Friday, October 24, 2008

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!

9 comments:

Alcovelet said...

Hi Andre, It's a great looking watch! So slick and modern looking! I love the timer functions too because it makes the numbers just run on these watches!

Hi Mon, Andre is so sweet. I remember when I was a kid and still so impressed with so many things in life. Then we become jaded. It's so great to see our kids go through all that innocence and discovery.

Anonymous said...

Haha, Andre sounds like Sean when he got his first watch. Obsessed. I like the 'pink of health' bit. Sean is also learning these phrases and goes round trying them out and then explaining it. He was very taken with 'dead as a doornail'.

Lilian said...

Whoa Andre, that's one cool watch you got there! Is it your version of the omnitrix? What do you turn into?

And of course it's "orange of health", oranges are filled with vitamins mah...

monlim said...

Andre says, "Auntie Lilian, it's not the omnitrix but I want to change into Grey Matter because he is smart."

Like real man!

monlim said...

Eunice: I like 'dead as a doornail' too! The English language does have a lot of strange phrases...

Anonymous said...

So different from my boy... When I got him a watch I had to MAKE him keep it on all the time or else he kept taking it out and losing it. :-(

Ok maybe the watch I bought wasn't cool enough..

YY.

Lilian said...

Good choice Andre! Brian wants to Xlr8 cos he's fast. Sean wants to Ghostfreak so he can go around scaring people. Eddie wants to be Fourarms cos he wants be strong!

Me? I don't watch Ben 10 enough to know. The only cartoon I watch is Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Ben10 is Ed's favourite. Brian's fave is Ed, Edd and Eddy (so inane!). Sean's fave show is Robot Boy. Everyone in the house hates Squirrelboy.

monlim said...

Don't give him ideas... he only knows these characters from computer games online cos I refuse to get cable... so he only survives on mediacorp cartoon fare!! Lucky got Ben 10...

Lilian said...

typos up there, shoud be "wants to BE"...

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