Simple Prayers - Not So Simple

I'm still on the same theme as yesterday where I talk about how I seem to have spent less time with Adrian than  I did with Aaron. Anyway, one of the areas that I have really slacked off is with our nightly prayers. So slack that I probably only attempted to start the routine of saying a prayer with Adrian a couple of months ago - and I only did it one night.

I'm not very eloquent and have always kept things as simple as possible, and of course, its the same prayer every night. One of the lines that I will have in it, towards the end, is along the lines of asking Jesus to watch over Adrian. Anyway, the first time I said it, he burst into tears. I don't mean mild tearing up at all. This was a full blown, big mouthed, big tears rolling down cheeks sort of cry. The impression I got was that he was either petrified or heartbroken. I think he thought I meant that somebody else, named "Jesus", was going to look after him and that I wouldn't be his mother anymore. Finally, he was pacified when I said that I would be looking after him and nobody else.

Its cruel to laugh at somebody else's expense but this episode was very amusing to me. I mean, I sympathized with Adrian, but it was such an unexpected situation that I had to have a quiet laugh to myself about it.

Fast forward to this week and I finally remembered that I was supposed to get into some sort of nightly prayer routine. I also remembered what happened last time and I tried to word things differently. Specifically, I prayed for Jesus to help me took after Adrian well. As in, guide me in my endeavors to be a good mother.

BUT, Adrian must have once again interpreted it to mean that the person named "Jesus" was going to be stepping in and sharing the responsibilities of looking after him. Again he cried, and cried, and cried.

Writing about it now has got me thinking about it and maybe I've actually pointed Jesus out to him at church but it might have been the man crucified on the cross that I pointed to - that would seem like a scary babysitter to a two year old wouldn't it? I think I might just stick to the usual 'Our Father' until I manage to clarify things to him.

I Need A 'Pause' Button For Adrian

Adrian seems to be growing up even faster than Aaron did. He's exactly 2 years and 3 months today. Unfortunately, I feel that I'm spending a lot less time with him than I did with Aaron. He seems to be able to play a lot more independently than Aaron did at this age but thats because I just haven't spent a lot of sit down time with him. He's also much better at sitting in a car than Aaron ever was but thats because he spends a lot of time in the car with me as I chauffeur Aaron here and there and do the household shopping. 

I like to think that he's picking up a whole different set of skills that Aaron didn't have chance to but who am I kidding? I need find the time to let him work with a pencil more, to read to him more to even play with him a little more. I can feel my Lego creativity skills declining recently from lack of practice. 

Thankfully, he has not been stuttering at all recently and is back to his old chatty self. He likes being a part of the conversation and often asks "What did you say, Mama?". Today, he has been amusing himself by only saying 'Yup' or 'Nope' and refusing to say 'Yes' or 'No'. I think he's picked that up from my father. Those two words sound really odd when he puts in something like this "Do you want to play Lego? Yup or nope?" 

He's very cute and I'm always a little sad when I think that he'll be 3 years old soon and then its sort of a slow decline in terms of cuteness after that. I mean, Aaron is still adorable but he's not longer the baby time of cute. 

Here's Adrian 'mowing' the grass this morning. 

Tomorrow is a new day. I'll try harder. 

Praise Junkie

Last May, I did a post on the Parentopoly game that I played which had the rules that you could not PRAISE, THREATEN, BRIBE, REWARD, or PUNISH your child. I can safely say that I don't find it hard not to threaten, bribe or reward. The other two are much harder. There needs to be consequences for things - hence punishment. I hope everyone is nodding in agreement? But for today, I'm steering clear of punishment and I'm going to zoom in on 'praise'. 


Guess what? I've come to the sudden realization that I am a product of over praising. I am a closet praise junkie and I never realized it. More on that later...


Ever since I started hearing that using words like 'Good Job' or 'Well done' was detrimental to a child, I've been on the look out for articles on it. 'Five Reasons to Stop Staying "Good Job!"' by Alfie Kohn is the one I came across this week. It is an interesting read for any parents out there but in a nutshell, the five reasons are because its :


1. Manipulative - parents using praise to reinforce behavior that may make our lives easier in the future. I'm so guilty of this one. "Good job picking up the toys", "Good eating", "Good sitting" etc etc etc...


