Yesterday Vai officially earned the ‘I-can-now-climb-onto-big-chairs’ title (and marked the start of Mommy’s frequent ‘oh-be-careful’ reminders).

Anyway, here’s the step-by-step pictorial guide he’d like to share with other curious toddlers:

I have to admit though that this latest stunt of his gives me a much greater adrenaline rush than seeing him climb our gate all the way up.

And I guess it’s somehow because when he’s on the gate, he’s at least clinging onto it, but when he’s standing on the chair, he likes to let go and just stand as if he’s on a surf board or something!

[and he often wobbles a bit too! Which is the main cause of my heart skipping a beat or two!]

…

So these days, I ensure all chairs are well tucked under the table, so that whenever he tries to pull the chair out and climb on to it, I have a few short seconds to quickly be near him, AND to bring him back down again (after letting him rummage through our dining table’s stuff for a few seconds and telling him how it’s somewhat safer to just play on the FLOOR).

Oh well.

Life’s never plain nor dull when you have kids.

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Okay. She’s actually turning 3 years and 8 months in nine days, but I just thought I’ll write a few quick updates about her.

Her terrible three days (unfortunately) still continue till today.

[And btw, heaps of heartfelt thanks to those who shared and sent encouraging emails soon after the 'Growing Up' post on October 18th. You guys brightened up my day!]

Having a mouth ulcer, a brother whose mealtimes are just so challenging and a Mommy with a mild runny nose and headache somehow don’t really help much either.

She refuses to eat much. And when she does, she’d be crying and complaining about the ulcer pain.

She’s now basically more cranky than usual and I just can’t wait for her ulcer and my headache to go away.

Anyway.

Something happened today that frankly REALLY surprised me. In a happy way.

We were at a shopping centre when a balloon sculpture guy went on stage to start his performance. And we stopped to watch.

When the guy called for volunteers from the audience the second time, she apparently raised her hands! And when she’s chosen and called to the stage, she walked and went all by herself!

Remembering how it went when she’s a flower girl two months ago and knowing her character, it was such a big ‘breakthrough’!

She even spoke loud and clear when asked for her name and age!

I was glowing with pride!

When she came back to me a pink rabbit balloon, I told her how happy I was to see her go up there, brave and calm. Wilson called and spoke to her on the phone too afterwards.

By continually encouraging her, we sure hope she learns to believe in herself more and be a little less shy.

The actual process of change itself of course will take quite a while. But we’re just happy to see her little milestone today.

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… learning how to self-feed and use a fork can be just a litttleee less messy.

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Many people enter marriage with idealistic thoughts of how a marriage ’should be’.

That there’ll be hardly any arguments. That all exchanged words will always be romantic and sweet. That the home will always be neat and clean because the boyfriends-now-husbands will always proactively help and clean everything up. That our spouse will wake up in the morning always looking fresh and beautiful (?)

If one has such thoughts when they first got married, they’ll be … disappointed.

And it’s really not because marriage itself is ugly. Marriage in itself is in fact beautiful, for it is when two individuals - who promise to stay true and faithful to each other - are united by God in front of His people.

What’s important is that we ought to always remember too that marriage is a union between two unique individuals who are FAR from perfect.

We ought to be realistic. Disagreements will happen. And arguments will take place.

But when both openly communicate, listen and respect each others’ views and feelings, and find a way out that works for both parties, in the end marriage itself can be an enriching experience.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. And so is our spouse. So our job is to focus more on their strengths, and learn to complement and tolerate their weaknesses.

Yes there will be hurdles in our marriage. But if we let God be the LORD of our household, we can be rest assured that He will always be with our family.

Leading, guiding and showing a way out. Even when there seems to be no way.

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Today the kids got their hands (and feet!) on a few colouring stuff.

Coloured pencil. Crayons. Watercolour.

They drew and scribbled. They used a sponge and dabbed some watercolour on the paper.

And Vai apparently managed to make some ‘hand and foot prints’ too!

Anyway, it was a nice sensorial colouring experience for the kids, I think.

PS: To minimise the ‘mess’ in our living room, I spread out some newspaper and taped the corners to the floor. I then taped the drawing paper onto the newspaper to prevent it from moving about (mostly caused by Vai, really).

And after the kids got all messy with the colours, they then went to have their shower and a bit of waterplay in the bathroom.

This way, kids were happy. And Mommy’s headache-free.

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I was SO inspired by today’s sharing at our Women’s Fellowship.

Here’re some thoughts I’d like to share with you.

>> Family is an institution, a unit, that God Himself has established. And at the very core, it’s about the relationship between the husband and the wife.

>> One of the wives’ tasks is to ‘help the husband to be the leader God wants him to be’. When a wife takes over the leadership role in the family, the husband loses his identity, and the household will not be in balance.

>> Wives, after they have children, tend to focus only on the kids, and no longer on the husband. And when their kids have kids, the wives then focus on the grandkids.

