Jumping into the kiasu parents fray...

24 hours ago, I finally decided to sit down in front of my computer and read up on Primary School registration information in Singapore. What triggered my interest was a discussion on Aug 2009 mummies' Facebook page about "Understanding The Singapore Primary School Registration Processes", which made me feel completely clueless as I had zero knowledge about it before blogging about it right now.

Just a few days back, I was talking to my mother-in-law about how fierce the competition is and how kiasu our Singaporean parents are in terms of pre-school education for kids. More and more parents with kids at Renzo's age are spending 1-2k a month on branded childcare centers for their precious ones. And without any doubt, those parents are definitely willing to and trying to do whatever they can, in order to enroll their kids to the best primary schools. She (my MIL) casually mentioned about putting Renzo to Win's primary school - Qiaonan that is 5 minutes away from her house which, I agreed silently.

But now, the game has changed!
It was to my biggest surprise to find out that Qiaonan seems to be ranked 170+ out of our <200 primary schools in Singapore. True that I am not an advocate of school ranking system but, it still bothers me a bit after knowing this fact. Then I started to look at other possible options for Renzo. I told Win, the reason is simple, I do not want Renzo to crack his head like us 30 years later, just to figure out which school our grandchildren can go to. Although we can't promise him the best, at least we should try out best to leave a better option for him in the future. And here are some pretty useful information I found online for those "blur" mummies like me:

REGISTRATION PHASES
Here's a diagram I found on kiasu parents site, that illustrates 7 phases of registration exercise:
Obviously, we could only look at Phase 2B onwards since Qiaonan is out of picture by now. So the next question is, should we enroll Renzo based on our new address or my in laws' address?

DISTANCE PRIORITIZATION
Here comes the next highest priority for our selection, distance..
It's so ironic that before we sold our old HDB flat, we had 3 schools within 1km distance to our house and out of the 3, 2 of them are the most popular primary schools in Pasir Ris. But now, none of these 2 are near to our new house.

And to find out nearby schools, go to www.onemap.com.sg, enter your postal code, click on "free map based services" menu and select "school query" to find out schools within 1km and 2km from your house.
For us, if we search based on my in laws address in Tampines, we have:
<1km:
Changkat / Tampines / Yumin / Chongzheng / Griffiths / and of course, not to forget, Qiaonan
<2km:
St.Hilda's / Poi Ching / Gongshang / Tampines North / East Spring

Whereas if we search based on our new address in Pasir Ris:
<1km:
Coaral / Elias Park / Park View
<2km:
Meridian /Poi Ching / Gongshang / Tampines North / Loyang / White Sands / Casurina

Those highlighted in RED are the popular schools (not purely based on ranking) and indeed we do not have any within 1km distance at both Tampines and Pasir Ris, except for Chongzheng, which becomes my first choice for Renzo immediately.

But after much readings, I have to move on and believe that registering Renzo based on our Pasir Ris address makes more sense, since we are not allowed to register him based on more than 1 address once the registration phase starts, and <2km branded schools near my in laws' place are just too competitive to get in.

PHASE 2B POSSIBLE?Well I think that's pretty difficult. I was seriously eyeing on Chongzheng and even asked my mother-in-law to find out for me on how to become a member at nearby RC. But to my dismay, the RC at her house place is not active enough for me to clock 96 hours and become a member easily. So my only choice is to work on parent volunteer job at my desired schools when being selected, well for that I have to wait till Renzo turns 4 or 5 years old, another 2-3 years to go. (You know how kiasu I am by now).

