Taking the Kids to Work

A few weeks ago I had to take Adik to work with me. Luckily it was only for about an hour and he had roti to keep him sitting quietly next to me. (I know, it's hard to imagine the words "adik" and "sitting quietly" in the same sentence, but hey, stranger things have happened.)

Today I took Abang to the office. It's not my office, but the office where I had to do some final proofreading before going to print. It wasn't really a choice since Atok and Cikgai had their hands full with Cuz and AJ and Wan wouldn't be able to handle both boys by herself at home.

Abang had agreed to bring his homework along to do while I did my work. Sometimes at home we have a race to see who finishes homework first but this time he said "if you have a lot of work then we race but if you have a bit only then we don't race". At some point he has to learn that he can't win all the time. Well, his kindergarten sports day is coming up soon. Maybe there will be teachable moments then.

Anyway, back to today. He was very cooperative for the most part, actually sitting and doing his homework. Just once in awhile he would spring up and go for a short walk to the door and come back. If I know my son, that would be because he was actually very tired and sleepy and he's trying to keep awake.



He managed to finish all his school homework - 4 books of colouring and / or writing, 1 page each except Maths with 2 pages - by the time I was ready to leave. As a reward, I took him to the nearby kopitiam and we had a roti bakar. During this time he decided to do his e.nopi homework and even finished one booklet!

I think it was a good experience for both of us. He got a glimpse at what I do and saw what the material looked like on the computer and how it gets amended before printing. For me, it was a bit like carrying a child on a sling and working the paddy fields except with air conditioning.