Raising Rockstar

“He Left For Camp (And She… Stole Someone’s Dog?)” could be the lyrics to the next hit song… There’ve been stranger words… There is a song out there in my distant past that revolves almost solely around “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life,” repeated over and over…

OMG. When did THIS happen to Rockstar???

Rockstar left for school sports camp yesterday. It’s kind of a rite of passage. When we started out, none of my mum friends with kids involved were happy about this. After the briefing and now camp has started…… I don’t know anyone whose kid was supposed to go to this camp and didn’t ultimately send them there. That includes my friends whose kids are in the SEN programs/ Rockstar’s friends – it’s a rite of passage for all. Our Year 4 kids. What’s more amazing is the number of dedicated professionals they have minding 150 Y4 kids in this thing. And that’s not counting the Y5s and 6s (they go for longer).

They send a letter home way in advance:

Last night I missed Rockstar so much it hurt. So bad. It wasn’t enough to send angsty texts to similarly angsty mums. One Korean mum informed that she’d sent her daughter in with a little GPS device. This is interesting, because I’ve never actually seen one up close, but have actually been stopped by Aussie grandparents who wanted to know if the Miss’ mosquito repellant anklet was actually a “child-tracking device” and where they could also purchase one.

Practically every mum I regularly chat with, whose child had just reached “school sports camp-going age”, freaked about this camp. Our kids all went anyway. Do you know why? Because of the tradeoff between <makes signs to ward off evil> accident risk – when staff fully trained in medical procedures are in attendance, it should be noted – and the opportunity cost from the loss of this learning experience. The cost of what our kids would lose out on, in terms of learning experiences, was just too great. So off the kids went.

The Miss……………

I know. Enjoying a first “Only Child Experience” (she was really, really curious before he left)

Rockstar and I have a bet going. Both kids were wondering re experiencing time apart, but I’m about to lose my wager that the Miss asks after Ko-ko’s whereabouts/ otherwise displays some form of missing him….. Rockstar thinks she’ll miss him just about when it’s time for him to get back; I thought she’d miss him on day 2. I might have ruined my chances by going DoyoumissKokoDoyoumissKokoDoyoumissKoko but I couldn’t help it.

Another interesting observation is, now Rockstar’s not around to bark at her to stay out of his stuff….. She hasn’t been in his stuff at all. Not once. Not in his cave, not to dig out his Precious Box Of Especially Weird Stuff….

Things that make ya go “Hmmmmm”.

Instead, she uh, “stole” someone’s dog. Much to our dog’s delight. JD is 17kg of tough, sporty Border Collie who loathes cuddles and attempts to pick her up. Ergo,

Miss: Mummy, JD just growled at me.

Me: You tried to pick her up again, didn’t you?

Miss: Umm, no, no, she was….<looks away> telling me how naughty (our helper) is .

(That’s the other thing about the second one – she can talk the hind legs off a donkey. She can talk herself out of a speeding ticket any day, if her little feet could only touch the accelerator pedal.)

And in the meantime….

They don’t guarantee they’ll catch your child in the “live update” pictures they hurriedly post on the school website (you log in on your child’s account btw, and it is track-able), but I think they really do try. These are a lifesaver. I lap up every little glimpse. And the Miss would just be so jealous if she saw those… Especially the storeys-high rock-climbing wall (complete with all the safety harnesses, of course.)

ps: I had some reaction from my earlier broken-bones comment… Lemme flesh that out – I’m germ-freaky and well, freaky about some other things re safety, but in general broken bones, particularly legs or arms, aren’t one of them. Here’s why:

Recognise this guy? (Nick Vujicic) – pic from www.cosmopolitan.gr

Maybe you’ve seen this bestseller in bookstores (pic from quotesgram.com)

What about this guy:

(Stephen Hawking) pic from ducksters.com

(There’s a separate thing in there about disability/disadvantage being your greatest advantage… Like in Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. We are meant to do our creative, sincere best with the hand we are dealt in life, and sometimes disability – or poverty, or any other number of “disadvantages” is the Refiner’s Fire that you need to build the resilience that will take you through life’s bad periods.)

