School’s out

I wanted to blog about matters of import, but then this happened.

V and I attended a parents evening at Benji’s kindergarten. I had actually decided not to go because the last time I went the entire proceedings were dominated by a power-point presentation conducted in Cantonese and translated in whispers to the English-speaking parents. I ignored the notice, and handed it over to the kids as scrap paper for colouring (or “colournoon” as Mimi would have it) when Benji’s teacher reminded my helper about it when she went to pick him up. Under duress, I decided to attend, or rather delegated it to V since I was unwell that week. In the end, we both went.

We seated our arses on kid-sized chairs in the sports hall. There was to be a power-point presentation. The headmistress said: “Good evening everyone” and after a pause, some 50 sheepish parents chorused “Good evening” (probably not in synchrony as she would have liked). Then commenced an hour-long presentation on the new international curriculum (we were not aware there was an “old” one).

It was hilarious to see the behaviour of the parents as time went by. Starting with the Dear Husband, who covered his mouth not-so-subtly with his hand and whispered: “When will it end? This is like church.” Those in the front had to keep up a façade of deep interest, but you could see the back-benchers wilting. Two parents in front of us were shamelessly browsing the internet on their phones. Across the aisle, a couple of Indian ladies were bonding in not very soft tones.

Most shocking though was that some parents had brought children (despite being requested not to). And those children were sitting quiet as mice. The parents, though, not so much. When the presentation ended, most of us jumped up and rushed for the doors. Today, I got a form asking for volunteers for school events. Do I dare?

 

 

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Random updates

I know it’s been a while, and we have so much catching up to do. Mainly, I’ve been busy with a special project that consumed my life for a while, and is just about in a lull right now leaving me time to breathe. It’s nothing earth-shattering but I want it so bad, that I can’t bring myself to talk about it.

So I’ll talk about everything else.

The kids are growing up fast. Benji has settled down at school, though he doesn’t love it. However, he’s totally into reciting the nursery rhymes he’s learnt. If you try to say it along with him, he sternly says: “Don’t sing, don’t sing.” His school books come home every weekend, and he loves looking at them and not letting Mimi get her hands on them. (Note to self: Get Mimi a school bag and put in a few books.) He particularly likes his Chinese book, and when I saw it, I thanked my stars I didn’t send him to a Cantonese-medium school because I have no idea what he’s learning in that class. Last week, I took the book to office to get some of it translated, much to the amusement of my colleagues. To complicate matters, he’s learning Putonghua not Cantonese in school, so even the little bit I know is useless.

I got my first bit of homework from school: to make a lantern with Benji for a mid-autumn festival lantern competition. I groaned and moaned and then resorted to Google where I followed the simplest instructions I could find. Somewhere along the way, I got totally into it, and had a major fight with V for criticising my efforts. Although it’s supposed to be a parent-child thing, there’s not much a child can do seeing as it involves scissors and a fair bit of coordination, but I involved Benji by getting him to stamp different patterns on the coloured paper I had bought. The result was quite charming, if I might say so myself, and I had to do a couple of extras for the kids to play with.

The biggest milestone in Benji’s life is that we got him off his pacifier (which he called “Frenny”, a short form of “friend”) a couple of weeks ago. Yes, at the ripe old age of nearly three. We were loath to do it, but I began to worry once I saw his teeth were beginning to stick out a little. Plus, he did look ridiculous with it. I googled and apparently it is not terrible for a child to use it primarily for sleeping even up to later. However, I decided to give weaning him off it a shot (half-heartedly as ever), and to leave it if he was too upset. Turns out, he was off it in a couple of days. It required a longer bedtime routine, and some crying, but it’s amazing how it was no longer part of his life in a week. We did have to hide all photos of him with paci so he wasn’t reminded, and he did gaze covetously at the dummies in the mouths of babes in the elevator, but doesn’t seem to do that much anymore. I find myself feeling nostalgic for it sometimes, it was so much a part of our lives and his “look”, ahem.

