Jethro's Game On!

The other day he saw a girl his age inline skating, and he told me he wanted to learn.

Another day I saw a person playing violin on TV, and asked him casually, "Want to learn?"
"Yes!" was the reply.
"What about your piano?"
"And piano also. And guitar. And ukelele." came the gleeful and greedy rejoinder.

Jianming just told me - Jethro saw an art class on his way home from the swimming pool, and he wanted to learn.

He's been ever so enthusiastic after his success with the bicycle. I wonder when it'll wear off - okay, okay, stop the internal dousing already. That mental wet blanket - keep it to yourself...

Toasting Marshmallows

I had half a packet of marshmallows left over from Christmas baking activities. I had been giving these to the kids as treats on and off until there were only 4 left before the thought hit me, "Why, I do have a fire at home!"

So one afternoon, I got out 3 skewers and poked a marshmallow through each. I got the kids over, turned on the stove, and started roasting one. The marshmallow was surprisingly easy to get burnt, as I found out after the first one, so that was devoured by me. I learned to hold the two other marshmallows higher up and toast them to a light speckled brown before handing them to Jethro and Heidi. Ethan had a go on his own.

The look on their face ('crispy on the outside and soft inside' was Professor Jethro's pronouncements to his siblings) - flushed with the happiness of the sweet, sweet taste of marshmallows - that was priceless. And it really didn't take much time and effort, nor did it create much mess.

The kind of 'new knowledge' you could actually pass on to your children, triumphantly on your side and wonderfully taken on the other - that is so invaluable and scarce.

Of course I won't do it again. Toasting marshmallows over the stove? That's so sad it should only occur once. Then again, the novelty may be gone but the pleasure won't, so I suppose it's not that sad really...?

Dearth of Mirth

2013... I only wrote two posts. REALLY? Only two? At one point, I was even considering seriously closing this blog down. There was no inspiration, no impulse, no joy.
Ironically, the less I wrote, the less of myself I feel. Like I am really losing some part of me, not into the life of mothering and 'housechoring', but off, scraped away from this life, by constant 'un-usage' (hence the irony) of my (still present?) faculties. Even words have to be invented! Why can't I find legitimate substitutes?
And that is my summing up of last year.
This year, if only I can find the urge and ingenuity to write again. Most importantly, the lost part of me. Trust me, it is an uphill task, because I believe I am currently going downhill and I need to brake and turn around.
And on the mothering front, I will have to try very hard to "Praise your children openly, reprehend them secretly." For only in doing so am I really putting them before myself. Then, what was that saying again? "Children should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones." Wow, gargantuan task to undertake. Try another one: "What you teach your own children is what you really believe in." Now this sort of contradicts the previous one at times and implies a certain generational fatalism, no?

Library Saga Part II

I see I must be the one in the wrong then, when something nasty in a similar nature happened at another library.
Will I write about it? Write about the things that touched you, write about the things that made you feel small when they had no right to do so, write about the crushing of an illusion (for it must all be thus - just an illusion), the smashing of good will. How could a person be so ready to smite you down, trample you like you had done a great misdeed, like you were bound for some reform centre? Torn in shreds, the dignity, made to taste dust and cold, cold human nature. Like an errant kid being reprimanded by a righteous parent, there would be no reprieve. My karma?

Nightmare at/of the Library

I just had a very unpleasant experience at the library.

Let me qualify myself: I love the library. I enjoy spending my hardly-free time there browsing the books, pouncing on ones which I have been looking for sometime, and this includes children's books for my kids. I even enjoy bringing the kids (the two younger ones, Ethan doesn't seem as delighted with the library as his siblings now that he's at this age) there, to some extent. In fact, I go to the library so often that I feel like a frequent visitor who has exhausted all the goodwill of her host.

The library I go to often is of course the one near where I live, situated in a shopping centre and quite small comparatively. And it is also the place where I get the most 'shhs' from the librarians. Maybe because of its layout, it is almost unwelcoming to little children. Jethro runs about there, and chats up anyone who's in the (un)fortunate position of being close by him. But at least he is sometimes lured by the computers and spends considerable time there (hence quiet and not running). I sometimes have to pull him away so other kids can be given a chance to do more decent things with the terminals. Heidi not only runs wild but shouts and whoops. And she doesn't listen to "Don't run about!" and "Don't be so loud!" from nice-enough librarians and me (when I can tear myself away from the book-searching to restrain them).

