Happy Mother’s Day!!!
Nope, I am not late. It is Mother’s Day here in France. The last sunday of May, a week after everyone else. (and why am I not surprise)

My boy came back from school on Friday with a big brown envelope and insisted that I can only open it on Sunday. It made me laugh just seeing how hard he tried to keep the secret a secret. He succeeded in making me feel sooo anxious and excited. This morning I was finally given the permission to open my little surprise.

It was the loveliest and prettiest gift I ever received! A hand made key chain, one that took hiim 3 days to make in school. He also wrote me a page of Maman, mummy in French and made me a little blue card with a BIG heart and a little french poem in it. It was ooohh so sweet, cute, lovely and pretty, my first surprise hand-made gift from my 4 year old!

I felt so warm and fuzzy inside and it made me smile whole day.

Not too long ago, we visited the Water Lily Room at Musée de l’Orangerie which houses Claude Monet’s renowned Water Lilies since 1927. Thanks to this book which I mentioned in my earlier post, Mal was more appreciative of what lay in front him.

It is one thing to read it in the book and another thing to see the real thing. I was in awe of the real thing. It made me feel little, literally and figuratively.

For one, here was a guy who spent the last 10 years or more of his life painting and repainting, and then repainting again, aiming for the acme of perfection until a good friend was brave enough to insist that it was already perfect and demand that he stops before he destroyed his own masterpiece. However, till his death, he was still not satisfied. This thing is HUGE. Imagine, 2 rooms worth of water lilies….what was this guy thinking?!!

I can’t really tell the difference between a Monet or a Van Gogh, but for once, I felt that I could appreciate this bigger than life piece of art. Strangely enough, for some then obscure reason, I felt touched and moved. Reflecting, perhaps it was the release of all the anticipation and expectations, coupled with the fact that here I am, standing in front of IT, not some cheap reproductions from posters.com, looking at IT’s closest details, marveling that IT once stood in Monet’s studio about a century ago.

I kind of like this euphoric feeling.

Yes, I am 35, in my mid thirties, could almost see the 4 now!
I celebrated my 35th birthday more than a week ago during our road trip to the country side. My duo surprised me with a chocolate cake at Mont Saint Michel which they hid in the car boot for more than 2 hours! It was sweet.

I have been thinking quite a bit recently, mostly aging and health and I joked to Daddy the other day that maybe I am facing a mid thirties crisis. Some of random thoughts that ran through my mind.

drinking decaf coffee
I used to think that decaf coffee was a joke. Why drink coffee then?! and I swore that I would not be caught drinking one of that. I basically have to eat my words now, cos I have bought my first box of decaf coffee. Much to my surprise, it tastes JUST like coffee and the aroma of the coffee still remains. How cool it is and I can’t help but to do a search on how coffee is decaffeinated which brings me to…

being paranoid
So I was paranoid enough to do a search on the internet for the negative side effects of decaffeinated coffee.
I found out that there are 3 common decaffeination methods, using supercritical carbon dioxide, water extraction or using methylene chloride as solvent. 80% of decaffinated coffee is processed with methylene chloride which studies have shown to be carcinogenic and the National Cancer Institute’s list of chemicals labels it as a possible human carcinogen.
Maybe it is better to just stick to normal coffee afterall.

the bulge
that finds a permanent home around my belly.
I was quite lucky to be blessed with a rather high metabolic rate during my younger days and excessive weight gain hardly plagued me. This has changed since I hit the big 3-0 and especially so after Malcolm came along. This bulge seems to find a permanent home, hibernating and waiting for that one moment of indulgence for it to grow exponentially. It is almost impossible to get rid of.

body detox
regular exercise seems inadequate to cleanse and detox the body and I am considering regular fruits and vegetables diet. I tried my first 3 day fruits and vegetables diet a few months back. It was the longest 72 hours of my life and I did it through pure perseverance and determination and was shocked by the amount of waste I managed to expel from my body. I lost a drastic 3 kg after the 3 day course and I swear the size of the little bulge miraculously reduced.

