Leave. Me. Alone.

I snapped at Abby and Shalom last night. They were fighting over the nesting dolls and neither would give in. I yelled at them so sternly and terrified Abby. Shalom held his tears back but Abby was shocked. I broke down. After Abby called Ben (who was at cell), Abby came over to hug me.

How could I do this to my own kids?

The stress of the week has really taken its toll on me. The pressure of not being able to say no. Dealing with the stupidity of some people which led to me fixing up the mess after I returned after the extremely taxing break taking care of two kids who were sick and fussy. Having to plan for lesson observation because of my poor scheduling.

I snapped.

I have almost reached my breaking point.

I snapped earlier yesterday in my English/Science class. We've been collecting the Young Scientist projects, and I had returned the project 3 times to a particular group to get them to change their answers. But no, three times they returned it to me with the same answer. I got really fed up. Here's what they wrote:

Q: How is NEWater generated and give two of its uses.
A: NEWater is from our urine and we drink our own urine. It is purified by urine. It is healthier and it is more refreshing.

And these two girls are my good pupils. They refused to talk to me after that. I refused to look at them also.

Another incident: My kids often confide in me regarding the class politics because I take action. As a result, they don't fool around because they know I care. So two boys came to me to tell me that two other boys have been fighting. So I intervened. I found out that their history dates back to last year, in this colleague's class. She overheard and later told me, "My class doesn't have these issues."

Yah right. Because you cannot be bothered.

I'm fed up and bitchy. I'm pissed. I need rest. Exams are coming and I do not have enough time to revise with my classes. The stacks of marking have risen high, and I have brought marking home. I cannot rest well. I need a breakthrough.

Revamp

The toys, books and games are threatening to overwhelm us. Surprisingly, despite so many ways to be engaged, they are still spending a disgusting number of hours in front of the tv every day. Perhaps it's because there are too many toys all over the place, so the kids can't really access everything. It's an irony - the more you have, the less you play with. It's the same with all the stuff we have - the more we have, the less we use (in proportion). So we need to make it accessible for them. Here we go (Ikea) again...

I'm on this hunt for activities to do with the kids at home. I usually make use of the 8 intelligences as a guide so as not to bore them. I thank God both their ages are really close, so they entertain each other most of the time. However, it's still good to have structured play whenever Mummy's home, otherwise Mummy will just busy herself with the huge load of guilt books she brings home everyday.

I need to have a workplan even at home. Otherwise the frustration of not knowing what to do sets in. We usually do colouring, painting, drawing, writing, puzzle fixing, tangraming, role-playing, stamping, play-doughing, reading, dancing, singing, sticker-pasting, etc - and that's usually just ALL IN A DAY. It's usually initiated by them. And then they still want to play some more. Other times when Mummy has a little more energy, we'll do a bit of cooking and baking. Sometimes Lina will allow Abby to make jelly for everyone. But there must be more to do... otherwise they'll just stare at the tv screen.

Oh. And our VCD/DVD collection. It's filled up many albums, and they're still persisting very well. They've watched many shows. The TV is the Babysitter's Babysitter. As much as I discourage my pupils from too much tv watching, my own kids are clocking about a minimum of 4 hours daily. It's really bad. From the time they wake up, the TV's switched on. And that's about 7. By 9 they would have watched about 1.5 to 2hrs of tv. Plus lunch - 1 hour, then nap. When they wake up at 3, all the way till 5, that's about 2 hours. So effectively, 4.5hrs to 5 hours a day. Multiply that by 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 3 years of their lives (Abby's at least). That's a lot of brain-dulling activity going on. Although some people do believe that tv can be educational, too much is really not good. It's proven. Also, even though Shalom and Abby don't watch 'television broadcast' programmes, their DVD collection is already at an astounding size (by conservative standards). Forget about cable. I cannot bear to see them have withdrawal symptoms if they are hooked on that too.

So my plan - get my helper to chart their tv watching - clock the actual number of hours. Then when she produces the results, aim for half that number (which I won't reveal at first until she produces one week's worth of tv watching). If she under-declares, she'll have an even smaller target to work with. She most likely won't over-declare though, as it'll look quite bad on her. We'll try to assist her with ways to help reduce the tv exposure although she's only half the factor. My MIL is finally persuaded by the newspaper that tv watching during meal times is bad for the kids. *WOOHOO!* So the kids are shipped away from the tv when it's meal-time.