Extreme examples to be sure, but lookit how far these people who are totally beating The People With The Working Limbs have come. A powerful reminder, that the mind is practically “everything”. 

Take care of the mind, whether to reduce any risk of bacterial meningitis (many cases of which they only speculate how infections occur) or to guard emotional wellbeing, build emotional resilience, and your kids can weather “anything” life throws at them someday.

No, it’s not easy. Parents have the absolute biggest, heaviest responsibility ever – because while your child is young, vulnerable, needing their parents….. you are held to a tremendously heavy duty of care.

Breed insecurity, unhealthy rivalry between siblings, and all that stuff I’m aware of being a little melodramatic over (forgive me, it’s 2am :P) and you are emotionally crippling your child worse than if I don’t know, your broke their actual limbs or something. And that’s possibly for life. Bones heal, even badly, but the other stuff… (And so another thing I’m freaky about is bullying – because that messes with when your child is trying to develop emotional resilience). Sure, they listen to you, do what you say…… but it’ll never be out of actual love <shrugs> I’m just sayin’ <shrugs again> They’ll listen to you sure, because well, you made them HAVE to, but….. whatever. They don’t love you. Geddit?  

And my third freaky thing? Helmets. The Miss has been in a helmet from the moment she could stand on a scooter. NOT because I thought she might go at break-neck speed before she was 2, but because I never wanted to have The Fight when she was 12 and whizzing about, a real speed demon. Scooters and other wheeled toys go with helmets. This is as basic as Newton’s Law Of Gravity. Because it takes only 5 seconds for your child’s life (and yours) to be changed forever, by this one. 

Kennedy School Y4 Natural Disasters Exhibition (Or, You Will Never Look The Same At A Marshmallow Again 🙂 Predominantly picture post; Because That Thing They Say About Pictures And A Thousand Words…

He da Rockstar

Most of it isn’t Rockstar’s btw – amongst themselves his group had decided (via rock-paper-scissors haha) Rockstar was on laptop preso detail for this one…

So technically the majority of that poster is his group-mate’s effort (and handwriting), and another group-mate mixed the vinegar and baking soda to make the volcano… (Oh, and a reminder that Rockstar has SEN classmates and group mates..)

Rockstar says they had to change the tray that volcano was on…

…because the first few times they did it for the Y1s and Y3s, the “lava” over-ran everything… (Which is another thing I really like about the big school – the kids teach each other as well; the younger years often visit the older years’ exhibitions and vice versa… they practice presenting in front of a student audience before any grownups…)

Some classes also included comments sheets where visitors can express encouragement…

Although this is a – ok it says so right there 😀

(Thought it was cute this group actually labelled their explanation text “This is an explanation text” :D)

One group decided to include evacuation procedures…

There’s not a few groups with these diagrams, the kids must’ve learnt to do them recently in class on the school-issue laptops…

This diorama is cool – when you stop by this one, the kids will show you this Youtube of an avalanche…. happening right where the mountain in the diorama is…

“Wait, wait – stay til the end – here’s my favourite part” – the whole screen gets engulfed in snow.

One kid: And then everyone dies. Can you imagine someone filmed that?

Me: You made that up.

Same kid: No, no really. Look at that. Oh ok, so everyone gets buried in snow.

This one however, is my absolute favourite – when you ask this group to show you what they did, those “terrified people” stampede across the screen  – note the one on the right (and yes they really say “Stop – you’re running the wrong way!”) 😀 And then there are the pretty volcano drawings in back..

Next to these, there’s also classwork in their regular journals….

A marshmallow and jelly structure to simulate what happens in an earthquake – Yum!

I ask this group some very scientific questions:

Me: How many did you eat?

