Family worship time and Pilgrim Dad leads the children in a reading-cum-artistic interpretation of the Fall of Man.
They are having a right good time drawing the snake and the fruit and the Man and the Woman (complete with censorship blocks over vital anatomical bits).
After they are done, Pilgrim Dad asks them what they think God is teaching us.
Without hesitation, Porthos says, “Fruits are bad for you.” We dissolve in chuckles, during which time he surmises his answer was not quite the authoritative interpretation.
“Don’t listen to talking snakes?” he ventures in all sincerity.
By this time, Pilgrim Dad and I are in fits. Athos decides to have a go as well and calls out, “Don’t listen to your wife!”
Let’s just say my boys don’t appear as yet to have bright prospects as men of the cloth….
It’s 2am and I’m still awake. I had every intention to go to bed at a decent hour but for some reason, my mind was churning with thoughts about the future, of work and family and health and life’s larger purposes.
So I decided to listen to a new compilation I just bought. What joy to find another beautiful gem by the gifted (and – may I venture – anointed) Corrinne May. And now I am off to bed.
The Answer
Lyrics by Corrinne May Ying Foo
Music by Gustav Holst, ‘Jupiter’ from The Planets Suite
I believe you are the answer to every tear I’ve cried
I believe that you are with me,
My rising and my light.
Give me strength when I am weary
Give me hope when I can’t see
Through the crosses I must carry
Lord, bind my heart to Thee
That when all my days are over
and all my chores are done,
I may see your risen Glory
Forever where you are.
Athos and Porthos have a Mandarin tutor who coaches them through their school syllabus. This has led to, I must confess, a rather lackadaisical attitude on my part when it comes to the boys’ progress in Mandarin.
We had family and friends over for National Day dinner and parade-watching on the goggle box. (Wasn’t this year’s just splendid?)
Anyway, earlier in the afternoon, Athos, Porthos and I created this patriotic and healthy dessert using grapes and canned lychees. Simple fun, and I must say the end result looked pretty decent too.
It was just after 6am and Porthos came into our bedroom, woke me up, and pointed at his head. I turned on the light and there it was – a massive lump of electric green silly putty, enmeshed into the hair at the back of his head.
Even at that bleary hour, I wanted to laugh.
Porthos had been playing with the putty just before bedtime, and must have left it right next to his pillow and fallen asleep on top of it. The stuff had pushed right into the roots, and there were tufts of hair sticking out in all directions. I had no idea what to do.
Ordinarily a Google search would have been my first instinct. (Oil? Alcohol? Industrial-grade solvent?) But Porthos would have to leave for school soon so I didn’t have time.
We went to the bathroom and suffice to say it was the combination of lots of water, lots of shampoo and a fine-toothed comb that eventually coaxed the stuff out. I silently thanked God that Porthos was in a good mood that morning, and apart from an “ow” now and again, he seemed none the worse for wear.
“Do we have to throw away the putty?” Porthos asked woefully.
“I’m afraid so. And the comb too – I broke two teeth,” I said.
In the midst of the commotion, little Aramis woke up and called out, “Mummy…. Mummy!…. MUMMY!” (When you’re a third child, that’s about how many tries it takes to get the attention you want….)
“Yes dear?”
“Come and sayang me,” he said. (Sayang is Malay for “love”, and in our household, code for hugs and snuggles and the like.)
So putty problem solved, and Porthos finally settled down to breakfast, I dutifully went to snuggle with my youngest.
And that was just the first half hour of this mother’s day! (Later that morning, my bottom got pinched by a cracked toilet seat. But another story for another day….)
The aftermath. The big lumps of putty were assembled after the fact - they were actually spread out all over the back of his head. Note the two broken teeth of the comb.
A few days ago we were playing Bible Quiz over lunch with some friends. One of the adults asked – “Who can name the first five books of the Bible?” After Genesis and Exodus, none of us were entirely confident about the order (which speaks volumes about our Bible knowledge!)
