Raising Rockstar

Let The Hallucinations Begin

Posted on September 8, 2012 by admin

There’s only so many times the Bermuda Triangle or black holes fascinate many people, why should wardrobe doors be any different. Ms Rockstar has been a real screamer lately, because the noisiest of construction works started up again for most days, leading up to the weekend. I’d take her out, but they’ve been having thunderstorm warnings amid deceptively bright sunny skies.

What screamer, moi?

Then I finally threw up the day before. Well, really when you retch while holding your screaming child you realize it’s a good thing you hadn’t had time to eat yet. So yup, things were a little desperate. So you start imagining things.

Me: Oh look, Ms Rockstar! YSL Muse bag!

Let Me See..... Hmmmm...

Ms Rockstar: Red Thing With Handles! Does It Make Interesting Noises?

Me: <deflated> Um no, it’s just a bag.

Getting ready to voice disapproval (at being left on bed)

Ms Rockstar: And you paid How Much for it?? HOW YOU GONNA SEND ME TO IVY LEAGUE ONE DAAAYYYYY??

Wow our priorities change. I’d swap the bag for a good nanny right about now.

Oh yeah. The college thing. When Ms Rockstar mentioned college was when I realized I might be imagining things. I mean, it’s not like we’d decided American yet…..

Anyway.

No one needs that many bags!

Me: That is not an appropriate response. In fact the only response to that should be ‘Why, thank you Mummy. Yes I would like to finish my entire feed now.’

Me: Also, ‘Please excuse me Mummy, while I work on a good burp so you can put me down where I will kick contentedly in my crib or playmat and you can get a cup of coffee.’

Ms Rockstar: In fact, let me get you that cup of coffee. Sit down and switch on E! Entertainment. Brainless junk reality tv is actually good for me!

Don't MAKE me look at your shoppinggggg!

“NNNGGGGGEEEAHHHHH”
<various jarring drilling and hammering construction noises right on our adjoining wall>

Ah, reality. When it hurts you know you’re alive.

Ps: This was before the weekend, I hadn’t had time to finish writing it til Saturday morning…

Posted in Rockstar Shots, Talking To Rockstar | Tagged appropriate response, bermuda triangle, black holes, bright sunny skies, burp, cup of coffee, dior, disapproval, e entertainment, excuse, imagining things, ivy league, muse, nanny, playmat, priorities, rockstar, screamer, thunderstorm warnings, wardrobe doors | 4 Comments

32 Pictures You Need To See Before The End Of Friday (And More)…

Posted on September 7, 2012 by admin

Here’s one.

Because disabled pugs have a right to have fun? No, scratch that – because disabled pugs’ owners have a right to have fun? Ok, pink and (extra) fur might be a bit much, but I was thinking more how the outfit implied how loved (if misguidedly so!) the pug was.

Here’s another.

This one’s a fireman giving a kitten oxygen. Nuff said.

–

2) If you were having a bad day/ week, try reading this through to the end: 27 Reasons Why Nothing Matters. (I prefer Oh Wow. Small.)

And it goes on.

Couple a news stories I happened to see…

3) Teenager with Down’s Syndrome is refused First Class flight. Was noting at the end of the article, the misbehaving little kids kicked off coach seats, actually.

This an old one I’d been following on and off, mostly checking out the comments and updates:

4) Parent sends autistic child to school with wire, records verbal abuse from teachers

5) How much “Ms Honey Boo Boo” makes. (That spinoff reality series after 7yr old contestant Alana Thompson went “A dollar makes me holler, Honey Boo Boo,” on kiddie beauty queen show Toddlers and Tiaras. You think it’s not that much now – but they had more viewers than the Republican National Convention so now I’m curious too…

6) The stress of doing it, the realization someone who lies with you can also lie to you: How lying hurts your health. Besides, lying’s just too hard work.

7) Why forgiveness is good for your health. Forgiveness good, bearing a grudge bad. But forgiveness doesn’t mean letting people get away with the same shit all the time. It’s a fine line.

