Mommy is out of earth!

This was posted on 14 October 2008 in my previous blog.  Here is a reposting.

Wyng drew the earth. His circle was almost perfect. Patches were added (he was drawing with a pencil without any colour pencil with him). I tested him the colour each of the patch signify.


Next, he drew the face of Mommy. He then wrote 'Mommyoutofearth' with no space in between the words. I corrected him and subsequently he wrote it the correct way on another line.


He was elated after completing his drawing and kept chanting 'Mummy out of earth'. I really couldn't manage to get the meaning of his drawing. 

Is there such a thing as brain freeze?

While window-shopping, Wyng walked next to me and held my hand.

Wyng: Mommy, do you know that there is no such thing as a brain freeze?

Mom : Yeah, the brain doesn't freeze. (Mom has to say this as it is a fact, isn't it?)

Wyng: It's just the blood vessels at the roof of the mouth that expand and when blood rush in the blood vessels, we feel like a pain. Our brain does not have any pain sensors. So there is no brain freeze.

Mom's mind is thinking,"Really?". Thanks to all the science documentary programmes and books that he reads. Wyng really gets me thinking and googling to find out the scientific truth of what he said.

Is the sun the smallest star?

When I created the title of this blog, I didn't mean to say real lessons given by my kid to me.  But, Wyng has been feeding me 'lessons' or pieces of knowledge, predominantly about science, whenever he learns them.  He learns all these from his books as well as the television programmes he watches.

"Do you know that the sun is the smallest?" Here goes another one of his questions to me, always trying to test Mom's IQ.

"Huh?" Mom was a little startled.

"You know,right? The sun is a star. And it's the smallest star of all the stars in the space." Wyng explained factually.

"How do you know? From TV or the book?" Mom started to get curious.

"TV la..." was his response.

How many times do we cry?

Wyng : Do you know that we cry 250 trillion times a year? Because our tear glands at the bottom of our eyes release a bit of water droplets to keep our eyes moist, that's why we cry so many times.

Mom : What's moist?

Wyng : It's like moisture. I mean, to keep your eyes from being very dry.

Mom : Where do you read this from?

Wyng : From my book, 'More,Tell Me More'. It's not like those encyclopedia.  All those things about why? why? why? Like, why do people...

Mom : I see.

Lesson learnt : 250 trillion times? Did I hear it wrong? I can't even comprehend this figure. Could it be that when the eyes are moist, it's also considered 'crying'? Yet to know the truth of this new found fact from Wyng.

How to make ice-cream warmer?

"I want to make my ice-cream warmer."

Wyng made a fuss when Hoe bought him a plain vanilla cone sundae instead of chocolate fudge as topping for his sundae. He said the chocolate fudge will make his ice-cream warmer as he doesn't like his ice-cream too cold!

What are you talking about, Wyng?

Enjoy the ice-cream and save money

He savours it as though it is his last.  He will take his own sweet time to eat his favourite ice-cream.  He enjoys it, licks it and doesn't bite until he really has to.

When I tell him to hurry as it will be melting very soon, his answer will be, "Enjoy ma.. Why eat so fast? Waste money!  While he was licking the ice-cream in this video, Mom,Dad and Qo Qo had already finished theirs much earlier.

If only Mom can save money when the kids enjoy and eat their ice-cream ssslowwwly.

What's that black and yellow thing?

Here is something Wyng asked from his favourite joke book.

Wyng : What's black and yellow and buzzes at 35,000 feet?

Answer : A bee in an aeroplane.

There are dozens more jokes that Wyng had memorized from this book.  It has gone to a point when he was reading it day and night.  This obsession will take a while to subside.  After reading (and memorizing) the jokes, he will excitingly test if those jokes are really funny by asking his Daddy, Qo Qo and poor Mom.  Some jokes are quite ok and acceptably funny when we can't answer them.  Some are beyond our imagination.

Whatever they are, one needs to be in good mood to listen to Wyng patiently tell his jokes or ask a joke question.

My kid explains food chain

Wyng and I were watching National Geographic's "Built for the kill, Birds of prey" on television this afternoon.  An eagle was ferociously chasing after a rabbit in the wild. Mom felt a scene when the eagle coldbloodedly tear off the rabbit's flesh with its strong beak disgusting.  To Mom's yucks, Wyng knowledgeably explained, "It's the food chain, food chain is like this one.  We are also like that.

Thinking that I wasn't convinced, he elaborated, "We eat chicken. We cook it and eat it."

Time for Mom to test him. "What's a food chain?"
Wyng: "A grasshopper eats a leaf, a lizard eats grasshoppers. A wolf eats lizards.And then, tigers eat wolves."
Mom further probed, "We also eat junk food."
Wyng enthused, "They are living thing or meat!"
Mom asked again, "So, is food chain important?"
"We need to eat. Every living thing needs to survive, no?"

