All About Your Child

Allan and I used to be worried about Keatkeat’s sociability skills and timid personality in the past. You can see lots of posts about those issues during last year. We had always wished that Keatkeat would be more ‘daring’, more outspoken, more expressive and more sociable….and the Good Lord granted our prayers….

Last Monday, 1st September, Allan wasn’t available, so I brought the kids down to watch their favorite event of the year, the National Lion Dance Competition.

It was really crowded. We reached there at 8pm, half hour late. So there wasn’t much space available for a good view. We walked around the whole arena but couldn’t find any good spot for the kids. I could see through the ‘gaps’ between the necks of 2 people but the kids could only see butts.

So we waited for the ‘interval period’ – After each performance, the lion dance troupe is given 10mins to dismantle the props and the next group is given 15mins to set up theirs. So usually, during this 25mins interval, people would leave ‘their space’ and that was our only chance…we were lucky, or so I thought we were at first…

We found this place (see the white circle). It was a good spot, ‘cos the kids were not blocked by anyone. Of cos’ none of the people in this picture is anyone of us. I just wanted to give you a better idea of how ‘our space’ looked like.

The kids were on their feet, while their hands were on the hand-bar.

The first half hour was fine. Then suddenly, Keatkeat started to sing! He sang almost every song he ever knew. Then he started to talk like chipmunks. Or to be exact he started to talk like Alvin in the movie.

He was so LOUD, he’s voice could almost matched the drum! Everyone was turning their heads and looked at him or rather at us! You can see how crowded the place was. Everyone was practically rubbing shoulders.

I whispered, “Keatkeat, when you are so loud, do you think you are disturbing other people?”

He replied, “YEESSSSS!”

“Then can you please stop?” I said sternly

He went, “Ooooo…kay!” Exactly the same tone as Alvin at the end of the movie!

I thanked him for 5mins of pure silence. Then he started to DANCE!!!! Yes he loves to dance. Whenever he hears a rhythm, his whole body starts shaking. In fact I was quite surprised that he didn’t move much when we first arrived…but I guess my joy was short-lived.

The tourist couple sitting on the hand-bar beside Keatkeat started to shift alittle to their right (Keatkeat was on their left), (I guess) to prevent being slapped in the face.

Binbin was on Keatkeat’s left. As Binbin tried to avoid getting hit by his brother’s swinging arms…. While (on the left of Binbin) the mommy and his little boy, around the age of Binbin, started to shift away from Binbin.

I held on to Binbin, “Bin stop moving towards Auntie, they don’t have much space left.”

“But gorgor (big bro) keep beating me!” Binbin debated.

Turning to Keatkeat, “Keatkeat, its important that you must be considerate to others. I know you are happy and you want to dance, but when your dancing affects others, then you MUST STOP!”

He went, “Ooooo-kay!” again and he did stop….for 2mins!

Just then, a woman about my age squeezed her way in-between Keatkeat and the tourists. The space was probably big enough for half of Olive (Popeye’s girlfriend), in fact she nearly pushed the tourist off the hand-bar.

The mother was fast with her apologies, “Sorry sorry, she’s mentally NOT ok…sorry sorry”...Just then Keatkeat started to dance again!”

The mentally unsound daughter pushed the bums of the tourist with her hand, as if requesting for more space. Shortly after, the tourist couple left, not sure if it was because of the mentally unsound daughter or Keatkeat’s ‘un-tame-able’ spirit or because one performance just ended.

The moment they left, the daughter and mother hopped up and sat on the hand-rail. That was perfectly fine…IF ONLY THEY STAY PUT! The daughter started to shift her bum over to Keatkeat. I slided Keatkeat over to Binbin’s side, because I was afraid, very afraid that Keatkeat may hit onto her accidentally and God knows what would she do to him!

The more I shifted Keatkeat, the more she advanced over. She shifted so much towards Keatkeat that the space between her and her mother could fit a grown man! Can you imagine how ‘sandwiched‘ we were?!

