Saturday, September 1, 2007

To laugh or to cry?

Sometimes I dont know whether I should be laughing or crying? Some of my friends think it is funny, but I dont think so.

My son, N, who will be turning 8 next month, has been driving me up the wall and round the bend. I just cant get him to do anything. There will be excuses all the time. There will always a reason. I have hiccups, I am thirsty, I need to poo, I am tired, I am itching, I need a snack, I need to check my e-mail, I need to tell Grandma something. The list is endless. All this just to delay doing homework - even if it will only take him 10 minutes to finish his homework. He would rather fight with me over the doing of homework for more than an hour when it can be done in less than half the time. I keep telling him to just finish it and then you are free to do whatever you want. But - irritating and fighting with mum is more fun, I guess. Including getting a stroke of the cane.

Recently, he has picked up this disgusting habit of burping intentionally. No amount of reasoning and explaining will keep him from doing it. He thinks it is funny. He even keeps count of the number of burps, and the record so far is two hundred and something in a day. He even asks me what song I like, he can burp to that tune!! The worst part is, Little D, who finds it so amusing, is trying to pick it up! AND, I have to put up with it.

Another thing which my friends find SO funny is the songs that he teaches Little D. He mangles the song up, or makes up his own words and teaches them to Little D. Poor Girl, in all her innocence, is learning them and singing them so proudly, whilst I cringe. When I tell her Big Brother has taught her the wrong words, she says: "NO! It is correct." One such song is: Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The version he has taught her is : "Head and Shoulders, Dig your nose". And Little D does it with all the actions too!

Would you be laughing if you were in my shoes? Tell me: Should I laugh or cry??

9 comments:

Sasha Tan said...

haha sometimes i think about this question also. To cry or to laugh when they do things like this?

NomadicMom said...

When it happens to you, then you would want to tear your hair out or vomit blood. But when you read it in someone else's blog, it's funny...

Seems like your son is less than 1/2 year older than mine... So, also going through the SAME gush of hormones. I just posted today about their testosterone gushing out.... :-)

Mine also burps deliberately..and he thinks it's funny. ANd would attempt to BURP the ABCs too...

iml said...

My two girls age 10 and 17 read the your post: broke out laughing.
To answer your question: Laugh. Just a passing phase of growing up.

Jonzz said...

Hmm, the way I see it, you can look at it positively or negatively.

I think your son is exercising some creativity. If you pretend not to be affected by the behaviour, I suspect it will wear off quickly.

It's also great that your children get along very well and have fun.

stay-at-home mum said...

OMG! I have underage children reading my blog!! Must make sure everything is age appropriate. I only thot mums, and some dads (or wannabes) read it -

The phase has been going on for a long long time. Some friends also think he is so creative when they read some of the poems he has written. I really dont know. Maybe be must put him on some hormone controlling pills.

bp said...

Haha, I laughed too reading your account, like nomadicmum said, because it all must be quite hilarious.

But my soon-to-be 7 year-old will also do anything and everything just to put off doing his homework. So I understand how frustrating it is, but of course he doesn't understand what I mean whenever I liken it to vomitting blood!

iml said...

Only this post. I thought they should be aware that most mums have the same problems like me. My girl used to burp really loud!!

Unknown said...

Wah! 8 year old son checks email. Hmmm I din have that when I was a kid!

stay-at-home mum said...

Yes, keropok man - his teacher sends him emails to remind him to bring certain books or to do certain online assignments. My time, ah, dont even know what a computer was then.