I'm so glad that...

...Stardust is a good listener.

People have commented that Stardust is a well-behaved boy.  This is not to say that he is a complete angel all of the time (because he isn't!).  However, he is generally sweet-natured, polite and obedient in public.

I have found that Stardust is more likely to display 'appropriate' behaviour when we are out, if I let him know what is expected of him beforehand.  I use the word 'appropriate' very loosely, because our expectation of 'appropriate' behaviour changes depending on the situation that we are in and who we are with.

For example, when he is out with MDH at the park, he is allowed to run freely ahead of us and enjoy exploring the space.  However, when he is with his grandparents, he has to stay close to them and hold their hand as they are not able to chase after him.

I do not expect Stardust to be able to decide how he should behave depending on the situation he is in.  He is far too young to be able to make the judgement by himself.  So, I try my best to prepare him beforehand and it usually does the trick.

He is a reasonable little boy - he really listens to what I say and he tries his best to comply.  And I am so glad for that!

It's wick

MDH has been telling Stardust the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'.

After a few retellings, we realised that Stardust was more interested in the growing Beanstalk than in Jack and his skyline adventures.  Stardust even disassembled one of his musical instruments and excitedly distributed all the green beans into various receptacles in his room in the hope that one of them would sprout into a giant beanstalk (hooray for me).

So this morning, I decided that it was time to show Stardust how seeds germinate.  Green beans are, incidentally, great for this purpose because they germinate overnight and grow pretty quickly.

I distributed the remainder of the green beans into yoghurt pots with cotton wool at the bottom (Stardust had already thrown the rest out of the window, Jack's Mother style,  before I could say 'killer litter') and Stardust very carefully watered them with a teaspoon.

We put one pot in the kitchen, one in his bedroom and the last one on the dining table.  Stardust will check on them every morning, water them, and take pictures of their progress.

He seems quite excited about the whole thing, and has proclaimed himself the 'Protector of the Beans', making sure that they remain undisturbed by sharks, bears, bees and mosquitoes.

Have a great weekend!

Another dream

Stardust woke up from his nap early, sobbing piteously.  I went to see him, but he did not want to get out of his cot, so I let him be.  He carried on weeping for a few minutes, then called for me.

I had no idea why he was feeling so sad, so I asked him why he was crying.  He just kept saying, 'Stardust is sad'.

After a while, I asked him if he had a bad dream and he shook his head and said, "No Mummy, a *sad* dream".

He dreamed that there was a little butterfly in his cot which was resting next to him.  The butterfly flew out of his cot and onto the wall, and then he caught it in his hand.  After a while, a Big Butterfly came and Stardust released the little butterfly up into the air to join the Big Butterfly.  He felt sad because the little butterfly flew away.

I felt sad too and I am not sure why.

Susanna Wesley's Household Rule #7

Here are my thoughts on Susanna Wesley's Household Rules:

Rule #7: Give them nothing that they cry for, and only that when asked for politely.

This rule is ABSOLUTELY enforced at my house.  I absolutely detest children who act like they are the boss of the household and whine or scream for what they want.  And I blame the parents who give in to them.  Yes, it is much, much easier to give in because it will make the child shut up but it is NOT worth it.

I started teaching Stardust to say 'please' once he started to indicate what he wanted at around 5 months old.  At 5 months old, he was absolutely pre-verbal but I really did not want him to learn that he had to scream or cry before he got what he wanted, so I taught him to sign 'please' using American Sign Language.

This meant, of course, that I moved his little hand across his chest for him and said "Please, Mummy", before giving him whatever he was wanting.  After consistently helping him to sign (even for things he did not ask for, which meant that I usually held a conversation with myself viz. "Please Mummy help me into my car seat? well, of course darling, what a polite little boy you are!  Well done!"), he finally began to sign independently at around 7 months old.  Thereafter, I insisted that he sign 'please' before he received anything that he wanted.

This lasted about another 10 months, and we were doing very well...until he started talking.

Then things changed a little.

Well, when he started talking, he also started whining/shouting/demanding/screaming/crying incoherently...so although he does say 'please' when he wants something, I have to teach him that he needs to modulate his voice as well.  So, we are working on that now.  Stardust is currently aware that he needs to use his 'nice voice' and ask sweetly with a smile.  And he tries.  Very, very hard.

He still needs prompting, but I am hoping that with persistent training, he will grow up to be a polite gentleman.

Bottoms up

Stardust's breakfast this morning (30 minutes):

1. One small glass of milk

2. One small glass of orange juice (heavily diluted with water)

3. One bowl of oatmeal with a spoonful of honey

4. One handful of blueberries

5. Half a boiled egg

My breakfast this morning (5 minutes spread out over the course of 30 minutes):

1. One small glass of water

2. The other half of the boiled egg

3. Three bites of toast with peanut butter (rest of the toast abandoned due to interruption by a small boy who needed to go to the toilet/couldn't reach his toy/needed a cuddle)

I really miss lazy mornings and leisurely breakfasts.

