By the end of next month, Calvin will be 4.5 years old. If you ask him how old he is now, he will proudly say to you “I’m 4, but I will be 5 soon!”. (showing his 5 fingers) 🙂 And, he has not forgotten to tell me what he wants to have for his birthday. Kids …
I would say Calvin has somewhat mature over the past year. He doesn’t throw tantrums anymore, he wants to reason with me and he whines — he tries to whine his way to get what he wants. Unfortunately, he can’t. Nice try, anyway. 🙂 He is also eager to please us, always wanting us to approve of his actions and say that he is a *good boy*.  He can be quite concerned when I am angry at him because he does not like it when I am angry or even raise my voice at him. Yup, he is a sensitive boy. He picks up my emotions like a radar and he reacts to it. Amazing. He is overall a happy pre-schooler, I would say.
He still asks a lot of questions these days. He has asked less of the “why” questions, but more on “how come …. ?” questions. He is not satisfied with an over-simplified answer. He wants to hear something that makes sense to him — but perhaps not to an adult! He likes to ask all sorts of questions about the road, cars, pedestrians, traffic lights, tralier etc when he is riding in the car with me.  He is a aeroplane and rainbow spotter too! By that I mean, he never fail to point out an aeroplane or rainbow to me when he sees one in the sky. And yes, he asks me questions about the sky too. He asks me once why the sky has such a mixed of colours. See, my son loves to mix colours and he enjoys putting different colours together when he is playing blocks or colouring. He asked me that question one evening when we were driving home and he noticed that he sky has a few layers of colours — blue, orange and pink! He was amazed and kept asking me. Well, to be honest, I have no correct answer to give him except that the sun has a part to play in it. I did promise to look up the answer for him though …. 🙂
Calvin is adjusting well in kindy at the local primary school. He enjoys going to school and playing with his friends. I was on parent duty in his kindy class recently, and now I have an idea of what a typical day is like for him when he is in school. I helped with all sorts of things that required help and I did stencil painting with the children. It was really quite fun. The kids called me Mrs Teo or Calvin’s mum. 🙂 I even had a chance to talk to the teacher and I have to say I am impressed with her. She can remain calm despite the children making lots of noise after given a stern warning. She has an interesting way to deal with them. She engages with children very well and gives an answer to all sorts of questions. What patience she has! There is also a song to almost everything that goes on in the class — when going out to play and coming in, packing up toys, going to lunch, going to toilet etc. The children seem to respond well to songs as they love to sing and through the singing, they learn what is expected of them.
On the social front, Calvin is on the *shy* side, in that he is not one who expresses himself freely. He does play well with the others, but from to time, he finds himself alone, looking for a playmate. I think he has difficulty joining/fitting in a group or asking if he could join them. The teacher has noticed this and has been encouraging Calvin to approach his classmates to play with him. He was the same at his daycare when he first started, but now he plays well with almost everyone there. So I reckon, it is a matter of time.
Calvin is still a good eater, thank God for that. Even his teacher has noticed that and his *healthy* lunch. Yup, the boy is still going strong with his “no ham” policy. I can’t even persuade him to try just a little bit. All he wants for his lunch is his avocado and chicken sandwich with cucumber and cherry tomatoes on the side. I know I should be happy to have a healthy eater!
He plays with his brother pretty well although they still *fight* a lot. You know what? I have recently read that fighting a lot when playing is actually not a bad thing at all if proper reconciliation comes after that. The child actually learns about reconciliation after each fight — able to forgive, able to accept discipline, able to say sorry … all these are aspects of humility. So, I think I’d better put in effort to help mediate whenever the boys get into a fight.
Calvin still loves playing with his blocks and cars. He never seem to get tired of them. The first thing that he wants after coming home from school is to play with his blocks and, of course eat his snack! He loves to build imaginary objects and he talks to himself while he plays. From time to time, he will build something for me and ask if I like it. He likes to include layers of different colours in his creations and I have also noticed that the objects that he builds are symmetrical — both sides are exactly the same, even with the colours. Interesting.
 He loves to wrestle with his dad on the floor. He also likes to sit on his father’s back and and make his dad give him a pony ride. Not only that, he even tries to immobilize his father by *locking* the arms! Calvin really tries, but his dad always end up locking his arms instead! 🙂 What fun.
With Athan, he can be sweet and can be rough too. He still fights a lot with Athan, but we know he loves his brother. There was an incident where Athan was really naughty. He hit his brother and was very defiant. Robin took the fiesty boy aside, disciplined him and said *jokingly* to Calvin that he was going to give Athan away or put him in the bin so that there would be no one to fight with him anymore. Calvin’s reaction was strong. He objected to that suggestion very violently. When Robin took Athan out of the house later in the day, Calvin came running to me crying and said that his “di di” (little brother) was gone! He said he did not want his dad to throw “di di” away and he wanted his little brother back! We did not realise that he would be so upset. When Robin eventually returned with Athan, Calvin was so relieved and happy. It was amazing to see him show so much concern and love for his little brother.
Whenever I drop Calvin at school, I spend a little time with him in the classroom before the teacher rings the bell. We play puzzles together and occasionally, I talk to other mums too. Such times will not last very long because when they reach pre-primary and year 1, the parents will not be allowed to go into the classroom. It will be a “kiss and go” then. I should treasure as much time with my little guy as possible.