Green Lantern And Father’s Day Dinner Our Way

(With update at bottom)

Should you lie to your child?

And did we watch Green Lantern last night?

So Rockstar overhears Kings on the cellphone loudly looking forward to the movie. At the time, he gives no indication he’s heard or that he’s noticed me gesticulating wildly for Kings to shut it, in his peripheral vision. He carries on his jigsaw like nothing happened. But the Rockstar is freakishly good at picking these things up. People, including the grandparents, keep saying Aiya sure or not, he is so small… And then they have giant problems handling him and they don’t know why… I would never have believed it if I hadn’t learned the very hard way that recognizing this thing about his personality actually makes  my life a lot easier… If he’s acting up, go back and see whether something like us getting caught in a lie (in Rockstar’s mind, anyway) or being flakey could’ve happened. Don’t believe me? But it really does work.

The deal is one Kings and I make with Rockstar whenever we want time alone. He gets a whole bunch of entertainment of his choice during the day, he concedes  to let Mum go “help Daddy in the office for a couple hours” while he winds down over dinner.

<Sirens going off!> Lie and Deception Alert! (At least that’s what it looks like in Rockstar’s head. But I thought I had to. I worry he picks up on just how much movie and brainless tv his father watches. It’s why our date of choice is usually a movie. I didn’t want Rockstar to know that.) Except he HATES being lied to. Or not being taken seriously…

Rockstar’s long-standing Putonghua tutor has had problems for a week because she happened to cut Rockstar off, brushing off something he said to her in earnest. He’d been model student for almost 2 years and I guess she kinda figured I was exaggerating about his ability to morph into Student From Hell when not taken seriously, which I guess is an honest mistake, people have told me they often can’t imagine what it’s like to awaken the beast. Rockstar’s passionate explanation was, “I tried I tried to tell her about the numbers we were counting and she just kept saying No No No (without hearing me out)! Tsk!” It would seem he is less accepting about being cut off when he is the only student in class. Hmm.

I assured her as long as she brushes it off he is going to continue fighting whatever she wants him to do. He is now doing whatever he can to tank his Putonghua lesson. “Mum. She is speaking English to me all the time.” “Mum. I get enough Chinese in school.” Uh, you’re doing Chinese because your parents are over-worried they seriously suck at it and you live in Northasia so either you work with her or you have to adjust to a new tutor. “Oh. Let me think about it. <Thoughtful pause.> Ok, you can change my tutor.” Wha-aat? And then you’ll behave?? “Yes.” You’d rather have a new tutor you don’t know and maybe you hate even more than this one?? “But I am not fine with this one.” Sigh. But I should qualify that I even allowed this one to walk into our bedroom where Rockstar naps in the afternoon and pick him up, still asleep, to begin his Putonghua lesson. When he cried about it, it was for maybe 5 minutes tops as she read books to distract him, and then he was ready to start, so I left it. Just tried as much as possible to not have him nap overtime. When he starts using all his brainpower to fight his lessons with her (now, btw, not when she was interrupting his naps last year) it’s a different kettle of fish, I think it’s a red flag this is starting to not work out.

Anyway. We’re trying to get to a movie and the clock is ticking. Rockstar is refusing to give us his usual cheery “Byeee” blessing, though he isn’t carrying on about us leaving. I know him well enough – if we leave now there will be payback for the deception. Otherwise next time I need him to eat a square meal before school/ get dressed/ stop watching tv – there will be a fight. Payback. My Rockstar the little mafia.

I bite back frustration. Kings has not been back before 10 or 11 pm a single work day in 2 weeks; often he’s been back after Rockstar and I are asleep. He’s gone the whole of this week. When he’s gone we are sometimes not in touch for days, except for an occasional text from him confirming he has not been mugged somewhere and left for dead. We need this date, where we pig out like teenagers on hotdogs and popcorn. Nachos and cheese. That was our dinner tonight. HK movie theaters also serve Siew Mai in little cups with toothpicks btw, spelt “Siu Mine” and all.

5 minutes to movie time. Our precious movie date is circling the drain and I start getting really mad at Kings for letting the cat out of the bag. He’s put me in the doghouse and I didn’t even do anything. <pout pout, pity party> But honestly if one of my RMs had called me out of the blue like that I would probably have done the same. Important parenting lesson: Be aware of whether your child is within earshot before you pick up your cellphone.

I got caught lying. Rockstar’s going to be difficult all week if I don’t fix it, and I still need him to have a serious think this week about whether he can at all live with his current Putonghua tutor. (In case you wonder why I put so much effort into whether he likes his tutor/ school/ swimming laps it’s because with Rockstar it makes all the difference between whether he tries his best to learn or to get out of doing something. Rockstar’s best can be quite something. It’s why he always wants to average about 20 assisted laps in his favorite lap pool before doing anything else. Even when his teeth are chattering (so then I got him a wetsuit.) It’s why he will now feed himself a fairly good breakfast so he can get his laps done. Still assisted, though.)

We forgo the 8pm movie. Slowly, Rockstar brightens. Acceptable sincere penance for the lie, I guess. “Rockstar, you had quality time with Daddy this afternoon. Mum hasn’t. I’m going to miss Daddy when he’s away all week. I really need to do something with Daddy.. So you have to let us go out later tonight ok? <thinking: don’t say you’re going to work anymore>” He nods good-naturedly this time. And finishes his dinner. Best behavior on.

Except we were supposed to be pigging on junk at dinnertime, now we’ve bought new tickets for a late show and meantime we’re starving.

So Kings whips up an old favorite. Maggie Mee!

And that, folks, was our Father’s Day dinner 😀

ps: Yeah in future I’m going to try harder not to lie to Rockstar… already cost us two unused Green Lantern tickets…

Update: Rockstar’s Chinese tutor texted me to say they had a productive session that ran over time, the Rockstar confirmed it when I got home – apparently his tutor had fixed it with an apology and new activity book to start the lesson with (she actually has a lot of freedom about this because my only requirement is Rockstar is able and willing to use the language). The Rockstar is like a page out of Dale Carnegie – “please,” “thank you,” and “sorry,” will make you a friend or influence the Rockstar every time.