If you're able to this weekend, please have a relaxed morning and an equally chilled out breakfast on my behalf, please.  And if you're able, leave a comment about it so that I may live vicariously.

Have a great weekend!

Caricatures

So, we are at the Singapore Art Museum, after having climbed up THREE flights of stairs in order to find the children's interactive corner (note to Art Museum Curator: are those stairs meant to act as some sort of deterrent?  I thought the whole point was to encourage parents to bring their children to the museum!).

The corner was set up with pencils and paper, and there was a section where kids could look into a mirror and trace what the image onto a sheet of transparency film with coloured markers, hopefully ending up with some form of self-portrait.  I thought that was quite a clever idea, really.  It was just too bad Stardust does not have the coordination to complete a tracing.  Afterwards, you could stick the film onto the wall (static forces make it stay put) with all the other portraits.

Stardust was studying the wall of portraits with great interest when he suddenly got all excited and started jumping up and down yelling, 'That's Mumby!  That's Mumby there!'.

Apparently, I look exactly like that sketchy character in the centre of that picture.  According to my son, I have no neck, a huge head and a sausage nose.

Well, at least I appear to be a happy person.

We love Bear Grylls

We watched an episode of 'Man vs Wild' yesterday evening after dinner (we usually watch a documentary during the evening meal, but anyone who has watched 'Man vs Wild' would know that it is hardly appropriate dinnertime entertainment).

I am a big fan of Bear Grylls.  He is an all-round great guy and a good role model - and it is such fun watching him because he seems to have a real passion for his work.

And he is eye candy.

Stardust really enjoys watching documentaries and he finds 'nature probrams' absolutely fascinating.  We have already completed the entire 'Planet Earth' series as well as the 'Blue Planet' series.  I don't own any other BBC documentaries so I might have to make a trip to the library soon.  

I am impressed at how much Stardust is able to understand from watching a well-presented documentary.  MDH finds it amusing to get him to summarise each episode, just to see what knowledge he has gleaned.

Here is Stardust's summary of the Season 1 episode of 'Man vs Wild' - 'Episode 13: Kimberly, Australia'.

"Uncle Bear wears the underpants on his head.  It was raining.  Uncle has a fire.  Uncle ate the berries; Uncle makes a burp.  Uncle ate a spider.  That was nasty.  Uncle ate another spider.  That was nasty, too.  Uncle ate a snake.  That was a nice food.  Uncle's a silly man.  Silly man climbs down the tree.  Silly man jumps into the river.  Uncle saw a crocodile.  Small crocodile runs away.  Big crocodile says 'AH'."

Anybody has any interesting documentaries to recommend?  They don't necessarily have to be 'nature probrams'.  If you do, leave a comment and tell me about it!

Stardust's Youtube Favourites: Cyndi Lauper's 'True Colours'

I love the song 'True Colours'.  It's written by Billy Steinburg who is famous for so many 1980's hits like the Bangles' 'Eternal Flame' and Madonna's 'Like a Virgin'.  According to his website, he originally intended the song to be about his mother, but worked with his lyricist to make the song much more ambiguous, so that it could be applied to any relationship between two people.

I actually do not remember Cyndi Lauper's original 1986 release - I think I am more familiar with Phil Collin's version - but I heard her on the radio last weekend and I was really blown away.  I think that she is really brave to pick this particular song, because this song brings out her rhostacistic speech impediment but you hardly notice it because of the beauty of the lyrics.

The music video itself is a little bit bizarre but Stardust loves the song.  He especially likes the line 'I see your true colours and that's why I love you' and sings it louder than the rest of the chorus.

Movie Night - with Stardust! (updated)

The Aged Ps managed to score some free tickets to 'Toy Story 3' and we're going to take Stardust along with us.  His very first picture show!

I hope he enjoys it.

I hope we enjoy it too!

I am going to bring along his milk and a few snacks, in case he starts to get loud.

(updated 10:28pm on the same day)

Well, that was AWESOME!

We were a little worried because it was a 3D movie and required glasses - and we weren't sure if Stardust would tolerate wearing the glasses for the whole film.

It turns out that the theatre had mini-glasses for little mini-people, so he was pretty chuffed that he had his own little pair and he kept them on most of the time.  In any case, the film was still 'watchable' even if he took the glasses off - it just looked a little blurry around the edges.

Here is Stardust's review of the film:
Nice movie!  It had toys - nice toys.  The truck came and went 'Thump!'.  There was a boy.  Baby picked up the toys.  Liked it.