REGISTRATION STRATEGIES FOR PHASE 2B / 2C
I would highly recommend kiasu parents to scrutinize every piece of information given on these links:
Registration Processes
Enhancing Chances
Phase 2C Strategies

In a nutshell, we need to decide on:
First Choice:
- we are likely to be qualified under 2B phase
- <1km if possible or at least <2km
Second Choice:
- we are likely to secure a seat under 2C phase
- must be <1km
Third Choice:
- must be <1km
- we die die can get a seat even under 2Cs phase

Don't ask me how I came to this conclusion, I only can remember I had quite a long conversation with Win and also my sister who has been making enormous efforts to put my niece into the best school in Tampines.
First Choice:
- A popular school that is <2km, good thing is we do have a direct bus to school from our house
- Must go for parent volunteer work when Renzo gets to K1 and if we could clock 40 hours in a year
Second Choice:
- Less popular school but pretty good reputation
- Nearest to our house <1km
Third Choice:
- Not popular at all
- Next nearest to our house <1km

Of course there are a lot more strategies worth consideration such as 5 years+ balloting history of your desired school, which could give you a clearer picture and rough gauge on whether balloting is needed for the phase you are registering for. But after all, I could only manage things within my capability so sometimes, it might be rather important and worthy to prepare your kids for primary school than getting yourself on a roller coaster mood and trying your luck like praying for winning Toto..

And, this is how we are trying to get Renzo prepared... to get him to learn his alphabets as early as possible...

What do you think about "Tiger Mummy"..?

Recently, Win has been sending Renzo to school every morning together with Ayeaye. And there are 2 times he shared with me that Renzo was greeted by his classmates, once was his Audrey jiejie, who often gets brightened up whenever she sees Renzo, and another time by another boy we do not even know the name. Unfortunately all our little one did, was to remain oblivious to his surroundings, and went straight to his chair, sat down happily while waiting for his breakfast to be served. Look at how he took off his shoes and socks, behaves like a king right?!

And he even "kidnapped" this cute pair of slippers Win bought for me and walking around the house as if he is really an Angry Bird... so much pride huh?!

Anyway, knowing that Renzo is someone who’s able to express himself pretty well in full sentences, I did not expect that he refuses to talk to people most of the time when he’s outside. I meant if he can’t even talk, of course I won’t feel this bad. I am guessing it is probably because we didn’t really enforce the rules at home. Just like we try to cultivate good habit by asking him to say “Good morning” to his grandparents, most of the time he will keep quiet or respond with “Good morning 爷爷不要”. And more often than not, we just laugh it off without correcting him on that. That reminds me of Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother" way of bringing up her 2 daughters in a strict fashion. I have not read her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" but my cousin who finished reading that book, shared a bit with me about Amy's relentless determination and parenting philosophy, contrary to modern American standard of permissiveness and mediocrity.

Well, I am pretty sure that Win was not brought up in a "Tiger Mother" way, but to certain extend, I was. I remember vividly how my parents used to talk to us from young. They always encourage us to study hard and work hard for better life. They believe that's the best way to prepare us for our future. We learned the concept of "you reap what you sow" before we could even wrote our own names. During our era, there's no such thing as "parents should foster learning is fun", or "stressing on academic results is not healthy for kids". I am sure even until now, some of my mummy friends who are advocates of Western parenting style, eventually still get stressed out by peer pressures from those who managed to raise stereotypically successful children with a more "tiger-like' way.

So, the question is, am I too soft to Renzo? Maybe, but then, nowadays kids are so smart. There was one time Renzo muttered "Don't use your hand, use your spoon!" while feeding himself dinner. That's exactly what we have been reminding him almost everyday. Although he ended up stuffing 60-70% of his meal into his mouth with his hands, we didn't rake him over the coals just because of that. And the fact is, he really knows what is the right thing to do, just that it takes him time to put that into action, at least that's what I choose to believe. There was another time when Renzo was not even 15 months old, when I smacked his little hand and scolded him for biting my finger, he turned around and looked into my eyes, he didn't say a word (well he couldn't say much back then), but his expression made me feel that he's complaining: "You are my mummy, how could you do this to me?". Since then, I've never raised my voice at him again, not even once.