Anyhow, it was an opportunity to teach the kids about mnemonics, specifically first-letter mnemonics. The one I learnt in school for the colours of the rainbow was “Richard Of York Gained Battles in Vain”, which I always found a bit odd since the poor Duke is mostly unknown to Singaporeans. Much better that we come up with one that makes sense for ourselves!
Anyhow, I challenged the kids to come up with one for the Pentateuch so we wouldn’t be lost for the answer again. And the title of this post is Athos’ attempt, which I thought was quite a winner!
In the midst of this impossibly hot weather, I’ve been trying to think of things to do with the kids that don’t involve us (well, me really) getting too sticky and sweaty.
I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before but ICE is such a great, low-cost, boredom buster. Today we spent a good hour outside doing icey things, which worked so well in this nasty heat. And you can always teach some science on the sidelines – freezing, melting, surface tension, adhesion, cohesion, hydrophilia, hydrophobia blah blah blah.
But it’s really too hot to get into the science. So on to the activities -
Ice-racing – Give each kid a piece of ice and get them to blow it across a table. The first person to blow his ice off the opposite end wins. It helps to wet the table thoroughly to minimise friction. One variation we also tried is to use drinking straws to focus our blowing more precisely.
Ice carrom/hockey – Kids are to use their fingers to flick their ice cube carrom-style into a goal (I just used my hands in a V formation). They can also use straws, spoons or some other item as a stick or bat.
Ice fishing – Fill a basin with water and throw in some items that sink like marbles, coins or paper clips. Cover the surface with ice, the more ice the more challenging. Give each kid a spoon and they are to fish out as many items as they can. If you mix items you can give more difficult ones more points. To increase squeal factor, instead of spoons they are to use only their index and middle fingers (like chopsticks). If you have a bigger basin, you can also try bigger items which the kids must fish out use their feet.
Ice bags – Fill a small Ziploc with ice cubes and seal. Practice throwing and catching, and take cool break in between!
So here are more cakes, created since that last post. All are made from Betty Crocker cake mix, and the icings are either butter or whipped cream based.
Porthos’ 6th birthday cake – an aircraft carrier with Lego figures and models made by Porthos himself.
Milo powder and nuggets simulate soil and rocks in this military-inspired, sugar-saturated creation for Athos’ 7th birthday.
Aramis’ 3rd birthday cake is a train featuring chocolate-chip cookie wheels, windows made of Loacker biscuits, and Kit Kat tracks.
Athos is begining to outgrow cutesy cakes so we had some difficulty brainstorming for his 8th birthday. Since he likes Lego so much, we decided on a Lego block cake. I’m a little embarrassed to say most people had difficulty recognising it
It has been blistering hot in Singapore so water play is the activity of first resort in the Pilgrim family these days.
It’s not always convenient to go to a pool, so here’s a fun alternative, especially if you have younger kids. Buy a spray bottle from any household goods store, fill it up with water, and let the kids at it! The cheapest bottles go for under $2, and the more expensive ones have different nozzle settings.
Here are some ideas:
watering plants, leaves, flowers
spraying into tubs and basins
aiming at specified targets (we sometimes draw a bull’s eye on our blackboard)
shooting at each other – this works especially well if you have, as the Pilgrim family does, kids of varied ages. The older ones will always win in an all-out water gun fight, so spray bottles level the playing field enormously. Be forewarned that older boys might consider this extremely uncool! Athos was most dismissive at first, but eventually deigned to join in and had fun.
add different food colourings to each spray bottle and let them spray paint on a large piece of mahjong paper or the bathroom wall
if it’s a sunny day, challenge them to make a rainbow. Porthos managed to do it without any guidance and was utterly thrilled (not surprising given his history with rainbows). The spray should be the kind that shoots out a mist of water rather than a jet, and you should stand with your back facing the sun.
The spray bottles are a useful tool for sand play as well – if you are building sandcastles on a hot day, spray the built structures occasionally to keep them wet and intact.
Don’t be surprised if the kids find other interesting ways to use the spray bottles. Athos started giving Porthos a “haircut”, spraying water like an old pro barber!
Just a quick post to link everyone over to Red Sports’ feature story on Seng Kang Primary School, the only school in Singapore that offers daily PE lessons for all its students, rain or shine.
