IMPORTANT NOTICE: If I find out that anyone have used pictures of my kids in their websites for legal, illegal, porn or professional, directly or indirectly for purposes that I have not agreed to, they will incurr the wrath of a very protective mother. Do not fiddle with the pictures, use them, copy them, manipulate them...they are the pictures of my kids. If you want to use them, please send me an email beforehand and obtain my consent first. Thanks

Samseng :: 19th May 2004

Time has really flown….and I never even noticed how big my boys have become until lately. Joshua is now fully capable of telling me EXACTLY how he feels about something, like, "I don't like Strawberry ice-cream because it's NOT CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM" and also he sometimes comes up to me to tell me tales about the things others have been saying around him. He seems to be a teetotaler these days too - telling on everyone, especially his bestfriend-of-the-moment (cousin) Isabelle and also his brother. Jared would be tinkering with the radio, indenting all the buttons and irritating the beejesus out of the CD player. Jared's already spoilt 2 CD players so, I am not complaining about Joshua's tendency to tell on his brother whenever he misbehaves.

But the wonderful thing about being here, at home, watching them grow up is that I can see the growth. I can tell the progress they have made the time my husband left for his men-only holiday in Sabah till the time he came home.

When he came home from the trip, he asked me in the car, "So, how have my kids been?" and I can tell him, in great detail, the things he can expect to be different with his kids. Now, isn't this something amazing…something I never imagined that I could do before. So, maybe…just maybe, the tumultuous accounting, back-breaking sales antics, back-scratching and shoe-polishing to make money from home is worth-it after all. I said MAYBE.

Jared, my dear Jed, is what I would call a samseng (a roughian) in the making. Why, considering that I have always called him my little munchkin, sweetie-pie, pumpkin, angel, pwweeeetttyyy baby who can do nothing wrong? Well, he's the kind of who would take whatever wrong you would do him silently at the start. He's like this cold and calculating victim who would silently take the beating you would give him. He surrenders now…but will map out his revenge plan as soon as your back is turned.

As an illustration, I will tell you this nice little story.

One fine day, Jared was playing with this shopping cart that I bought him for his 2nd birthday. He was playing in a corner, not disturbing anyone and was simply putting the boxes into the plastic bags, taking them out and then putting them back into the plastic bag again. I watched and marveled at his attention span all this time, while eating my lunch. Then his tyrannical cousin comes along and snatches the cart away from him. Jared takes this silently. He does not respond, he does not cry, he does not whine for mommy and he does not retaliate…IMMEDIATELY. But he did put up a very silent fight for it….as in REFUSING TO LET GO!! In the end, he loses and he watches quietly as his cousin takes off with his cart to another corner of the living room. He totters on over to the cabinet, pulls out a toy bat (or was it a badminton racquet?), slowly creeps up behind the intended victim and raises his arm and forcefully delivers his blow. And boy oh boy, did his victim suffer his wrath.

I am not proud of this but being his mom, I was watching at the sideline and was fuming when his cousin snatched the toy away from my son and yet no one said anything the maid thinks he's an angel and thinks that he can do no wrong, so, I kept quiet, hoping that Jed would stand up for himself. And all the books I read about parenting tells me that I should stand aside until my help is asked for. So, that's precisely what I did. I stood aside and watched in horror as my son was emotionally bullied. But was I wrong or what?

Although I was cheering him on inwardly and didn't make my move until the blow was delivered (I know, I am nasty, amn't I?), I still took him one side to tell him that he can't go around hitting other people over the head. He should go on over and 'sayang' (make-up) his cousin and say 'sorry'. Jared did what I asked him to do. His maid did not mention anything about the cousin snatching the cart away from Jared in the first place, so, I mentioned it to the cousin.

"Now, now. You should not snatch things away from people next time, when they are still playing with it, ok?" What I got was a resounding "NO!! Don't want!" from the cousin. Hhhhaaarruuuummpphhhh! All I can say is that I did my part.

Joshua, Joshua, Joshua…my darling little 4-year-old. I realize, as I am typing this that I have to look for the number 4 when I am typing his age because I am so used to using the lower keys, as in 1 2 3…etc. Now he's FOUR YEARS OLD and I am getting old. We were just exploring the concept of growing a few days ago.

I made videos of my kids all the time, using some softwares and putting some music into the background. I am hoping this will keep me company when I am old, haggard and bound to a wheelchair. I made this really cool video of Joshua that is sort of like a slideshow of his pictures from babyhood till now. He can read his name, so, he read it "Joshua. That's me Mommy, that's me!" and I smiled at him. "Yes, Joshua. That's you" and then it started off with the pictures of him as a baby.

He said in a disappointed voice, "But that's not me, Mommy".

s

Apparently, he denies that the babies in the pictures were him, until there were pictures of him as an 18-month old tot with the pacifier in his mouth….ahhh…now, that is Joshua! I took some pains to actually explain that people grow everyday like Jared and Joshua. I explained that plants grow and decided that one fine day, I would do some plant growing with this kid. I took some old photos of Jared and showed it to him, "Look, see? That's Jared when he was a baby, remember? That's Joshua, holding Jared, see?" and he nodded his head, not completely understanding. I know because of his furrowed brow. Never mind.

I then explained that mommy grow bigger and bigger too. I proceeded to bring some of my old photos to show him. And thankfully, he recognized me at the stage. "Mommy growing bigger and bigger now?" he asked innocently. I sighed, "No. Unfortunately not. Mommy is not growing bigger and bigger. I am in the process of growing smaller and smaller". This elicited a groan from the kid, so, I gave up and just said, "Yes, mommy is growing bigger and bigger too". I will reserve the explanation about growing OLDER in another lesson about the circle of life.

:: Marsha ::