Raising Rockstar

This is the first time Rockstar’s actual birthdate is not a school holiday, so much so that we’d gotten used to celebrating early before school’s out, because his real birthdate is “too” close to Christmas. Also partly why we don’t do full-blown parties (the other reason being I hate hosting these things and suck at it anyway) – a lot of his friends wouldn’t be around as well, in fact we were often away traveling ourselves, this time of year.

(I then remained straight-faced about expecting Rockstar to still make Putonghua class after school, because I didn’t want to send the message that skipping any lesson be viewed as a “treat” – he brought goodies to share with his Putonghua tuition mates, I was all Great You Have Putonghua Today, Now You Have Even More Friends To Bring Cupcakes To! Rockstar would come home later and explain how he had then made friends with a tuition mate when the two boys realized they both attend Kennedy Year 1 – the other boy went Hey. I saw you leaving school with the Birthday Boy hat, didn’t I??? That was you!)

If there’s a way to “summarize” this part of how I’m trying to raise The Rockstars, it would be to instill a love (or at least a lack of dislike) for things they have to do in life… School and lessons being some of em… So I’m thinking “perception/ attitude adjustment” – doesn’t occur to them to get to skip. (In Ms Rockstar’s case, doesn’t occur to her to be carried at night..)

Birthday Cupcakes. Murphy’s Law. Every single year Rockstar’s had a class celebration, something has gone wrong with the cake:

1) First year – Rockstar was 3. We ordered from a cafe. When we arrived to lunch and to pick them up, they said “Oh, we ran out of eggs so we didn’t make them. Sorry.” Kings then drove to the market about 5 mins away, bought the eggs, and handed them to the kitchen. I am not kidding. But we got the cakes, and Kings got to feel all heroic about saving Rockstar’s birthday so it was all good.

2) When Rockstar was 4, prior to De Day I almost scrapped the whole order because when I called to follow up several emails, the person on the other end of the line was hugely uppity and defensive about missing them. (So you missed it. Just say Can You Please Repeat Over Phone and move on. Half the time I end up a lot more pissed by the defensiveness than by the actual mistake..)

3) Now, Rockstar’s 5th. That icing you see in the pic wasn’t supposed to be yellow, it was supposed to be multicolored sprinkles. First I thought Kings had picked up someone else’s order and then I was worried Rockstar would remember he had said his friends liked sprinkles (he himself doesn’t particularly, btw), but he didn’t comment. We later received a heartfelt apology email and an offer to mail us a HKD 200 coupon to make up for the mistake. We did not accept the coupon, but barring Rockstar forming some preference they can’t fulfill next year, we are definitely going back to Complete Deelite (and thank you to the mum who recommended them 🙂

Anyway. Yours Truly is not the mum who smiles charmingly while wearing pretty floral apron after whipping up attractive and healthy yummy treats for her child. <snort> I am Mum Who Goes OhCrapOhCrapOhCrapOhCrap under her breath, arms laden with 36 Lightning McQueen cupcakes, some of which might be on fire, as Rockstar’s class belts out something with gusto.

I mean I’m guessing it was Happy Birthday, but it could’ve been My Humps and I wouldn’t have noticed because at that moment all I could hear was the voice in my head screaming DontDropItDontDropItDontDropIt, Did I Set My Child’s School On Fire and Where The @#$%$#@$%@ Is My Child So I Can Set This Blazing Tray Down In Front Of Him And Know I’m Not Going To Die?

Hah! You think I could freaking host a happy smiley kiddie thing outside of school, where there will be actual children who are not mine attending, and who might have parents who go insane if I feed their kids sugar or well, lose a couple of them??

(But seriously, The What If Something Goes Wrong With Children will kill me. In dealing rooms when someone balks at hitting the market for 10 bucks or whatever (bucks = mio; a large size means even slipping one tick on the spot price of the underlying is going to hurt, because that 0.02 cent tick or whatever is magnified by the USD 10 mio size) it’s called Beh Chye (Hokkien). Not Steady <imagine Singlish/Manglish>. I Beh Chye about kids. Super nervous. In the dealing room, it’s computers. Screens. Transcripted conversations. Taped phones. Paper loss/ gain. Paper. I cannot fully explain the extent to which, after I got out, I have looked at every gathering/class of Rockstar’s over the last couple years and thought This Is So Not That.)

As for the phenomenon of kiddie parties. The whole aversion to hosting headache is probably why people use Marina Club or Funzone or whatever. Except I didn’t like the “loot/goodie” bags, and standard kiddie party food. There’s wayyyyy too much of it (even with me being a serial over-orderer), a lot of it is junky deep-fried or sugary stuff (to be fair they usually also provide fruit which is hardly touched – one party I remember someone going Wow He Actually Likes The Fruit and he does… because we behave like fruit is the best thing there… though we all do also have a weakness for chips… and because Rockstar generally eats little meat, preferring fish, he gets sausage rolls or chicken nuggets in school – his dinner is otherwise 2 hard boiled eggs, very large cup of broccoli and carrots and almost half a steamed fish almost every night).