Bring back my Bonnie to me

Every morning, after breakfast, Stardust and I go downstairs to play.  We are fortunate that there are several families with young children living in our block - and we frequently meet each other at the playground.  Stardust's favourite playmate is a little girl called Bonnie. 

Bonnie is a little French girl, a tiny little spindly thing with curly blonde ringlets all over her head, grey-green eyes and a big, big sparkly grin. She may not be the prettiest little girl that Stardust knows (that title very clearly belongs to Ella, a raven-haired siren with big blue eyes like sapphires) but she certainly is the sunniest, with a huge smile for everyone.  Her mother is a very friendly lady who seems to be friends with everyone in the neighbourhood - including the cleaners and security personnel.  The beautiful Ella is rather sulky and mysterious in comparison, and she does not do much apart from stare at Stardust with her finger in her mouth, which seems to unnerve him.  I must admit that I am rather chuffed that he seems to have chosen personality over appearance.

I only realised Stardust's particular affection for Bonnie when he started gathering flowers for her. 

This is special because he has never gathered flowers for anyone else (myself included), and I am not even sure where he picked up the notion of collecting flowers as a gift!  He doesn't pick flowers for his friends who are boys.  When I asked him why he was picking flowers, he said nonchalantly, "Bonnie likes flowers".

 .

Here he is with a few frangipani flowers that he found.  He is sitting on a stone, waiting patiently for Bonnie to come out to play.

He really looks forward to playing with Bonnie.  He talks incessantly about seeing her all the way from leaving our house, going down the stairs, walking across the yard, all the way until we reach the playground.  Strangely enough, once he does see Bonnie, he plays it cool and pretends that he doesn't know she's there (I did not teach him to do this!).  He looks in the opposite direction and smiles broadly at the playground equipment.  Whenever Bonnie sees him, she always runs towards him, yodelling his name in a loud voice.  Then, they chase each other around the frangipani trees.  It's like a Bollywood film.

Bonnie goes back to France in a few weeks.

I think Stardust will miss her very much.

Little physician

I haven't been feeling well lately - it is a combination of smog and overtiredness, I guess.

Yesterday, I had a stonking great headache in the afternoon and was lying down on the couch trying to rest whilst still valiantly attempting to engage in Stardust's games.

After watching me gesture at him feebly for a few minutes, Stardust climbed up onto my stomach and looked me in the eye.

Stardust: Mumby, are you sick?
TSCD: No darling, I just have a sore head.
Stardust: Like when Stardust has a sore tummy and Mumby rubbed it to make it better?
TSCD: Yes darling, but instead of a sore tummy, I have a sore head.
Stardust: Stardust rub Mumby's head and make better.

And with that, he put his little hand on my forehead and rubbed it gently.

I must have fallen asleep almost immediately because I found myself opening my eyes about ten minutes later.  Stardust was playing quietly on the floor next to me.

He's a good little boy.

Stardust's Youtube Favourites: Owl City 'Fireflies'

Now, I know that I already posted a video of Captain Valor performing this particular song, but the original Owl City music video is just so lovely and whimsical that I had to share it.

Stardust is fascinated by all the mechanical vintage toys, especially the robots and the giant silver airship (he gets very excited about it and will exclaim "Fish coming out of the cupboard!!" whenever we hear the song on the radio).

Children's Season at the Museums

A week or so back, I wrote about visiting the National Museum and International Museum Day 2010.  Stardust and I (and the reluctant Aged Ps) did actually go to the National Museum that day, but it was crowded and noisy, so we wandered through a few exhibits and decided to call it a day.

I promised Stardust that we would visit the museum later that week so that he could really enjoy the new Children's Season exhibits. 

We went with a friend of mine and her little boy whom Stardust affectionately nicknamed 'Mr Happy'.

Mr Happy was unfortunately not so happy during our outing as he was feeling very tired (which is why he doesn't feature in any of these pictures).  After patiently struggling with him for nearly an hour, his mum wisely decided to cut our playdate short and run off home. 

I didn't really mind because Stardust was quite happy to enjoy the museum by himself.

Here he is by the giant felt wall in the lobby, playing dress-up in a chicken-insect constume (you can see that he is clutching a Thomas the Tank Engine toy which is his new best friend). 

We did not spend too long at the National Museum because there were some unfriendly children around who refused to share toys, and the 'facilitators' were too busy messing around with their antibacterial hand wipes to notice.  I left when one of them chucked a wooden block at Stardust's head and then ran crying to his mother when Stardust (quite rightly) said "NO!  Don't throw blocks!  It hurts and I don't like it!". 

I walked him round to the Art Garden at 8Q, which was four floors completely dedicated to child-centred installation art. 

It was awesome!

Stardust was very excited about the giant rabbit mascot, Walter, who was perched on top of the building.

