Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

… taxi rides are hardly ever boring.

Because usually :

– they’ll busily ask and talk about what they see on the street and inside the taxi

– they’ll want to stand and lean towards the front of the car, and we’ll be busy getting them to sit throughout the journey

– they can occasionally keep each other occupied too, like, looking at a picture book together.

Anya picked up this simple baby sign language from the DVD she watched with other kids during our Chinese New Year trip to Malacca, Malaysia.

And from then on, she often goes through the different signs and lets me know what each of them means.

Vai himself has started to pick up some of the signs too. More for fun though, rather than for actually communicating with us.

Personally, now that I’m a little bit more exposed (like, 0.01% of it?) with what baby signing is, I think it’s great if we sign to our babies while talking to them, since very young. I guess it’d be like … supporting what we say to them with something ‘visual’?

[I don’t often sign when I talk to Vai though. I guess it’s because I’m not yet used to it and mostly I just don’t remember to sign when I speak. Hmm.]

Anyway.

If you’re not yet familiar with the basic ones and would like to find out more about them, here’s Anya showing some of the ones she knows!

Click here to view the clip!

[If your really young ones watch the clip frequently, they may end up learning the signs and start ‘communicating’ with you too! Hehe. Drop me an email and let me know if it does work yeah. I’d love to hear from you!]

Enjoy!

I don’t quite know how other parents feel about it, but I’m always happy whenever I’m informed that Anya doesn’t need to go to school on a particular day! Hehe.

(usually it’s because other classes will have an excursion that day, and all teachers need to be around to chaperon the kids)

I love it when we have the whole day for ourselves, on a weekday! Just like how it used to be before Anya started school.

(though I’m happy Anya’s learning a lot at school, I still somehow miss those days where the three of us can freely go out at any time we want, and for however long we want)

Anyway.

We went to Nic’s place and spent some good few hours there today!

While the moms chatted, kids ate, played with Will, napped, ate yummy home-made pancakes and watched kids TV shows together!

And oh, that’s Anya and Vai sitting at the front of a double decker bus, on our way home, enjoying the rain and the street view from a different angle!

We had a great day out!

When browsing for Mommy’s shoes, I guess our little Vai likes to do it in his own ‘unique’ way.

Click here to view our latest video clip.

Whether we like it not, as parents, we represent honesty and truth for our children.

What we do will be copied by them.

When we face difficulties and choose to not deal with the problem but find easy ‘shortcuts’ as a way out instead, then our kids who observe it all will learn and think that THAT is the way they should solve their problems as well.

As parents raise their children, these little ones see the way their parents live and carry out their lives. The way they express their anger and joy. The way they handle problems within the family and with the outside world.

Children learn from what we do, not really that much from what we say.

We are (unconsciously) the example for our children.

So yes, it’s not easy being a parent.

But. Let us all continually learn to live our life in ways that can be a blessing to our little ones, and those around.

… I thank God they are blessed with no skin allergies (SO FAR!)

[shot by Joyce Arta]

I’ve had people saying to me how they thought I seem to hardly ever ‘lose my temper’ when it comes to dealing with my kids.

Well, have I ever?

Of course!

As much as I know I should always try and be cool-headed when dealing with my kids’ tantrums and ’emotionally-tempting’ situations, there are times when I DO feel really angry, annoyed and frustrated.

So far, I see myself losing my temper more towards Anya’s difficult behaviour though (rather than towards Vai – who I feel at his current age – has not really started giving me intentional difficult attitudes YET)

And I guess it’s because being a four year old girl she sometimes goes through difficult phases, like when she asserts her wants unreasonably, throws tantrums without any apparent reason, whines endlessly or chooses to intentionally not ‘listen’.

Like when we’re rushing out and she’s YET to finish her glass of milk, despite my endless reminders to finish it all up quickly, and AFTER holding the glass for the past THIRTY minutes!

Last Monday was an ’emotionally bad’ day for me.

I have urgent jobs to clear that afternoon and as the pressure of deadlines started to get to me, I waited for both kids to take their afternoon naps so I could work.

But.

Anya refused to nap, made crying noises and WOKE Vai who’s already napping at the time! (after that, both didn’t nap for the rest of the day)

A string of other incidents happened afterwards that basically turned me into a very very grumpy Mom!

In fact I was rather consistently mad and grumpy for some three hours or so. I was irritated and frustrated by Anya’s disobedience, however minor. I yelled and raised my voice. I was really emotional.

Wilson came home earlier than usual (thank goodness!) and as I shared what’s happened, I had an emotional meltdown within two minutes.

I felt bad, tired and frustrated.

Yes, Anya needed to be told off firmly when she misbehaved earlier that day, but I realised I got mad at her more than I should. I yelled over things that actually were not THAT bad.

When Anya came to see us in the bedroom, I carried and let her sit on my lap. I gently spoke to her while hugging her tight, telling her how I love her very much, how I always feel sad whenever she intentionally doesn’t listen to what I say and how it’s because I love her that I need to discipline her when she misbehaves.

I said it all with so much love, so much tears.

…

Looking back, these are my reflections.

I realised that my emotionally bad day was mostly triggered by work pressure and my monthly hormones!

And although I accept the fact that it’s perfectly normal for us parents to go through such an emotional roller coaster ourselves (being human and all), I personally don’t think it’s hence an acceptable and valid excuse for us to ‘throw tantrums’ at our kids.

Yes, we should firmly rebuke and teach our kids when they misbehave, but we should do it proportionately (ie. according to the level of their mistake)

And this was where I failed that day.

…

Yes I felt bad, but I think when such days happen to us parents, we shouldn’t blame ourselves endlessly.

I feel we should :

– carefully introspect ourselves, reflect upon what’s happened and work out the main cause of it (so we can continually learn to be more mindful of our own behaviour and have better self-control in the future).

– on the same day, have a close heart-to-heart talk with our child and assure her of our love.

…

For my case, I prayed for God’s forgiveness too, asking for extra strength and wisdom to carry out my duty, my privilege, as a Mom to the two little ones whom He’s entrusted.

Hmm.

The continual learning journey of motherhood.

The ups and downs of parenting.