“When I was your age I had a dog.”
Seriously? Like they needed any more ammunition when bombarding me with requests to get a dog. The following is a sample of a recent conversation with Alexander on this very topic:
“Why can’t I have a dog?”
Well, let’s see, you really wanted to get a guitar and then you lost interest.
“But that’s because I wanted an electric guitar and you got me a classical one.”
You wanted to do wushu and then you quit, tennis and then you quit.
“But that’s because I’m a quitter.”
Don’t say that. You are not a quitter. You really wanted that thing that shoots darts and then you lost interest. The Ben 10 watch, where is it now?
“On the high shelf in your closet because you said that when my friends came over they would want to play with it and they would break it.”
Good point.
“Mom, those are all things, but a dog is not a thing.”
That’s what I’m worried about.
“A dog is different. I would love a puppy. Or at least a rip stick. Or a scooter. One of those three things.”
Well, how about a puppy that goes on a rip stick? Or a scooter that barks? That would be cool.
“See, now you’re doing that thing, joking. I don’t like it when you do that.”
Strange how my kids never like it when I joke.
Things an expat kid wants to do instead of swimming at 7 a.m. on a Saturday
Skateboarding
Alexander has started a new school. This school offers many more sports than his old one. He’s doing swimming, basketball, aerial troupe, and athletics. Maybe he was sports-deprived. But to be honest, we’re not that sure he’s really keen on swimming. After the many laps he had to do to get on the team, his first words as he got out of the pool, were: “I’m going to get you for this.” That can’t be good.
I have to confess that like most expats who live in Singapore surrounded by pools, I have always been completely paranoid about having both my kids become good swimmers.
On Friday, Alexander had his first swim meet after school. He came in last. I was excited he had competed at all. He complained that the kids he swam against were so big that when they jumped in the pool they created a tidal wave that overwhelmed him. I figured he was exaggerating until I saw them. This kid needs some protein, pronto!
I admit that in part I am influenced by my older brother, who was on the swim team at Yale. But Alexander likes to dash those dreams. “Of all the sports I do, swimming is the one I like least. Just so you know I’m only doing this for you.” (Excellent reason.) In fact, yesterday he confided that all the other kids on the team told him that they also do not like swimming but are just doing it because their parents want them to.
Finally, I feel like I’m part of a team: Annoying Parents Who Force Their Kids to Be on the Swim Team. Okay, so it’s not so catchy but will it fit on a t-shirt?
Writing in my journal
Swimming: The True Storie (as read in Alexander’s new journal): “I think I am supposed to love swimming, but i just dont, my mom and dad are trying to make me love it or something I can tell because all my life (so far) I have done swimming lesson after swimming lesson I am on the swim team but did I want to be on it no!! can I quit and join something else like all the other kids NO!! so now I am stuck with a bunch of kids I dont know and my mom says I am supposed to “bond” with them? To me swimming is just something you learn to not drown but no you gotta take swimming to a whole new level with the amazing, fantastic Championchips?? I just dont get it at all.”
I’m starting to think he doesn’t like swimming.
Watching a magician on the TED conference
Ever since Alexander got a book on Harry Houdini he’s been into magic. This kind of reminds me of my brother Stephen. As a kid he worked for hours secretly in his room perfecting his tricks. Finally, he called us in. As we sat in our chairs eagerly waiting for the show to begin, he announced: “And now I will pour this milk into a paper cone and voila watch as it disappears.” Then, much to my mother’s chagrin and our disbelief, he waved the cone to one side and all the milk went flying onto the wall. His career as a magician didn’t really take off after that. He did go on to become the managing director of a big investment bank… so he probably retained some of his earlier magic trick training.
Starting a rare coin collection
Or something on his own. Let’s face it, playing Monopoly with a five-year-old sibling can be a trying experience. Possible scenarios:
a. They get kind of grumpy when you get money from the bank and they don’t.
b. They throw a tantrum because nobody is landing on their property.
c. They really don’t like the “Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200” card.
In fact, I sometimes wonder if my family’s own obsession with real estate is directly linked to having had a TV-deprived childhood and therefore spending inordinate amounts of time playing Monopoly.
Learning a poem
Alexander is thrilled by my enthusiasm for poetry. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. This is the new quid pro quo scheme recently introduced: before he gets to buy something he needs to memorize a poem: “Right, new cleats for soccer? Here’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. You have one hour. Time starts now.”
