Just Teddy

# 347



 





The bento was inspired by Just Teddy, a storybook written by Emily Lim.  It is about a lonely teddy bear trying very hard to fit in with the toys in a toy factory. He even goes to great lengths to blend in with the polar bears, pandas and penguins and almost lose his identity.  We had borrowed and read this storybook many times.  An excellent read that I even bought it as a present for his cousin, Elly.  I could resonate the story.  Being an only child, my boy long for playmates and always wants to blend in with his friends.  Monkey see monkey do!  A follower initially.  As he grow older, assertiveness sometimes come into play and occasionally, I could see him being a leader during a game.  I have reminded him repeatedly that he must have his own mind and not to follow blindly.  I hope he would find his soul mate just like the teddy in the book.

 

Teddy bear was made of onigiri with his features punched out from seaweed. I used a toothpick to represent teddy' holding a marker. Dab a grain of rice and wrapped around the pointed tip with nori before inserting into his paw.  Notice one of his eye was different from the other? Yeah, a mischief and a permanent mark that left behind as a result of attempting to blend in his animal friends. (Read the book and you will know what I mean.)   His rice was flavoured with wasabi furikake.  On the side, he has stir-fried chicken breast with soya sauce, celery with carrots plus some imitation crabstick red stars I pressed out from a mould.  Some green and black grapes to go along.

 

 





Melting ice with magnifying glass

We did a little experiment during a homework-free-day.  To see how light is intensified through a magnifying glass and check if it is melted faster than the other ice cubes.  Materials need :-

 

• direct sunlight
• magnifying glass
• ice cubes direct from freezer

It was pretty cloudy and not in our favour.  Sun was partially covered by clouds that day.  We got some direct sunlight and the next moment, it disappeared. It went on and on like this dramatically :-

 

"Yay, there's sunlight! Quick, beam on the ice!!"

"Ohhhhh, no more light.  It's gone...."

 

 



 

We had fun really!

It has been a month since he started to school.  The boy's most exciting period in his Primary school are Physical Education (PE) and recess time.  His annoying and boring subject is Chinese.  Overall, he managed well with his English spelling making a few careless mistakes here and there.  Apart from his academic, I was so concerned over whether he could buy food from the school canteen on his own.  Probably over concerned and I had forgotten to really listen to what he wish to tell me and wanted me to know. Until I realised much later when we had a few conversations that he gradually revealed the 'things' he bought from the canteen's bookshop which I disapproved.  For some reasons, during the recess time, kids loves to buy things from the canteen's bookshop and they sell all sorts ranging from stationery, stickers, musical instruments..etc.  Since he had amassed so many stationery,  I become very uptight when he asked permission to buy things like ruler, pencil, etc from the canteen's bookshop.  Of course, I gave an affirmative 'No'.  At that moment, my boy kept quiet.  The truth was that he had already bought a ruler and a pencil from the bookshop.  He was just merely sounding me out.  Clever!

He also generously gave 50cents from his pocket money to help his friend, Shawn, to buy a whistle with a lanyard.  Reason being, his friend did not have enough money, so he wanted to help. Since he did not understand the meaning of 'lend' or 'borrow', the idea of returning the money was alien to him too.  This was the second incident.  Another time, he bought a 30 cents ruler for the same boy.

The next item he wanted to buy was tennis ball.  To satisfying his desire to buy from the bookshop, I agreed to it for once mainly because firstly we could work on some science experiment with it and secondly, he sought my permission first.  Unfortunately, he told his father.  The latter, however, (like me in the first place) said 'NO' to my son.  He was too afraid to disobey his father.  So until today, he still has not buy the tennis ball from the bookshop without his father's permission.  But my son kept reminding Papa to buy for him since he could not buy with his pocket money.

Oh well, so much happenings in school....