Who taught you to read?

It has always fascinated me how children learn to talk just by absorbing language around them. #1 knew a lot of words by the time he was two but most of them were the names of trains from Thomas the Tank Engine. When the Doctor asked me at his two year old growth and development check up whether he knew 20 words and use them in the right context, I couldn’t actually be sure that he did.

#2 on the other hand could articulate herself quite well way before the age of two and the other day we all sat down as a family to add up the words that #3 can say, it’s over 30. Such are the benefits of having older siblings. But I also know that even though #2 has a wide and varying vocabulary, it’s often not much help if she doesn’t understand the meaning of the words or sticks by her own interpretation of the words that go in her favour.

In our household, there is constant chatter all the time. Some of it in the form of needs and wants, some in the form of delightful, funny two way conversations and some in the form of unintelligible wailing. All three at the same time ever proving that they are on their way to mastering the power of language.

I have often wondered though, how #1 was ever going to learn to read let alone to write. For I have to admit that I have not been one of those parents who have religiously sat in front of #1, 2 and 3 whizzing flash cards past their faces even before that first tooth had popped out. Judge me not.

Should I be sitting with them practising their alphabet and sight words for an hour a day? Should I decorate the walls with useful educational posters? Should I be turning everyday activities into a learning experience?

Then some time last year a friend of #1 who was only five months older than him was able to read a book. All by themselves. READING? At the age of just four? I felt a frisson of panic. How did you manage that? How do you teach them to read when they barely acknowledge the alphabet?

As it turns out, the sensible Mum of #1’s friend said, ‘Just leave it to school’. So I did. And lo and behold #1 came back from school earlier this year with his first ever reading book. Admittedly the book consisted of four words arranged in a combination of ways to make new three word sentences but it was a book that he was reading all by himself all the same. Husband and I were very proud. Whilst #1 couldn’t see what the hoo ha was all about. He’s progressed far in a few months.

It’s a funny thing when you think about it but being able to read and write is just one of those things that you know how to do without remembering who or how you were taught. Besides having a firm belief that school was invented to give parents and children a break from each other, it’s amazing the skills that school and an education equip us with. It is a privilege that we can take for granted now but that’s not the case for all around the world and you only need to know a little about Malala Yousafzai’s story in Pakistan to consider just how lucky we really are. A few months ago, I listened to an interview with Malala and she touched upon how it makes her feel that some of her contemporaries fail to see just how lucky they are to have the right to an education and sometimes not appreciating this right appropriately.

At the moment I have no predictions for the educational goals or career aspirations for #1, 2 and 3. There is the underlying hope that they will do well and follow a career path that will give them stability and fulfilment but how that looks is entirely up to them as we go along.

For now, it is enough that they enjoy learning. I enjoyed learning as a child. I loved learning in fact. The old fashioned way with text books and pens, libraries and reference books. I don’t know how I will greet this new world of laptops and iPads for all children. At searching for information and getting answers to the most complex of questions within a few keystrokes. I get that we all have to move with the times and a digital generation will still be one that is sophisticated, enthralling and challenging. My worry is that they will not be as adept at remembering things. If we’ve become such a throwaway society with material things then does that go for our memories too? Even now I can only recall several telephone numbers off the top of my head and Birthdays because all that information stored in that one small gadget.

This past week, I attended the Parent Teacher meetings for #1 and 2 and I marvel and respect the hard work and effort that their teachers have put into laying the foundations for their educational future.

Make learning fun is definitely the key for all ages and I can only be complimentary to what the school is teaching my children. It’s a beautiful little school in an old black and white house set off a rural track, quite a rarity in urban Singapore. #1 and 2 are leading this whole other independent life enriched with knowledge, creativity and happiness there. I love how they come back from school with facts that I have long forgotten about which they have heard for the first time and think is wonderful.

They do lots of fabulous arts and crafts and I’m beginning to wonder where everything is going to go because how could you possibly throw away anything that your children have painstakingly created?

In and amongst all this fun stuff though, there has been a structured learning programme in place working hard behind the scenes. The letters they were encouraged to copy with pieces of pasta and string at the age of two, revisited at the age of three and reemphasised at the age of four. All these steps have been leading up to the moment when #1 comes home, without much fanfare, with his first reading book that brings a whoop of delight from us at this most exciting moment.

I spare a thought for my Dad, Mr Li having to attend my own Parent’s Evenings. I’m not sure whether much was gained by him being there or not but who wants to be the only child in the class whose parents don’t come to Parent’s Evening? When you spend the day at school making sure the classroom is tidy and get your tray ready with all the fruits of your labour so that you can proudly show your parents where you sit in the class and the work you do.

My Dad, Mr Li came of course but always with the slight air of anxiety and perhaps embarassment that he couldn’t understand much of what was being said beyond, ‘Hello, Mr Li, very pleased to meet you’. And ‘Good, no problems here’. To which my Dad, Mr Li would nod and smile and say ‘Good, Thank you’ and feel very relieved that there are no problems. Needless to say discussions were short. My Dad, Mr Li once said that he understood his limitations in being useful as a parent who could sit down and help with reading, writing and doing maths. How sad and worrying must that have been for him at the time.

You see, even though my Dad, Mr Li has no idea what I’ve been doing all these years, it doesn’t really matter to him. He feels pride enough to see that we’re doing something. He doesn’t really understand what I did in gainful employment but then neither do I fully understand what Husband does in his gainful employment.

For #1 though, the serious stuff has just started. The reading, the writing, the basic maths. There’s still a long way to go though for all of us but I hope he relishes the world of information out there and never wants to stop learning new things. He will be guided to appreciate the effort and amazing work teachers do. For although Husband and I can credit ourselves with many things he knows, we did not teach him the basic skills in how to read which makes it so much easier for us to encourage him onward with his reading. One of life’s best gifts.

There’s a goblin in the Girls toilets

It’s Halloween and Husband has carved out the pumpkin ready and #1 and 2 have decorated the house with a few cobwebs and Halloween bunting. I’ve made some cute little boxes filled with sweets for their school friends and tomorrow they’ll be sent to school looking scrumptious in adorable mini witch and wizard costumes.

This side of Halloween I can cope with and really enjoy it. The cuddly round the edges aspect of it all. At the weekend our condo held a huge Trick or Treat extravaganza and around 80 little people were dressed up in a wonderful array of costumes. It was really fun to see as they wandered around with their little orange buckets filled to the brim with sweets and treats their parents will eat for them. This Saturday we’ll be at double Halloween parties. A family one hosted by Mrs Imperturbable with Trick or Treating, party games and a BBQ. The other by Mrs Cake Pops just for grown ups and fancy dress. She’s got a photo booth coming! How cool is that? Must warn Husband not to get hideously drunk and get a four frame moonie photo. That would certainly bring the werewolves out.

What I can’t cope with is the blood and guts version of Halloween. Just today I quickly popped to the shops for some last minute Halloween things. The shops were pretty sparse having already moved on to Christmas stuff. I was busy rummaging through the racks looking for some plastic spiders, gingerly picking my way through severed hands, grotesque masks, skeleton bones and the most gruesome thing of all, a big ugly rat! Aaaaarghh! I was nearly sick and I imperceptibly jumped a few inches. I don’t think anyone noticed.

I wonder if Working Mammy (workingmammy.wordpress.com), my friend since Junior school has as vivid a memory of the goblin in the Girls toilets as I do. How the goblin got there or when it arrived I don’t recall. But somehow, one day, there it was. A green goblin had took up residency in the Girls toilets nearest our classroom.

Snort with derision if you must at there being no such thing as a goblin. I bet you think the same about a Gruffalo too. I also bet if you asked any eight year old they probably would say there’s no such thing as either goblin or Gruffalo as well. But they would soon change their minds if one was found in the toilets at their school.

This was no friendly goblin. Goblins seldom are, as Enid Blyton and J K Rowling know. This goblin struck fear and mass hysteria. If it was just hearsay it wouldn’t have been so bad but one girl actually saw it. She really must have done because she was crying and everything and she correctly identified it as being green and scary looking.

So the goblin carried on living in the Girls toilets. Mostly coming out at night apparently according to one goblin expert which means it would be in the toilets during the day. You know what that means? Crossing your legs and hoping not to pee. Or making sure you went to the toilets in groups. Well would you go in there by yourself if there’s a goblin? I remember desperately needing the toilet during class time and feeling the fear of meeting the goblin only making the need to go even greater. Fear is terribly debilitating. As is an over active imagination and anyone who knows me would say mine works quite hard.

It wasn’t just at school that the goblin could get you. Every night I went to bed with my head under the covers even though it was stifling hot. We lived in a bungalow at the time and the bedrooms were at the front of the house near to the garden gate. One night as I was hiding under the covers, the wind slammed shut the garden gate. I leapt out of bed into the living room screaming ‘The goblin is coming!’. I can feel my heart beating faster even now.

I don’t remember when the goblin moved out of our school onto the next one. As suddenly as it had arrived then it was gone. I don’t even know how long the goblin stayed for either. The concept of time at aged eight is rather unreliable. I just know that gradually I could sleep with my head poking further and further out above the covers and being able to freely go and pee again at school.

I’m glad to say that I’m no longer afraid of goblins and I’m rather fond of a vampire and werewolf. Sadly though this incident had a profound effect on my bravery levels. They just never fully recovered. I jump if Husband suddenly appears whilst I’m engrossed in something and I’ve screamed in the face of many an innocent bystander I bump into unexpectedly coming out of lifts or walking around corners.

