Report Card Day

UPDATE: I went through Abang's exam papers and he in fact made a mistake in his Bahasa Malaysia paper! So he didn't get 100% for it! It's ok, he just shrugged when I told him. His teacher was quite apologetic when I pointed it out to her ... heheh ...

Today was "Parent Teacher Conference" Day again. When he had "exam" a couple of weeks ago, naturally I was very cool about it. Not that I didn't care, but I just didn't want to make a big deal of it. The teacher packed them their books to bring home for "revision" so I duly went through them with him (seeing as she DID go through the trouble of packing the books for the kids).

The assessment - as I prefer to call it - lasted three days. Like real, I tell you. The first day, when I sent him and Adik to school, he ran in exclaiming, "Yay! Exam!" much to the teacher's and my amusement. As expected, Adik kept saying, "Adik want exam? Adik want exam?"

So today, being Report Card Day, Abang complained of an earache. I guess I can expect this for the next 12 years: illness on the day your parents are supposed to meet your teachers to discuss your progress!

Anyway, another glowing report, I am pleased to announce. Last year, when he had the end-of-year assessment, the school exempted him from the Mandarin exam. This time, they didn't. I was not expecting him to do well at all (and I would have been fine with it) but I was surprised that he knew so much when we revised his Mandarin together.

Amazingly, he scored 95% for Mandarin. (It could be the lowest score in his class, but who cares! Hmm... maybe I should ask his teacher ... oh no I'm becoming a kiasu parent!) The test covered vocabulary, i.e. matching the correct words to the appropriate pictures, as well as writing, i.e. fill in the missing strokes and write the tonal accent in the correct order, etc.

I think his teacher was quite impressed with his Mandarin and asked if Daddy helps him with that. I almost fell off my chair laughing and said, "No, no, my husband doesn't speak Mandarin at all. I'm the one who speaks bad Mandarin at home."

The other subjects, which are English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics and General Knowledge, he scored 100%. I know his Maths is very good, so I wasn't too worried about that. English and General Knowledge - no problem. BM - hmm, we'll see. It's telling that he speaks more English at home when he can count to 300 in English, to 30 in Mandarin and to only 6 in BM. As they say in kindergarten, "Shame, shame!"

In fact, his teacher said they were given an hour to do the General Knowledge test but he took only 15 minutes. When he was done, he started helping the other children (!) with their test. She told him that in an exam he's not supposed to be helping other kids and he replied, "But pity them, teacher..."

As usual I asked about behaviour, politeness, etc and I got a very good report on that too. "Very friendly, helpful, polite ... no problem." Uh-huh.

Only one area for improvement, which is handwriting to which I readily agreed since his handwriting is really quite atrocious.

Next, I asked the principal generally how Adik is doing. She said, "Ooooohh, he's doing fiiiiiine!" Does he follow instructions, play together nicely, etc? "Ooooohhh, yeeesssssss.... easily follows instructions (HA?!?!), enjoys singing (yes, that's for sure), makes friends (ok, we're talking about the same child). But a bit manja with Teacher Shoba (yep, we know that) and a bit choosy with teachers."

Does he mind his P's and Q's? "Yes, yes, yes, very polite. Both boys are very well-mannered."

Hooray!

"It Can't Be Helped"

We were most impressed with Abang's reasoning this morning.

The four of us were in the car, on the way to a birthday party.  We then noticed that along the highway near our house, a whole row of bushes planted in the middle of the highway were all brown.  Essentially, they were dead.  Diddly, diddly dead.

I exclaimed, "Hey, look!  All those bushes and some of the trees are dead!  They're all brown and dried up."

Then we saw that the ground around them had just been dug up and I remembered seeing pipes on the ground earlier this week, waiting to be buried underground.

Before I could say anything, Abang opined, "So mean, kan? They killed the trees." (A hippie in the making!)

And I replied, "Actually I remember now, they must have dug up the ground to lay the water pipes.  But so sayang, those bushes now all are dead already."

Abang, ever the critical thinker then stumped us both by saying, "It can't be helped la.  If they don't dig then how are they going to put the pipes in the ground?"

It took us awhile to recover from that.

More Gems

I remember now, the other songs that Adik sings.

He recently learnt to sing 2 Malay songs - the Rama-Rama song and the Nyamuk song. Both are sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Are You Sleeping?" (It goes Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John? Morning bells are ringing ...)

This is the Adik Version of Rama-Rama:

Rama-RAmaaaa
Rama-RAmaaaa
CantikNIA
CantikNIA
Terbang sini-sana
Terbang sini-sana
Gembiraaaa
Gembiraaaa

Sounds alright, doesn't it? Here's his Nyamuk song:

NIA-muk
NIA-muk
Tangkap DIA
Tangkap DIA
Gigit, gigit, geeeee-git
Gigit, gigit, geeeee-git
SakitNIA
SakitNIA

This one comes complete with hand gestures. "Tangkap DIA" is sung while attempting to catch a mosquito. Then while singing "Gigit gigit geeeee-git" you're supposed to keep pinching your arm. Finally, when it is "SakitNIA" you rub the part of your arm where the mosquito had supposedly bitten you.

The first time he sang this song, together with hand gestures, we were all rolling about the car laughing away. He was so earnest about it too.

Mummy's Turning into a Grandmother

Aiyo ... so sad.  I realised I was turning into a grandmother when I was feeding the boys yesterday.

