A Father-son Bonding Session

Every father seems to be blogging about bonding with their children these days. (Recent posts about father-son bonding and spending quality time together with the family are in Chun See's Ipoh trip here and Chris' day out cycling with his sons at East Coast Park here. One conspicuous thing that is common to both Chun See's and Chris' posts is that their wives are not mentioned in them. There is talk about all other things - they wax lyrical about the scenery, the clouds, the rain, the bicycles, the fishing pond, the kois, the temple, and yes, even the car and me. But not a single word about the mums. Why are they keeping mum about mum? Is it because Mother's day is over? Or is it because 'men are from Mars and women are from Venus' as Chris so eloquently puts it here? I don't think so. The truth is that mum is always working tirelessly behind the scenes, making sure that the 101 things in the family run smoothly. And the best part is that she doesn't demand any credit (nor pay... phew) for all the hard work that she puts in. I must remember to credit her bank account at the end of this post.

Do not be mistaken. This post is not about my children's mum aka my wife. If it is, I would have titled my post differently. I just felt that I should not be left behind when everyone else seems to be talking about father-son bonding. And these days, school assignments provide fathers with lots of opportunities to bond with their children. My younger son was given one such assignment to be done during the June holidays - to make an item out of recycled material. Two weeks ago, I bought a Seiko watch from OG at Albert St. It came in a very elegant transparent persplex box. I thought, why not recycle the box and make a lantern out of it for my son's project?

So I sat down with my son today and went through the steps with him:

1. I burned holes in the box using a hot soldering iron so that I could thread the wires through the box.

2. I burned a slot in the centre plastic column of the box so that I could slot in the light bulb.

3. I soldered the wires to the light bulb.

I admit that the above steps were done solely by me, not only because it is not safe to let my 9-year old son handle a hot soldering iron, but he would not have the skills to solder the wires to the bulb. All he did was to watch me performing the above tasks with some amazement. I then cut out some triangles made from colourful cellophane paper and double-sided adhesive tape. My son pasted the triangles onto the lantern to decorate it. The result? A unique lantern which no one else has. But most important of all, it is a joint effort by both father and son. I hope that he is proud to carry it around during the upcoming Lantern Festival:

Beautiful isn't it? I mean not just the lantern but the bonding time I had with my son. And the part my wife played in this? She uttered to me this morning: "Hello, tomorrow school reopens already. And you still have not done the recycling project for your son. Remember to do it today, okay?" See, I told you that mum is responsible for ensuring that the 101 things in the family get done smoothly. And I appreciate her for that. Thanks mum.