The Frou Goes Playschool

I skipped climbing last Saturday for the greater good of my nephew. Well, anticipated greater good anyway.

The Sis told me that “we” have to go to Pat School House’s open day to check out whether it is the right institution to educate and care for her precious son. My first response is, I never attended school until I was 5 years old. Even then, my parents only dump me in the kindergarten down the road just to get rid of me for a couple hours a day. My nephew is 1.5 years old. How much head start must a child have in life?

Obviously I am not a parent and I don’t know the dynamics of it all because The Sis went on a diatribe about how kids needs to blab la bla… blab la bla… from the age of 1 onwards. I think at the age of 1.5, the most intelligent thing I learnt was how to poo only after telling an adult.

So anyway, the royal “we” consists of The Sis, The Man, and me. Again, I compared this to back when I first attended kindergarten. My mother had dropped me off at the gate and disappeared. And The Nephew gets an entourage!??

Better yet, a coordinately dressed one. The Sister sent an email to us 2 days before the event to let us know what to wear. Yes, there is a dress code. We have to wear their school colors - yellow, green and white.

Frou: Are we all expected to look like a Brazil flag?!
Sis: I am not sure if the dress code only apply to kids. To be safe, you two make sure you comply by wearing at least one of the 3 colors. Bring an extra set of clothes in the car in case it does not apply to adults and you two look silly.
Frou: Orh.. and what are we supposed to do there?
Sis: You two take care of the kid while I go talk to the teachers and gather information.
Frou: And The Man wants to know if he needs to play any games like three legged race, and if so, whether he needs to partner The Nephew. He is worried about the height difference.
Sis: Just do what the teachers ask you to do. And keep your nephew entertained!
Frou: Grr!
Sis: GRR!!

Growl as much as I want to but that didn’t get me out of the deal. So bright and early on Saturday, The Man and I found ourselves at Pat’s School House down at Whitley Road. The Man, who doesn’t have anything other than black in his wardrobe, is wearing an alibaba tee that I bought for him especially for this event. It was an off-white tee with a skull on his left breast. We had examined the skull design carefully and decided that it was not so menacing and that it can be displayed before small children. I, on the other hand, complied completely with the dress code by wearing a yellow racerback, green khaki shorts and white slippers. Call us Uncle & Auntie Compliant!

The Nephew was looking cute in a green shirt and white pants. He is the only kid with long hair too, because The Sis wants him to look like one of those kawaii Japanese kids with shaggy hair often gracing the covers of kids magazines. We crowded at the entrance to collect our gift bags, and The Nephew received one that says PRINCESS. The indignant Sis storm back to demand a bag for a PRINCE instead.

The toy inside the gift bag is crap so The Nephew started running towards where the real toys are. The Sis disappeared, leaving me and The Man looking at each other wandering what’s next. We ran after The Nephew whom we found squatting next to a Chinese girl who was hoarding all the toy trucks. That little b**** rudely grabbed everything and refuses to share the toys. The public toys, may I add, not even hers. Indignant, I tried to wrestle some trucks from her gigantic pile for The Nephew but she grabbed it all back. The Man had to stop me from doing damage to her whilst her mother was gently coaxing her to share the toys. Gently coaxing! If I was her mother, I would have spank her ass raw for being such a rude, selfish child. The Man thinks so too, and we promptly remove The Nephew away from such vexatious company.

One teacher came up to us to ask us to bring ‘our son’ to the music room to enjoy some musical experience. We followed her to this room that has drums, accordion, clarinet, and keyboards all lined up. The deal was, “daddy” has to play the instrument and “mummy” has to hold the child hands and follow suit. We have to listen to instructions and cue from the teachers on which notes to hit. So the teacher started calling out the notes, and The Man was trying to follow but he was super slow. He claims it’s because the placement of the notes were confusing. Me, being the domineering and obnoxious one as usual, was scolding The Man and pointing him to where I thought the notes are (I am also not sure!) At the same time, I was trying to make The Nephew play along but he was uninterested and just stood there staring at us make a fool of ourselves. We were obviously the most musically disinclined ‘family’ there and I’m sure the teachers were glad when we finally gave up and left when the first set ended.

We decided to bring The Nephew to the playground next. It rained the night before so the ground was wet and we had to walk around in mud. The playground has this ‘obstacle course’ construction that ends with a slide, but it wasn’t toddler friendly so The Man has to carry The Nephew throughout the construction. It was quite a sight to see them trying to cross tiny bridges and walk through tight ropes. The Man look mighty happy when he finally roll down the slide with The Nephew between his legs. I decided that it would be too expensive to indemnify the school for any damage or collapse of the playground construction so I got The Man to (grudgingly) get his big ass off the slide and we took turns guiding The Nephew along the slide instead, controlling the speed that he rolls down. Talk about being a control freak!

We brought The Nephew back inside the school afterwards, and he made another dash for the toy trucks again. This time, there was another little Chinese boy who was there doing the same thing as the earlier Chinese girl did – hogging the toys and refusing to share. The boy’s father was trying to get him to relinquish some of the trucks to us but it was a lost cause. The Man and I concluded that all Chinese kids are just selfish so we quickly move to another section where the more well-behaved angmoh kids are. The Man got cheeky and every time an angmoh girl walks near, he will grab The Nephew and make him wave at the girl and asking to be “friends”.

Frou: *smack* Stop being such a SPG chee ko pek! He’s too young.
The Man: *ouch* Might as well make him start young! When he gets older, the angmoh girls won’t even look at him. They don’t look at Chinese boys! This is his only chance.
Frou: Stop projecting your own issue on my poor nephew! Grr!

The Sis reappeared with a flask of porridge and instructed me to feed The Nephew. She said I need to crush the sweet potato bits in the porridge first because he doesn’t like them in big chunks. So for the next 45 minutes, I was crushing potatoes and running after The Nephew (Kids never ever stay still when eating, do they?) until I got tired and pass on the feeding duty to The Man, who was, at that point quietly sitting at the corner reading children books, giggling and eating free M&Ms from the candy jars. It took team effort to finish the feeding because one of us has to distract the child while the other push spoonful of porridge into its unwilling mouth.

After the feeding, I was thoroughly exhausted. I helped myself to the Nespresso machine (it’s such a show off to have one in a nursery – I want one myself!) and sat down to have an in-depth discussion with The Sister about the merits of this school and whether she should sign up with them. Meanwhile, The Man disappeared with The Nephew to the “Cooking Room”. When we went and retrieve them later, we found The Nephew at a mock cooking hob making plastic bacon and eggs over a fake fire with The Man (still) edging him on to play with the cute angmoh girl next to him. We dragged the two children away with us. (Guess which 2?)

So that concludes our first ever trip to a preschool nursery. We were covered in mud, sweat and toil as we wave goodbye to The Nephew. We made sure we walked at least 500m from the school before The Man pull out a much needed cigarette and started taking deep drags while I did mental calculation of how much it will cost to send a child to such a nursery.

S$18,000 per annum!

That’s not far from the cost of my first year law school fees! *faints*

Oh well, but he's a cute one.