Tonight, the three of us went there again, while Ethan and Jianming were at the swimming pool and Jethro and Heidi have colds and couldn't join them. It was mayhem right from the start. The library was really quiet at that time of the day - until we descended upon it. The few kids there were confined to the children's section and seemed to behave most angelically compared to mine. Heidi and Jethro ran into the libray, while I browsed the books at the entrance. The librarian repeatedly told Heidi to be quiet and not run about, to no avail. I tried to, but I couldn't keep tab of her all the time if I were to get some books borrowed and leave quickly. It was not too bad in the children's section. But we had to get out into the forbidding adults' section to the borrowing stations eventually. What choice did I have but to drag them along? And as I was involved in borrowing books, I couldn't make them sit down and shut up for even a second. Finally, from the PA system, the usual message about asking the kids to be quiet and not run about and the parents to take charge of their kids boomed out loud and clear. It was so OBVIOUS. We were the only badly behaved persons there. And it did not end there. Just as I was finishing, a stern man with a name tag came up to Jethro and Heidi and said something to them. He turned to look at me, and if looks could kill, his would. Well, I hope mine did too. I am sure we hated each other's guts then. I couldn't help but blurted out 'Stupid man! Wait till he has kids of his own!' in the lift, for he looks young (and arrogant with youth). That was what got me at that time, that stern and hateful man, whose appearance seemed so pointless as I was already borrowing books then and in fact, was ready to leave just as he finished his little lecture. However, upon reaching home, I thought about the PA announcement and the humiliation of it finally hit home. How could you do such a thing?! Just to get me embarrassed! It's not as if I did not try! If banning us (or at least the kids) was the aim, they have certainly succeeded. I am a failure as a mother. I could not keep my kids quiet and reading and walking silently. I cannot bring them there any more. Shame on me.

How to enjoy a library book from now on? Till now when I read a book, I will remember with indignation and feel that the library is no longer the great institution that I respected. It has become so unforgiving, and so unaccommodating of children, who are its future hope; whom it is supposed to cultivate, as young as possible, to be readers and regular patrons of books. I hope this experience is not a general one, and in keeping them away from this particular library (till they are older), we may yet continue to feel the welcome of other libraries. Yes, kids must learn the proper behaviour in library, but kids are still kids, and I refuse to believe they should be discouraged from libraries just because they act like kids who have found a wonderland when they enter the library.

'Tis A Case of Jumping To Conclusions

Walking through the community centre (by the pond, with the swimming pool at ground floor) on our way to my in laws' place for dinner, Jethro asked me if he could throw the stuff in his hand into the water or not.

I was righteously shocked: "No, of course not! Throw it into the rubbish bin!"

He obediently went to throw the little something that he had held in his hand in a knotted fist into the bin.

Just at the moment, something clicked in place in my head. Jethro likes to pick up stones, sticks, dead leaves along the way. He seemed to lingering among the pebbled grass patches just now... Could it be...?

"Jethro, what's that you had in your hands?"

"Rocks," came the reply.

"Oh, and which water did you want to throw them into?"

"There," he pointed to the dirty pond.

I could only end this by laughing at myself.

谁说的故事

那天听到爸爸跟靖恒靖恺说了“狐假虎威”的成语故事 （那两个瓜几乎心不在焉地也没认真听）。骤然，我想起了在苏格兰很出名的一本儿童读物：《The Gruffalo》。作者写的这个故事全然没有创新，分明就是在中国传了几百年（还是几千年？）的“狐假虎威”嘛！可是，她却能把它写成一本畅销的儿童故事书，甚至搬上了舞台。而我们的中华文化，那些精彩的寓言，典故，往往只用几个段落就讲玩了，像Aesop's Fables般，一点儿也吸引不住幼儿的耳朵。难道，我们就只能靠《西游记》了吗？