I found myself staring at a Barbie doll yesterday at Metro, City Square Mall. He is a Twilight, Robbie Pattison version and looks far better than the good old Ken. Certainly, they both came too late for me!!!
I remembered having a certain Barbie doll with her signature long neck which gracefully supported her 360 deg head of blonde hair and those covetous long limbs, endless legs!!! I played with it for a while then before long, her clothes and shoes were misplaced and she was lying naked everywhere in the small HDB flat.
One day, I decided to give her a hair cut!!! Instead of being intrigued my mother became rather enraged and slapped me instead with a earful of "waste money" nagging. I became angry and resented the way she would often hit me, slapped me or scold me "good for nothing, useless, etc" In my anger and resentment, I twisted off Barbie's head and dumped her for good.
Being the eldest, I was the most "abused" kid. It's traditional for Teochews to discipline their children from top down even when it was not their mistake per se. I was scolded for not "teaching" my younger siblings the right things. My mother was a strict disciplinarian and I was caned often and slapped often that after a while the pain threshold increased in tandem with the resentment and rebellion brewed deep within. Yes, i often questioned if she loved me at all??? since my younger siblings were often spared the rod. Although she seemed fair in her way of getting things for all her 4 children, eg buying exactly the same toy duck train for us, my brother Ron was clearly her favourite, followed by the other twin Leslie, my sister then me.
I did not have a good mental image of my mother since I was a kid. It seemed that she had me to be a HELPER and I existed to help care for the household and the siblings who are just a year or two younger than me. Growing up I FEARED my mother much and as a rather sensitive kid, I felt bouts of pain and sadness each time I was scolded or beatened up.
It did strengthened my character but it also made me very defiant of authority- church leadership included and if I had not known the love of Christ and the loving church community at Geylang I would likely stray and become a street kid, though having said that, I am also largely responsible and having high standards and expectations for myself, I would not waste my life away, smoking, hanging out at arcades or being with boys etc. My natural instinct was to prove my mother wrong that indeed I was the "best" kid and therefore "worthy" of her attention and love.
As years past, I learnt about the fact that my mother was an orphan given away at birth. I began to empathise with her instead. Actually I forgive easily because I prefer not to hang on to negative feelings. One outlet was music. Trying to make music or just singing Karaoke can make me feel happy and blest. At least my birth parents wanted me though sometimes my mother would screamed at me and said I was a mistake. That she suffered the most physical pain 20 hours labour having me (20 happened to be my favourite number since I was born 20th Jan). She very much wanted a boy but was disappointed. God in his grace blessed her with a pair of twin boys- premature but healthy who become her pride and joy and later another accidental blessing my sister who is prettier than me, she often remarked. Thankfully I am blest with a beautiful baby via a 20 min emergency c-section birth.
Except for wishing I had Barbie good looks and figure and wishing my family was richer so I could learn music as a youth, i do not suffer from low esteem since what I lacked in height, the essential double eyelids, God made it up for me in terms of IQ and EQ. I am not stupid being amongst the top girl in school and having won a Gold medal for academic excellence though there were times when I wilfully did not want to study so as to test if my parents will love and accept me as much if I was just average Joe in grades. Their love came in the form of more tuition and assessment books!!!! And EQ is more due to my melancholic character that i could put myself in another's shoes and empathise with others or their situations.
So...psychologically, deep within me, since I was an older child, I wanted to be a mother to my own children. I know I will definitely marry and have kids one day. I even said it aloud in my Accountancy class at university when the professors asked what we like to do when we graduate. I made the whole class laughed when I said "I want to marry and be mother, a home-maker!!!" Usual answers expected were "accountant", "businessmen", "banker", "auditor", "lecturer" and someone said "finance minister".
Fast forward to present day, I am very physically involved in Rachel's life since birth. She learns from a young age that I am her main care giver and I loved her in words, in actions with toys and plenty of time together- learning. Likewise, she reciprocates her love with touch, with words and now actions and wanting to spend time with me and daddy playing and exploring and learning. Another plus factor, learning music together!!!
