"Wonder" By R.J. Palacio

 

Wonder by R.J. Palacio, a children’s book but was suggested by the Bookstore Chapters and Verses for Adults. I did wonder for a moment what could be in it, do I have the patience to read a children’s book. ( I was tired of reading to the nine year old who had an attention span of five seconds), curiosity got the better and I picked a copy.

What a fantastic book, which makes so many emotions, and thoughts to run across your mind. You are left with the feeling that you should share this with your child. So I suggested the thirteen year old to read it. The thirteen year old took one look at the back page and said “are you serious it sounds depressive so I can’t read it”.

She watched me take the book out and read it and make notes. It was important for me that some of the little lessons in the book should be incorporated into my life. One week later, I found my 13 year old with her nose deep into the pages. So we finished the book and got into a discussion and an agreement that as far as we could we should choose kind over right.

A quote from Book:

MR. BROWNE'S SEPTEMBER PRECEPT:

WHEN GIVEN THE CHOICE BETWEEN BEING

RIGHT AND BEING KIND, CHOOSE KIND.”

― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

Tags: kindness, precept, righteousness

Watch your Language!

I went for a parenting seminar on "How to Deal with your preteen without shouting or smacking!"

Desperate times call for some quick measure, the twelve year old is moody and flounces around the house with a long face all day. I know i am suppose to ignore and let her be, but its annoying when she does one of those every morning.

The eight year old is happy and carefree, I daresay he will do the same real soon in the coming years.

I kept getting many flyers and details about the seminar and decided to rush off into it.

The seminar was conducted by a Dr, who was funny and entertaining. She said loads of things we know, but it was amusing to hear them again in a different form.

So i got back and decided to put things into effect, Behavioural charts are a key to disciplining kids. I make an announcement at breakfast that i am putting up a chart with our names and whoever hits, bites, says bad words will get black marks and will not get to watch tv.

"Why are we being an organised family? I don't like it!" announced the twelve year old.

"But, you swear a lot won't you be the one with the most black marks in the chart" asks the Husband.

( i kicked him under the table, and he shouts "two black marks")

"I like it mummy, I like it" screams the eight year old.

Well its been a week now, and I am with the most amount of black marks due to screaming in road rage every morning in a row. Then shouting- idiot idiot during the match, and also randomly saying words.

Exams!

I thought I had left school and university and done with these godawful things. Recently, I have discovered you dont really get out of if when your kids have exams. Teaching the 7 year old has been a traumatising effect.

A small example :

1. Riddle one : I am all around you. Breathe me in and out. what am I?

S : Ghost

The answer is of course air for the ones of you who have forgotten your year 3 work.



2. Can you eat cut fruit from the road. Expain your answer

S: yes

S: my mum eats mangoes from the road

The answer should be of course no. The food kept out is not clean.

The eleven year old Einstein was shocked that I could help with her work.
D: wow mom you actually can explain the work I am impressed
Me : I went to university
What does she take me to be some sort of idiot who only shops.
Thank God all this is over.

Before / After - Kids

Before

1.why do people talk about babies and kids, when I have them (haha probably wont have them) i shall never mention them in a conversation

2. Saturdays are for shopping to buy stuff u dont require. Having coffee and going just to shops cause u can do it.

3. Weekends are for partying non stop. You can be spontaneous about it too

4. You are proud of the fact that you can climb any high wall to jump over if necessary

5. Movies have a rating really?

6. If I have kids i ll let them be free souls they can do whatever they want

7. Rules are to broken is the motto

8. Your parents dont visit you that much

9. the cousins talk about childbirth will make u want to run out and never talk to her again

10. u will roll your eyes when u hear the cousin ask baby tips from others

After
1. You have conversations with strangers, colleagues and your boss about them. They even creep into your blog posts

2. Saturdays are still for shopping but you have a company who would want that toy gun which you wont buy. S wants accessories which she does not really need. Then you think u are really clever and go to the supermarket and they want all the junk which you should not buy. By mid Saturday you are one of those moms who says the word No, no no too many times

3. You go out partying and you are worried to see the teeny boppers who are about seven years older than your eldest ( ya u start talking by the years). then you wonder how the parents let the kids out dressed like that ( u forget you were like them and how u sneaked out). No spontaneous partying there u have to sort out a baby sitter first.

