Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. - Langston Hughes

It was hot all morning.  Later in the afternoon, the clouds overhead hung heavy and dark.  Soon it started raining.  The boys were staring intensely at the computer screen.  Nothing pulls their attention away while playing computer games, not even the pouring rain.

My spouse was also staring intensely at another flickering screen downstairs.  It is called the TV.  He was watching Ratatouille, the movie on Disney Channel.    I’ve watched this before, and had no intention of watching it again.  Not today.  I was bored. 

I walked behind to my little backyard.  Standing at the doorway, drinking my glass of water I watched the raindrops.  It was not a heavy thunder storm, unlike those giant pelts of raindrops that hurt the skin coupled with an orchestra of thunder and lightning.   It was a gentle sort of rain, somewhat like your bathroom shower raining droplets pleasant to touch. 

I welcomed the cool air after a humid hot day.  It felt deliciously refreshing. Our yard was filled with puddles of water, creating gentle ripples as the raindrops fell.  The gentle breeze blew kisses on my clammy skin. 

The falling rain, the greens, the puddles of water ; these created a moment of serendipity. 

I looked round me.  This was a perfect moment and there was absolutely no one to share it with. 

We have so many bodies living under the same roof yet this was the irony of it all.  Every one was so busy attending to their own affairs that no one had time for anyone else.

Then I had a brilliant idea.

I ran upstairs to the boys’ room and rummaged through the bottom most drawer of their cupboard.  I found them!

Taking the old new raincoats downstairs with me, I called out to the boys.

It took some effort on my part to drag them away from the computer screen, but in the end, the idea of playing in the rain was too hard to resist.

Brian was the first one to appear downstairs.  He was the easiest to be distracted simply because he wasn’t playing, he was just a spectator. 

I put on the blue raincoat for him.  In the beginning, he didn’t know what to do with it.  He hung around inside the house wearing the coat. 

I encouraged him to go outside to play in the rain. 

At first, very cautiously he stepped into the gentle shower. 

And there I was again, encouraging him to play! 

Then James came outside to see what all the excitement was about.  He slipped into the other coat which was a green one.  He too didn’t know what to do at first.  He just stood there, with a smile fixated on his face. 

Well, two boys are braver than one.  Soon, there were two tiny figures jumping in coats in the pitter patter rain.  Adventure is never far away when James and Brian are nearby.  They soon found a puddle of water in our tiny garden. 

Stepping into the puddle in their flimsy slippers, they made splashes that even their raincoats couldn’t protect their pants from getting wet.

Daniel suddenly appears from nowhere and now, he wants to have his raincoat too. 

I would have happily given it to him, only that I had only two of those coats and three eager boys.   

He went into a fit of anger, and stood right under the falling rain  when I told him that I didn’t have any more coats to give away.

After much persuasion from his mother, Brian finally gave in reluctantly, giving his coat to Daniel.

Now Daniel was happy, but Brian started sulking.  I managed to talk James into taking off his coat for Brian.  Then James wasn’t happy after that, and he insisted that he wanted his coat back from Brian. 

Well, Daniel was too happily splashing away to take any notice of whiny James, and Brian didn’t want to give up his newly owned coat ever after that.

The whole issue was a silly merry-go-round.  I felt helpless.  I could find no solution at hand. 

Eventually James solved the lack- of- raincoats problem  on his own when he discovered that the umbrella also does the same function.  It kept him dry under the shower.      
 
Only for a while though.  Later he realised that the umbrella was too cumbersome.  He simply dumped it aside before continuing his play.  It seemed more fun that way.  

The boys were having such a good time playing in the rain, they forgot about me.  I no longer needed to shout out instructions.  I was now a silent observer.

Sometimes I got nervous when I hear and see the occasional thunder and lightning.  I kept thinking, this was it.  My children will get struck by lightning anytime now. 
       
It is not hard to understand my fear of the rain.  All my life, I was told that being caught in the rain can make me really sick.  Never play in the rain, my mum used to tell me. 

I never played in the rain.  Ever.

And all my life I thought that it would be nice to play in the summer rain at least once.  

Now that I am the adult, I took a chance with my children and bent the rules a little. 

The sounds of the pitter patter rain and the shrill voices of three little boys created precious memories for their mother that day.  There was pure excitement in the air.  James was dripping wet in the summer rain and didn’t seem to mind at all.  Daniel, being Daniel, was trying in vain to keep his clothes dry under the rain as he tried to collect mud water in a tiny container.  And Brian was too busy making splashes in the puddles.

At one point, their play turned unruly. Each boy wanted to outperform the others by making the biggest splash.  I was nervous that they might slip and fall.  I was tempted to call them back in, but they were having so much fun. 

