I was helping Ryan the nephew with his homework. By that, I mean making him sit down and complete his work without being distracted by the telly, comic books, iPad or friends.

The boy goes to a private school so his assignments tend to be more fun. He was to read a book about visiting Mars as a tourist. It tells you what Mars is, where it is, the planet’s natural harsh conditions and what your fee entails. And that you could either take the Mars Express or detour via the moon.

He had to fill out a worksheet with questions based on the book. After he was done, I went through it and was puzzled. Under “What would you pack for the Mars trip?”, the boy listed ‘microphone’ as one of the items.

“A microphone?? Why do you need a microphone in Mars?? The answers should be in the book! Let me see it.”

So I went through the book. Page for page, word for word. It says that the weather would be unpredictable; dust storms, freezing cold, biting winds. No detection of water in Mars, gravity or the lack thereof might be a problem, and your fee covers the rental of a spacesuit and space shoes.

They tell you all of that and more. But there was absolutely no direct reference to what you should pack for your Mars trip!

That means, you actually have to THINK about the answers!

As a product of Malaysia’s rote learning KBSR/KBSM education system, it completely boggled my mind. And of course, I was completely ashamed for trying to force my downtrodden mentality on the boy.

Yeah get the answers from the book, it’s bound to have direct answers else it’s stupid and THEY (the system) wouldn’t allow such blatant stupidity, don’t bother me until you’re done, if you’re not done or got it wrong then it’s completely your fault and lack of interest, which means punishment time.

The scary part was, I didn’t realise that I was doing it.

Ryan’s sister, whom we shall call Bit2 was a preterm baby. As such, she had to stay in the hospital for a month or so for the doctors to monitor her situation.

Ryan had no choice but to wait patiently for his sister to come home so they could meet for the first time.

The day finally arrived. That morning, Ryan was told that they would be bringing his sister home, maybe sometime later in the evening. Boy, was he excited! He ran and kicked and yelled and prepped himself, wondering about what it would be like, what he would say, and how well he would treat his baby sister.

He would be the bestest big brother! To serve, defend and protect his baby sister from those who dare toy with the idea of doing her grievous harm!

Oooo the very nerve!

It had been a full day of waiting and way past Ryan’s bed time, but finally they brought her in at 11pm.

Our dear Ryan ruuushhhheeddddd to the door, hastily opened it and laid eyes upon his little baby sister.

And his first words to her…

“So small one.”

And he turned around and went off to play.

— — —

To give you an idea of how little Bit2 was, here’s a photo of Ryan when he was 1.5 months old.

And here’s Bit2 at 1.5 months old.

Now they are best of friends.

And enemies.

Ryan being the first baby in our immediate family received a lot of fuss and attention. Long discussions were held on his life path and bright future. The only conclusion that came from all those talks was that we are all dreamers.

Years ago, I was casually chatting with Ryan’s mother on Ryan’s love life when he grows up. Personally I’m conservative liberal, so whoever Ryan would choose as his partner would be generally fine by me.

If nothing else, he’d have his xiao yi’s emotional support 😉

So my sister and I were going on about Ryan’s romantic future. “What if he likes a guy?” I asked, “Would you be okay with it?” “Yes of course!” she exclaimed, “We’ll support him in his decisions!”

She turned to Ryan’s father and said, “If Ryan is gay, we must support him, okay!!!”

He turned around and asked in a serious tone, “What do you mean support? Pay for his sex change operation??”

Ryan’s household has 6 new fat fishes. His job is to feed the fishes everyday, which he does.

One day his grandmother asked him,

“Ryan, did you feed the fish today?”
“Yes”, he replied.
“How much fish food do you give them everyday?”
“6.”

😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯

6 pellets for 6 fishes

“You cannot just give them 6!! You have to feed them more, you know!!”
“Okay.”

The next day, his grandmother asked him again,

“Ryan, did you feed the fish today?”
“Yes”, he replied.
“How much fish food did you give them this time?”
“12.”

One fish gets two pellets, no more no less

In case you’re wondering, now he feeds them a small bunch of pellets 🙂

It’s the boy’s 6th birthday today. Happy birthday Ryan!

Do you remember how you learned to read? I don’t, exactly. It was a blur of alphabets and word posters and Peter and Jane. Thankfully my Mom being a teacher means that we had a lot of reading material lying around in the house.

I think Ryan was having some problems with his reading, generally from a lack of interest. Mom found a solution for that: by writing down lyrics (in big friendly letters) to his current favourite songs, which coincidentally are her favourite 😀

See, big lyrics book with big handwriting for the boy.

… first page is a John Denver classic.

… this is Ryan reading and singing.

And this is Ryan with his evil youngest aunt in her most disheveled because it was at a comfortable place forcing him do everything according to her whim and fancies, in this case laughingly pose for a photograph.

Think it’s working. Ryan seems to enjoy learning to read via his lyrics book. Other oldies but goodies include Moon River, Knock Three Times and Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree. All my favourites too!