Now that we have two kids in the house, it’s nearly impossible for us to keep the house nice and tidy.

Look under the sofa, and you’ll find a crayon, a piece of paper or a toy car. Storybooks can sometimes be found in the kitchen, or under the kids’ beds too!

As much as possible though, when it comes to helping out, we always try to get the kids involved around the house.

And some of our reasons for doing so :
> it makes the kids feel involved, recognised and appreciated within the family
> it gives them opportunities to complete a task and enjoy a sense of accomplishment afterwards
> it teaches them to be responsible persons
> it can help us keep our home a little more tidy too

Some of the kids’ contribution so far :
> help clean up the mess and put their toys back after playtime
> help in the making of their snacks (eg. stirring and pouring into jelly molds)
> help in meal preparation (stir the chicken marinade, put pumpkin pieces to a big bowl after they’re cut)
> return her mug and plastic plate to the kitchen after mealtime (Anya)
> prepare her school bag and open the padlock of our gate, as I get ready to send her off to school (Anya)
> wash their bike

They’re of course not always into cleaning up after their mess. They can casually go off after playtime and many times I need to repeat myself in order to get them to do something for me.

Vai for instance, sometimes drops his toy to the floor and casually walks off. When asked to pick it up and put it back properly, he’d run and giggle away. So I’d have to go over to him, talk to him while holding his hand and accompany him to the toy before he actually picks it up and puts it back.

Getting my kids involved sometimes means ‘double-work’ for me too.

I mean, pretty often it’d be faster if I’d just complete the task myself (like when I let them wash my rice grains, most likely they’ll spill some water to the floor too).

But I know I need to learn to be casual about these things and focus more on guiding them and appreciating the actual efforts our little ones are trying to put in.

After all, kids love to be involved and our challenge I guess is in finding age-appropriate tasks where they can contribute, learn along the way and feel our genuine appreciation.

…

Here’re some useful links:
>> Involving kids in tasks and chores
>> Chores for kids
>> How to involve the kids in daily household chores

Vai’s turning 21 months in a week’s time, and at this age I’m glad he’s able to communicate better with us.

So far he can string two or three words together, reply with a nod or a ‘no’ (like when we ask him if what he just did was wrong), and recognise a few numbers and letters.

When it comes to introducing him to alphabets, we do it as we go about doing our day to day things actually.

Like when he sits on his stroller and we pass a row of parked cars I’d say an alphabet or a number and I’d ask him to spot, point and say it for me. It’s more like a game for us. And if he gets it wrong, that’s okay too. No rush.

So far, he knows : A, B, E, M, O, S, T, and U

Anyway, click here to watch Vai doing his Alphabet thing on youtube! Just a little something we’d like to keep to remind us of his ‘first step’ towards the journey of reading. Enjoy!

…

And here are some useful links on introducing letters of the alphabet to toddlers :

>> How to teach a toddler letter recognition

>> Six great alphabet games and activities for toddlers

>> What’s the best to teach my child the alphabet

Here’s a little announcement from me just in case you haven’t noticed : this site is now powered by Wordpress!

[Btw, this site is apparently BEST VIEWED using Firefox browser. If you're using Internet Explorer, the page will most likely appear cluttered, with bold texts. Am trying to fix this problem yeah]

Previously I did everything the ‘old-fashioned’ way : in HTML. And knowing that I need to switch to a more user-friendly publishing platform sometime anyway, I feel it’s better if it’s done sooner than later.

So after getting some positive advice from a few friends, I finally braved myself to venture into something completely new. I decided to go ahead, invest the time and move ALL of my content over, once and for all!

It was frankly a HARD decision for me to make, because other than the fact that I’m so NOT a technical person, I need to manually transfer over three years worth of blog posts (more than 650), learn how CSS codes work from scratch and find out how certain things fall into place at Wordpress. So yes, since I began it all last month, it’s been a long and painful process for me (not to mention the mind boggling technical hiccups!).

Anyway.

I’m keeping the look and feel of the site similar to what I had before (I prefer a clean minimalist look), BUT there are new features here!

Here are some new changes :

>> I now have categories!

You can now click and read stories about my two kids, on parenting, marriage and relationships, inspiring values and life principles that keep me going, activity ideas for kids, etc.

>> There’s a little section on the right where a different list of posts on parenting will show at random each time you visit this site

>> I’ve got RSS and a list of possibly related posts at end of each blog entry for easier reading and reference to my older posts

>> I now have a comment section (and please please do make full use of it as I’d love to hear from you!)

>> Some of my photos are on Flickr too now! (and I’ll regularly upload them there)

Right now I’m still in the process of transferring all my older posts and pages.