2. Creates Praise Junkies - making children seek out the pat on the back as an assurance of a job well done. This is where I fit in. I blame my father. He was a 'super praiser' as a father and now, it looks like he's doing an even 'better' job as a grandfather. Anyway, remember how I said I started calling a few dances at clogging. Well, I keep feeling that I need people to tell me that I did ok, even when I know I didn't make any mistakes. AND, I feel a little bummed and insecure if people don't - makes me think they're too polite to say that I did a bad job. 


3. Steals a child's pleasure - doling out a 'good job' indicates that an evaluation has taken place when it may not have needed to be. The child may have felt their own sense of accomplishment without anybody saying anything. I think I might have done this to Aaron already so now, he's always looking to see what I'll say about his drawings. 


4. Makes a child lose interest - Ah...when the praise stops, so does the work. I feel that I'm in that vicious cycle with Aaron's drawing. I'd better make the time to start things over again in that department. I'll have to take him out on a drawing excursion. Oh no, will that make him dependent on excursions to draw....this is never ending!

5. Reduces achievement - Praise creates the pressure to 'keep up the good work' and sometimes, a child may have lost interest, or no longer takes the risk to be as creative and the end result is not as good as it could have been. 

This is heavy stuff when you think about it because it can have an impact on almost every minute of a stay at home mother's day with a child. We're doing things with them all day long. Very often, they are cute, clever and creative. And, we're proud of them and like to demonstrate it. Yet, it can be so damaging - just imagine all the undue pressure I'm placing on myself now over the simple and supposedly fun job of calling a dance. 

A friend of mine also sent me this somewhat related article - The Trouble With Bright Kids. It talks about a study that was conducted on fifth graders and the effect of praise emphasizing either "effort" and "high ability". Both are praise and therefore 'not recommended' according to the previous article I mentioned but it does have some similarities such as the 'smart' kids starting to doubt themselves.

Well, its the weekend. We're just going to play crazy games around the house - I don't think there will be any need for praise so I won't have to worry about how not to do it. Is that me doubting myself because my parents don't pat me on the back and say that I've done a good job with my own children?

The internet is littered with parenting articles with all points of view, I guess we need to read and use whats applicable to us. 

Wordless Wednesday - Dishwasher Training

Its been awhile since I did a Wordless Wednesday (although its not quite wordless today). I'm joining in the one hosted at My Little Drummer Boys.

Here is Adrian at his weekly Montessori session. In our house, all the dishes are washed by the men so, he's getting his training now. 

More On Aaron's Transition To Cycle 2

Aaron is finally spending full days in his new class. I did a post on the transition when Aaron first started visiting on 22nd February. He was staying there for half the day and returning to his old class for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. It was only last Wednesday that he tried out a full day at the new class. He seemed happy, excited and proud of himself when I picked him up that afternoon. He stayed full days on Thursday and Friday as well and I thought we were finally over the daily discussions about the move.

Not quite. We were back to the endless negotiations this morning but he still stayed the whole day and ultimately enjoying it. I thought the new playground would be a major drawcard for him to stay with his new class and I was using it to entice him to stay over lunch. Surprisingly, he told me today that he did not want to play there at all and that he spent lunch time sitting alone, reading. Whats going on?!

I haven't been able to get any real reasons out of him yet. The children that I have met have all seemed friendly and I've seen him joke around with a few of them. I'm not worried about this yet and I don't think anybody picked on him. He'll just have to work it out on his own - and I'm sure he will.

Apart from playground issues, I think he has been thriving in the new class. I can see how excited he is when he tells me about what he did during the day. Today, he suggested that we do a project to cross reference his dinosaur books to make sure they all had matching timelines. Supposedly, he has been working on timelines at school. (By the way, we found a discrepancy between two books on when the Baryonyx lived.) The other day, he came back and told me he did 'geology' but in the end, we figured out it was actually 'geometry'. Its exciting to know that his days are filled with an array of new work and exposure to all sorts of information that he is not yet aware of.

Alright, thats enough bragging from this mom. Just a very quick post today because the weekend of incredible fun has resulted in me having a very sore throat and the start of a cold. I need to beat it so I'm heading to bed.

