I Refuse To

This evening, Little Bee cried and told me she would be scolded by her teacher for not buying the Chinese Moral Studies activity book. Tomorrow would be Week 5 of the academic school year after all, and she is the only student in class not to have that book. Feeling guilty, I reassured her that I would go to school and check if the book is available in the bookstore. We scoured a couple of large Popular bookstores today, but it was sold out in these outlets, and she was not thrilled about it. But she could not chastise me for long because she only told me she needed that book last week. And I usually do not keep track of what books are missing after I bought all her textbooks in school. 

Within a split second, she cheered up considerably (this is the ever-optimistic Little Bee for you!). I was secretly thankful that I was on the receiving end of her nags...and not the other way round.

And this is how I try to govern school work with my 2 Bees since 7 years ago, when Big Bee first entered the highly stressful environment of the Singapore education system. 

When other parents asked me what homework was given today, I told them I do not know because I had not looked into their notebooks or homework files. 

I refuse to. Because this is the responsibility of my child, and not me. And if they found out they had forgotten to do their homework, they are the ones who will get reprimanded by the teacher. And I can save a session of nagging in exchange for more quality time together. 

When I heard about how parents had to intervene and correct their children's mistakes in their school work, I told them I have no idea what crazy answers my children gave ... because I had never looked through my child's completed homework. 

I refuse to. Because this is their homework, and they should do it themselves. So that their teachers can understand the full extent of the level of their standards as students. And I can just ask my children pleasantly, "So, have you finished your homework? Great! Now let's do some reading!" No flipping through their worksheets furtively, only to feel angst if there were some wrong answers. 

(Okay, sometimes I cheated and looked through their work just to find out where their level of understanding was. But I do not tell them if I spotted wrong answers!)

Of course, there are exceptions when they asked me for help with their homework. But since young, I had always been telling them that their school work is for them to handle alone, and they should not ask me for help. That should be the responsibility of their teachers. And I am thankful to my Bees' school and teachers who had always been insisting in the same message as me - "Parents, do NOT help with homework. We will do that!" So, the girls hardly asked me for help, unless it is some terribly challenging homework (which they seldom get from school anyway!). 

When I hear other parents complaining about English and Chinese spelling, I can totally understand their agony. Because it can be very frustrating to expect the kids to know every word on their spelling lists. Sometimes, I do not even know how to write certain Chinese words on their lists! 

So I refuse to be angry if the Bees - especially playful and forgetful Little Bee! - kept asking me to show them the words so they can refer to them. Or if they make repeated mistakes day after day. Or if they write or spell a word wrongly that they got correct the night before. I will just keep showing them the list until they get it correct. And they might come back with lower marks than usual. But hey, that is fine, I told them. Get better marks the next time. 

Our unforgiving education system is already so stressful, and sometimes I feel really angry with this system for ruining the beautiful childhood that my children could have enjoyed. But well, we live in this country, so we just have to abide by it! The best thing we could do is give our children some slack and not drill them so much. And give ourselves a piece of peace (pun intended!) by letting go and asking our children to handle their homework themselves. In addition to less nagging and lowered blood pressure, this also helps them to be more independent and hopefully, more persevering. Don't know a Math problem? Think harder! Don't remember a word for spelling? Take a look and try again! Don't know how to do your comprehension? Read again and write what you think is correct!

What resulted is this marvellous peace at home where school work is concerned. Unfortunately, I am still a stickler for punctuality and completing your work at the right time. So, sadly, I am still a drill sergeant asking them to "go do your work NOW" or "I am going to count to 3 so hurry up and come brush your teeth!" or "You need to sleep in 5 minutes' time!" 

I am still trying very hard to change this aspect of mine that is chasing the clock incessantly, abiding by it tirelessly and timing our activities right down to the second. Not a lot of success in letting go of this area, of flippantly dismissing the importance of time yet! 

Christmas Art

We did a bout of Christmas art on a lazy weekend over the year-end holidays. The Bees did some research on what icons they thought that most represented Christmas, and painted those out. We spent a couple of quiet hours drawing and painting these 2 festive icons, and it was really therapeutic.

