Living a Dream

 This 6 am alarm, the hundreds of dollars on textbooks and uniforms, the trek up the hill--they are the dream. I now know that one can do anything difficult if it was hoped for.

But this sweetness would not have come without the hard, bitter seeds of those first days. I love her endless story-echoing and yapping in the middle of the night because she once could not speak. I love the idea of homework and school because we so nearly had to send her to a vocational school for autism. I would have loved her anyway. But these things now are celebrated.

So much that this morning, marking a week of real school, is celebrated with overpriced coffee at a cafe I will bear in mind to skip in future. I feel that I might wake up any day now. That they will tell us studying is just not for her. That we will have to pull her out of this neatly woven cocoon of excellence and polite little girls, and tell her, I'm sorry, we have to change things up again. 

But for now, for as long as we can, we are living the dream we had given up on.

Inconvenient Children

 A friend pulled her family of five out of church this week because her ADHD son was too disruptive for sunday school. Too embarrassed to demand that they accommodate him the way all schools are expected to, too tired to be defiant, she chose to leave quietly and find a better church for them.

I feel like we have failed them as a church. The world is getting better at being inclusive, so why is the sunday school so far behind? Why was she made to feel like her son was a problem for not being able to sit down? Why was his experience of church a rejection of how he was made?

And yet, what is this familiar knot in my conscience as I sit here in Rainbow, trying not to be afraid of the anxious children screaming and flinging themselves to the floor? That same knot when we received the rejection email from Pathlight, telling us our daughter needs to be in a special school? That stone of guilt in my throat, guilt that I'm fighting my impulse to reject her too.

"I'm afraid I will love her less," I sobbed as the guilt wrecked my body. "No, you won't," K sobbed back, holding me tight as our child slept on obliviously. 

It's convenient to have a classroom full of attentive children who can memorise Bible verses. It's convenient to have a child who remembers what she learns in school and understands how to do her worksheets. It's marvellous to have an impressive child.

But convenience is not what we are called to. There was nothing convenient about how You loved us. Nothing marvellous or impressive about us that You should make us Your treasure.

Help us to learn that the "inconvenient child" is precisely who You want us to love.

Pathlight, PSLE and Pencils

 Today my daughter went for a School Suitability Assessment at Pathlight, Singapore's premier school for autism. "The RGS of special schools," a friend warned. More accurately, Pathlight was the first of two autism schools to offer mainstream education and PSLE, and boasts highly developed creative programs. Instantly regarded as premium (hence the reference to ol' Raffles) because Singapore's primary school education is notoriously challenging, rumoured surmountable only with a full schedule of enrichments from the time a child is three years old. 

As parents hoping to send our children to Pathlight, most of us have already let go of a dream of sending them to other schools: alma maters, brand name schools, schools walking distance from home, what have you.  We are no longer in denial of our children's special needs, as many still are. We have had no choice but to deal with it, to get that autism diagnosis, to reluctantly step onto a path different from our friends. Pathlight remains the last hope that our children might still make it, in that very Singaporean academic way, but with a much gentler environment and pace.

So you can see why anxiety was high among the parents at the assessment briefing today. While our kids were in the classrooms being observed, we endured a Q&A that killed my hopes of grabbing a coffee. 

Will we get the performative scores from today? If there is exemption from mother tongue, what score will be given? If we can't get into this campus, can we get into the other one? If we're not successful this year, how do we apply again next year? What is the prioritisation criteria? Will you favour someone who lives closer to campus? Since we're so few, can't all of us pass??

I sat there smug and annoyed, thinking about my coffee. Theo had woken up bright and happy, excited to come to "big school." She had waved at the teachers and called the girls her "new best friends." She had bounced on her seat patiently while another kid was wailing for home. She would breeze through this assessment. There was no need to get all ruffled like the rest. 

True enough, she came out joyfully. "Today is a special day!" she declared, obviously having heard that from the teachers. "I think she will probably get in," I told my husband. "I'm so glad she woke up in a good mood."

Only when brushing her teeth before bed, when asking her if she had listened to the teacher, did all her bad memories flood back. 

"NO! I am ANGRY with the teacher! I did NOT listen to the teacher!"

Mildly panicking and trying to soothe her stomping, huffing body, I asked with a nervous smile, "Oh, why were you angry?"

"Because SHE TOOK MY PENCIL!"

Okay. Calm mothering, gentle parenting. "Did someone borrow it? Did they give it back?"

"Yes, but I am ANGRY!"

"Uh, you did what the teacher told you to do right?"

"NO, I did NOT listen to the TEACHER!"

"Did you...do writing?"

"NO!"

"Did you play with toys?"

"NO! I. AM. MAD!!"

Oh dear. 

If we're not successful this year, how do we apply again next year? What is the prioritisation criteria? 

-----

There is competition and anxiety at every level. I discovered I am no better than any of the parents there today, nor any of the parents who move mountains to send their children to elite schools. We all try to secure what we perceive to be the best future for our children, and scramble to stay afloat when the plans feel fluid under our feet. 

It's all out of our hands. And thankfully so. God knows what's best for her, and that will be a school that can deal with her melting down over a pencil. Pathlight or not. PSLE or not. Her life is bigger than that.

