After several years of being bike-less and then months of planning to get one for the sake of showing Marcus how to bike, I got my first fixie yesterday which I got from sulit.com.ph.
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Mood: 5/10 Honks! (Rain will last until at least Wednesday. Can’t wait to go biking with Marcus.)
The time has come when our child steps up from just silently observing to mimicking things as they happen. I first noticed this a couple of months ago when he got suspended from using the iPad. As if to win back his favorite toy, he would stay beside me near the kitchen sink every time it is my turn to wash the dishes. At first he just stood there, next days he gets to place the utensils on the rack. As days passed, he became more involved than before. His diligence earned him an hour or two of iPad time every after lunch.
He has also begun to follow some other routines. Lately, whenever he sees me preparing for work he would pace back and forth outside the toilet until I have stepped out and he checks what I would do next. When I brush my teeth, he acts it out; I apply deodorant, he raises his arm and rubs his imaginary Speed Stick. Yes, what I do, he does. (Wifey caught him several instances smelling his underarm after using my wax deodorant. She has transferred it to a higher level since then.) So I now wonder if this is the time to show more role modeling. And the answer is becoming apparent.
Yesterday was the first weekend that we got to test his new set of bike wheels. The bike’s original solid tire and five-spoke plastic wheels have finally broken apart weeks ago so I replaced it with inflatable tires with steel hub, spoke and rim. Upon seeing that his bike this time looks like a small scale of my old BMX, I looked forward to watch him pedal it around the village. But the pedalling didn’t happen—the freewheel made him to just coast and be pulled around by me. It made me feel desperate, so we made a u-turn just a few blocks after exiting our gate.
After quickly putting back the fixie cog to his bike I offered him a deal just so he will go biking again—bring his basketball along. It was our first time to bring the small Spalding ball to the village’s outdoor court so he was excited when we reached the place where he usually spends time biking. Me, not as much.
There was another father-and-son tandem when we arrived. They were playing hoops so Marcus parked his bike and started cheering again and again, “Shoot daddy, shoot! Shoot daddy, shoot!” A few awkward pauses later, I approached him and whispered, “Do you know that it’s bad to interrupt somebody’s game?” Yes, it was an alibi to save myself from embarrassment. I ordered him to continue biking. We left the place.
We went back home after almost an hour and both of us disappointed–me, that I have a son who can’t bike while he, about having a dad who can’t play basketball. So I must do something ASABuP–as soon as budget permits. The plan to get my own bike must be done. Or maybe I could start learning basketball again. Either of the two must happen soon or else we end up with a son who does nothing better than wash the dishes.
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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (No work, will watch movie with wifey later. Just the two of us.)
First half of July is over. And I spent majority of its days trying to figure out how to become an effective parent. This must be the longest time I can recall that I have struggled to discipline Marcus. Had I spent the same amount of energy in badminton or gym time or running instead of parenting I know that I would have improved in those crafts significantly. There’s just so much passion, so much thinking I have done since the month started but I just seem to fail. It’s a mind game—us versus Marcus—and I am starting to believe he is winning. But I know that, however hopeless I feel most of the time, we cannot give up. There should be something up our sleeves that should address this parenting challenging. Yes, there should be because when the kid gets tough, the parenting gets going.
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This Monday we heard a very surprising news, one so unlikely, when we picked Marcus from school. I got off from the car and approached two anxious faces–the assistant teacher and school director–looking after our kid as he does his usual end of class playtime. And my gut feel proved itself right when the school director walked with me and Marcus back to our parked car.
“Sir, I will tell you something about Marcus…he’s been acting up in class. This morning he wrote on his classmate’s school uniform. Their adviser also said that every now and then she has observed aggression since the start of school year a month ago.” Boom. The few meters to our idling car felt like a hundred. The director’s report made me walk a lot slower, it dragged me more than the weight of Marcus whom I was cuddling then. I feinted a smile to appreciate the feedback.
“What’s the news? What were you discussing with Sir Ric?” asked my wife who was waiting inside the car. “How’s school, Marcus?” she added a cliché question as Marcus settles down at the backseat. The next thing my wife heard struck her just as it did to me. To display some bullying is the least of the things we expect to hear about our son. The news was just unbelievable. There were some serious exchange on our drive back home.
Yesterday, I already talked to our son’s adviser and likewise had a chat with the director at the dreaded principal’s office. I have told them that Marcus has been made aware of what he did and that I am open to receive updates regarding his behavior in the next days. “Let’s talk again next time, but hopefully not about Marcus,” I said as I stood up to leave. The director agreed, “Yes, sir. Hope it will be about our badminton game.”
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For the very first time, Marcus helped out in washing the dishes after lunch. He also wiped the table top. I wonder what’s up this time–must be his way of entertaining himself as it’s nine days since I had our cable TV subscription discontinued.
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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (He just played the Christmas CD.)
Day 1. Some resistance by Ben 10 but Superwoman wins. (Fictitious names, real people.)