So we need an upbeat pic to end on – Things That Make You Go Awwwwwww:

: Baby dolphin meeting baby penguin for the first time

Good Weekend!

Ps: It’s been a bad week. (I type this one bit by bit while pumping milk anyway, but it’s harder to write more stuff). The construction next door has been going (and horrendously noisy) almost every single day this week, often right when Ms Rockstar needs her naps. I couldn’t make Rockstar’s school briefing yesterday and had to call Kings last minute to go in my place – and I’m still trying to get more notes from classmates as well…

Posted in The TGIF Posts | Tagged autistic child, baby dolphin, baby penguin, beauty queen, bit by bit, class flight, coach seats, fireman, grudge, having a bad day, holler, little kids, nothing matters, pugs, pumping milk, reality series, republican national convention, rocksta, spinoff, verbal abuse | 4 Comments

Rockstarism #223 – When I Don’t Eat It’s Someone Else’s Fault

Posted on September 5, 2012 by admin

#223

Me: <angrily, watching him wolf down a huge bowl of macaroni and egg after school> You didn’t eat your lunch in school. I told you to eat well at break or feel lousy til you have time to eat again. Do you need to watch another Youtube about how stomach ulcers form (yes there are some good ones without the gore – just diagrams and commentary he made me call out because as usual he didn’t take my word for it about ulcers)

Rockstar: It was their fault! I didn’t have time to eat!

Me: What d’you mean you didn’t have time to eat, you have two snack breaks and one lunch break and you’re supposed to eat before you go out and play! (We had that conversation before, he said there was no time to eat and play, but on the school timetable they had actually divided out eating vs playing time.)

Rockstar: <earnestly, seriously> I wasn’t rushing to go out and play! It was this Mrs (something). She is the problem <nodding gravely>.

Me: What d’you mean she’s the problem?

Rockstar: She put on a video I wanted to watch! <shaking head with You See You See This Is The State Of The World Today expression>

Rockstar with one of the school online math games again...

(I was just amused how much he thinks this is a good reason… To be fair it’s not like he totally doesn’t eat, just that he’s eating the absolute bare minimum to stave off hunger during class (it’s a long day, 8am on the bus, school time is 8.30am – 3pm) when I know he can actually eat way more than that)…

Posted in Rockstarisms | 4 Comments

Breakfast At Fairwood

Posted on September 4, 2012 by admin

(No disrespect meant to the late great Audrey’s role in the novel/ film)

: (He’d didn’t stay still long enough and I started getting funny looks for taking a pic of my son outside this local fast-food chain that’s everywhere – in a very “neighborhood” mall some more)

I’d seen Fairwood chains everywhere – even at Wetlands Park – but it was my parents who made me first notice the chain. Because they come all the way here and then over a nice lunch at ICC Cafe Habitu-of-the-gourmet-coffees-and-teas my mum looks across the ice skating rink down below, spies a Fairwood, and tells me they often eat there when they’re out by themselves in Hong Kong.

There’s an outlet near where Rockstar goes for Putonghua (this was over the hols before school started in earnest), and it’s almost the only thing open at that time (besides Mc Donald’s) and I notice the sugar-free Quaker oats breakfast set with ham and cheese sandwich (HKD 21.50) and walk in one morning. (Only to be hard-pressed deciding between that and oats, toast, sausage and ham set (HKD 23.50) because I want the toast.)

: Yeah I went with the more “expensive” breakfast 😀

So I’m ordering breakfast and besides a few people in work garb there are old timers happily spending their morning here, some of whom are seriously hi-tech. Old uncles hanging out with breakfast, newspapers – and iPhones, Blackberries and Samsung Galaxies. My mum once pointed out another very old woman who looked like my grandmother texting away at the next table.

