So we had Caitlin first before we had Caleb. It’s a 3 year 2 months gap between them.

Boys mature slower than girls. This is quite evident; individual personalities and characters aside.

When Hot Mummee was pregnant the first time, I had quietly wished that our first one would a boy. This isn’t a tightly-held preference, just thought it’d be good to have a big brother to the rest of the brood. Of course when Caitlin was born, I love her just the same.

And as she grew, we’ve been enjoying her growing years and all the usual toddler antics that you know comes with children. A lot of fun and treasured memories there

Now that we have Caleb with us too, and with the 3 year gap, I find myself quite often comparing the kids. Not in bad ways of why-cant’-you-be-like-Caitlin complaints, just the wonders-of-human and how everyone is different types of observations.

Most recent of these are how when Caitlin was Caleb’s age now, she was already very independent. I had modified her cot so that she was already getting in and out of her “bed” by herself- how I enjoyed watching her little cute toddler body climb limb over one another in her mini pyjamas with the bed. She was also toilet trained very early. I remember giving her praises in the mornings when I changed her to find her diapers dry. These days I am still reprimanding Caleb when he pees in his pants. I do sing praises too when he urgently tells me he needs to pee, and, while on the toilet seat he would exclaim “No piak-piak right dad?” (No spanking right dad?)

So with Caitlin- girls, generally growing faster, I find myself noting that even with the 3 year gap that it is beyond that “measure” in terms of the gap between these 2 monkeys: That they are more than 3 years apart in terms of intellect, skills, maturity, etc. Though I correct myself in that Caleb is a lot more advanced even for his own age with his motor skills in the sports department. He’s still a happy-go-lucky kid while his jie-jie has already entered the age of moodiness. She is also starting to enjoy older things, sometimes citing “so booriiing” statements typical of older kids on younger ones.

So then I started wondering what things would be like if indeed we had a boy first, and then a girl. Would the “gap” be smaller than 3 years, in terms of their maturity? Would they actually get along better than present differences, because they are possibly closer in maturity levels?

So I had to be in Singapore for just two days this week.

Hot Mummee and the two kids sent me to KL Sentral to catch the express train. It was just going to be a quick drive-by drop-off.

I gave HM a hug and kiss, hopped out the car while Caitlin climbed infront to take over the front seat; gave her a hug and kiss too, and did the same with Caleb in his child-seat in the back, whilst half-ignoring his “(wanna get out and) walk-walk, walk-walk“.

Walked across the driveway waving to them as they waved back and pulled away.

Soon afterwards I was already on the express train. HM called to see if I was.

She then told me that as they were pulling away Caitlin asked for a photo of me so that she can look at it to remember me with.

Awww….

HM suggested to Caitlin to look at our wedding photos instead; of which there are a few around our home. Apparently Caitlin screwed her nose at this idea…

Why?

HM thinks it’s because she is in them!

So on our way home I swung by to pick up some fresh milk at a small mini-mart. Upon reaching the check-out my two little monkeys wandered over to the magazine stand and started rambling about some kids-show publication.

I spotted the latest issue of Time, and tried discretely to hide it behind some other mags.

“Daddee, why did you do that?”

“Doesn’t it scare you?”

“.. A little bit..”

Later I proceeded to tell her that some bad people had done that to her, “Just like those bad people who robbed us last year…”

I am not sure if I should shield her from these images, still. She is after all only turning 6 this November. Little brother Caleb didn’t appear to see that cover; in his little happy-happy-joy-joy world as usual

It’s the funniest and I guess creative-est thing she’s ever done!

So we were on our way to a supermarket. I was running the shopping list verbally with her, play-testing if she can recall all the items we needed.

“Why don’t we make a shopping list?”

“Good idea, but I am driving….”

“I’ll do it.”

Hmm? She is going to school- yes, but I didn’t think she would be able to spell the items.

She proceeded to get the small notepad I keep in the car, and a pen. “What do we need to get again?”

“Some milk- two cartons, actually; yoghurt, those veggies Mummee needed for tonight’s dinner; oh and if we can find it, a case for Mummee’s phone…”

“Milk….. yoghurt……”, scribble scribble scribble. “Ok done.”