Reading a book
Last night, Alexander was looking for something to read (he’s become a voracious reader and considering I nearly compromised my liver trying to teach him how to read in second grade this is no insignificant detail. In fact, he gets away with a lot because he’s reading all the time… I’m that happy, still.) Anyway, he picked up my copy of ‘Catcher in the Rye’. I had a moment of thinking: “Wait a minute, I’m not sure J.D. Salinger is really appropriate for a just-recently-turned nine-year-old. But that feeling was replaced with an intense curiosity to what he would say and what he would think about it. After a few pages he put it down, saying he liked it but he wasn’t going to read it right now. And then, after further consideration, he came up with: “Was this book like the ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ of your time?” Spot on.
Eliot last night couldn’t fall asleep. I started reading her ‘Cinderella’ and she burst out in tears: “What if you die, then I’ll get a stepmother. Or if you fight with Daddy and he changes his mind about loving you and then I get another mother. Or if you die, but then you come back and I already have a stepmother.” First, I reasoned that I wasn’t dying, that I would always be her mother, and I even added as a reassurance: “Your Daddy would never marry somebody evil. She would be nice.” But this provoked an even more frantic reaction: “But he doesn’t know anybody, he doesn’t have any girl friends, it might be somebody who seems nice and then is evil.”
Hard to fight that sort of logic. So, I did what any rational and sensible mother would do. Put away ‘Cinderella’ and pulled out ‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie’.
Playing basketball
There is no basketball hoop in our condo. In fact, at the last council meeting, the proposal to install a hoop (even a donated one) was immediately shot down. No surprise, as all upgrading proposals are unanimously rejected. So now basketball is an endeavour that only involves jumping over a gate to enter the only condo in the whole neighbourhood that does have a basketball court, hoping the guard at that condo doesn’t figure out he and his buddies don’t actually live there.
Listening to Green Day
Watching the video of his favourite song by Green Day, ‘I Walk Alone’, Alexander observes: “With so much eyeliner… it’s no wonder he walks alone.”
Sleeping
It is Saturday morning after all.
Signs you’re an expat spending Christmas in Singapore
Going home involves a 12-hour airplane flight (24 if you’re going to the States or Canada).
Your enthusiasm might make you forget two important things you will experience on arrival: major j
et lag and the extreme shock your body will feel as it goes from warm weather to icy cold weather.
In addition to plane fares and presents for everyone at home, you will need to buy a winter wardrobe for every member of your family.
Unlike going home in summer, when you can wear the exact same clothes you’ve been wearing all year round in Singapore, travelling to another country (any country) involves a major wardrobe investment, since everywhere is colder than here. And presents… let’s just say that the cute tiny Tiger Balm tins are really only acceptable the first year. Sure they’ll say: “Just bring yourselves.” But what they’re really thinking is: “Exotic Singapore, the pearl of Southeast Asia… I can’t even begin to imagine what wondrous things they have there and what they’ll be bringing us. What’s this… Tiger Balm… again? Did you hear me say I had aches and pains?”
After realizing the total cost equals the price of a minivan, you may decide to stay put.
Plane fares at Christmas time are usually double those at any other time of year. Not irrelevant, especially if you happen to have children. If you’re reluctant to leave them behind in an empty house considering it’s Christmas, then you’ll be bringing them with you. It would be cheaper to spend the holiday at Raffles Hotel… well, almost.
You soon discover that for your other friends, staying put actually means short breaks to Bali or Phuket.
So, you’ve decided to stay put and you are very happy with your decision because you’re not the only one who has decided to stay put. Excellent news as your children will now have someone to play with besides you. Because let’s face it, there is only so much time you want to spend on a puppy puzzle or building Lego. Wrong! You misinterpreted their staying put as actually not going anywhere. For them, staying put in fact means staying within the confines of Southeast Asia. Preferably on a beach in Thailand or Indonesia. Don’t even think about following them as everything is already booked. This is probably a blessing in disguise, since beach resorts at Christmas aren’t exactly a bargain. Enjoying the comforts of your own home is looking better every minute. Just remember to call it a stay-cation, it has a much catchier sound.
The top wish on your children’s list will be to build a snowman. (There’s that small detail of us living in the tropics… remember?)
There is nothing the expat kid craves more than snow. This is multiplied exponentially at Christmas (which according to the decorations on Orchard Road runs some time from about August to February). Kids may become grumpy when they are told you need snow to build a snowman and sub-zero weather to have snow. Videos of ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ are not necessarily helpful.
Roasting chestnuts on an open fire… when it’s 93 degrees Fahrenheit… not so fun.
The heat outside will make it slightly complicated for your kids to understand your own childhood traditions. In an attempt to reminisce, you try to replicate those traditions. However, trying to do so on your condo balcony might not be a great idea – unless you want your neighbours to yell Fire and call 995.