I am glad that none of my worries materialised. 

As their play progressed, it didn’t matter if the children wore raincoats or not.  All of them got drenched anyway.  Before Brian came out of the rain, he couldn’t resist the invitation of the biggest puddle ever that day in our garden.  He ran towards it and jumped into it in a fashionable manner before rolling into the water twice.
 
Needless to say, he was soaked through and muddy.

At the end of it all, the boys were happy, dirty and dripping wet. 

James who was already coughing, coughed a lot more the following day.  My mother noticed this, and demanded to know the reason why.  When she knew, she wouldn’t stop criticising my child management methods. 

I merely kept quiet.  I couldn’t stop smiling though. 

Hopefully many, many years from now when he is an adult, James will remember the day he played in the rain rather than his chesty cough.   

If you would like to take a chance with your children playing in the summer rain as well, make sure you do it when your mother isn’t around.  

But even if she found out, it wouldn’t matter because you’d be smiling just like me. 

Cheers!  And here’s wishing you a lovely day. 

A new baby is like the beginning of all things – wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. – J. Le Shan

Little Simon turned one on the 21st of this month.  I was feeding him a while ago.  Taking one of his hands into the palm of mine, I marveled at how much he had grown.  He walks now with support and is a sturdy little fellow with a loud laugh.    

A year ago, I went into labour for the fourth time praying for a healthy child to be born.  Simon came out screaming at 10.14am.  He had ten perfect little tiny fingers and toes, and a head mopped with hair.  Our little miracle was born perfect.   

He was my bonus baby.  With him, I would have a new beginning.  I would be the perfect parent that I never was with my other children.    I would sing him songs in my off tune voice and shower him with kisses in abundance everyday.  I would whisper into his ears ‘I love you’ a million times over and dress him up in nice little blue overalls.  I would be the perfect mummy. 

Sad to say, it didn’t turn out that way.  He was crying for milk every half hour.  He woke up every hour in the night wanting to be carried or fed.  He slept most of time he was not crying and didn’t care whether he was dressed in blue or pink or white.  He only cared if he had a clean diaper on and was well fed. 

And I was cranky most of the time from the lack of sleep.  His crying sometimes drove me up the wall, wearing my patience thin. As it turned out, I didn’t care very much either about singing to him or showering him with kisses.  The only thing that mattered most was that he slept soundly. 

Forget about being the perfect mum, I told myself.  I was barely surviving as I changed his diaper for the fifth time one morning. 

As time passed, a strange thing happened.  Once again, I found time to play with my other children, read for pleasure and, enjoy the company of my spouse at our favourite restaurant. 

It looks as if Simon and I have found a rhythm.  He now has a daily routine that I am really grateful for.  I didn’t realise I needed a routine so badly to  keep a smile on my face and my sanity intact.

He takes naps in the mornings and afternoons, eats at midday and 6 pm and knocks off at around half past nine at nights.

He takes in the world now with his sparkling eyes, and explores with his feisty little hands.  Everything that comes in contact with his hands goes directly into his mouth.  These include a sock, a tissue box, a toy car, a blue plastic blinking microphone and mummy’s nose.  Once, I gave him a magazine to keep him occupied.  When he was quiet for too long, I took a peep to see what he was doing.  He was busy chewing paper!  As quick as lightning, I snatched it away from him, but too late, he had already eaten bits of it.

I knew it went into his stomach because I couldn’t find the missing pieces anywhere in his cot.  Shortly after the paper swallowing incident, the little fellow gave out a loud burp as if confirming that it was a good meal indeed!
              
He really must love paper a lot.  Another time when my mum was taking care of him, he kept munching away even after falling asleep. 

My mum, suspecting something amissed, panicked, and forcefully opened his mouth even if she had to wake him up from his slumber.  Using a finger to dig the insides of his mouth, she found a piece paper printed ‘spiderman’ on it. 

That surely must be the most exciting event of the year for her.   

Simon wouldn’t keep still during bath times now.  He used to be so placid when I bathed him in the tub.  Now he arches his back in retaliation when I wet and shampoo his hair.   He hates it.  When I put him in the tub, he prefers to stand.  When he does sit, his favourite activity is water splashing using both hands. 

Little Simon has big words for his mummy.  The only issue is that I don’t understand his language at all.  He babbles and rumbles. 

I love echoing him.

He says ‘Arrgh’ , and I echo ‘ Arrgh’.  He says ‘Ouurhhghh’, and I echo ‘Ouurhhghh’.   He says ‘uuhhharrh’, and I echo ‘uuhhharrh’.          
   
Then, he would look at me as if we had exchanged some great thoughts.