Them: <thoughtful pause> One.

(suspicious)

Me: What about the jelly?

Them: Uh… You wouldn’t want to eat that. Been sitting out couple weeks – it’s got mould in it.

Not so yum. But they’re growing a mould culture in their Natural Disasters exhibit!

And then dis….

This is…. a whirlpool….. with sparkles and bubbles innit!

…to brighten up this Tornado Group’s preso!

Magma is red hot liquid that is under the earth’s crust… Lava is molten rock (soft rock)

Can you see that? “This is a seismograph…”

“…it is used for measuring (the size of the earthquake). It works by a pendulum swinging”

In this one you get to play with the landslide…

In this one you’re supposed to put your head in the box and it’s supposed to look like you’re “in” the earthquake scene..

(Hope I didn’t get pranked… Otherwise I’m just Most Gullible Person Ever, With Her Head In A Box)

This one’s paper clips dancing on a line when you whack the box 😀

“This is a fore-quake <lightly smacks top of box…. and this is the real quake <smacks much harder>”

These were outside one of the classes…. Very pretty, too bad about the reflective glass when I tried to take a pic though…

(Ok, this is from Rockstar’s exercise book)

This too… (I mention by way of saying I didn’t go through any other kid’s book!)

I think this is some of that child-led learning they talk about… Prep for the exhibition.. Rockstar’s supposed to come up with his own question based on the natural disaster he’s chosen to work on (because they’ll be more enthusiastic about learning it/ doing the research if they get to choose)

Not Rockstar’s, but the book was open to this page and placed on one of the display tables – and its funny! The surfer dude is saying “Amazing view”…

…and the person in the boat is saying “I am going to survive.” (For real though, the boats the Tsunami passes under, like in the picture, really do ride it out safely, don’t they?)

…and last but not least… I can’t read the Chinese. Yes the kid who wrote that is Chinese, I asked him..

So, did you learn something about paper clips, recycled Xerox boxes and Natural Disasters? Just think, if you were one of these kids (or one of the younger ones visiting their exhibits)…. something’s bound to stick, don’t you think? And I don’t mean the jelly 🙂

And yet…. not an eye-roll in sight. No mean feat, this. 

We have our twin Christmas trees standing any-ole’-how in the middle of the bedroom because the Miss is perpetually not done messing with them. They’re always messy, and at some point the Miss decided “Ko-ko’s tree (was) not pretty enough” so she’s pretty much taken over both trees. Rockstar’s annoyed, but not annoyed enough to actually sacrifice precious Youtube or Minecrafting time to decorate his own tree, so we’re calling it kind of even.

Periodically the dog knocks them over, but this time it was one hapless Kings – very unfortunately for him, something even breaks. I rush over, because while the flumph-y sound of the tree falling over in our crazy home is not uncommon, something shattering is.

So Kings is picking up little shards of tinsel when Queen Of Everything comes in, sees it……….. and 10 seconds later decides to bawl her eyes out. Like, HUGE drama, requires cuddles from everyone else to the tune of “D-d-d-da-ddy broke iiiiiiiiitttttttt!!!! Daddy’s naaaaaaugh-ttteeeeeeeeeeeeee.” After lotsa cuddles and my wry comment to our new helper, “See. Told you she’s a terror when the dad is around,” which brings a fresh round of tears, and some glaring at me, she even briefly refuses to talk to the dad – much to Kings’ consternation. (How many dads out there can relate to this now? :D)

Now, let me tell you a bit more about what Kings broke – a large sparkly bauble that we can go right back out and replace at Indigo. The Miss knows this. If she had broken it, she’d have been “Oh. Huh.” (Rockstar’s remark) or “Yay, Mummy, now we can look for something else,“ or “<take charge tone> Let me fix it/make something to replace it.” (My remark.) But because Kings broke it………

Me: Recovered from your fright yet?

Kings: Not really. Wow. 