Can you see it?

She had scribbled out the yoghurt once it was in the shopping trolley, but you can just about make it out by the shape of the tubs that she had earlier coloured in

And, the phone that goes into a pouch!

So sometimes Caitlin would ask to buy a strip of candy, like Mentos or Sugus. She tells me that she shares them with her school friends- I believe her. No doubt she may keep one or two more for herself but I think the fact that they generally finish so quickly is some kind of proof for this daddee that she does share them

Last night on a quick visit for some fresh milk I thought that a pack of Ribena sweets was okay for her. It was in a shiny packaging anyway; she didn’t miss it either. If the packaging is to be trusted it does contain vitamin C after all (or am I a marketers sucker-dream come true?)

So this morning on the way out to school and grandma’s respectively I was helping make sure that she does bring it along to school. Since the pack of 20 itself is rather large and didn’t quite fit into Caitlin’s uniform pocket, she passed it to me to carry in my shirt pocket.

Caleb saw.

That jie-jie was carrying something must be something I’d want too.

That she insisted Daddee carry it must be something I’d want too.

That is was also shiny must be something I’d want too…

“I WAAANT!”

This is where Hot Mummee’s complaints about my being biased may be justified. I didn’t want him to have one now because he’d just woken up. He hadn’t had anything to drink yet (water) let alone his morning milk- to have candy as “breakfast” or at least the first thing to eat isn’t quite an activity or habit I’d like to instil in the kids.

So what did Daddee say to discourage him?

Infront of Caitlin, I said to Caleb: “It’s medicine..”

Yikes.

She’d never questioned me at all or smirked at me. But I think I had done a bad thing. I could have said he could have one after his milk and insisted jie-jie shared one with him. But I didn’t. I could have simply said “Later” too, but I didn’t.

So now, Caitlin has learned a “skill” that I didn’t want her to know yet. She may well start applying this to other areas to fool us too, with the topic or severity growing as she does.

Oops.

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…

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!

Yesterday was (also) Caitlin’s school’s parent-teacher meeting.

Chief among the things that Teacher Rachel told me was that Caitlin is among the popular kids in her only-15-student class.

It’s not surprising really. Caitlin makes friends very easily. She approaches humans her height, greets them with her smile/grin, engages them in what they may be up to. She does also almost follow them around, which I have seen kinda freaks the new-stranger kids out. But as with kids her age (at least last year anyway), they talk to each other and go from there (becoming friends). One time we were out and she was already galavanting with these stranger-kids, and when I told her that we had to leave, she shouted “BYE FRIEND!” Obviously didn’t know their names!

Teacher Rachel, whom have had Caitlin in her class since 2009, has kinda watched her grow. She’s also shared with me that Caitlin likes to have friends, likes to be around people, does not like to be alone.

Therefore it is no surprise that Caitlin likes going to school. Her report card from yesterday showed that she had only missed one day in the total of 96 days so far this year.

The downside, however (I won’t say is typical but not surprising to me) is that she cannot be shamed or be put on the spot.

Because she is (or has to be) popular, she finds it very difficult when she is reprimanded when she is at fault- either forgetting her homework, doing the wrong thing, etc. Teacher Rachel also said that Caitlin is (therefore?) somewhat competitive. There is a particular girl that Caitlin is quite friendly with, with whom lately I hear stories about how they are competing. Whatever the friend is doing or has achieved, Caitlin seems to need to be one better.

… Sounds like she has obviously inherited these traits from Hot Mummee! But jokes aside, looks like I have my guiding-work cut out: To guide her on the positive side of being popular and competitive, but coach her on the negative aspects of these, such as negative influence / peer pressure, what “healthy competition” means, etc…..

Short post, this one…

I have owned an iPhone since the 3G model (and don’t get me started on how I lost that one); using the 3GS now.

