Chronicles of Riddick...aka Lino

Week 2

The second week of school was all about our precious boy Lino.  He is having a rough time...or at least he is making us have a rough time with him.  The week started out normal but that doesn't mean good.  Lino has a way of picking just enough to make you want to strangle him...especially when he is bothering Shaun.  Those two are always at each others throats then later they are loving on each other.  I know that is the way of siblings...heck I was like that with my sister too but man is it annoying for the parents.  So every morning our travels to school consist of taking a bus and a train in which we have to use are MRT cards to get on/off.  It never fails that Lino seems to always be first.  Not that that is a bad thing it is just interesting that he is always first.  Now Shaun is the slow poke of the 2 that is for sure but sometimes you would think Shaun would get there first but he doesn't.  The reason isn't just because he is slow poke because most days he tries to run ahead and make it to the scanning station first.  But just as soon as he starts to run the other one notices and runs too...the risk of someone else being in front of him is not acceptable!  So this is the start of every day for us.  Who is first to the scan their card.  I know I've talked about this before but its so annoying to me at this point that I can't stop myself from complaining again.  Anyway, Lino doesn't let Shaun go first which means that Shaun is always crying or whining about not going first so I tried to ask Lino to let Shaun go first some times and he refused.  I tried to give Shaun his card first in hopes that he would make it to the scanning machine before Lino but he rarely did and if he did make it there first Lino would be right there to put his card on the machine first.  So eventually I gave up because its too early in the morning to deal with this and I don't think its right that Lino pushes Shaun or anyone else in his way for that matter, out of the way to make sure that his card gets scanned first.  So I took Lino's card and would make him wait to go after everyone else went.  He didn't like that at all but by the end of the week he figured it out and slowly he started giving in.  He was still fighting to have the card so that he could scan it himself but I told him I didn't trust that he would wait his turn so I was going to keep doing it for him.  I guess it only took a week to somewhat crack the surface of  his need to be first.  

Next Lino was getting in trouble at school which meant my favorite teacher Mrs Brooks was having to talk to me or email me almost every day.  Now I know that Lino can be difficult but this is only the second week of school why doesn't she give him a little time and give herself a little time to figure out how to better deal with him.  I mean there is only so much that I can do, she has to be the one to manage him in the class.  Plus there are only 14 kids in the class so it shouldn't be that difficult!!!  By the end of the week which was only 4 days because Friday was no school due to parent teacher conferences, I had already received 3 emails from Mrs Brooks about Lino.  Unbelievable!!!!  There was only one note that I really needed to get and that was the email she sent me on Tuesday talking about Lino's behavior in music class.  I just barely saw the note before I got to the school so I wanted to see if Lino would tell me about the incident on his own or not.  So when I picked him up and asked how his day was he said good, like he normally does but then he stopped and looked at me more intently.  Like he was looking to see if I saw something in his response...like if I knew he was lying.  So I played a long with him for a little while.  I asked him what was wrong?  Why are you looking at me like that?  He said nothing. So I asked him if there was something else he needed to tell me?  Eventually after some back and forth and me playing stupid he came clean about the incident in music class.  He actually had ore detail than I had got from Mrs Brooks which I was surprised about.  So basically he was in music and they are playing the flute but he doesn't like it...why?  Because he can't play it...he isn't good at it...so that means he doesn't try and he doesn't like it.  And apparently he told the music teacher that he didn't like it and it was stupid or something like that and that he wasn't going to do it.  Of course the teacher kicked him out of music class!!!  Great!!!!  Having problems with Mrs Brooks and now the music teacher too...this isn't good.  So I told him I did appreciate him being honest but that it wasn't acceptable to be like that.  I went through the whole you have to try and if you don't do good that is fine just give it your best and keep trying and eventually you will get better.  He wasn't feeling it and I knew it but I had to try.  I told him that I was happy that he told me the truth but he wasn't going to get ice cream at the train station (the boys have been getting ice cream at the train station every day after school as a treat)...that was the straw that broke the camels back.  He was not happy about missing his ice cream but it had to be done.  Now his attitude was really bad.  He only spiraled down from there...almost like a repeat of the aquarium.  But before I let him dig himself too deep into a hole I had to threaten him about fixing his attitude soon and then he found a way to fix it.  This is the kind of stuff that I don't get.  Why does he have to be so bold (I don't have another word to use).  Its ok that he doesn't like music, I mean not everyone is musically inclined but why can't he just try?  Why does he have to be perfect at everything?  Why does he make me have to threaten his life in order to get some sort of cooperation?  Why does he want to take the hard rode?  Seriously...why???   I don't get it.

