Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

GUESS WHAT?

There’s a little 7mm jellybean in me right now!

Yep. I’m 6.5weeks pregnant with Baby no. 3!

(And just in case you’re wondering, yep, it’s a planned pregnancy too, but more about that soon!)

[Both came along to the clinic to see the baby for the first time, on the monitor during the scan! And of course that’s Vai making all sorts of silly faces again, heh]

SO. That’s one happy news I’d like to share with you today!

Anya will be a big, BIG, sister. And Vai will be a big brother next year!

And they’ve been asking me why my tummy is not yet big every day, hehe.

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[added, 13 October]

Thank you SOOO much for the warm wishes and notes sent to us through this blog, Facebook, Twitter, emails, sms-es and phone calls. We are indeed very blessed. Thank you.

When it comes to one’s faith, there are usually two types of people.

Those who BELIEVE, but don’t know much about their faith.

And, those who KNOW, but they don’t believe.

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One’s faith needs to go hand in hand with the knowledge about the faith too.

It is written in John 6:67-69:

Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?”

Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.

…

Verse 69 clearly teaches us about the need to BELIEVE and KNOW when we have faith in Christ.

We must know whom we believe. And we must KNOW what we believe.

To KNOW who Christ is makes us more firm in our faith and more motivated to share the good news with others.

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Do we have faith AND understanding of why we believe in Christ?

Let’s believe AND know.

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[This post is my personal reflection after listening to Rev. Stephen Tong’s sermon]

How Mommy and Daddy treat each other greatly affect the children in the family, as they learn the concept of love as well as man-woman relationships from the adults they closely interact with at home.

Let’s build a loving family, and be a blessing and living examples to the little ones.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Thanks everyone who entered the giveaway contest!

Unfortunately there could only be FOUR winners, and so I used a Random Number Generator to pick the winners randomly.

[Thanks to simplethots for these cute goodies]

And here are the numbers that appeared on my computer screen:

And that means (counting the numbers from the very top of the comment list), the winners are:

– mc
– Siska
– Florence
– LZMommy

CONGRATULATIONS winners!!

I’ll be dropping you an email soon!

And if you didn’t win this time round, hope you win something next time! There’ll be more giveaways in the future!

Thanks again everyone! And have a great weekend!

Sometimes, I get asked, ‘Do your kids misbehave?’

Or, ‘Do they ever talk back to you or something?’

And my answer has always been, ‘OF COURSE they do.’

I mean, they’re sinners just like me. Even us adults still sometimes do things that we know we shouldn’t, what more little ones who’re still learning about themselves, about life and its many complicated things.

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Let me share something with you.

I always believe in communicating as best as I can with my children.

When I have to discipline them or make a particular decision as a result of their misbehaviour earlier on, I share with them (though it may not be done right there and then, depending on the situation) my reasons for doing so, what they should’ve done instead, the impact of their behaviour towards me or others, etc.

And afterwards, I always, always, tell them how much I love them, and how I’m sad whenever I had to discipline them.

But.

Despite all that, Anya and Vai do NOT always ‘understand’ what I mean or why I do what I do.

Well, naturally.

There have been phases (read: frequent episodes within a day, which take place for a week or two, or three!) where they simply are very rude towards me.

They’d scream at me. They’d cry and insist on their earlier request. They’d talk back and argue. They’d stomp their feet and leave, after rolling their eyes and raising their voice at me.

And the ’cause’ of such behaviour?

Well, here’re two sample scenarios that could take place just a minute before the whole episode began:

Scenario 1:

Mommy picked kids from school. Kids and Mommy hugged. Then kid asked:

Kid : Mommy, can we go to the hawker centre and eat something there?

Mommy: Today? No, we can’t because we need to get back home soon. Remember I told you how we’re going out again tonight?

Within seconds after I finished my sentence, this happened:
Kid raised voice, frowned, complained how I NEVER take her to any hawker centre. Kid whined and insisted to go. And when I still said no (in a normal tone), kid complained, raised voice, cried, and frowned all the way home.

Scenario 2:

Kid still coughing badly and was not supposed to eat any sweets.

Kid : Mommy, can I have one candy please? Puh-leaseeeee?

Mommy: Yes, you can when your cough is nearly gone, okay? You know that no one should eat any candy when they’re coughing badly because it makes it worse.

Then, the screaming and whining episode began.

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People ask me if I scold my kids. And my answer is, ‘Yes, of course. But it also depends on each situation.’ (read: I choose to not easily scold / raise my voice in anger as the kids can easily ‘get used to’ my scoldings, which means what I say to them will easily lose its ‘impact’ too)

Sometimes when my kids misbehave frequently and repeatedly over a period of a few days or so, these thoughts do cross my mind:

– Have I perhaps been too harsh / strict on them all this while, which resulted in this kind of behaviour?
– Or perhaps, have I been too soft that they feel they can treat / respond towards me in such a way?
– Haven’t I taught them enough?
– What can I do to make things better?

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Well, one thing is for sure, I never tolerate rude behaviours.

I mean, I always point it out and let them know whenever they speak rudely, behave in a manner they shouldn’t, etc.

I’d also ask them to apologise and explain what it is that they’re apologising for (ie. they need to know what it is that they’ve done wrong).

