Emotions In Motion

Everything about Barney creeps me out. The purple suit, that pedo voice, and the way he likes to jump about. And despite me having very little love for this Purple Prince of Paedophilia, his creators found it necessary to further torment me with their threat of a lawsuit not so long ago. Ugh!

Unfortunately, Jesse (the little traitor) is completely enamoured.

It started awhile back when an ex-colleague Pinky bootlegged a copy for me. "He'll learn plenty," Pinky twittered. Maybe it was the fact that she raised 3 kids on Barney, or perhaps it was her mesmerising... erm... twitter(*ahaks*), I was sold. And along with me, my boy too.

One year and some 20 Barney VCDs later - all originals, mind you - Jesse actually learns stuff. Lately, he's begun to understand the concept of emotion, thanks to Barney's Happy Mad Silly Sad VCD. And he puts it to good use too.

Whenever we made him eat, or if we stopped him during his favourite activity, he'd put on his saddest little puppy dog face and say in his saddest voice, "Sad". Occasionally the little monkey would tell us that he was angry. And it seemed like he only felt sadness and anger in our care. Heh!

Then one day last week, while we were sprawled all over the floor drawing pictures, the boy gave me a nice little surprise. "Happy face," he said, smiling from ear to ear as he presented to me his masterpiece. And that brought a happy face, to my face.

And maybe I don't hate Barney that much anymore.



"smile" by jesse tan, 2007

Exodus

It's that time of the year again. As much as I love the festivites of the Chinese New Year, I really dread the mad rush home. A 3 hour trip home could end up lasting some 8 hours or more.

Now, I can handle the long drive. Heck, even my bladder has been trained to withstand long hours of no taking a piss. But the poor little wife and the son are made of softer stuff. *ahem*

Anyway, thanks to work, I am leaving at the last minute this year. Which also means I'm gonna be caught in some jam somewhere. I'm trying to strategise this as best I can, leaving at the exact moment when the roads are most clear but since there is no exact science on the subject, I'm not terribly hopeful.

I'm planning to depart at 5am tomorrow. I expect traffic to be minimal - lorries should have done their routes by then, while the average joe would still be asleep. You can also help by not crossing my path from 5am to 8am. Do that and I will appreciate you for the rest of my life.

Thank you for reading.

Freestyling

mommy administers the "penan" cut

Jesse's been kicking up some major fuss at the hairdressers and so we figured we'd try to do his hair ourselves. With pretty devastating effect too, as you can see here. Unfortunately for our boy, the only hairstyle we can manage is "the bowl". Oh well, that ought to teach him a lesson for being such a fussy little monkey.

I did his first haircut some 2 months back. He started screeching and screaming when I approached, scissors and comb in hand, probably fearing for his life. In a moment of genius, I decided to alleviate his fears by giving him a pair of scissors of his own to play, while I did the deed. Worked like a charm too. That is, until he decided to try snipping his own hair himself. Haha.

I was considering giving him a little trim for the Lunar New Year, but I figured I didn't want him to have tragic photos of only his third new year. So, this year he's going home to Taiping looking like a cute little Beatle. Or a tiny little Bruce Lee.

Can somebody say "celebrity haircut"?

Driven

who's gonna drive you home?

Like any hot blooded little boy, Jesse loves cars. And so on his 2nd birthday, Mae and I decided that he might get a big kick out of having his own little car - battery operated covertible and all!

Unfortunately, everytime he steps on the accelerator, the car moves. Never mind that cars are supposed to behave that way, it just simply freaks him out. In fact, many things seem to freak him out as he grows older.

He never had problems with slides. Now he does. He used to climb up and down furniture, now he's afraid of falling. He used to run excitedly towards escalators but these days, he worries that he might be sucked into the gears below. He also hates it when we try to put coins into his kiddie rides. I have no idea why this is. You'd think he had some traumatic experience with these things.

His nice (and bloody expensive) little car is no different. It freaks him out all the same. And so he has to be chauffered. And since there is no way a little car like that is ever gonna support my weight, Mae takes to the task.

At least we got some cute photos out of this. :)