Enough about my darling Lino...quick summary of our week...

Monday shopping at FairPrice because I was determined to cook dinner.  I thought making fajita's would be easy because I already had the seasoning (from the US) and tortilla's so all I needed was cheese and salsa...SALSA!!!!  We are too far away from Mexico...Salsa is not a common condiment and it was not easy to find.  I almost resorted to using stewed tomatoes because really I was desperate...I didn't have the time or patience to make pico de gallo but I guess that would have been easier.  But just as I was throwing in the towel I stumbled across a vision from the past...Tesco!  And sure enough there was salsa...it was $5 Tesco salsa but salsa none the less.  Taco Tuesday has been saved!

Tuesday I met up with Mike for lunch which is a big ordeal and will not happen very often.  By the time I drop the boys off at school and get back to the house I've already spent over 2hrs of my day traveling to go nowhere really.  So I only had a little time to do a few things before I had to head back out to meet him.  I actually had to take a taxi because apparently if you get to the food stall by his job to late there will be no food left.  After lunch I got a coffee to go... Singapore style! 

 After school the boys were both exhausted because they got woke up early at like 6:15 and they haven't been getting up until 6:45...that 30min makes all the difference.  Poor Shauny fell asleep on the train he was so tired.  Lino was just cranky but we've been over that already.

A sample of the letters I get from Mrs Brooks...I'm glad she is communicating with me but man...6 notes/emails in only 8 days of school is a little much don't you think?

Wednesday we decided to venture out to Little India wet market and man did I fall in love!!!!  The market is huge and there were a bunch of people there.  They had a huge seafood area and meat area.  There was so much to choose from...but in a good way.  We walked up and down pretty much all the isles and even though I needed some meat I couldn't bring myself to buy any ...next time.  But I did get some fruit which was nice and cheap compared to the other places that I've been shopping at.  Then we went over to the hawker center and the smells of all the Indian food was so amazing.  Even though it was only 10am I was ready to feast on some garlic naan and biryani rice so I got some to go!  I definitely have to come back here again...for the meat and to eat!  Also, they had cans of beer for like $3 which is pretty cheap for Singapore.  To top off such an amazing morning experience we got our internet set up in the apartment that afternoon...finally getting back in touch with the world.  And the internet is super fast...not sure we can handle all this speed but we will try our best :-)

