Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

One early evening.

The music was on and both kids were busy doing their own thing when Vai suddenly decided to join in the song and do some silly dance moves! Hehe.

Click HERE to view the clip!

The Bible, in Romans 13, teaches us these four ethics and moral values that we should learn and apply in our daily lives:

>> Pay up what we should rightfully pay to others

>> Pay taxes to the government in ways that we rightfully should

>> Pay respect to someone in ways that he / she should rightfully be respected

>> Fear those who should rightfully be feared

These four values somehow tend to be ‘forgotten’ by many, even by those who see themselves as ‘spiritual’.

Often we (consciously or unconsciously) take things for granted when we’ve received goodness consistently over a long period of time. We often fail to appreciate, respect or return what rightfully belongs to others.

I’m grateful for such a lesson, a reminder, for I know I need it from time to time. We all do.

May God continue to give us the much needed strength everyday.

The so called ‘Asia’s largest airshow‘ is still on till tomorrow, and as we wanted the kids to see, hear and experience for themselves the aerobatics shows and displays, we all went there today.

And apparently, some 40,000 others did too! (Oh the sea of people was unbelievable!)

The weather was SO blazing hot, and the shuttle bus trip took so much longer than expected! About an hour, from the moment we queued up for the bus! Once we reached there the show already started (gah!) and we couldn’t enjoy the earlier parts of the aerobatic flying displays because we still had to go through quite a bit of a procedure to reach the ‘open field’.

We walked under a cover, went into a building to queue (again) and go through a metal detector checker (for everyone’s safety).

Hmm. I’ve got to say, the organiser’s control of the traffic and crowds were poor. AND we didn’t get to see the first thirty minutes of the show as the result! *rolls eyes*

Anyway, I still did enjoy the whatever remaining aerobatic flying displays we managed to catch.

Looking up, squinting while carrying Vai in my sling, the thunderous sounds of the planes made the whole experience at the time so ‘tangible’, so worth while!

Well, at least to me (and even more so for hubby, who’s very into aircrafts!).

The kids’ excitement kinda evaporated into warm air within half an hour of reaching the site though. Part of it is because of the long time spent queuing up and traveling on the shuttle bus, I guess.

Poor thing.

Towards the end, Vai leaned real closely to me and started to slowly doze away, in sweat. Anya kept her fingers stuck in her ears almost throughout the show. And she sure wasn’t her cheerful self with three big red ant bites on the sole of her foot (talk about timing!).

She insisted either to sit on the pram or be carried by Daddy. So that was quite a tough one for us (and for our arms and shoulders too!).

Well anyway.

It was an experience we’ll remember for quite some time. The good and the not-so-good parts of it all.

And we’ll come again the next time it’s held here in Singapore. Hopefully, everything’s much better too by then.

Photo credit:
All photos – other than that of my hubby with his camera – were taken by him, Wilson.

Somehow Vai’s been showing quite a bit more interest in our camera lately.

He wants me to show him the results (from the camera’s LCD screen) after photos or videos are taken. And lets out a good cry too when I don’t!

And this is him today, looking at me through his so-called ‘viewfinder’, while I’m taking a shot of him. Hehe.

I guess he’s not quite fussed about the fact that he’s holding Anya’s pink hello kitty toy camera from McDonald’s upside-down!

Coz to him, getting the right ‘style and look of a pro’ matters more perhaps? Well, at least until he can get his hands on the real stuff. Hehe.

On the day this little guy turned 18 months old, he chose to venture further on the road to independence.

You see, just before Vai had his dinner earlier today, he went and picked his own spoon from the drawer, and (somehow) he chose the ‘big’ soup spoon!

Anyway.

To be able to eat at a comfortable height, I’ve placed an IKEA plastic stool on his dining chair. It’s his first time sitting and eating there, and looks like he enjoyed being like a ‘bigger’ kid in the house, hehe.

Click HERE to view the clip.

Oh btw, just in case you’re wondering what the background noise was, it was American Idol! Hehe.

She’d giggle and laugh at the silliest jokes

She’d sing and sing like there’s no tomorrow (nor neighbours!)

She’d request for something, then nod with understanding when I tell her that it’s not possible to do that now

She’d volunteer and proactively help around the house

She’d say grace before her meals, take a spoonful, and say “Yummm… thank you Mommy for cooking this yummy food!’

…

In reality though, there’s always a balance (read: good days and cranky days).

But then again, as parents I feel we should always try to treasure those good moments and remind ourselves to react accordingly and growl (read: rebuke strongly, but still with self control!) proportionately during their grumpy days.

Easier said than done.

But I guess I have to say, it’s never impossible. With God’s strength.

We all know that breakfast is really important for everyone, but as it’s recently been covered in the news, quite a lot of kids (and us adults?) skip breakfast.

Good thing Anya attends an afternoon class (read: no need for us to wake up super early to have our meals before leaving for school, phew!), so we all get to enjoy some breakfast everyday.

An example of their simple morning menu will be:

Anya: bread and jam (one slice), hard boiled egg, cheese (one slice) and 200ml of milk.

Vai: hard boiled egg, a banana and 200ml of milk

Anyway.

Here are a few good write-ups on breakfast and why it’s especially necessary for our little ones:

>> Breakfast – a great way to start the day

>> Kids and breakfast

>> Five important reasons why your child should eat breakfast