Discipline is not a negative word. Although I was physically disciplined much as a kid, I was very much treated with love and respect in my "other church family". I saw first hand how the "modern mothers" raised their kids with more patience, loving kindness, forgiveness and love though some did not spare the rod when the kid misbehaved. I forgave and understood my mother better and tried to love her in ways she understood or preferred : an allowance, some shopping, being at home to help out with the chores and cooking. And eventually marry off so I do not become a burden to my parents.
Personally, I am very patient compared to my stressed out mother, who had 4 kids within 4 years and had to helped my dad from preparing the ingredients to washing up the food stall past midnight sans helper. The only time I would smack Rachel on her bum was when she wailed non stop at the top of her high pitched voice that set my left year ringing and it felt like "wind distortions". After being hit she would cry at a lower volume for fear of being hit again and it worked and I prevented ear damage!!!!
Now that she is 5, we reasoned with her, made decisions together and had become rather independent toileting included. I like it that she would get her own snack from the fridge and asked me to teach her according to the time table schedule. I believe Rachel unlike me has a very loving image of her mother who cares much about her and loves her very much.
Enough said, I am so looking forward to 18 March Thursday when Rachel will attend a summer party that teaches her about child modelling and I can't wait for the Runway show at the end of it. It will be her first!!!
And cheers to a day off- shopping and all!!!!
Monday, 15 March 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
A typical day
I woke Rachel up at 10 am this morning. Since she started to drink about 120ml of the 225ml of chocolate Pedisure each night, she started sleeping even longer about 10 hours or more. Well she agreed to drink milk powder so as to upgrade her violin. En ce moment, she is using her 2 year old size 1/16 chinese violin meant for 3-4 year olds.
After simple breakfast of HL chocolate milk and biscuits, with her favourite OKTO channel she was ready for learning. Today she wanted to stay home the entire day since yesterday she spend much time outdoors, especially walking along the beach and at Polliwogs where she attended my ex-uni classmate cum colleague Nikki's kids, Ian 5 and Jan 3's birthday party.
Rachel told me she enjoyed the party. Her favourite time was the pinata whacking and the Polliwogs huge inflatable playground. But as a mummy, I felt the place was overcrowded with parents, and about 100 plus kids including those from 2 private parties and it was so NOISY and NERVE-WRECKING. At $18 per entry its a tat expensive given the noise and overcrowding. I will not visit again unless I have another party to attend. $18 can be put to better use like getting a good meal or treating a good friend to coffee or adding another Barbie dvd to Rachel's collection.
At 11am, we did art. We made a poster Ma Ferme with many animal drawings cut-outs and wrote both the french and chinese words for each farm animal. Included was a lift the flap monkey face that revealed a friendly boy saying "Welcome to my farm" in the speech balloon. It's simple fun and Rachel had learnt to look up the words in both chinese and french and spell simple french words like : canard (duck), mouton (sheep), poule (hen) while she recognises grenouille, tortue, oiseau, cheval, couchon, etc
Next we watercoloured 6 Tigger and Pooh pictures, "laminate" it with cellophane tape and cut them out as puzzles. We decorated an empty plastic art case with Pooh and Friends cut outs to contain the newly made puzzles.
After a simple seafood noodle lunch, we went on to our favourite computer/music room where she joule le piano for a short while and decided to listen to itunes and read along a French book. It's from Bermitz kids "Adventures with Nicholas- A vist to Grandma" (Les aventures aves Nicholas- Une visite chez grand-mere)
We have 3 such French cd books and she particulary enjoyed the song section and the French/English dictionery section the most!!!!
