Primary school placement confirmed

Kieran has gotten a place at the Primary school opposite our flat. Confirm plus chop.

I went to the school website and read that the children are learning so many things, and I bought some Primary One assessment books from the bookstore to see what a child is now required to know at Primary One. Gosh… the syllabus are so hard.

I’m really glad we sent Kieran for reading classes so that he can at least read independently before he starts formal school. We have not started anything much for Math and Chinese. We have very limited time since both hubby and I are working full time. I wish so much to have more time to spend with my children. Kieran now has weekly reading and spelling test and he has a music exam coming up in September. The music lesson is getting more demanding of our attention and time. We are going to stop his music lesson for a while and switch him to a private tutor to learn at his own pace later on. I now know why we should cut down on children’s tuition and academic enrichment lessons – they are more stressful for us, parents than they are for them.

Just a thought when I was chatting about handling children’s stress with my fellow mummy friends - We always tell ourselves or our children to "achieve the best result", but I think we should "achieve the optimal result". “Best” is comparative; you are comparing your achievement with someone else’s or with your past accomplishments. However, “optimal” means at this point, given the specific conditions and limitations, you are performing to the best of your ability. That, in itself, is enough, regardless of the outcome. What a comforting thought... but of course arguably, this kind of mindset wouldn’t do for a sportsperson or a performing artist. It does for me though… which explains why I always navigate away from life’s toughest challenges. Sigh. I can never successfully achieve the kiasu parent status. Well, let's chill and have a cuppa tea. :)

Mothering

The thing about being a mother is that we are always worrying about our children. I have been telling myself to relax but I really can't. If my child shows a slight indiction that he may be developing a fever, I will panic, and if my child gets a tooth cavity, I will see it as an indication that I am a bad mother, that I haven't been taking good care of the children. Care for the children is never enough. There's always more to be done, more to do, more to perfect, and so on.

Top items in my worry list are now Caitlin's front teeth cavity and Kieran's phonics. I'm trying to see if I can help her teeth remineralise by giving her the appropriate vitamins and starting her on fluoride and xylitol brushing since she now can spit out after gargling. Caitlin is a stubborn and fiery little one. Getting her to accept me brushing her teeth is like fighting a battle with her. I have found a way to get her to cooperate a little bit more, which is to let her watch an iPhone app of a cute panda brushing his teeth and then gargling. I can set the brushing timer to as long as I like. She finds it interesting and often laughs at the silly panda, so I place the phone with the app running in front of the wash basin and coax her into brushing. If she struggles, then well, I have to keep brushing despite her cries. It's sad to see her struggling twice or thrice (sometimes I brush her teeth in the afternoons if we are not outside) everyday during toothbrushing but that is better then seeing more cavities on her teeth. She has about 5 small but noticeable ones on the front teeth. The back molars look alright and all of her lower set of teeth are nice. I don't know how the decay only happens on the front ones.

Kieran is now learning very fast and to help him absorb the good stuff, I'm reading a lot to him, teaching him to recognise simple Chinese words, and to learn to write simple letters and strokes. He's progressing at a snail speed but at least there's progress and he won't go to Kindergarten next year not knowing anything. I'm also teaching him phonics myself using this teaching tool: The ordinary parent's guide to teaching reading. There's an audio companion which I borrowed from the library. While teaching, I also learn valuable lessons on phonics. I'm convinced that phonics help young children read better, and he has to read, otherwise he can't even understand math problems at Primary One. If he don't finish learning phonics by K1, he will confuse it with Han Yu Pin Yin that he will learn in K2.

So being a mother, we have no time to relax. My favourite way to "relax" is sipping hot, bitter-sweet black tea in a cooling air conditioned room, away from the suffocating heat in the rest of the house, and temporarily away from that forever "Mama! Mama!". Sweet black tea works wonder for my soul. 苦中作樂，因為人生就是甜中帶苦，苦中帶甜。