Having family visit is great as long as you realize they will bring a virus they picked up on the long-haul flight.
Make no mistake: within 48 hours of a visit from an overseas relative (who has just spent an entire day locked up in a plane cabin with every germ known to mankind), your entire family will get sick. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Thanks to the huge time difference, for at least the first five days the visiting toddlers will want to eat their cereal while listening to loud videos of ‘Thomas the Train’… at 2 am. Good times. Speaking trains, with posh names like Percy and Edward, are your new nightmare. Skype is looking better every minute. Not to mention, reliably sunny Singapore decides to have constant, steady downpours so nobody can go out and play. Normally, not a big deal. With stir-crazy kids, a problem. So you can forget about all that splashing about in the pool you promised them: “You just take the lift down in your bathing suit and you’re at the pool.” Not happening unless you want to get electrocuted by lightning. It may be your imagination but their initial playfully witty queries, “So this is rainy season in Singapore?” will become increasingly frosty and hostile. You might suspect they wish they had gone to Malaysia instead. After they go surreptitiously to the travel agent to change their flights, your suspicions will be confirmed.
Your child may spontaneously assume the Buddha position to decide where to put up the tree.
Nothing says Christmas in Southeast Asia like a pine needle tree bought at Ikea and flown in from Sweden. It is only right, therefore, that such a momentous decision as where to place this tree be made by your child… in the Buddha position.
You’re not the only one who thinks going to Singapore’s Snow City is a good idea.
Singapore boasts its own Snow City. I would only recommend it if having ice shoved down your jacket collar is your idea of fun. On the plus side, your children might be less enthusiastic about ice and snow after getting frostbitten ears.
You are thinking of having your entire Christmas dinner home-delivered.
Sounds extravagant, yet this is what a lot of expats like to do. Well, the ones who don’t relish slaving in the kitchen on the maid’s day off. Most hotels and restaurants have embraced this lucrative business and deliver everything from the huge roast all the way down to the brussels sprouts. They know there is only one thing an expat likes more than a turkey dinner: not having to cook that turkey dinner.
Fun things to do with kids during the holidays in Singapore
Swimming outdoors… it is Singapore, after all
If you, like me, hate crafts, long car trips, and anything involving a rollercoaster, then this is the list for you. Head for the pool – yours, a neighbour’s, any chlorinated body of water will do. They’re kids after all. Tip: Take a book and large hat… just so they realize you’re not actually jumping in the pool with them.
Kinokuniya bookshop
Hours of fabulous browsing and reading. Some people measure their parenting skills on what schools their children get into or how well they do on a math test… that’s not me. My only goal was achieving independent reading at a bookshop. Theirs. Now that I no longer have to sit down next to them on the floor reading ‘Cat in the Hat’, my duty as a parent is over. I mean, there’s still college but the bulk of the job is pretty much done. Before achieving this state of reading nirvana, entering bookshops felt masochistic. Surrounded by hundreds of books yet unable to read any of them. Being able to read the books I want at a bookshop has made me a better parent. For some, it might be enjoying a cocktail before dinner, for me it’s browsing the Booker Prize selections. Small tip: You may or may not want to avoid the stationery area. That really depends on your disposable income.
A yummy breakfast in Little India
A good way to assess your kids’ spicy index. After a vegetarian breakfast at Syed Alwi Road, you can check out the little shops nearby selling pocket watches, silk scarves, and colourful bracelets. You can even pop into Singapore’s only 24-hour emporium called Mustafa. Here you can change money, buy gold, find fountain pen ink, or stock up on travel-size toiletries (maybe that’s just me).
Go to the movies
Just remember to check the rating first. What you thought was a Disney movie might be rated NC-16 in Singapore. Better not assume; not all movies are appropriate. Singapore has pretty stringent rules so check first. And remember to dress as though you were going for a walk in the snow and you’ll be fine. The good news is the extensive food selection. Forget about buttery popcorn, you can feast on dried fish.
Ice skating
Yes, it really is possible in Singapore. In fact, there is even a new Olympic rink. Allow some time beforehand to buy matching hat and gloves. At least an hour if you have Italian kids.
Coffee and scones at Ah Teng Bakery
This cosy little bakery tucked away in Raffles Hotel has got to be the best deal in town. Have your kids bring notebooks and pens so y
ou can read the newspaper in peace. Afterwards, you can buy his and hers white fluffy robes, coffee mugs, vintage hotel posters. Raffles is a veritable blast from the past. You can walk through the lush grounds where Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham walked, or check out the suites where they slept and that are now named after them.
Diary of an Expat in Singapore Page 9