(Okla my dad is like that too, the Apple megastore in IFC is like Uncle Disneyland for him – know what he wanted for Father’s Day/ Birthday? That latest iMac Air that just came out. Great way to keep him busy, I figured… Tho come to think of it he wakes at 4-5am anyway to work out (half my old bedroom is now his gym), walk the dogs in Gurney Drive and – yes, read all the heavy news websites.)

This uncle was checking his smartphone ok... lol

<little kiddie voice in Cantonese> “Excuse me, Auntie.”

I turn in time to see a little girl passing behind me, followed by her grandmother carrying a breakfast tray. (There are also quite a few local little kids eating here too, who look to be lower primary school-aged). They sit in the corner next to my table, and after awhile I can’t help asking how old the little girl is because she is extremely well-behaved and articulate in Cantonese with a few English words thrown in, but is very obviously still a toddler. “25 months,” her grandmother says. She’s just finished wiping down the tabletop with a sanitizing wipe before setting the bowl down in front of her, I notice delightedly <sheepish>

When Rockstar was that age I was still hard at work. Reluctantly, a little guiltily, I observe the marked difference between her and Rockstar’s development back then. “Well she is a girl, I wouldn’t expect little boys to be quite that articulate til maybe when they’re 3… When your girl is older, you’ll see the difference.”

But when she asks who had been taking care of Rockstar while I worked and I explain that we are Malaysian and the grandparents don’t live here, she turns grim, shaking her head before I can even finish. “No, you cannot rely on helpers here. We’ve fired three. Even having two helpers at once didn’t work, they had to be constantly monitored – so now Mondays to Fridays I stay over when her parents have to work. I leave on Saturday when my daughter (the little girl’s mum) is around.”

Super-duper well-mannered little girl <swoon> (Yeah I'm a sucker for well-behaved kids... And can't stand brats haha)

And watching her charge finish her macaroni-and-ham, sitting perfectly and inquiring how I’m liking my own breakfast before politely requesting a second helping of her own, I know it’s true.

Posted in Traveling With Rockstar | Tagged 5am, blackberries, disrespect, food chain, galaxies, garb, gourmet coffees, ham and cheese sandwich, iphones, mc donald, news websites, novel film, ok lol, old folks, old timers, Putonghua, quaker oats, skating rink, uncles, wetlands park | 5 Comments

How To Survive Armageddon (Or Construction Works And Screaming Baby)

Posted on September 2, 2012 by admin

If you are in a difficult place (ie your baby is screaming in your face so hard you want to bang your head on the wall because if you pass out you wouldn’t be able to hear it anymore), a sense of humor is everything.

Not even talking The Secret-type stuff here, you just have to look past everything and reach your special little happy place to bring The Funny.

The Funny is you at your best when you never knew you had it in you – but with humor just so people also know you are charming. For survival. Because there is something about your baby screaming at you that is just worse, in that instant, than umpteen lines ringing on your dealer board (where you know exactly what every one of em wants) and RMs crowding into the room when the market runs on that IPO because equity/ equity derivatives investors, herd of stampeding bison with cellphones, same difference.

Well here we go Ms Rockstar –

Behind This Door Lies Adventure! Color! Sparkle! Now You See It, Now Watch Mummy Make Everything Disappear! Whoot! Wasn’t That Just Trippy? No, Mummy’s Not Doing Drugs, It’s Not The Breastmilk, It’s…. A Door! It’s Mummy’s Wardrobe Door!

I call this game Someday All This Shall Be Yours.

Ms Rockstar calls it:

What Could You Possibly Have Been Thinking???

And

I DON’T WANNA WEAR THAT SOMEDAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

When I’m stressing and she’s fussing Rockstar will look up briefly from iPad/laptop which we now use as pre-bedtime wind-down, “You need to open the cupboard door again, Mu-umm <all knowledgeable Been There Done That>.” My 4.5 year old, the baby care expert. Maybe Nanny 911 is auditioning.

Anyway. I know a very godly lady who had one young baby, morning sickness during her second pregnancy, and she didn’t even get partial help. (Later, she also got pregnant a third time, while the second child was I think not even a year old – they are currently back in the States – it’s not like she was all See So Easy You Cannot Meh, more like Please Pray For Us To Get Through The Terrible Twos, but point is, survive she did).

