Tough Decisions - "The House", "The Maid" & "The Preschool"

For the past good 2 months, the discussions between Win and I are always about "house", "maid" and "pre-school".

About the house:
We've made a life changing decision. On Nov 14, 2010, we sold our 2nd hand HDB flat , which we've been staying in for the past 7 years, and bought a new condo unit on Nov 16, 2010. So after many rounds of appointments with housing agent, HDB officer, lawyers, bankers and finally we got everything settled on Jan 25, 2011, and officially, we are "homeless" for the next 3 - 4 years as our new house TOP date is in 2014!! We moved into my in-laws' flat on Jan 15 and we are grateful to have such caring parents and family members who are really supportive when we need their help. Renzo was sick badly for nearly a week after the house move, 2 days of fever followed by 3 days of serious vomiting (just like a merlion) every night around 11pm, on and off coughing and running nose. But overall he's doing pretty well in the new environment, randomly he goes like "Pasir ris, 0x192 (our old address), no more", which makes me thinking about our old flat and missing it quite a bit.

The maid:
Here comes the problem of the maid. Our friends all know that we have a pretty good maid, AyeAye, who's been looking after Renzo since he was 2 months+ old. Many people met her before might think that she's having a too good life as a maid, but with our house moving, her "good life" gets affected in quite a bad way. She lost her own bedroom, her own queen size bed, her own bathroom and most importantly, her own way of doing household chores and caring Renzo (well let's just say that old folks have their own style, it is never easy for us to accept, so does the maid, LOL). It took her at least 1 month to get adapted to her new life, but that didn't make any change in her decision of leaving us in this September.

The preschool:
This has to be the biggest headache for us now. To cut the story short, I've been looking around for a good preschool for Renzo in the past half a year, at least. And finally I shortlisted 3:

1. A montessori school provides 3.5 hours playgroup session daily
Pros -->
- curriculum is extremely good which even includes zoo phonics
- kids there are very well behaved
- Montessorri method and tools used in class
- Amazing schoolworks done by the kids
Cons -->
- 500+ a month but that's only 3.5 hours a day, which is pretty steep
- needs school bus service
- hard to cultivate good routine as it's too short session
- not much emphasis on Chinese
- can only start from Jan 2012
- school ends at 1130am, fil is out to get food, mil is on the way home, tough to arrange for Renzo's lunch and afternoon care

2. A full day childcare in fully air-conditioned environment
Pros -->
- average out 600+ a month including some enrichment sessions for a full day service
- nice indoor playground with slide and stuff, super spacious
- great opportunity to cultivate proper routine as Renzo will be eating, showering and sleeping with many other kids, following standard childcare schedule
Cons -->
- needs school bus service
- kids prone to fall sick easily
- not very strong academic progress compared to that Montessori playgroup
- can only start from Dec 2011 as there's no vacancy till then

3. The same full day childcare at a different branch
In addition to above pros and cons for option 2
Pros -->
- can start from end Sept when AyeAye is back to her hometown
- not much to compare with Renzo's cousin Cherry, as option 2 is the exact same school Cherry has been attending since she was 2
Cons -->
- facilities not as nice as the 2nd option, no indoor playground
- teachers are not as passionate (based on school concert performance)

I was so eager to put Renzo at that montessori playgroup, hence I've even talked to Ayeaye and requested her help to stay with us till next Jan. But my mil asked me not to force Ayeaye since she misses her home so much. I know in fact my mil does not feel comfortable with a stranger in her house, and she does not want another maid after Ayeaye leaves. So I have to respect her and the fact that she is still working half day and my fil is not able to handle Renzo, make me feel that I have to just strike off that montessori playgroup from my list no matter how much i like it.

Now I only have 2 options left:
1. Respect my mil's decision and let Renzo go to a "not-fully-up-to-expectation" but "not-too-bad" full day childcare
2. Keep Ayeaye for 2 more months but put Renzo at the most suitable full day childcare i could find, with the assumption that i could convince my mil without making her unhappy

No matter what the final decision is, like what I told myself and Win at the time we hired Ayeaye, we are not going to get help from any other people but to settle things all on our own. It's funny that we always try our best to explore all kinds of possibilities to settle Renzo's daily care but end up, we really have no one, but we ourselves to rely on.

So any political parties (including PAP), if you care to win my vote in the upcoming election, please, come out with a solid plan for working parents with kids!!!

P/S: my dear Renzo boy, mummy is feeling extremely sorry to you that if not because of the housing issue, you could have stayed in our old flat comfortably, with the care of your beloved Aunt Ayeaye, or another maid of ours, and attended to the desired school mummy picked for you. Our intention was to provide you with a better environment, but end up, it is causing even more problems, we just hope that things will get better and better in the near future!

Renzo's first day at school

Renzo started his "once a week 1 hour enrichment class" on Feb 16, 2011, when he finally turned 18 months and 4 days. Below are just some of the conversation with him before, during and after his class.

On the Way to school
Mummy: "Renzo, it's your first day and can you be a good boy? Let's go to school!"
Renzo: "Go to school!" (Well no promise from him to be a good boy...)

At the school
Mummy: "Renzo let Ms xxx take your temperature okay?"
Renzo: "不要，don't want!!" (As usual...)

