All these changes in 2010

In 2009, there were some slight changes to our daily lives, being korkor switched and started his year 3 in a new school with new friends and new teachers, me staying home and having all our privacy to ourselves again (my mom went home to Ipoh).

For this year, the changes had been didi joining his brother in his school and meimei starting off to another kindy too. Yeah, I was pondering to make that change or not before and MY advised me not to, being it's her last year of preschool and she's so used to the environment there.

But the distance was really killing me (kwacheong a bit la, yes) and this new preschool has an equally sound and popular system. Plus, I think kids have are very adaptable, if not, they had better learn to be, since changes are just constant in our lives. I guess it might not be a bad idea to let her try on some other learning system, apart from the one both the boys were exposed to. The determining factor would be the distance, it's so kindly near to us, just less than 5 mins drive away, compared to 20 mins before. To and fro la.

She wasn't really looking forward for the change, being mainly missing her old friends, used to the old environment, and (I suspect) influenced by the korkor that the teachers in the new preschool are unfriendly and fierce.

The first week of school was rather heartbreaking. She didn't cry, but she didn't jump up from bed or looked eager to school either. When I pick her up after school hours, she would be tau tap tap and when asked why, she just brush it off saying... "tired". Looked so pitiful indeed.

But she still would carry on with the idea. The 3rd day, I tried to "bribed" her with a new pair of shoes, it's hers if she would tell me she loves the new school! (Don't mention the cruelty of that, please). She ended up crying finally. Oh dear, it so broke my heart.

I didn't unreasonably forced her to say she loves the new school anymore, instead I shall let her slowly get used to it and tried to encourage her subtly. (like...Tell me! Tell me NOW!)

By Friday, all the books were taken home for wrapping and I was trying to show how very pretty and colorful the books are and how exciting all these lessons gonna be!! (the hypocrisy, duh!) She still wasn't very enthusiastic and by evening, I was getting a little fed up.

I gave her the ultimatum, if she didn't like this school, fine! I'm not gonna force it on her and she would just have to stay home and learn with me! Then I rattled on that she's not gonna make any new friends, not gonna need to wear any pretty pink uniforms, not doing any science experiments blah blah blah.. *gasp* I guess that mighty scared her off and she finally relented to make more effort to like the new change. Poor girl!

Then I left a long note for the teacher, asking her humbly to give her more attention and encouragement to make her blend in faster. It seems rather selfish of me to make that request, but I guess it's worth a try.

Today, I can see that there's a little bit improvement and she's really making that effort to like this. What a brave little girl she is. I think she should be ok. Else, I'm gonna just bribe her with more aiskrims, cute stuffs, gaigai outings or whatever. Am I such a good mommy! *blek*

As for didi, we have decided that he shall stop learning to play the piano. It's furious getting him to practise daily, and without practise, I doubt this new skill can be learned at all. So, after the longest consideration, I made myself calm and accepting instead. Learning to listen to him, I let him start on drum lessons, hoping at least he would learn to enjoy music somehow. Driving him to the class that very first day, I had this vivid imagination of how a charmer he can be swinging the drumstiks (NOT KFC kind ah) high up in the air while drumming up a very interesting ... (what do you call that?) beat?

As for korkor, I changed him from his last piano teacher to an individual class to another piano teacher. This new class gonna be on Saturdays, and hub said be prepared for a lot of lessons missed. I think I have to agree with him, but really, going about on a weekend is lot less stressing than rushing over to the center on a weekday during rush hour traffic. So far so good.

I'm beginning to like 2010 already.