This is a post I made in the old blog on Tuesday, 13 February 2007 at 01:00 AM.

There’s truly a HUGE difference between Stella Maris Kindergarten compared to the rest of the schools Eric’s been to, primarily in school workload. He gets assigned homework at least three to four times a week, with at least two to three types of books to work on each time. He NEVER gets homework before, and I don’t even remember doing that much while I was in kindie!

On one hand, it’s a great thing he gets school work done at home, so both Dony and I can monitor his progress in school. He does show impressive improvement and can read words instead of just memorizing them (embarrasingly, he does better with English words than he does the Malay words). I love his phonic exercises, and we both sing them out loud when we have nothing left to sing about.

On the other hand, I’m worried that I might not be able to give my full attention to him once he enters primary school. If the kindergarten version is a glimpse of what’s to come in Stella Maris Primary, aiyayai….

Still, I think he’ll manage. Besides, it my duty as a parent to discipline him to do and finish his schoolwork. Eric grumbles EVERY TIME he was asked to do it, complaining that they were hard and it took too long to finish. But once I showed him how to focus on little tasks at a time, he realized he can actually do it, and I can see him satisfied once he completed in a shorter amount of time than he imagines.

A room is all Eric needs now so that he has his own space to study in. Right now is out of the question, though, not with Dony’s brothers still living with us. Eric takes more of the room on our bed now than ever before. He really needs that room. Hopefully they can move out by next year, so that my bedroom will feel less cramped.

This is a post I made in the old blog on Tuesday, 30 January 2007 at 11:03 PM.

I found three strands of my hair turning white. I plucked one out, showed it to Eric and said, “Tua sudah Mommy, (I’m old already)” with a mock sad expression. The reply I wasn’t expecting was a teary, “Mommy mau mati sudah? (Is Mommy dying soon?)”

Oh no. Just the other day, my sister Lydia had the same predicament with her soon-to-be 7 year old daughter, Aishah, and my sis told me how she explained death, and that seemed to calm her down. So, I tested the same technique with Eric. There I went ranting, about how people who passed away are actually happier because they don’t have to worry about getting sick, having to work, needing to eat, that they are in a better place in heaven, that Jesus takes care of them, and all other nice stuff I was squeezing out of my brain hoping that I can explain it truthfully without being too over-the-top or harsh and turning ‘em into lies.

Did Eric fell for it? Hardly. It just brought more tears to his eyes even though he wasn’t sobbing his heart out. I looked at his dad sitting aside him on the next sofa, hoping for some back-up. All Daddy did was to give me a blank stare while sipping his Maggi (I mean, I can’t blame him — he WAS really hungry!).

So I continued to soothe him, and changed my tactics to explain to him what old age is all about, that getting old is actually fun, pointing out that everyone gets old, that he’s getting old too, when he grows older he gets to do more things like driving his own car, reading a book by himself, going out with his friends, etc (and purposely leaving out the “getting a job” part of it). “Do you understand now?” I asked. He answered sadly, “But when I grow older, you’ll be sooo old.”
“It’s okay, then. We can grow older together.”

A minute passed before he finally said,”I want to change to Disney channel 61.”

Phew.

A brief conversation took place as my mom was babysitting Eric at her batik factory in Tuaran some time ago:

Old man (who happened to be there): Apa nama kau? (What’s your name?)
Eric: Don’t speak Malay. Speak in English.
Old man: Uncle mana pandai cakap Inggeris. Bapa kau urang English ka? (Uncle don’t know how to speak English. Is your dad an Englishman?)
Eric: (Paused a second before replying) Yes, my daddy is English.
Eric’s grandma: Mana ada! Daddy kau urang Cina tu, bukan English! (Is not! Your Daddy’s Chinese, not English!)
Eric: (adamantly) No! He is English!
(Just so you know, Eric’s dad is barely a Sino-Kadazan, much less an Englishman)

Kids — when they think they’re smarter than you, the things they would do just leaves you speechless….