Waiting for Skype.

Here's the sight that soothes my discontent every night:


Our son is 16 months today!

In about 3 weeks' I'll be calling my journey as a masters' student a day, and will be packing up and returning to my heart's treasure.

Before then, I have 2 presentations, 1 sales pitch, and 4 final papers to complete. ugh.

Boston Marathon

According to this website, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest marathon after the tradition of the Olympians, with its inaugural run on 19 April 1895.

Monday morning, me and a few classmates decided to join in the festivity of this annual event - not as runners - but as spectators. Of course, we caught a bit of brunch at celebrity joint Ciao Bella first.



Spring has broken, and in the pictures here you can see Magnolia trees that line Newbury Street and Commonwealth Avenue. Aren't the flowers quite the sight. Within two short weeks, New England turned from barren and bitterly cold, to magnolia and almond-lined avenues dressed and basking in God's bright sun.





Though the finishing line was in Copley Square in Back Bay, Boston, we chose a less crowded spot to soak it all in - the sunshine, the jubilant cheering, the runners coming in dressed in Minnie Mouse's polka red dot skirts and ballerina tutus.

Celebrate Life!

Talk to Your Kid!

I have a theory about the oral language proficiency of Singaporean students.

Friends who know me know how much I complain that our students - even the top ones in HCJC and RJC - often can't seem to string intelligent sentences together.

This week, while searching for articles on EL development in Singaporean students I chanced upon a 1983 journal article by an American language researcher comparing Singaporean students learning the language with their American counterparts.

To my shock, the research describes our children as "learning English as a third language".

What's more, the article surmises (without hard proof), that children in Singapore are generally reading at a level that is 1.5 years below their average American peers. Despite this, the researcher found this to be pretty impressive, given the multilingual context our children grow up in.

This is an article describing the situation more than 20 years ago, so I wonder if the picture looks the same today.

But what is increasingly clear to me, is how much talk ("language input") it takes for little babies to acquire language, learn new words, speak, and speak elaboratively and fluently. And this seems to underpin their future success in schools - both in learning to read and write, and performing academically well.

And note this: it doesn't matter what language the talk is in - Malay, Mandarin, dialect, anything!

So, a little disturbingly, I am slowly forming a hypothesis that I'm hoping will either be confirmed or debunked over my professional career as a reading specialist.

The bottomline seems to be: our kids need quality language input from their caregivers. Language has to come from somewhere - the parents, the grandparents, the domestic helper.
(and dig this: Not television cos language comes from dyadic communication!)

So friends reading this post - talk! Keep talking to that baby.

The highest-paid academics here in Harvard are being paid to tell parents this very same thing.

Don't believe me? Read this:
"With babies, words for wisdom" (Tracy Jan, The Boston Globe, April 2)

To the Moon and Back.

In the past week back home in Singapore, I struggled to explain to Dylan how much mommy and daddy loves him. He's a little young now to understand much of course, but it's hard to refrain from telling him anyway.

Sam McBratney, children's author, wrote a simple and beautiful story of expressive love in the book Guess How Much I Love You.

In the story, little Nutbrown Hare finds various ways of telling Big Nutbrown Hare how much he loves him. Finally, he settles on a clincher, saying "I love you all the way to the moon!". And Big Nutbrown Hare thinks to himself, and replies, "I love you all the way to the Moon and back!"

Years later, an Australian pop duo shamelessly pilfered the lines from this story to make a chart topper. The name of the song was To the Moon and Back, and they were called Savage Garden.


Anyway, I digress.

How does one express the full extent of one's love? ... is my research question for the week.

Developmentally, speaking to education psychologists like my roommate, S. from Madrid, children do not fully develop higher order emotions and concepts such as love and guilt until at least age 7 upwards.
(Hmmm... some people never fully do way into adulthood, but that's my opinion!)

Just from language development alone, kiddies taking part in one Sesame Street Children Television Workshop's research can't really define what love is beyond talking about it in concrete terms: it is heart-shaped, a smiley face, a mommy's hug (Fisch & Truglio, 2001, Ch4).

Doubly difficult is how little they understand of magnitudes, such as depth, width, and even age till much much later. (Famously, I remember my 17-year-old student describing my 31-year-old male colleague as being "middle-aged"!)

So we try to offer pithy explanations - how expensive our gifts are, the trouble grandma and grandpa went to just to get you something (so be grateful!), how much we are saving up every month and investing for your education (so be grateful!) etc.

But ideally, one fine morning I'd like to take Dylan out to East Coast park again, point him to container ships idling in the distant waters or the planes flying in, and say:

You know how far those ships and aeroplanes travel? (Yes, mommy, all around the world.)

And the world's a big ol' place, isn't it? (Yeah, mommy, it's big!)

Well, guess how much mommy and daddy loves you? (You bought me a boat and a plane, mommy?)

No, silly! We love you as long and as wide as how far those ships and aeroplanes travel!

But that's nothing compared to how much Jesus loves you.

For now, we'll just have to contend with hugs and cuddles, and lots of laughing and making funny faces to show the extent of our love. (From way over here, lots of laughing and funny faces and ridiculously dancing to Raffi's Bananaphone songs in front of my Skype camera will have to do.)

Spring Break.

After what seemed to be an interminably long 8 weeks, spring break finally came.

Like sweet reprieve to the soul in purgatory - a Catholic reference, I know, but you get the idea! Nothing soothes the agony of a separation quite like the much longed for reunion.