Me: Don’t tell her. Because otherwise it’s all going downhill culminating in you replacing that bauble with a pony. A real one.

My old Taiwan RM described this kind of thing, “As-ident happen no-buddy hurt is best of unlucky.” And pony. 

Ok, well almost.

That’s a pink Rody we got on sale for the Miss because she was otherwise feeling a little left out while we prepared Rockstar for war his first school camp outing. Extensive packing list (everything to be labelled!) aside, this 3 day 2 night stint – after a big year band exhibition to boot – is really useful for erm, doing a little “housekeeping”: We have these very fit-looking teachers who look to us (parents of precious little kiddies) like they run Marine bootcamps (:D) assure us there are highly qualified, trained professionals and medical staff onhand at BMT Year 4 Camp.

The polite, “there won’t be any porters there,” at Parent Briefing was enough to make us hurry back to check whether our kids can carry their own weight at camp, feed themselves between meals (Rockstar’s bringing instant oatmeal sachets and a flask of warm water which I’ve been told he must be able to carry himself (got it!) and will not be replenished on site once it runs out <impressed in a sick way; there are medical professionals there right?? They can set any broken bones right? Which somehow might arise from making instant oatmeal with tepid drinking water??? :D>

First Child, First Camp, between an exhibition and…….. another fairly big event for Rockstar I’ll mention after the fact because I don’t wanna jinx it… Akan datang. Coming soon.

Errant blogger again, and so I have one of my long-term readers to thank for this one – the two links at the bottom of this post are to the full story. I’m told this happened at a fairly small school in Taiping, Malaysia and the girls are in Pri 2 (is that still 8 years old like when we used to go to school? Cos there are a lot of different systems here, at Rockstar’s school within the ESF umbrella that age translates to Y4, his current year):

• top girl’s mum gets called by second girl’s mum after a school concert rehearsal where the girls have been informed of their form positions early so they will be going up onstage to receive prizes. Which is about when any school administrators reading will be doing this:

pic from dailymail.co.uk

• Over the phone, top girl’s mum is told by second girl’s mum that they’ve borrowed her daughter’s exam papers to compare answers. Even as everyone else who didn’t previously, is now going:

pic from dailymail.co.uk

• When top girl’s mum goes to see the headmaster/asst headmaster, she learns that second girl went to see them the day before with her mum, crying.
• Top girl’s mum is informed that her daughter’s paper was marked wrongly and position in form will be changed after it is corrected. In other words:

pic from sites.psu.edu

• Fortunately it appears top girl’s class teacher then told top girl’s mum the position wouldn’t change, so no one has to die.
• The mums duke it out discuss this in civilised manner ending in handshakes in a meeting arranged by the PTA.

My comment: Saw these aunties in HK who sit under one of the flyovers and for (used to be) HKD 20, they will write the person’s name on say, a paper, and take the traditional wooden clog to hammer it and scold them. It’s called the Beating The Small Person Service. (“Small” person is metaphoric for “cheap” person I guess, someone who takes cheap shots.)

In other words, that’ll tell you whether people who take cheap shots exist in abundance, there is an actual “service” for which you pay money. You might not believe in it, but you’d possibly get a great deal of satisfaction and NO jail time for taking a hit out on a piece of paper (“Paper Must Dieee”) instead of an actual person…

Note candles to the lady in grey jacket’s right.

something happened and it’s bothering me part 1

something happened and it’s bothering me part 2

#390

This qualifies as both a 20 Seconds Of Your Life You Are Not Getting Back as well as a How To Avoid Being Captured By Aliens Conversation. You know, when How To Avoid Being Captured By Aliens (the book) is funny because the author DIDN’T mean for it to be… In this case, Rockstar appears to have been completely serious in this conversation…

Me: Hi darling, how was your day in school?

Rockstar: It was great! We’re preparing for our exhibition next week and I painted this cardboard square blue and red and then put foil on it!

Me: That’s interesting, what was it?