I am ending this blog to now supervise her on the violin and the piano. Usually, we will practise the piano first, revising her Poco Piano 1 or The Leila Fletcher Piano Course 1 while I focus on her rhythm and theory at the same time. Daddy the pianist will oversea the technique, though we have yet to start her on any Mozart sonata. (perhaps twinkle twinkle little star is counted as one variation). It's scary that some kids as young as 5 are already playing
There is a huge difference between a child prodigy and a child talent. A child prodigy would be someone like Evgeny Kissing where he learnt to play the piano at 1 and by the time they are 5 they played with orchestrals all over the world. The same goes for Sarah Chang who auditioned and was accepted by the Julliard School at 5 playing the Bruch Concerto!!!! A young talent will be one who had the support of parents to start their musical education early. Hopely with passion and practice, many young talents go on to become great musicians eg Koji Toyoda and Toshiya Eto (also Akiko Suwanai's teacher) Read Nurtured by Love by Shinichi Suzuki.
To us, the most important is that rachel loves music and enjoys making music be it piano or violin. If her passion is in it, I have no doubts she will excel. However, music education is liken to learning a language. How early do one start to learn, read and write English, chinese or french???? Since music is a language, it need to be cultivated since young, at home, the environment, the parents, etc all play a major part. Music is a gift from God and the great giver will see to it that the recipient is greatly blest. Amen
After simple breakfast of HL chocolate milk and biscuits, with her favourite OKTO channel she was ready for learning. Today she wanted to stay home the entire day since yesterday she spend much time outdoors, especially walking along the beach and at Polliwogs where she attended my ex-uni classmate cum colleague Nikki's kids, Ian 5 and Jan 3's birthday party.
Rachel told me she enjoyed the party. Her favourite time was the pinata whacking and the Polliwogs huge inflatable playground. But as a mummy, I felt the place was overcrowded with parents, and about 100 plus kids including those from 2 private parties and it was so NOISY and NERVE-WRECKING. At $18 per entry its a tat expensive given the noise and overcrowding. I will not visit again unless I have another party to attend. $18 can be put to better use like getting a good meal or treating a good friend to coffee or adding another Barbie dvd to Rachel's collection.
At 11am, we did art. We made a poster Ma Ferme with many animal drawings cut-outs and wrote both the french and chinese words for each farm animal. Included was a lift the flap monkey face that revealed a friendly boy saying "Welcome to my farm" in the speech balloon. It's simple fun and Rachel had learnt to look up the words in both chinese and french and spell simple french words like : canard (duck), mouton (sheep), poule (hen) while she recognises grenouille, tortue, oiseau, cheval, couchon, etc
Next we watercoloured 6 Tigger and Pooh pictures, "laminate" it with cellophane tape and cut them out as puzzles. We decorated an empty plastic art case with Pooh and Friends cut outs to contain the newly made puzzles.
After a simple seafood noodle lunch, we went on to our favourite computer/music room where she joule le piano for a short while and decided to listen to itunes and read along a French book. It's from Bermitz kids "Adventures with Nicholas- A vist to Grandma" (Les aventures aves Nicholas- Une visite chez grand-mere)
We have 3 such French cd books and she particulary enjoyed the song section and the French/English dictionery section the most!!!!
I am ending this blog to now supervise her on the violin and the piano. Usually, we will practise the piano first, revising her Poco Piano 1 or The Leila Fletcher Piano Course 1 while I focus on her rhythm and theory at the same time. Daddy the pianist will oversea the technique, though we have yet to start her on any Mozart sonata. (perhaps twinkle twinkle little star is counted as one variation). It's scary that some kids as young as 5 are already playing
There is a huge difference between a child prodigy and a child talent. A child prodigy would be someone like Evgeny Kissing where he learnt to play the piano at 1 and by the time they are 5 they played with orchestrals all over the world. The same goes for Sarah Chang who auditioned and was accepted by the Julliard School at 5 playing the Bruch Concerto!!!! A young talent will be one who had the support of parents to start their musical education early. Hopely with passion and practice, many young talents go on to become great musicians eg Koji Toyoda and Toshiya Eto (also Akiko Suwanai's teacher) Read Nurtured by Love by Shinichi Suzuki.
To us, the most important is that rachel loves music and enjoys making music be it piano or violin. If her passion is in it, I have no doubts she will excel. However, music education is liken to learning a language. How early do one start to learn, read and write English, chinese or french???? Since music is a language, it need to be cultivated since young, at home, the environment, the parents, etc all play a major part. Music is a gift from God and the great giver will see to it that the recipient is greatly blest. Amen
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Post CNY
I'm quite relieved the chinese (lunar) new year season had finally ended. It had, afterall, been quite a dramatic period.