There were lots of interactive exhibits there, but Stardust's favourite was Floribots, the robotic flower garden that responds to the 'mood' of the people in the room.  He was running around and jumping and the flowers reacted by growing and blooming.  It was really cool.

Here he is standing straight and still so that the plants will also stand straight and still.

We will definitely visit again before the end of Children's Season in July!

5 minutes alone with...

...markers.

Just in case you're wondering, I didn't freak out over his attempt to draw tiger stripes on his face.  Stardust actually went to a party where they had face painting and he was trying to recreate the event.  I took him to the mirror and showed him that if the ink doesn't come off then it will stain his face for a long time because marker pen ink is not always washable like face paint.  Then I gave him a wet towel so that he could wipe it off himself.  He was able to wipe it mostly clean, but he was not so successful with the stripes on his legs.

Oh well.

Conversation

(7:30am, Stardust has just woken up)
Stardust: Mumby, Mumby!  Moon next to me!
TSCD: I don't understand.  Where was the moon?
Stardust: Moon next to me!  Moon next to me!
TSCD: In your room?
Stardust: Noooo, moon next to me, moon in the clouds!  I see the clouds, I climb up the clouds, I sit on the moon!
TSCD: You sat on the moon?
Stardust: I sit on the moon!  I sit on the moon; I sit like this...(sits on the edge of the bed, with legs dangling)
TSCD: Wow!  Did you really?
Stardust: I sit on the moon, I see the stars.  Mumby, Mumby, stars come out, stars t(w)inkling!
TSCD: That sounds beautiful.  Did you like it?
Stardust: Uhhhhh...yes.

Stardust's Youtube Favourites: Musical Geek War

This week, Stardust's latest pre-bed routine includes a quick runthrough of what MDH and I like to call the 'Musical Geek War'. 
Two Yale undergraduates are currently involved in a battle to determine who can play a recognisable song using the most unlikely of instruments. 

It starts off with a Kurt and a simple recorder- the bane of most childhood school music programmes.

'Tother student responds by covering a Lady Gaga tune on the glockenspiel as seen below:


Kurt retaliates with his CROCenspiel:


And the battle winds up with Michael Jackson on the Gameboy.

Good clean fun, eh?

A prayer for good continence

Stardust: Thank you God for the morningtime, and for Mummy, and for Daddy.  Thank you for a nice playground time with my friend.  Please help me to be a good boy and grow up strong and healthy...and please help me to keep my underpants dry.  In Jesus's name I pray, AMEN.

The 16 Rules of the Household

I have recently become acquainted with the "mother" of the Methodist Church, Susanna Wesley.  She was the mother of 19 children - two of whom are associated with the foundation of the Methodist Church - John and Charles Wesley.  In a time when women were illiterate, it was she who actively pursued an education and was fundamental in homeschooling her own children.

I am especially impressed with the 16 rules by which she ran her household.  Her rules reflect the belief that a self-disciplined adult must first be a parent-disciplined child. 

Susanna Wesley's 16 Household Rules

1. Eating between meals not allowed.

2. As children they are to be in bed by 8 p.m.

3. They are required to take medicine without complaining.

4. Subdue self- will in a child, and those working together with God to save the child's soul.

5. To teach a child to pray as soon as he can speak.

6. Require all to be still during Family Worship.

7. Give them nothing that they cry for, and only that when asked for politely.

8. To prevent lying, punish no fault which is first confessed and repented of.

9. Never allow a sinful act to go unpunished.

10. Never punish a child twice for a single offense.

11. Comment and reward good behavior.

12. Any attempt to please, even if poorly performed, should be commended.

13. Preserve property rights, even in smallest matters.

14. Strictly observe all promises.

15. Require no daughter to work before she can read well.

16. Teach children to fear the rod.

Over the next few weeks, I will examine each rule and see if they are still applicable in a modern context.

Ground control to Major Tom

The world must look really different from up there.

Swinging free

I have not seen any swings at any of the playgrounds in Singapore for a long, long time.

MDH and I think the absence of swing sets in Singapore is due to the overwhelming presence of concerned parents who view swings as the breeding ground for Broken Bones and Nosebleeds.  However, I am inclined to believe that these parents are hardly likely to bring their kids to the outdoor playground which is full of Germs and Dirt, so I'm not sure why the swings have disappeared.

I miss the swings wholeheartedly and I speak as one who has received a broken arm as result of a fall from a swing set which I was using in a non-orthodox manner (i.e. serve me right).

At this playground that we visited in Mollymook, there was not only a swing set for big kids and tiny kids (a seat with a belt - Stardust used it quite safely, as you can see in the picture below), but also a wheelchair swing (no pictures because there was a shy little boy using it)!

How cool is that?

Singapore has a very long way to go before it becomes a child-friendly destination.