My exploration in life… (diary for baby!)

I do not want to really stop working this holidays - after a few weeks of strategic planning and staff workshops.  It’s only my first break from one semester and hope to work hard during this break, I hope to continue where I left off to prepare more forms of help for weaker students and mid-ability ones.  I’m meeting two of my students for my English P4 class this year to help them consolidate what they know.  It’s a two-way thing - I hope to improve their base and at the same time, prepare help for students next year.

I know the class I will most probably be taking next year.  I’ll be form teacher (gosh! Am I able to do the required??) of a P4 class.  I yet to know my involvement with the class as in the subjects I will teach them, as the other classes I’ll be taking for PE too.  Once again, I should be taking up Health Education too, I think.

I saw the many faces of disappointment after the release of PSLE results in my school.  I’ll have to say they probably didn’t do as well as they had imagined.  To avoid this situation, students must really work hard and have a good attitude to learn.  I hope my previous English language class, as well as my form class the next year, know that and do well in their examinations…

At home, FELIX is still not enjoying my presence, I feel, but he had started his "social smiling" with mummy.  However, I was glad the other day when RACHEL waved hello back to me.  We have been hoping that she starts talking but it seems she’s making no headway at that.  She’s running a lot (as usual) and has this habit of walking tiptoed.  We are puzzled where she learnt that as we definitely did not model that to her!

It was so sad three days ago - I came home especially early because I wanted to spend more time with our children.  The first thing I did after opening the door was to go to RACHEL and give her a hug as I did want her to know that we have not forgotten her even after baby FELIX arrived in our family.  Guess what happened??

She was busy watching TV and pushed me away.  I was saddened by that action of hers.  Nevermind, I thought - let me carry little FELIX and build some bonding with him.  Well, he cried when I did that.  I don’t know why my kids treat me this way all of a sudden…

Two days again, YEN and I came home after work in the night.  YEN wanted to go and bath, so she asked me to take over FELIX from mum’s care.  Now, I thought it would be fine as FELIX was sitting on mum’s tummy, feeling okay.  So I was undeterred by the previous day’s incident and tried my hand at taking over.  For a minute or two, he was fine.  Just when I thought things were going to be great, he started biting his lower lip and bawled.

I mean - he BAWLED - like I was ill-treating him by pinching him or something.  The best part was when I helplessly passed him back to YEN or mum, he would stop crying after a short while.  What is that all about??!  I’m crestfallen, really.  Sigh.  =(

I was supposed to teach / see my P4 class only on Thursday this week.  I would be attending a conference on Monday and Tuesday with my HOD and there would be no school on Wednesday and Friday (Wednesday is meet the parents session the whole day and Friday is a prize giving day).  School ends for the year thereafter.

However, I had to fall sick over the past weekend.   Actually, I had been sick the whole of the past week because of cough and a little flu.  It had to become worse over the Deepavali holiday and weekend (after I met my close friends for the first R-21 show of my life - Lust, Caution) - my temperature rose up to 38.5 at a point on Sunday night.  I’m not sure if I had passed on the bug to my whole family, my two children included.

I had to go consult the doctor on Monday and was given two days of rest.  It gave me more time at home with my children too.  I got to see first-hand that FELIX would cry at about four to six in the evening for no apparent reason.  Coupled with RACHEL’s incessant cries for no reason, they are really a handful…

We’re finally down to the last two weeks of the school year.  Yippee!  No more waking up at 3-plus am to accomplish work for this year!  I’m sure it has taken a toll, not just on me, but also on my poor virtuous wife - YEN!  She has been waking up with me to make me breakfast and tea early in the morning…

FELIX has had some growth to his eye this week.  It went as quickly as it came, after the pus in the growth cleared, so it is okay now.  He still demands a lot of attention from us - the caregivers - as he wants to be held almost all the time he is awake.

RACHEL had her vaccination done yesterday.  YEN brought her there alone as I had to be at work and could only fetch them after they were done.  According to YEN, our little princess was crying the whole time, presumably due to the fact that she was meeting strangers and she didn’t like it one bit.  We’re not sure how to help in that area as we have been exposing her to new environments and people as she grew…

YEN also raised our concern to the paediatrician who saw RACHEL about her not speaking yet.  She is still at her baby-talk at seventeen-plus months-old.  The only thing comprehensible to us is her calls of "daddy daddy" or "mum mum"(as in eating), but we are not even sure she means what she "says"!  The pediatrician said it could be she is a late developer at speech, and offered for us to bring RACHEL back for check-up if she still cannot speak at the age of two.  On our end, we must continue to speak to her to encourage her talking…

Now that the examinations and its marking has been completed, the next thing is keying in of the marks for students.  With the school term / year having only two weeks remaining, we must have all the marks keyed in and have the report books printed by the end of the week, so that we can give them out to students next week to get it signed and returned.  Another mad rush, ha.

Overall, my class has improved in the overall grades.  There were much more people scoring more than 75% in the overall grade than the few in mid-year, and a less person failing in English language.  Good, we say?  No, not exactly, as it is based on formative assessment (daily work).  There are too many problems due to daily work.  I’d rather they took the SA2 paper fully to determine the students’ grade, really.  It would paint a more accurate picture as to how much students understood without any help from others (including teachers, parents, peers, etc.).

I’m still not told which level / class I’d be teaching next year, as with all other teachers.  I just hope we will be told sooner.

FELIX is doing some social smiling.  I’m glad that he has turned out to look better than when he was in the hospital (babies really didn’t look exactly good when they were newly born, I think - all crumpled).  In fact, YEN keeps saying that FELIX is a much larger child when compared to other babies his age.  The same goes for RACHEL!  She is bigger too! I am keenly anticipating the day she starts speaking so that I can start teaching her right and wrong by reasoning…  ("/)