These came to an end when my little Binbin complained, “Mommy, I got no space!!! I’m going to knock onto Auntie already.”

“Binbin, there’s nothing I can do, the AUNTIE beside gorgor keep shifting over!” I complained too (indirectly to the mother)

“Mommy, I got no space already! I’m going to fall down already!” Binbin yelled.

I was pissed with the mother’s reaction. Completely oblivious to her daughter’s actions.

“Let’s go. Don’t watch already.” I demanded.

“Noooo…I want to watch!” Screamed my boys in unison.

Only then did the mother take actions, I was expecting her to pull her daughter over to her, instead, she grabbed her hand and left. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in anyway, but I seriously feel that if your daughter (be it of unsound mind or not) is disturbing others, then you should do something about it.

With the sudden big space, Keatkeat started to slide himself up and down the empty space, the people behind him dare not even come close to the hand-rail.

“Keatkeat, you MUST stop all these nonsense right now, or we are leaving!” I warned.

He YELLED! I have never ever seen him in such a state IN PUBLIC before. He totally became a boy whom I am so unfamiliar with. He YELLED, he threw tantrums, he shouted, “I DON’T WANT!!!!”

More of being in a state of shock, I didn’t know what to do. This is NOT surprising IF it happens to Binbin, but this is definitely a jaw-drop reaction (to me) by Keatkeat. My mind was blank and I could see the shock in Binbin’s face too. We know not of this kid anymore.

The interval period ended. The drum broke his tantrum. It was the start of the next performance.

Binbin: “Mommy, after this lion dance I want to go toilet.”

I thought, ok, that will be a PERFECT excuse to get out of this embarrassing scene. I don’t know about you! But when I see a kid behaving like that, I think the problem lies with the parent – which was me!!! *Urgghhh*

But I couldn’t have grabbed the microphone from the M.C. and made an explanation to the people looking over my direction, “I have NEVER seen my child like that in PUBLIC before. Never!”

Yes Keatkeat do Yell and throw Tantrums at home, but when he is at home, he is not disturbing ‘strangers’ or people in the public. This situation totally took me off-guard. I have no idea what happened to him! It was like Alvin had come all the way from Hollywood and possessed his little body.

I hold my patience. I’m extremely good with that especially in public. I waited patiently (and kept reminding this rascal to stop his nonsense ) for the 15mins performance to be over and then I’ll use the perfect excuse to leave….Keatkeat still continued to dance, continued to sing, continued with his babbling as he enjoyed the lion dance, completely using all his senses except the sense of smell. Oh, probably the smell of his own perspiration.

Yes! It ended! The roaring applause was as loud as the one in my heart! I grabbed Binbin and instructed Keatkeat, “Let’s Go! Binbin needs to go to the toilet.” And off I went with him following behind like a good dog, but kept barking, “after toilet, we are coming back here right? right?! We’ll be coming back here….?!”

In my head I was screaming, “Not on your dear life are we coming back here!”

Though the show wasn’t over, I refused to bring them back to watch. I was completely humiliated, in a way, by my 4-year-old’s behavior. I brought him to a quiet corner in the shopping mall and gave him a lecture of all times.

“Keatkeat! I am very disappointed with you today. I have NEVER been so disappointed with you before. I told you to stop singing so loudly. I told you to stop shouting. I told you to stop dancing. All because this is NOT your house. You cannot do what you like when you are OUT OF YOUR HOUSE. Your actions will affect other people and when that happens, they wouldn’t think you are a good boy. You’ve always wanted people to think you are a good boy. Then you MUST BEHAVE LIKE ONE! And what you did just now were NOTHING close to being a GOOD BOY! I need to punish you! I have to. And the punishment is DON’T TALK TO ME!!!!”

And I walked off. He ran behind me and started to cry. I was not interested to even turn back and console him. I called Allan and told him that we were ready to go home, be it he’s done with his appointment or not. I was ready to take public transport home. But he told me he was on his way to fetch us.