Before class started
Mummy: "What's that Renzo?" (Pointing at the dust bin in the classroom and try to get him warmed up)
Renzo: "Dust bin.."
Teacher: "Wow you know that!"
Mummy: "What's that Renzo?" (Pointing at a picture of Sun on the wall)
Renzo: "Air-con" (OoooKay.. that's just above that picture...)

Class started
Teacher: "Hello everyone, please cross your leg and sit down.."
Renzo: "Moon, moon!!" (Pointing at our national flag on the front wall..)

Then, teacher checked attendance by calling the names of every kid, they raised up their little hand and said "yes", went up and grabbed their name tag one by one and wore on their necks. I had to go with Renzo and picked up his name tag from the slot, and this boy was trying all means to take it off his neck.

Thankfully, the music started in time to distract him a bit and he forgot about removing the name tag. The kids were supposed to sing along and follow the actions when songs were played. Renzo couldn't follow anything at all, while a little girl besides him who was just 20 months old and attended only 4 sessions, could follow almost 100% on her own.. (Mummy.. -_-! sweat...)

After every round of music, when teacher was preparing for the next song..

Renzo: "No more, 没有了..."

For the last song, the whole class formed a circle and Renzo was the only one refused to hold hand with others.. (Mummy.. -_-!x2 Sweat again..)

Zoo phonics time
There was a letter D and the teacher showed everyone "DeeDee Deer" (DeeDee is the name of the Deer) and when she asked if anyone knew what it was, the class was extremely quiet.. Suddenly Renzo shouted, "CAT" and made the teacher and many other parents laugh (err he knows his cat, dog, kangaroo, dinosaur, lion, elephant, penguin, fish, cow, panda, octopus, sheep, caterpillar, ladybird, butterfly, but just not.. DEER)
The teacher then carried on to explain basic solids like "sphere, cube, cone, cylinder", since the session last week covered shapes like "circle, square, triangle, rectangular".

Play time
After counting "1, 2, 3", most kids went up and got their small play mat, picked their preferred training materials and start playing (or rather say learning). Renzo tried a few items and was pretty focused, but his fine motor skill is just not well-developed enough yet. When the bell rang and everyone quickly returned their "toys", Renzo started crying out loud and I had to literally snatch his toy to return it back. There was another boy crying for the same reason which made me feel less embarrassed.

Time to go home!
We sang the final goodbye song and all kids lined up to hug the 2 teachers goodbye, Renzo refused to hug one of the teachers but when we returned home, right before he's bedtime, suddenly Renzo said "Daddy, hug hug!", "Mummy, hug hug!!!" I am so glad that we made this decision to bring Renzo for such a Montessori class once a week. It is not cheap for sure, but well... in Singapore, pre-schools are never cheap. But I could see that although Renzo has been pretty good with his linguistic skill, there are a lot other areas which we failed to cultivate him at home. So next Wed, Daddy Chan, it is your turn to experience a wonderful 1 hour with our precious little boy, have loads of fun there my darlings~!

I shall end this post with a recent video taken with Renzo singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", his first english song recorded on video...

Renzo's Mandarin...

My father has highlighted to us a few times regarding his concerns about Renzo's chinese, since the primary language we use at home with our little boy is english.

I discovered that Renzo has strong interest in chinese when he was around 4 - 5 months of age, and indeed about 1/5 of his first 50 words are in chinese also. Somehow he picks up chinese faster and easier than english, although he articulates better in english most of the time.

After his "achievement" of reciting 《悯农》 last month, he progressed on from that 20 words poem, to 45 - 48 characters chinese song and even "san zi jing" (no...not the vulgarity).

A song my lovely mother used to sing to us 30 years back - 《小白船》
**Texts in Cyan are what Renzo could sing on Feb 7, 2011


A famous farewell song derived from some classical chinese poetry - 《送别》
**Texts in Cyan are what Renzo could sing on Feb 7, 2011


And lastly the most famous "Three character classic" which introduces some basics of Confucian morality and many more things such as elements of Chinese history - 《三字经》
**Texts in Cyan are what Renzo could recite on Feb 10, 2011


Well the first 2 songs are two of many chinese songs I sing to Renzo almost everyday. I seldom sing english songs to him because my maid and mother-in-law both sing to him in english often, all his educational books, DVDs, flash cards, etc are mostly in english, we speak english to him 90% of the time, and most importantly, the lack of true meaning in most english lullabies makes both Win and I prefer chinese songs better.

As for "San Zi Jing", we both could only recite about 1/7 of the whole thing, and amazingly our boy could recite about half of what we could remember. We recite this for not more than 5 times in a months to Renzo, usually only when he is super cranky as somehow it seems to sooth him a bit. So we were absolutely shocked when Renzo started reciting it a few days ago considering the fact he didn't have too much exposure to it.

By now he could sing these 2 songs and recite his "san zi jing" pretty fluently all on his own, although his words are not that clear still. Unfortunately it is never easy to video him in action, but we are very confident to convince my father that we do not have to worry too much about Renzo's chinese, at last not now! Anyway, guess the above 3 audio clips are the best gift we could give to our one and half years old boy, yes he just turned 18 months, TODAY!!