Had a few occasions whereby I could bring Huaihao out on a one-one date. And brought him to his favourite Burger joint.

I wonder if its the smaller space we are in, coupled with growing up hormones and aging ones as well, everyday in the house is like a Mars meet Earth kind of event.

I cant say there’s peace for sure, and more often than not, it starts from Huaihao disobeying or rather, Huaihao pushing for what he wants, in seemingly unreasonable ways to us.

How will this affect his system?

There are times Daddy maintained his cool, but in a few other times, definitely challenged by Huaihao. Smaller in size but so much stronger in force. He always said to Huaihao:”at 16 years old you get out of my life, i have enough of you”

Daddy has no qualms pointing out Huaihao is “the cause of it all”, of all unhappiness, I wonder how Huaihao thinks or feels.

Statements like these made me worried. How would this impact my Huaihao? Even though he is seemingly not bothered by it?

When Huaihao is beyond reason, which is often, Daddy when he cannot keep cool, blows his top, takes Huaihao by the hand and pulls him out of the house. Huaihao would be crying in fear and Qinzhi would rise to save her brother by scolding and shouting Daddy, “all you freaks! I want to kill myself”

I wonder how these will impact Qinzhi and Huaihao?

Will they even remember? What are all these fights for? seemingly born out of nitty gritty stuff?

As I was writing Qinzhi’s blog posts, Huaihao saw me writing and asked me why do I write?

I replied that this has been so, the very day I took an ultrasound photo in my gynae’s office and saw Qinzhi. I wanted to record down the things you two experienced , maybe somewhere down the road, when you happen to chance across these words, you would be able to perceive or visualise how Mommy is writing in the night, when all of you are asleep and the washing machine is calling out to me, the dryer doing its runs and turns.

Actually writing benefits me too much, it feels like I can let it go and don’t need to hold on to it—whether its a happy or unhappy event. So as much as this is for the kids, its also for me to reflect and make sense of what has happened in the family, to take stock.

And 2020 has gone in a whiff.

December is Qinzhi and Huaihao’s favourite month. The month they get presents from Santa—actually Daddy and they know. And from Gengyan jiujiu and Karyn jiejie plus Karyn’s dady who never fail to pamper them with a no budget Christmas outing with food and presents.

And more food and more presents.

To the extent that the children forget about the value of money and buy in excess and without a think. Such as picks like this and I gave them a lecture of course. I told Huaihao that if he did not respect money, money would not come to him. As with respect for any other

To create more quiet for Qinzhi to concentrate on her work, Huaihao also went out with Dad this holiday to run errands and bond and had his favourite Din Tai Feng and Tenjin.

Then Ah tin aye secured a staycay at MBS for 4 nights, we went for it despite a lot of crap and uneventful disputes with Huaihao. but got it sorted out because deep down, Daddy and Mommy didn’t want to disappoint—Qinzhi especially. We tried lots of food that we don’t normally do

I wanted to put a point on Huaihao’s exceptionally unreasonable behaviour these few days. Beyond reason, he kept pounding my hand with so much might when I tried to educate/chided him or disagreed with him.

We almost did not manage to come for the staycay at MBS and in the midst of it, there must have been ten times it almost ended in a whiff.

I believed in talking it out. And being a friend to my children. I always remembered what Mr Ng said “the children know. So talk to them.”

But I ended up raising an unreasonable kid who does not listen. What went wrong ? Was I too lenient? What would my mummy say if she were alive ?

Like in the midst of the staycay, he was so naughty daddy wanted to check out and I wanted to go home. It was Qinzhi who kept stopping us and asking us to talk to HuaiHao because we did not know how to manage him

And I was so so so angry this was the first time in 7 years I pulled his ears. He was so upset he cried. Can’t there be another way out? I asked

He finally apologized and I delivered the punishment of beating his palm three times.

But doing that brought me so much pain at heart. This episode made me feel that I was wrong to love him the way I did and I had to take responsibility for raising HuaiHao up this way

What if he grows up bad? And cause hurt to others? And ultimately to himself? It had never occured to me that my kids will turn bad.

After it all, at night before he slept, he climbed out of bed and wanted to touch my face and say, “only after that can I sleep.”

I wonder where and what went wrong. How do I address this? Do I still want to get upset or angry and experience the upheavals in emotion?

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, in a recent video says, “be creative ! when you have anger, use that as support for meditation.”

No doubt a way out, but not easy!

The other times he was good, we had a short walk while Qinzhi was having her tuition at MBS. Ever sensitive, he would hold my shopping bags and hold my hand. I could feel his little hands growing and warming me up.

I said to Huaihao, “its nice to hold your hand and not beat your hand.”

We then went to get presents, for Karyn’s Dad, Karyn and for Qinzhi. Huaihao said Qinzhi needed a black pen, and so we went to Muji to get it. Then he chose the Marvel T shirt for Karyn’s dad and drew a card for Karyn.

I love his doodles, look at the eyes!

I never thought that the day Huaihao challenged me would come so fast. And even if so, Huaihao has a way that would swiftly bring you back to him. Be good Huaihao, I wish you love and healthfulness, sincerely!