And I would laugh and laugh.  His father looked at me once as if I had gone mad. 

“You are supposed to speak to him in proper sentences,” he said. “Look, he doesn’t even know what you are talking about.”

I laughed some more and was not at all bothered.  With my previous babies, I never used baby language.  I could not risk impeding their speech.  Now, I really didn’t care what the child experts out there said.  I simply loved having some good old fashion fun with little Simon.

Initially I thought I had a fresh chance to be the perfect mum I never was to my three elder children.  But as the past year unfolded, I realised that I had to live with imperfection daily when I did not pick up my crying baby immediately, or when I had to fight the urge to scream at him to stop after an hour of feeding him on my breast. 

In time I stopped striving to be the perfect mum.  Instead, I let go and adopted a relaxed outlook with this precious child.  I enjoyed mothering this last boy the most.  I sang silly songs and played silly games with him just to hear his laughter.  I made silly faces just to see his smile.  When he babbled, I babbled.  Sometimes, I do nothing.  I sit quietly next to him listening to him breathe.

Forget about the baby Einstein DVDs, or the pictorial flash cards, or the red dotted mathematical cards that were supposed to bring out the genius in my baby. 

Today I will enjoy his toothless grin and the smell of his saliva covered fingers.

Happy Birthday Simon!   

Today was a beautiful day.  The sun shone brightly, casting playful shadows under the trees.  It was a lovely day to spend outdoors.

I am attempting to start my walking exercise again.  I missed placing one foot in front of the other for the sheer joy of it, and at the same time enjoy nature. 

These days though, it is not easy to find time to walk alone.  At any time of the day, there are three boisterous boys at home. 

We have, thankfully, one helper to do our endless chores and cooking.  In addition to that, we have two veterans to assist in our daily childcare regime.  They happened to be my parents, and both are above sixty years of age.  I am pretty sure they don’t appreciate children jumping cushions and climbing window grills.  They say activities like these increase their already skyrocketed blood pressure and shorten their life span significantly.  And of course, there is also supposedly to be the most competent child minder; their mother. 

So, I always take one or two children with me when I walk to maintain the sanity of my household.  Sometimes we cycle, but mostly, I encourage walking time. 

Today I have the company of our third son, Brian.  He is four.  Always gregarious and playful, I looked forward to an evening of good company with this little fellow.

We made our way to a bigger park with a football field.  The first few minutes were full of complaints.  Why can’t we take the bicycle?  Why not just drive the car?  This is too slow.  And on and on the boy went. 

“Look at that black cat!” I said, pointing at one crossing our path.  That distracted him.   Soon, he was looking under a car for more cats but instead found kittens. 

After a while, we got into a rhythm.  We’d walk, pause and walk again.   We stopped to look at sign boards.  We stopped to listen to the birds chirping.  We stopped to count crows perched on a lamp post.  We stopped just long enough to look at cat faeces.  We stopped to look at drains.

After crossing a busy roundabout, we walked on a pathway leading to our destination.  One section of this pathway was overshadowed by a huge leafy tree.  The effect was dark despite the bright sun rays. 

“Look, it’s the deep, dark wood,” I said as we slowly walked through the shadows. 

His eyes shone with excitement.  He knew what was coming up next. 

“Aha! Oho! A trail in the snow!” I said, reciting a line from the story The Gruffalo’s Child.  “Maybe we will find the Big Bad Mouse here.”

“Aha! Oho!  A trail in the snow!” he repeated. 

He had grown to love the story of The Gruffalo’s Child and her quest to look for the Big Bad Mouse after being read countless times to. 
All too soon the magic ended when we came out of the shadows. 

Then, we heard a rumbling sound from above.  It was an aeroplane flying overhead. 

“Look Brian. A plane.” I said, pointing at the tiny plane way up high above us.  “Where do you think it’s going?”

Seeing planes flying across the sky is a normal affair for the both of us.  But that evening, we saw five or six planes flying over our heads.  

In the beginning, we gave logical answers.

“The plane is going to the airport.”

“This one is going to Kuala Lumpur.” 

“The plane is going to London.”

“Maybe it’s going to Paris, Eiffel Tower.”

But because we saw so many aircrafts that day, we thought of other possibilities.  

“Maybe this one is going to South Africa to see the wild lions.”

“Or maybe it’s going to see the polar bears.”

Then, a soccer ball flew past us, landing a few feet away from where we were playing.   Adjacent to the park was a huge football field.    

Without a moment of hesitation, he chased after the ball.  Running with it, he directed the ball back into the football field, returning it to the ongoing game.

It would be the first time ever I had seen him focused his raw energy, kicking the ball with precision and in powerful strides.  It brought out the best in the boy.    

