Inculcating good habits in another person is certainly an uphill battle for me everyday as my ever so well-recognised patience is truly badly broken down in this process.  Hence my awake hours as a parent is a constant nightmare to me that I prefer my dreams while I am napping or sleeping.    Here are some examples of my 365 daily echoes(x 5 years) that make me feel worse than the uncertain eerie music produced from the winding gramophone.

"Can you look out of the window when in the car and stop doing something?"

"Can you hold your book further from your eyes....you looked like you are going to join Alice inside the book?"

"Can you lift up your head when you write?"   - just short of me putting a bamboo stick behind and hanging her from the bamboo stick to achieve the correct writing posture

"Can you not read in the dark?"  Arrrrrrrrrrrggggggggh

"Can you look at the beautiful scenaries around you instead of burying your head in the books?"

"Can you take a break?"

Did I name my child "Numbskull"?   It would probably be easier on me if I did....at least I can get a deedpoll done and think that this bout of bad habits behaviour will go away together with a bad name.

In no uncertain terms, news from kindy came about at 4 plus(K1) that she needed glasses.  Upon further checking at HPB, her degree was about 100 on both sides and due to her very special physique of a tiny face, there were no glasses suitable, except infant glasses!!    Finally I had the last laugh I thought....someone had to put on infant glasses.  Then HPB advised that since kindy did not require looking at a black or white board, it was not necessary to get a prescribed pair of glasses early.  Trusting the professional, I took their advice.  Kindy year 2 end, she failed her eye-test again naturally because she had no glasses on.  However, the degree had climbed to close to 200 degrees.  

During her birthday that year, we met an old friend with a son wearing glasses too.  So I took down her recommendation and went out to seek the glasses suitable for my child.  Soon she had this plastic sitting on her nose bridge to begin her journey in P1.  During the health check, she failed the eye test again?!?!?!?!    The power had gone up again, if only that was her inner strength to correct the bad habits that had gone up.  Another pair of lenses was changed.  A few months later one day, she came home with one side of her lenses broken.  Amazing....how did she break plastic?   Again her outer strength superceded her inner strength...    Now inner strength...where are you?

Health check in P2 failed again....so we went back to the optical shop and got the eyes checked....   over 400 degrees!!!     How I wished this was the stock market news!  I did a quick simulation in my mind....at this rate, she would hit 1000 degrees before PSLE.  I imagined the concentric rings with a few mm thick glasses sitting on her tiny nose like 林亚珍, the very thought jolted me back to reality.  What do I do with this blind bat?

Then one day,  I saw a red cape flew over my head, was it an angel sent from heaven?  No, it was Supermom 2ppaamm.                .  

She had five kids and they were on this technology called Ortho-K which helped to control the power from climbing in the eyes.  I feel the euphoria if my child has the power to climb Himalayas but this power of climb has to be curbed.  After the first consultation, we were convinced that this was the best way to help her control the power of climb but I still needed a remedy for the removal of bad habits...anyone???

It has been 3 months since she was on this lenses.  The magic of having perfect eye-sight during the day is enough good benefits for this.  However, the greater benefit for us is the last eye check shows that the degree in the eyes have not gone up at all!  This is probably the best news of the year for me!!   Power of climb is finally under control.....save that for rock-climbing, a much more fun activity.

It has its tedious moments like my day and night is very much integrated with her life like breast feeding because I am enslaved to putting on and removing the lenses daily for her now, plus cleaning it thoroughly.   At least for breast-feeding, it can be expressed and fed offline from the mother if required.  Anyway, my next challenge is to train her to DIY soon!!