Early this week, I called home from the office and spoke to an enthusiastic M1. “Hi mummy! Guess my History marks?” M1 enthused.
“Hmm. 84?” “No. Out of 100. Guess!”
“Err… 78?”
“Mummy! Out of 100!” she chided me.
“94? I dunno… Tell me,” I gave up.
“100, mummy! I scored 100 for my History!” beamed a happy M1.
Wow. What a brilliant child my M1. I beamed with happiness too.
Ahh… ‘The Scream’. Everybody knows ‘The Scream’. It may be an iconic and celebrated piece of art in Art History by Norwegian Edvard Munch, regarded as a pioneer in Expressionism, my favorite is still Claude Monet, the French Impressionist.
While I always instill artistic and design skills in both M1 and M2, I never shared much Art History with them. I didn’t think they would be interested.
During the pre-iPad years, I was caught by surprise when M2 showed me her version of ‘The Scream’.
M2’s version of ‘The Scream’
Then both girls would slap their ears, roll their eyes and pretend to scream before breaking out in contagious laughter. It’s a scream to watch them do this whenever the piece of art is sketched out in the car.
Before the Captain Underpants years, it was Spongebob Squarepants. Everything was about Spongebob, his starfish buddy, Patrick Star, Squidward and the whole gang at Bikini Bottom.
I used to tell M2 that since my dad, her grandfather’s name is Patrick, he could have been Patrick Star and I could have been Angie Star, instead of Angie Lee.
She believed me. Heheheh…
(M1 was much older, so I couldn’t pull it off on her.)
What a star!
Sit down Chinese wedding dinners are always a sumptuous and long affair. They give speeches, they present the food with much fanfare and they overfeed you. But sit down Chinese wedding dinners with a toddler in tow is a different matter. All those things become irrelevant, in that two to three hours or so, when you are busy minding the child to behave.
Many many moons ago when my schoolmate, Vivien, was getting married, we brought M1 along, a toddler then. It was her first sit down 8-course dinner. We had to be prepared in case there was resistance. So, all forms of entertainment was brought along: toy, book, Magna Doodle, etc.
We took our time to settle down at the table. The Magna Doodle was whipped out first and immediately, there was action. M1 was furiously poking at the surface. Curious, I looked over and asked, “What are you drawing?”
“Holes, mummy, I am drawing holes!” and proudly lifted up the Doodle to show me. How clever is that? Drawing holes. Even I have never drawn holes before!
All in all, we had a good sit down dinner experience as M1 thoroughly enjoyed the food with a discipline level that was totally amazing. Not once she fidgeted nor wanted to leave the high chair. The Doodle was spared further pokes while the rest of the tools were really quite unnecessary.
It made us looked forward to more wedding dinners then!
Before the birth of the iPad and iPod, we used to bring the Magna Doodle along whenever we go out for meals. Great tool to occupy the wondering minds and highly recommended for little ones!
Sometime early last year, M2 wrangled a camera from the hubby. Said she wanted to pursue photography and he obliged. He bought a decent three hundred Ringgit digital camera but sold it to her because since there were no exams and no targets to meet, one cannot simply be rewarded.
Undaunted, she whipped out the amount – saved tediously from all her weekly school allowance – and handed over the cash.
And so the photography craze began. There were pictures of mostly Rooney, her pet frog then, some drawings, the other pets and mundane stuff.
However, time passed and life caught up with homework and school assignments and the photography interest waned.
One day, hubby asked, “So how’s the camera? Any good pictures?” Silence. Then, “I stopped taking pictures. Can I sell the camera back to you?”
“Sell the camera back to me? Hmm. How much?” queried the hubby.
“Three hundred Ringgit,” M2 stated confidently.
“What?! Same price as you bought from me? You can’t do that. It is a used item now and should be cheaper,” argued the hubby.
“No. Now it comes loaded with pictures! So there’s value to it.”
Defeated, the hubby paid for the camera, value-added with an SD card loaded with pictures of Rooney, M2’s pet frog, her drawings, the other pets and mundane stuff.
Chortle….
At the start of this year, M1 challenged me to a race – to read 30 books by the end of the year! “Sure!” I said, after all I had a headstart, having completed ‘The Bride Quartet’ by Nora Roberts and a collection of more titles by her awaits me.
When M2 learnt about the challenge, she quipped, “Mummy, I wanna join the race but the books I ordered from Scholastics (at school) have not arrived. Can we go to the bookstore instead because I am so behind!”
You can tell my girls love to read.
Four months into the challenge, I made a wrong move as I picked up ‘Pompeii’ from a book fair as my book number eight. Let’s just say if the race was about the Candy Crush Saga, I’d win hands down.
My two peas are certainly different as mentioned previously. It was one of those boring days at home when I decided to test out their art skills. The topic: draw your dream home and this is the result!
M1, ever so practical, goes down to just naming the rooms, scribbling the descriptions while M2 is more meticulous on the details – right down to the shampoo and conditioner in the shower, brand name on the TV and more! She has a bedroom, kitchen, gym, dining room, TV room and bathroom versus M1’s kitchen, living, TV, store, bedroom and attic.
Both girls love the toy and the character, so much so that M2 did a portrait of M1. Credit goes to M1 for the coloring effort. Picture says it all.
M2 adores her iPod Touch. Everywhere she goes, so does the device; it never leaves her hands. She was rewarded with it last year when she met and surpassed the year end exam’s target.
Anyway, yesterday hubby and I went off to play golf and M2 decided to finally make the Oreo Jello pudding. M1 helped and all was fine, I think. It was 9.30pm, whilst having our dinner after the game I received the call. “Mummy. What time are you coming home?” M1 wanted to know. “Soon,” I said, “Is there a problem?”
“Well, Mabel is very sad. She has something to tell you.” Oh dear. I braced for what calamity I may hear.
It turns out that in her moment of enthusiasm of completing the Jello, the iPod that never leaves her hand chose that moment to dip into the mush just as she was placing the bowl in the fridge. The speaker and the dock connector had a taste of Oreo Jello!
Horrors. M2’s heart and world came crashing down. Her beloved iPod, rendered useless! M1 helped clean off as much as possible but the speaker just couldn’t function, totally blocked with jello.
We got home as fast as we could. The first thing I did was to google up the solution, “How to fix iPod with blocked speaker.” and tadaaa…… Google is amazing!
Hubby used the hair dryer to heat up the iPod to soften the front, intending to pry it open as instructed. But the heat must have melted off all the goo inside because when he accidently clicked the ON/OFF button, a sound came through, loud and clear! The intense heat had resurrected the iPod! There was sound coming out from the speaker again.
You could sense the relief in M2. A lesson was definitely learnt. There are times it’s okay to put the iPod down when it comes to using the hands for other things, like putting a bowl of Jello in the fridge.
Last year, we had our “Big Adventure Road Trip to USA” and it was an exciting trip for both the girls as it was their first time visiting the Land of Opportunity.
One of the many stops we had was at the M&M Factory in Las Vegas, Nevada. M2 was thrilled and pointed out, “Our factory! Our names! Whoaaaaaa!!!! How cool is that?”
A pat on the back for the parents to link their children’s names to something famous.
Angieneering 
Remarks