Heatiness, Testiness, Tenacity

Heatiness 
A Singapore "Singlish" thing, heatiness is: any ill-defined malaise resulting from being too hot, from eating foods that are too rich and generate "heat" in the body, or from becoming emotionally agitated.  Underwritten of course by Singapore's climate: hot hot, equatorial, hot.

Testiness
The mood that characterizes Clara's teachers these days as the contrasting organizational and aesthetic styles of the two of them clash repeatedly.  Also a mood that results from heatiness.

Tenacity
Something Clara excels in.  viz. the two hour long yelling/ crying/ singing/ combative laughing jag that characterized last night's bedtime.  OMG.  When the kid is still aggressively yelling "Down by the Bay" when it is past my bedtime, after a variety of punishments clearly more exhausting to me than to her, it has been a bad, bad, evening.

More positively, Clara also continues to be tenaciously attached to Henry.  His attendance at summer camp has been sporadic, though he is there for this 2 week session.  Agonizingly, he is in a different class, so the two don't get to play together.  Clara, tenacious as ever, needled me so extremely this morning (I am feeling heaty and am still emotionally hung-over from last night) that I agreed to ask her teachers if she could play with Henry for part of the morning. 

I hate being the Mom who wants special dispensation for her indulged children . . . but I am that Mom today.  To my surprise, the teachers agreed . . . testily.  Which makes me think Clara has gotten away with something very much against the rules and that the teachers are letting it happen as a way of baiting each other.

When I left, Clara and Henry were examining a handful of ripped up grass closely, scientifically, her blond head the same in profile as his raven one.  I can't believe that after a year in separate classes, with scant chance to play together, she still considers him her best friend.  O tenacity!  I am immensely relieved that Henry is willing to requite.