Then I had another girlfriend who breastfed and once described a procedure to clear an infected blocked duct in the doctor’s office that involved a large needle <flinch>, had (just) a twice-weekly cleaning lady – and a Portuguese Water Dog who snuck a swim in the filthy pier water nearby any chance she got, necessitating yet another bath, right away.

Oh, and I don’t think she even plugged in her tv <respect>

Thing is, we’re gonna compare, no matter how much we tell ourselves it’s not good for us. So sometimes why not make it good for us. I have mummy friends who are amazing and if they can do *that* much then maybe I can at least do *this* much is still more productive than I’m doing better than *that* mum whose kids can sing any shit by Eminem <complacent> <heck, all self-important self-righteous stick-up-butt>. I know mums who have managed to swing lots more things than I have. Perspective is everything. Surround yourself with mums who farm virtually all parenting responsibility to helpers and etc and you will think you have to have the same.

Most importantly, when I’m terrified – Yes I Who Had Never Had Much Interest In Children Nor Carried An Infant In My Arms Before Rockstar – I remember my friends must’ve been, too. Through fevers, fussing, it must’ve been hard for them too. (And then some). I’ve come to believe you shouldn’t expect “true” parenting to be “easy” all the time. If it is, if you think it is, you’re doing it wrong. My own brand of No Free Lunch, post-market. It’s another human being you’re raising, one who will go out into the world, make their own way – and have the potential to cause terrible hurt and pain to others – someone else’s children and family members. It’s not like you just feed them and walk them. It’s why JD gets to be such a bitch (sorry) sometimes, and the kids don’t.

Mostly, something my pastor said last week stuck in my head: Don’t waste your difficult circumstance. Use it to become a better version of yourself. It’s a waste of a stressful situation if I don’t use it to learn to calm my baby, or really, practice being screamed at…. And I can’t help the construction hammering away whenever til October. Unravelling hurts me (and Ms Rockstar) more than it could/would ever hurt the construction people anyways.

So there it was. How we got through the week. It was easy, because we wanted to see it as easy. (And by “easy” I mean “I’m. Not…. Going…. To Die!“)

Not dying feels pretty good. Being screamed at close-range while you’re hormonal/ glancing round quickly when the baby starts up, deciding beforehand where is the safest place to put the baby if you really throw up n-ot so much (and of course never actually happened), but oh it felt so good knowing I learnt to handle my own baby without any help. Being able to put the baby down, once or twice even awake and watching her slowly doze off after, I would do that tacky fist-pump or throw my arms up like I was an Olympics gymnast after completing a perfect balance bar routine.

Pic from jamesfreesports.com

Oh, you competed in the Olympics? That’s nice. I just got my fussing baby to sleep.

Not just the Olympics, also like in the World Wrestling Federation Championships. I’d roar like they do too, but that might wake the baby and then I’d have to start over.

Pic from Wrestling Wikia

<Sheepish> Somedays I roared at Rockstar – when I was trying to put an over-tired baby down for the umpteenth time and hardly dared breath, finally, when the construction workers have gone home, and I get “I can’t reach my towel, Mo-mmy. Mo-mmy? MOOOO-OOOMMMMMEEEEE…….”

: RRRRROOAAAARRRRRRRRR

At the end of the week, our nanny comes back for a few hours a day (planned sometime back, just to help with any heavier lifting while my inlaws visit.) The look of respect on my tough, could’ve-auditioned-as-real-life-Wolf-of-Wall-Street-if-she’d-gone-to-college nanny’s face was something else, as I walked her through changes, dare I say mild improvements, in Ms Rockstar’s sleep/feed/play schedule.

(For e.g. she can play/entertain herself for awhile without demanding to be picked up pronto, even occasionally fall back to sleep. Partly from mechanically picking her up, quieting her, putting her down, over and over and over…)

Ms Rockstar still screams her lungs out at me. I’m still scared.

But I’m alive. I’m alive. A-LI-IIIIIVVVVE!

Bride of Frankenstein pic from morbidementia.com

I don’t care if it’s drama – I earned it, mama *ridiculous dorky dancing*.

Ps: Weight just after nanny left a week ago: 60kg

Weighed just before she got back: 57.5kg. (Pre-baby weight, 53kg) That was a little scary though I feel fine enough…

Posted in Babycare Bootcamp, Rockstar Thoughts | Tagged bedtime, breastmilk, cleaning lady, drugs, game, girlfriend, laptop, lt, lunch, morning sickness, nbsp, portuguese water dog, second pregnancy, sense of humor, sparkle, terrible twos, third time, wardrobe, young baby | 3 Comments

Oh Let’s Just Call It What It Is… The Friday Post…

Posted on August 31, 2012 by admin

: Forever and ever til a toxic waste spill

1) Awkward wedding photo bombs.

2) Can’t improve on: funniest autocorrects of Aug

3) The quote that may change your view: “If (Lance) Armstrong used banned substances, he was only leveling the playing field. He’s still the one who overcame the odds.” Liked quote, found it here: Newsweek’s Buzz Bissinger still believes in Armstrong.

Not that I condone cheating, but that I condone partial disciplinary action if it might affect a half billion dollar-strong cancer foundation. I don’t think the guy who receives aid to fight his cancer cares Mr Armstrong cheated though yeah it’s uncool. But you want to throw the book at cheaters? That’s great – get ’em all. Start with the ones that don’t have half billion dollar-strong cancer foundations.

4) “For every hour a Facebook user spends on the site, Team Zuck makes 6.2 cents. LinkedIn makes 20 times that.”

Aren’t you even a little curious why investors (more than consumers) love LinkedIn?

5) What this?

This a squid’s skin reacting to listening to Insane In The Brain by Cypress Hill. Backyard Brains hooked it to an iPod Nano. (Think one of Rockstar’s I Wonder Why mentioned squid communicate by changing the colors on their skin, among others.)

Oh, something to do on Friday at the office. All you need are a squid, electrodes and iPod. (Well you probably have the iPod/phone.) From Bored Panda.

Gotta have another one:

: Awwww the dolphin is so happy for them!!!

Ps:

(Old pic that I never managed to wait til Merdeka to post…)

SELAMAT HARI MERDEKA, YA!

Pps: How we survived the week coming up; just need a bit more time to finish the post…

Posted in The TGIF Posts | Tagged brains, buzz bissinger, cancer foundation, cheaters, colors, consumers, cypress hill, disciplinary action, insane in the brain, ipod, lance armstrong, linkedin, mr armstrong, nbsp, newsweek, odds, panda, rockstar, squid, uncool | 5 Comments

Dragon Mother Cometh

Posted on August 29, 2012 by admin

There is a special place in my heart for the joys of construction works being carried out in the neighboring apartment (“til October!” the officious-sounding laminated notice pasted in the lift lobby promises – did anyone notice the irony is just sick, I was so careful with dust protection and noise, moving the baby out for the barely-one-hour it took to install window blinds and Rockstar’s shelves. As I type the drilling and hammering has been going two days, a.k.a. Some Time After Our Nanny Is No Longer With Us And For Way Too Long).

So anyway when this happens, these are some of the people (and animals) you will hate:

1) The nameless people who own the apartment next door and are probably blissfully putting up at the Shangri-La while their neighbors live with the prolonged construction noise and dust in the lobby.

2) The designer who inconsiderately came up with a layout that requires drilling and hammering. (What is wrong with using those stick-on hooks from Japan Home Center, I would like to know?)

And- and – is the air in the apartment hazy?

Which brings me to –

3) The building management person who initially simply replies “But it’s their right to do this what.” There better not be a smug Serves You Right For Not Being At Work in there. And I suppose your baby reminding you a gadzillion times a day that you are a terrible, terrible person for not being able to Make It Stop Make It Stop is more fun than sitting at a reception desk 9-5?

