Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

This is the exciting news I was talking about!

Yesterday I wrote about these cute soft leather baby shoes called Cheeky Little Soles, and today I’m letting you all know that YOU have a chance to win a pair for FREE! (Retail price : S$33.90)

Yes yes, another GIVEAWAY CONTEST!

Littletoez.com is giving away FOUR adorable baby shoes specially to Our Everyday Things readers! (Thanks Little Toez n Kidz!)

And the four cute baby shoes that are up for grabs are :

Baby boys:
– Retro Chocolate, size XL
– Strike, size L

Baby girls :
– Butterflies, size XL
– Nesting, size L

[If you’re wondering about their lengths in centimeters, click HERE to find out!]

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Now, here’s the ‘HOW TO ENTER THE CONTEST’ part.

1. Click HERE to visit Littletoez.com and check out their Cheeky Little Soles collection

2. Leave your comment on THIS blog post, with answers to the following :

a. Tell us your baby’s gender (and you’ll automatically be in the running to win one of the two pairs, depending on whether yours is a baby boy or baby girl)

b. Name ONE Cheeky Little Soles shoe design (OTHER THAN the four designs that will be given away here)

c. Tell us how you first found out about the contest giveaway

AND

d. Share my blog URL to friends and families.

You can :

– Blog about this giveaway contest on your site

– Click HERE and share my blog URL on Facebook, that is if you’re on Facebook

– Share my blog URL and this giveaway contest to those you know via email!

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IMPORTANT INFO :

1. Make sure you enter a valid email address because that’s how we’re going to contact you if you are one of the lucky four winners! (btw, your email address will not be displayed)

2. If you’ve won, we’ll ask for your mailing address and send the shoes over to you by standard mail

3. Contest is open to those who live in Singapore

Well actually if you don’t live in Singapore but have a friend here who’d LOVE a pair of these cute baby shoes for her little one, you CAN always enter the contest. You’d of course need to have your friend’s complete mailing address here in Singapore if you’re one of the lucky winners!

4. A ‘quick link’ to this contest is also on the side bar

5. Contest ends on Thursday, 5 February 2009!

We’ll then pick the four lucky winners randomly!!

Hint : One email address per entry, but if you have more than one email account, then …

Anyway.

I LOVEEE giveaways! I love giving something tangible to parents out there through this site!!

And hey you know what! By the time the winners are announced and the winning shoes are delivered to four lucky recipients, it’d be sometime around Valentine’s Day!

And I reckon THAT would be a really nice Valentine’s Day gift to your little one!!

So … what are you waiting for?

All the best everyone!

I still remember the time when we went to shop for little baby shoes for our kids. We went and bought pairs that we thought would fit our kids’ feet best. But really, one thing that often crossed my mind at the time was, do babies REALLY need shoes?

It’s only recently that I browsed and read a bit more on babies and shoes. And here’re some interesting things that I found:

– Our foot is made up of 28 bones, 107 ligaments and 19 muscles!

– Going barefoot is BEST, according to the experts. The toes get a better grip and it allows the baby to develop foot strength.

– But, letting our baby go barefoot may not be practical at times, especially when our little one has started to stand and cruise. Their tiny little feet need protection from rough surfaces (not to forget grimy floors when you’re in public places!), and from the cold if you don’t live in the tropics.

And when choosing shoes for your baby :

– Baby shoes should be soft and flexible so he can use his feet properly when learning to balance himself

– The soles should be soft, flat, non-slip and not ‘thick and hard’ as this may trip the baby up!

…

One soft-soled baby shoes I came across recently are those from Australia called Cheeky Little Soles.

Its business owner, Lisa – an Australian Mommy of two, is apparently the designer too! (I’m always inspired by such creative mommies!)

I love their really cute designs, AND the fact that these leather shoes come with black suede-padded soles too, which prevent our little ones from slipping.

And another good news is, if you browse around and find a pair (or two, or more!) that you like, they’ll deliver them to you locally. Yes, they have a distributor here in Singapore – Littletoez.com!

Just click HERE to check Little Toez online shop and the different Cheeky Little Soles designs they currently have available!

Happy browsing!

PS: More exciting news is coming real soon!

Anya is now 4 years and 10 months
Height : 109 cm
Weight : 16.4 kg

Vai is now 2 years and 5 months
Height : 98 cm
Weight : 16 kg

…

Recently I’ve been going through lots of ‘down moments’ with Anya. Things have not been nice and sweet.

But really, when I lay still at night and run through the stuff that’s happened earlier that day, I know I still need to be thankful to God for giving to me, to my family, all the blessings and especially the strengths that we need to be parents to our little ones.

Finally, our very first crafting session for the year 2009!

And with Chinese New Year happening in a week’s time – the year of the Ox, they say – we made something with that theme in mind.

We made Ox hand prints!

Very simple and fast to make too!