Mimi has progressed to saying two-word sentences. The longest phrase she has said is “Mummy’s office”, which unfortunately she said while pointing to a dumping ground on TV. (A professor from my uni was being interviewed and I very excitedly proclaimed: “Hey, there’s my office” only for the screenshot to change to a dumping ground a second later.) She is also clearly into animals and has a whole menagerie of soft toys that she cuddles and carries around: two meow-cats (her favourite), an owl puppet called Hooty based on a character in a book series we have, and quite an ugly electronic dog that used to bark. Being the little toughie that she is, I’m surprised that she is attached to a security blanket (“Blankie”).  She also likes trying on different shoes – hers, mine, Benji’s – and walking around with a handbag. Benji does this too, but Mimi is a bit more into it.

We just had a long weekend, and I insisted we go to Disneyland before Benji turns three and we lose the benefit of free entry although it was a hot day and a public holiday to boot. I must admit, I was super excited myself. I’ve been before but never really explored it properly although I was charmed by what I saw. We got there as soon as the gates opened but it already seemed crowded to us. Nevertheless, we managed to do three rides in the first hour, which is a good record. Unfortunately, things went downhill after lunch as the queues were serpentine and it was crazy hot. We called it a day after seeing only Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. I was kicked to go through the Small World ride that I had first experienced as a four-year-old in Tokyo Disneyland myself. V thought the air-conditioning was the best part of it, but I was moved by the depiction of cultural diversity. The high point of our (the kids and my) experience was meeting Donald Duck in person. It’s strange the thinngs kids enjoy – some kids are really not into the meet-and-greet but mine were super thrilled, with Mimi shouting “Duck!”, “Mouse!” imperiously whenever she caught sight of them. I guess it really is worth it spending a night at the hotel if going with kids as young as ours to get the full experience.

We actually had quite an eventful weekend, even taking the kids to a friend’s place on Sunday because Benji said he wanted to go. I really appreciate these friends who open their homes to our kids even though they are not parents themselves.

And last but not least, I caved and bought the iPhone C. I’m probably one of the first to get it in Hong Kong, which is saying something. I’ve noticed people staring at my phone in the train, and I haven’t seen anyone else with that model. V and I watched Apple’s presentation on the new phones and iOs system and I was in splits the whole time about how they talked up what were basically technology value-adds. Although not a panacea for any of the world’s greater problems, I still came away thinking the phones were pretty cool. One of my biggest grouses with Apple was the basic colour scheme, so I was delighted with the candyesque choices in the C range. Admittedly, it’s not cheap, but it’s what I want in a phone, I realised. Plus, as a colleague pointed out to me, the value of the Samsung I own on the resale market is dropping fast so if I want to ditch the phone, I needed to do it pronto. So I did. And I have to say, it’s so good to be back to Apple. I’m loving the new phone, smaller screen notwithstanding, everything just looks better.

The life of Zo

 

On Saturday, our family dog Zoya departed for the great kennel in the skies. She was seventeen years old, mostly deaf, blind in one eye, very weak from tummy upheavals, and had a vascular tumour which was bleeding and for which they was no cure. When my parents discovered maggots, they knew it was time to let go. Although I had been preparing my parents for this for many months, I was surprised by how terrible I felt by the finality of Zo’s death.

Zo was the dog we dreamed of through our avid reading of Enid Blyton adventure stories, in which a faithful spaniel was a common fixture. I was the kind of kid that would pet random dogs in the street and am still prone to ignoring human beings if there’s a dog around. We had been begging our parents for a dog for as long as I can remember, and they had constantly put us off with the refrain: “When you are older.” Finally when my sister and I were in the twelfth and tenth standard respectively, they didn’t have an excuse, especially since we were pretty much model daughters, if I may say so myself. Also, they were jolted by us bringing home a stray pup one day, which for some reason they didn’t let us keep.*

Since we were sure we wanted a spaniel, we called up our old history teacher, the only person we knew that had one. She said there were no plans to mate her dog soon, but a few days later she called back to point out an ad in the newspaper for spaniel pups. We went over to see the pups and, of course, there was no looking back. A tip for kids trying to convince their parents to get a dog: Tell them to come along just to look. Chances are the parent will fall in love with the animal and you won’t have much further convincing to do. Worked for a couple of friends.