Guess I should stop thinking and talking like an expert, 'cause I am not. I still have no clue what is the best for Renzo despite self-claiming many times that I want to provide the best for him. But for now, I am not going to be a "tiger mummy" and risk myself of raising up a rebellious instead of successful kid, at least not before Renzo could write his own name. haha...

If a picture paints a thousand words...

Renzo was quite cooperative in front of the camera this weekend and allowed us to take some of the videos of him doing funny stuff. Usually, he would stop dead in his tracks once we took out the camera. It has always been something of a desire for both Feli and myself to be able to capture these actions down and show it to him when he grows up to have a little laugh together.

If a picture paints a thousand words, then this post would be about... hmmm, lets do some calculations...

30fps (frames per second) * 2 minutes 46 seconds = 4980 frames
4980 frames * thousand words = 4.98 million words... possibly the longest post ever written on this blog (or any blog for that matter)

Anyway, here are the 3 videos we took over the weekend... njOy~!


This was taken just after Renzo's shower. Every time after his hot shower, he is treated to a bottle of milk, and "Daddy I want milk milk, please" is some manners we taught him...=P


Just after his milk, he decided to powder himself... something he does some of the time, but rarely allowing us to video it (he'd stop once we wipe out the camera)


He was playing on my his iPad2 and launched his favourite "Angry Birds" and linked to the page of "Angry Birds"... and this was what he thought of the evil egg-loving green pigs...

Renzo baby has distinctive preference over Daddy Chan now

After my 2 weeks business trip, it became apparent that Renzo baby developed this distinctive preference over his daddy nowadays.

Incident #1:
Win went for grocery shopping after dinner to replenish milk powder stock for Renzo. In the past, he would just tell Renzo where is he going and when will he be back, well indeed that doesn't concern our boy much, he is surely more interested to know if Win will leave his ipad at home for him to play only. But nowadays Renzo often cries for Daddy, and keeps asking, "Where is daddy? You (I) want daddy, where??!!"

Incident #2:
One of my most important (to Renzo) routine tasks, is to sing bedtime lullabies to Renzo, and since his birth till now. I've been switching between more than 20 English and Chinese songs for this little one. The biggest worry I used to have was, how could Daddy Chan coax baby to sleep when I am away for my trip. But now, I am not worried any more. A few nights ago, while I happily ended 1 round of "ABC" and just about to start on "Row Row Row your boat", I was suddenly stopped by Renzo, he shouted "Mummy sing song, row row row your boat 不要, Daddy sing song, row row row your boat, please!"

Incident #3:
Recently we noticed that Renzo loves to give instructions to us adults on what we should do according to his perference. Such as forcing grandpa to only sit on his own chair instead of on grandma's chair, insisting on eating "potato" from his plate and throwing them out when we correct him that it's "pumpkin" instead. I didn't really expect that unfortunately, finally I became his target. Tonight right before his bedtime, he was playing around and while Daddy Chan finished shower and returned to the room, Renzo was extremely excited. (Needless to say, he was super cranky while Daddy Chan went for his shower). And this time, he quickly lay in his bed and got into his sleeping position, then he started giving out instructions in his captivating tone:
Renzo: "Renzo lie down, Daddy also lie down!"
Mummy: "Where? Which side?"
Renzo (pointing at his right hand side): "Here, this side!"
Daddy: "So can Mummy lie down also?"
Renzo (without hesitation): "Mummy lie down 不要!!"
While I was wondering what am I supposed to do then,
Renzo: "Mummy go walk walk!!" and he then pushed me down from the bed..
Mummy: "Ergh, Mummy go where walk walk then?"
Renzo: "Mummy, open the door, go walk walk!!!!!" (Apparently getting me out of the bed is not good enough, he wanted me to be totally out of his sight!)

I find it rather hilarious although I know I supposed to feel pretty downhearted over all these. But I am very touched to see the efforts Win put in recently to look after our Renzo gets well paid off this way.

Here's a little video of Renzo feeding himself on our recent trip to the airport.