Braving 30 hours of traveling, I arrive back at home at 4 in the morning. Dylan had just woken up for a pre-dawn feed, and the grandparents were eager to see how he'd react to seeing his parents again.

His smile at seeing us was just precious. Instant recognition and surprise mixed into one sweet expression. How our 15 month old has grown!

I remarked to E. how even our li'l one's voice seemed different from just 2 months ago. He giggled and went straight for daddy, at first a little shy to be embraced by the mommy.

Before long, him and I quickly caught on, though, and we're inseparable.

As it should be.

E., Dylan and I spent a good part of the week just spending time together as a family. Eating our favorite foods - bak chor mee, kway chap, ondeh ondeh. You name it.

And a good part of it we spent in complete wonderment and amusement at the little things the tyke has learnt to do. At 15 months, he's:
- pointing at every single thing on 4 wheels and exclaiming "CAR!"
- learning that some "cars" are actually trucks and buses. So his best attempts are "twa" and "ba" respectively.
- recognizing a butterfly when he sees one, pointing at it, and saying "bah!"
- forever trying to get one foot into grandpa's slipper, and walking in it.
- rasping to mimic the rumble of a motorcycle engine whenever one passes, especially the spluttering motor of the postman's bike every afternoon round about 4pm
- climbing the bed frame to peek out of the window in the mornings, and saying "bur-" (he means "bird").

The list goes on.

I am so, so very grateful.

Surely the Lord is holding us tightly in His grace. And little Dylan too, who thrives under the care of the gramps.

Sadly, sadly though.

I find myself having to brave another separation, and yet another 30 hours of flying back over the Pacific.

This time, it will be for the final leg of the program, just another 8 more weeks till the end of term, with 4 group projects and 4 final papers to go.

The prospect of coming home soon, and spending time as a family once again is what will keep me going. Along with much hope, faith, and the prayers of so many so many friends who are keeping this family in their thoughts.

Thanks to all our dear friends!

Some photos of our time together this week:



"let loose on the grass"


"and on the sand"


"on the path"


Evidence that our son's getting ahead of himself way too early!



"check out my cool blue bike - vroom vroom!"


finally - our verdict on little guy.

Spare Change for Heineken and Herb?

S. and B. gave me a ride home on Friday night, and they asked - "So would you ever consider staying on in the U.S.?"

This is probably the fourth time this month somebody has asked me this question. And although my reply is always straightforwardly, no, not in my circumstances (with the bond, the family yadayada...), the question intrigues me.

The truth is - I am fascinated with the American life.

People here, as much as they can be politically skeptical and jaded, give every and any ideal a chance. There is an optimism in the basic goodness of human nature and fellow man that I yearn to be present in Singaporeans.

To put it simply, they give people chance.

In Singapore, we can be sitting next to any old auntie on the MRT and if you are like me, chances are you wouldn't give the auntie the time of your day, or consider if she could be educated and have opinions that matter. The only time we pay more attention is if the person is well-dressed, speaks poshly and carries a branded handbag, looking like she works in the finance sector. Or if it is a student donning a well-known school's uniform. Then, we scrutinize the behavior, and search for any character flaws.

Here, you can be a homeless bum boarding the bus but the bus driver will say "Mornin'" to ya anyway. Why not? A bum is still human after all, and deserves a greeting just like any of us, no?

At Harvard Square, I walked past one sitting on a milk crate and holding up a cardboard placard. On it, simple and neat handwriting (better than mine!), candidly expressing-

"SPARE CHANGE FOR HEINEKEN AND HERB?"

Only in America.

Of course this isn't home to me. It never will be, not without my family with me.

But I do admire the simplicity that lies just below the surface of this very affluent, somewhat morally liberal-minded, but highly complex and savvy group of people I interact with on a daily basis.

I am also struck by the sheer patriotism they share. In one episode of EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION, the team tore down and rebuilt the single-storey home of a US marine returning from Iraq from 2 tours who has 4 kids and had lost his leg in the war. People on the show just kept singing praises about the soldier's courage, his giving so much for the country, and now in fighting on to keep his family together even though the wife left him. I had never cried so much watching a home get redone!

We need more TV shows like this in Singapore, IMHO.

Banquet

On February 29, that special leap year day, I witnessed my first ever charity fund-raising auction.

The event? The Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center Chinese New Year Banquet.

On the plate for live auction included: a World Series 2007 signed baseball, a basketball signed by the whole Celtic team, and a power lunch with Sam Yoon, the first Asian American to be elected into the city council of the City of Boston. Sold! for a cool $1200 to $3000 each.

Uncle G and Auntie E have been long-time patrons and contributors, as well as members of the center, and they booked two tables so that friends and family can join in the dinner and the festivity.

Here, with Uncle G and family, including S's boyfriend (whom everybody thought looked like B.Obama!):



The venue was at Empire Garden Restaurant, just across the street from Penang restaurant in Boston Chinatown.

My first glimpse into the Asian American community made me realize that so many of the members of this community are not just Chinese, but have truly assimilated into the fabric of American life, and count among them caucasian Americans as family.
I spoke to at least two families whose children are a result of mixed marriages, and the kids are quite good-looking!

Speaking with people, and immersing in that vibrant slice of life one might call the immigrant experience made me realize that one is able to find belonging and family anywhere. And in trying to make a foreign land feel like home, nothing is more precious that retaining one's own corner of culture.

As you might see in these little imps putting their best foot forward in the traditional Chinese lion dance: