Second Grade

School is back in session and this year Little A is a second grader.

He is in his same old classroom, but this time with a new pair of teachers and a new group of classmates. He's been grouped with most of the neurotypical children in his year, and instead of spending half the day in an IEP program with a different bunch of kids and the other half in his "proper" classroom like he did in the first grade, this year he spends all day in the second grade room, apart from three pullouts a week for therapy (speech, occupational, and music, to be specific).

I worried he would have a hard time sitting still the entire day, but was told by his OT that they put a special cushion on Little A's chair that allowed him to bounce and rock as he prefers (in a manner that drives Big A, who is not without his own fidgets, incidentally, crazy at home!). We have also noticed that he happily picks up pens and other writing implements at home and scribbles on any old writing area - the backs of used envelopes, random receipts etc. So this is a good development.

Little A also has specific tasks - he is Schedule Monitor on Thursdays. This means he keeps track of the time and the lesson on that particular day. Each "subject" is posted on the board in a vertical row and at the end of each one, the sign is taken off and placed in the finished bin for return the next morning. This is a job my little boy takes quite seriously!

Finally, they have a new uniform. The white polo shirts drove all the parents crazy the past year as they showed dirt so quickly and were nearly impossible to rid of paint, ink and assorted stains the children would naturally get on them in the course of a day. The new shirts are a nice navy, and the only "dirt" Little A's regularly sports now is cat hair from our white furred pet.

There is a PE uniform as well, for Tuesdays and Thursdays, consisting of an aertex-type (or whatever they call the newfangled sweat-wicking material workout clothes are made of these days) fabric, also in navy with white side stripes. Very smart.

So the new academic year has begun. May it go well for Little A, his teachers, his classmates and the rest of the ever-growing school's roster of pupils and staff.

Getting Ready for the Big One

One week into Little A's summer school session, the teachers sent home a letter that informed parents that each child must bring an emergency kit packed with food, water, comfort objects, a flashlight, whistle and emergency contact information to school as part of their earthquake and disaster preparedness initiative.

Apart from finding out that your child is seriously ill or disabled, nothing can be more sobering for a parent that having to prepare such a kit. 

It took me over two weeks to get Little A's things together, and I am still waiting for his plastic Emergency Contact card to arrive. Knowing his challenges, I included a notebook and pencil, a pair of scissors for his box of cornflakes, a handheld bell on a key ring (he has a hard time blowing a whistle) and broke the safety seals on his bottles of water. 

Even still, I hesitate to send the bag to school because there might be something else I've missed out. Or maybe I don't want to accept the reality that Doomsday might happen when our family is separated. 

The students and teachers spent the summer school session running repeated earthquake drills in between academic sessions. Better safe than ignorant, particularly in a school with a significant population of young special needs pupils.

So Little A is as prepared as he can be. He is actually safer in his one storey school that I am in my ground level shop at the mall, or Big A in his low-rise office building. 

I've also updated our home emergency kit and put togeher one each for our cars. Now we can only hope and pray that the Big One doesn't happen in this lifetime.

Amazing Eight

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Little A is no longer so little. Coming up nearly to my shoulder, he still seems like a small boy when he slips his hand in mine and runs into school in the mornings. But besides being taller, he is growing up in all other ways boys do and becoming more independent. This is a bittersweet truth all parents realise.

We celebrated his eighth birthday in our favourite mountain getaway, and this trip my parents, sister and two nieces came along too. Little A was delighted when they set up a surprise birthday welcome in their room, working late into the night and early in the morning inflating and hanging up balloons, buntings and preparing presents he joyfully opened.

The cousins went horseback riding together, tried bowling and just hung out, spending time in each other's company. I am truly grateful for this latest memory of family fun Little A experienced, and look forward to many more. As the ages of my sisters' children range from 20 to seven, no two cousins are the same age, making it that much harder to arrange suitable play dates. But we make do when we can.

On our return to the city, a storm resulted in summer school being called off for three days. Little A's school birthday celebration took place a full week after his birthday, and consisted of cupcakes in a paper ferris wheel at school, buntings, balloons, and loot bags for his half-dozen classmates which he wrote on carefully and distributed properly.

Birthday parties are much less stressful for us now that Little A is learning to tolerate noise and bustle. Also, as he gets older parties are less frenetic than those for younger children, with smaller numbers of children attending and less organised activity.

The last weeks of summer are upon us. Soon, a new academic year begins. We will enjoy these final days of freedom from the alarm clock. Cheers to summer!

Supermarket Run

It's been a while since Little A has accompanied me to the supermarket. We used to go together all the time, in the days when I could just pop him in the trolley and open a box of cornflakes for him to munch on while I got everything on the grocery list.

As he got older and began spending whole days at school, I took to doing the weekly shop as soon as the supermarkets opened, after the school run. Sometimes in the afternoons he would come with me to get one or two things, but most of the time he preferred to stay home.

Recently though, he has been putting out his toy shopping basket and filling it with produce from our refrigerator. I asked if he wanted to accompany me to the supermarket and, on agreeing, he was the most efficient helper, putting in the correct number of items into the shopping trolley, and adding numerous vegetables of his own choice.

Since re-discovering the joys of grocery shopping, he now wants to go regularly, which makes me worry a little for the month-end bill but also ensures our larder is never empty. Apart from his obvious favourite snacks, Little A is becoming familiar with the other things we need for the home.

Next up, kitchen duties. Hopefully within the next few months, I will have a proper little household helper.

Beach Trip

Summer is upon us and we are feeling the heat. Despite living in an archipelago, our family has not made many beach trips in the past ten years. Little A is used to our mountain holidays, which is where we choose to escape twice a year to enjoy cooler weather.

Before meeting me, in his twenties Big A used to spend every weekend under water. He is a licensed Technical Diver and earned his certification with hundreds of hours spent in the sea. I, on the other hand, am more comfortable on land, and prefer to lie on the sand working on a perfect tan.

We went on some beach trips until we were married, but when Little A came along we only managed one as a family, as our son did not like sand. We planned to rectify this and go on more beach trips together, and one opportunity came along just as the school year ended.

The parents at Little A's school have a support group that meets monthly. Sometimes we have a guest speaker, other times we just have breakfast and share stories. Certain months are given to family activities, and we decided summer should be one of these.

One parent recommended a beach resort just three hours' drive from the city, so we booked some rooms and headed there the day after the school's end of year show. There were about six families in all, and it was a very enjoyable weekend.

While I settled our bags in our room, Big A took Little A down to the water to see the sea. I came down a few minutes later to find Little A fully dressed, in the water. After racing back for his swim trunks and changing into swimwear myself, I joined him and tried to keep up as he swam off with incredible speed and ease, despite the salt water, towards the nearest outrigger boat.

Big A came back down in his swimwear just as I despaired of ever catching up with our son. Little A is a self-taught, confident swimmer with no fear of depths, and he headed off to a raft that was maybe fifty yards from shore and anchored in 30 feet or more of water. Big A kept up with him easily, and I lagged behind, taking photos.

We enjoyed the sunset from the raft, and the next morning rented a boat to take us to a nearby island with a sandy bottom. Little A loved the boat ride and the morning swim, climbing up at wooden outrigger and jumping into the water repeatedly until we had to go back to check out of the resort.

In the days following, Little A would ask to go back to the beach, crying when we told him it had to be planned well in advance. We will plan the next one, seeing as how he enjoyed this one, and look forward to many family beach trips in the future.

Hungarian Dance

Little A has finished the First Grade. I couldn't quite believe it, even when I attended the year's final Parent-Teacher Conference and verified that he did indeed accomplish the set work required by the national curriculum to move up to Second Grade.

In a week or so, he starts Summer School, a five week half-day academic and IEP programme to prepare for the coming school year. I understand this means no more taking shoes off in the classroom, more seated writing work and less floor-based play learning. I hope he matures enough to cope with the demands of the coming year, but have confidence that he will since he has pleasantly surprised us at every turn.

More importantly, he seems to genuinely love school. The first few days of the holidays he seemed at a bit of a loss, and one morning put on his uniform and got his school bag and lunch box and instead on going to school.

Another thing he truly loved was the end-of-term programme. This year, the school had on its staff the first licensed music therapist in the country, who would give weekly lessons to each class and private lessons to certain students, among them Little A.

Teacher B did an amazing job at the Christmas concert, which Big A and I unfortunately missed due to an out-of-town wedding. The end-of-year concert though, was an even bigger production. The increase in students meant the parent audience would no longer fit in the school's small car park. So a nearby convention hall became the venue for the school show.

Little A has long been obsessed with stage performances. He watches them on YouTube, but has been overwhelmed whenever we have tried taking him to children's concerts. But as a performer rather than a member of the audience, I hoped he would focus on the music and the dance rather than the inevitable applause which still bothers him but he has conditioned himself to accept.

Once the class had walked through the theatre and gotten familiar with the layout, three mornings of run throughs and rehearsals took place before the actual show. Little A's class was doing a Hungarian dance composed of 16 children, each little boy partnered with a little girl. It was a long piece of music, well over 3 minutes, and I was amazed that all the kids had the choreography down perfectly.

All the classes did an amazing job, but I was proudest of my Little Prince, as his female classmates described Little A when he first entered their backstage room in his "costume" of dark trousers, long sleeved shirt and black vest. He danced, he bowed, he did lose it onstage during the awarding of the certificates, but he calmed down soon afterwards, and no one is perfect.

So ends another academic year. Two down, eleven to go. Bring it on, Grade Two!

Present Perfect

In the Philippines, there is a travel tradition called pasalubong, which involves bringing back small presents for loved ones at home. It is a thoughful gesture that lets one's nearest and dearest know you were thinking of them on yout travels and wanted them to have a small token from that city.

These days, with budget airfares and improved road systems making travel much more accessible, the pasalubong tradition may not be so frequently practiced.

Among childhood friends though, it is very much alive.

As teens, my best friend N and I were lucky to have spent every other summer in Europe. I was at boarding school in the UK, so my parents and legal guardian invested in a London flat where various family members could stay during their trips over. This included my second family that is N's. When her parents and brothers went to America instead, she would still come to London with my mum, dad and sisters.

In later years, it would be just my sister, N and myself. We would spend a few weeks in London and a few days somewhere "on the Continent". Rome, Florence, Venice, and Vienna were some of the cities we explored when we weren't pounding the pavements of London. Those memories are priceless, and to this day we have small items that remind us of certain trips.

When we graduated from university, started working, and then married and had kids, the threesome trips stopped, but the travels didn't. Instead of visiting new places together, we would see them with our own families, and always bring back something for each other no matter where in the world we might find ourselves.

N's family have been bitten by the cruise bug, so she has been trying to convince me and Big A to try one with them. We look forward to the day we will travel together again, whether it be on a solo girls' trip (the big 4-0 is coming up) or with our husbands and kids on a large ship. Until that day, each time we travel, no matter how near or far, we will come back bearing presents for the other.