Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Finally! My much needed holiday break is here!

I’m SO looking forward to this 3-day-2-night getaway with friends and their kids!

Till then!

PS: Anya made that Chinese New Year card at school!

There’s been an extra boost in Vai’s verbal skills in the past week.

He’ll try to repeat the words we ask him to say (though in the end it still sounds more like a gurgle rather than actual words). When he listens to familiar songs, he’ll join in and say some of the words he knows.

When he hears fast music, he’ll usually get himself up and move to the beat!

He likes to copy his sister.

He likes books and bicycles.

He now weighs 13,5 kg.

Now that it’s a bit harder for me to take Vai out and about, I let him play at the school’s playground right after we send Anya to her class. Once or twice a week. For some 30 mins each time!

And though he (and me!) gets a ‘natural tan’ from the 12pm sun, he really enjoys his playtime. A LOT.

Climbing and sliding. Hiding in the ‘toy house’. Playing with sand. Sitting on tricycles or standing on scooters while Mommy does the pushing along.

And I’m happy seeing him this happy.

I’m starting to get used to the whole routine of sending and picking Anya up from school each day. And how Vai and I basically have a relatively short twosome time together, ie. 1 hour 40 min, in between (which usually is filled with me cooking / rushing to deliver my projects, playing with Vai, having lunch and helping Vai with his lunch).

If you ask me, I do wish I can have a much much longer twosome time with him. Well, not just twosome time actually. I mean, now that both of us send and pick Anya up from school everyday, Vai hardly goes out to places that the three of us used to go together before. Like, going to the library, malls, swimming with friends or even a visit to the Zoo.

You see, while I don’t really want to be away from Anya for too long (I do miss her now that she’s not around at home as much!), at the same time I want Vai to do (more) stuff outside too. Like before.

Dilemmatic.

Sigh.

It’s a common situation all parents of more than one kid face, I guess?

Oh well. For now we’ll make do with our current situation. And I’ll try my best to ‘make better use’ of whatever limited twosome time I have with my youngest one.

One of the many things I love about digital cameras is how it allows us to experiment.

Shoot at different angles, try out its many functions and see (or delete) the results IMMEDIATELY (read: no waiting at photolabs, no printing costs).

And so for today, I just thought I share with you these shots Anya and I took today, which you may want to try out too someday!

We used the ‘night mode’ feature on our Ixus (with the flash turned on).

With ‘night mode’, the object and the ‘camera handler’ are supposed to be completely still (for a few seconds) in order for the camera to capture all the lights nicely.

But if you focus on a particular object, click on the shutter release button, then follow the moving object, you get interesting shots with light trails. Like the one above (Anya was half-running at the playground at about 7pm when I took that shot).

Anyway.

Later that night, Anya asked for my IXUS and quitely ‘played’ with it in our bedroom while I had my dinner. After a few minutes, she came and showed me these two shots below.

She told me she ‘extended’ her arm ‘outside’ our bedroom window and took shots of the road traffic. And she was sort of puzzled by the funny results. I then explained in simple terms what’s happened and how she just used the ‘night mode’ feature. Thus, the interesting light trails.

She was excited and took a few more shots of ‘dark places with lights’ while moving her hands a bit.

It’s kinda like ‘drawing’, she said. Hehe.

[First photo below]
I love this particular shot she took. It looks like a school of dolphins jumping out of the sea together!

Do not think that we have control over everything.

Because we don’t.

There are too many things that happen in our lives that are simply BEYOND our control. Beyond what we could ever imagine. Be it a good thing or seemingly a ‘bad’ thing.

And it all simply emphasises our vulnerability and limitations as humans, and how we should only depend on HIM, our Creator, the one and only God who is always consistent in delivering His promises and showering everlasting love for us; HE who is in control of everything; HE who never changes over time though everything else in this world withers, changes and fails.

Praise be to God.

As our little ones grow, so is their curiosity. And the great thing about such increasing curiosity is that they get to discover new things about their world.

The ‘not-so-good’ aspect about it, well, while they test things out to see the ‘effects’ of their actions, they may venture into things that they’re not supposed to do.

Like, throwing toys around or pouring water onto the living room floor!

At first they may not ‘know’ that they’re not supposed to do them. But them being toddlers, generally even after we parents tell and explain – repeatedly – why some actions shouldn’t be done, they may choose to … not obey too.

Personally, I believe in letting kids know – since young – that there are consequences to everything. That we all need to learn and be responsible for our actions.

If they spill water onto the floor, they need to know that someone may slip and fall. And so we (including the child who spilled it) need to wipe the floor dry.

Today when Vai was drawing with crayons, he went to check out how his blue crayon would look on our dining chair!

He was vigorously colouring the chair when I realised what he was doing. I then gave him a firm ‘No no no!’, got down to his level, took his crayon, looked him in the eye and firmly told him how he’s to draw on his paper, not on furniture.

He got back to his paper. But within ten seconds, he went to draw on the dining chair, again! (This time, he chose the one next to the previous one).

After telling him again and again (the cycle happened for about 4 -5 times!), I decided to pack his crayons. I then gave him a damp cloth and explained to him how he’s to wipe the chair clean because he was the one who drew on them.

He managed to clean about 20% of it. And when I took over, I explained what I was doing while he watched me wipe the blue stains off the two chairs.

Hmm.

In such cases, yes it’d be much faster and easier if we just wipe it clean ourselves from the beginning. But if we tend to always do that, our little ones will miss out on an important life lesson – to be responsible and accountable for their own actions.

Worse, they’d gradually learn not to be too concerned about their own actions, because someone else will bear the consequences anyway!

Ah. Teaching our little ones need so much patience.

May God continually give us parents the needed persistence, consistency and wisdom in teaching our little ones.

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Find out more useful tips on:

– How to teach responsibility

– How to teach your toddlers to do chores

– Getting your toddler to listen