4. You ask the landlord can i Make that wall higher than it is already

5. For the zillionth time you explain your cousin that yes I check movie ratings if i am taking the kids i look at it about five times to make sure.

6. You try hard to teach them religion, beliefs, right and wrong and sympathise your parents

7. we have some rules we will try and follow is the new motto

8. You parents visit you most weekends to see their precious grandkids

9. the joy of child birth is something u will try hard to explain to your younger cousin who questions

10 you will have random calls in a week asking you about baby stuff and kids stuff


Little D came back home excited that the royalists tried to jump into the school compound. How the girls ran out to the fourth floor and was told to go inside. Its the royal thomian match mummy she explained excitedly. My ten year old is growing up. I want to hold her tight in my arms and never let her go.

The six year old wants to enter the movie world he asks if he can meet some of our tamil heroes. I have told him he can ask me three questions a day. I am scared that he will become a moody teenager who wont ask me a single questions a week.

kids they just come turn your life upside down twirl u in their little fingers and make u dance to their tunes. while you are dancing they slip away as they grow..

God Questions?

Six year Old S : Mummy does god drink chilled or unchilled

Me : why dont u ask daddy sweety

S : u are always telling me to ask daddy and he is always changing channels in the tv mummy. U have to tell me does god drink chilled or unchilled

Me : he mostly drink unchilled because its good for you. ( i should have stopped at that.. but no i didnt) he does not drink coke, sprite, fanta

S : did you have a drink with god mummy

giggles and giggles and bursting into full laughter from the ten year old who was reading a book.

I have told S he can ask me three questions for a day only since i am running out of clever things to tell him.

Six year olds take on life!

Over the weekend i took the kids to watch the movie Up. The movie was ok but this is the kind of thing the spoilt bunch of today need to watch. the first bit was cute where they had this cloud thing that had a Disney touch. the rest of the movie was so so.

S goes : Mummy who will i stay with if daddy and D die?

D (10year old) : i aint dying i am immortal ( god she is my kid all right)

S : no mummy what happens if they die.

Now strangely S does not broach about my death.

Me : sweety u will have your own family so u will be ok.

S : but mummy i dont want to be alone.

D : why is he talking about my death he is nuts.

I tried explaining he would have his own family and his sister was going to live until 100 and that maybe i will die too later. The explanation went all wrong.

Next day his buddy senaka is in love with ching hoo. Senaka the six year old has confided to S that he is definitely marrying ching and s can be the best man.

Next series of questions

S : mummy how can senaka and ching hoo marry. He is sri lankan and she is chinese. The mummys and daddys will fight and sisters and brothers.

Me : it does not matter u can marry anyone, senaka can marry ching if he wants.
S keeps on repeating the same thing about how the families are going to fight. This is due to overdose of watching Tamil movies i think .

Ching hoo seems to be the catch here since Alex is also in love with her. Year 2 these days seem to be really drama filled.

Halloween With the Kids!

Last Saturday while I was busy doing something meaning sleeping but pretending to read. Where u are lying on the couch with a newspaper on your face. The kids announce they want to go trick or treating.

"Its Halloween mum, we have to go trick or treating"

Quickly did a check of the neighbours around. My up stair neighbour might have entertained the kids a bit and given them the sweets. The next door aunty G cant stand kids she always starts talking a few octaves higher when she sees anyone below three feet in height!

The front house has a Tamil family who always bang the gate shut whenever they see me, or run in with their kids when i step out. And for those who were wondering I am not Godzilla's sister.

The next house down the lane has an old man who is mentally unstable. The ones before i mentioned are quite sane infact. He always pretends he is in court and when he sees me always makes it a point to shout " She is guilty my lord". Again I am not a convict.

The ones behind might just decide that the beggars are dressed strangely and chase us away.