So please do stay with me and feel free to browse around.

Enjoy!

PS: A HUGE thanks goes to our good friend, Willson Cuaca, for helping me iron out some frustrating technical issues!

It’s always nice to have a lovely Mother’s Day from the moment you wake up to the time you go to bed.

But the reality is often a little bit different to what we’d prefer.

This morning for instance, Anya was just hormonal from the moment she woke up, and kept on crying for no apparent reason. Her ‘cranky mode’ somehow went on and off throughout the day. And very often, I had to repeat myself so many times to get her to do something.

Vai was mostly okay UNTIL he woke up from his afternoon nap. He then was just cranky too.

And, because Wilson had important commitments he had to attend as well for the first half of the day, it was all up to me to handle the kids, their emotional roller coasters and their occasional ‘power struggle’ over objects as simple as a plastic cup!

Of course it wasn’t always bad (read: there were sweet moments too), but I guess I was just physically tired and thus my patience and tolerance level towards constantly whiny voices and disobedience was lower than usual.

I felt drained today.

And I thought today we moms are supposed to ‘enjoy’ the day?

As I’m typing this I tell myself that yes, we moms and our contributions are ‘celebrated’ on Mother’s Day, but really, today is actually no different than any other day.

I mean, the fact that many parts of the world celebrate ‘Mother’s Day’ does not mean our little ones can and will specially behave any ‘differently’ (read: sweet and angelic) for one whole day.

They’re children, and so it’s only natural if they’re childish.

I feel we can’t hang our ‘parental responsibilities’ on the rack and take a ‘day off’ from being a Mom, simply because it’s Mother’s Day.

[Of course it'd be nice to be able to put our feet up, relax and be enjoy a special treat once in a while *smile*]

Anyway, what I experienced today just confirmed it yet again, that the label ‘Mom’ sticks to us and it naturally comes with its set of privileges, challenges, joy and responsibilities. Regardless of the time and day of the year.

And now, here’s to all Moms out there:Happy Mother’s Day!

PS: Wilson arranged a nice dinner out and a mobile phone upgrade so I can finally get rid off the one I have now (which gives me SO many problems). How sweet.

Today we went to our very first Parent’s Day celebration at Anya’s school!

It was sort of an exciting-yet-weird kind of feeling for me. I mean it was like, wow I am attending my daughter’s PARENT’S Day event! And I’ll be the one watching (and videotaping!) her sing together with other four-year-olds on stage.

[you see, somehow I just feel it's not REALLY that long ago when I was the one performing on stage with my secondary school friends!]

Anyway. When it was Anya’s group’s turn to perform, parents of the other kids rushed towards the front with their cameras and videocams. AND from where I was sitting (or standing!), I can’t spot my own kid!

Wilson managed to get to the front and take a few photos, but from where I sat, I could only see Anya for a few seconds, from the big projector! (the camera panned across the kids’ faces throughout their performance)

So there I was, standing, lifting my right arm, trying to keep it still while videotaping ‘the stage’, WHILE at the same time checking on Vai, who’s started standing on the bench and leaning towards the people sitting behind!

And in the end, I didn’t get to properly hear nor watch the performance! (let alone be ‘touched’ by the sweet words of the songs *sigh*).

The nursery kids sang 4 short songs - in English and Mandarin - and they’re about loving your parents and God, and enjoying the time spent with your family. Awww.

Oh well.

Still, it was a nice family event at her school today. There were food stalls and games stations for the kids too.

I do hope though that many years from today, Anya can still remember this day, the day when her Mom, Dad and little brother went together to her event, because we know it’s important for her, and because we want to be there for her.

And even if she forgets, she can always browse through my blog archives and read about her early years! *smile*

… because there’s a whole lot of other water-fun stuff you can do in the pool!

And of course, sometimes one may prefer a quieter activity like pouring water from one bottle to another, while the other simply chooses to create ‘earthquake-like’ water effects!

My home gets pretty rowdy these days.

Other than doing quieter activities together, they play and laugh real loud. They play chase with each other and run around the house. They give each other big hugs and tumble around their beds.

And that’s not it.

They’ve also started wanting the exact same thing. If one is holding a toy, then the other wants to hold it too. If one sits on a bike, then the other wants to sit on it too.

And when that happens, you’d then hear them screaming and crying. One holds on to what he assumes as ‘HIS’ real tightly, and the other tries to take it away with all her might.

THEN I have no choice but become the mediator. The umpire. The nagging Mom who comes to the ‘incident site’ and talks (read: repeats herself) about the importance of sharing AND waiting AND giving WITH NO shouting, screaming nor snatching.

