What time is it?

Quick aside: Yesterday was Andre's English exam. When he came home from school, he asked me, "Mummy, is it 'pink in health'?"

"You mean 'pink of health'? Yes. Did it come out in the paper?"

"Yah. I wasn't sure if it was pink or orange." Orange!!!!

"What did you choose?"

"Pink. I guessed lah." (Accusing tone) "You taught me blue, red, green, yellow, you never taught me orange!"

My mother-in-law just returned from a trip to Hokkaido and she bought loads of interesting stuff, especially for the kids. But among all the knick knacks she presented, this was what Andre was most enamoured with:

It's actually just your regular digital watch, nothing fancy. But for a boy who's never had a digital watch (he's always had the cartoon analogue types), the shiny silver metal and beeping buttons are just irresistable.

It took me one whole night just to adjust the time correctly as the instructions were in Japanese. No skill was required - it was more the random pressing of different combinations of buttons. I finally managed to do it, but I have no idea how, so don't ask me to repeat the task!

Andre has been wearing the watch day and night since he got it just over a week ago. His Chinese tutor was recounting to me how he kept looking at his watch during his tuition session, as if willing her to praise its beauty and magnificence. Aware of what he was after but faking ignorance, she told him to stop checking the time during the lesson or she would make him take it off. She told me she had to stifle her laughter when she saw that he was so torn between not wanting to take off his watch and being unable to stop admiring it. Finally, she put him out of his misery by praising the watch profusely.

At night when he's lying in bed, he would press the light button repeatedly just to see it light up in the dark. He also loves the stopwatch function which has led to a significant increase in our trivia knowledge. We know, for instance, that it takes 6 mins 43 secs to drive from our place to grandma's, that Mika's song "Lollipop" is all of 3 mins, that Lesley-Anne takes 7 mins 19 secs to take a shower and that he takes one hour to finish his dinner (although I wonder if he deliberately dragged out the last item just to see how long the stopwatch can run).

Yesterday, he came to me and asked, "Mummy, will you be going out today?" "Why?" He handed me his watch. "No more battery, can change for me?" One week - that's all his watch could tahan of his manhandling!