Jakjak has been going to school for close to a year now. While he has not been very vocal about every detail of school, he has, from time to time expressed himself using song and dance.
There are days when he sings more than he dances and sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes he sings and dances at the top of his lungs. Like many of his antics, he never seems to get tired. There are times that we are already in bed and he still sings and dances. We ask him to stop when it gets too much, but we don't really force him to stop. In fact, we encourage him.
I believe that encouragement becomes a key factor in building his self-confidence. And while Jakjak seems to be overflowing with self-confidence at his age now, he is still a child, and from time to time, it shows when he acts "shy". I know this personally, because I did not have Jakjak's self-confidence when I was his age (not even a tiny bit). I was easily discouraged, and I did not get the encouragement that I needed back then. So it's time to turn the tables around.
I don't sing. I don't dance. I don't have the confidence to do so, nor the confidence to learn. But that's okay. I know that where I failed, Jakjak won't.
After reading a blog from Leonny Atmaja, I had a thought bubble.
It really has been a long while since we had brought Jakjak around on wheels. Back home in the Philippines, we did not have much of a problem, having been blessed with a car as personal transportation. In Singapore, things took a drastic turn with the abnormally high cost of owning a car (or any form of personal motorized transport for that matter) have hampered our desires to own one.
Surprisingly though, considering myself as a gearhead, I have not actually thought about buying a car here. Ridiculous ownership overhead costs aside, public transport here is pretty efficient (compared to the Philippines - it's actually a god-send). We lugged Jakjak around on a pram when we settled here a few years ago. We've had two since then. We didn't actually expect to wear them down so quickly, which proves how useful it has been to us. You can get to your destination here by cab, which is efficient, but rather expensive. Expensive compared to public trabsport that is. You can get ther by bus as well, if you manage to get your routes right, it's actually quite rewarding. For us though, the MRT is the most efficient of the lot.
Our days with a pram has passed. While Jakjak had been happy sitting in his pram, it had been difficult to ask him to walk on his own (he's absolutely lazy when it comes to walking). That was until he broke his pram. Being his hyper active self, he managed to snag the front wheels of the stroller on the escalator. That was the end of his pram. But because he knew it was his fault (mostly), he had to accept the fact that he now needed to walk (or skip, run, jump, fly, etc.) in order to get anywhere. It took him a while, but now he is comfortable with it. He still complains, and he gets tired (not by walking alone mind you, he never just "walks") going to places. But he has improved. And he is now a joy, not a chore, to bring along everywhere (and anywhere).
We still carry him when he gets too tired. That, or when we really miss him. I mean, he's not going to be this light and small for long. We want to enjoy him as a kid as much as we can. Time waits for no one after all.
Today, Jakjak did something that was totally unexpected.
Mum picked up Jakjak from school today because it was not a regular school day. There was a simple school activity in the morning, and then they had the rest of the day off (and the Friday after as well - lucky kid). So, they decided to go to a Toys R' Us sale.
Toys R' Us sales are simply what they are. Toys go on sale. And depending on the condition of the toy (or the packaging), you either get a good bargain, or a bad one. Since it was the first day of the sale, mum called me to report on what they are getting at the sale (as if being stuck at work was not bad enough, now I get to know what I'm missing). So they had the toys typically on sale, those that were either worn in from being displayed for so long, or those that you get as much as a few percent discount because they were still quite new.
A little while later, Jakjak called me. He was so excited that the only words I understood from his call was "Ferrari" and "remote control". He later gave the phone to his mum and she told me that Jakjak had decided to buy a remote controlled Ferrari toy car. One red and one blue. Which meant one for me and one for himself. Mum also told me that he decided that all on his own and that he even put back the toys that were already in his basket in exchange for the two remote controlled cars. I was deeply moved by this.
While I consider toys that both of us can play with (our Tomica town is quite big now), I never expected the same to come from him. I mean, he is five years old. I expect him to be grateful when he buy him toys, but I did not expect him to think the way he did when he got those remote controlled cars. He may be growing up faster than I had been expecting.
"Dad, did I wake up early enough to play with you?"
This line, is a killer. I don't know how many times I've heard it, but it still kills me every time. Jakjak is now 5 years old.
I had always been able to manage my time in a considerable way. Especially back when Jakjak had just been born. I guess that was because he did not actually do a lot back then (sleep, cry, drink, burp, repeat). But even then, I made it a point to be with my family every day.
I shared duties and responsibilities with my wife and we were rewarded with a boy that is emotionally attached, physically sound and intellectually gifted. Jakjak had been given to us as he is, an awesome gift. We helped him to grow up with potential, but I believe that it had always been in him. We just needed to nurture him and watch over him as he grows up.