Caitlin has always been “using” it for the simple games I have downloaded; where I had learned quickly that it was better to delete the arcade-ish games and install educational ones. I gotta say, whether Hot Mummee believes me or not, that that math game has indeed helped Caitlin to an extent. The user-interface, the touch screen and the cheers from getting the right answer, do indeed make her wanna think hard, count properly, and “win” the game.

So she is quite well versed with getting around and finding what she wants.

Recently on my trip to LA, I had bought the iPad for my brothers. (Okay the real story is that I bought it for myself, and was supposed to get another 2 when HM told me off. So I stopped after buying the second one!)

Caitlin had no trouble using that too.

This is not a plug for Apple; though if they were to give me a free iPad I would gladly reword this post My point is that they take to technology so easily.

Caleb is now fighting over his sister for time with my iPhone too these days. Other than (trying, for his age) playing games he is actually very well versed with the finger side-swiping whilst looking at the photos. He likes to review the photos as well as watch the videos.

I am reminded of how I was always the go-to kid when my dad had trouble with the VCR, back in the early 80′s. I also self-taught how to hook up 2 VCR’s and started making copies of borrowed tapes…

In the genes, you say?

Would you do it?

I took the kids for a swim again this morning. Yesterday’s experience tells me that they enjoy hanging around underneath the simple man-made waterfall at the other end of the pool, where there are two major streams and some trickles like heavy rain falling onto the pool from about 4 feet above water. WIth Caitlin’s cossie that houses the 2 front and back floats on, I could focus most of my attention on Caleb who doesn’t have any floats yet; at the deeper end of the pool of 4.5 feet (?), at the grounds of our condo.

This morning, while enjoying the sensation of water gush-falling onto our heads, I looked around and saw that, in between the plastic grating of the pool’s perimeter drain, were a pair of bird wings sticking out. A pigeon-sized bird too.

Yuck, a dead bird. I thought. Better get out of here soon, alert someone to rid of it before it gets septic and get into the general pool water.

I pointed it to Caitlin, justified that we can’t / shouldn’t stay much longer ‘cos of germs from a dead animal. I also didn’t want to just leave it there. So I thought to leave these 2 kids as brief as I could in the 1.5 feet baby pool, which is actually just next to the waterfall, and try to rid of the carcass myself without leaving them alone too long.

After shifting them there, I soon found a stick at the nearby BBQ pit, and went back to try and fish the carcass out.

As I shifted the gratings to widen the gap for easy access, the bird moved / jerked.

I tried and positioned the stick under its feet, hoping that it would at least make it easy for both of us to lift it out of the water. But that first movement was the only movement I saw. Clearly it was already nearing death.

I can only imagine that it fell into that bit of gap with its wings up and above its body, unable to get up and out. With most of its body submerged in water in all that time; possibly also its head, it is clearly already dying from exhaustion and being in water for so long, for a bird.

It tried to open its eyes but obviously too exhausted; mustering maybe an inhale every second- I don’t think birds breathe that slowly in general.

Pinching one of its wings and supporting the rest of its body on the stick, I fished-lifted it out, and placed it in the shade under some nearby bushes. I thought of putting it under the sun for quick drying, but that may actually make things worse.

At least it wasn’t a decomposing bit of animal polluting the water, I thought, and the kids are kinda safe in the water.

But what about the poor animal?

I personally didn’t and don’t have the heart to put it out of its misery, much less infront of or for the kids’ knowledge. But the poor animal clearly will not make it, and is suffering.

I pointed Caitlin to where the bird lay (under the bushes near the baby pool where they were), and said that it will likely die soon, and pouted my lips at her. She was sad too, but not too much, and remarked that it’s okay, the mummy bird can make more baby birds.

Not much of an animal lover, I see.

But back to the bird- what would you have done about it?

“Oh, I forgot to draw the on/off button!”

I do. At my 5 year old daughter.

It’s not because she is my daughter, my own offspring. But this trait does make me rather secretly proud of her; that my own kid has this trait that I don’t think I had- have even, as an adult.

Already from the very early days of starting school she has exhibited a sense of steadiness by marching off to a duty expected of her. I am not talking about expectations of a child, I am talking about going off to face or attend to something unfamiliar.

