A Day of Dealing with Sibling Rivalry (and Simba Chewed My Slippers!!)

Today, i went to give tuition to my cute little kids as usual... It started out bad everytime... Haiz... Kids... Although i love them, there always comes a time when i have to deal with the not-so-cute part of them. Today is one of those days.

First, i woke up too early this morning, just to have breakfast with my family. So i ended up being too early for tuition. I arrived at Olin's house at 15 mins past 10 when i'm not expected till 11. Never mind. So i waited at their lobby till about 10.45 then i made my appearance at their doorstep. All seems fine until i'm told that both Dan and Olin will be tutored by me today (usually its only Olin cos Dan is fine with Chinese). Well, i ain't upset with it cos i do like tutoring Dan (he's just soooo Cute!!!! if i ever manage to upload the photos from my phone to the com, i'll post it here.) However, the brother rivalry thingy is something i have to be careful of. Cos, you see, Dan and Olin are only two years apart and Olin is only ten this year. So the brother rivalry thingy is very strong. (and getting stronger as the days go by, if i might add!)

Well, things can't be helped so i have to think fast on how to tutor them both at the same time, so i tried to deploy the same method i used the last time. It worked fine the last time so i figured this time should be no different. I was WRONG. What happened was that these few days, there has been a soccer dispute between the two of them so nothing at the moment could cease the fire between them. Their parents thought i could work some charm but apparently it didn't work (with Olin, at least) So my hour is spllit between tutoring Dan first, while Olin gets a "heart-to-heart" talk with his dad. Although many (and me, at first) would have preferred to tutor Dan, now my heart goes out to Olin cos he is actually a very smart kid. And i'm quite taken to him. He is very nice when he's good. And he never ever talks back at me.

Well, turns out the heart-to-heart talk did some good and by the time Olin returns, he is all well again. His only condition is that he do not want to do tuition with Dan. So, i had to finish up with Dan, gave hime some homework and start tutoring Olin. The session turns out good and when i left their house that day, Olin remarked that "It is good to be tutored by me." I was so happy!!!

But the happiness didn't last long... I was apprehensive on my way to the next tuition class: Kyland and Bali's house. Becos the last time i went, i promised Kyland that i will find out the Chinese names of her favorite flowers for her ( which i forgot due to heavy school work) and the fact that i will be trying to get her to study for her spelling tests (which she absolutely hates!) Things weren't looking too good as i tried to crack my brain to find my way out of it on my way to her house.

Luckily for me, kyland forgot about the flowers the moment we started class. Before i could comment on anything, she said:"Mommy said we were going to do flowers this week, but she forgot we did it last week already. This week i wanna do something new, can i??" Phew!!! It was definitely a relief. Of cos i said yes!! :P

However, when i took out the spelling sheet, her face changed. i had to talk to her nicely and convince her that it is not her spelling lesson that i am worried about (of cos i wasn't. She has been exempted from her chinese exams cos she's a foreigner.) However, she looked ready to cry even as i tried to talk to her nicely. Plus, there was Bali to deal with. As with Onlin and Dan, there exists sister rivalry between Kyland and Bali. They are both two years apart as well. *Sigh*

I managed to convince Kyland that the spelling test is going to be just another part of the tuition and it is not expected of her to get tops for her spelling test. However, there is a condition that i can only start the following week cos i have to get her another book to write the spelling tests in. (she doesn't want to dirty her "favorite" book by writing spelling words in them. Kids... *rolls eyes*) Once i'm done with Kyland and started her out on some writing, i turned back to Bali.

Bali is a very active girl and has not been to preschool. She is to start her education straight at Primary One in a local school and she does not know any word at all. I have to start at the very beginning with her. So i made her write Chinese words and start pronouncing them the right way. However, unlike Kyland, Bali do not revise her work and she don't remember the words after she wrote them. As her teacher, i have to make her repeat those words until she can remember them. Thta's what triggered her tears... She started ranting about how she just cannot remember and she's jealous when Kyland tried to show her how it isn't hard to remember those words and proudly rattled off those words that she has learnt from our previous lessons. That just didn't sit well with Bali at all. She started crying then. *rolls eyes*

I had to hug her and to talk to her nicely, even asking if she would like to do other stuffs instead. After some mutterings and red-eye sniffs, she told me that she would like to try memorising that again. Good. After several tries and a few more sniffs (not to mention some good-nature "mistakes" made by Kyland to show Bali that everyone makes mistakes; Kyland is a really sweet girl actually) Bali finally did it!! Phew!! As a reward, the housemaid (another sweet philipino) agreed to make them popcorns.

Just when i thought everything is coming to a good end, that's when i saw simba. Simba is one of their dogs (they actually have two dogs, three cats and three tortoises int he house!), a Labrador. He is huge, even though he is only four months old. And he loves to punce on me and try to lick my face. Yes, i love dogs but i dun wanna be licked. When he doesn't heed my command to sit (although he usually do), kyland will come help me pull him away (you'll be suprised how sure-handed these girls are when it comes to handling the big dogs!!) Well, i guess that's why he took his sweet revenge on my slippers. :-(

Not only did he chew my slippers, he also scratched me... :-( Stuck with no slippers and with an arm of scratches, u can imagine just how bad i looked. Luckily, i could borrow one of the slippers from the house-maid and i hurried off to get myself another pair of slippers. Just in case, i bought another pair of $6.90 slippers. Hope that this episode won't repeat itself again... *sigh*

Well, as much as i love kids, the day didn't go too well today. Hope that it will be better next week. On top of that, hope that i can finish my studies in time for the exams as well. I seem to be lagging behind my schedule. Damn, i can't believe i took an hour just to write this!!!! haha... Gotta get back to studying now..

Until next time!!