Ahoy There, Matey!

Last Friday (March 6, 2009) at LWPS, Julian had his annual Pirate Theme Party and mommy was busy as usual looking for ways to dress him up. This year, being smarter and more experienced, I recycled his pirate costume from the year before and added in some other bits and pieces …

Pirate Costume 2008

 Snipping & Cutting!

Finally, at 7 a.m. that morning, I managed to get the costume ready, only to find a reluctant pirate …

“I am NOT a pirate! I am JULIAN TAN!”

After much persuasion and coaxing, to my immense relief, Julian finally got into “pirate-mood”!

 “Do I look good??!”

And before long, he was ready to hit the road! Er, I mean, ride the high seas …

“Ahoy there, Matey!”

Surprise!

Last night, Julian received an unexpected gift. When we reached home, lying at our doorstep was a large children's book tied up beautifully with shimmery, gold ribbons. On it, a note was scribbled, "Hello Julian, this is a surprise present for you! Love, Aunty Vivian”

 
Aunty Vivian is a downstairs neighbour cum owner of Absolute Wine, a wine bar, tucked away in Binjai Park. When Jules saw it, he was absolutely delighted and reciprocated by delivering a pack of his favourite Ferrero Rocher chocs unhesitatingly to her shop. On top of that, he decided to put his newfound drawing talent to good use and made her a “CAR card”, complete with his signature at the bottom (see green squiggle)! And early this morning, he stuck it proudly on her red letterbox before trotting off to school with Daddy!

 
Personally, I was touched by this simple gesture of kindness. Life is a web of relationships and we usually find them in the most unlikely places and in the most unexpected faces. For us, it started through a series of hellos and goodbyes, but the real surprise was that unknowingly, through time, a friendship between us was forged.

Dick Lee Wannabe

Family and friends know that of late, I have been crazy over Dick Lee’s songs and compositions. If you do not know by now, he is a renowned Singaporean singer, composer and playwright, having written numerous musicals such as Beauty World, Hotpants, Fried Rice Paradise, et cetera, et cetera ... As a result, TY and Julian had to endure countless replays of Dick’s 30th Anniversary Concert on DVD! But to be totally honest, I think they'd rather enjoyed it actually. In fact, I believe I made a convert out of my son and he has since been an avid Dick Lee fan and an “aspiring” performer! Who knows? He could be a future star in the making!

Beach Outing with LWPS Gang

On Sunday (March 1, 2009), we had a beach outing with some of Julian's schoolmates from LWPS and by word of mouth, news of this spread and we ended with 8 families and 13 kids in all! Mommys, daddys, mei-meis and di-dis all showed up, and even Baby Asher came along! We had a blast of a time!

  Sandcastle-Building Fun!


Julian: “We are planting a Talking Tree!”
 Baby Asher’s First Beach Outing!

It was so much fun, one mommy suggested, "Let’s do a BBQ next week!” And some of the daddys were even contemplating a drive-up trip to Ipoh within the next 2 months. It was a morning of wholesome fun and goodness for the entire family … what a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day we had!

Do You Sometimes Not Like Me?

On the way to visit my mother-in-law this evening, my son asked me, “Do you like me?” This was a standard question he enjoys posing to me and I replied in my usual fashion, “Of course, I do. I like you and I love you!” His next question, however, somewhat jolted me.

With great seriousness, he looked me in the eye and asked, “Do you sometimes not like me?” I was flabbergasted to hear this question from an under 4-year-old! Very quickly, I assured him, smothering him with kisses at the same time, “Mummy likes you and Mummy loves you all the time!” Guessing this could be because I had disciplined him the day before, I added, “Mummy loves you a lot but I do not like you to misbehave …”

I was reminded of the parenting principle to never tell your child “I don’t like you” even when they have misbehaved badly, but rather, “I do not like what you are DOING.” While young children may seemingly forget what had happened easily, nevertheless, they are more aware of their surroundings than we give them credit for. Therefore, we should never take them for granted. They are God’s gift to us and our gift to them should be unconditional love and careful nurture so that they can grow up to be happy, secure and confident individuals because self-esteem is the foundation of life.