Babysitting
Last night my church had a family ministry night so Serena (my junior from RGS netball who is now in Boston and attending the same church as me) and I agreed to help the adults baby-sit their kids. 10 little bouncy kids in all, from 3 different families, breakdown is 4-4-2. Anyway I think my church would be very welcomed in Singapore due to their amazing ability to reproduce. The senior pastor has 7 kids. So anyway, I thought, how hard can it be right, take care of 10 kids for 3 hours. No problem lah.
WHOA. You see, taking care of these kids is probably like running a country. You can’t take your eyes off any of them, if you do so there’s a huge risk of revolt. Or the citizens will endanger their own lives (by putting rubbish into their mouths). There are so many intricate interpersonal relationships to balance. So ok, we played monkey. Simple? Nooooo. You have one kid who die die also always want to be monkey, so he will purposely throw the ball to the current monkey to catch. Other kids buay song, complain. Complaint evolves into fight which becomes Cry. One kid threatens to run upstairs to complain to his dad that he hates the Monkey game. The rest say who cares, they will just continue. What should I do?
1) Stop the game, anger 5 kids but no complaints to the adults upstairs
2) Let them go on playing and risk the adult coming down to the basement for inspection
3) Think of another game that everyone will play
Meanwhile, the 2 one-year-olds keep trodding around the basement risking their own lives because there are flying scooters and big bouncing balls and Little Tikes cars.
Scene 2. After the Monkey fiasco, Mao orders all kids to go upstairs and watch video. For a while, perfect siah… everyone happy run upstairs sit on bed (except for the 2 one year olds). Turn on video… barely started…. They start fighting on the bed over who gets to sit at the edge of the bed. Then the oldest boy wants to turn off the lights but the girls dowan and keep screaming. Scream evolves into Cry. Ok fine Mao says “leave the lights on!”. Ten minutes later (obviously the kids weren’t even watching the video at all, can’t blame them cos the one they chose was about some boring fat caterpillar who keeps coughing and eventually is supposed to turn into a butterfly) they want to change activity and play hide and seek.
Chaos. Mao sets the rules already but 2 seconds later there erupts a fight about whether they can play in the dark (i.e. switch off the lights). Girls cry. Mao says leave the lights on. Boys cry say no fun. But ok lah in the end, got consensus to play with lights on. Choose seeker also takes like 5 minutes. Fight fight fight everyone wants to be seeker. Then choose already, seeker anyhow count 1 to 20. “1 skip skip skip 10 skip skip 20”. Complain complain complain no time to hide.
Mao is very amused at this stage. Ok fast forward to 8.30pm. Fwah finally the parents are done. Exhausting sia.
Ok to entertain you --
This is what Mao looked like:
Last night my church had a family ministry night so Serena (my junior from RGS netball who is now in Boston and attending the same church as me) and I agreed to help the adults baby-sit their kids. 10 little bouncy kids in all, from 3 different families, breakdown is 4-4-2. Anyway I think my church would be very welcomed in Singapore due to their amazing ability to reproduce. The senior pastor has 7 kids. So anyway, I thought, how hard can it be right, take care of 10 kids for 3 hours. No problem lah.
WHOA. You see, taking care of these kids is probably like running a country. You can’t take your eyes off any of them, if you do so there’s a huge risk of revolt. Or the citizens will endanger their own lives (by putting rubbish into their mouths). There are so many intricate interpersonal relationships to balance. So ok, we played monkey. Simple? Nooooo. You have one kid who die die also always want to be monkey, so he will purposely throw the ball to the current monkey to catch. Other kids buay song, complain. Complaint evolves into fight which becomes Cry. One kid threatens to run upstairs to complain to his dad that he hates the Monkey game. The rest say who cares, they will just continue. What should I do?
1) Stop the game, anger 5 kids but no complaints to the adults upstairs
2) Let them go on playing and risk the adult coming down to the basement for inspection
3) Think of another game that everyone will play
Meanwhile, the 2 one-year-olds keep trodding around the basement risking their own lives because there are flying scooters and big bouncing balls and Little Tikes cars.
Scene 2. After the Monkey fiasco, Mao orders all kids to go upstairs and watch video. For a while, perfect siah… everyone happy run upstairs sit on bed (except for the 2 one year olds). Turn on video… barely started…. They start fighting on the bed over who gets to sit at the edge of the bed. Then the oldest boy wants to turn off the lights but the girls dowan and keep screaming. Scream evolves into Cry. Ok fine Mao says “leave the lights on!”. Ten minutes later (obviously the kids weren’t even watching the video at all, can’t blame them cos the one they chose was about some boring fat caterpillar who keeps coughing and eventually is supposed to turn into a butterfly) they want to change activity and play hide and seek.
Chaos. Mao sets the rules already but 2 seconds later there erupts a fight about whether they can play in the dark (i.e. switch off the lights). Girls cry. Mao says leave the lights on. Boys cry say no fun. But ok lah in the end, got consensus to play with lights on. Choose seeker also takes like 5 minutes. Fight fight fight everyone wants to be seeker. Then choose already, seeker anyhow count 1 to 20. “1 skip skip skip 10 skip skip 20”. Complain complain complain no time to hide.
Mao is very amused at this stage. Ok fast forward to 8.30pm. Fwah finally the parents are done. Exhausting sia.
Ok to entertain you --
This is what Mao looked like:
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