mental nutrition guide
it becomes natural to run through the nutrition fact of the food I eat and a conscious effort was made to prevent taking food with
too much carbohydrate
saturated fat
artificial colouring
artificial flavour enhancer
high calories count

jeans and t-shirt
I used to find the combination of t-shirt and jeans boring and preferred outfits that were more fanciful and feminine. Recently, with the weather warming up here in Paris, I am stocking up my wardrobe with simple Ts of all the basic colours and I swear by my Buffalo David Bitton jeans. Looking good in my latest Ts and favourite jeans is a cause for celebration.

sun damage
I love the sun and the beach and would opt for a stroll on the beach to shopping at crowded shopping malls on weekends anytime. I love to soak in the sun, enjoy the heat and I don’t mind feeling all sweaty and sticky after that. Things have changed a little recently as more people have been bugging me about wearing my sun screen and sun shade. During our recently holiday at the beach, my favourite line was ‘it is too hot out here, we might get skin cancer!’
No wonder Daddy finds me a nag.

breaking bones
one of the sports both Daddy and I enjoy doing together is roller blading. We used to roller blade every weekends and we could do it for hours, going back and forth East Coast Park. We were keen to try out new tricks and won’t mind falling down if we needed to.
With the knowledge that women start losing bone mass after the age of 30, I am now less adventurous, my gut has shrunk and I worry about breaking bones.
I am content just being a spectator.

health of the eggs
now that Mal is 4 years old and we felt that we should have enough tricks in our bags to handle another little one, I start to worry about the health of my eggs. Time and tide wait for no man and the woman’s biological clock is a merciless reality.
But still, we think we should enjoy Europe as much as we could before being tied down by another little monster. It is a tough choice

other than the above, it has been great being 35.
I like to think I am a little more mature.
I exude an air of confidence that can only come with age
I feel like a 20 something, still wanting to have fun, see the world and learn new things.
More importantly, I am a happy little woman, mother to a healthy boy and wife to the most loving and sensitive man I ever know.

I love the challenge of aging gracefully.

Sometime ago, in an attempt to motivate Mal to do his daily tasks WITHOUT having me to nag and threaten. I decided to implement the progress chart. It is a simple chart with the list of tasks Mal needs to do everyday on the top row. These include
1. brush teeth
2. change clothes
3. eat vitamin
4. wash hands before and after meals
5. drink water
6. be good

For every task that is completed, Mal will get a sticker. The final objective of this progress chart is to get Mal to do his daily tasks without me nagging and without me losing my patience.

We tried this for a week but realised that it was not working for us, simply because this sticker thingy had lost its appeal to my 4 year old. My nagging and threatening could still be heard. We needed something else.

I came across the peg system while reading Teaching Your Children Values, by Richard and Linda Eyre , an excellent book which I strongly recommend to all parents. The peg system is a monetary reward system they used to teach self discipline and responsibility to their 9 children. I was however hesitant to introduce monetary reward to my 4 year old but this gave me idea to our next version, the BIG Boy Bag.

The Big Boy Bag is a simple card board, with 5 bags, each representing a weekday for Mal to fill up with tokens. For every task that Mal does, to my satisfaction, he will get a token. His job is to accumulate as many tokens as he can and on Saturday, the number of tokens will be counted. For every 10 tokens he will get a small treat, eg nutella bread breakfast, and for every 20 tokens he will get a bigger treat, eg a chocolate pastry.

The beauty of this new version is that Malcolm can collect unlimited tokens. This means he can do as many tasks as he wants. I can add tasks to the list at any time and modify them with higher expectations.
1. Brush teeth without reminder
2. Finish breakfast on time
3. Help set table for dinner
4. Finish honey water
5. Clean up toilet seat if it is wet after pee
6. Help Mummy fold clothes
7. Go to bed early
the list is endless.

So far, this new system has been awesome and has worked beautifully for us. I had originally leave out weekends, thinking that he might need a break but Mal seems eager to earn his tokens even on weekends now. This makes me more than happy to add another 2 bags to the board so that Mal can work for his tokens even on Saturday and Sunday.

Sometimes I think I am an evil mum.