Now i did not want to dash the spirit of the poor kids. I did not want to risk being tricked. Kids can be smart and u can get into one or two sticky situations that u cant get out of. I told them we can trick or treat with the cousins later sometime. D is smart she wanted to fix dates. I was vague, i am smart too.

Later in the evening it was pouring like crazy so told them some spooky stories. Got caught out again with them since they started writing Santa's letters. D does not believe in Santa but writes a beautifully decorated letter without fail every december. She was cheeky to tell me that Santa might be busy with his job so she is sending it off earlier.

last year mrs.claus was not happy getting a letter demanding for the latest kids gadgematic two days before christmas. Mrs. Claus who was broke due to excessive shopping and had to spend her savings yet again to keep two kids happy.

Yes its christmas next month odel has started the decor with red carpet and all. On another note facebook was full of kids dressed in cutesy outfits trick or treating and visiting pumpkin patch in states and some other countries.

Rags To Riches- The play

Went to punchi theatre last week to watch the above play. It was actually three plays rags to riches, monkey man and riches to rags. This was at the punchi theatre. First time i have been to punchi theatre and to neluka silvas production. Punchi is small alright, but its charming and I was totally fascinated by the whole interior.

The actors and actresses were 8 to 14 year old kids. It was a wonderful evening which made me laugh quite a bit. To be frank I walked in after a long tedious horrid day. Was so glad went for it cause was totally relaxed after watching the play. Have watched many kids plays in the past few years this was one play where i found she had really triedn to bring the kids acting skills to stage really well.

By the way my kids are not in her drama school, went cause wanted to take D There is not much entertainment for kids in colombo.

On the topic of kids, looks like swine flu has made its way into schools here. Oh well it was bound to happen i suppose.

School, flu and the blues

I am so paranoid about this swine flu business getting into schools here. I know as sri lankans we should be more worried about the dengue business than swine flu. But then again so many kids have been travelling and on vacation. school is a place where kids can easily pick it up. What with india having cases in large numbers should we not be a bit more alert about it. or am i worrying about the unknown as usual?

then of course this busines of the lady who had gastric bypass and died. I was so upset after reading it. No i was not booked for one, but i did think i will get a tummy tuck once i save all that money (trust me the tummy is never the same after child birth). yes i know u have to work out and not take the easy way out under the knife for a bit of vanity . It is tempting since I suspect most of the flat tummy yummy mummies have done it.

Back in Shool!

So the kids are back in school after two whole months of vacation. S who is going into year two is a bit unhappy since he has got two strict teachers.

collecting his new books he could not temporarily see anything i was panicking about his eye sight but it was just a shock of a different sort.

S: mum they have given the wrong books

Me : they have (check the book it seems ok)

S: yes they have given me year seven stuff i am only in year two

Went to pick him up after his first day and a bunch of other moms asked him how his day was

S: Bad very bad

oh dear i think we have a long year ahead!

The Family Portrait!

Send the little one forcibly to art camp last week. He came back with this family portrait which had four aliens.

I think i looked decent (if i should say so myself) except for the bright orange outfit i was wearing which gave a traffic cone gone wrong effect ( should get rid of all those bright orange outfits soon people might mistake i am some sort of guru) S himself was a stick alien.

DH and D seriously need some boot camp. Their legs and hands were big and pudgy and they were like big chubby aliens let lose.

Pointed it out to DH and no surpise he did not find it funny...

This Flu Business

Get a call from the school that the six year old S is sick. For some reason they did not have my mobile number (which has been clearly writted a hundred times to the teacher) and they call up DH. I was with DH at the time and could hear him having a long conversation with someone from school. with random questions thrown in to me like "is it ok to give piriton?"

While i was making frantic gestures like give the phone to me or should i pick the kid up. He hangs up and says no they say its ok to leave him. Get home in the evening and take the kid to the doc. i have to dedicate a whole post about the paediatricians who have no sense of time (and the gynos)in colombo.

get him some medicine and get home to have a call from DH u know they have detected swine flu. I think we should not send the kids to school.

( arent we being a wee bit too careful) i laughed it off and said we cannot keep them under lock and key they might still catch dengue or anything.

