Jingle All The Way

#142

Rockstar: Mum. I want to tell you something. <pausing for effect> Santa (at his school Christmas party)…. wasn’t really Santa. <lowering voice conspiratorially> He was (school principal)!

Me: Oh really?

Rockstar: He was dressed as Santa, but I recognize his voice. 

Me: <bit disbelieving> You the only one? What do your friends think?

(Rockstar initially says he’s the only one, then later remembers two of his friends agreed)

Rockstar: The others think he really is Santa. But he’s not, he’s (school principal). Oh, and everyone got gifts for Christmas. The guys got cars like this <holds his up> and the girls got glittery skipping ropes.

Me: Too bad Santa can’t be in charge of the school all year round?

Rockstar: Yeah that would be soo cool! 

Me: Because of the gifts?

Rockstar: No, no, because he’s more fierce as school principal.

Me: Well, d-uh (Rockstar laughs). He needs to be, right… Do you think your school principal is the real Santa?

Rockstar: Nah, he’s the school principal.

Me: Then… where’s the real Santa, d’you think Santa is real? (His opinion on this tends to swing back and forth…)

Rockstar: Umm….. one is. 

Me: And where is he?

Rockstar: Busy elsewhere. He must have a lot to do right now. So other people like (school principal) help out.

Me: Think he should be Santa more often?

Rockstar: No, just for the party’s fine.

Me: How come?

Rockstar: He’d be too tired being Santa. It’s a job that requires a lot of travel.

Me: I think being in charge of a school with that many of you guys running everywhere is pretty tiring… One of you (at this age) is all I can handle……

Rockstar: <ignoring me, especially obvious because of the theatrical muttering> As Santa he’d have to fly all over the place….. all the different countries!

But like, Respect Siah. Who knew, Have Red Suit Shall Command So Much Respect…

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OK picture time…

To us, dis is an elf hat...

So all the kids make elf hats in school, except note the repetitive pattern they are supposed to make on the “head band,” if I didn’t see the pattern recognition/repetition module on the IXL math program Rockstar has to work on online from home I wouldn’t have realized this is one of those “little” ways of reinforcing pattern recognition…

Dis is Oh Come On, You Know What Dis Is

This was probably nicer before it got mangled after being lumped together with all the other stuff my helper was handling… Rockstar actually drew a Christmas tree on it as well, and there were a couple “stocking stuffers” which I think were a chocolate egg ornament (take that Metropolitan Museum of Art Faberge ornaments) and a small candy cane, none of which show in the pic…

Someone PLEASE tell me this is simplified, not traditional, or I am an even bigger idiot than I already knew I was

More on his Putonghua lessons later, I didn’t realize he had kept his Chinese schoolwork in a different pocket in his bag. To be exact, I hadn’t realized that was even a pocket, on his school bag. WHY do schoolbag makers design all these zips and pockets and secret compartments on standard issue schoolbags, I would like to know. It is just inconsiderate. 

As parent, you are supposed to check their work and the diary every day, plus the reader (not to be confused with library book), and then there is this whole online Gateway thing where I have forgotten or mixed up my password when other parents have managed to scramble and book appointments with teachers. I get text messages about how PE and Music are all booked up while I am still trying to get in and then I’m all Can Make Appointments With PE And Music One Meh, still trying to book just the standard appointment with Rockstar’s class teacher when I realized I forgot to write down my password somewhere else (this was earlier) and it’s still in my child’s diary, in his bag, in his locker, at school with him and on top of all this his school bag has bloody secret compartments in it!!

Uh… Both Rockstars wanted to make coffee for me this morning when I started writing.

(But seriously, all my Kindy-to-Primary first time mum friends agree the jump is big, no matter how much we thought we were prepared for it – the number of notices to read, the snacks and lunches to plan/pack/instruct helper to pack, the number of activities, the online stuff on the intranet, the schoolwork to supervise/follow up… We’re all still barely just getting used to it all… I heard for working parents some ESFs provide trainings for the helpers to better support homework too…)

But I mean really. I got the pricier version of Standard Issue Schoolbag because I thought it looked prettier. Not because I thought the extra boobie traps on it were cool or something. They need to attach warnings that it is full of secret compartments.

Ok this one’s interesting:

Dis Is Interesting

Rockstar came home one day telling me he made this in school while partnering his year 5 “bus buddy” who is apparently also Malaysian, and the first girl he’d seen who wears braces. Speaking of which, his whole bus experience has been interesting – though we loved his Kindy, we’d been looking forward to him being at a much nearer school thereafter – the bus ride (we were told, when I called the bus company) would be about 90 minutes each day during school term, and so I hadn’t initially put him on the bus because he’d started Kindy on the young side so I thought the ride was too long… But we hadn’t wanted him to always have a driver everywhere either…

Then when we started, I almost explored changing buses, if for no other reason than that Rockstar hadn’t had any friends on his current bus and many mornings all the kids he happened to know who also lived in the same development as us would get on a different bus and he’d be waiting alone for his… After a few months however, Rockstar was talking about the new friends he’d made on the bus, I noticed he got Christmas cards in the “school mail system” from bus mates (which was how I even knew some of their names) – it’s something that caught our attention because Rockstar is quite serious and subdued, and had mentioned there were some loud and rowdy kids riding with him.

No no don’t misunderstand, lemme try and explain that – we want to protect Rockstar sure, from things like bullying and what-not, I’m always a little worried about the nerd genes and tiny child, but at the same time we don’t want to “over-protect,” we don’t want any “overprotectiveness” on our part to get in the way of him well, experiencing things… Bit of a delicate balance… Anyway so his bus mum getting rowdy kids on the bus in line with point systems or games has helped, is what I’m really trying to say, as he appears to have made friends and gotten all adjusted and confident without our having to “overprotect” away every rowdy kid (which I’m thinking isn’t very realistic)…

And…. Ms Rockstar wins it with blink-and-you-miss-it elf impersonation (well d-uh these things are rigged and the baby picture is just always going to win things on the mummy blog even when she hardly tries, except to stick the baby in a fair isle sweater for the hols.)

I tried cute little reindeer antlers, actually. She would NOT stop looking and turning everywhere for plastic Thing That’s Bothering Head. Fortunately we were trying before buying or I’d be out HKD 50. Somehow the salesgirl was not surprised I didn’t get the antlers. AND little miss has outgrown the mesh headband I was using for Halloween. Nope, I don’t think she’s gonna be Suffer For Beauty/ Fashion Girl when she’s older. 

Oh but hey, I hadn’t realized this hoodie has a pointy cap and it sticks out when she wears it… At press time though, she’s asleep, and I’m rushing this because I wanted to put it up before Christmas, and we just brought the older Rockstar to candlelight service:

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE ON EARTH TO ONE AND ALL

ps: If you didn’t get that I was totally joking about the schoolbag you haven’t been reading long enough 🙂