Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

I came across an interesting post today: a fellow blogger is lamenting about the state of parenting in Singapore, where kids 9 years old still weaned on the milk teat.

At first sight, it seems that the golden age where kids start out on the cup as early as 3 to 4 years old is over, and that brats nowadays remain very much attached to their milk bottles.

I remember being weaned off the teat when I was around 3 years old. It wasn’t so much about my parents weaning off me, I was too keen to start on cups, after little me saw my older cousins drinking from it.

Eventually, the obsession probably got too big, and I begged for the cup. My parents had foresight, and bought me a nice little blue plastic cup, complete with a covered top, and a mouthpiece that I could bite into. I would grip the two handles on the cup with my chubby little fingers, and made a mess all over the bib the first time I tried to drink from it.

Strangely, that was exciting for me, and I beamed happily at being wet. (Curiously enough, I didn’t appreciate the same experience after enlisting into National Service.) Mom pooh-poohed at me, especially when I was the single son at that time. I guess she might have had second thoughts about giving me another brother after all the crazy stunts the young tyke did around the household.

But that was my first attempt out of the milk bottle. Strangely, I did not miss it a single bit. The chewing part was nice, but I appreciated chewing on straws better. So Mom happily swapped my bottle for the plastic cup, modified with a bendable straw that allowed me to suck to my heart’s content.

For that matter, I did not believe that I was an early switcher. My brother weaned off the bottle when he was in primary two. That is around 8 years of milk bottles in his life. Like in direct opposition to me, he craved for the milk bottle, and disliked the cup so much that he would throw his cup (hand-me-downs from mine; I had upgraded to a porcelaine cup by then) whenever my parents tried to introduce him to the smiley face on the cup. Even so, he appears to have developed as properly as I did.

That is, unless you believe there is something wrong with both of us.

The moral of the story: I don’t think that a kid who is weaned off the bottle late is spoilt, just a late graduate to the cup. He probably is just too attached to the chewy little teat that the teeth can grind its newly found sharps on. Of course, it is no excuse for not attempting to introduce him to the wonders of the straw, and eventually place him on the cup regime.

But it is really odd to see a 9 year old drinking milk on the lap of a maid in the train. You would more likely to expect him to be hopping on the seat, perhaps fidgeting around, and disturbing the maid instead.

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I can definitely feel my stomach swell, and it isn’t a baby.

I’ll admit the truth: I have been a slob recently, wilfully ignoring my much-needed exercise in exchange for hours of entertainment in MapleStory. As if seeing my in-game character hack and slash away could reduce the growth.

The problem is that I got hooked. And with a job to take care of, and my part-time writing course to handle, there simply isn’t any time for me to keep at it without making some sacrifices. The rest was history.

But the flab was definitely bigger than usual, so I was pipped enough to take drastic measures.

I went swimming.

Foreign readers wouldn’t have realised the serious implications of swimming during this month (needless to say, so are most of the locals too!), which is rooted to a local folklore. The Chinese population here believes that swimming during the seventh lunar month is dangerous.

What happens is that the flood gates of hell opens, and spirits are given one-month visit passes to our world, a welcome hiatus to their incessant suffering.
Living descendants of the deceased then lay out feasts on the first day of the lunar month for these spirits to eat. That is why there is so much incense burning going on. The ashes that fly around may irritate the uninitiated, but it is crucial not to step on them, as it invites spirits to possess the victim.

The spirits like to play around, so kids are often restrained, or locked up in the house to reduce the possibility of trouble. Swimming pools are avoided like plague, the rumours of water ghosts grabbing an unlucky swimmer weighing heavily on everyone’s mind.

Well, not for me, initially. I was so determined to cut the flab, I had forgotten this. By the time I realised it, I was already on the bus, and halfway to the swimming pool.

“What the heck, I’ll just get on with it,” I thought.

The swimming pool was surprisingly filled, probably with non-believers, and ardent swimmers whom would do anything for their daily exercise fix. With the sun baking the ground like a huge oven, I stripped to my trunks, and hurriedly dipped into the pool. I didn’t want people to ogle at the tyre that was slowly inflating around my waist.

Surprisingly, I could still sustain a 1.6km for one hour, though I had to stop a few times to clear the fog in the googles, adjust the straps, or to ogle at the girls — pathetic excuses for me to catch my breath — I managed to propel past better-endowed swimmers. It felt kind of good.

Though the huge flab was still around, I figure that it should be reducible with a few more runs, and perhaps an odd swimming session: if I could afford to bare the buldging waist.

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