i should have 183 posts today. soon, i'll break my highest record of 189 posts in 2006 or was it 2005.

anyway, tuesday evening, brought the kids to downtown east macdonald's to have dinner. then we took the kiddy ride. simple dinner, enjoyed the family time

in macdonalds, there was a mother with 4 children. the mum is on her laptop. what started to catch our eyes was that the mother spoke very loudly to her children and she was very stern in her instructions. you could sense that the children, esp the first two eldest one is a little rebellious already, as they tried to argue back. But she got even louder and asked them to do what she asked them to do.

next, she made them go and buy food. when the food came, her children returned her the change. when she realised that they didn't buy the student meals, she asked the eldest daughter to go back and change. The eldest daughter was of course, reluctant. but again, in her stern loud voice, 'go and change. you are a student, you should order the student meal. you very rich har? go and change now.' you could see that the daughter was so reluctant. after changing, she went on to mumble very loudly, 'you all so rich, buy a dinner $6. got student meal don't want to use' blah blah blah(i'll try to just describe first, then i'll add my thoughts later)

next incident, you could hear her say, 'now it's only 5 something, don't eat your dinner now. do your homework first.'

next incident, the eldest daughter who was initially sitting beside her mum, stood up and change seats. but the way she did it was like, she was very fed up, she banged her books on the table. The mother stood up and wanted to slap her, of course, she stood further away in retaliation. then the mum motioned her to come back, she went back to her seat, then her mum pinched her.

this incident actually disturbed me a lot. it was such a contrast. that family was like so unhappy over the outing at macdonald's, our family was so happy. there was laughter and jokes.

my comments:
1)in the first place, if you feel that macdonald's is expensive, then why bring your kids to macdonald's?

2) i can see the rebellious nature of the two eldest children.

3)if you don't want them to eat dinner at 5 something, then why make them go and buy dinner?

so much wanted to go and stop her, but then, she would say, it's none of my business.