(Btw when I first got here, in a different development, we were in a 1,400 sq foot rental, spacious I guess by local HK standards, and I got asked “Are you even 30 to get to live in a place like this?”)

“Are you telling me that because it is ‘within their right’ to drill and hammer (which btw I never complained about in the past) you expect me to let the air in my apartment get so dusty my baby gets sick? (Right on cue baby Rockstar Ngehs from a bedroom) Look at the haze in this place!”

“I could ask them to drill with the doors and windows closed?”

Wow. We drilled with our doors and windows closed, vacuuming everything along the way. You have to ask for that?

About 30 minutes later, the haze in our apartment starts to clear. The day however, is now punctuated by very loud door slams. Yeah like I’m scared. You people have been drilling what I’m fairly sure is the exact wall between that apartment and ours which, as Murphy’s Law would have it, is also where the baby sleeps in our home.

And then while we’re trying to calm the poor, fussing baby who has been woken from her nap for the umpteenth time and Rockstar comes home expecting to be fed and to some extent entertained, we have –

4) “You let that one go by?? <bugged out eyes> It was right there! What’s the matter with you???”

Yes, a dog who is enthusiastically laying tennis balls for you to kick around the apartment especially when you are freaking scurrying around. And giving you the most obnoxious eye-balling when you miss one. A measure of just how much an animal is loved in a household is by her sense of entitlement to her “fair share” of attention no matter how I-have-to-punch-something harassed you get.

Oh yeah. The Dragon Mother. It’s in all of us to breathe flames when someone’s upsetting our baby. Still managed to hold it together til the drilling starts for a third day after they assured me they would be done in two. And the person who told me they’d be done yesterday? Now on her day off.

RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH.

Before she got really upset at not being able to take a proper nap

Posted in Babycare Bootcamp, Rockstar Shots | Tagged btw, building management, construction noise, cue, doors and windows, dust protection, hk, hooks, irony, management person, neighbors, place in my heart, promises, reception desk, rockstar, shangri la, shelves, smog, terrible person, window blinds | 2 Comments

I’ve Got You Babe

Posted on August 27, 2012 by admin

I behaved in the days leading up to the nanny’s final departure recently as someone who would soon join the Legion Of People Perpetually Trapped Under Napping Babies:

1) Tried to see all my regular friends “one last time” sans baby.

2) Went “supply shopping” for toiletries and anything else I thought I couldn’t get our helper (who mostly just does cleaning and dog-walking) or kings to buy for me easily – like Clinique concealer stick for dark undereye circles. Panda Eyes Shall Be Hidden For As Long As I Have Any Energy To Care So Help Me God.

3) Sat quietly with laptop in cafes, marveling at my alone-ness.

4) Bought 100 fruit smoothies in squeezies.

What, like that’s weird? (Rockstar finished like, 10 in a week so I went back for another batch of 50 – the Bumps to Babes people must think I’m reselling them. Helper would get lost unless she took a very expensive cab ride to get that many kinds, the supermarkets she knows how to get to only had one or two flavors…)

So here we go baby. I’ve got you babe. And any other song I can think of, if it makes you stop crying and start feeding properly.

: Very Misleading Pic

Ps: Our nanny said Ms Rockstar’s the hardest baby she’s had to feed. Me too 😀

Pps: I didn’t get to be on my laptop much today because besides caring for baby, Rockstar’s been hogging it to play some numbers games he discovered on the school website (there are seriously way more games – educational ones, obviously – on the school website than on cbeebies.com!)

Kudos to those games for keeping Rockstar that fascinated

Ppps: Kings does the witching hour feed. I should give credit where it’s due. Or start my day at 3am because of the pumping.

Pppps: Weighed myself after caring for Ms Rockstar completely solo, that first day: 59kg (previously 60kg.)

