It’s time to update a little bit about Ben at the age of 5. If not, if he asks one day how he was at 5, I am not sure whether I can recall everything. Anyway, I don’t want him to upset after he reads this post one day. So, I will give more credits to his positive side rather than negative side. Well, it’s biased but I guess every parents should be biased in the sense that they should be more positive about their kids rather than being negative.

First, we are surprised that his Mandarin has super-improved in the past 6 months. Our neighbor was surprised after he suddenly talked to her fluently in Mandarin. The credit goes to his teachers and friends who speaks more Mandarin than English at school and, of course to Daddy who talks to him in Mandarin these days.

Second, his reading skill and Maths skills seem to be improved too. He tries to read book at home. But he is still better in reading English than Mandarin. He can also calculate just by thinking. As for writing, it is really funny that he sometimes mistakenly write similar letters and numbers such as b and d, 6 and 9, p and q. I had to relate them to pictures to make him remember whether turns left or right, up or down.

Third, more than often and before, he gives-in to his sister’s demands instead of fighting back. Yes, this little girl has mastered the art to “bully” Ko Ko at times. Recently, she is the chief TV controller of our house since she has learned to switch to her cartoon channels by recognizing the numbers on remote control. When Ben watches big boys’ cartoon, she will switch to little girls’ cartoon. Sometimes she simply monopolizes the toys. Ben is like helpless and just complains to us and grumbles but does not fight with her. So, Cat-Dog fight has reduced but we are left with the big task to control this little girl.

Fourth, he has learned to like new foods that he did not like before, such as beef, chicken, pork, prawn, squid, fish, sour soups, tomato, lettuce, peach, plum, ambala. He enjoys yummy gravy of Burmese style curry such as beef with potato, pork with potato. We are very happy that he is eating adult food. His new discovery is scrambled duck egg with butter, salt and pepper. Herbal egg too!

Fifth, his drawing skill has improved. There are many nice pictures we have not shared on this blog. i think he has got photographic memory that makes him draw some cartoon characters without looking at them.

The other side of him, well… as I said, is nothing to brag about but, to put it in better way, we still struggle in making him obedient. He often says ” let me do what I want” :). Now Mo Mo picked it up and said it recently. Another thing we may complain about is that he’s still slow eater. He’d be fast only after vigorous exercise like swimming or running around for football.

What else? We should not forget that he has been a VIP at his school because he has got privilege to play with toys or draw what he likes, while other kids write in evening classes. He’s got the power! to control the teachers. Some time ago, teacher asked him to write Mandarin but he wrote “I love You” full page 😀 . On top of that, we are moving him to a ‘better’ nursery with fun-learning environment rather than write, write, write again, all work, no play.  Anyway, he’s just 5-years-old,  so what do we expect? But, who knows he will miss his special friend if he leaves this current school. We caught them saying “bye bye” and “I love you” to each other when Daddy picked him up once.. ha ha.. 🙂 😀