Then whoever is the ’snatcher’ has to apologise.

[Sometimes I just watch them from a distance and let them solve their conflicts without my intervention]

Really, nowadays this happens SO frequently throughout the day.

Well, I guess I’m just going through what they usually say about having more than one kid in the family.

You know, that these kids love each other deeply. But siblings are not siblings if their relationship is not peppered with conflicts which they’ll (somehow manage to) forgive and forget a few minutes later.

As a follow-up on my post last Saturday, here’s one topic from Dr Kevin Leman’s book “First-time Mom” that I’d like to share with you today.

It’s on the role of daddies in the family and how moms often complain about their husbands having little interest in helping out with the kids.

The book recommends this :

Avoid actions that scare husbands away

One of the reasons why many men take a ‘backseat’ when it comes to parenting is : they feel the wives are so competent that they are just not needed.

Another reason: they eventually feel reluctant to help out because they are often instructed by the wives on ‘HOW’ they ‘SHOULD HAVE’ done things.

Like when a dad tries to put on a diaper and the wife laughs and says : ‘Don’t you know how to put on a diaper? You’ve got it backwards!’. Then the wife continues to share his ‘amusing’ diaper episode with her friends.

Some husbands are completely okay with such comments and reactions from the wives, but some may not like them.

They feel the wives are too quick to ridicule, judge and ‘correct’ their way of doing things when it comes to caring for the kids. And as the result, the dads feel discouraged and simply are not interested in helping much anymore.

So. How should the wife approach all this?

Learn to appreciate the husband’s unique role and approach in the child’s life.

Dads may not be as gentle as moms, but that’s okay. In fact, that’s the way it should be.

Babies don’t need daddies to act like mommies or mommies who try to act like daddies. Kids are more ‘durable’ than we often realise.

…

This, I admit, was one of the things that lead to arguments between Wilson and I, especially in Anya’s earlier years.

I have my own routine and ways of doing things when it comes to caring for the kids. And Wilson naturally has his ways too. And when I insist on how certain things ‘need to be done’, I’m making him feel incompetent. It’s as if ‘my way’ is the ‘only right way’ of accomplishing certain things.

By now, we’ve understood each others’ roles better. We’ve synchronised quite a few parenting approaches too.

And despite Wilson’s long working hours, when he’s with the kids, he helps out and spends lots of time with them (like, getting them ready for bed, washing them up, brushing their teeth, putting on diapers, changing into their pyjamas, reading them books and saying their bedtime prayer together)

Over time, I’ve also learned to just ‘close one eye’ and avoid being too particular over things that are not that critical (which frankly was tougher to do during my earlier years of being a Mom).

And when we disagree about a particular parenting approach, we’d share it with each other and talk about it.

We realise that no parent is perfect, and that we both need to complement each other, and continually grow and be reminded of the many things that need to be changed and improved.

Parenting sure is a continual learning journey for us.

Anya went with her Daddy for a free trial lesson of kids tennis this morning, at Advantage School of Tennis. More for kids between the age of three to five.

It was her very first ’sports’ session, and I think it all went quite well.

During their 45-minute session, her group bounced and hit balloons and tennis balls with their rackets, etc. It was a fun lesson for the kids.

Other than to keep fit and physically active, I think playing tennis (or any sports) is a great way to socialise and develop the kids’ hand and eye coordination too.

Right now, we’re not sure if we’re going to sign her up for regular tennis lessons as yet (Wilson himself is very passionate about this sport and he plays twice a week regularly for many years now).

Whatever it is, I think it’s great if kids can be exposed to different activities and sports since young, where possible. And although they may not end up liking or playing the sports well down the road, at least we parents should let them try them out.

And hopefully they’ll find one that they are passionate about too.

Little children do not ask for their parents to be rich. They don’t resent their mom for not being pretty. They will not choose whom they wish to have as their parents.

But, all little children expect this : fairness.

They will not accept favouritism in the family. When they see how a parent prefers one brother better than the other, it’ll hurt them deeply. They’re sensitive towards such treatments.

They’ll feel unloved. And to them, it’d be like being psychologically hurt.

[Just like in the case of Jacob's family in the Bible, where Joseph, whom Jacob the father 'preferred the most' amongst all his other brothers, was resented - and later sold to foreigners - by his jealous brothers]

…
When there are more than one child in the family, we as parents are expected to be as fair as we can towards them.

But given the complicated and unique situation each family has, ‘being 100% fair and wise at all times‘ tends to be tougher that one may think.

Despite the challenges we face though, let us try our very best as parents to be fair to each and every little one, for we know that it is the right thing to do, as loving parents to those whom God has entrusted.