Here were what the girls had done!

Big Bee's Christmas Tree

Little Bee's Santa's Torso!

Of Chalkboards And Clean Slates

To demonstrate the significance of life's impermanence, Tibetan monks will painstakingly create intricately designed sand mandalas. For months, they bent over the ground, arranging the sand grain by grain. Once their beautiful creations were perfected and completed, they cheerfully destroyed it in the ultimate celebration of impermanence.

Impermanence is the fundamental nature of the human condition. Yet, most of us are living our lives in a constant state of worry, denial and regret - and that is what's causing our supposed fears. Change is a constant reassurance that we consistently learn from the undulating affairs around us. Yet, we are often shocked by definitive constants like deaths, even though death is the most predictable outcome of life - more so than births, in this age of contraceptives and birth control tactics.

We emphasised the concept of impermanence with the Bees through simple chalk play one balmy evening. We hope that a better understanding of impermanence might help them to become more resilient, adaptable beings in future, able to face the myriad challenges that will appear in their lives soon.
We bought a box of colourful, cheerful chalks and painted a wall in our home black. We then spent the gloaming scribbling and sketching on the wall, drawing favourite pictures that bring us comfort and happiness. The Bees were mighty satisfied with the outcome of our family montage! Thereafter, we left the wall to the elements (this is an external wall, exposed to the elements).

Two days later, there was a huge downpour that wiped the entire wall clean of our sketches. After the rain, we observed the sad, faded imprints of our sketches and I felt a little sorry that our hard work was gone. However, I was surprised that the Bees exclaimed excitedly that they can start drawing all over again - on a clean slate!

And that is what life is about, isn't it? Building up things with people we love, appreciating them but not being overly-attached to them. And if something happened to shake up the foundation of these things, we cheerfully move on in life on a clean slate. Easier said than done, of course, but the Bees' approach to their chalkboard gave me something to learn and think about. I hope they can take this same attitude to the many vicissitudes in their lives next time!

Time Slows Down In Middle Earth (Part 2): Christmas Eve With Sheep

Christmas Eve was spent in a bucolic, tranquil way in New Zealand. We trekked around One Tree Hill, which incidentally was the third volcanic peak that we climbed in Auckland. We woke up to a brilliant day of sparkling sunshine and cobalt blue skies dotted with pure-white beguiling clouds, the types of which we can only find in New Zealand skies.

One Tree Hill, Auckland, New Zealand

As we ascended One Tree Hill, we saw hundreds of sheep and cattle scattered all over the slopes of the sprawling hill. They are wild and unfettered, with probably the city council overseeing them.

Can you spot the sheep?

It is wondrous to find spots of wilderness and pastoral living just minutes out of the city. An excellent juxtaposition of idyllic rustic living alongside frenetic urban lifestyles. It made it so much easier for frazzled city dwellers to escape into an arcadian, verdant paradise.

We trekked and ambled in the bush and rambling slopes of the hill, chatting with sheep that chewed on grass just an arm's width from us. Little Bee even sang incessantly to them, much to their annoyance.

The Bees creeping up to the top of one knoll to observe the sheep

These newly shorn sheep stared at us suspiciously and with much caution, but learned to ignore us once we kept quiet and did not disturb them. The line between humans and animals living in the wild is so thin. Most animals react to how humans treated them in the past, so we try to keep our profiles low whenever we want to observe these animals at close range.

It was so therapeutic and rejuvenating to be strolling in seemingly boundless and undulating meadows, with not a sight of other humans. 

With every step we took, we were able to appreciate nature's beauty rather than artificial man-made perks. Beauty in the resplendent red blooms of the pohutukawa trees (also known as New Zealand's Christmas trees because they only bloom around Christmas!).

Beauty in the placid and cautious behaviour of the sheep - we can literally spot idiosyncracies of each sheep once we observed them closely.

Beauty in the hundreds of sheep and cattle dotting the pastures, almost like polka-dotted snowflakes on an art piece.

