Until recently, that is. I have come to the realisation that although my parents seemed stingy and draconian in denying me my hankerings, they were actually parenting me right. When I had Alison, I promised myself that I would give her everything that she asked for that was reasonable and that was within my ability to give her, because I did not want her to bear a grudge against me like I did against my parents while growing up. She has toys, books, clothes, expensive birthday parties, pricey enrichment classes, holidays overseas – practically everything a child could possibly want, in fact. When she doesn’t get these things, she flies into a sulk and does rude things like cover her face with her book or blanket when we talk to her, roll her eyes, and walk around in a miasma of bad temper.

She has a rich girl’s sense of entitlement that makes me grind my teeth in frustration at what I have done to make her what she is today. Although we are comfortably well-off, we are by no means Rockefellers and she should not go through life thinking that she is so. Toys and books are all very well and good now, but when she is a teenager or older, what will she be asking for? Birkin bags? A condominium apartment for her 21st birthday? A European luxury car? Pocket money even though she is fully capable of working for a salary? Even if we could afford to give her these things, hell will literally freeze over before I give them to her. Because although I have already made the mistake of giving her more than she needs as a child, I am not that stupid as to help her live life as an adult with things falling in her lap at the snap of her fingers.

The question now is, how can I repair the damage that has been done to her psyche? This morning, I grew so angry at her for asking me to order hot cakes from McDonald’s for her not because she wanted to eat them but because she wanted the Happy Meal toy, and sulking when I said I was buying food for breakfast, not toys, that I harangued her about her bad attitude for a good 15 minutes and finished by telling her that she was not to have a birthday party this year because she obviously did not deserve one. I can’t keep shouting at her every time she says or does something princess-y to piss me off, so I really need to find a way to nip this Richie Rich attitude in the bud. Big time.

“See, I have this little thing on my hand.”

“Yes, your thumb was supposed to have been there, but it didn’t grow.”

“Nooooo! My thumb is here! See?” She shoved her right thumb in my face.

Apparently, she no longer thinks that she doesn’t have a thumb, but that she has one thumb and one nubbin. Sometimes it takes a 3-year old to teach you that you are in charge of your own perspective.

Sometimes you just have to be creative to deal with your kid's unreasonable demands - in this case, insisting on being read a multi-chapter version of Cinderella instead of the abridged Ladybird version during bedtime story time.

Both had mostly good things to say about the Allycat. Her English is excellent, her Maths is good and her Chinese, well, her reading and writing are good but her speaking, not so much. When the Chinese teacher found out that we never speak Chinese at home, a light bulb came on and he told K he now understands why Alison is so reticent about speaking up during Mother Tongue class. However, she is otherwise “very communicative”. “You mean she’s talkative,” K said to the form teacher, which earned a chuckle and assent.

The form teacher also told Alison that she really enjoys reading her English compositions, and that she found Alison’s habit of whipping out a book to read as soon as she finished her work a very good one. However, because Ally wants to get to her book as soon as she can, she tends to rush through her work – which results in mistakes, of course. We see this at home too, with her homework and Kumon worksheets.

I love how politically correct this progress report is. EE stands for "exceeding expectations", ME for "meeting expectations" and AE for "approaching expectations".

Then the issue of making Alison a prefect was raised. Alison’s teacher told her, “I wanted to make you a prefect this year but I think you’re not ready. You keep forgetting to bring things to school!” K explained that this was because she had us and Emily to pack her bag for her last year, which reduced the incidence of forgetting things, but this year we have been making her pack her own bag to instill personal responsibility in her. So inevitably there are days when she goes to school without a textbook, or a workbook, or some other item that she is supposed to bring for class. When her form teacher heard K’s explanation, she said it’s a good practice to make Alison responsible for her own stuff, but she won’t put her up as a nominee for prefect until she sees that Alison can make improvements in this area.

So, the gauntlet is thrown. Will Alison get to be a prefect as she has been hoping since last year? Stay tuned.

In other news, Alison walked to the shops to buy something for the very first time last weekend. We’ve been rather reluctant to let her because heaven knows our neighbourhood has some weird stuff going on (in the night, at least) and she’s still rather young to be traipsing around by herself, but she looked at us with pleading eyes and so we said, fine, you can try just the one time. She went with four dollars in her hand and returned safely with a carton of soya bean milk, pleased as punch at having the chance to play the grown-up.

Alison's deep tan is throwing off my camera's auto colour balance.

Of course, after that, K started making her do things like fetch him a drink – after all, when you’re grown-up you do the shitty stuff along with the good stuff, right? But I don’t know if we’ll let her repeat this exercise. She knows about stranger danger, but as my mum pointed out, she has to walk past a few doors on the way to the shops and there really is no telling what could happen even if she takes precautions to stay safe. A friend reminded me today to teach her about safe touch – I must find an opportunity to talk to her about that too.

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity" - Proverbs 17:17

Zoe is down with asthmatic cough yet again. We had to take her to Dr A this evening to see if it was just the normal cough or something worse. Too many prolonged hospital stays and late-night trips to the ER do make you jaded about your kids’ health, but they also make you more paranoid. Thankfully, it was the normal cough in a slightly more aggravated form.

Whenever Zoe gets these coughing bouts, it’s always the same medications: Singulair, Prospan, Duro-Tuss and increased doses of Flixonate and Ventolin. My sister informs me that Duro-Tuss is just a placebo, but I suppose it’s comforting to think that we are doing something to help Zoe get better. She has just come off a month of Zaditen, so her previously-perennial runny nose has cleared up. We just have to get her through this round and hopefully, she will be cough-free for one month, which is Dr A’s benchmark for either taking her off Flixonate, or changing that to something stronger.