“If there’s a will there’s a way.” – English Proverb
“Spy kids had always been able to beat the bad guys because adults overthink things. But to a kid, everything is possible. Just use your imagination.” – Spy Kids
Every now and then we continue to learn from our children just by observing them. Like for example last night when I saw that despite our son’s present inability to spell and read (most words) he is not deterred from doing what he loves to do–use our desktop to play games and watch videos online. So how does he do it? Simple. He uses a guide that his mom has decided to provide instead of spelling it out for him every time he goes online. Below is the picture of the cheatsheet he has been using so that he can type the URL and keywords on Google Chrome’s search bar. And by the way, he now prefers Chrome over Firefox. Kids.
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Last week I taught him how to use favorites. I checked last night and he has a lot already.
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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Cleaned car, ate leftover corned beef.)
Summer is coming to a close for Marcus. Spending almost two months of vacation wherein he has continuously shown proficiency in his computer skills—kudos to the iPad from the Lawsons—and improving in terms of physical activities—courtesy of the time he spent with his cousins, we will be enrolling him today for Kindergarten level education.
Although he answered half-heartedly to our question if he is ready to go to school again, I feel that this year he will be more eager to discover new things. Last school year, the lessons from school along with what he learns at home have helped him to start (and shutdown) the PC; type the boot up password; log in on his own account; search key words (using cheat sheets just so he can spell the words); and recognize the common computer terms such as: download, loading, next, back, close window and maximize window. Remarkably, my credit card remains safe from Apple store charges as he can distinguish free and paid apps.
Not to be forgotten as well is his interest in new cartoon shows on cable TV. From last summer’s Phineas and Ferb, he has moved on to programs such as Ninjago, and the Ben 10 series. He is so into these cartoons that he can memorize a majority of the characters which is something that never fails to surprise me and my wife and it make us wish that the school has enumeration quizzes for the names of the heroes and villains of these TV shows. We know he’ll ace it even if he pronounces both Lord and Lloyd Garmadon just the same.
This school year, however, he will be into a different time slot. Waking up early is therefore the first challenge I anticipate and I now also wonder if there is an iPad app that can help us with this.
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Yesterday, my favorite healing priest Fr. Fernando Suarez mentioned during his TV mass about pre-school education in Japan. According to him, the Japanese curriculum does not include regular exams for the pupils during first three years of their schooling with the rationale that it promotes unhealthy competition if imbibed at an early age. But whether this information (about Japanese education) is factual or not, I think that every parent should take note of it. I agree with Fr. Suarez when he said that more and more parents nowadays have been coaxing their children to win in contests that at some point it sends a wrong signal and value to the young minds—one that divides rather than unites especially without the appropriate guidance. So this school, I told my wife that we give Marcus some slack and besides it is what we did during the later part of his nursery education and guess what, he ended up the as the most improved pupil of his class.
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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Stuffed toy and green ball just came out of the bedroom. He’s awake.)
A stork was high in the sky,
’twas years ago.
It circled, then swooped very low.
In a humble home, it dropped by.
“Aha! It’s a boy, however tiny.”
He stared, he smiled,
The couple, overjoyed, almost cried.
“Thank heavens, finally, our baby!”
Now he turns five,
What a boy he has become.
Ever so active, so full of life.
This poem is for him, from dad and mom.
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Happy Birthday Marcus!
Do you know that creating a Facebook account for your young child is actually a good thing? Yes, that is what I have realized after reading the article 10 Ways to Future Proof Your Child. According to this Wired Magazine’s online article, opening a Facebook account as early as now prevents someone from creating a fraudulent account with your child’s name which could be used for malicious purposes. And by signing up on behalf of their child also gives parents a head start to place the appropriate filters and security settings, making the account safe and clean and ready to be used when their child starts to beg for his (or her) first Facebook access. All these with the assumption that good parenting has been established and that Zuckerberg’s site is still preferred over Google+ 5-10 years from now.
But the tip I like the most from this article is about getting a child his own domain name. It made me feel maintaining and paying a minimal fee for this blog site justified despite not being able to update it as often as I wished to. Although our son’s online activities nowadays involve frequenting iTune’s App Store in his hunt for games, his recent interest in writing/typing his own name with which his current favorite hero’s name is also attached is encouraging enough. I would love to see the day when our son becomes a contributor to the content of this blog and if ever that happens, watch out for the blog post author named Marcusben10. Oh before I forget, please like his own updates on facebook, just in case.
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Mood: 5/10 Honks! (Trying hard to get rid of writer’s block.)
Classes are finally over as today starts Marcus’ official summer vacation. Yesterday we attended his school’s moving up ceremony wherein he brought home a couple of special awards for being the most neat and clean as well as the most improved nursery student.
So in the next two months new routines await of us. Besides his well-deserved break from books and stressful study sessions, it’s goodbye sleep deprivation for me due to driving and waiting for him at school–I skipped this for only a couple of days due to being sick; and it’s a big relief for wifey from worries if school uniforms have been pressed (or not) and if what food to prepare next for lunch, these among other things she need to take care of since class started in June last year.
Congrats Marcus! Congrats wifey, we made it. God is good.
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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Can’t wait for our first summer outing.)
Marcus Can Blog 