Quite some time ago my little son came back from school and told me (while pointing to his chest) “Mama, Ms XXX’s chest is like the backside, got a hole”.

I nearly fell off my chair.

“Oh” I said.  “Did you tell Ms XXX that?”

“No” he replied.

The next day I went to school and stole a glance at Ms XXX.  Couldn’t exactly see the cleavage but the bosom does look ample.  My little son must have caught a glimpse of “stuff not meant for his young eyes” when Ms XXX bent down in class.

The other day on our way home I asked my little son who sat beside him during his meal in school.

“Parina” he replied.

“Oh, Farina” I said, certain that he had mispronounced the letter “F”.

“No!  Parina!” he exclaimed.

“Sharina?” I asked.

“NO! PARINA!!” he screamed, looking really annoyed with me.

I was a little uncertain what to say next.  What could “Parina” be in his mis-pronounced world?

“Parina?” I asked hesitantly, pronouncing the name exactly as he did so as not to antagonize him any further.

“NO!!!  PARINA!!!” he burst out, looking at me as if I was a complete idiot.

“Ok, alright” I said, trying not to say the word again.  One must really know when to shut up.

I have yet to find out who this “Parina” really is.

My little son has been having loose stools over the last week.  But he just refused to “do it” in the school toilet.  As a result he sat through his class yesterday with a tummy ache.

I could only recall two incidences where my little son “did it” in the school toilet (and that’s over a 1 year 4 month period).  Even when we’re outside, he would prefer to wait until we get home to get his business done.

My little son’s good friend, Dominic, is however the complete opposite.  According to his mum Julie, everytime they go out, Dominic would inevitably poo.  As soon as they sat down in a restaurant, the much-feared “mummy I want to poo” would come out of Dominic’s mouth.  And while he’s at it, he would talk to Julie, take his own time to poo while poor Julie can’t wait to get out of the toilet.

My little son’s other good friend, Javen, is however just like my little son, if not worse.  He adamantly refused to do it while the family was on a 3-day cruise.  On their way back home, he hurried everyone as he couldn’t wait to get back home to do his business.

It’s strange why some kids have no qualms about where they do their business and why some kids can only “do it” at home.  Hopefully my little son will become less paranoid about doing his business “away from home” as he grows older.

My little son loves role-play these days.

Most often he becomes Mrs Chee (his English teacher) and I am made to be Pan lao-shi, his Chinese teacher (Lao-shi is “teacher” in Chinese). Sometimes I am made to be Dominic (his good friend and classmate) or Javen Liew (another good friend and classmate).

It all sounds very trivia. Until I realized day-to-day events are “narrated” by him so easily during role-play.

I often had difficulty getting him to tell me about his school life – Was he happy in school? Were the kids physical? Did anyone smack him? Were the teachers harsh? Did they punish him unnecessarily (or worse, wrongly?)?… Yes – I’m a terribly concerned mother!

So role-play has become my avenue to find out about things that happened in school.

I just found out that children who jump in class are made to stand in a corner for 2 minutes (though I’m not too sure if it’s really 2 minutes). My little son (aka Mrs Chee) kept his eyes on the clock in the room and only allowed me (aka Dominic) out of the naughty corner after he was satisfied that 2 full minutes had passed (though he doesn’t have any idea what 2 minutes really means).

When I take on the role of “Mrs Chee”, my little son pays a lot more attention to me than when I’m just “mama”.

“I’m Mrs Chee now. Go brush your teeth Jadon. Quick, Javen Liew is next after you. Dominic has already brushed his teeth,” I said.

And my little son trots happily into the bathroom to do just that.

Though I’m not sure how long this will last.

"..But the goal of parenthood is not to produce clones who replicate the lives of their parents, rather to produce mature adult who make their own choices." – Philip Yancey in Reaching for the Invisible God

Speaking of choices, I am sure my son would have chosen not to return to school today after a one-month break. He had already started crying "I don’t want to go to school!" from the moment we reminded him about the re-starting of the school term a few days ago.

Granted he is only 3 years old come this October (some parents are already slamming me for sending him to school so early. I shall explain in another post if I remember), but I must say he is growing smarter. You see, even as he was putting on his school shoes, he was using delaying tactics like saying that his shoes were too big.

Why I think that was smart is because he actually made use of a concern my wife and I had when we bought him the shoes a few days ago. He had answered "OK" when we asked if he felt they were too big. So remembering that was our concern, he actually raised the issue of the shoes being too big at a time when it mattered, thus buying him a few precious moments before heading to school.

I am not sure if I have conveyed this feeling of amazement well. But I am truly pleasantly surprised at how well he is growing mentally.