From day one till now, she is my daughter in the car on the way to school. Upon reaching the school, she switches into- I might even call it- a “professional” mode. All serious and “business-like”. I always get out the car with her too, get her bag from the boot, and help her put it on on her side of the car. We’d then hug, where I’d say something like have a good day; see you tonite, etc. She’d be in her mode already: “Bye Daddee..” and turn to walk off towards the doors of the school, away from me, pony tail swinging side to side, without any need to look back toward me.

Personal time is over, time for the other face- the business face.

So far that’s been true. From the first day at school, first day at her extra curricular classes, her home tuition, going up to the waitress or distant relative asking for something. Okay maybe not so much those latter parts, but she does still go ahead majority of the time as we insist she does, when she is the one with a need (greeting her elders voluntarily, is another matter- of courtesy and manners

I am writing this as I wait for her to finish her art class; an extra-curricular activity which she enjoys. I did the same upon reaching the venue. “Bye Daddee” and off she went, going about getting things started (looking for her pad, getting and laying out old newspapers on the table).

I like it. It somewhat shows she is not needy, she knows (hopefully) that there is a difference between play and work, a time to be serious and a time to not be; at least in public in these contexts. I don’t think she is embarrassed to be seen hugging me (to then cut it short), but the above.

Wait till she is reaching her teens, I hear you say. Yes I know

I can’t say professionally I am of that “calibre”. I hope when her time(s) comes she will not be as wobbly-kneed as I sometimes still am when I’m about to meet some important people, for work or social

Quite early on I had explained to Caitlin what fuel means to a car.

“It’s like food to the car; it needs energy to keep going. No petrol, and the car will not work anymore…” and somewhere along the way I had also shown her the low-fuel warning light that comes on.

Sometime last week, when it was just the two of us in the car, the light came on. She noticed, and we started talking about what to do.

“You’d have to get out and push,” I told Caitlin, “‘cos you don’t know how to steer, whereas I do.”

That was my logic, and after a lot of protest she kinda saw that logic, even though she was more concerned about the fact of pushing, than about whether it was even a viable option!

“But I know how to steer! Why don’t YOU go and push?”

“How do you know how to steer??”

“Remember this trip?” She asked…

… where in fact she did steer the car around the mall. In theory, she did steer around.

“Ya; but this is a bigger car, and you don’t know how to steer a bigger car…”

Silence.

We managed to get to where we were going, and that was it.

Last night when we were on the way home from Grandma’s, with Caleb and the helper also in the car, the light came on again.

She leans in and whispers, “Maybe we can get kakak and di-di to push, and you and I can steer ….”

I came home from work this evening and Caitlin came and greeted me; oily mouthed, as her and her grandparents were already having dinner. “She said she was hungry already, so we started dinner first”, said Grandma.

Caitlin then told me that she “came first today because I got the most stars.”

Apparently her school or class has this reward “system” where the “good” kids are given stars for various achievements. I’ve heard her say this a few times before; only yesterday she said she got a star for best (hand) writing. Stars could also be awarded for, presumably, best behaved, etc. She further offered that the girls were the ones ahead, “the boys are all at the back..” !

So tonight she tells me that she’s got the most stars in her class. Naturally I was quietly very proud of my little princess

After congratulating her and finishing up dinner, we went to chill for a bit in the living room. We talked about how her friend (whom she mentions quite often) came second; according to her.

I felt compelled to tell her or teach her some facts of life.

I told her that there may be a chance that someone else, possibly her friend; seeing as it looks like she wasn’t far behind Caitlin, may “overtake” her, that she may end up not having the most stars in her class anymore.

Obviously still basking in this glory, she didn’t seem to quite grasp what I was trying to tell her. “Why?”

“I’m just saying that it may happen that one day someone else may have more stars than you, and that you should be prepared if that happens..”

“What’s ‘prepared’?”

“Be ready for it; that you should be ready for if someone has more stars than you one day.. That you won’t be the first anymore..”

She thought about it for a while. “Why?”

Homework and reading, with some complementing self-drawn distractions