Our family went northwards to Kluang, Yan's birth place and resided with his mum and sister for 3 days. It was an eventful short stay. First of all, there was the immense traffic jam lasting more than an hour where we were stuck in the coach halfway between Singapore and Malaysia. (thankfully the return journey was a breeze saved for Rachel's non thumb print biometric passport which means we need to go through the manual immigration Q)
During the first night, around dinner time, Aerin, 3 fell off my mother in law's chair and suffered a nosebleed almost immediately afterwards. The poor kid had been coughing much for more than a month??? and since it was rather difficult to administer medication she was having close to "untreated" chesty cough and running nose with green mucus....super YUCK!!! Of course, i was unable to stop Rachel from playing with her younger cousin. The two of them hit off very well and can become rather uruly when at play.
Near midnight, on the same day which was also Valentine's Day, we decided to take Aerin to the A&E since she was crying much suddenly after she had gone to sleep just to be assured that her brain was not at all harmed by the nasty fall. Personally, I felt rather peaceful and believed that she was alright and that the nosebled (mixed with thick mucus) was properly unrelated to any bleeding in the brain.
My normally very loud and foul mouthed sis in law was grief stricken and all panicky.She managed to drive us through the wrong hospital (crowded public one) and through the mortuary section where my hair stood at its end before we finally reached the private hospital in the town. A CT scan was made on Aerin upon request and thankfully, the images showed no sign of trauma or bleeding. It was an affordable RM350!!! Which one can buy a pair of DKNY shoes or a Coach card holder!!!!
Thankfully, because of the emergency consultation Aerin was also given antibiotics to treat the infection in her respiratory tract and with Yan and my assistance, we were able to "force" administer 2/3 of the recommended dosage over our period of stay. It was tough adminstering medication to Aerin since she would struggle very violently and use her tongue to push out or vomit out all medication carefully syringed or hidden in food or drinks. She was definitely quite a challenge compared to Rachel!!! Rachel would super wail then cover her mouth when she sees the cough syrup or paracetamol in the 5ml syringe but still with the "pinch the nose method "much of the needed dosage gets into her stomach. She had since progressed to syringing, measuring her own meds and syringing herself.
To me, Kluang is not liveable!!!! The town went through water rationing during CNY where most households would up her utilites and water usage!!! It was also double whammy that I was having heavy period and not able to shower often. In fact, each household had to survive on the domestic water tank and I had merely wiped my body for 2 days using a small portion of water each time!!!! And the weather was so searing HOT!!! Definitely hotter than in Singapore where we have more trees and bushes and as an island we are surrounded by the sea.
Thankfully, there were good times as well. I enjoyed the Kluang Mall which made a huge difference to our stay. The almost "non" sound-proofed Karaoke rooms where one could hear and cheer or jeer the neighbouring units singing or croaking. Then, there was the God of Fortune Mascot that gave red packets only to Malays kids and adults and totally shunned both Rachel and Aerin!!!!
To combat boredom we brought along our violins and surprise!!! It was a breeze going through the check points with me carrying both rachel's 1/16 violin in the 1/4 case and my Maggini copy, 2 bows and a portable music stand and countless music scores, mainly Suzuki vol 1 -3. Its good to see Aerin all excited and busy around Rachel as she tried to practise her Lightly Row and Go Tell Aunt Rhody, besides her usual Twinkle,twinkle little star.
Rachel returned to Singapore with a nasty flu strain that emptied her ang pow collection which was not much since she is the only child. Each CNY we "lose" several hundred dollars...Hahaha. After Rachel finally recovered, I was down with possibly the same flu strain and took Lord's Supper regularly instead of going to our regular clinic in Raffles Hospital. Till now, I've recovered saved for blocked sinuses, headaches (due to the hot weather) and a slight cough. The higher registers of my singing voice have yet to return and for now, I am staying home to manage the household chores and practise music more till the weather improves. (becomes much cooler!!!)