Posted in Babycare Bootcamp | Tagged babe, babes, babies, clinique concealer, dark undereye circles, final departure, fruit smoothies, god, laptop, last time, nanny, numbers games, panda, panda eyes, rockstar, Shopping, squeezies, toiletries | 5 Comments

Guess Who Had His First Day Of School Last Week…

Posted on August 26, 2012 by admin

: Looks happy going right? Had to yell at him to stop jumping up and down on my bed after he put on the school uniform…

Fuh-inally. De Day. First Day At New School. I made a big fuss about lunch and snack packing and uniform fitting partly so Rockstar would feel he had something really important coming up that – yes, got him his own share of attention, what with the new baby around. And oh, that happens to be schoolwork.

(Not say, trip to Disneyland or whatever – because I didn’t think I could swing 1) handling baby; 2) keeping track of Rockstar’s schoolwork, 3) making sure he gets Daddy Time while Kings is keeping odd hours AND 4) making Rockstar not feel neglected with new baby arrival by bringing him to Disneyland and what-not. So I shall do 2, 3, 4 all together and nix Disneyland unless I can find something educational to talk to him about that might also potentially cut my future workload preparing him for Show n Tells etc.)

: Teenaged Mutant Ninja Rockstar

(Am I allowed to laugh? His school bag is totally wearing him. But he is very small.. The reception uncle said, “Wow, going camping?”)

Tried to make the school bag as light as possible – hardly filled his water bottle, and all he’s got in there are a change of clothes, sun hat, very small pack of flushable toilet wipes and his snacks/ lunch. He picked everything, and his food is where all the weight is – chicken nuggets and whole grain toast (or a salmon sandwich), breakfast cereal and two different fruit smoothies in squeezies. (<sheepish> but he can really eat when he wants and it’s his first time with longer school hours so I was kiasu; his dinner is already more than mine – two eggs, rice, a big cup of of stir-fried broccoli/carrots, a third-to-half of a medium-sized steamed fish.)

All the kids except one who is pulling a Lighting McQueen bag along on wheels are also carrying the standard issue school bags so I guess he will have to get used to the size/weight. (I do ask his teacher when she comes to say hi to all of us; she checks and suggests I take out his change of clothes.) Rockstar gives me a look when he sees the Cars bag because he wanted a very similar one just the day before and I’d said No, When Are You Ever Going To Use That… Fortunately it dissipates when he sees everyone else using the school bags…

: Rockstar queueing up in front of his class sign before going up to class (yes already all sweaty from running in playground)

Another mum and I have arranged to bring our boys, former classmates from Kindy, 20 minutes early so they can play together before going up to class. We needn’t have worried. After 10 minutes there’s lotsa other kids who’ve shown up early to play in the playground before their staggered* first day. That I can see, there are at least a few kids escorted by both parents – some work-shirted dads are even carrying proper cameras along with their briefcases (not just say, taking videos on iPhones).

(*10 kids come to school at a time, per class, on different first days throughout the first week, I guess so the teachers get to know them better, before the entire class of 30 finally comes in together)

The first morning Rockstar had asked me to put in a request for him to get a male “bus buddy” (in their first few days first year bus children are escorted by older children, Rockstar naturally has been fervently hoping for an older boy) and so I asked his teacher, who promised to try, but said allotments were already made earlier. There I’m feeling all pleased with myself for getting that in, in the midst of returning school outing consent forms and various medical/ allergy/ swimming confidence etc information on forms – and then watching his class climb the stairs to their classroom, I overhear another mum worrying repeatedly about whether her child will be put on the bus because she wants to pick him/her up.

In fact it seems like they have a lot more “walkers” (i.e. their parents will come pick them up) and I have a moment of self-doubt – I put some effort into talking to Rockstar, getting him prepared to take the bus (in fact I put him on the Kindy summer camp bus thinking to get him used to the bus going to a familiar destination first, whereupon he apparently got extra McQueen stickers for good behavior so now bus experience totally rocks) – instead, should I just have not let him take the bus on his first day?

