Flowering

#352

We are experiencing extremely warm and hot weather in Singapore this year.  The occasional thundery showers, however, brought much relief to our pleasure and yet with humidity intensified, it is really unbearable. And I have seen some trees flowering in my neighbourhood such as the golden shower, pink/white bougavillea, the flame of the forest. But not as much as we had seen two years ago (2014) where there was sudden bloom when the rain came after a long dry spell.  Hence, this flower bento.  In the box, there were :-

• Green grapes
• Boiled cauliflower
• Boiled flower carrot
• Yellow/Red cherry tomato
• Japanese cucumber
• Five spice meat ball

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Primary two (P2) has been a breeze for my boy just like in his first year (P1).   April was also especially relax for the kids probably, because it was their birthday month. Since there was no streaming for P1 and P2, the school allocated student to their respective classes according to their birth month. And his class 2E has a mix of April and May babies. His form teacher was also busy giving out printed birthday cards and chocolate to the birthday kids. In addition, my boy came home with goodies bags every week and invitations to birthday parties too. 

In one of our everyday conversation during lunch time, he shared with me how he managed a naughty boy who has been (since P1) hitting kids at school.  (I had also enquired with his form teacher if there has been any bullying in class and the latter did not think so. Apparently, the naughty one went for counselling session and detention class but with little improvement.)  His eyes lightened up and was beaming with pride as he described the situation.  If the naughty one punched him, my boy responded with "Thank you for the massage!" instead of hitting back.  My son challenged this naughty one in arm wrestling and won.  Defeated and astounded, the naughty one exclaimed "You are like an incredible hulk!"  After that, this naughty one has been nice to my boy to the extent that my son said that "He has been kind to me."   But a leopard never changed its spot.  The kindness probably last for a week or so and the naughty one was back lashing out at the children again. 

My boy knew retaliating would not stop this naughty one from hitting him.  He knew his strength and capitalised on a game of arm wrestling that unexpectedly turned to his advantage.  Witty and unpretentious!  I was so proud of him.  Bearing in mind,  this is NOT a guidance of how to handle bully but just pure sharing of experiences.