Wake up this morning and get call from Bestfriend " God that swine thing is here what do u think?"

Me : well dont worry the flu will run when they have to attack us. and only the good die young or get serious diseases we are safe.

friend : what do u kow about this case

so i update her what i know and she thinks i know these people personally. I read it in the blooming papers. God!

friend : I think we should be careful and not take the kids out much.

Right another one who thinks the same.

DH calls : we should put off our vacation till this is sorted.

me : what sorted ? u mean to sort out where we are heading

DH : no till the swine flu is under control.


arghhh there goes the vacation postponed by a month with destination nowhere.....

This Birthday!

The five year old turned six last week. As usual had the birthday party with the usual tamasha and overdose of loot bags. On his actual birth date i arranged a lunch at an orphanage. every year i send some cash and dont actually visit so this year thought i should make it a point to go. so took the kids and arrived there for lunch time.

Kids of different ages were there. We were allowed to mingle with some little girls who would have been five to six. they were so adorable with a big smile... As i was leaving watched S being very pensive. his six year old brain was on an overdrive. He had been listening to the caretaker talk about how some of the kids have one parent or none.

My nine year old D rushes into the car and says something like " mum we should think of Bunk beds"

So i take the kids to the orphanage and S is pensive about the whole situation and the nine year old wants a bunk bed...

Kids these days... arghhh

Fair and Lowly

One of the older aunts dropped by the other day with a gift for D. I have to mention she is one with the snow white skin. She gave it to me and inside was a jar of fair and lovely. This is for D u can tell her to use it. D looked at me and my stricken expression was mirrored on her face. D is not fair but an average Sri Lankan child.
I took the tube did not say anything. I felt offended, upset many emotions that my child is hurt. I can’t tell the aunt off either since that will cause enough drama to last me a year.
After aunt leaves D comes up to me and asks what I am doing with the tube of fair and lovely.
Me; Nothing
D: Mum I don’t understand when u and I are not bothered by my colour what is it to the others
I was speechless by my nine year olds wise words.

Christmas at home Last Year!

Last year was a fun filled family event for Christmas. We had a great party with Secret Santa and many other games. While everything was covered for the event there was one hitch. We had no Santa ready, after trying to bribe all possible candidates who turned me down and refused to wear hired smelly Santa costume, I had to just make up an excuse.

The kids were of course bugging me will Santa come and trying to play the cool I have it in control said yes to them. Other cousins just looked at me with the eyebrow up but I thought lets deal with things at that time. Driving back after picking up last minute food I saw an auto with a bunch of guys and a Santa. No second thought there I put my shutters down and asked them if Santa can drop in for five minutes. The guys looked quite shocked and recovered quickly and nodded their heads. So gave my address . Stranger danger business right out into the air and I had invited a bunch of unknown people to entertain seven little kids.

Come seven pm the party was going on and on with no Santa in sight. The cousins were giving some smirky smile like where the hell is he. With a loud horning and beeping the auto arrives with Santa and his friends. Rush out to greet my new friends and oh boy oh boy!. Santa was high and flying along with his bunch of drunken friends and singing Carols off tune loud as ever. The small kids shrieked and screamed and ran inside. Some of the men ran in too. Oh boy oh boy Santa was coming way to close for my liking and I looked at DH and the fury in his eyes.

So he calmly took hold of the situation and politely asked them to leave. But no they wanted to join in the festivities and eat and dance with us. Especially with new friend me. Uhmm I nearly died ( I think have had near death moments far too many). So after a token gift to Santa of some cash they left. DH said nothing to me. I mean the kids screaming “Mummy/ aunty we don’t want Santa” and more weeping was enough to hit home..

The play

I took D to watch “The Sound of Music” play. It was superb, the singing the acting the whole works was really very good. Although it was three hours long and D kept fidgeting a bit we did enjoy ourselves so much. I mean how can they make that long movie into a shorter play. The actors and actresses the big ones and kids all were excellent.

Its playing at the Lionel wendt this whole week. There are different casts each day. I am sure all are as good as each other. Its been ages since I watched the movie and going to do that this week….

