the kids match the spoons to the coloured markers at the other end – so they don’t just keep the egg on the spoon, they go around switching coloured spoons and markers

..And what’s this one, a rally?

…It’s “Monkey See, Monkey Do” – The kids have to strike the same pose as the monkey in the picture!

(Many of which involve balance)

Why does she look a little subdued?

…Couldn’t wait to start the Obstacle Course!

Swerving in and out of the cones…

Hopping in and out of the hoops…

Following the squiggly line…

What’s this lineup for?

“What’s the time Mr Wolf” – RUN!!! (Preferably while screaming your lungs out)

They chased the parents/ helpers too. But by the time we got to the end of the area, I think all the little kids forgot they were supposed to be catching us, and were just… running with abandon.

I was especially proud of the Miss in the balloon race, though…

She didn’t care that she was moving slowly/occasionally left behind, after figuring the “proper” (and much harder for little legs) way to do a balloon race is with the balloon between your knees.

…And they got to keep the balloons after, because it was the last station – we totally lucked out!

…And they’re all winners! The Miss is delighted!

All the little kids received really nice medals with “ESF Kindergarten” on them, for completing their first Sports Day. And what does the Miss say?

“I got one! Just like Ko-ko.”

What does Rockstar say to that?

“No, yours is nicer. Ko-ko’s is a silver, but yours is gold.” 

#387/ #72

Rockstar steps away from his snack to go to the bathroom, and when he returns…..

Rockstar: MUUU-UUUM!

Me: Kinda hard to eat with so many eyes watching you?

Rockstar: What do you think?

Miss: <haughtily> Birthday Doggy is having a party.  

That would be the Boo dog in the pink skirt and party hat.

I had two shifts at Rockstar’s biggest school event of the year (in his opinion) – the regular one setting up the ghost train (biggest perk: Both Rockstar and the Miss get to see the ghost train before it fills up with ghouls for the night) and also ticketing/cleanup at the Cheese Brothers clown show.

The Miss crashed. Like, she never crashed playing on that same playground with Rockstar’s friends before, and she’s sat through back-to-back Cheese Brothers performances in previous years, but Murphy’s Law Of Volunteering At School Events states Thy Child Shalt Always Crasheth At The Most Inopportuneth Timeth and so…………………… Rockstar has now decreed that the Miss is not allowed at his school for several weeks. And all I have are pre-crash pictures.

Now you see her helping herself at the drinking fountain….

…Now you don’t.

Ok wait there she is 

(To be fair, pre-crash they were helping to pick up string or hold up yards and yards of the black cloth… and then Rockstar got bored and said so loudly and publicly towards the end, much to my mortification)

The Miss is loud in her fussing and then falling asleep – I end up carrying her halfway up the hill from the school drenched in sweat before a cab blessedly drives by. When we get home, Rockstar showers…. then squeezes onto the sofa and promptly does his pre-party power nap.

And in case you wondered, Rockstar’s Halloween costume this year was…….

…..Minecraft Gamer. At like, Comic Con or something. We painted a standard (?!) foam ninja costume with blue glitter paint (fine, more like spread it on with a butter knife because otherwise it doesn’t stay put) and black permanent ink marker to make it look like Diamond Armour With Enchantment and all the while I’m thinking Yup, This Kid Will Not Be Getting The Girls This Year (his response to me was MAJOR EYEROLL but that also means he perpetually sticks with his female friends of olde who kick butt in taekwondo or various ball sports that he also likes) and if you think this is premature then lemme tell you he has friends the same age who have said things to me like, “I’m hot… in all of the ways”…. last year. So, at about 7 years old.

One sometime mummy friend of mine with dark hair has a son who loves to play with little blonde-haired girls and give them presents like rings or bracelets and she got a bit upset because she wasn’t blonde and he was still so little, “So how come he already only likes blonde-haired girls? And his mummy is not blonde!” 😀 (Seriously, when you guys were that age… like, 7…. you ever have this kind of thing or not? Kids nowadays…!)  

So anyway, Halloween.

Rockstar has various gaming weaponry which were previously decorating his room walls, the Miss is in a boys’ regular Creeper hoodie that features a hood that zips all the way up…. In other words this year we saved a bomb on costumes 😛

pic from halloweencostumes.com

The Miss and I had Creeper hoodies and I got Kings the Enderman one but just as well he had to work because it was way too hot for him to wear that…

(As you can see the Miss took hers off frequently too)

And so that was our Halloween… (Rockstar declined to trick or treat in our development because of the candy… So his other costume was Freak Boy 😉 we’re so proud.

Oh, and I just had to include a pic of Rockstar’s friend’s home-made costume – he wore a black tee backwards and then printed out the Minecraft skeleton head images to make the boxy head…  the white lines are tape.

#386/ #71

This also qualifies as a 20 Seconds Of Your Life You Will Not Be Getting Back Conversation… 

Taxi driver bringing us to church: (Cantonese) What people are you?

Me: Malaysians.

Taxi driver: Oh right! You really do look like those people smuggled over in pig baskets to be coolies.

Me: ??

Taxi driver: Koo-lee. Pig basket.

Me: <slowly> You mean, our ancestors sold pigs and were coolies in Malaysia?

Taxi driver: <cheerfully> Not only that, I mean your ancestors were taken against their will from China to Malaysia to be coolies – you know, doing manual labour – and people historically used pig baskets to do this. You look like those people…

Me: *blinks* (Can’t tell whether he’s serious, whether it’s my Cantonese… he’s polite and friendly, but…  definitely caught the words “coolie”, “pig basket” and most of his “bringing people over involuntarily from China” description)

Taxi driver: You went to school right?

