Dealing with a tween...

Definition of a Tween - A child between 10 n 12 years of age, too old to be a child but too young to be a teenager.

I have one at home and I am beginning to struggle. She is temperamental and moody half of the time. Only channel 8 dramas and Nickalodeon teenage serials seem to cheer her up. I had to remind her papa not to irritate her but tonight I got really irritated!

She has always been an independent student with above average results. Her weakest link is English composition. She does not have the natural flair for writing and she is also not an avid reader. A friend of mine told me about an upcoming 2 day creative writing course by Mindchamps in June. I decided to sign her up as I think it is important to tackle her weakness before the crucial PSLE next year,

She was totally against the idea when I mentioned it. I had to put my foot down and told her she has to go for it until she shows me more effort in improving her writing skills. Her face turned as black as " Bao Qin Tian" and she walked out of my room. Even Jacob noticed something was amiss when he came out from the shower. I had 2 choices - to confront her for her bad attitude or to ignore it until she cools down on her own. I decided on the latter after bouts of deep breathing. I went ahead to revise Chinese with both of them. Despite her cold demeanor, she did as she was told during the revision, but without speaking a word to me!

As expected, the savior to our little cold war was the 9pm channel 8 drama! I had allow her to relax after her revision while I continued with Jacob. When I was done and went to check on her, she happily rattled on about the characters in the new drama and did not seem to remember the earlier angry episode against me. A classic mood swing that is getting more frequent. I acted normally and decided to enjoy her jovial moments while it last. The key thing is - I have achieved my objective to sending her to the course. I cannot imagine what do I have to deal with when she becomes a teenager! I pray for patience and guidance from above and will probably start looking at guidebooks on how to deal with TWEENS!

Start of my 3 mths gardening leave!

I am free!!!

After 6 months of unhappiness at work, God finally answered my prayers and blessed me with a new job offer! I resigned on Wednesday and will enjoy 3 months of gardening leave. I am very excited about the new opportunity and hope I will be able to live up to the expectations of my new bosses! Meanwhile, I have exciting plans lined up for myself...

- Start "play-by-ear" piano class... with the aim to be able to play " A Thousand Years" and " Above All" in 3 month's time!
- Start Zumba classes and lose some weight!
- Maldives trip with family
- Cambodia mission trip with Yiling
- KL trip with family to visit my sis.
- Bangkok shopping trip with Sis-in-law
- Lots of Tai Tai hi tea sessions with galfrds...

I am very very very thankful!!!

Jacob's roller coster ride in 2012 so far....

It's been almost 6 mths since I wrote something here. The year of the rabbit hopped by and now we have entered the year of the water dragon. It has certainly been a roller coster ride for Jacob so far. It started well in the 2nd week of school. I came home to the happy news that he was the only P3 selected to join the ACSP badminton school team. It was an honour for him as the junior team has been Southzone champions for the past 2 years! The following week we also learnt that he has been streamed into the best class in P3. Can't ask for a more perfect start...

Then came the South zone interschool badminton competition. We assumed that all school team players will be playing every match so the whole family took half day  to support Jacob on his first match day. To our disappointment, he was not fielded that day as we learnt that only 5 out of 8 players will be fielded at every match. Their first opponent was St Andrews, one of the stronger teams in group A so the coach has to ensure a victory by fielding the experienced P5 players. They won 4-1 that day and Jacob seemed happy to support the team from the sidelines.

Just before match 2, Jacob was told that he will be partnering a P5 for the 2nd Doubles game. I think I was more excited and nervous than him on the day before the match. On match day, his biggest fans papa and gong gong were there before the match started while I rushed down from work at 4pm. On the way there, I learnt that one of his opponent will be Ethan, son of my good friend Christy. I knew chances of winning are low as Ethan and his partner are older and more skillful. I prayed hard that Jacob will try his best and not give up halfway through the match. They lost in the end but they put up a good fight ( 12-21, 21-18 and 18-21). I felt extremely proud of him!

Unfortunately, they got a big scolding from their coach after the match. The coach called them "brainless", "lousy" and threatened to slap them. He also accused Jacob of showing off because of his style of playing. His P5 partner broke down but Jacob managed to hold back his tears. It was tough pretending not to watch when the coach was putting them down!

The next few days, while I struggled with either leaving him alone or complaining to the teacher -in-charge, Jacob seemed to be taking the pressure quite well as he dilligently practised his strokes everyday. Looks like my boy is stronger mentally than I thought. I decided that my hubby and male friends were right and I will let him learn to deal with the " verbal abuse".

The training session today before match 3 went well today.  He does not think he will be fielded tomorrow as there are 2 other P5 reserves that has not played in any matches  yet. He seems fine with that but I do hope he will be given at least one more chance to play in Match  4 or 5.  A win will be a nice morale boost for him, which will help motivate him to excel further in this game!

Meanwhile, I am praying that I will receive my first founder's day invitation.....