We have been procrastinating and holding back sending Mal to school for the longest time. Education in france for children of Malcolm’s age is optional and free in a state-run public french school, what they called a École Maternelle. The school that a child will be allocated is more or less determined by the Mairie, similar to Town Council, and is based on the proximity to home. Enrolling a child in your ‘dream’ school can be a bureaucratic nightmare as it takes weeks for the Mairie to get back and again weeks later before you get to meet up with the principal of the school. This meeting will be the first time to visit the school. If you don’t like the school, tough, You probably need to cook up some diplomatic reasons and wait for another few more weeks or maybe months to see the next school. Getting a ‘perfect’ school can be a long enduring process or a case of striking the lottery.

A month after we reached, we were finally given an appointment with the school, a few blocks from where we stay. We visited the school, talked to the principal, met up with his teachers and viewed his classroom. It was definitely not one of those school that I will be dying to put my child in mainly because I had the feeling that the teachers and principal weren’t very passionate about children. It was bothering me enough that I started having dreams about sending him to school. I told Daddy that I am not going to send Mal to a place that I am not comfortable with, and delude myself that everything is going to be fine. I was heard but the plan remains, Mal may join the school in mid May.

The last 2 months at home, we have been following a rather fluid schedule. Mal could wake up at 9.30, play his lego for close to an hour before we had breakfast! What we do each day is largely dependent on Mal’s mood. We do writing, reading, painting, colouring and simply hearing him says ‘mummy, let’s do …’ makes my day as it is an assurance that he enjoys what he is doing. Mal loves being at home but I wasn’t sure whether what I had done was adequate for him.

As mid May approached, Daddy remained positive about sending Mal to school, not so much to learn his ABCs and 123s but to learn the rules of the playground. After much discussion and mental adjustment on my part, we finally decided to put him in school for 3 hours every morning.

School started formally for Mal this week. Day 1 and 2 was a struggle. He cried and protested but we stood firm and apparently, according to the teacher he would calm down after we left. By 3rd day, he woke up, ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth, changed his clothes, kissed me goodbye and left for school with Daddy happily without tears. It was a marked improvement.

At home, he rambled on about his playground stories, about what he played, the boy who pushed him, the girl who followed him everywhere, the ones who were reprimanded by the teacher, the craft he did. We realised that at his age, going to school in France means playing and more playing. There was no writing or homework like what he used to have in Singapore and he was quick to tell us that he prefers the school here!

Yesterday, at the playground near our place, we noted that he seems more confident at the playground. He played and kicked ball with other kids and even approached a little girl to ask for permission to ride her roller scooter.

It was only for a few days, but so far the experience has been positive and I hope it will remain so for our remaining stay here.

With this, a brand new chapter of his childhood begins.

We are finally back from our 5 Day road trip to the north western country side and coastal area. We were greeted by grazing cattle on rolling green hills, frequently covered with coats of yellow flowers throughout our journey. We visited centuries old walled cities that explained why the phrase ‘the coast is clear’, ate tons of oysters and mussels in a picturesque fishing village, crossed a little stream and walk on grounds which were under water half the time. We were once again marveled by mother nature’s perseverances and determinations, in carving out the cliffs and arches. We touched prehistoric standing stones erected by the pre-Celtic people and finally played and walked on the longest beach in Europe.

It was tiring yet rejuvenating. Tiring because we drove close to 1700 km for 5 days which means an average of around 350 km per day which is close to 3.5 hours drive everyday if you are going at 100 km/h. Rejuvenating because I love the greens, the space, the clear blue sky and the warm fresh air.

Since we did not drive everyday, for days that we drove, we were on the road for longer than the average time. It was a challenge to read the maps and decipher the road signs in the country side. We got lost quite a few times and took more than the estimated time to reach our destinations. We should have known better that driving in France is not going to be as straightforward as what we were used to, especially after the experience at Charles de Gaulle airport and from the complex navigation system within the Metro stations. The french has a queer habit and inclination to complicate things. Anyway, it was a good experience and we will still do it again despite all the hassle. We are now worried that the next 1 year will not be enough for us to see everything. It is a hell big of a world out there waiting for us to explore.

here lies the Atlantic Ocean

wind surfing on sand !

We have been attending the story telling session in the library every Wednesday. It is a precious time for Mal to mingle and socialise with other English speaking children. The 1 hour session at the library consists of 1 full hour of story telling which includes some nursery rhymes and stretching, followed by colouring session which the children can stay for unlimited time.

