This Is It

Tomorrow I am rejoining the workforce full time. I have been preparing for this day the past few months. Well, as far as I can see, the children, and I, and my helpers, are all ready for the change.

First, my children. The 3 boys have known of this change - that mummy will be working the whole day from mid-August - for weeks now. The idea is not strange to them - working mothers are quite common in our society, and anyway, they have played SIMS before, and they know that both parents should get jobs, lol!

Son No 1, the teenager, took the news matter-of-factly. For most of his life, I was a working mom and it probably made little difference to him now whether I spend my days around the house or at work.

Son No 3 understood the significance of this from his own point of view. He told me earnestly: "You know, mummy, now you REALLY need to tell me your password!" He was afraid that he would not be able to gain access to the computer when I am not around! Hmm, he is 6 years old, the world should revolve round him *grin*

I would say that Son No 2 gave the most, erm..., appropriate response, as far as I am concerned. On hearing that I will not be around to take care of him all the time, he faked great sobs on my shoulder, in the most dramatic and theatrical manner. Cute little guy :) But I know he is the most nervous of the three boys of this change.

As for my maid and my driver, I have given them a weekly schedule that detailed all the children's activities. We have had weeks of dry run now - and hopefully, there will be no hiccups. Ya, both my hubby and I are kind of paranoid about such things and leave little to chance. In addition, I have typed out the menu for lunch and dinner for the whole week, so that the maid can help me prepare all the meals and I do not have to think about that during the week. And yes, the fridge is stocked with enough food to last the whole week.

OK, so I am ready for work tomorrow. The home front is well taken care of. As for myself.... Last night, I dug out a chest of old clothes - my old working clothes - but alas, I can hardly fit into them anymore! Not surprising, of course. It has been 2 years and 8 months since I became a stay-at-home mom. But I have been working part-time and I have enough clothes to last me temporarily, I think - it's not as if I am joining some glamorous corporate sector, haha...

Mentally, I am very well prepared. Teaching is in my blood. Now I can't wait to go to the starting line....

Closure

A number of good friends and loved ones have asked me about the sudden silence on this blog and I apologise for it. Truth is, I have lost the inspiration to write during the past 2 months or so - and even now, as I write, I am struggling to pen my thoughts into words and coherent sentences.

During the past two months, I have unravelled my life... and put it together again. Come 17 August, my title will be reduced back to "mom" and not "stay-at-home mom".

The decision to go back to work is not a difficult one - I have always known that I am not cut-out to be a permanent stay-at-home mom and that at some point in time, I will start to dabble at some other things to keep my mind occupied. [This blog has more or less served that need for the past one year.]

The timing, though, has always been a big question mark. At which point in time do I cross the hurdle back to the working world?

There are practical considerations (like having reliable help at the homefront) as well as affective ones such as the desire to be there when the children are young, at a time when they need me the most. But there is no magic formula to determine the point of intersection when the graph for children's needs (presumably negative gradient) meets with the graph for the mother's needs, beyond which there is no longer incremental utility for staying at home. In addition, there is always the fear factor - which is the decreasing market value of the mother the longer she stays away from the workplace.

Many people think that "if it ain't broken, why fix it?" - and my life certainly isn't "broken". This is not a mid-life crisis! I want to state categorically that I am happy as a stay-at-home mom, and I treasure the times I have with my three sons... and certainly, I will always look back at this period of time as God's greatest blessing on me.

And yet, there is this desire to do more, to stretch myself. God has given me certain talents and nurture has ensured that I am not one to be complacent. At this crossroad in life, I have considered many options (which I will not go into details here) as to what I will do with the remaining years of my life, and ultimately, I have decided to return to my first love, which is teaching.

And so, I will be teaching Chemistry and Biology at the KS3 and KS4 levels (UK curriculum) in an international school here. I will be a full-time staff member working from 8 am to 2:30 pm. The job requirements are quite similar to my last job in Singapore. But hopefully, the work-life balance here, under a team of Brits, will be different from the crazy workaholic work culture in Singapore schools.

