Renzo's wonderful grandparents

When I was young, visiting my grandmother was a weekly routine task which i didn't enjoy much. Somehow I was not close to her, maybe because my sister and i were not taken care of by her. So when Daddy Chan and I decided to sell our HDB flat and move into my in-laws' house last January, my mother happily commented that it would be a great opportunity for Renzo to build a strong bonding with his grandparents, and my mother was absolutely right!!

After our maid, Ayeaye, went back to Myanmar in August last year, my in-laws took over the responsibility of bringing Renzo back from school every evening. Although Renzo is able to walk on his own, on certain "bad mood" days, he still requests to be carried. So both my in-laws have to travel 5 bus stops to the school together, in order to fetch a 15kg boy and his little school bag home.

My father-in-law did "complained" a few times, that we should put Renzo to those nursery schools at HDB void decks, for a few hours a day, since he finds Renzo too young to really "learn" anything in a school environment. Luckily after visiting Renzo's current Childcare Center, my mother-in-law is super supportive that we should choose a better learning environment for Renzo according to our own preference, even if that means it's far from home and that they'll need to take a bus every evening. My mother-in-law always says that it was never a concern and that she can even take a cab home on rainy days if necessary.

Well I have to say my mother-in-law is really good at caring young children (that includes her 2 sons she brought up some 30 years ago). Now, although she still needs to work every morning and on 2 nights every week, she's willingly sacrificing her personal time for our boy. When I said "Thank you" for her time and effort, she always tells me not to worry, she's not "looking after her grandson", she's just "playing with her grandson". I know what she is trying to say is that she's not really helping us much, so that we do not have to feel too bad about it. She's always so active and energetic while playing with Renzo, at the same time she's also teaching Renzo a lot of stuff. She taught Renzo what is "Bouganvilla", and when father-in-law commented that Renzo is too young to understand that and she should just use the word "flower", guess what how she responded? "If every type of flower is just called 'flower', why do we need to name our son Wilson and Winson, why not just call them both 'BOY'?!! My grandson is smart enough to pick up such knowledge okay!!!"

And recently I also noticed the change in my father-in-law. He used to say that he can't communicate with Renzo because he does not speak English, but nowadays I often hear him talking to Renzo in English, and not just a few words, but full sentences. Renzo told his grandmother that "Renzo is angry", because "Ye Ye cannot talk!!", when he failed to "force" Ye Ye to pronounce the word "Hamburger" accurately. It's so much fun to see how they both interact with each other, although the conversation is not always smooth. And even Daddy Chan commented that he's never seen his father using English so frequently in his lifetime, it's all because of our little boy!

As for my own parents, although they are almost 3000 miles away, they dote on Renzo just as much. My mother is a "die-hard fan" of Renzo (nope I am not exaggerating). She always say I am so lucky to have a great son like Renzo. I seriously wonder why doesn't she think that Renzo is lucky to have a great mummy like me?!! LOL.. She has to remind me on a weekly basis that early education is so important to kids, and since Renzo loves reading and counting, we should start him with a 3rd language (she prefers French... though I wanted Spanish).

And my father, who always prefers girls, is finally starting to like boys because of Renzo (self-proclaimed by my proud mother). There was one time he told Renzo before he left home for work, "Wai Gong is going to earn $$ for Renzo, see if you want a piano or anything else, Wai Gong will buy for you okie?!". My father has retired for 2 years and just returned to work recently, I know it's purely because of his interest in the business, but I still feel so touched when he said he has enough wealth to enjoy life and the extra earnings are for little Renzo.

Renzo also loves them very much despite not being able to see them often. When he saw an aeroplane taking off at the airport, he said "Aeroplane! Pilot sit in front, wait for Renzo sit in the aeroplane, areoplane fly, go find Wai Gong and LaoLao(that's how he calls my mother)!"

I am not sure if Renzo will definitely have much better relationship with his grandparents next time, I just wish he knows one day that how much love and care the grandparents have showered on him since young. And I am sure by the time our condo is ready, all of us will definitely miss the wonderful time we've spent together with my in-laws..

Renzo is going to Pre-Nursery 2 next year

It's been almost 9 months since Renzo started going to Childcare on April 01, 2011. It was a fruitful 9 months for this little boy although we do not know much about his life in school, since he is not able to tell us much about what's going on daily at this moment. But we definitely noticed some changes in him, such as being able to feed himself, wear his clothes and shoes, sing a lot more songs in both Chinese and English and talk in full sentences, etc.