Rockstar: It was a cardboard square with foil on it. I painted it –

Me: Yes but what was it supposed to be?

Rockstar: <getting irritated> It IS a cardboard square –

Me: I KNOW it’s a cardboard square –

Rockstar: Then why are you asking? D-uh…

Me: I’m asking you what it’s SUPPOSED to be.

Rockstar: <same tone> I’m telling you it IS –

Me: You guys are not exhibiting a bunch of squares!

Rockstar: <majorly pissed> They ARE squares!

Me: Do you actually build a REAL volcano, or a REAL earthquake or..?

Rockstar: OH. OH. Oh ok, I’m so done with this conversation. <muttering> How come we’re not building REAL stuff.

Me: How could you possibly build – I still don’t know what you made in school!

Rockstar: <completely straight-faced> Squares. Painted squares <turns around><closes bathroom door gently and locks it to have his shower because he doesn’t want the Miss to barge in> 

And this is a random picture of the kids… and a long-suffering dog.

NOT a sponsored post… (like I ever do sponsored posts 😀 long, long ago lah…)

OMG!! The almost-3.5 year old is doing “Online Math Practice” a la Original Rockstar? What has been done to this child!!!

I. Know. Wait. It’s not what you think. Let me explain…

Rockstar’s school recently changed Math online practice/learning sites (btw I love online practice sites because a teacher/ parent can pull the data very easily and see what the child is strong/weak in and – my particular favourite – if you’ve watched your kid doing these things for long enough you can tell whether they’re actually trying, or are careless/tired/totally zoning out and react appropriately), and because Rockstar had done so much Math practice on the old site (he gets no tuition, has been on IXL.com for ~4 years, you do the math 🙂 ), he got a real kick out of seeing all those completion awards and performance medals – a real collection, and one that doesn’t take up any room in your tiny little Hong Kong home.

This is one of a few collections of “prizes” Rockstar accumulates

We wanted to keep the collections when we moved sites and so I had his old practice data transferred over. (Not… that we’re not following the school newly prescribed Math or other learning sites, Rockstar spent the morning on the new school-recommended site Mathletics. More later, when I’ve had more time to watch my kid on it… And other school sites too…)

I emailed IXL Support on a weekend, so response was probably a bit slower, like, a few days – but on weekdays they’re pretty fast – we paid… I think it was USD 79.99 per year (much cheaper than tuition). Now this the thing – we could add the Miss at USD 20-40 (they have English also, which we didn’t take up..)

Things that make ya go “Hhmmmmm”

Now, the Miss’ teacher made a comment that really stuck with me at evaluation recently: It doesn’t make that much difference eventually whether you start the drilling of academics at 3 or 6, but the personality little kids develop from learning through play at this early age (and by default any huge dislike from being pushed in “kill and drills”) is going to stay with them. I’ve been telling mum friends about this one.

To that end, and bearing in mind the Miss really didn’t like to sit and read and it was making me anxious because that was so different from how Rockstar was (didn’t help that people were saying things like too much of a lack of fear of heights or deep water, not wanting to sit down to read for long… did the Miss possibly have ADHD and did I know ADHD is especially hard to diagnose in girls under 5……..  lemme tell you – there is so. Much. Noise that comes at you re early learning and developmental stages and kids getting “flagged” left right centre (I know at least two girls flagged for ADHD and delayed speech and after a few months’ to a year’s extra attention they went on to regular and good, for that matter, schools) in a place like HK that it is very, very disorienting… And so we have inadvertently stumbled on why I don’t deliberately publicise this blog or seek/take sponsored posts (because that would require publicising)… NOT when you talk about your kids in HK 🙂

Anyway, I was very careful not to “push” the Miss. Her Kindergarten teacher was very reassuring to tell us that she would sit down when ready.

She was right. Here we are with one of her Cats watching. (They’re all named “Cat”. Except one that is named “Wan Chai”).

