This week, we finally attended the first two lessons of GUG after I signed Darius up after the trial class.

Today, he was like this:

He suddenly bunched his lips down, eyes started to water when the teachers were clapping and singing songs. I just happened to look down at him and caught it.

I quickly turned him up and hugged him standing, wondering what the matter was.

After a while, I concluded that he was suddenly afraid or overwhelmed by the loud commotion, the number of kids and people around him. Though he’s sociable, he can suddenly break into tears for no reason sometimes when it’s too overwhelming for him.

From then on, it sort of spiralled as he kept whining and turning away from the teachers. He only turned towards them when the teachers started singing Old MacDonald song which was his favourite. I tried to do the actions in front of him and pacify him.

Later on, I felt that it could be because he was hungry. I didn’t have luck with these two lessons with him unlike the trial lesson where he skipped his lunch and nap and was still happy.

The first lesson on Wednesday was the first time I took the public transport so I got out of the house at 11:15am even though the lesson starts at 1pm. I overslept and woke up at 10am, not sure if he slept because he will usually just lie on his bed waiting for me to wake up. He didn’t want to nap in the MRT and stayed awake the whole time. I reached at 12plus and fed him his lunch which resulted in him feeling tired 1 hour after in the middle of the lesson. At the beginning, he was so happy and smiling at everyone, attempting to grab other children or just kept laughing. But as his stomach started taking energy from him to digest the porridge, he began to whine and rubbed his eyes. Poor thing. We perserved and when the lesson ended, just after I made his milk, he fell asleep in the stroller. He was sooo tired.

After learning from the first lesson, I thought to adjust his lunch to make it breakfast instead. Then, he would not feel sleepy.

Alas, the second lesson today was a disaster too!

I specially made an effort to wake up at 8:30am, fed him porridge for breakfast and prevented him from taking naps til it was almost 11am. Then, I let him sleep in the stroller near to 11am while still in the house, and prepared myself. At 11 plus, I wheeled the sleeping Darius out of the house and upon reaching the MRT, he woke up again! Argh. It was too soon. Then, we only reached around 12:40pm which was close to lesson time so I thought that I should not feed him anything lest he feels sleepy again. Bad choice!

Today, after he first got overwhelmed, he started whining which I guiltily thought it might be because he was hungry since he had not eaten since 10plus. I was telling myself, I should had prepared something for him to eat even if it was so close to the lesson time. I really was at a loss as I didn’t know whether he was tired due to the short nap or due to the hunger. After the break, where he took some biscuits, he was slightly better but for this little boy, once an ‘unhappy switch’ in an environment is triggered, it’s hard to get him to be happy again unless I removed him from that place.

So he was unhappy even though he was jiggled up and down as we moved to the songs, an activity he usually loves. He was only slightly happy when he was given a ball to kick around. He does it pretty well too, kicking it everytime.

The funny thing was today’s lesson was letter U, with him learning, Under, umbrella and Unhappy. He was certainly a fine example for the rest of the class. Sigh.

I realised I’m a tired Mummy too after these lessons. I think I might not sign him up for next term afterall. It takes me too long to get there and back. Imagine, walking 20mins to the MRT station, take the MRT for 30-40mins, walk to United Square from Novena Square 15mins, taking my lunch after the lesson 15mins-30mins, walk to Novena Sq from United Sq 15mins, take the MRT back for another 30-40mins, then walking back for 20mins again! For a 1.5 hour lesson, I spent 6 hours reaching home at 4-5pm and the whole day was gone just like that. Didn’t even have time for any shopping or buying stuff! My legs ached and I felt drained pushing the stroller here and there.  If I want accessibility, happy Darius, fresh Mummy, I have to fork out a lot for a taxi ride. Just not really worth it! Sigh. >.<”

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