I'm not saying tv is bad. But 4 hours a day is really a lot of tv watching. Some people would argue otherwise. If they do, I'd say they can do whatever they like to their kids, but I'd rather mine not watch. After teaching for a short period, I can tell those who are tv addicts and those who are not. Teachers are not entertainers; we can't entertain them in class like how tv does. So they actually have to be disciplined, active - proactive in fact, and do work.

So once again, my goal - to halve 4 hours to 2 hours a day. By more conservative standards - that's still quite a lot, but that's a 50% reduction... if possible. Not only that, they still watch programmes on mobile phones and portable dvd player (even when going out with grandparents)...

Research has shown that brainwaves dull after prolonged tv watching. Plus the numerous flashes on screen etc, the costs really does outweigh the benefits after a while. It took me a long time to wean myself off tv - I was a huge tv addict because there was no supervision at home and my 'supervisor' is a huge tv addict herself - my grandma -- so I hope my kids can start weaning off earlier and not waste their life away. Some people can still come up to me and insist that it's perfectly alright to do so - they've wasted their life away and still turned out fine, but I do hope that the kids can find more meaningful things to be engaged with and hopefully use whatever creativity that they have (together with others) and solve some of the world's problems. Sometimes it takes only that little spark to make this place a better place to live in. Or the other way is to just become a couch potato and stay out of the way.

March Holidays

As a brilliant start to the March Holidays, I had to scrap the tracks of the stadium at 'full' speed right in front of the Grand Stand which was overflowing with parents for the final event of our Sports Day. Brilliant. We were coming in last, and I was determined to give it my best shot - forget about even overtaking, coz they were really ahead of us. So I caught the baton from Elise and I started running. The ground approached me and I tumbled. The baton flew out of my hand and I scrambled for it right after I stopped rolling. I continued to run. It was quite a sight, seeing the crowd cheer and clap for a disoriented, bleeding and pale teaching running like mad past the finishing line. I was well taken care of after that. One parent who heard about the eventful race has been messaging me daily to check on me. My shoulder wound almost got infected. My boss asked today if it was like siew mai from Crystal Jade. I replied, "It's more like Lap Cheong."

As Abby would wrinkle her nose when she sees my wound and say, "It's quite bad uh?"

Oh well. No massages and sports for this holiday. We had Shalom's party the next day, and I had the dirtiest looks from people - like I had leprosy when I sported the wound with a spaghetti-strapped top. However, I also felt quite gung-ho - like I had gotten into a fight and was showing off my battle-scars. Or that I survived an abuse of a huge cigar on my shoulder. Oh well, I think people were just eyeing me to check for other injuries.

I've always wondered how people got such bad injuries on their shoulders. Wouldn't their heads get injured? Now I know.

I sustained other injuries - left knee (bad), right knee (almost nil), right shoulder (gross) and head (light pinkish injury, but otherwise alright). I singlehandedly united the school for 20 seconds. Not bad eh? :P

For this hols, I cleared the boxes off the study, met up with Eve, went for pedicure, spent lotsa time with Abby and Shalom, went Playground at Big Splash and rested well. On the other hand, busted $30+$50 fine for parking (Mum's car - more expensive than getting season parking - $63 a month!), Shalom's ill - been throwing up non-stop, haven't cleared my mountainload of marking (this is bad), lotsa deadlines piling up but I really don't know what they are, and I haven't finished my idealistic to-do list. Maybe I should make it even more detailed.

I really hope I will get around to uploading photos. But I can only do that if the study's functioning - meaning everything's in place, which would mean I would need to pack it. But to pack it, I'll need to clear my marking first. And I need to take the kids to the pedodontist coz their teeth's really bad - Lina's been siphoning sweets even without them asking for it! ARGH! Plus Shalom hasn't updated his vaccination yet, and he's unwell, think he's gotten an infection, so I've gotta take him to the doctor's tomorrow. Argh.

So if you want photos, I'm sorry but we'll have to wait.

Oh. By the way, HAPPY BURFDAY JIUJIU! :)

Subject to Interpretation

Just dropped my mum and her friend off at the airport, and I drove both the kids back, happily fastened in the back seat. As we reached the carpark, we tried looking for an available non-season parking lot, but to no avail. I decided to get ben to come downstairs and take them upstairs while i continued on the hunt.

So i got Abby to make the phonecall. My instructions to her were, "Love, please call Daddy and ask him to come downstairs to take you upstairs coz Mummy can't find a parking lot."

The phone rang, and Ben picked up and heard Abby exclaim, "DADDY! MUMMY DUNNO HOW TO PARK THE CAR LEH!"

The Test

It's a negative.