The Miss was very proud to get to do “homework” on a laptop “just like Ko-ko.” (Even as every closet and aspiring and even mildly tiger parent out there thinks YOU JUST HIT PARENTING GOLD, AILEEN. WHOOT! :D)

But. Make it about math practice, and this trippy thing goes away :D. Catch 22. Little kids are devious. If they know you really, REALLY want them to do math, guess what they’re gonna? Yup. Take your car keys and drive to Lan Kwai Fong. Fine, Disneyland.

So this is not about academics. We just let her do like, pre-school stuff. (Yes they have pre-school-level Online Math Practice. What is wrong with the world today?)

Seriously though – if you get over the fact your 3.5 year old is doing “math” on a freaking laptop and take a look at the questions, it’s actually not at all scary:

You can even play the questions on audio. Super simple stuff – shapes, counting to 3… great for raising confidence and enthusiasm levels. The whole new experience, “just like Ko-ko’s”  had the Miss do….. 9 of those modules in two sittings. The pictures above… She sat up at 10.30pm when I was desperately trying to get her to be. Asleep. An hour ago. And said, “But I Want To Do MATH PRACTICE.” 

NOW look what the Online Math Practice people have done to our children. This is all their fault.

Epilogue: On an aside, bearing in mind the blog be not a blog, with any blood flowing, if it doesn’t say anything, I wanted to point out that our “stereotypes” of olde are pretty much being blown away, this generation. Since your own expectations will always colour all the ways you react to stuff, I thought it worth mentioning… When Rockstar was about the age the Miss is now, I wrote To Kumon or To Mickey, observing there was a trend a few years ago whereby Mainland Chinese appeared to be aggressively into making learning English fun, whereas some parts in the West seemed to be getting more into the Kumon trend.

Now, Rockstar quite enjoys math, loves puzzles and Lego and computers (and was once so uninterested in colours and art that for awhile we thought he was colour blind). So math practice to us is not to practice math (school’s got everything covered, right) but to well, parent. Some time ago, Rockstar pointed out that “suitable punishments,” or shall we say “encouragements to remember to do/not to do certain things,” should be meted out not in the form of say, loss of Youtube time (imagine our surprise :D) but in the addition of Math or other practice modules “because at least I’m getting better at something.” Just so…

#75

I emerge from a shower to the Miss bawling at the top of her lungs from her feeding chair yet again…

Me: What? What?

Miss: I – I – I – drew on my faaaaaaaaaace!

Me: <peering at the many repetitive ink marks all over her face> You did that on purpose, didn’t you?

(Miss nods tearfully)

Me: Then why are you crying?

Miss: Be-Be-cause……… I – I – I drew on my faaaaaaaaaace!

Me: Well… (Belatedly I remember she’s actually done that before)… So you could cry about it?

Miss: <tearfully> Yeeeesss….!

Me: Erm ok, have a good cry then…

(What? Like I’m going for Parent of The Year? She wants to cry, right?)

Well she’s not crying here… (What she was doing was yelling “I CAN SEE INSIDE THIS WINDOWWW!”

Now the Miss gets on the school bus at barely 8am, Rockstar often has a bit of time to kill before his school bus arrives.

So I’ve started grabbing The Standard on the way out. Since on and off through the years Rockstar has told us they might discuss headline news in class when they first come in or even during the day, the papers were kind of a natural progression…

However, what’s funny about this picture is, Kings being Kings posted it on his Facebook…… Whereupon someone observed Rockstar appeared to be reading the Money section.

He’s not into the money section, ok… But wow, for 2 seconds that was pretty trippy… in a Circus-y kinda way 😀

One fine day in Causeway Bay…

Hello… What’s this?

Only how all flash mobs should start…

Occasionally, passersby stop to watch, even as many more keep walking, but with a fresh smile on their faces..

Y’see dear readers, apparently, “Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music”…..

But oh, what joy, to have such abandon!

