A Mother’s Monologue

Well, firstly……it helps that both her parents are creative architects although not only architects are creative (and some not at all!!!) but if at least one parent is creative, your child has a good chance of being creative. But fret not, because creativity can be TAUGHT!!!

Yes, bet you didn’t know that!

Of course, we didn’t have to teach Tee as she already oozes creativity. Yet from since I can remember (18 months old), I have been making her think. She would ask me a question and I would throw it back at her. Her brain is always working overtime because she is FORCED to think. The more your brain thinks, the better it gets. I must say, she now thinks very well.

When Tee was younger, she would ask me how things worked. To be honest, being the blur Mom that I am, I hardly knew the answers. Yet, I’d ask her to think and imagine how SHE thinks they worked or could work. And she would come up with ideas, then verify the facts with her Daddy later.

Nowadays, she is always asking me how to spell this word and that word but I don’t give her the answers. I ask her to spell it herself. Then I’ll correct her if necessary. Her teachers say she is very good at spelling!

Today, she drew out a grid of 6 by 3 on a piece of A4 paper. Then she wrote on it ‘COSTYOOM SHOP’ (costume shop). I was impressed for the effort in spelling. Then on the far left, she wrote for each section - Belly Dance (apparently, she saw this on TV!), Bug Lady Dance (she once had a LadyBug costume) and Ruler Dance (she made this up, possibly from using the long ruler to draw the gridlines). In the rest of the columns and rows, she drew clothes hangers and then a different item of apparel for each clothes hanger. And then she coloured them all.

The story goes, that she had not only choreographed the dances in detail for those 3 categories of dance, she had also designed in minute detail, the very costumes for those 3 dances! And she explained it with such explicit elaboration that I was thinking, shit! she must;ve been thinking a lot whilst doing these drawings!

All items in the costyoom shop were priced FREE of CHARGE. Oh dear, not a good start for being an entrepreneur!

Just as an example, the belly dancer has a head gear which resembles a Malay ‘tudung’ and then another layer of chiffon material with red sequins on it paired up with some stringy accessories which included a dangly belt and instead of harem pants, she had a green grass skirt layered with a chiffon scarf elaborately garnished with more sequins.

When I asked what a ruler dance was, she showed me how you needed to stand straight upright and stiff, and then move your feet one by one in sequencing motions to the left-right-across-behind in robotic motion. I bet she gets this from school as the school teaches them dance lessons every week as part of the curriculum. Hand and feet coordination enhances the brain power.

Tee, my dearest Tee,…..please don’t be a designer, OK??? Mommy and Daddy will have a heart attack. Stick to the original plan.

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