It was early of 2015 when we were all getting busy, as we’re expecting our second baby. I paused myself from Architecture/Interior Design world and decided to just focus on enjoying and induldging myself during my last trimester of pregnancy and also to spend more time with Max. I realized that soon when the baby #2 arrived I would probably not having as much time alone with him anymore.

Max is a very attached boy to the extend of need me to do everything together with him. It has been like this ever since he was a baby, even when I was a full time self-employed working mom (hence his knowledge on some architecture/interior terms). And having me to be a full time stay at home mom recently (it has been 3 months then) has made him even more attached, which I don’t mind at all. In fact I was kinda enjoying those moments, well he was 5 years old this year and time flies, who knows what I’m gonna miss from these moments.

The Curious Max

Max is a critical person. He asks most about everything. Why this? Why that? How? When? Who? Everything! And the best (sometimes can be irritating) part is that he will not stop wondering with only one answer. He will keep asking until he satisfy. So we just have to keep giving him another answer to every answer that he questioned again and again and again. Some people call it nagging, but for us it’s just The Curious Max 🙂

Max loves to touch things, to feel things, to see things, to hear things, to smell things anytime, anywhere…anything! Sometimes we can’t even control the way he follows his guts to have his own sensory experiences without even fear of anything. He doesn’t care if it’s gonna makes him wet or dirty or hurt. Sometimes I blame myself for giving him too much freedom for “let him be” moments, but then I realize it’s just The Curious Max 🙂

To me, his huge curiosity is his super power. He can learn very fast with his curiosity, he can remember many things with his curiosity and he can experience a lot more things with his curiosity. So sometimes it’s better to let him follow his curiosity. Of course I’ll step in immediately when things are getting dangerous or hazardous for him and his surroundings. But one thing for sure, The Curious Max needs to stay curious 🙂

The School Report

Max was sitting at K1 class at PCF nearby our home at that moment. I never expected him for anything other than to have fun playing with his own age group at those golden age period. It went smooth when he was N1 and N2. But apparently the curriculum for K1 at this school was getting more demanding. The teacher said it was due to getting the kids well prepared for the Primary 1 grade, so what could I say? I thought If Max can’t follow this, then how would he even fit into the P1 curriculum, in which the only form of education that I could think of for him at that time. And with The Curious Max, I thought Max will be able to cope with it. But I was wrong!

The school reported that Max couldn’t stay sit for long for many tasks (in which mostly were writing, reading, and counting). I was shocked, I wasn’t sure about writing and counting, but he really loves reading time!
The teacher mentioned that all he wanted to do was art craft works and he would do it very slowly to the extend of slowing down the whole class. I always know that Max has eyes and hands on the details  for arts&crafts. He could sit for hours doing art&craft projects, and he’ll do it delicately and really detailed. So if the teacher said he was slow in art&craft, I’d say he was taking his own time because he enjoys to work on details until he thinks he’s finished with it, he get that from me, ha! So I could imagine how devastating for him whenever he was in the middle of his project then the teacher had to stop him and cut it off.

So he began to ask me the same questions everyday for weeks : “Why do I need to go to school?”
At first I said: “because you need to learn”
Then The Curious Max will ask again: “but why do I need go to school to learn?”
Then I must came up with another answer which is usually : “because teacher will teach you so many things at school”
Then he will ask for more answer: “but why do I need teacher to teach me to learn at school?”
Then when I was run out of answer I would just try to distract him from that moment with something else, I’m such a terrible mom :p

But I’m a person who likes to find answer too. So just like any other moms, I googled to seek for a cute answer for his cute and annoying question. As cute as possible that it should make him stop asking the next questions.
And there I was, landed at the page that keeping me awake for few nights (part of it was also because my pregnancy night perks) wondering if this is what we should be doing since the begining: HOMESCHOOLING

And to my surprise, after so many discussions, my husband was supporting me on this too! Growing up as a formal mainstream education graduates, I still couldn’t believe how both of us were very excited about this homeschooling stuffs. But for me, just like any previous big moments of my parenthood journey, I took it as my maternal instinct to provide Max (and pobably my #2 child) with probably the best form of education that fits them well.

Perhaps for now, only on their golden age of life, but who knows we’ll be keeping on the running for the biggest journey for homeschooling until they’ve graduated. We’re scared and excited at the same time, and we believe that as long as we’re doing this together as a team, everything will be just great!