On the practical side of things, my going back to work means a re-look at the the children's logistical needs. We considered school buses, shifting activities to weekends, daycare for the two younger boys. We went house-hunting to see if we can shift closer to the children's schools, failing which we considered changing schools for the children. We seriously considered all these possibilities (that's why I said I was unravelling our lives here) but in the end, decided the best option was really to engage a driver to ferry the children around. It is not the most cost-effective option, but it is probably the best option. Thus, as far as the two younger boys are concerned, everything remains status quo, except for the driver of the vehicle.

Son No 1, however, will be changing schools. We have already been contemplating changing schools for him for more than a year now due to the shortcomings of his current school and this presents a good opportunity for him. We will be going to the same international school and though he understandably has his apprehensions about his mom being in the same school, he is mature about it. After all, the fees are very much reduced due to the staff benefit accrued to his mom!

As the next phase of my life is about to begin, I can't help but reflect that life is short. It is up to each of us to make full use of it, based on our best judgment and individual circumstances. Each of us is presented with a unique set of cards and each of us has to find the best path for oneself. As I embark on this path at this point in time, I can only ask for God's blessings. I hope you will do the same for me.

I Am A Teen!

Today I am 13 years old. Wow.

It has been an incredible 13 years. And today I am officially a Teen. Hmm... this day has great significance but since my mom has been super-busy, I just have to take things in my own hands and register this special day on this blog :)

I was born in the Year of the Rat. According to the Chinese Lunar calendar, individuals born under the sign of rat are shrewd and intelligent, possessing a strong zest for life. So far, in the first 13 years of my life, many would attest that I have lived up to my reputation *blush*.

My mother’s earliest memory of me - the real me, not the image of me in her womb – said much for my zest for life. My mother told me that, in the nursery of the hospital where I was born, I cried the loudest. My screams constantly disturbed the other infants who had the dubious pleasure of sharing the nursery with me.

Resting in a ward several doors away down the corridor, my mother could recognize my screams (or so she claims) but would surreptitiously feign ignorance. [“Wow, whose kid is that? What strong lungs, *laugh*!] Nevertheless, the wise nurses had a way of dealing with such situations – they just rolled my crib down the corridor so that I landed up next to my mother who had no choice but to acknowledge me.

My novice mother moved up the learning curve quickly, putting all the theories that she had read from her parenting books into practice immediately. Indeed, here is one mom who would refer to her book before attending to her child. When Method 1 did not work, flip a few pages, apply Method 2. If Method 2 did not work, try Method 3 on page 64. If it still did not work, repeat Method 1... or pass the buck to dad. (Just kidding)

But as all experienced mothers would tell you, nothing beats learning on the job.

I continued to test my mom's patience during the first two months of my life. But as we got to know each other better, we began to tango together smoothly, each day better than the previous day. She understood with her maternal instinct the things that upset me and I knew where she would draw the line and not push my luck too far. We were bonding.

I would not be able to condense 13 years of my life here. But I know my mother loves me more than life itself. I am sure she will write more about my special day another time.

So, nite, nite for now!

May Blues

It could have been pre-destined that May is not a good month for Son No 2.

Son No 2 spent the first two weeks of May taking his mid-year exams - which cover a total of 11 papers. Yes, you did not read wrongly - it is 11 papers for an 8-year-old boy, would you believe it? Let me list the papers again (I have frequently grumbled about this in my previous posts): Malay Writing, Malay Comprehension, Chinese Writing, Chinese Comprehension, English, Chinese Science, English Science, Chinese Math, English Math, Moral Education and Computer. By the time the exams were over, anyone would be braindead, I assure you.

As far as written sit-down exams go, I am convinced that for this age-group, they are biased towards girls. Girls have the better mental attitude and developmental maturity at that age to handle exams. Not the boys. Generally speaking, boys are playful, less meticulous and make careless mistakes frequently. And their attention span is really short. If you were to analyse most exam papers, the careless mistakes start appearing towards the end of the paper.

