Raising Rockstar

1) Well of course this is my lead. I love Jon Bon Jovi. Almost died when he featured on West Wing in an actual speaking part about issues. I love – ok, he’s a little young for me but my mum still loves Princess Diana and follows news on the Royals a lot so I buy the supermarket tabloids for her as and when………….
http://youtu.be/EJVIgUTgwlw

Seriously though, Princely and Rocking is very hard to pull off.

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2) Not to be outdone, POTUS pardons Popcorn the turkey, this Thanksgiving. Actually, Daily Beast has a pretty awesome collection of Presidents pardoning turkeys. When I watched the West Wing version I was all Only In America I Need To Watch That Episode Again (turkey pardoning btw apparently goes back 150 years). And here they have a whole collection. 

pic from NYdailynews.com

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3) (Not that he didn’t already take part in Make A Wish Foundations 11,000 volunteer-strong effort that includes authentic-looking news telecasts etc, to make Miles Scott’s wish come true when he cheered on Batkid for saving Gotham.. I know I mentioned last week already but that was before I saw the summary Youtubes…)

http://youtu.be/-uu2zpn82WI

Though…. the (real, btw) police chief in his appeal to Batman “and bring <wink> Batkid” looked like he was really having the most fun 😀 It says in the video they telecast that so Batkid could watch from his hotel room tv before answering the chief of police’s plea.

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4) Not to be outdone, this is Scout, who balances anything on his head.

At least…. they TELL us, it’s Scout…

Really, balance anything on his head?

Um yeah, pretty much. Why d’you ask?

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4) I felt like because it was Thanksgiving weekend I should have some Thanksgiving-y link. <sheepish> I then couldn’t agree with everything on the lists I found, so I’m settling for this pic of how many planes are in the air for this event, which I got from here.

A lotta planes.

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5) This gets my vote though – Pope Francis seats a boy who refuses to leave the stage on his chair before resuming the speech he interrupted:

There’s a lot more; read Buzzfeed’s whole story here.

I loved how they ended the story:

Luke 18:16: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

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6) Yet not to be outdone, Little Miss helps out with the final touches to Rockstar’s school Christmas Show costume. Because……. the plastic “armor” I got was a little too big and the straps kept falling off Rockstar’s shoulders, so I eventually velcro-ed baby toy ties together as straps to keep the armor on when he’s moving about.

Obsessive compulsive color-coded velcro at its best, and a post-it to remind Rockstar which goes on first.

(Oh yeah, that patch of gold is covering these curled-in wire ends)

And that wire in the previous pic is there because Rockstar insisted on adding that little sword “as decoration” after I finished taping on the paper cross and heart to the front of his armor

But here we go, Little Miss test-driving Rockstar’s custom-made armor-and-wing straps to make sure it doesn’t fall off little shoulders (when the wings are velcro-ed open, to the baby toy tie straps keeping his armor up)

“Sure, I’ll test drive it… Oh, and I give relationship advice, too”

“God’s army, yeah!”

“Really. You really think it doesn’t come off? Let’s see, if one of Ko-ko’s friends pulls at it” <scratches at paper cross and heart I made from scratch and smothered in clear, very strong, sticky masking tape>

“Run around, turn right…”

“Turn left…. And it’s a good weekend!”

**Updated 30 Nov 2013

1) This one’s for Wendy: 

My former secondary schoolmate’s wake was Friday before last. I didn’t know her well, but I remember seeing her around in our school hallways – short hair, fair skin, glasses, very sunny smile. She was my (then) best friend’s classmate, which is how I heard… Cancer is a terrible, terrible sickness; I lost several grandparents, an aunt and a much respected mentor and friend. My aunt left behind a husband and two kids; my then mentor had by then battled cancer at least 5 times since his early 30s, choosing to remain single because of it.

John Piper wrote the book Don’t Waste Your Cancer, our pastors have given sermons about not “wasting” your bad circumstances, using them to become better people. Here’s to trying not to waste others’ as well:    

The beautiful reason this not-yet 5 year old did not cut his hair for 5 years. (So he could donate it to a charity making wigs for cancer patients.)

pic from huffingtonpost.com

(In case you are wondering, Rockstar now knows what cancer is because of article above.)