And then kids come and go between playing in germ-infested ball pools (HOW do you clean a gadzillion plastic balls every day? Oh, you don’t? Then it’s just gross. I imagine a gadzillion runny-nosed kids gleefully hurling themselves, snot-end first, into ball pools) at these parties and touch the food with hands that have been in the ball pool. 

Was therefore so encouraged by Rockstar’s school’s What You Touch, You Get rule. Touch the food, and it goes on your plate. Loves! I can’t even stand food tongs lying in the food trays with the food at grownup buffets. Time spent nursing a cold/ whatever is time wasted that could’ve been enjoyed not being sick/ nursing sick child. Therefore time that could be spent better enjoying your child’s company or shopbop.com.

Sure, sometimes kids can’t help it plus they need to build resistance to local bugs. But I’ve also got tiny little Ms Rockstar and the ped has told us to try and keep her from getting colds/flus especially in her first year of life because it messes with the development of her respiratory system and increases her chances of developing asthma (which btw locals have also told me has a high incidence particularly in more polluted areas of HK – some years ago a germ-freaky local mummy colleague put the figure at around 40% of local kids).

Now for the goodie bags. I wanted to DIY because I really wanted to shop for a couple things to put in them.

Have Kid Will Learn About Goodie Bag. I love, love, love filling them. Yes these bags have been by our mattress on our platform bed for weeks, half filled. I would slowly get stickers, cut up tattoo sheets, carefully divvying the tattoos as equally as I could. The guys got pirate and monster/skull tattoos, the girls got flowers and butterflies. Also in there were a candy cane, tiny pack of mini M&Ms, Chinese Yo-yos and then miniature rubber “footballs” for the boys and glitter bracelets from Seed for the girls.

Rockstar had a part in the bag-stuffing. Also quite a lot of discussion about what to put in them. Was hoping to instill an early sense of joy for “serving others,” i.e. doing something nice without expecting anything (like say birthday gifts) in return. Blessed is the giver, more than the receiver, because if you expect things in return and don’t get them you feel lousy. If you train yourself to be nice just by default (within reason, that is) and then someone is still nice back, you feel great.

I just wanted Rockstar to feel great more often in life. I wanted him to know how to be happy. Because I know people who don’t know how to be happy.

Private joke re bracelet. Urban legend a.k.a. one of my mummy friends tells me at a certain well-heeled international school her friend found a Tiffany silver necklace in her 14 year old daughter’s Goodie Bag when she attended a classmate’s party. You have to tell it the way my friend does: “(My friend’s friend) looked in the bag and saw – blue. Is Tiffany blue. You see the blue box and…. (basically you know it’s a rockin’ intimidatin’ loot bag) HOW YOU BUY BIRTHDAY GIFT LIKE DAT?” 😀

Ms Rockstar was attached to me the whole time I was rummaging for 16 rubber bracelets. Rockstar was all Who Cares. It’s A Thing For A Girl. (But did make me make two trips to Wisekids when I didn’t buy enough balloons to put in every single bag.) Was feeling so pleased with myself for finding the rubber bracelet – somehow I thought his girl classmates would really love it – and the next day he told me quite a few were wearing it… some of them as necklaces. I didn’t even know they could be opened up into necklaces.

Also made personalized button badges (got the idea from another girlfriend who personalized bag tags at her son’s birthday party) including mailing one to a former classmate of Rockstar’s who was leaving HK, and re-ordering another for a new classmate. Was thinking I’d hate to be the new kid in school and the only one without a button badge. The new badge arrived the evening before Rockstar’s birthday. Felt so happy stapling that final badge on the bag.

Freaking trippy and I don’t care who knows I’m a freak.

Cutting up the girls' tattoo sheets

The day after Rockstar’s birthday celebration in school was the last day of school before the Christmas hols. Also partly why I put tattoos in the bag, thought his friends might like to sport a few tattoos on their last day, I’d noticed quite a few “tattooed” children after Halloween. Sure enough, Rockstar says a few of them showed him their tattoos, more girls than boys though – one girl showed him her tattooed belly. “Crazy,” my super-serious child snorts. Rockstar himself btw, declined to be tattooed, though he was pleased his friends got stuff they liked.

Rockstar got stuff he liked too – lotsa unavailable in Hong Kong, some of it limited edition Disney Cars stuff I ordered online ages ago….

OKOKOKOK we gotta work on Christmas nowww!