童年物语 always En-Maze me!

One of the things I really appreciate now are the conversations I have with En. His simple words, and his child logic give me fill me with immense joy and satisfaction, and more importantly, it gives me a glimpse of the world he is in.

Some times he asks the most serious questions, e.g. when he first the learnt the power of “WHY”

En: “Mummy, why you must go to work everyday, Why?”
On day after I came home late, around 8 plus close to his bed time, he asked
“Mummy, why you come back so late? Why?”

These are questions that made me think and filled me with self awareness of my role as a mum. And the answers to these questions are tough.

Other times, we ask silly questions and talk about different topics to help him expand his vocab and learn his Mandarin.
Over my dinner last night, En sat with me and share bites of food with me, with him relishing the mushroom and fish that I am sharing with him.

As he ate all the mushroom, we had the following conversation:
Me: “En, are you a mushroom boy?”
En: “Yes, I am a mushroom boy”
Me: “How do you say that in Chinese?”
En: *thinking for a while” “我是蘑菇boy!” and grinning broadly.

Knowing that En is sensitive towards our feelings, we always like to tease him into making a choice between who he likes best. Clearly, Papa is always no. 1, but over time, somehow he knows that it is a trick question that we are throwing him, so we always ended up having this conversation..

Me: “So, who do you like better, mummy or Papa?”
En: *grinning and shyly* “I like Mummy and papa, and aunty Melanie and di-di”
Me: “But who you like best?”
En: “I like mummy and papa and aunty Melanie and didi”
Smart boy! I adore his sensitivity and his game spirit to know when we are teasing him and playing the game again and again with us.

His child logic is what really intrigued me. Last night, over sharing my dinner, he was fiddling a slim long box which he used as his imaginary gun. He was pushing it around, throwing it and using it to unstablise anything that he can reach with his ‘gun’.

As he had other toys lying around, I said:
"En, you are a good boy and you will keep your toys away afterwards right?”
En: *shaking his head* “No, I am a naughty boy, I still want to play with them.”

There are times when he is totally challenging.. his irrational crying tantrums, his pushing and pinching of di-di or refusing to share his toys with di-di.

But I always told myself that it is important to look for the good things to highlight as strengths to him.

My helper is very protective of Xuan Xuan, and usually she will complain and account to me all of En’s mis-deeds that happended during the day. En hears them, and I always fear that his sensitivity will lead to some bottled up sentiments. So I started the counter initiative of looking out for opportunities to let him know that I appreciate his strengths in different ways..

• He always remembers his di – di when he buys snacks or ice-cream, saying”one for me, one for di-di”.
• He is generous in sharing his snack with di-di (can’t say the reverse is true, when it comes to food, Xuan xuan does not like to share).
• Occasionally, he will give in to di-di and let go of his toys and offer them to di-di.
• He remembers to ask di-di to come along when we go out
• He is a good “reader” and his favourite book is “The bad-tempered lady bug” by Eric Carle. Ever night, he wants to read that before he sleeps, and his favourite lines are "

"Hey you, want to fight?” says the bad tempered ladybug. “If you insist” says the other animals”. And when I mis-read fireflies as butterflies, he will correct me, “No, no mummy, not butterflies..”

Most of all, on occasions when I need his cooperation, most of the times he will do as per my request, especially when I say I am tired, sad or angry. I appreciate that sensitive and caring aspect most of all..

After all, we named him 保恩 in hopes that he will have the 心 (as in the word 恩) to uphold gratitude.