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While on the subject of kids being taught to help others, Rockstar came home telling me they talked about the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan and how they could contribute; the more culinarily-inclined mums (obviously this would not be me :D) had a special bake sale for the kids and the school donation drive with each year doing different sponsored activities (for e.g. Rockstar’s Year Band did a Hopathon) raised around HKD 190,000, nearly double their original target and is still ongoing…)

** Update: One week later that figure is now HKD 328,488 and still climbing…

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2) In contrast: If You Don’t Have A Consultant For Your Nanny Your Child Will Never Succeed. YES this is an actual title for an article. I’m filing it next to How To Avoid Being Abducted By Aliens For Real Not Meant To Be Funny.

Aside from the obvious “I wonder what nanny consult Boy Who’s Growing His Hair Out To Donate To Cancer Patients used,” according to a survey in the article, 84% of parents expect nannies to cook for their children and apparently this translates into some manner of over-achieving Reach For The I-Want-My-Child-To-Develop-A-Global-Palate-Oh-No-Is-That-A-Curry-Deficiency Stars. Because God forbid you fall so far as to microwave pizza. Ok I basically find the article funny in a not funny way because of when I worked long hours and Rockstar was fed only plain white bread torn in chunks by our then-helper who coined the lovely phrase “He no eat so I no cook” when we eventually caught her. Think Ok, This Is Kind Of Funny But I Also Feel Bad There Are All These Mums Who Put So Much Effort Into What Their Kids Ate And My Son Used To Eat White Bread <hangs head>.

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3) Batkid Saves San Francisco. 11,000 volunteers for Make A Wish Foundation make 5 year old Miles Scott’s wish come true. Battling leukemia since he was a year old, he wanted to be Batkid and save the city. The city complied.

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4) The Photography of Kyle Thompson – then-19 year old follows his artistic dream. Some are pretty spooky…

Like this one…

But I liked this one.

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5) Another amazing photography link: Stunning Portraits Of The World’s Remotest Tribes Before They Pass Away.

Here’s one

Here’s another

The pictures in the link are very beautiful. Don’t forget to read the reader comments, though – even more thought provoking…

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6) This one’s not a link… It’s a picture of an apology letter I had Rockstar write recently to a member of school staff.

He and a good friend had been having one of their fairly regular bickering fights on the playground (which both mums are aware of btw – we’d agreed to let them sort it out between them). Unfortunately this one must have gotten more spirited than usual because it drew the attention of school staff and when interrupted, Rockstar had not been able to exercise sufficient restraint when speaking to authority.

I hadn’t intended to post this, but when relating the incident some mum friends then later asked me to send them a pic of Rockstar’s letter so they could talk to their kids about it, which is when I asked Rockstar. He said, “Yes (send/post it). So they have an example to follow.”

Obviously he doesn’t mean the part where he made a mistake, he means when he made it right. Because while I really, really would rather he doesn’t make mistakes like this and was quite upset he did this one, there was also a parenting opportunity – a measure of a person is how he bounces back after a mistake. Rockstar was not proud of his mistake, but he is proud of what he considers his best effort at making it right.

Otherwise it’s a waste of a mistake. Thought for the week…..

ps: Rockstar would later tell me that in the heat of the moment he hadn’t even registered he was now speaking to an adult/ authority figure. We’re…. working on it, I promise. His Youtube pledge is real. It’s been several days, he’s not once considered breaking it. Not even on the weekend. And he really loves Youtube, even when utterly exhausted it is a habit he otherwise maintains, if only for a several-minute-fix before he crashes for the night.

pps: After he had “tried (his) best” to deliver his heartfelt apology, Rockstar says he  found Friend He’s Always Bickering With waiting for him outside. “Can you play?” he asked.

Me: So you two just went back to playing together.

 Rockstar: <sheepish> Yeah. So we went to play. Huh…….

Which I thought was just the sweetest thing.

Moved to tears. Snort.

….But still, I get in trouble for not posting enough pics of the kids, especially the Miss. Of all my posts, the ones that get the most hits  are pics of Her Highness, very closely followed by the Rockstarisms. (Obviously, no one cares what I have to say :D) 

So Little Miss is unwittingly providing some comic relief this week. These pics are of her “Drama Mama Fake Cry”. She gets mad that Rockstar and I laugh, but really, we think she looks sooooo cute. (Fortunately she’s wayyy not as loud as when she cries for real).

Here’s another one. Hee Hee,