Raising Rockstar

#357

Rockstar: Mum. Did you know some of my friends walk around school with these notes on their backs that say “Hit Me”? And then when you hit them they’re all, “Wha – WHY’D YOU HIT ME FOR???”

Me: I don’t think they know they have notes on their backs. It’s an old practical joke where someone sticks a note saying “Hit Me” on someone else’s back.

Rockstar: What? Why would they do that for? <thoughtfully> No, that can’t be it – some people are even very polite about it. They use “please”. As in, “Please hit me.” They must really want people to hit them. 

The Earnest One on Chinese Dressup Day recently…

#38

I walk in at bedtime to find Rockstar reading in his usual corner under the reading lamp, and the Miss balancing on the other end of the bed casually practicing her aim at him with her soft toys…

Me: You know, when you were a baby, you admired and looked up to your brother so much…

Miss: What? 

Me: You used to follow Ko-ko around and look up at him adoringly when you were a baby.

Miss: Miss was baby. Now Miss not baby.   

Rockstar: <not looking up, as usual> Yeah now I’m ignoring you. Anyway you still can’t hit anything. Ouch. (Soft toy bounces off his shoulder.)

The Rockstars ham it up with Uncle Sheep

1) It’s like The Matrix for blogs… Internet anonymity and cheap shots are to popular online writers what gravity is to Newton’s apple, on this here earth. This is the story of a guy who managed to bend the laws of human nature and physics on his blog – without sacrificing readership. Don’t Be A Jerk To People You Disagree With isn’t the real title of this thing, it’s just mine 😀

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2) “…They’re lost too, scrambling for affirmation that they’re doing things the right way, that their kid is going to be okay. Okay or a genius. They’re knee-jerk judgmental, compensating for their own lack of conviction, a little defensive, hiding their deep fear just below the surface….. They miss work, miss people……”

Here’s Trying To Make Mom Friends Is The Worst. Yet I can think of something worse than that – the people who either have loads and loads of help or have simply never done it before – who cannot fathom how hard it is to follow a little person around all the time, cleaning diarrhoea from crevices and vomit off creases, and who judge you. Ditto the jerks who have never carried baby weight – they exist; a male once said to me when a mum friend of mine got cheated on, “Oh, but she is quite fat anyway, right…”

AND the ones who never even tried to breastfeed (not the ones who couldn’t, due to actual physical limitation like say, a C-section – imagine your multiple-layered wound full of stitches when your womb contracts as you nurse) BUT have a gadzillion “really smart things” to say about other people breastfeeding.

Why, yes, the Miss was sick again recently. What gave it away? (And like, wow you guys must expect I look hideous now 😀 )

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3) So appropriately named, following on from the previous link (;D), “We don’t even really know who invented it…” Why White Plastic Chairs Are Taking Over The World.

“…Seeing a white plastic chair in a photograph offers you no clues about where or when you are…”

Things that make ya go “Hmmmm..”

4) Some are dated, but this is still here because of my vote for Teacher Of The Year (pay no attention to language!):

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5) Somewhat in contrast, A Pupil Points A Finger. A Teacher Is Fired. Now, Can They Be Buddies? ‘…“I thought I was this white knight coming in and rescuing these kids…” Instead of a possibly more “glamorous” job on a well-known politician’s campaign, this Yale grad chose to Teach for America.

‘…One father filed a report… after the teacher had pulled the man’s daughter off a boy she was sitting on and punching; the teacher was cleared in that case… “We all had accusations from kids, and the principal would tell us it was something kids do to get attention.”…’

As a 7 year old, Raynard Ware would make allegations of physical mistreatment, fired up into lawsuits by his mother, that got his teacher Mr Kaplowitz fired. As a 21 year old searching for male role models, he would think, in his dorm room, “Mr. Kaplowitz knows the path to honest success…”

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6) Serious, serious, serious eye candy. Artists Collaborate To Make London’s Children’s Hospital Cozier.

Told ya.

Paediatric Critical Care

Haemotology Ward

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7) And Cuteness Overload… The Zao Fox Village In The Miyagi Prefecture.

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8) Rockstar Skit this week is We’ll Go With What Works… (I… know. Girl toddler vs 7 year old in Ninja Weapon Fight. See, in our household, and Rockstar would want me to clarify I mean his boy hood no disrespect, we have to watch for the girl toddler not to beat up on her brother because Rockstar holds his punches, and the Miss is well, crazy.)

Their sparring match begins…. with Rockstar’s Weapon of Choice being the Donatello (Ninja Turtles) Bo Staff (because it has the longest reach and he doesn’t have to get too close to her) and the Miss selecting a random Katana lying around the house.

“Too short”.

So the Miss rummages for something else….

Rockstar: OMG she found my light sabre. Don’t break that!!

Miss: Hee Hee HEE <evil laugh>  

(Now Rockstar’s holding his punches even more :D)

So they decide to go build blocks with their respective Ninja Turtle masks on…

Happy Ending and a good week ahead, dears…

#356

**Updated at bottom**

After school one day…

Me: Hey mister. I need to talk to you.

Rockstar: Yeah, what?

Me: One of your friends’ mums just messaged me. She dropped by school today and saw a (toddler-sized, because they’re actually the Miss’) box of chocolate milk in your friend’s hand. Was that from you?

Rockstar: Yup. (Our helper) pops them in my bag. 

Me: Ok, firstly you and your sis both know you’re not supposed to feed other people’s children without asking. Secondly, I never told (our helper) to give you those (he rarely drinks milk that isn’t ice-cold – he gets his dairy from cheese) and I didn’t know she’s been putting them in after I supervise your lunch box. Why didn’t you just tell her you don’t drink them, have you been giving them away for a long time?