I stood in awe watching my son run.  It was simply exhilarating watching a boy with boundless energy play.   

Soon, he stopped playing the slides and decided that the football match was more interesting.    

“Mummy, I like No. 10,” he said, referring to the red jersey a player was wearing. 

“Why?” I asked, as I too stood still with Brian watching them play.  I strained to look for No. 10. 

“Because he can kick the ball really high across the fence,” he replied. 

I saw the powerful kick as well.  The fencing was probably twenty feet high.

The boy stood nearby, waiting for a stray ball to come to his side of the field. 

He didn’t wait in vain for long.  When the stray flying balls came, he would run after them and kick them right back to the players.  It was as if, he couldn’t wait to grow up to play with the older boys.       

I had no inkling of his love for football until this moment. 

The day turned out to be unexpectedly memorable.  It had been an evening of possibilities. 

The thrill of the possibility of discovering the elusive mouse in the deep, dark wood. The possibility of the aeroplanes carrying passengers to  their faraway exotic destinations. The possibility of the boy becoming a professional footballer. 

All too soon, it was time to go home.

 Looking at the football field, I saw the possibility of a new experience. 

We ran across the vast field, instead of taking our regular well trodden path home. 

When we completed our maiden run at the opposite end of the field, the boy and I were breathless but in high spirits. 

After all, we had had an evening of sweet memories filled with possibilities. 

I wish for you too, my friend, a weekend of possibilities.

The possibility of an art project instead of turning on the TV. Or simply, the possibility of play with your children instead of reading the newspapers. 

Cheers! Wishing you a lovely weekend.     

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.  Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory. – Arthur Ashe on Tennis

I’ve had a long night.  The baby was cranky, causing me to get in and out of bed all night.  I woke up tired. 

The weather mirrored my attitude this morning.  It was gloomy and dull.  And my head hurt. 

In addition to my fatigue, my mind was muddled with unpleasant thoughts that were starting to wear me down.  I was not looking forward to having a good day. 

I love my children.  They are always cheerful and full of energy regardless.  Be it a sunny day or a gloomy one.  For them a new day is always filled with promises and adventures.

I looked into the mirror.  I was startled by its reflection. One’s hair was disheveled, her eyes lifeless and her skin colour tawny.  My only guess is that too much coffee is bad for the skin after downing 4 glasses the day before. 

I seriously needed to tap into the reservoir of my boys’ endless exuberance. 

Brian was, as usual, very noisy in my room.  I was too distracted to pay any attention at him.  I had too many problems in my head at the moment. 

Instead, my eyes fell upon the dark clouds heavy with rainwater at a distant.  My mood was as sombre as those black clouds. 

I heaved a sigh. 

Soon, it started to rain.  First softly, and then it got bigger and louder.  We had an awning erected on our front lawn to provide some shade from the scorching sun in the afternoons.  Now the rain beating on it had a rhythm going.
 
Tee ta tee ta tee ta tee… it went.

At first I took no notice of this, but because the beat was so consistent, the sound created music to my ears. 

“Let’s do the rain dance,” I told Brian. 

Although he didn’t know what to expect, he sportingly nodded his head. 

I stood facing him, and raised my hands in the air. 

“Now, let the rain fall,” I said, letting my arms fall while wriggling my fingers.  “Don’t forget to shake your head. Shake your bum as well.” 

I started a rain dance right in my room to the tempo of the falling rain.

Tee ta tee ta tee ta tee ta… it continued steadily on.  

The little boy quickly caught on.  He moved his arms up and down, shook his head left and right, and wriggled his fingers non stop.  

Soon, his whole body was in motion.  So was mine.

This rain dance was serious business.  

We performed the rain dance for ten minutes.  Then, the boy decided that he would change into a bird. 

Tweet tweet tweet tweet, he chirped while flapping his arms and running around the baby’s cot. 

And what was I?

I was a bald eagle.  Stretching my arms out fully on each side, I moved as if I was gliding in the air just like a powerful eagle. 

I glided behind the chirping bird while making the sound of the wind. 

Hmm… I liked being an eagle.  I think I’ll glide a few more rounds through the mountains.    

The baby cot suddenly had ridges, slopes and crevices.

I ran round and round the cot, and made more noises.  I must have looked so silly.

But not to the boy though.  On the contrary, he couldn’t be happier. 

He didn’t mind me gliding aimlessly round and round the mountains, I mean the cot.  He was being followed by an eagle.  He has found a playmate.

I love children!  They never say things like, “Don’t do that.  You look so ridiculous.”

A little pretend play did wonders for me.  It lifted my black mood that had blanketed me the whole morning. 

It was still raining when we went downstairs but what does it matter. The both of us were laughing and in high spirits despite of the bad weather.    

