Motivations

What drives me to wake up every morning, fighting the comfort of the cozy bed and the cold of "man-made" winter in the little dwelling that we partly own (with the bank of course)? It's actually those cute chubby faces that I need to shake & quarell with every single morning just to make sure they get ready for school and kindy. Yeah, sometimes I can be a mean mom, but hey, they will only appreciate it when they became parents themselves...perhaps in another 20-25 years?

Somehow, I just can't recall my own mother being mean in the morning...or was it because I was a good little girl, eager to wake up and follow my Apak to school? I remember those days, holding Apak's hands and walked through the school's soccer field, passing the canteen and then to the surrogate-class that Apak made the class teacher agreed to treat me as a proper student. I was barely 5 years old in an all 7-year old class. And because I was such an enthusiastic student, I actually beat the rest of the classes in most subjects. I'm digressing here, but I wish that my children would have that spirit in them, to be able to drive themselves and not depend on Mama to get them prepared for school.

My eldest, Adam, now in Primary 2. It was very difficult to make him wake up in the morning during those pre-school days and Primary 1. But then I realized, when he started to assimilate himself with primary school, and have established a circle of friends, it's no longer a challenge to cue him for school.

Nevertheless, the challenge is now passed to Aina, who just started pre-school at 5 years old. I have ran out of all creative ideas to at least motivate her to open her eyes..gosh..sometimes I just resorted to lifting her up from bed and placing her in the shower, after which I will get so great a resistance that my 2-year old Amir would also end up in the same bathroom. So then, Amir would be first waiting in the car to send her sister off to school, and Mama would have to drive to and fro just to make sure she didn't take Amir to work.

Finally, Mama ends up swiping her access card at the office at 9:30am, thinking of what would motivate her to finish work early so that she would be able to rejoice the achievement of meeting the morning challenge, day in, day out and go home to embrace those cute faces again.