Our family went northwards to Kluang, Yan's birth place and resided with his mum and sister for 3 days. It was an eventful short stay. First of all, there was the immense traffic jam lasting more than an hour where we were stuck in the coach halfway between Singapore and Malaysia. (thankfully the return journey was a breeze saved for Rachel's non thumb print biometric passport which means we need to go through the manual immigration Q)
During the first night, around dinner time, Aerin, 3 fell off my mother in law's chair and suffered a nosebleed almost immediately afterwards. The poor kid had been coughing much for more than a month??? and since it was rather difficult to administer medication she was having close to "untreated" chesty cough and running nose with green mucus....super YUCK!!! Of course, i was unable to stop Rachel from playing with her younger cousin. The two of them hit off very well and can become rather uruly when at play.
Near midnight, on the same day which was also Valentine's Day, we decided to take Aerin to the A&E since she was crying much suddenly after she had gone to sleep just to be assured that her brain was not at all harmed by the nasty fall. Personally, I felt rather peaceful and believed that she was alright and that the nosebled (mixed with thick mucus) was properly unrelated to any bleeding in the brain.
My normally very loud and foul mouthed sis in law was grief stricken and all panicky.She managed to drive us through the wrong hospital (crowded public one) and through the mortuary section where my hair stood at its end before we finally reached the private hospital in the town. A CT scan was made on Aerin upon request and thankfully, the images showed no sign of trauma or bleeding. It was an affordable RM350!!! Which one can buy a pair of DKNY shoes or a Coach card holder!!!!
Thankfully, because of the emergency consultation Aerin was also given antibiotics to treat the infection in her respiratory tract and with Yan and my assistance, we were able to "force" administer 2/3 of the recommended dosage over our period of stay. It was tough adminstering medication to Aerin since she would struggle very violently and use her tongue to push out or vomit out all medication carefully syringed or hidden in food or drinks. She was definitely quite a challenge compared to Rachel!!! Rachel would super wail then cover her mouth when she sees the cough syrup or paracetamol in the 5ml syringe but still with the "pinch the nose method "much of the needed dosage gets into her stomach. She had since progressed to syringing, measuring her own meds and syringing herself.
To me, Kluang is not liveable!!!! The town went through water rationing during CNY where most households would up her utilites and water usage!!! It was also double whammy that I was having heavy period and not able to shower often. In fact, each household had to survive on the domestic water tank and I had merely wiped my body for 2 days using a small portion of water each time!!!! And the weather was so searing HOT!!! Definitely hotter than in Singapore where we have more trees and bushes and as an island we are surrounded by the sea.
Thankfully, there were good times as well. I enjoyed the Kluang Mall which made a huge difference to our stay. The almost "non" sound-proofed Karaoke rooms where one could hear and cheer or jeer the neighbouring units singing or croaking. Then, there was the God of Fortune Mascot that gave red packets only to Malays kids and adults and totally shunned both Rachel and Aerin!!!!
To combat boredom we brought along our violins and surprise!!! It was a breeze going through the check points with me carrying both rachel's 1/16 violin in the 1/4 case and my Maggini copy, 2 bows and a portable music stand and countless music scores, mainly Suzuki vol 1 -3. Its good to see Aerin all excited and busy around Rachel as she tried to practise her Lightly Row and Go Tell Aunt Rhody, besides her usual Twinkle,twinkle little star.
Rachel returned to Singapore with a nasty flu strain that emptied her ang pow collection which was not much since she is the only child. Each CNY we "lose" several hundred dollars...Hahaha. After Rachel finally recovered, I was down with possibly the same flu strain and took Lord's Supper regularly instead of going to our regular clinic in Raffles Hospital. Till now, I've recovered saved for blocked sinuses, headaches (due to the hot weather) and a slight cough. The higher registers of my singing voice have yet to return and for now, I am staying home to manage the household chores and practise music more till the weather improves. (becomes much cooler!!!)
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