All the way, from the moment we hopped into the car, I told Allan what happened after he asked for the reason behind my charcoal face. I told Allan that Keatkeat haven’t realised that what he did was wrong, ‘cos he would USUALLY say “sorry” after a scolding, but this time, his pride was stopping him. He refused to admit that he was in the wrong. I warned Allan NOT to tell him to apologize, I want him to apologize on his own accord….

Boy! Was this 4-year-old stubborn or what?! He didn’t speak to me till the next day at 10.45am, stood beside me and said, “Mommy, I’m sorry for not listening to you yesterday at the lion dance…I will not do it again…”

This is the biggest punishment ever on Keatkeat and so far it has proven that it worked, ‘cos he showed great improvements to all the other misbehavior of his….

Its so important to let the child knows who is the ONE in control…. sometimes…I don’t want to be a tyrant, but like I’ve said before, I guess my parenting style have to change as the kids continue to test the boundaries….

I wanted to reply every single comment for the previous post. But I realized everyone was so concerned. So Instead of replying every single comment, I thought maybe I should just post the answers as today’s post.

There are SEVERAL reasons why everything turned out so terrible. Hopefully by answering all the comments for yesterday’s post, everyone will get a clearer picture…

Jasmine: “funny thing is why does your SIL willing to have 3kids when she can’t even teach/handle/take care of them…now the kids & your MIL are the ones suffering…indirectly also get you involve too…sigh..”

None of the 3 kids were planned for. All were unexpected. When they had Zeng Yee, the first child, my parents-in-law ended their 20+ years of hawker life. The 2 old folks took care of Zeng Yee as their full-time job. My MIL told my SIL not to worry about Zeng Yee and that she can continue to work.

I stayed with my PIL and my BIL and SIL after I was married for the first year. That’s why Zeng Yee and I are so close. I will play with her whenever I’m at home and help to take care of her occasionally when my MIL is busy in the kitchen.

Then Mun Yee came to earth. Or rather she managed to survive after 3 months of intense suffering – see her birth story here. But my SIL was not happy. She had always wanted a boy. My BIL and parents-in-law (PIL) favour boys more than girls. So she has always wanted to try for a boy. But my BIL did not want, but somehow by accident AGAIN, Weidong was born.

Everything happened so fast. And over the years, my SIL and PIL have more and more “silent arguements”, they are unhappy with each other, but they just don’t talk about it. My SIL has also done many things to piss my PIL off like what she did in this post.

Yes, I would agree with you that MIL is suffering but to SIL, it is NOT. SIL is angry that MIL didn’t treat her better because she finally bore my MIL a grandson (its funny how she thinks) and SIL will NEVER quit her job cos she doesn’t want to stay at home to face the two old folks the whole day. SIL thinks that since the 2 of them have looked after 4 kids at the same time before, now that she have 3 kids to look after and Zeng Yee is already 7 and Mun Yee-4, it shouldn’t be a big issue at all. (the 4 kids were my 2 sons and my SIL’s 2 girls -when I was still in retail line)

I have told SIL (by the way, I’m SIL’s counsellor *wink* she calls me whenever she face problems) that it was different. Years ago, MIL was slightly younger, more energetic and her diabetes and high blood pressure have not attack her yet. Now she is on medication everyday, aged that much more…its not comparable. But SIL will just brush me off by saying, “no! its because you bore her 2 grandsons first, that’s why she was willing to make the sacrifice…” *faint*

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LZmommyDoes their Mom knows what’s happening to her 3 kids? Poor girl to always get the blame for everything… Hope this will not affect their siblings relationship…

Yes her mom, which is my SIL, knows! Even when SIL is at home, when she has no work, MIL treat them that way too. My MIL will act exactly the same way. Because the kids are with my MIL more than with my SIL, they stick to my MIL even though SIL is at home. So there isn’t any difference if SIL is at home or not. So SIL will stay in the office and deal with the ordering of the cards business.