In our adolescent years when the travelling fairgrounds came by and everyone insists on going on the ghost train, I would reluctantly join in too. But in the dark I would sit the whole ride with my eyes closed. What is it with teenagers and the dark? Brilliant New Adventure will remember our big group outings in the deep dark woods at night! Whatever for? Someone would inevitably choose a horror film on film night and my heart would sink.

I just don’t like spooky things! There. I’ve said it. It’s beautifully therapeutic to openly admit now that I’m a grown up and if I don’t want to watch a horror film or visit the London Dungeons then I won’t. It’s not worth me screaming in the face of the poor upcoming actor dressed in his spooky best reaching out in the dark to tap me on the shoulder because I can guarantee you my blood curdling scream will have them quivering in their boots.

I know it’s ridiculous and I know it’s not real. I know a film is just acting and it’s all very good special effects and make up. But the palpitations and the blood rushing through my veins when the eerie music is on and you’re moving through a darkened room with the actor waiting for the spooky thing to happen is just not worth me sleeping under the covers for.

I feel such relief!

But wait….I’ve forgotten something. I am the parent to three young children who must never know this weakness. Can you imagine how much ‘fun’ it would be just to hide behind this door and shout ‘Boo!’ at Mummy. At the moment #1 and 2 are fairly unrefined in their scaring tactics but this won’t last. Soon they will be sophisticated scaring machines and according to the Generic Parenting Guide, you must never show fear.

So who fancies a Freddie Kruger/Halloween marathon tonight? I’ll be the one watching with my eyes closed.

Happy Halloween.

From heels to there and back again

It has been a day of 12 hour celebrations for #2 who has only just turned three which in her book is a very big number, little does she know. In all probability the 12 hour celebrations were perhaps a bit too much as even Husband and I are exhausted but I think #2 and #1 both had a great time. What is there not to love when you get to eat cake, ice cream, crepes and pizza all in one day? That’s almost a whole week’s worth of treats in a very short space of time so as #1 put it quite aptly, tomorrow will be a day of eating carrots.

I do admire the certainty of a two year old’s mind though because of course there would be presents and of course the presents would include Princess shoes and this jumbo Barbie car she had been eyeing up for some months. Ever since she came upon her Big Girl friend’s Princess shoes last October, she has been coveting them ever since and it was a promise of ours that she would be allowed a pair when she turned three. So the day has come and she is tottering around in a pair of blue Disney Cinderella Princess shoes. Her most favourite gift of all. Asides from the jumbo Barbie car which she opened just before bedtime.

I don’t even know where this obsession with Cinderella comes from as we have never read the story or watched the film but every time she came across a toy shop, she would sit and look at the shoes and sigh. I know that feeling though, looking on line at Net-a-Porter and seeing a pair of beautiful impractical and grossly overpriced shoes that even if I could afford would be a bit like #2’s Princess shoes and only ever be worn indoors. I love shoes. Typical of most females I know. At the moment I miss shoes. There seems little point indulging in a mass shoe wardrobe with small people to hoist around in tropical heat. However, as part of my ‘Important Things to Bring to Singapore’ are most of my good shoes collection, barely worn in almost 5 years. I do believe shoes play an important part of our history and symbolise a particular stage of our lives. There’s something about buying your first pair of ‘smart’ shoes’ which are a departure from your norm. Especially if they are for your first proper job, it’s a sign of moving on, gaining some responsilbity and most importantly having to look respectable for gainful employment which didn’t come naturally at first. I felt almost like #2 and her Princess shoes, playing at dressing up, at being a grown up but then you get used to them and your shoes become a reflection of your alter egos without delving too deep and they allow you to experiment without looking out of place.

So the good shoes collection are pleasing to look at but a pain to navigate in. Look at me walking in 4 inch heels because I work in an office and go out to smart drinking establishments. Before that the whole University era and slightly beyond consisted of navy Adidas campus trainers or shell toes. The need for practicality to get to places by walking and also for going out to the grungey, gunky floor drinking and bopping establishments. Slightly before that I think I may have owned three pairs of shoes before I went into freefall. One pair for school, one pair for going out, one pair of trainers and then a pair of winter boots. I think my brother still lives by this rule you know. Right now, I’m in a flat shoe, flip flops stage, mostly due to the hoisting of small people around but also because I have no need for other types of shoe and that made me feel a bit sad and missing my old self a bit. So earlier this year, I went out and bought a new pair of 4 inch shoes, black and white with a big red flower to the side. To me they are beautiful. I’ve worn them three times but every time I do, they make me smile because they remind me that I still can wear them and I feel good in them. So people may mock someone’s love of shoes but actually I think the shoes we walk in everyday are a huge reflection of where we are in our lives and I like to look at my shoe collection and remember why and where I’ve worn them before and also to think of when I may wear them again.