What you need:

– Plain White Paper

– Watercolour (brown and black)

What you do:

– Make TWO hand prints side by side (to make the ‘body’ of the ox)

– Make ONE palm-print (and this will be the ‘head’)

– Let the child finger-paint the tail, horns, eyes, nose and mouth

And that is it!

Your kid has made an Ox out of her own hand prints!

[The tricky bit : because of the kid’s ‘five fingers’, the ox may look like it has TEN legs, hehe. You can use a brush to join some of the legs so that the ox only has four thick legs in the end, OR you can just use one palm-print for the body. It’s entirely up to you!]

…

Vai was napping away when Anya and I had our two-some crafting session together earlier today.

At first Anya drew the horns ‘outwards’, and somehow it ended up looking more like a PUPPY than an ox!

And so she decided to give that to Vai, and went to make another OX for herself, hehe.

Everyone’s happy!

Do we tend to passively wait for challenges from the world to come our way?

OR, do we challenge the world and choose to make a positive impact in everything?

With God as the pillar of Strength and Hope, a true christian should be the latter.

Be proactive. Challenge the world. Change. Make a positive impact. Be a blessing.

There’s something about Vai and climbing that I don’t quite get till now.

He’ simply very into climbing. From a rather young age too.

Here’s a quick look.

At 9 months old, he’s started climbing onto my bedside drawers.

Then when he’s close to turning one, he learned more climbing tricks from his sister!

At 14 months, he discovered his own way of climbing onto big chairs.

And he tried the ‘cliffhanger’ style at times, at 17 months.

When he turned two years old, he went for the ‘rock climbing’ wall at IMM’s playground.

And now that he’s close to turning 2 years and 5 months, he’s reached the ‘peak’ of our gate (and points to our home’s unit numbers and says what the numbers are out loud!).

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Errr… not sure if my watching of ‘Spiderman 3’ at the movies with Wilson when I was pregnant with Vai had anything to do with it, hehe …

Ever since Anya started school some two weeks ago, I’d usually let Vai stay a little longer and play at the school playground.

He’d roam around, ride on the tricycles, go on the swings and slides and do all sorts of stuff there (which explains his tanned arms and legs!)

Now earlier today, apparently NO students went to the playground area.

It was completely deserted. It was so good.

And so there I was, alone, on a bench. I took out my book and watched Vai from a distance.

He was totally engaged in water-play, for a good ONE hour!

Pouring water from one cup to another. Imagining that he’s preparing a meal for me. Immersing a plastic toy and pretending that he’s behind the wheel of a submarine. He happily played there, all by himself.

And I had such a good and relatively undisturbed ‘alone-time’ reading my book!

It wasn’t quite that ‘me-time WITHOUT kids’ session though (since it’s kind of hard for me to have such a ‘time-off’, UNLESS both kids are asleep!), and so I just made do with whatever situation that came my way and enjoyed that one hour break.

It was refreshing, I must say.

…

Do you have regular ‘me-time’ sessions?

Or should I say, when was the last time you had your ‘me-time’, and how was it? *smile*

If you asked whether I’d like to have pets at home a month ago, I’d say no thank you.

I’ve always been one who’s into pet dogs though, but looking at our lifestyle here in Singapore, I’d say it’d be too troublesome to start owning a pet. It’d take too much time to care for. Not to mention the lack of space (if it’s a dog) AND the hassles when we all have to go overseas for a holiday or something.

Funny how things can change within a few days.

You see, our friends went on a holiday towards the end of last year and we happily said yes to babysitting their pet fishes.

Anya and Vai sure were happy with the little fish tank in our living room. They’d greet the little fishes when they reached home. They’d watch the fishes, and keep asking me if they can feed them again and again.

I too began to think that having pet fishes was actually NOT a bad idea.

And so, on day 4 of babysitting our friends’ fishes, we found ourselves – all four of us – in a pet fish shop.

And we came home with four goldfishes!

Two ‘Ranchu’ goldfishes, and Anya named them ‘Miff’ and ‘Dottie’ (because of the red dot on its forehead)

Two ‘Lionhead’ goldfishes, named ‘Buff’ and ‘Headie’ by Anya.

And err, we got these not just for the kids. Wilson and I are happy with our little fishies too!

I could lie down on the floor when the kids are all asleep at night and just, watched the fishes swim away. I love how their tails sway so gracefully. So refreshing to the eyes!

I love observing the beautiful patterns on their glittery bodies too. God’s wonderful designs!

[AND, I love the fact that they’re easy to care for, do not need to be ‘walked’, and can easily be babysat by a friend when we’re all away on a short trip]

Anyway.

The kids happily care for the fishes. They learn how to be gentle, responsible and caring towards their pets.

And I, willingly, look after our four little friends too. Changing its water, cleaning its filters, rinsing its pebbles (and poop!).

Interesting isn’t it, how our love for something gives us the natural willingness to do things that we perhaps feel so burdened about before.