Try some pretend play today! Especially with your children.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the results. 

And here’s wishing you a great week ahead.

Cheers! 

The past two weeks have been rather exciting.  The elder two boys are on school holidays, and so, they get to stay home all day with mummy. 

The first two days, our eldest, Daniel, decided that he would like to sleepover at his uncle’s house.  The routine was that he would come home for lunch, before returning to his other new home.  The second day he came home for lunch as expected.  Later that day, he behaved exceptionally well.  He asked if he could spend another night at his other home.  When I said yes, he wasted no time in finding his way there. 

Without any need for prompting, he took the house keys hanging near the door and opened the door grill. Then, he returned the keys, pushed his bicycle to the gate, opened the gate, pushed the bike out, closed the gate and rode off down the road without looking back. 

I observed all these with amazement and wonder.  He was normally slow moving, and whinny, and fussy, and this and that, before he ever did anything.   A few minutes ago, he just showed me that he was capable of doing an eight step process in a methodical, efficient manner.  And all these he did with no adult supervision needed. 

I seriously needed to find out what was so enticing at his new home that turned my normally laid back big baby into Mr Fast-And-Efficient. 
I called my mum. 

It took me only five minutes to uncover the secret. 

Apparently, he has easy access to a notebook and its endless streams of computer games found on the internet.  He even asked an adult there to set up the notebook for him before he came home for lunch that day. 

And I found out that he had been staying up late playing games for the past two nights. 

I shook my head.  I was not entirely surprised though.  He loves playing computer games more than anything else. 

I kept him home permanently when he came back for lunch the following day. 

He was, naturally, very upset.

Now there are four boys at my home all day, every day until school reopens next week.

There are normally two favourite questions being asked by the boys daily.  Sometimes three, but always these two.

“Can we play the computer today?” and “Can we watch TV?”

I am perpetually finding ways to distract them from these two of their favourite pastimes. 

“Why don’t we read a book first?” I’d say.  “Why not play some pirate games first?  Why not do some drawing first?” 

“And then, can we play the computer?” they’d reply.

Somehow, they had learnt the skill of negotiation far better than cultivating good manners. 

One fine day, after a difficult morning of endless pleas from them to play the computer, I stopped negotiating with them. 

“Well, if there is nothing you’d want to do besides playing the computer, you can sit and sulk, and do nothing,” I said. 

And that was that.  It was final, and they knew that I meant it. 

James, an extrovert, started to wail and cried many a tear. 

Daniel, an introvert, put on the saddest face ever to show his unhappiness.

And Brian, being only four, was not bothered at all by the whole explosive scenario. 

The boys literally sat in a corner, and sulked. 

I took no pity on them. 

I reckoned sitting down and doing nothing was better than being exposed to the violence, foul language and, sarcasm that the boys had easily picked up from the TV.   And the computer does funny things to young boys.  Playing games make them forget to eat, sleep and pee.        

Sat and Sulk they did, but not for long. 

The boys started fooling around among themselves.  One decided that he would strip naked and do a dance.  The other two started throwing the sofa cushions on the floor, playing a game that they had made up. 

I am just happy to fade into the background, giving them space to kid around. 

This sure beats watching TV and playing computer games!

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Cheers! And a good day to you. 

“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” – an excerpt from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan

The baby is growing beautifully.  Little Simon is nine months old now.  He is very much aware of his surroundings these days, making him a popular pastime with the other children and adults.  Every one wants to make him a funny face or, play peak-a-boo with him or, simply shower him with kisses. 

All of us wants to play with him because we love to listen to him laugh his hearty laughs.  He is such a happy baby.  He laughs and laughs, and never tires of it. 

Every regular activity to us is a new adventure to him. 

He laughs when he sees Brian tossing a balloon into the air. He laughs out loud when his father throws him into the air.  He laughs when I caress the palm of his chubby hand.  He laughs when Daniel plays peak-a-boo with him.  He is tickled when he sees trickling water. 

The house resonates with his laughter.  My being is joyful when the baby laughs.  His laughter is like a breath of fresh air.  The tainted world that I know of seems renewed, as I see it through the eyes of a baby. 

Today, my spouse asked me what had happened to the flashcards  he purchased years and years ago.

I remember the cards.  These were bought when our first child was born nine years ago.  My spouse had wanted to raise a genius, and so with much enthusiasm, he went and bought two stacks of flashcards.  One stack consists of various types of animals, and the other, fruits.   

The purple coloured boxes that contained the cards are long gone  but the cards are still kept intact.  They are being stored in  one of the drawers downstairs.  Lying untouched, they looked new, as if these were bought yesterday. 