It just so happens that their appetite has been pretty good lately.  So when they eat well (and by eat well I mean food goes into mouth+chew+swallow, not food goes into mouth and stays there until it's time for the next meal), I just keep on shoving food in their mouth.

Yesterday at lunch time they attacked the nasi lemak with such gusto that even though I had to go to the loo I held off, not wanting to lose the momentum.  It's the Grandmother's Method of Feeding Young Children: As long as they want to eat, give it to them.  How cruel to stop them from eating!

This morning I fed them their breakfast and, again, they just kept eating it and eating it without a hint of turning it (and me) away.  So I just continued feeding them, even though I was so hungry myself!  But I kept thinking, never mind, I can eat later, mustn't ... stop ... feeding ... the boys ...

Here's another example.  During the boys' recent Sports Day, Daddy took lots of videos of them.  One particular one caught my eye.

Adik and his classmates were on stage when they were being lined up to receive their medals.  One of the boys was blowing up a balloon and Adik was very, um, curious I suppose.  So he went up to him and *pinched* the balloon until the boy (a much bigger boy, I should add, a whole head taller than Adik) accidentally let go of the balloon and all the air came out of it.

Adik's expression when he did that was just one of absolute MISCHIEF, practically evil.  He laughed as the teacher took him back to his place in the line.

And what was Mummy's reaction to that video?

"Awww ... so cute, look! He's so nakal kan, dear?  And look at that cheeky face!"

Daddy would have scolded me for having such a reaction except that he had the same one too, hah!  Maybe Daddy's turning into a grandmother too!

Who, Me? Or Was it You?

 

Here are some gems from Adik:

 

1. "I want Wan to mandikan you".  He has his 'me' and 'you' mixed up.  It probably comes from repeating what we say verbatim, so when I ask him, "You want Mummy to help you?" he replies, "Yes I want Mummy help you."

 

2. So then we tried to correct him, "No, not 'I want Wan to mandikan you' Adik, it's 'I want Wan to mandikan me'.  At which point, he ran to the kitchen and shouted, "Adik nak mandikan Wan!!"  He couldn't figure out why we all laughed so loudly.

 

3. He's been singing nursery rhymes at kindergarten, the latest (and funniest) one being "Baa Baa Black Sheep".  Here's his version-

 

Baa baa black sheep

Adee-bodee hoe

Yes sir, yes sir

Thwee fags bull (I kid you not)

One the master

Aaaaand .... dame

Aaaaand ... one little boy!

 

When I remember some more funny stuff I'll post it.  I know there's more, I just can't remember it right now.

Abang Plays Golf

Perhaps the more appropriate title would be "Abang Attempts Golf". During the school holidays, Atok took him to a golf shop and had them shorten a couple of his old golf clubs to make them children's length clubs. He was so excited to have his very own golf club and putter and was 'practising' at the shop until he didn't want to leave!

After that Atok regularly took him to the club to the practice green to hit some balls and do some putting. Finally, yesterday I took him for his first Golf Clinic for kids at the club.

Kids ranging from teenagers to Abang's age (and size) attended the clinic. It was fascinating. Some of them are really good! (Although some of the parents, dads especially, seemed to take it a little too seriously.) As this was Abang's first time, our goal for the day was just to get him to hit the ball. We didn't worry about swing, or stance - just keeping eyes on the ball and making contact.

By the end of the lesson he'd managed to hit about 10 balls!

That night when Daddy put him to bed, apparently he talked about his golf lesson for a full half hour without stopping. At one point he must have realised that he was talking only about golf and asked Daddy, "Is it ok if I talk about golf?"

Today we're going to go look for a glove for him. He wanted a nice golf bag that the other kids have but I told him we'll start with a glove first.

I promised to take him to practise on Wednesday afternoon and I wonder if he's as excited about it as I am.

Back to School

What a week it's been! All I can say is, thank goodness the school holidays are practically over and we're all almost 100% well.

After our trip to the zoo last Wednesday, I designated Thursday as "chill out" day since it was so tiring. Plus, Friday was going to be "Petrosains" day with Daddy!

Lo and behold, Friday morning arrived and I woke up feeling slightly feverish. Since it wasn't so bad plus Daddy had arranged his schedule so he could go to Petrosains with us we decided to go ahead. Unfortunately, by the time we left Petrosains to grab some lunch I was really feeling the chills AND Abang also felt like he was slightly warm too.

That evening we left Adik to stay overnight at Atok's house and Abang fell asleep on the way home at 4:30pm. He was still a bit warm but his temperature was nowhere near as high as mine, at 39.4C or 102.9F. I just bundled up, had a bit of dinner, some paracetamol and slept with Abang (he went straight through the night until 5:30am the next day).

The next day my fever was off and on, as was Abang's. He wanted to stay over at Atok's house so we did a child-swap: drop Abang off (with medication) and fetch Adik home.

From Sunday until Wednesday, it was a combination of Abang having a cough, Daddy having the sniffles and slight fever, Mummy having body aches on Sunday, gastric and stomach ache on Monday, headache progressing to migraine on Tuesday, mild headache on Wednesday, all the while with slight fever off and on.

Man that sucks.

But hooray for willing and able grandparents, aunties and uncles and hooray for Daddy's cooking! Plus we're all getting better now, just in time for school to re-open. Phew!

On MC

I hereby apply for medical leave as I, my husband and my elder son are all ill. Adik is fine but unfortunately, he can't blog.

Yet.