Earlier this year, Porthos came home from school saying that he didn’t have PE that day, even though it was on the schedule. Why, I asked. “Because we were behaving badly. So the teacher punished us and didn’t let us go for PE.”
I thought that was one of the more absurd things I’d ever heard. I’ve also heard anecdotes of schools cancelling PE for PSLE revisions or make-up classes. Is it any wonder that the ruggedness of our nation is in question?
According to Singapore’s Health Promotion Board, “Singapore has one of the highest rates of myopia in the world. In Singapore about 30% of the children become myopic by the age of 7 and by age 12 about half of them are myopic. There is a grave need to prevent myopia in children at a younger age because the younger the age of onset of myopia, the higher the risk of developing eye related diseases later in life.” HPB also supports daily outdoor time because “emerging evidence suggests that spending more time outdoors may help delay the onset or progression of myopia.” (Source: HPB website)
Add in our obesity rates, and the range of learning disabilities and sensory problems present in our chidren, and Seng Kang’s example truly stands out.
MOE has just announced that it will suspend AWARE’s sex education programme.
The statement says that “Today, schools are allowed to engage external vendors to supplement MOE’s sexuality education programme. MOE has reviewed the internal processes for selecting and monitoring vendors and found that they can be improved. MOE will put in more stringent processes to ensure that training materials and programmes delivered in schools are in line with the Ministry’s framework on sexuality education. Schools will suspend the engagement of external vendors until the new vetting processes are completed. The Ministry is also reviewing ways to provide parents with more information about sexuality education in the specific schools that their children are in.”
About AWARE’s sexuality education, MOE said that “in some other aspects, the Guide does not conform to MOE’s guidelines. In particular, some suggested responses in the instructor guide are explicit and inappropriate, and convey messages which could promote homosexuality or suggest approval of pre-marital sex.”
The whole saga at AWARE has left me troubled. I didn’t like how the new guard came into power and their inability to articulate a coherent position and direction from the get-go. But I was also upset by the subsequent savagery online and offline that demonised Christians. Keep reading →
Today I found a deck of quiz cards from my favourite second-hand hole in the wall. They cover English, Math, Science and General Knowedge calibrated for ages 6 onwards.
Anyhow, I took out the bunch and tried them on Porthos. We were having fun when this nugget came along:
“Correct this sentence: She hurted her leg.”
Porthos’ answer came back quick as lightning – “She injured her leg!”
Just before bedtime, I read the story of the Crucifixion to the older boys. When I was done, we went through the story again, and I would leave out parts and let them fill in the blanks.
When we got to the conversation with the criminals, I said, “Jesus told the second criminal, ‘Today you will be with me in…’”
Porthos, with a bright smile, said, “Paris!”
Later on, Pilgrim Dad was explaining to Aramis that we had gone out in the morning “for some coffee so that we could get a buzz.”
Dear innocent Aramis asked, “Why do you want bugs in your coffee?”
Hundreds of things to do today, but must pause to share the new MCYS family video that was recently released. The work of the inimitable Yasmin Ahmad, whose other videos I’ve mentioned elsewhere.
Here’s the note the teacher received the next day.
Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit.
I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it.
Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole.
It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.
From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Porthos came out of his bedtime shower with his hair slickly combed, and one thick tuft sticking straight up out of his head, like a carrot-top. “Wow, your hair looks cool,” I said, suppressing my laughter. He looked very pleased with his creation.
Some minutes later, I noticed the anti-gravity hair showed no sign of collapse.
“Did you use water for your hair?” I asked. “No, I used the purple gel,” said Porthos, evidently proud of his manly act.
It probably wasn’t the best reaction but I laughed out loud. The thought of Porthos diligently coiffing himself with Pilgrim Dad’s hair gel – just before bedtime – was a bit too much to take.
“That’s great,” I said, when I could finally speak. “But next time, do it in the daytime, ok?”
At bedtime, as I kissed him goodnight on the forehead, he said, “Don’t suck up the gel, Mummy!”