Slightly smaller than an A4 sized paper, these are beautiful cards.  An eye catching coloured picture is printed on one side of the card, and the word describing the picture is printed on the overleaf. 

I used the cards on Daniel when he was around a year old.  This October he will turn nine years old. 

I did exactly what the cards indicated.  I flashed them at him.  Well, I cannot confirm whether card flashing brought out the genius in the boy, but I can surely confirm that practically, it was a messy affair.  He would only be interested for the first few minutes.  Thereafter, he would reach out for the cards in an attempt to put them in his mouth or scatter them on the floor for his pure entertainment. 

After a few rounds of gathering scattered flash cards from four corners of the living room, I took the practical route.  I stopped using the cards altogether.   

It seemed to me that my spouse had shown more enthusiasm purchasing the cards rather than flashing them in front of the child.  I reckon he had only done it once or twice with Daniel, and none with James and Brian.
 
I look at him now and reply, “Didn’t you ask for the same thing when James or Brian was around this age?”

He gave me the sweetest smile ever.

This felt like déjà vu.

The both of us had no patience nor persistence in using the cards on any of the boys.  It’s no wonder that none of them are geniuses yet.

Well, it’s still not too late with little Simon yet.  Perhaps I’ll flash the cards tomorrow.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

In the meantime, we are just too busy flashing our monkey faces at him trying to make him laugh.

Wishing you a great weekend!  Cheers!

“Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him.”  Psalm 127:3

Brian celebrated his fourth birthday on 14 April, 2010. He is so proud of being a big boy now.  Today, he keeps telling everyone still he turned four years old.  

This child is a colourful character.  He is rebellious, adventurous and strong willed.  In our world of methodical, boring grown ups, we would term him the naughty child. 

Secretly, I wish I had inherited some of his recklessness and desire for  dangerous living.  His daily existence is anything but mundane and, boring.  He would jump from chair to chair for the sheer fun of it, or take a calculated risk and jump from the dressing table to the bed.  At times he would climb the door grill in an attempt to touch the ceiling, or risk caning by defying his father’s orders not to meddle with the forbidden object, the notebook.

This is the only child who can make me laugh and cry at the same time. 

Most of the time, he teaches me more about life than I can teach him.  Sometimes, on rare occasions, I try to teach him about nature and him being part of it. 

One evening many months ago, I had some precious time to spend with him and James at the park after the baby was born.  Both of them ran and, jumped and, played till it was time to go home. 

“Feel your heartbeat,” I said to them.

They paused to take a breather after a long run when I told them to put their tiny hand against their chest.    

“Can you feel it beating?” I asked.

Brian was especially excited to be able to feel his heart galloping.

Today was like any other for Brian.  It was a day of adventure and play.  Not for me though.  I had had a long night of broken sleep taking care of the boys.   

He was scampering and jumping and climbing as usual in our room, while I lay comatose on the bed trying to get some sleep. 

He suddenly came beside me and asked me to feel his heartbeat.

I put my hand on his chest.  I could feel his heart, beating steadily, doing its job diligently. 

In turn, he put his tiny hand against my chest, trying to find my beating heart. 

“Mummy, are you dying?” he asked.  Possibly, what he meant to ask was ‘Are you dead?”

“Err, I hope not,” I replied.  “Why do you say so?”

“Because I cannot feel your heart,” he replied.

For a fleeting moment, even I wasn’t sure if I were alive or dead when I couldn’t find my heartbeat as hard as I tried to. 

But surely if I am still breathing I cannot be dead, I reasoned with myself.

Today, thanks to the little boy, I am reminded of the gift of life.  

Every day, I thank God for giving me this beautiful child.  He keeps me alive and on my toes with his zest for life. 

Happy Belated Birthday Brian!  I love you always.

James started it first.  He brought home the hand, foot and mouth illness.  When I knew, I dropped him off immediately at my brother’s house which is just down the road from ours.  I wanted to contain the virus. 

When I got home, I seemed like a woman insanely possessed by cleanliness.  I barked out orders like these :

“Change all the bedsheets in the rooms!”

“Wash all the bath towels immediately!”

“Disinfect the floors! Disinfect the rooms!  Disinfect the phone!”

“Wash your hands before you eat!  Wash your hands often! Wash your hands every two minutes!”  

My boys didn’t seem too concern.  They did not understand the precarious situation we were in.

Irregardless of my quest for perfect cleanliness to prevent an epidemic, two days later, Brian lay motionless on our downstairs couch.

It was too late. Brian had high fever, and the unmistaken classic blisters started showing up on his buttocks.  There I was, upstairs humming quietly while carrying the baby in my arms.  Beneath this calm demeanour, a turmoil was churning within.  My mind went into overdrive mode, and I was going almost hysterical.  On a regular day, I would have just taken this as another hurdle to cross.  But not this time.   