We loved Zo on sight but were told she wasn’t available so we chose another pup. Later, we got a call back saying that Zo was available after all. To pick a name, it was decreed that each of us would come up with three names and we’d vote on the best one. In the end, only I came up with options. They were: Sasha, Mel (after Mel Gibson) and Zoya (I was reading Zoya by Danielle Steele which said zoya meant “life” in Russian). Zoya was the unanimous choice. One of Zoya’s siblings ended up being named Sasha. And for very personal reasons, I’m grateful Mel didn’t stick.

We collected Zoya eight weeks after we first saw her. She came from a prize-winning bloodline and had the most pretty face of the litter. We were urged to enter her in dog shows but my sister and I decreed we were ideologically against beauty contests. Zoya did enter one show with her siblings and her mother Blondie and they won a family prize. That was the end of her show career.

The family that gave us Zo was quite protective. One of them accompanied us home with Zo to make sure we had a good environment to live in. I remember Zo peed in our lane when we got off the rick. It was the most adorable sight, and ever since then Zo has continued to be shy about peeing with people looking. The lady cried when she left. Later, that family organised a reunion for all the puppies. It was awesome to see how all the siblings had turned out.

The first couple of nights with Zo were hard. She was disoriented, missed her siblings and cried the whole night. When we tried to comfort her, she gnawed our hands as she was also teething. We had read somewhere that we should not take her into bed with us, but that was abandoned after a couple of hours. Zo then had a permanent spot on our bed, just like the dogs in Enid Blyton and much to the disgust of a lot of other people.

Zoya saw us through our late adolescence with all its ups and downs. At a time when our social lives were developing, we had to dogsit because Zoya like many other spaniels proved averse to being left alone at home. We learnt to clean puke and pee and poop at the same time as we discovered make-up. Zoya converted friends who were fearful of dogs into tentative dog-lovers because she was just so full of enthusiasm for people and obviously harmless. If we were sad, she would sit on our chests and lick the tears off our faces. But she would also wake us up by scratching our heads, hangover no bar.

She was the alibi for going on long walks with my first boyfriend, who also had a dog. The two of us walking our dogs together was grist for the building rumour mill. She was also the worst if you were up to something sneaky. I once tried to hide my boyfriend, who I had been up to hanky panky with at home while my mum was out, in the bathroom but Zo basically kept barking joyfully (she loved the boyfriend) and gave the game away.

She was my soulmate because her life was dandy but she still saw cause to look mournful as if the weight of the world rested on her long ears. We also had an uncanny ability to fall sick together, giving my mum the pleasure of tending to both of us.

Zoya was my mum’s baby, pampered beyond belief. At the end of her life, she had an armchair in the hall (the one in the photo) that she was loathe to cede to human beings, like myself. I once asked my mum who she loved more – Zo or me – and she said: “The thing is, Zo doesn’t argue so much.” I couldn’t argue with that.

I am grateful that my kids had the opportunity to meet Zo. Mimi pursued Zo relentlessly the entire week we were in Bombay, driving us all crazy. We were afraid Zo might lose it and snap at her, but she was remarkably patient and would just eventually leave the scene, with Mimi squawking behind her in delight. (Mimi reminds me a lot of Zo – both of them beg for food no matter how many tidbits they’ve been passed and carry things around with their mouths. In fact, I had wanted to name Mimi after Zoya but I was overruled) When we Skyped with my parents every week, a surefire way to get the kids to focus was to bring Zo to the camera. Yesterday, I Skyped with my mum and I had to shush Benji as he shouted: “I want Zoya, I want Zoya!”

There’s a dog-shaped hole in our lives right now.