Rockstar: I trade them for snacks.

Me: You…. what? 

Rockstar: It’s only for fruit. Some people really don’t like their fruit. So I eat their fruit for them and they get my milk.

Me: <spluttering> Firstly, not a few of my mum friends consider chocolate milk to be JUNK.  We have mum friends who buy nothing that has more than three “E-something” additives in the ingredients lists (the additives can cause mood swings that obviously make your child more likely to behave badly). Secondly, I don’t think they are going to appreciate that their kids have been disposing of their fruit instead of eating it, via my Bottomless Pit Of A Fruit Vacuum Cleaner Child.

Me: Who’ve you been trading with??? And how are you guys even getting away with it, I seem to remember you’re not allowed to share food during your mealtimes. (Because of allergy precautions. Rockstar has friends who have serious nut allergies and we get emails now and again reminding us never to pack nut products. On top of that, they enforce a No Sharing rule, far as I know. Also an If You Touch It (during parties etc), It Goes On Your Plate rule…)

Rockstar rattles off 4 – 5 names.

Me: NONE of those kids are even in your class! And – and – who is (kid’s name), I’ve never even heard of him, and I know all your friends.

Rockstar: Y-eah I don’t know him either. He just came by to trade me his fruit one day. He doesn’t like oranges. Oh wait, I think he’s (one of his friend)’s friend.

Me: ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!

Rockstar: What? I like fruit. I don’t like chocolate milk. But lots of my friends like it, it makes them very happy when I give it away. 

Me: How much of your friends’ fruit have you been eating???

Rockstar: <shrugs> Whatever they trade when we’re on the playground. <reassuringly> It’s always just apples or oranges. (Rockstar has no food allergies – touch wood – which I assume makes him not on the closely-watched-re-anything-going-in-his-mouth list, and has been known to eat more exotic fruit on occasion – mangosteen, langsat, dragon fruit, peaches, persimmon, plums, the occasional jack fruit or durian, peaches (loves), nectarine (doesn’t – and I still can barely tell the difference) and even salak (snake fruit – but he had a particularly sour one so now he thinks they’re all super sour) I only trade for fruit. Oh, one time it was a whole full snack box of it. Like, they gave me all their fruit. Seriously. All.

Me: And you ate it? All of it?!

Rockstar: Yeah. I think so.

Me: HOW much time do you have to run your Fruit Finishing Public Service?! And what, you just hoover up all the fruit your friends don’t eat? Why didn’t you just say you wanted fruit also, in your lunch box???

(He already eats a huge bowl of fruit at night after his massive dinner and I’m paranoid about it going bad if not packed in a cool box – the cool box then makes his bag that much heavier… And anyway sometimes he eats so much fruit after dinner we limit the more high-water-content ones like watermelon, because otherwise he’s crashing about repeatedly out of bed to the bathroom in the night, stomping with his big clunky crocs and rattling the bathroom door – and then it’s like sharing the apartment with a bear.)

Rockstar: I always forget. Maybe because I already get fruit. 

Updated on 7 Feb 2015: Rockstar made the call not to be an “enabler” – he says no more chocolate milk for his friends now he knows it’s really not good for them. Won’t they be unhappy with him? “They’ll be ok. I mean, what if one day I look at them and realise they got fat because I kept giving them my chocolate milk?” 

He also wants fruit in his own lunch box, though he thinks friends are still going to ask him to help them eat some of theirs as well… “Even when I don’t give them milk sometimes they just don’t like their fruit…” 

Fruit Hoover in Space Panda shirt having his hearing checked at regular checkup recently

Robot fish are The Rockstars’ latest thing – they swim very realistically, don’t poop or die (HUGE plus!), AND have no problem with Mustella bubble bath. (Take THAT, Evolution. Hah!) Only mild caveat is them things need new batteries every few days…

For real though – we’ve found some excellent uses for all those cheap plastic toys and kiddie vending machine game leftovers for the kids to “landscape” the kitchen tupperware their fish tanks.

And Rockstar thinks this last is funny:

Dis is art. (And a lobster that “ate” all the fish)

The Old… 

These are JD’s old trophies. Was kind of a promise I made to a reader who was looking for our old Pet Pet Magazine competition articles, that at the very least I would take a pic of her old trophies. Which then really also drove home the dates on those trophies (I… know! Agility Mum! As in soccer mum :P) – 10 years ago. Wow, can’t believe it’s really been that long, HOW old does that make our dog?!…

(Sorry dear reader, I still can’t find the Pet Pet Magazines – not even recent ones in the little local newsstands, they might’ve been discontinued)

It’s really hard to do the tournaments with little kids in tow on a weekend though, you usually sit there the whole day waiting for your various events…. For e.g., for the HK international competition, the finals dragged into the night and it was freezing. I remember going to work the next day with a bad cold and emailing my colleagues a Not To Worry, You’re Not Likely To Catch It, only to have a team head walk over with heavy duty vitamin C. One of the things I miss the most about my former life are the random nice things we used to do for each other at work. Anyway – first and last time I’ve ever taken those vitamins, they’re HUGE pills…

Nowadays…

 Nowadays she’s a lady-who-lunches..

(Every fashionista knows the IT accessory du jour is the well-dressed toddler on the other end of one’s leash…)

Though this is not without downsidezzzzzzzzzz….

Occupational hazard of the retired Agility competitor who occasionally lunches…