Sometimes I also choose to say nothing, and just give them a ‘look’ (that basically says, ‘Look, watch your words. You’re being rude’)

…

In my head, I know it’s just a phase. I know that they’re just kids who’re learning to manage their emotions. I know how they’ll ‘grow out of it’ if we consistently and lovingly teach them well, etc.

[I know too that however bad things can get sometimes, it could always be worse when they’ve entered their teenage years!]

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KNOWING all that does not automatically make facing the challenging attitudes much much easier though.

It does help in keeping my perspective of things, but it doesn’t mean I feel okay when my kids yell at me over unreasonable demands.

Anyway.

Things are better these days (read: I’ve had worse days last week and the week before)

But I just thought of sharing all this with you.

Really. I learn a lot from being a parent.

I feel my children remind me of how vulnerable I am as a parent. How there’s so much about myself and my characters that I still need to change towards the better too.

And most importantly, how it’s purely because of God’s grace if I could enjoy my days as a parent, and if a sinner like me is entrusted with children whom I have the responsibility and calling to teach and raise according to God’s ways.

Despite all the challenges I face from time to time, I know I’m blessed nevertheless.

Very blessed.

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P.S.: Btw, so sorry for not being able to reply to all your emails and comments left on my blog or Facebook. It’s been overwhelming at times. I read every single one as they come in though, and I really treasure them all. Please keep on sharing yeah. I always love to hear from you.

I’ve made at least six felt hair clips for Anya so far (Click HERE to read my post on how to make one too yourself).

And NONE for Vai.

Recently, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I should just make a keyring for Vai using felt!’

And that’s exactly what I ended up making.

I made two personalised ‘keyrings’ for Vai!

[This is one of the keyrings. Car on one side, and the letter ‘V’ for Vai on the other]

Here’s what I did:

– Cut out TWO pieces of felt that will be the main pillow

– Cut out the shape of whatever that I’ll sew on the pillow (eg. car shape in red, and two black tyres, for the above keyring)

[I scribbled the word ‘Vai’ on a piece of paper, cut it out and use it as a pattern when cutting out the word on a black-coloured felt above]

– Sew the pattern onto the main felt

– Sew the sides together, BUT before you sew the final side of the pillow, stuff some cotton balls into it (see photo below)

– Cut out a long rectangular shape, and sew one side of it together (ie. the blue felt in the photo above). I used it as my ‘keyring handle’

– Sew the blue ‘handle’ on the pillow.

For the first keyring (top photo), I cut out a shorter rectangular shape because I used an actual ‘ring’ as well.

For the second keyring (photo below), I cut out a much much longer rectangular shape, used it as a handle and tied it onto Vai’s bag’s zip-hole directly.

My hand-stitches are still messy. Definitely need to (REALLY) work on that one.

The little guy doesn’t seem to mind though, heh.

I guess he saw the ‘gift from the heart’ part of the whole thing, rather than spotting the ‘flaws’ of the gift.

Hmm.

Time to get MORE  felt.

Do you realise that each time we gain something, we actually lose something as well?

When we ‘gain a husband’, we ‘lose’ our ‘free time’ (or ‘freedom’) as a single woman.

When we ‘gain’ a child in the family, we ‘lose’ our body figure (well, at least some of us do!), and rest time.

Basically, when we gain something, we also naturally lose some other things.

Things are simply NOT like how it was before.

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Now you see, our response towards something actually greatly depends on our belief and understanding of ‘where it came from’.

It is only when we realise that what we’ve gained or what we’ve received (be it our work, family, food, children, spouse, etc) is all given by God that we can see our life and actually BE THANKFUL.

For example:

– We’ll see our children not as a heavy burden, but as a blessing.

And when we see them as a blessing and a gift in the family, the way we treat our little ones and deal with them during challenging moments will be different too.

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So, how’s our response towards life and our family?

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“… always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
– Ephesians 5:20

[This post is my personal reflection after listening to Ev. Maria Mazo who shared with us the verse above]

We created an evening scene using watercolour the other day!

(actually, Anya’s was an ‘underwater’ scene as she wanted to have a ‘mermaid’ silhouette, heh)

The fun part of this activity is, the kids get to choose WHAT they’d like to have as the silhouette.

Anya wanted to have a mermaid, and Vai (of course) wanted Lightning McQueen!

What we used:

– Black coloured paper

– White coloured drawing paper

– Pencil, scissors, glue stick

– Watercolour (we used blue, but you can always use orange for that ‘sunset’ look)

What we did:

– Kids made the request, and Mommy drew them on the black-coloured paper

(Tips: Create something for the ‘base’ as well. For Anya, I looked at her Ariel storybook and drew something like a ‘shipwreck’ base. For Vai, I created something like a mountain / a dune as the base. See photo at the top)

– Mommy cut out the ‘silhouettes’

– Using watercolour, work on the colours from the top (I mixed the colour one by one. This way Vai did the layers one by one too, instead of going from one colour shade to the next mixing everything altogether)

– Once the watercolour was done, we put it aside to dry

– Once dry, the kids glued the silhouettes onto their watercolour paintings.

And it’s done!!

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So here’s one activity idea for you on this Children’s Day!

Have fun creating your own evening silhouette watercolour paintings with the kids!

And, of course … Happy Children’s Day to all little ones out there!