Book fair

Went to the book fair last morning, every year it’s the same old same old. Crowds were huge. Books everywhere I was getting a bit dizzy seeing all these books. I love books (I think on par with shoes and bags).

At the BMICH entrance was refused to enter politely but firmly since we were suppose to have a pass. Nobody told me that. Went to the side entrance where we could supposedly find parking but none. It was full on an early Sunday morning. Drove back, took an auto.

I had a field day; I bought crappy books, nice books, kids books. Took nine year old D, who also has got the book craze, she picked these teenage kind of books. Said no, watched her face fall, then did quick mental calculation that if I say no, she would still borrow from a friend and read it. So did the next thing bought it for her. Whatever she asked I got her. I think I am kind of getting better in the parenting skills.

Got some books for s on moral values and good habits. He was not impressed to say the least and immediately jumped on noddy. Well who am I trying to kid, the five year old knows what he wants.

The best part of the book fair most of the stalls are giving a 20% discount. It’s full worth the visit. Its on until the 28th of Sep at BMICH.

Giving life…

Had the opportunity to meet a couple who had adopted a baby. I know the father from work since we are on a project together. He was away for some weeks and told me that his wife had a baby. Last week while at work, while I was busy teasing him about fatherhood and the works. He said I needed to talk to u about it actually we adopted. I was so thrilled and happy for him and he just started pouring his heart out. The adoption was not supported by his or her parents. He also said how his neighbors were giving trouble and being very nasty to them since they adopted. They had even complained to police. I was seriously dumbstruck. I know there are cases of buying and selling babies but what about the genuine cases where couples do want to give a baby a life.

Our people are such if a woman does not have a baby they ill treat and due to medical reasons u can’t have u adopt they are still very nasty to u.

Giving life to a baby is one of the many generous deeds anyone could do. I had always wanted to do that but as the above case my parents and in laws would never support it. Without that support I could never do it. I know of couples who don’t have kids and don’t adopt due to this and many other reasons.

The neck...

It was sunday morning and the five year old was busy scribbling sorry drawing on his art book.

Me : what r u drawing

S : you mummy lots of pictures of u

(my daughter just gives a smirky smile since s spends half of his time adoring me with compliments of sorts and has me wrapped around his little finger)

So the pictues come of a big fat face and a stick leg n hands, there was something wierd connecting the body and the face the neck was a stick with a big round thing next to it. (no i dont look like an alien of sorts)

Me : what is that sweet heart

S : This (and he points at my neck which really hurts)

Indeed there is a swelling which i have not noticed and it hurt. I am one of those really excited cases who gets panicky on illness. Immediately decided that it was thyroid related, or some other complicated disease. Call up friend whose a doc and she patiently told me not to imagine the worst to get it checked. So here I am waiting for the day to end to get it checked.

The wierd thing was spent half the night almost in panic of some life threatening disease ( yes i can get a bit dramatic its a genetic thing). Do people actually do that wonder how life goes on if they die suddenly. My biggest worry was the kids and will H get remarried...

Kuselan – Tamil movie

So I went and watched kuselan, rajnis latest movie. Its not technically a rajini movie since he makes his appearance only totally for half hour, but his name is what sells the movie. I am not really sure what I was expecting when I went for the movie. The summary is you can go watch it for the comedy(some of which was in the cheap side) and nayanthara (for the guys).

The Cinema was half full. The Hardcore rajini fans will still say it’s a super hit and keep on singing the praises of rajini. I remember few years back when Baba was out. Its was terrible but Raj ( a good friend and die hard rajini fan) kept on going on about how his thalaivars dance moves were “The Best”. Raj was trying to convince himself more than me when he kept telling me that “Thalaivar kalakitar:” (king rocked)

Go watch it, its not sivaji but it does not do justice to his bit about 75 years of tamil cinema either.

My kids who I had taken along to appreciate the Tamil movie scene, loved every bit of it. D loved the songs and claimed it was much better than Sivaji. Well that’s the success of superstar to attract these kids who will create a big fan base.