Me: Hmm? Yes, but –

Taxi driver: <enthusiastically> So you know what I’m talking about! It’s history!

Me: “—” <thinking: OMG, I am in a car with a fruitcake going down the highway at more than 100km/h and the children are with me. The sea is to our left. Who knows if those road barriers’ll hold? Ok ok don’t make any sudden movements…>

Rockstar: What’s he saying, Mum?

Me: <slowly, watching taxi driver’s face through rear view mirror> He… appears to be saying we look like our ancestors were smuggled involuntarily from China in pig baskets to do hard labour in Malaysia… he seems to think that’s how Malaysian Chinese came about.

(Taxi driver flinches but doesn’t correct me. It’s entirely possible it has only just occurred to him that what he is saying might be a bit offensive.)

Rockstar: What the heck -?

(I have Malaysian mummy friends who feel very strongly about this phrase and only allow their boys, a couple years older than Rockstar, “What the -?” This day however, I don’t feel able to improve on his statement.)

Me: I. Know. No, actually I don’t know. What he’s talking about.

Rockstar: <snorts> 

Taxi driver: Erm…… D’you think… maybe those were Indonesian Chinese who were smuggled in pig cages?

Me: <quietly, to the kids> Don’t say anything to encourage him. He might also have Imaginary Friends.

Miss: <perks up> I have imaginary friends! Mine are aliens!   

(Mostly she has animal friends though. The Miss is yet to meet an animal she doesn’t like… Rockstar was the one who famously had imaginary friends with elaborate lives on different planets, when he was at that age…)

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The Miss has one too…

Indoors in the Cyberport offices area (yes, where Microsoft and some of the other big tech companies as well as a score of little ones have their offices) are some of the best scooting paths of well, anywhere, and I don’t just mean for the kids. It’s not that uncommon to see techie employees whizzing about on various wheeled contraptions, ranging from little robot things to your classic skateboard, along those tantalisingly smooth and shiny walkways.

This appears to annoy certain Cyberport building management staff a bit more than others; some staff close an eye because the kids hop off wheels really quickly when we spy someone from the Corridor Police, but some get upset and will follow you the entire way to make sure your kids don’t get back on their wheels.

So one day with the Miss…

Me: Ok you need to give me your scooter, please. (Code for I Spy Someone Who’s Going To Tell You To Get Off)

Miss: Well, there’s a Grouchy Uncle. Look, Mummy, there he is.

Me: <willing her to get distracted by a bumblebee>

Miss: Wow. He looks soo grouchy… What, Mum? Why shush…? 

Speedster going to class…

Anti-bullying video by Rob Bliss Creative. The 3 girls in the video are acting. What do the adults do? Last I saw in the comments, people especially liked “Harmonica Guy” 😉

Even if you don’t want to actively engage bullies….. you can still play the Harmonica. There’s always a way to be the person your dog already thinks you are.

Thought for the week…

A few days ago our new helper of ~2 weeks showed us this:

They’re bed bugs.

I had to google them, I’d never seen bed bugs before. Our new helper said she’d found all those in the helper’s room so, from the simple fact that even cockroaches aren’t tha-at bad in the sense they do not puncture your precious offsprings’ skins with mouth parts that hit their blood stream (how freaking terrifying is that?!) I frantically called the pest guys. (The company btw is really called Pest Guy.)

They came, taped all the cracks under the doors, and proceeded to spray and fumigate our entire apartment for the next 5 hours. We moved the fish and the lobster tanks and for good measure also the dog into the lobby. When we got back, our home looked like this:

They turned the entire place upside down, not just going after mattresses, but exposing all the (fabric) contents of our drawers. Bed bugs, they explained, are a lot harder to kill than cockroaches.

And so when the dust settled, we cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned and cleaned……

(And after the dust settled, we realised our new helper had left almost all her now contaminated luggage in an area the pest guys overlooked…. next to all our clean laundry :D)

AND SO the pest guys came back……. And this time almost all our fish didn’t survive. The lobsters for the moment are still waving their claws maniacally about at the kids every time they give the tank a tap to make sure they’re still alive.

Y’know, I look rather wistfully at all the pretty fairies and what-not flitting about, even as I try unsuccessfully to squelch a snort and a smile as The Living Contradiction To Things Girly Currently zips up and starts running around pretending to bump into furniture and blowing up her Ko-ko’s friends. A parenting reminder, this season…..

…….sometimes we can’t choose what our children will grow up to be.

😀

#70 Continue reading →

#385/ #69

Something we ask them every now and again… Tells you a lot about where they are at this stage of life…

Me: What d’you want to be when you grow up?

Miss: Cat!

Me: What exactly is in the job description?

Miss: <pause> Whiskers!

Miss: Also paws, tail, ears, eyes…  

——————————————————————————————————

Me: What d’you want to be when you grow up?

Rockstar: Video game designer.

Miss: Creeper!

Me: What exactly is in the job description?

Rockstar: I want to build games my friends will like.

Miss: Blowing up!

Rockstar: <GIANT EYEROLL>

Miss: Boom! Ko-ko – BOOM!

Dis is a creeper (the plant that explodes into little white stars) – pic from thinklink.com

And dis a stack of blocks that the Miss built