Here is Mal’s progress at the library for our first 3 visits.

Week 1 - Story Time
We were slightly late and the story telling had started. We grabbed a seat behind the group and he was quick to blurt out ‘NO, I don’t want to listen to stories!’ when we entered the room.
After warming up, he was fine sitting behind the group, listening attentively to stories while I moved to the back of the room.

Week 1 - Colouring Time
During colouring time, he was happy watching the rest do their stuffs.

Week 2 - Story Time
He again sat behind the group. He did not join in when the rest did their rhymes and stretching.

Week 2 - Colouring Time
He accepted the colouring sheet and joined the rest of the children. He was especially patient with his colouring and was one of the last few who was still colouring when most of the kids left. Here’s his multi coloured dog

Week 3 - Story Time
We reached there early. I urged him to join the children in front which he did. He queued up himself for his name tag and was able to tell people his name and how to spell it when asked. He joined in the nursery rhymes and stretching session. They were reading about cats and when the story teller said ‘Mice like cheese’,
Mal interrupted ‘My dad LOVES cheese too’.
I could hear him from the back of the room.
I was happy to hear my boy speak up in a group.

Week 3 - Colouring Time
He rejected the Cat colouring sheet and choose to read instead. As the colouring group got smaller, Mal moved over to join 3 girls (all older than Mal) and a 21 year old story teller in the colouring cum chit chat session. I was at the end of the room, observing my boy as he advanced slowly.

He started off sitting next to them, quietly watching them, speaking occasionally only when he was asked questions.
He interrupted when they talked about houses, backyards, gardens and swimming pool. He told them about our house in Phoenix, Singapore and then the one we are staying now in Paris. Which level we stayed, the swimming pools, the backyard.

He talked about his school in Singapore, our planned trip to Amsterdam, the things he is going to see in Amsterdam, the people and the language they speak. The conversation somehow diverted to planes when he was asked about his trip to Paris.

He continued to talk about his flight from Singapore to Paris in Boeing 777, about his lists of favourite fighter jets and passenger jets, about which jets can fly faster, which can fly supersonic, which countries the jets are from, about his Daddy’s job…

The 3 girls had stopped talking by then and the 21 year old was beginning to look baffled and lost and must have felt my little boy’s persistent interest in the aviation world. Their conversation could be heard throughout the room and heads were beginning to turn as readers smiled politely and looked at my boy in amusement. In an attempt to save my boy and the 21 year old from further embarrassment, I kindly told him ‘Maybe you can talk about something else. Not everyone likes airplanes’ which the 21 year old kindly said it was ok as she hardly hear Mal talked.

So the secret to make Mal talk, and not just talk, but talk NON STOP is
planes? pretty blond? or maybe just girls!

Whatever it is, it made me proud to hear my 4 year old speaks so well, rambling on almost non stop with facts and experiences and it made me even prouder to know that he was courageous enough to come out from his little shell and talk to someone he hardly knows.

We finally collected enough junks to make our Apollo Moon Lander. It is the COOLEST craft we did so far, made of card boards, egg tray, bottle caps, a few empty bottles and a few kebab sticks. We had the most fun decorating the lander with aluminium foil and paint. The decoration miraculously transformed this piece of junky craft to an awesome looking Apollo Moon Lander! We shall proudly add this to our ‘Home Air and Space Museum’. Our next challenge will be our very own creation, a rocket carrying B747 which is now in the planning stage.

We followed closely to the steps in the “Outer Space - Crafty Invention Book’.

The weather in Paris has been erratic. It has been wet, cold and cloudy until last week when the weather warmed up unexpectedly. Apparently, it was bright and sunny in Paris while we were in Amsterdam and it remained so when we came back. We thought, spring is FINALLY here.

we stuffed our bags with food and had a picnic along the river Daddy was happy that he could finally use his rather old fashion blue thermal flask, one that he just bought, to make his espresso.

These were for last week. This week, the weather is back to gloomy, wet and cloudy. The weather in Paris is REALLY unpredictable. You never know when you will need your raincoat. With such unpredictable weather, travelers will have a hard time packing for their trips, especially with the 20 kg baggage limit!