Existential thoughts in Daiso

 I know I have reached peak auntie status when the sight of plastic containers in different sizes excites me. Microwaveable, sleek canisters, child-sized. I imagine all the possibilities of displaying them at home to store our half-eaten snack packets. Yet I don't buy any of them because I think I could find cheaper options on shopee, with $1 delivery.

Yet I consider myself still "young mother" because I end up buying pouches for makeup, not for children's toys. Somehow these "aurora" prismatic materials and bright prints will keep me young.

I tried to be that kind of artist for a season. Loud, loud, loud prints, nubile subjects. Holographic stickers and portraits of people who looked like they did nothing but party. While my reality could not be further from the fantasy I drew; I never went out anymore past 8 pm.

It's no wonder then that the world never really accepted me as that kind of new artist. It's as if they could sniff the inauthenticity and shut the door on me. Stay in your generation's lane. Instead, by accepting only the portraits, they kept me a mother, a woman at home, a person whose social circle is her family. 

But maybe only this way, through creating the things that fall naturally around me daily, will I have anything of truth to give to anyone. Because all I want is the set of food canisters to make my home complete.

Things I Mourn the Loss of

 The smell of sweet cinema popcorn.

The last possibility of T wearing an oversized MGS uniform for a first-day-of-school photo.

A tailbone well enough to withstand roll-ups, Russian twists and crunches.

The confidence of flea markets and shoddily-made jewelry and namecards.

Having a travel list that assumed Europe would be ticked someday.

Baby fat.

Company.

Anti-reflection on the Week

 Monday: Tension over breakfast, tears over lunch, but all was made well with chendol.

Tuesday: Coldplay and our first night out without kids. A view of a thousand stars and being content with half a show. Babysitters put our firstborn to sleep.

Wednesday: A day I don't even remember. Shopping.

Thursday: Reia had her second seizure just as Theo and I were playing "fainting." Dinner cancellation and the start of 24 hours of...

Friday: ...trying to manage an active post-seizure toddler in hospital and starting to compare whose tiredness is more tired.

Saturday: A wedding with spicy food, big talks at Astons, putting angry kids to bed.

Sunday: Realising that being told I dress young does not make me feel young; in fact I feel old, very old, especially this week.

When I'm not collapsing from exhaustion at night, I stay up with my portrait sketches and music playing from my inferior phone speakers. It's good enough a combi to remind me of those late university nights being "in the zone". 

Strangely these portraits seem to be the thing God has touched. I've tried my hardest to be every other kind of artist but nobody would have me. Yet these many family portraits have brought me to an Eric Liddell-level of performance, where "I feel God's pleasure" as the faces appear on my paper at will. When I was at Louis Vuitton underneath those throbbing speakers, churning out portraits in a very different kind of frenzied zone, this was the single thought that emerged through the chaos. That all my years of fashion illustration and reluctant family portrait practice have brought me to this point, where I can do twenty odd portraits with the subjects peering over my shoulder, and feel absolutely flying. This is what I wanted years ago, but I wasn't ready till now. Not without those portraits of grandparents, babies, pets and nieces. 

It's been a rollercoaster of a week, and yet my concluding thought is of portraits. 

Jingle Bells Under the Window

 "seveneightnineten, ready or not, here I come!"

I hold my breath, crouched behind the day curtains in the dining room. Beside me are my father's amplifiers and laptop bags stacked up and tucked into the alcove beneath the window. I hear Theo's footsteps patter-smatter into the kitchen. She doesn't see me anywhere and runs back into the living room. I'm certain the dark lump of my silhouette can be seen through the curtains, but I stay still enough to resemble amplifiers. 

Something hurts from holding my position, so I shift my weight and look around. The alcove is peach-coloured where they ran out of white paint from repainting the room. On the bottom of the window grille there are numbers scrawled roughly by the construction workers in marker ink. The last time I saw these numbers, I was probably also playing hide-and-seek.

Theo's footsteps are still pattering around the house wildly. I'm safe here. My father is playing Jingle Bells on the piano, figuring out chords and progressions as he goes along. I stay still in this moment, closing my eyes to remember it, me hiding and listening to him play. 

I will be thirty-seven years old at the end of this year. I have the beginning of marionette lines and white hairs to cover. I'm back at my parents' house on a Sunday because my one-year-old is too active for me to bring to youth service anymore. I've had career dreams that ran past their expiry date and are now shrivelled up; I don't have dreams anymore. I have a three-room flat but yearn for more space for laundry and storage. I choose reality dating shows over art films every night. I don't exercise anymore because dragging two kids around makes my hips ache. My six-year-old was diagnosed with autism this year. 

I'm old enough, disappointed enough, to know that Jingle Bells under the window is a gift. An extra bit of time from my childhood that God wrapped up and left behind these curtains for me to discover all these years later. I am nine years old again in that late afternoon spot of time before Christmas guests arrive, when all the food is cooked and the table already set, and my father plays the piano. I am here, I am here, and in this moment, I am completely happy.

"Try the dining room, somewhere in the curtains," he says, still playing. Even without turning around to see, he knows where I am. There are giggles and shrieks, and --poof--the curtain is pulled open and my two daughters cackle and stumble into me.