A few weeks ago, we had a "meet parents session" with his Teacher Helen from his Pre-Nursery 1 class. It's about 20 minutes talk and at the end of the session, we were given a CD which contains some highlights of Renzo's school life in powerpoint format. Teacher Helen is a super friendly, caring and sweet lady and we could easily tell how much passion and love she has towards the kids in the center, and we are truly grateful to have her as Renzo's first teacher. She gave lots of positive feedback about Renzo, telling us that our little boy is always willing to follow instructions, never bullies other classmates, has a very pleasant personality, loves singing and dancing, sleeps well and eats well, and never throws tantrums in school at all. She also commented that we parents seem to have taught Renzo a lot at home, as he knows his alphabet and numbers well, could recognize a lot of items like shapes and colors while reading his books, and being one of the most talkative kids who's able to converse in full sentence, in both Chinese and English. Well we have to definitely thank Teacher Helen as being Renzo's Chinese teacher, she had definitely motivated and encouraged Renzo to speak more often in Chinese.

Both Win and I were super proud when Teacher Helen mentioned that Renzo is very focused and patient when he is doing something. If he is reading a book, he can really sit down there and read page by page for a long time and not be distracted by other kids who are playing around. If he is playing a puzzle or block game, he always makes sure he completes the last piece of his puzzle or build up something with the blocks, so he could show the end result to the teachers happily.

The only "concern" she has to share with us is that, Renzo is still not feeling comfortable with large group of people. And she said it could be due to the fact that Renzo is the only child, and in the past he was not exposed to many strangers while he was cared by our maid alone.

Time really flies and after Christmas, Renzo will be promoted to the next level - Pre-Nursery 2 class and the good thing is, he will still be able to see his Teacher Helen during breakfast or morning assembly session. We hope maybe some of these lovely kids from Renzo's Pre-Nursery 1 class, could become his life time good friend in the future!!

Our different parenting style..

For our friends who know us well, most of you must think that Mummy Chan is the strict one who disciplines Renzo with frequent spanks and time-outs, whereas Daddy Chan must be the one who either handles him with loads of love and patience (just like how he treats Mummy Chan), or simply does not care too much.. Well, you are totally wrong then.

This is the conversation happened before Renzo went to bed last night:

Renzo: "Daddy, I want train train!!"
Daddy Chan: "No Renzo, it's bedtime, you need to sleep!"
Renzo: "Train Train, Renzo want to play train!!"
Daddy Chan: "No Renzo, it's too late, cry also no use, no train for Renzo!!"

Renzo: "Mummy!!!"
Mummy Chan: "Yes Renzo baby, don't cry, tell mummy what do you want?"
Renzo: "I want train train!"
Mummy Chan: "Okay no problem mummy get for you~"

Daddy Chan: Side Note: I have to admit, there was a bit of miscommunication because when Renzo was talking to Win, I was watching my cantonese show with my earpieces on, if I knew that Win has already rejected Renzo's request, I should have just let him handle our boy with zero interference, as we both agreed that consistency is important when comes to disciplining Renzo. But you get the idea about how Renzo's request will be attended if he were to come to me directly at first.

Win believes that spanking is absolutely okay as long as it is used sparingly and not abusively. And I believe that each child develops at their own level and each stage of development has its appropriate behaviors. So to Daddy Chan, throwing tantrums at "terrible two" stage is normal; but to me it is normal AND acceptable. And to Daddy Chan, if Renzo misbehaves, there needs to be some reinforcement in place to let him understand what he can and cannot do; but to me, I rather maximize his opportunities to play and explore in his own way, but minimize his chances to misbehave and get into trouble, so we don't even need to deal with the consequence. For example when Renzo wants to snatch Daddy's laptop, Win will tell him it's not the right thing to do as it is not a toy for him to play with, but usually I will rather that we don't even use it in front of Renzo if we know certain things like a movie or game on the laptop might catches Renzo's attention. So can you see the difference now?

We've exchanged ideas with other parents but it's never easy to find the most effective parenting style. And now we both are patiently waiting for Renzo to grow up a little, at least wait till he turns 3 years old.
Daddy Chan thinks that's an appropriate age to enforce some punishment for Renzo to learn self-control, and the difference between right from wrong.
Mummy Chan thinks that's an appropriate age for Renzo to understand the connection between actions and consequences and he might pick up good behaviours automatically.
Haha not bad, at least we do share some thoughts in common finally..