All I Want for My Birthday

Bart is initiating a campaign of sorts, leading his brothers to join forces with him to save up for a birthday present that he promises would, in his words, "surprise and make me very happy". I, totally unfazed by their enthusiasm, told them flatly they could save their idea.

I had been feeling kind of low lately. The period of absence of a father figure for the boys has been overstretched. There seems to be a pattern for their deteriorating listening abilities and not taking everything seriously. This always happens when their daddy goes away for too long. I remembered my breakdown from his 5-week long trip to Malaysia. I was so confident it would not happen this time, largely due to my being more familiar here, the warmer temperature, busier schedules and most importantly more new friends to inject me doses of endorphins whenever I meet them. I had even renewed energy being more involved with the boys, positively encouraging them to complete their daily tasks (making their beds, tidying up their room, finishing their homework, reading, etc.) and rewarding them by spending more time with them (playing board games, watching news together, etc.), something which was missing before.

But this new zest of energy did not last, unfortunately. Two weeks into their father's absence, they began to slow down in everything we were doing so good at. For each task and each boy, it would have to take at least 5 calls before their butts get moving. As this dragged on, I became slowly exhausted and increasingly frustrated with my attempts to still pull things together. My efforts were fruitless, I don't even want to say close to fruitless. Just plain fruitless. It was dejecting. I lost my laughters, I lost my smiles.

So when Bart comes to me this morning and reinforces what he had said on the weekend about the birthday present, I told him all I want for my birthday is good behaviour, all year round good behaviour.