Monthly Archives: July 2010

Reminiscing

We think about the good times, the laughs we had, the activities we did together, the games we played, the things we shared.

These are quite typical memories we have and we conjure up, when we are bored or when we miss those times, and especially so, the people who helped create them.

We usually also conjure up these memories that are from “way back”, like from many years ago.

Well, sometimes, maybe only from a year ago…. Such as with a 5 year old child! Okay she’ll be 6 in November :)

Caitlin has been telling me about her current class’ friends, how such-and-such doesn’t want to befriend her anymore, and; more funnily- how some are fickle in that they do, and then don’t, and then do, and don’t, etc. She says these are “not-good” friends. Good friends are ones who stay be-friended to you.

Recall that Caitlin started pre-school at Pre-1 level in 2008, proceeded to Pre-3 in 2009 because they didn’t have Mandarin medium for the Pre-2 level.

It’s probably the case that she had “fonder” memories of the 2009 class than of this year’s. She did make some “notable” friends from that batch. She was accepted as one of them when she joined them at the start of 2009 as a complete stranger to the year-batch that had already been together from 2008. I recall when I dropped her off at school for that first day with that older batch. I peeped through the door to see what she’d do.

Start of some lasting friendships? My own older brother has a friend from waaay back. They are in their late-40′s now; they had known each other since kindergarten!

So this Daddee has made it a point to re-invite her friends from the previous class, who are now already in standard 1 this year, for Caitlin’s birthday party come November; together with her current classmates of 2010. I just hope their phone numbers are still valid…

Learning to share

iPhones can have games. Daddee has 2 kids. The 2 kids are of the ages now where they start to share almost similar levels of gameplay. They also don’t quite yet know how to share between themselves.

And Daddee has an iPhone.

You know the rest of the story.

So tonight Caitlin had a “brilliant” idea: “Daddee, why don’t you buy another iPhone, so that di-di and I don’t need to share, and we still get to play games?”

Whilst not quite a bad idea for a compromise / solution to an ongoing toddler-problem, it is of course not really feasible.

Lately most of my interaction with them have been to behave: to learn to share, “DON’T SNATCH!”, the concept of taking turns, and even empathy.

They argue, verbally fight, snatch from each other, the older jie-jie going “HMMPPFF” arms-folded, and lately tug-of-war over the object of desire.

As parents of more-than-1-kid would know, the younger one really only has the older one to look up to, and so when the older one misbehaves, the younger picks it up as possible acceptable behaviour. So most times I’d end up telling Caitlin off, which only makes her resent her di-di more.

So, I also need to get them to learn to treasure each other as siblings. One of the poignant things I’ve told Caitlin is that once mummee and daddee are gone, they are really only going to have each other as “family”. A bit harsh and many even a tad premature, but I think she got it.

So, while I do let Caitlin, who rides in the front with me when I send them over to school and my inlaws’, play with my iPhone during the car journeys, I do also have to make sure Caleb gets his share of time on the iDevice too. This is usually at home when I can watch that he doesn’t actually starts wiping out my contacts or calendar of appointments!

Of course, there’s also the Hot Mummee aspect, where she’s already laid down the law that there is to be no iPhone playing at all except on weekends- a whole new can of worms altogether!

Tilt to steer?

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I wrote about kids and iDevices recently about how adaptive they are with technology. I had just hooked up the PS2 this morning, after promising Caitlin I would this weekend; since her uncle had given her the Bee Movie game. … Continue reading