What did my kid say about adults?

Last month, Wyng said something to us, to my annoyance, in the car. It was his reaction to something which his Dad didn't allow him to do.

"Adults are very good at changing subject.  They do that when they don't like to hear something they don't like."

Can I say he's wrong?

My kid's own IQ tester

He's hooked on it, no doubt, ever since his Dad bought him a book.  He will never get bored of asking us (his Qo Qo, Mom and Dad) his collection of questions.

One fine day, as usual, in the car, an IQ question popped out from him.  He caught Mom in the right mood. 

Wyng : What do you get when you cross sports with a book?
Mom :  Any clue?
Wyng : The answer is a thing. And it's 'something' book.

Mom didn't give up as easily as Wyng has thought with dozens of tries, all with a name of a sport or game plus the word 'book' after it. but none were correct.  Wyng was rather impatient that I wasn't willing to give up and I took so long to solve it. 

'Activity book' is the answer. And, after that, he told us that he created that IQ question.

Wolverine and my kid

Wyng got upset that I accidentally scratched his hand with my long fingernail.  Apologetically but jokingly, Mom said, "Sorry! You think I'm Wolverine who can keep his long nails?"

Wyng asked me as though testing my knowledge," Do you know that wolverine is also a kind of animal? Like a hedgehog.."

Mom, uncertain but kept her cool, "Ok, let me double-check this."  Before I post this on my blog, I searched the online dictionary and true enough, Wyng is right again.

Kids' rattlings - Rome was built on seven hills

Honestly, my Geography is not my strong subject especially when it comes to European countries.  Neither is History.  Well, there is no excuse for being ignorant, I have to admit.

My niece had just came back from a ten-day trip to Netherlands and she also stayed in Rome for two days.  In a short reunion, Wyng posed a question to her older cousin. 

Wyng : Did you go to the seven hills?
Cousin : Huh? (softly)
Mom : (Thinking very hard in her mind) Huh? What hill?

The usual Wyng babbled on and explained that Rome was built on seven hills.  What do those ignorant ones have to say? Nothing, except but to watch him talk in amazement.  The next thing we asked was where did he get to know about Rome.  Thanks to Mom! It was a book about Rome I bought him. 

How horrendous can Uranus be?

It was a Sunday in March. We were in our car on a highway.  A gigantic billboard caught the kids' attention, 'Mars Needs Moms'.  Wyng then concocted 'Venus Needs Dads' which Mom and Dad thought, 'Yeah,you are creative.'

Listen up what he had to say next. He babbled something about the solar system and mentioned planet Uranus. (Are you ready for this?) Wyng split the word Uranus and pronounced it as two words 'Ur (which he pronounced as 'your') anus'!!

We turned to him.  Daddy was speechless, as usual.  Not wanting to give him so much of attention for saying such horrible thing, I gave him a smack and warned him not to say it again.

Lesson from the kid is they can be creative in the wrong way, at times.

Handling kids' questions

In the car while driving ferrying Wyng to school, a question which I thought easy enough for Mom to handle, popped out.

Kid : What's the meaning of insult?
Mom replied : 'Insult' means talk bad about someone to show that he is not as good.
Kid : Like this ah..

I thought the questioning would end there. But, listen up, Mom.
Kid : Then, what is a polite way to tell someone that he is not good?

To this question, Mom was a little stunned and paused like for a good 30 seconds.
Mom : Errr.. maybe a comment first.
Before I even finished the sentence, another question came quickly from him.
Kid : What's the meaning of 'talking behind people's back'?
This is an easy question for Mom.

Mom : It means talking bad about someone when he is not around. Just like how you always complain about Qo Qo (his brother) when he is not around.

No more questions from him after that. Phew....Mom managed to handle all her kid's questions.

Mellowing my kid down

He's too blunt, too vocal, sometimes unstoppable. Well, at least I notice this unpleasant behaviour early and I am doing whatever I can now to tone him down.

He could be murmuring things like 'do you have any brain?', 'are you crazy?', 'what happen to you,huh?', 'why is he so stupid?', 'why are they like that?', etc to family members especially to his Qo Qo and Daddy. And, at times he would be hurling the same remarks about other people he meets and fortunately these words are not audible to others. Otherwise, Mom would have to turn into a mole for a while and go under the burrow.

I keep reminding him that it is rude to say those things. And nobody likes a rude person as a friend. If he continues to behave rudely, he would have no friends or he would get bashed by someone later. The natural reply from him is 'I don't care!'. That's just his response.

Every now and then, I would tell him that everyone likes friendly and nice people. And that he would get blessings (nice things) if he is good to his friends. This has become a habit to me. Since the past couple of weeks, I have been reminding him, 'Be nice'. Not so good a response from him in the beginning. He kind of rebelled when I said those things. But, I notice some positive changes whenever I say those words. He would look at me, smile a little and just keep quiet.