Beauty in the rich emerald green slopes that shield potentially tempestuous volcanic activities just miles underneath the halcyonic surface.

We found a spot to settle down for a little tea break, on a bench high up the slopes, overlooking the entire city of Auckland with a massive border of rolling meadows. There, over apples and Tim-Tams, we laughed, we played, we sang, we giggled. Just the perfect way to spend a beautiful Christmas Eve afternoon.

The view from our picnic spot

On the evening of Christmas Eve, we sat down on our apartment's dining table and started decorating and writing Christmas cards for one another. Each of us would decorate and write thankful wishes on 3 different cards. Afterwards, we all sat around the bed and read our cards, what we thought of one another, our wishes, our flashbacks. Lots of laughter ensued, and it was a perfect way to count down towards Christmas.

Wherever we are, whatever we do, being together with our loved ones at all times is what matters. 

A Reluctant Good-bye To A Fabulous Year

2014 had been a really rewarding and fulfilling year for us. It was filled with unexpectedly pleasant surprises and lots of learning experiences. It was a year of milestones for the girls - with Big Bee ending the fundamental primary school chapter in her life, and Little Bee walking an inch closer to being an upper primary girl (can you imagine my little baby heading towards upper primary?!).

I guess the biggest "hurdle" had been Big Bee's PSLE experience, but we started last year with the philosophy that the PSLE is just another exam, and that we should not compromise on anything in our lives for this exam. And I was glad we lived up to that. There was minimal stress and life still went on in terms of overseas vacations, weekend outings, gatherings with friends, extracurricular activities in school, etc.

Last year was a year that I witnessed tremendous maturity and growth in Big Bee. She grew from an angsty tween to a wonderful teenager-to-be who shared lots of gossips with me. It came with a price though. This year was the year that I fed myself on loads of young adult fiction, lingo, social media and movies, just so I could keep up with her friends and her. But it helped that we read and watched their stuff, because that opened up so many conversations and it felt kind of wonderful when her friends called me a "cool mum"!

Despite the PSLE, Big Bee got into the school netball team with loads of practices. I encouraged that because I think extracurriculars are what make well-rounded, healthy and well-adjusted tweens. For the first 7 months of the PSLE year, she was practising in school 3 times a week, only coming home at 6pm in the evenings. For the first quarter of the year, she was also loaded with piano and ballet practices - all of which helped her to destress and deviate her mind from academic work, she admitted to me. She also went on a research trip with her classmates and teachers to Hong Kong, and it really enriched her perspectives on social values.

One of the best things that we did was to prepare her DSA personal statements. That helped her reflect on her life and past experiences, and we were able to talk a lot about these past experiences and what she looks forward to in future. She also switched her goals from a typical top school offering the A-levels to her current dream school with a different, more analytical form of education. We are constantly thankful for what she had been blessed with and from now on, her future endeavours would be up to her to craft and shape.

As for Little Bee, primary 2 had been fun and leisurely for her, as always. We were extremely lucky to be blessed with an excellent form teacher for Little Bee, who was also her form teacher in primary 1. She is a caring, committed and warm teacher, and all the students (and parents!) love her so much! I believe this teacher is a great inspiration to Little Bee, who had done surprisingly well in her school work last year, despite her highly playful nature.

I am really happy that Little Bee - being her happy-go-lucky self - loves school and treats school as one gigantic playground. Being a highly gregarious and sociable girl, she also had lots of good friends whom she bonded with. Last year, she began to devote herself more to her dance CCA in school, and was delighted to be part of a huge charity concert on the last day of school. She had also completed her swim course and is now swimming well.

The Bees' reading adventures had been colourful this year. Big Bee read a total of 100+ books last year (yes, the OCD her kept a record of the books she read), and is very into young adult, dystopian series like The Hunger Games, Divergent series, etc. As for Little Bee, she is full on into Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, having completed all of Roald Dahl's children fiction and Enid Blyton's Enchanted Woods and Malory Towers series. She had started on the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series, but still prefers Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl for now!

2014 had been fun and beautiful for the Bees - let's hope 2015 will bring lots of equally enriching experiences too!