Thursday was parent teacher conferences at the school.  When we went to get Shaun and was asking him about his Chinese class today he started to sing some song in Chinese...I don't know if it was accurate or not but it was a pretty good attempt...I had to record it...his first song in Chinese!!!  So I met up with Mike at the school while the boys went back to the house with Cesar.  I was not looking forward to talking to Mrs Brooks but I was interested in seeing what Mike thought about her.  But first up was Shaun's 2 teachers, Ms Goh (English) and Ms Chen (Chinese).  They both seemed to enjoy Shaun and said that he isn't shy to move around and do his own thing in class.  They were so shocked by his love of dancing and the teachers have been recording him dancing because they are so amazed by it.  Ms Chen said that it doesn't matter what kind of music, English or Chinese, he will dance to it!  Otherwise he seems to be picking up the Chinese but only in repeating it, he doesn't always use it at the correct times but they seem to think he will pick it up fine.  He did have 2 issues, first was he doesn't eat lunch which is surprising to us but it might be because of the new class and routine and he is just to excited to eat...we aren't too worried about it.  The second was his issue with his hands in his pants!  Apparently for nap time he puts his hands down the front of his pants and goes to sleep like that...we have seen this over and over again and he has been doing it for a long time so I wasn't surprised to hear it but I guess its a big deal.  It looks like he is playing with himself which we don't think he is he is but maybe he is.  Anyway, we have to work on that with him...otherwise all good.  After that we had a little break before seeing Mrs Brooks so we went to the hawker center near the school to have a drink...a beer!  I needed to calm myself down before I went in there just in case she was going to go on and on about Lino's behavior.  So we had a beer then a few chips to cover up the beer smell on our breath.  The meeting with Mrs. Brooks actually went fine.  She acknowledged that fact that he was new and she said that she would keep working on him and she created this star chart to help motivate him and all this stuff.  We didn't want to say that we have been down the start chart route with his other teachers before and it didn't work out to well...so we just smiled and told her it was a great idea. 

Even though she was being pretty reasonable I had to tell her that the way we deal with Lino is by cause and effect and that we let him make his choices and deal with the consequences of those choices.  So I will support her in encouraging him to listen during class and not be disruptive and all of that but at the end of the day it is Lino's choice.  She was actually OK with that...I might even say happy about it.  I might have been a little wrong about her after all?  Maybe not.  It was good anyway...but after that we had to let loose a little so we went back to the food center that we went to last Sunday (Timbre GastroPub) and it was hopping!   Live music and great atmosphere...really nice evening.

 Mike tried some spicy sauce and nearly lost his head...I think he ate the Thai chili by itself which is a no no!!!

Friday the boys didn't have any school...parent teacher conferences continued so after a long morning of trying to decide where to go we ended up getting a taxi to the Zoo.  Mike said it was a nice place and the boys love that kind of stuff so I figured it would be a good place to go.  I was just worried about the weather and was going to go to an indoor place but figured I better save those for when the weather is really hot.  I think we picked a good day to go because it wasn't too hot and it wasn't very busy at all.  We didn't get to see the whole thing because between the tortoise feeding and polar bear interaction we were a little slow moving around. 

And since the boys are serious about checking out the map they saw that there was a play area and they were determined to go there so we did...but it wasn't a play area but instead a mini water park!!!!  Can you believe it?  A water park inside of the zoo...and it was included in the price of admission...crazy but great!  Of course that was the end of our tour of the zoo!!!  I had their swimming trunks in my bag so they were shocked and happy about that.  They spent about 45min there until the water park closed and the rain started coming down.  By the time we got rescued from the water park area it was already past 6pm.  It was a fun but long day! 

 We ended up meeting Mike at the mall and we had dinner there...the boys got some hot dog thing before we got there and they said they were full so instead of eating they played while Mike & I ate.  Of course when it was time to go now they were hungry again so we took them to Burger King...such horrible parents.

Saturday Mike had suggested that we go to this carnival near Marina Bay but when we got there we realized that the carnival didn't start until 4pm so we had 3.5 hours to kill!  So we decided to walk around the gardens and we saw that there was a children's garden so Lino led the way there.  Poor Shaun complained the whole way there...why couldn't we take a bus or train to get to the garden...mind you it was only a 10min walk (15 min with them because they were so slow).  Once we got to the garden the boys got another shock because it was another water park!!!! 