My SIL’s perfect excuse was, “The kids doesn’t cling on to me, there’s nothing I can do right?”

Since young, Zeng Yee was with my MIL, sleeps with my MIL, eats with my MIL….MIL IS HER MOMMY! And because of all the differences between PIL and SIL, my MIL would often say things like this to Zeng Yee, “Your mommy is stupid. Brainless. Cannot even get simple things done. Always irritate your father….and blah blah blah….”

Zeng Yee’s mind was poisoned since young….its sad…very sad…but the worse part was SIL NEVER PROVE to Zeng Yee that she is not like what MIL said about her! So to Zeng Yee, its true and now that she is 7 years old, she have eyes to see it for herself…and she dislike her mommy to the core, almost! Among everyone (13 of us not including Zeng Yee), my SIL is ranked number 2 from BOTTOM UP!

Because of Zeng Yee’s reaction towards her, SIL was determined not to let history repeat itself for her 2 other kids – Mun Yee and Weidong. The only BIG CHANGE she did was – sleep with the 2 of them at night. And that made Zeng Yee feel that SIL and BIL only love her younger sis and bro, not her…that created a thicker, icier wall between Zeng Yee and my SIL.

Whenever the kids fight, SIL will DEFINITELY take sides. SIL will always say its Zeng Yee’s fault! That’s why Zeng Yee hates Mun Yee like hell! By the way, Mun Yee is ranked 3rd from the BOTTOM.

I always HUG Zeng Yee whenever I can. I shower her with more love. I think she needs it more than any other kid in the house.

THE MOST HORRIBLE THING is, my MIL thinks that she may die any moment so she is FORCING Zeng Yee to hate her by pushing her away, being NOT NICE to her, scold her that much more and all those awful stuff. But that’s just wrong! Zeng Yee is sooooo hurt! My MIL did all that because she doesn’t want Zeng Yee to cling on to her so much, ‘cos she knows that when she dies, Zeng Yee would be devastated!

MIL hopes that by pushing Zeng Yee away, Zeng Yee will feel her granny doesn’t like her anymore and runs to her Mommy! BUT NO! Zeng Yee, clinged onto my MIL that much more or the little girl will come to me, every sunday, I’m her sunday-mommy.

All of us told MIL that its wrong, but like I’ve said in the previous post, she doesn’t want people to tell her otherwise.

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Erin oh, I don’t think I could go without hurting her pride.

Erin, I could be dumb and deaf about almost anything. But when it comes to kids-related matters, I’ll get it off my chest…

But there was this time…*sigh* I made my MIL cry!

Allan told me he had seen my MIL cry twice in all his life. The first time was when my 2nd BIL (NOT Zeng Yee’s dad) moved out to his new home as he was preparing for his marriage. The second time was caused by ME! (I’m so powerful, ya? I made the tigress CRY!)

When MIL told Allan and I that she didn’t  think she was able to take care of 5 kids when Weidong was still in SIL’s tummy (5 kids were my 2 boys, Zeng Yee, Mun Yee and Weidong), she told us to think of a plan.

Allan and I decided to get a maid, ‘cos our retail biz starts from 11am to 10pm, so Child Care Centre timing doesn’t suit us. But MIL made a big hoo-har about it. She called me up EVERYDAY, even when I was serving customers, she refused to put down the phone. She was getting on my nerves!

MIL saw too much ‘bad news’ from the TV about maid abusing the kids or even cause death to the kids…blah blah blah….so we said, ok, child care centre then. She is STILL not happy! She say, other children will spread germs to her beloved Grandsons. She never knew that SIL’s tummy was a boy then, she was all out to protect her grandsons from any harm, she favoured boys more than girls, remember?