“Not now! “ I screamed in silence.  My brother’s church wedding was nine days away.

I felt that I had to take some drastic actions.

I switched houses with James.  I asked for him to be sent back to our house, and I went over the other side to stay with the baby. 

Everyone was busy, hustling and bustling getting ready for the dinner, and there I was lying in bed as stiff as a board, feeling myself burning up. 

My mum came into room to me parading the black skirt that she would be wearing at the dinner.  I didn’t really pay attention.  All I wanted was the dull headache and fever and body aches to go away. 

Alas! I never got to attend my brother’s wedding dinner last Saturday. 

It certainly is the biggest letdowm for me this year. All the green and brown and sexy black wear that I bought months ago went to waste.

It was just all lousy timing; the illness, the dinner and the fever that I had all happening at the same time. 

Now, it’s confirm that James has it, Daniel has it, Brian has it and Simon has it as well. 

All the effort taken in segregating the baby was too late! 

“Practise hygiene.  Wash your hands!”

“Don’t go near the baby!”

The baby and I turned our lives topsy-turvy living in a new surrounding. I had to learn to match the switches and the corresponding lights, to turn on a water heater that never seem to work, and to bathe a baby without a bath tub.  In addition to this, I forgot to bring my toothbrush, the baby’s potty, his bibs and a dozen of other things in our rush to migrate.   

The baby, as always, adjusted faster than I did. 

It’s really a small price to pay when you get support that you need.  No one at that home said, “Don’t come! You might infect us!”  I never take a welcome note for granted anymore these days.  Not after the cold shoulder I received just three days ago.   

I still have the sore throat.  Perhaps I am infected too…     

It’s only six more days to the wedding!    

“My life was now so utterly wretched that I wished I might, like Ginger, drop down dead at my work, and be out of my misery and one day my wish very nearly came to pass.” – an excerpt from Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty.

Daniel is nine years old.  He is turning out to be a regular boy.  He prefers to plop himself in front of the TV rather than play a board game.  Or worse still, sit for hours in front of the computer playing games rather than read a book.

I am somewhat disappointed by his preference of these electronic items over an interesting book.  It is hard to believe that this is the boy I spent afternoons reading to every other day.  I read various types of printed materials to him, all this time trying to instill in him a love for reading. 

He spent many hours reading the renowned ‘Peter and Jane’ series.   I spent many hours coaching him.  We had finally come to book twelve which is the final level of the whole series two months ago. 

“Now you can read any book you want,” I said excitedly.

He did not seem to catch my enthusiasm.  He gave me a look that said, ‘What’s the big fuss all about, mum?’.

The last book of that series had extracts from some well known stories and poems, one of them being Black Beauty.  By chance, I had a copy of Black Beauty in paperback in my drawer upstairs.  I bought it at a fraction of a original price at a warehouse sale.  It still gives me a warm feeling in my stomach to think that I bought the book at such a bargain. 

I shoved the book at the young budding reader and said, read!

He decided that he had better things to do with his time.  The TV and computer were more enticing items than an old boring horse story.  And so, the book lay untouched and in mint condition for weeks.    

Being out of the drawer and onto the table in the open did create some changes if not for the boy, then the mother.   For every time I see the book, it shouted ‘read me!’. 

The instruction from me to read seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.  I was fed up of fighting a losing battle against the TV but as yet, did not know what to do.  After countless attempts to get the boy to read the first chapter, I felt like a fake myself.  A fake because I have never read Black Beauty myself and did not know what lies in between the pages. 

Late one night, I picked up the book and opened Chapter one.  I   started reading the first page.  In the beginning, I would not say it was pleasant reading .  I know nothing of horses and have never experienced a live one before.  I came across unfamiliar vocabulary and terms used to describe a horse and their everyday living.  I stumbled a lot while trying to grasp the meaning behind the words but I continued reading, albeit at a tortoise pace. I was mortified at my slowness and lack of understanding of the printed words. 

“Surely this is not because I am losing it?” I asked myself.  I know I haven’t had any serious reading for years now after my babies were born but surely it is not so easy to lose one’s skill of reading.

If reading this book was giving me such a hard time, then how could the nine year old boy handle this, I wondered.  I was casually looking at the back page when I discovered that this was reading material for ages eight and up. 

I looked at my wrinkles and stretch marks and laughed.  I was so over eight years old!  Now I know I really am losing it.  

I doubled up my reading time.  Days later, I had familiarised myself with horse terms like a bit, bridle, saddle, crupper, bearing reins, dogcart  etc.  and found that to my pleasure, I was starting to read with reasonable ease.