 By chance we were prepared with swim trunks (no towels mind you) but only because we thought that there might be some water stuff at the carnival...we were lucky.  I think we will have to keep the swim trunks in the bag for all of our outings for a while.  So Since it was lunch time we tried to get them to eat some food but that wasn't happening so Mike went to get some Satay skewers while they got into the water.  We stayed there for 3hrs and I think the boys could have stayed all day.  It was a very simple spray park but more than enough for them.  We were both impressed that this was free and there were a lot of people there so it is popular too...but not so popular that you can't enjoy it.  Eventually we left and headed to the carnival.  We should have eaten before the carnival but we didn't and once we got inside the "free" carnival we realized why it was free to get in.  You had to by tokens for the rides and you can load your credits onto this card, each ride was like 6-8 tokens on average and each token cost $1!!!  So the boys wanted to ride and do all this stuff and we had to quickly set a limit.  Once we met the limit we were heading out and Shaun went up to this other black lady and grabbed her hand like she was his mom...he was so confused it was funny...he doesn't see a lot of people who look like me!  Anyway it was funny and nice because we ended up exchanging numbers...there is a big black community here and it seems like whenever you see a black person they are always interested in connecting which is nice. 

So after that we head out but the boys spot the other part of the carnival and there is a huge bouncy slide so somehow they convinced us to go over there for 1 ride!  Once we got there we realized that we should have gone to that side first because the rides were all smaller and better for the boys.  On the first side Mike & I had to go with Shaun on most of his rides which meant we had to pay double but on this side it looked to be meant for the smaller kids.  Oh well...we let the boys pick one last ride and then we left (they were not ready to go).  Since we were in the city I suggested we go to Little India and Mike was all over it!  It was pretty busy when we got there which we were surprised about because it was like 6pm at night but there were still a lot of fruit/veggie stands open and even a few meat/seafood stands which was funny because Shaun was gagging as we walked through the seafood area...I mean literally gagging!!!  Its crazy because he loves fish but he didn't like the smell of that market...I can't blame him.  Past the meat/veg market was the food stall which most were still open which was great.  Lino was serious about picking out what he wanted to eat, I think he was nervous that I was going to pick something to crazy for him so he made sure to find the place with the most basic stuff...duck rice!  He didn't know it was duck rice but after he picked it I made him get it (he liked it).  Shaun on the other hand was looking around the place and begging us to go to a restaurant because this place wasn't the cleanest...how did he become such a little prince.   Eventually we got a table and our  meals and started eating. 

The table we picked wasn't the best because the man sitting at the end was getting questioned by the police.  He was asking a few of the shop owners to come over and vouch for him but no one would.  Actually one of the owners said the he was being disruptive (I think the police were saying that he was bothering some ladies).  We might have moved but there wasn't many choices and it was interesting.  By the time we were half way through eating he was back at the table...the didn't arrest him just questioned him I guess.  He seemed to be minding his own buisness so we did too...until he didn't.  He started talking to us and the boys which was ok but weird at the same time.  He asked Mike where he was working then after 2 min asked him again because he forgot.  Shaun didn't want to have anything to do with him but Lino was so interested in him he couldn't resist talking to him.  In the end he was OK, just a little drunk which made him creepy...we had to hurry up and make our exit though because he wasn't going to get any better with time.  Man what an experience...Mike nabbed a picture for me because I didn't want to forget that encounter!

Sunday was brunch at the Ritz!!!!  A welcome to Singapore treat for Mike & I!!!  Before brunch I went to the gym and went to get sandwiches for the boys to have for lunch.  Brunch was great and I wish I could say more about it but I drank too much!!!  We both did!  If you ever come visit us...we would love to take you there!  Eventually we became partial humans and full parents...before bed Lino got to video message with his BFF's Paddy and Patrick.  He has been looking forward to talking to Paddy and when he got on the phone with him he was all shy...that never happens.  Oh well, next time I guess.

Oh we tried these salted egg chips because everyone goes crazy about them and the lines are usually super long or they are all sold out so we said we would see what all the hype was about...lets just say were were not super fans.  The chips were weird (not dangerously addictive as it says) but the fish skins were pretty good...kind of like pork rinds and even Lino liked it so that was a huge surprise.