Because why

Now I am not sure if the above phrase is a Singlish one and I have been using it and my son the parrot is using as well or its the natural way a child learns to speak. I hope its the latter and not the former!

Am now so sore from yoga yesterday that I am walking funny, at least michelle joined me and I am not sore alone. We did some strange kundalini meditation involving pointing our index fingers to jupiter and holding up our hands for 11 minutes, wearing my paul frank monkey in meditation t-shirt did not help my meditation. What somewhat saved me is looking thru my third eye (read cross eyed with eyes closed).

Well, the yoga teacher, Tracey is also the yoga teacher for the boys, first lesson today, she promises me that they will be so tired and asleep! But I am quite pleased that they will be receiving the gift of yoga young and will hopefully not be creaky like me, speaking of which, bubbi and porpor, be prepared to yoga when here next!

Today we had parenting session 2, its really nice taking a class together as opposed to just reading and knowing that others have worse kids than you! (haha lets see how many people really read this blog and respond to that one). Today's chapter is called, engaging cooperation.

We began by going thru the ways we normally behave, so here I will confess I often use "threats", must be parenting skills learnt from my parents (who else?), at least I didn't fall into other categories such as blaming and accusing, name calling, commands, lectures, martyrdom statements, sarcastic and prophecy (which makes kids feel doomy).

So apparently, engaging cooperation (1) it is useful to describe the problem, instead of "this room is a mess", one should say "the books need to be put away" and some kids will put away the books. (2) Give information - the milk will go bad if it is not in the fridge, (3) offer a choice - they are more cooperative if they think they have a choice, "do you want the medicine in a spoon or syringe", (4) say it with a word, "jacket" to mean pick up the jacket, this is a very suitable method for me, esp. since I don't like long sentences, the (1) describe the problem can be hard for me. Luckily Nate is 3 and monosylabicity is good, he understands. If that doesn't work, "ahem jackets" work. (5) describe what you feel - I am hungry, lets pack up quickly so we can eat. I like (6) write a note, this works for me too, apparently kids that can't read still like reading notes.

On a slightly different note (no pun intended), if the grandparents (and loren) have gotten to this part, I would encourage you guys to write old fashion notes or letters or sketches to nate and ike, I will read it to them before bedtime (nate seems to dream of the book they last read) and put them into a special scrapbook. As it is now he loves putting the artwork and photo's and reports from school into a scrapbook.

Let's see how Tracey the S&M yoga teacher engages cooperation from the boys, because why, I hope they all feel as sore as me.