When my work changed, so did my ability to manage my schedule. I no longer had the power to change shifts at a whim, there is no more graveyard shift that I could use to spend the mornings with Jakjak and he had also started schooling which added to the inconvenience. We do have the weekends to spend and every end of day is still there (we actually still have quite a bit of time to spend), I guess it's just the timing of when he wakes up that has gotten things a bit of a mess. We were used to waking up at any time of the day and having the mornings to ourselves. We have busy lives now, and I guess he's having a fit dealing with the changes.
It's a killer, really. And I've probably died over and over and over because of this.
A week or so ago, Jakjak called me from our home phone. Casually, he asked me where I left the PSP. Then I told him it was probably on his mum's dresser (which he could not reach). I heard him shout through the handset, asking his mum to get it for him. After a brief pause, probably with the lack of anything else to ask, he mumbled, "So Dad, what's up?".
It was as casual as my wife talking to me.
He does this to us. Talking like he knows what he's talking about (although, most of the time he does know what he's talking about). There was a time on the bus that his teacher happened to be on board with us and he saw a bug. "Teacher, that's a moth ..." (When I was 5, I thought everything with butterfly wings were, well, butterflies).
And during one of their field trips (Singapore Duck Tour) which takes them across the Singapore river, he kept interrupting the tour guide. He would explain what the landmark that they were seeing was and then he would tell them about the things that he saw there.
Once, a kid took his toy from him without borrowing it (although they had been playing for a while already). He went to the kid's mum, told her about what the kid has done (mind you, he was not cross or anything), and he talked to the mum like he was the dad of some kid that had been bullied. Once the mum understood what he was trying to say, she told his son off and asked him to politely return the toy. On a similar occassion, he found another kid with the same happy meal toy that he had just gotten earlier (and one that we had patiently put the decals on). He went to the kid's mum, told her that the toy had stickers to be put on, got it from the mum and patiently stuck the decals on the toy (all the while explaining how we did it for his own toy). He casually did so, like somebody's big brother.
But at the end of the day, he cuddles with his mum, asks for his bedtime stories, drinks his milk and says his good night prayers. As casual as a 5 year old would.
We all know that kids grow up eventually. There is pretty much nothing that can be done to stop the cycle. And there will be a time that our kids will ask for their independence in full. We get hints of it in the childhood years, and I'm sure I'll be hearing more about it when Jakjak hits puberty. But as a parent, how much independence would a child actually need?
Personally, I let Jakjak do pretty much a lot of things that kids actually do. On the back of that, there are rules and guidelines that we have set for him to follow (no violence, no lies, no porn, etc.). He's doing pretty good at it, and so are we (as best as we know). We call this, trust. We believe that we should give guidance for Jakjak during his formation years. We believe that we are helping him build his character, his morals, his spirituallity. And we believe that we should be doing this without being too restrictive or too strict. We opted to have a democratic family relationship. If happiness is the only indication of success, then we can all say that we are happy.
But happiness is not the only measure of success (in bringing up children anyway). It is, by our calculation though, a big factor but not the only factor. Happiness can come from a lot of things. But from where I stand, it's coming from contentment, peace of mind, harmony and a little bit of financial freedom. It's taking effort, it's not easy. But with everybody contributing one way or the other, it looks like it's going to be a good journey ahead.
The Asian Civilisations Museum at Raffles Place, plays host to numerous Asian exhibits all year round. There are regular exhibits that reside there, but the real draw is always the feature exhibit which only stays for a couple of months. The feature this time around, was the Terracotta Soldiers from China.
These guys have been a famous attraction for a long time. In fact, we would have loved to see them from the dig site, all lined up and arranged as to how they were when they were built to protect the emperor (in the afterlife).
We always bring Jakjak to the museums. Because contrary to popular belief, museums are not actually boring. Not here anyway. There always seems to be something interesting for kids to do (the mummy making from the mummy exhibit comes to mind). And because kids become interested, I'm almost sure that at the back of their minds, they absorb some of the exhibit's information and knowledge. Given of course, that parents talk their kids through the displays and not merely stare in awe all by themselves (and leaving the kids in the activity areas). We always make sure that we give Jakjak accurate information when we look through museums. This keeps him interested and informed. And when we don't have the answer, we tell him that we would look it up on the Internet when we got home. In this way, we don't fabricate stories and he gets information that is valid. Of course, there are times that some information are not suitable for children, in these cases, Jakjak gets a toned down version of the facts. This has never stopped him from watching Nat Geo TV and Discovery Channel with us though (in HD, of course).
The good thing about Jakjak is that he retains information in chunks. Somehow, he has a storage area in his brain for information. He remembers things that we (his dear parents) have already forgotten, yet he would remind us with every minute detail that he can think of. So, while he enjoys his dig site and his toys, we feel confident that at the back of his mind, the knowledge that he gained is still there and hopefully would be useful to him in his future endeavors (perhaps he might decide on making his own army of Terra Cotta soldiers).