No Blogging, Just Clogging

Its going to be a fantastic weekend. I'll be attending a clogging camp so, as the title says, there won't be any blogging this weekend. The weekend actually starts tonight with a party, followed by a full day of workshops tomorrow and another party tomorrow night. And on Sunday there will be a whole morning of workshops. I'm not spending the nights there because its only a 35 minute drive from our house and I definitely prefer my own bed to a dormitory.

My mother has very generously offered her place at the workshop to Richard so that he can hopefully catch the same clogging bug that we all have. She'll spend the weekend with Aaron and Adrian. I thought it was very magnanimous of her because I don't think I would do that for him. I'm very grateful to her. 

So as a quick post tonight, I'd like to direct you here. Its about how every mother passes on an average of 41 `pearls of wisdom` to their children. It looks like my mother only passed on 28 pearls to me. That makes sense because she was brought up in Malaysia and would have probably inherited a different set of pearls from my grandmother.  As for the 28 pearls that she has been known to throw at us, she told me that she learned them all from an Irish nun that was her teacher in school. 

When I try to think of anything Chinese that my mother has quoted to us, I can only think of two toilet related ones. They're not really pearls of wisdom but little shots of reprimand from her. You're all going to think she's really crude but she's quite the opposite. Its actually because these funnier ones stick in my mind more than the other non-toilet ones. 

1. Lazy people always need to go to the toilet. Its actually a little more crude than this but it basically means that a lazy person (eg me not wanting to do my homework) always has many excuses.

2. Waiting until you absolutely need to go before looking for a toilet. This one has to do with procrastination and leaving everything to the last minute - obviously.

So what is the most memorable saying from your mother?

High School Reunion - 20 years!

Today, I got added to a Facebook group that looks like it was setup to re-connect everyone from my senior year in preparation for a reunion later this year. I had heard from one of the few high school friends that I'm still in touch with that there was another reunion a few years ago, before I moved back to Brisbane. Supposedly, it was quite enjoyable.

As I looked through the 94 names that have been added to the group so far, all I could think of was how I couldn't remember most of these people. Maybe some of them have changed their names but their photos aren't helping me remember them either.

I'm not sure if I'd want to attend a reunion. I don't think I'd know anybody and they probably don't remember me either so I'll just be standing around feeling uncomfortable the whole time. I think there were about three hundred and fifty students in my year and I always had a group of friends all throughout high school. Strangely, I think there are only three people that I feel were true friends. I'm in touch with two of them but the third one is very elusive and no amount of Googling or Facebooking has helped me find her.

Since we're on the topic of reunions, and reunions are all about walking down memory lane, here are some random memories from high school.

1) In Grade 8, I won a school music competition playing the Sonatina in F by Clementi. I then spent the rest of my high school years trying to keep up that sort of standard. Unfortunately, I only won once more and had to settle for seconds and thirds after that.

2) In Grade 9, at a swimming carnival, I stomped on my best friend's foot on purpose and went to be best friends with another girl. Even now, I don't understand why I did that and I still feel terrible about being so mean. I did see this girl's name in the Facebook group but she stopped talking to me in Grade 9 so its not like I'm going to 'friend' her and apologize.

3) In Grade 10, I was in a class of brainiacs but I didn't feel like I belonged there. Maybe I was the token 'not-so-smart' student to balance the class out. This was the year that my German teacher told my parents that I had tried my best and I could go no further with German.

4) In Grade 11, my friends started having boyfriends but I didn't even have a friend who was a boy. My mother was a part time Tiger Mom and one of the things she banned was attending school dances.

5) In  Grade 12, I chose music as a subject. There were about fifteen of us in the class. We had a young, non-habit wearing nun as the teacher and we won group singing competitions around Brisbane. I'm definitely not a good singer and don't claim any credit for the wins but it was the most fun I had in that year. We were special to the school because we were a small music class and not one of the choirs. I was very proud to be part of that.

Now I'm thinking that if would be nice to just say 'Hi' to some of these people from the past again. I just need to make sure I have at least one friend by my side so I don't have to feel as insecure as I did on the first day of Grade 8.

Have you attended high school reunions? Are they worth the anxiety?