So I go back and call out the PTA email with detailed bus schedules and stops. I’m pretty sure I have the right bus stop, but…… People are really serious about this. They’re all going to pick their kids up and everything and I hadn’t even thought I might need to. Better make sure I at least have the right stop. I email to check – and in record time receive a reply with a map attached, indicating the exact bus stop.

: Conquering Hero returning home, his first day

Rockstar comes home very serious about assembly and trying to win what sounds like an inter-class challenge for good behavior. I don’t know if that’s an actual challenge trophy or class privileges like getting to break first – Rockstar’s mentioned both. Also a slightly scraped knee after tripping over someone’s seatbelt while getting on.

Hearing the awards reminded me when I made those typical school challenge trophies hoping to use them at one point for Equity Derivatives Inter-team Challenges among RMs (wanted to fill the cups with Hershey’s Kisses even, thinking to make the whole going after P/L a little more fun…) And then local ex-colleagues had explained to me that as little kiddies in the local schools they would get “little white rabbit” stamps if their schoolwork was neat ‘n nice (and “pig” stamps if it wasn’t).

So I had “Little White Rabbit awards” made – out of Jonathan Adler napkin rings I found online on sale, which I then had the trophy place glue to a base with plaques, for RM assistants who were error free in trade booking/ follow up settlements… (while it was meant with a little irony, there were real reasons for “rewarding” good housekeeping, especially if/when the market was busy… Clients either all didn’t want to do anything, or else they all came back at the same time. Booking errors cost money or huge compliance problems and once you’ve had to hunt an assistant down to enter the trade or clean it up you quickly appreciate those who don’t make you do that…) And yes I remember on the i-bank side they like to call the commemorative plaques “tombstones.”

Anyway. Rockstar would later tell me his teacher chatted with them at break time, got to know them while they were playing and more relaxed, that his lunch was checked out, that he really likes his teacher… Also that they’d looked at his band-aided forehead from when he’d run into a banister last weekend… It all made me feel comfortable he was well looked after, hadn’t even expected they would notice the skin-colored bandaid half hidden under his hair…

When I finally remember to ask, he tells me his bus buddy was……… a girl. But that she’d been really nice and he’d liked her (i.e. could live with her not being a boy, I suppose lol)… I guess better for him to get used to adjusting for when things don’t totally go his way as he gets older…

: JD rounded up the welcoming committee…

As Rockstar launches into another extremely serious account of his new school’s happenings….

Me: What was that?

Rockstar: I said the boss says many children with their aunties (i.e. helpers) were running, and –

Me: Yeah that, who’s “the boss”?

Rockstar: (Name). That’s our school principal.

Me: <hiding amusement> How did you pick that up, from the other kids?

Rockstar: Yeah. Some of my friends on the playground.

Me: Does he know you guys are referring to him as the boss?

Rockstar: No, he wasn’t there. There are pictures of him in the school, you know.

Me: And why do you guys call him that?

Rockstar: <authoritatively> Be-cause he is, he’s in charge of the school. And it’s easier than saying “principal” all the time. <shrugs>

(I just thought it was really funny, Rockstar’s totally serious “the boss” thing like he’s in an italian mafia movie… I’d like to be the fly on that playground wall, bunch of little kids talking seriously about what “the boss wants”… Rockstar comes home one day “making me an offer I can’t refuse” I’m gonna fall off my chair)

I'm yet to watch it. But the quotes transcend the movies. Some of the kids must have parents who love the show or something...

Ps: In the 30 minutes I was pumping my milk while Rockstar munched a sandwich next to me before we went to school for the first time… I’d suddenly remembered that I hadn’t run through whether Rockstar could still write all his ABCs and numbers, albeit he pens simple thank you letters and cards, mostly by deciding what he wants to say and then following what I have written on a scrap of paper, so I ask him to get the magna doodle….. His “J” and “S” are backwards, that first morning. And “Oh, my “Z” is facing the wrong way too, right?”