And so dear readers, as the week begins, Find Your Own Music To Dance To.

Don’t we all secretly want to do some variant of…. THIS?

Epilogue:

At some point, Rockstar went to go sit down nearby…

…but not before she recruited him as Slightly Bashful Backup Dancer…

She had decided to join the Demo video dancers on tv at a Broadway store. Note also her little silver owl backpack that Rockstar took from her the moment she started dancing

Whose little silver owl backpack can we carry this week, so someone can go nuts in front of a Broadway store? Thought for the week….. 🙂

#389/ #74

Rockstar: Mum. D’you remember what the Miss’ name almost was? The one I picked?

Me: I only remember you once suggested we name her “Poop”. (Miss gives Rockstar a slightly wounded look.)

Rockstar: <flinches guiltily> No, no, I mean seriously. I suggested we name you ‘Amber’, Miss.

Miss: <thoughtfully> No, no I don’t like. I like ‘Miss’. <pause> Or…. ‘Fire’. You should have told Mummy (to name me) ‘Fire’, Ko-ko.

Rockstar: Oh yeah. How come I didn’t think of that.

Me: How come you two would think of that at all.

Miss: <patiently> I don’t like ‘Amber’, Mummy.

Me: But you both would agree on ‘Fire’? How is ‘Fire’ better? (Both of them look at me like they don’t know what my problem is.)

Rockstar: Well, I was almost ‘Ian’. Thank goodness I’m not ‘Ian’, right? (Miss nods)

Me: <defensive> What’s wrong with naming you ‘Ian’?

Miss: <patiently> He’s not ‘Ian,’ Mum-may. (Rockstar nods)

Me: But apparently you’re ‘Fire’? (Both of them nod)

Me: Tell you what. When you’re 18, you can go and change your name yourself. There is an actual person out there who changed his perfectly good name to ‘Trout Fishing In America.’ He goes by ‘Trout,’ for short. (Miss cheers).

Rockstar: Mum. Why’d you do that? 

Me: I… don’t know. You should’ve stopped me. Why didn’t you stop me?

Miss: <Imperiously> I’M GOING TO CHANGE MY NAME TO……… ‘ROCK-STAR.’ YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!

Rockstar: MUUUUMMM.

Me: I know. I’m sorry. Let’s hope it goes away soon.

Miss: <fake voice> My name is Wock-starrr. I like Mine-cwaft. <waves toy horse about>  

Me: (to Rockstar) Sorry darling. At least she didn’t say anything worse…

Rockstar: <groans> Nnnoooo. And I don’t even sound like that. 

Miss: <apparently deciding to give Rockstar a break><waves stuffed cat about> I Am…. A Dead Cat. <throws cat on bed> I don’t do anything.

Me: Well at least that’s not – well – no, wait. Actually, I don’t know which is worse. (To Rockstar) Can you remember whether it was ok for you at 3 to play with dead animals?

Rockstar: (To Miss) Where did you learn that?

Miss: I learned it from (one of her good buddies who is also 3+). 

Me: Ok, so at least there is one mummy in this world I can still call for playdates when word gets out you play Dead Animals.

Miss: <holds up Lego figure> I’m an animal doctor. I can wake Cat up. 

Rockstar: N-O, animal doctors wake sick animals up, not dead animals. When dead animals wake up they’re zombies. Zombies eat –

Me: STOP TALKING!!!

This is Rockstar counselling her about…. going to school one morning.

This is Rockstar counselling her about running shoes.

This is Rockstar counselling her to watch out for where the cars drive across some of their scooting lanes…

…But I draw the line at Brains-Eating Undead. Yes Plants v Zombies and Minecraft have zombies but those are cute zombies who are otherwise “just” any other monster. Someone needs to make a distinction between Cute Zombies (can we call them “Combies” with the C like “Celine”) that have somehow found their way into little kiddie games and HBO’s ultra gross Walking Dead.