It is thus not surprising that all the the top 3 scorers in Son No 2's class are girls. It is also not surprising that the top student in the Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE) in Singapore every year is a girl :(( Ya, ya, this is one sourgrape mother you are hearing from!

Anyway, Son No 2 DID beat the girls and came up top for one of his papers. *Hurrah* It's his pet subject, English Science. He couldn't wait to announce his achievement to me when I picked him up from school that day. Heck, not many adults is better than this third-grader (US equivalent) when it comes to English Science! Especially on this topic that he was being tested this term - Animals and Plants. The reward for his achievement? A photo of the magnificent jaguar on my desktop for a week.

May Blues nevertheless continued to follow Son No 2. He was not selected for participation in this year's Annual Sports Day (he won a gold medal last year) and was disappointed.

And he caught the flu bug a few days ago. Normally, I would self-medicate when the children had fever, cough and runny nose. But this time round, with the H1N1 threat in the air, I did not want to take any chances and took him to see the paediatrician. True enough, the good paediatrician said it was a common bug and prescribed exactly the same medicine that I would have given him. As it turned out, I really paid RM50 just for the peace of mind.

So Son No 2 is resting at home now. He can't wait for June as he will be going to Singapore for a holiday. He and his younger brother have been talking incessantly about the trip and are really excited. Let's hope that's the end to the May Blues.

Fruit Diet Day

There is this email that has been in circulation in the cyberworld for a while - about the goodness of eating fruits. It advocates eating fruits before a meal (not after a meal as what is commonly practised) and having an all-fruit diet for 3 days for detoxification purposes.

Now I have always been sceptical about such emails. There are too many wild claims that are unsubstantiated. Son No 1, a true netizen, regularly asks me complex questions - derived from the internet - such as whether it is true that the length of one's thumb is always the same as the length of one's nose. *Roll eyes*

But this particular email caught my hubby's and my attention. Especially the detoxification part. Man, besides the various health benefits a fruit diet purportedly brings, it promises that I would be GLOWING after a 3-day fruit diet... Hmm, not bad a proposition at all, especially since I should try to lose some weight before the grand wedding bash that is coming up in one week's time.

So I floated the idea and received enthusiastic buy-in from everyone. We decided to try it out for one day first. It's not difficult to guess why we chose yesterday, a Sunday. We figured we would all be weak from the lack of carbohydrates and proteins and so what better day than Sunday, our rest day?

But first, we needed to stock up on fruits, and so we had a fruit shopping spree at Mercato (left) the night before.




Bananas (two combs), apples, pears, oranges, watermelon, lychee, mangoes, grapes... Be warned, it is not cheap to go on a fruit diet :)

Sunday morning came, we had watermelon juice, mangoes and bananas. Some of us miss our morning cuppas... and throughout the morning, we snacked on fruits.

We were a bit worried whether it was suitable for young children to go on a fruit diet and surfed the net to find out more. In any case, in the afternoon, we relented and told the two younger boys to go and drink some milk - which they gulped down hungrily. Son No 3 decided to push his luck further and asked for his otah bun - and he got it.

I was rather impressed, though, by Son No 1's determination to keep to the plan. He had a project group meeting at his friend's house that day and his friends had McDonald's take-way for lunch. But Son No 1, tempted thought he must be, did not sway. He just ate the pear that he had brought along with him - and later he told us that he only tasted the tomato sauce from McDonald's. Good on him.

Late afternoon, hubby and I drove out to buy the King Of Fruits - DURIANS! Ha, that was our secret weapon *grin*



I don't know if the writers of those fruit emails considered durians as a fruit - but it certainly is - and so we were not breaking any rules. We bought three fruits of the "udang merah" or "hong ha" variety - widely regarded as one of the superior species of durians.

After the scrumptious durian meal, we all felt full and contented. Ah, no sweat, this fruit diet!

For dinner, Son No 3 eagerly squeezed some oranges to make juice for us. We had more fruits - grapes, lychees, bananas...

