We always hurt the one we love. Rockstar is a cliché of sappy cruel love songs.
“Mummy,” He says conversationally. “Mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy.”
I steel myself. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
He woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
“Ice cream please!” with all the wide-eyed innocence and enthusiasm of a doe-eyed bunny rabbit. It’s 8.30am. I pretend I haven’t heard. Probably after what happened last night, he decides not to pursue it. Until lunchtime. I break out the ice cream. Sometimes when I restrict, it becomes an obsession. He barely touches it. It’s what I’m counting on – the only reason he even likes it is because his father told him all children like ice cream. No, I haven’t quite forgiven his father.
But then he barely touches his lunch either. I pop to the kitchen for some tea and when I get back, the only other spoonful of tomato and tuna macaroni I managed to get into him is on the floor. Usually he either spits on his plate or into a tissue I hold out for him. If I’m too slow, he gets his own tissue. He’s staring purposefully at the tv, even after I flinch at the sight of the food on the floor.
Obstinate Child
I call Jie-jie (our helper) over, point out the mouthful on the floor, place Rockstar in her care and leave the room. The whole time, he’s right there, absorbed in a CNBC reporter’s commentary on Shanghai stocks. The moment I shut the door, the crying is phenomenal. The tragic calling for Mummy. I can hear it thru two closed doors as our helper happily moves him into his own room. (She often hints I don’t give her enough free rein with my son.)
“Your son is crying hard. He just recovered from a high fever and hasn’t eaten a thing since morning,” says the Aileen version with the proverbial annoying angel wings sticking between her shoulder blades. “He’s also lost almost a kg in bodyweight.”
“Whatever, this is total bullshit,” says the other Aileen.
Guess which one wins out.
I’m a huge believer in placebo effect. In the power our mind has over our body. I’m not naturally athletic or fit, I had a semi-permanent medical exemption from having to do phys education in school. But I wanted a black belt and the State Championship so I worked out my own training regiment around my natural sickliness. The tournament wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as tough as expected. Because I had trained on an all-boys taekwondo team, I had unwittingly set my limits at the boys’ level, rather than that of other girls. So when I fought girls during the actual tournament, it wasn’t as tough. I remember winning the tournament, then wondering what my performance would have been like if I had told myself the limit was lower. It simply hadn’t occurred to me my physical limitations should have been lower because I was a girl. So they weren’t. Rockstar won’t be allowed to believe he’s sicker than he is either.
The moment he wakes from his nap he starts up again with the plaintive crying for mummy. Our helper whisks him out the door to school, sans lunch (she takes his pre-school classes very seriously and he’s overslept and is about 15 mins late). Idly I hope the snack they serve at break time includes cucumber sticks, the one vegetable he doesn’t eat at home (no I’m not being mean, we were amazed to find him gobbling stick after stick in school when we dropped by unexpectedly – since he’s not getting those nutrients at home I always hope he gets them in school. Apparently when he’s not mad about some inexplicable thing, he is also the most charitable child, sharing everything, giving up toys to other kids. How old do they have to be before shrinks can diagnose split personality?)
Obstinate Dog
I take JD for a walk. I’m annoyed to find my normally well-behaved, mild-mannered dog has decided it’s her turn to act up. I leave her tennis ball in the field (because she refuses to bring it back – she is after all a fully trained, one-time Hong Kong Team Agility Champion – and it’s started raining). I picked up another one from the same field recently anyways.
When we get back, Rockstar is solicitous and polite. He also follows me everywhere. GlaMum is not sure where her real child is, but she thinks she’ll keep this one.
