Of Christmas Learning And Parenting Opportunities

**Updated 10am the following morning, at bottom…

So the Santa’s Postbox in Rockstar’s school is up, and him being a year 2 and all, the holiday card traffic was markedly heavier than the previous year. Before anyone screams tree carnage, lemme clarify there was even mention of remembering to re-use or recycle the envelopes or cards for craft or etc in class, and we’ll be stringing them up on the tree or putting them in an album. Also, in Rockstar’s Year 2 weekly newsletter:

I am so turned on right now

Rockstar and Friend were spelling out “Christmas” in a car yesterday. That’s cool, right? Right?

And that’s not all. Check out some of Rockstar’s haul (these doesn’t include some of the home-made ones with either Rockstar’s or his friend’s names all over them):

Notice anything interesting?

Whoops there it is

I slipped Rockstar a card from his beloved dad in the school mailbox. Because Kings had been away for several months of weekends (and as is, is not often around on weekdays either, til late, most nights). Was all Darn Why Didn’t I Think To Do That Last Year, but anyway I don’t remember Kings gone as much then, either.

Then I got carried away:

This is from Little Miss

Yes, Little Miss apparently sent Rockstar a card through his school postal system. I thought it would help smooth over her sitting on his head a few times – y’know, for when I wasn’t quite fast enough to scoop her away in time. And then I added:

“Someday, you’re going to build your own rocket into space. When that happens, don’t forget to share. Santa might want to borrow it. 3 Squeezes.”

“3 squeezes” is code for “You’re Doing Awesome.” The story behind this is, while I was volunteering in school, Rockstar went through a phase of going, “How’m I doing, Mum? How’m I doing, Mum? How’m I doing, Mum?” if we were within earshot of each other.

While I obviously wanted to respond to my own child, I didn’t want his friends should overhear and feel a little Why Wasn’t Their Mum Around To Say “You’re Doing Awesome”. So instead, we agreed on Rockstar not asking out loud, and me telling him he’s doing awesome in code without him having to ask, at some point during the day (even if only when it was time to go home).

Wasn’t Kidding About The Awesome, Right? For real though, all the kids in class have something like this or nicer, depending on their choice of colors – they had two practice runs before making this for Christmas

(I remember when I glanced across to the other end of the table where Rockstar was sitting with other mum volunteers during his “practice sewings”, my remark to him wasn’t “3 squeezes,” it was “I didn’t know you could sew.” And then he replied, seriously as usual, “Yeah I can sew.” :D)

I didn’t know he could write that in Chai-nese either…

Indeed. Have a Merry, Merry Christmas!

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ps: And guess what Little Miss was doing while I was trying to take a picture of Rockstar’s card to post here?

She was………….

Switching the bedside lamp on and off.

Light on….

Light off.

And guess what she’s doing now? At <pause to look at watch> 11.20pm at night?

Alternating gabbling/ “reading” her Ko-ko’s I Wonder Why books/ shushing me when I snap at her to lie down/ kissing me good night like, a gadzillion times/ basically NOT SLEEPING. What was that I said about parenting giving you that humbling kick in the self-esteem, right when you were getting full of yourself?

I gave up trying to get her to sleep some time ago. So I’m blogging this post. Baby Chinese class tomorrow is going to be such a wash.

**Update:

The predictable but sigh-worthy result the following morning

I call this gem The Little Inuit Asleep At Chinese. It’s freezing, windy and raining and she fell asleep in all her outerwear finery under the weather shield. This was taken when I took the weather shield off, while waiting for the lift. It’s actually really warm indoors, I expected her to wake soon because of the big temperature difference – it’s heated, indoors. But nope, nothing so far.

We strolled by Chinese to find everyone did show up despite the weather, just not with strollers. But Little Miss is conveniently KO-ed. No I don’t usually wake toddlers for class (older kids are a different story :D) if I’ve already done everything I can to adjust their timing because I figure they might be growing something important during the nap. Or, in this case, growing something she missed growing at 11.20pm last night.