More Interesting Stuff about my Kids

So, last weekend, my parents-in-law asked us not to go to their place as there was a lot of renovation going on outside their house. This meant aside from their usual art and abacus enrichment classes, and our church commitments (the stables of our weekend), we spent much of the weekend catching Pokemons (yes, tell my kids the craze is over please). To make things worse (or better, depending on how you see it), my hubby downloaded something called a Pokemap, which shows where the uncaught Pokemons are in Singapore with great accuracy, combined with a countdown timer to show you how long you have to hotleg it over there before it disappears. This got my eldest very excited as he could finally see where he could catch his beloved Starmie.

I won’t tell you what new Pokemons we managed to catch with the help of this app (Pikachu, Rapidash, Ivysaur, Clefairy, and we evolved a Nidorina too), but I do want to write about what new things I learnt about my kids in watching them play the game.

My eldest boy:

•At one point he went out for breakfast with my hubby and his brother, and he kept asking the father to use the lures but he wouldn’t. Eventually Starmie appeared but just as they were about to catch it, my hubby’s hp ran out of batt. That was when my eldest lost it and started yelling at his father, insisting that he should have used a lure earlier. In a bid to placate him, the father replied with equanimity “Patience. Good things come to those who wait”. To which the reply came “No! Good things come to those who use lures!” The father found it so funny he told me about it after they came back. Quotable quote.

My second boy:

•At some point soon after he took possession of my handphone, the plaintive requests started on whether he can change my buddy, the colour of the team I’m on etc etc while his brother was compulsively looking at the sightings and scrolling through all the Pokemons he already caught (to see what sounds they made and actions they made). As usual, appearances matter to this neat little boy.

•After church, we were hanging around a playground just outside the church as the kids wolved down the biscuits their teachers gave them at the end of each Sunday school, when a father carrying a little girl asked my husband “is this Hao Yi?” pointing to my eldest. “No, that’s Hao En. This is Hao Yi.” And the girl's father looked and said “hello” and explained that his girl Megan kept telling him that her friend Hao Yi taught her to do some stuff in class so he wanted to see who it was. We were suitably amused and teased Hao Yi a little after that. He didn’t seem to remember Megan or acknowledge it. My maid then joked with us how Hao Yi’s good friends were always girls and Hao En’s good friends tended to be boys, in fact the naughty ones. Haha.

Both of them:

•Sunday dinner, we were sitting across from them as the father was recounting what Hao Yi was sleep talking at night, Hao En stopped harrassing us for our handphones for a moment and burst into a wide, face-splitting grin and peals of delighted laughter, and Hao Yi also laughed along. It was so nice to see them laugh as kids and not obsessed over handphones I tried to capture the moment but was too late.

•Sunday night, my husband was trying to make them sleep, but they would lie quietly in the darkness on the mattress and then inevitably the talking would start up again. Exasperated, he said “Stop talking! Whoever still talks will sleep outside. One…” And then he farted “poooo” and then silence. And the kids started giggling… And then he said “three” and that was when they lost it and started chuckling, repeating “one, poo, three” and then losing themselves in laughter again . The sound of their laughter is priceless, the utterly amused "hehehehe" laughter of Hao En, followed by the unmistakable peals of gurgling laughter by Hao Yi. Pure delight.

As for Jeanine, she likes to open and close things with caps now and mimic whatever we say. When I laugh at her sometimes she will lean back and give me a half smile. Or a sly smile, like she is up to no good but doesn’t want me to know it.