I no longer harassed the nine year old reader to pick up Black Beauty.   I needed the book to myself now that I had started reading it.   I read it as and when I had the chance.  I read it one night while nursing little Simon.  The rest of the boys were upstairs with their father.

I opened Chapter twelve and started reading.  I read of Black Beauty carrying John and his master to town and back when a storm caused damage to a low wooden bridge that ran across the river.  The rushing waters had broken the bridge in the middle but the men were not aware of this.  John coaxed Beauty to cross it but the horse didn’t budge. 

Then I heard a voice from up above.  It was my spouse.

“Are you down there?  It is so quiet.  Do you know that it is past Daniel’s bedtime?” he asked.

I glanced up to look at the time.  Indeed it was!   It was going to be a quarter to nine o’clock!  I had never missed half past eight every night to put Daniel to bed.  He has to wake up for school at six o’clock every day. To ensure that he gets enough rest, I follow this strict regimen of half past eight bedtime every night.   For the first time today I had not kept time.  I was having too much fun.

Suddenly it did feel quiet.  It was quiet where I was sitting nursing my baby.  I could hear the clock ticking and the baby’s regular breathing.  It wasn’t like that a while ago.  There were winds blowing, and branches swaying before a tree uprooted in my world with Beauty. 

I had finally rediscovered the joy of reading for the mere pleasure of it. 

Oh, how I loved Beauty and his adventures.  I read of his good friends, Merrylegs and Ginger.   I read of the goodness of John and James, of the cruelness of man in Nicholas Skinner and  of how Beauty, a prized possession ended up with the old broken-down horses at a horse fair and sold for a mere five pounds.         
         
I should have read this book when I was nine, I said to myself.  There is simply so much to learn and enjoy from a horse like Beauty. 

Well, my son simply considers reading a pre-requisite to the computer for now. 

“If I read one chapter of Black Beauty, can I play the computer after that?”, he asks every weekend. 

“Don’t you want to know what happened during the fire?” I asked once, trying to ignite some form of interest in him.

Nothing magical has happened yet. 

What happened to Black Beauty in the end?  If you haven’t read the book before, it’s never too late to read it now.   It sure beats watching the TV.  

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart. – Helen Keller

Sometimes I feel like the old mother.  I feel like the old mother because of the need to impart as much wisdom as possible to the children before they leave home ( which is still many light years from now).  I mean, Daniel, the oldest turns nine this year.   He will probably be home for another good ten years before going out on his own.

Anyway, because I felt like the old mother the other day I wanted to teach my children about having choices in life.  Many of us ( especially adults ) are not aware that we, as humans, have the highest capacity to make choices daily in our lives no matter what we tell ourselves.  

Often we say, “ I don’t have a choice.”  But we do. 

I picked an important topic to discuss with the boys; relationships. 

So, last night I started rambling like the old mother.  On three separate occasions the old mother gave the same exact scenario to each child. 

“Someday you will get married, right?” The old mother asked. 

Daniel said yes, and James doesn’t know.  Brian said that I am his girlfriend and he wants to marry me. 

“What if, your girlfriend is a pretty girl, but she always makes you cry?” The old mother continued.  “She doesn’t laugh at your jokes and doesn’t listen to you speak? What do you do?”

“What if you meet another girl who is not so pretty, but she always makes you laugh, and listens to you, and talks to you, and hears you sing?” the old mother said.

I am supposedly, to be the old mother who knows all the secrets of the universe.  Naturally, the old mother provided the boys with the ‘correct’ answer. 

“You need to say good bye to the pretty girl who is always making you cry,” the old mother replied.  “And even so, what if the other nice girl is not so pretty? She makes you laugh and listens to you sing.  That is the most important thing.  And you must listen to her too.  There are after all so many more other girls in the great big ocean besides the pretty girl.”

“We all will grow old one day.  And we won’t always look so pretty.” 

 “Do you understand what I am trying to say?” the old mother asked each of the boys in turn. 

Daniel and James said they understood but Brian ( who is only three years old) was already distracted with his pillow.  

The old mother felt like a great communicator who had successfully imparted a deep secret to the next generation.  The old mother felt her chest burst with great pride at the wisdom passed on to her sons ( except for Brian of course.)

Now came the litmus test.

“Now, who would you choose to marry?  The pretty girl or the not so pretty one?” I asked

“The pretty one,” Daniel replied.

“The pretty one,” James replied.

“The not so pretty one,” Brian replied.

It looks as if the old mother must try harder to get the message across.   

And the old mother learnt the greatest lesson of all; never pre-judge any of the children, especially Brian.  He seemed to have learnt the lesson better than his brothers.