That night, the children and I went to bed earlier than usual.

So did I glow at the end of the diet? Erm... not really. Maybe the next time, we will do it for 3 days. Just maybe.... It is not really a breeze, this fruit diet. The craving for some savoury food is there all the time - for me at least. Son No 2's verdict? "I don't like Fruit Diet Day", he said before he slept. Hmm... I guess it will be difficult to garner support the next time round!

Manglish, Singlish, No Diff-la

Not too long ago, Son No 3 was whining about how much work he had and he said, "Aiyoh, want to pengsan already!".

Pengsan? I was quite amused to hear such a local expression coming out of the babe's mouth. I haven't heard this word for a long, long time.

Hmm... Son No 3 is getting quite localised. Actually, he did not understand what pengsan meant. He just knew that was what his teacher would say when she had too much work. [Incidentally, pengsan is the Malay word for "faint".]

Yesterday, Son No 3 surprised me again when he asked me what is the meaning of "alamak". Apparently, his English teacher had used the exclamation in school. I told him it meant "Oh dear..." and that it is a Malay word.

Yes, amused I was, but at the back of my mind, I was also alarmed. I suppose there is nothing wrong with interjecting a local word or idiom into an English sentence. This is the mildest form of Manglish. But at school, children do pick up all forms of Manglish when they interact with other children.

We do not speak perfect English at home but we try to speak mostly Standard English. I admit we occasionally lapse into creole (which is what the linguists call this form of speech such as Manglish or Singlish) but I don't think it is often.

Son No 2 is not much better. When Son No 2 tells a story or relates an experience, he likes to begin, "One time ah, I did this and that...." And I will always correct his sentence and tell him to begin with "There was once I did this and that...".

On one occasion, he wanted to jump down the stairs and I warned him, "Don't jump!" His response was classic. "Where got I jump?!!"

Yes, he is beginning to speak the more serious form of Manglish. This is not unexpected because he goes to a Chinese primary school and the teachers there are probably the main culprits. This is the trade-off for going to a Chinese primary school. Luckily, Son No 2 likes to watch TV and that includes good edutainment channels like Animal Planet, Discovery, TVIQ and recently - and I was truly surprised by this - even the History channel. So his formal speech is quite OK.

I would like to think that the two boys can code-switch to Standard English when the occasion demands it. Most of the time, they can speak fairly well, though there is obviously room for improvement. I just hope there is no further deterioration.

Son No 1, though, almost always speaks Standard English. He has been attending premier schools since young, whether in Singapore or here in Malaysia, and his classmates mainly come from upper class English-speaking homes.

When he first started school here, he asked me what the word "action" meant. Of course, he knew the proper meaning of the word, but he has heard some of the locals here using it as a verb, as in "No need to action-la." I explained to him that action is akin to showing-off.

For me, I am used to hearing both Singlish and Manglish, and so I do not really spot any glaring difference between the two. The chief difference is that Singlish has more Hokkien/Teochew influence, while Manglish has more Malay influence.

Otherwise, both creoles are quite similar. Both creoles use the suffix "-lah" liberally, albeit in different forms as in "-leh" or "-lo". There is also a fondness to tag sentences with "-one", as in "It's not like that-one..." and to use "got" before any verb, to indicate the past tense, as in "I got eat already..."

I guess the commonality of Singlish and Manglish is the obvious manifestation of the "bond" that tie the people from Singapore and Malaysia as having the same roots. I wish more people will remember that.

Mother's Day

Popo was in town on Mother's Day and we had a 3-generational celebration at a dim sum restaurant here.

Son No 1 sent me a message on Facebook - and this is totally in keeping with his character. On-line chatting is his favourite mode of communication right now. I am glad I am his Friend on Facebook. The two younger boys made cards in school in conjunction with the occasion.

My sis sent me an sms message and showed her perceptive nature once again. She said boys are generally not very "showy" but she is sure my boys appreciated me just the same. Thanks, sis!