So she called me day in day out. There was this time, when we went there late at night to fetch the kids after our stall is closed, she insists that we bring our tired body into her house and talk it out. I was tired and pissed from getting her calls everyday, repeating the same old gruesome stories of maid abusing the kids…blah blah blah…

…and so I shouted, “OK OK, THAT’S ENOUGH! NOT GETTING A MAID ALREADY! DON’T NEED TO SAY ANYMORE!”

…the next morning, when we brought the kids over before we went to setup our stall, my MIL was pale as a sheet of paper, her eyes were swollen, tears were flowing down…

my (quiet) FIL insists that we come in and soothe the old woman. FIL said MIL had been crying all night. Did not even sleep at all!

Why?

Because I shouted at her! *sigh*

So since then….all eyes were on me, the moment I open my mouth. All were ready with their bows and arrows, aiming at me, every time I reply my MIL something…

You see, I was more or less the favored daughter-in-law, ‘cos there wasn’t in-laws conflicts. My mom left and my dad was dead, so all she needs to handle was just the sweet-nice-amiable ME! So when I shouted at her, she couldn’t take it…

That’s why I’ve kept my silence and watched my words since then….*sigh*

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Angie: “ No way i am going to leave my child with a caregiver like this…”

Angie, so after all the above, do you see that SIL never thinks that its a choice. It was a MUST! SIL thinks that it is a MUST for PIL to take care of her 3 kids since ALL OF THEM are staying under the same roof!

At this point, maybe alot of you may think, what the hell is BIL doing about all these then?! BIL have suggested getting a maid. He said to my MIL, “with you around, you won’t need to worry about maid abusing the kids already right?” But my MIL still refused! She said she did not like the idea of having a stranger in the house. ….*sigh*

you see, that’s my MIL, she gives us the ‘problem’ but is never satisfied with ANY solutions given.

so since then, BIL have NEVER mentioned this again and couldn’t be bothered about her complains – about how tough it is to take care of 3 kids at her old age of 62 and blah blah blah…

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Ling: “hmm … is ur MIL stress taking care of 3 grandchildren on her own? usually they like to reply back when we question abt their parenting style.”

yes girl, she is stressed up! But her pride is on the upperhand. She doesn’t want to let other’s feel she is incapable. So though she complained so much, she never admitted that she is stressed even though we questioned her.

and yup! Old folks being old folks, they think they have ate more salt than we have ate rice, so they always thinks that they know much better than us…

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Crazymumma: “ Oh dear. It sounds just chaotic. Do you ever have to leave your girls alone with her?”

Crazymumma, you meant my boys is it? If you had read the above, you know I’ve been leaving my boys there till my little nephew, Weidong was born. And yes she did hit them too, even though both my boys were not even 3years old then…..

but there’s nothing we could do then, we didn’t find any alternatives till we were up against the wall, that’s how I became the FULL TIME SAHM now….

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Imelda “child abuse must have to stop from the parents, so the children won’t do it to their future children as well.”

I grew up in an ‘abusive’ family and I’ve have super close friends in such families too….and if you had known me much earlier, my blog posts are often around this topic…

I wouldn’t say my MIL is abusing the kids, she just couldn’t bring down her pride and seek help…

But yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the danger is there. The very first time you lift a finger on someone, it slowly eats into you and then it became a habit, then it became natural and worse it became a MUST to inflict pain on the person in order to soothe the uneasiness in one’s heart…its scary, I grew up in such horrible 4 walls…where there’s no escape….

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june: “I really can’t comment much because she is your MIL…
having said that, i hope the kids will not cause so many problems cos your MIL will be very stressed up thus, resorted to this style of parenting “

Oh girl, don’t worry about giving comments, everyone has different views and concerns, I accept all comments even if they are ‘unpleasant’ to my ears, I still keep them in my comment box…but no spam please! So spammers you are never going to get your butt to sit on my blog!

like I’ve said before, the ‘creator’ of most problems is usually the 4 year old, complain queen, Loh Mun Yee….*sigh*

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Thank you everyone!