If a wife’s focus is hardly ever on her husband, the family will face potential danger where ’someone else’ meets the husband’s need for attention, respect and care.

>> If a couple fails to continually work on mutual respect, open communication and a loving relationship, husband-wife relationship will deteriorate over time.

And if both fail to realise the potential danger of this, they unconsciously will grow further apart from each other (buried in their own busyness with career and kids) though living under the same roof. And it’ll be hard to ‘fix’ the relationship ten or twenty years later.

>> In today’s era, it’s realistically hard(er) to find family togetherness.

Parents tend to be busy with work and other things. Kids are often sent to attend lots of tuitions and courses that they too spend so little time at home and with other family members.

>> Computer, TV and games (like PlayStation, Xbox) also tend to give ‘less desirable’ impacts on us, especially the kids.

They can take away: the much-needed communication, social interactions and togetherness. Even good manners.

[eg. when a child is in front of the TV, he can be so focused on what he's watching that he 'ignores' Mom or replies impatiently when she's talking to him]

>> Relationship with others tend to be superficial too, now that most things are communicated via sms and emails (read: phone calls nowadays get less popular, compared to text messages).

>> Young children (below three especially) naturally depend on their parents, emotionally, physically, psychologically, to name a few. And if parent-child relationships are not strongly built since young, they unfortunately cannot be ‘repaired’ and ‘redeemed’ at a later age.

The kind of society, technology and world we live in tend to make us and our children more individualistic (read: less loving and less ‘together’ as a unit).

It’s critical that we continually sow the seed of Faith and Truth in our family, as well as the importance of relationships, morality and characters.

Such a teaching must come from us parents, especially when the children are still very young.

A strong foundation must be built from within.

And it must start from us. From our own family.

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The kids had their eyes checked today.

Apparently there’s this study on ‘Strabismus, Amblyopia and Refractive Error in Singapore Preschoolers’ and our home was one of the selected ones.

Anyway. I thought it’d be interesting to find out the condition of the kids’ eyes too. And so we went to the Medical Centre and participated.

Other than me getting interviewed on our family’s ‘eye history’ and how the kids usually spend their day, Anya went through the whole process (and she took it quite well too, to my surprise!).

From reading alphabets from afar, identifying ‘coloured dots’ (to check for colour blindness), to getting the ‘inside’ of her eyes checked and examined too (using state-of-the-art machines, of course!)

To get the best results when examining the eyes, they apparently had to ‘enlarge the pupils’ and ‘relax the eye muscles’. And they do this by applying different types of eyedrops.

The kids’ vision will afterwards be affected for a period of six to twenty four hours! (read: blurred vision, unable to ‘read’ and sensitive to bright lights).

[Frankly I was a bit concerned about the eyedrops and its effect. But then the friendly doctor assured us that there's no side effect. I also found out that there were 1006 other kids who have gone through the same procedure. And so I felt better about it]

And oh, Vai had eyedrops applied to him too when he’s napping (he was already SO sleepy when we arrived). But as expected, he wriggled and woke up after a few drops.

Btw, for kids his age, the study obviously cannot be as detailed. It was tough enough to get him to sit still and ‘look’ at the ’shining light’ from the doctor’s ‘tool’ (sorry for the totally ‘non-medical’ terms. Heh)

Anyway. Here are the results for both Anya and Vai.

>> No Amblyopia (lazy eye) nor Strabismus (cross-eyed, wall-eyed)

>> No spectacles needed

And specifically for Anya’s case:

>> Long-sighted on both eyes (the power: + 4.00 and + 3.50)
Basically for kids her age, this is normal, and the power will slowly go down as Anya grows up.

>> She has astigmatism! (the power: - 1.50 and - 1.00)
She’s just like me! And it came as a surprise because I never knew kids her age can already get astig. And apparently, this condition will not get better. She may need to wear spectacles later on when she starts driving. Hmmpff.

And oh, a few other interesting findings from today’s check up were:

Anya’s now 94.8 cm high and 14.2 kg

Vai is now 85 cm high and 12.2 kg!

[note: no shoes worn when weighed and measured]

Anya’s measurement was as expected, but I was honestly surprised when it was Vai’s turn to get on the scale. I even lifted him off and let him stand on it again a couple of times to make sure the numbers were right.

Vai’s mealtimes have been much tougher these past two weeks. He’s not that interested in eating. He’d look the other way and push the spoon away. And so I sort of expected the scale to go down. Not up. Hmm. I guess ’some things’ are just beyond our understanding.

Anyway.

I feel so blessed that the kids are in good health.

Can’t thank God enough for his blessings.

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Lately Vai shows more interest in actually drawing on a piece of paper than putting the crayons into his mouth (though at times he’s still curious about their taste!)

And at this age, he’s interested in spending only a few short minutes scribbling and drawing. Which of course is completely fine with us.

He’s after all only a year and two months old.

Keep on exploring, little guy …

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People in general tend to (unconsciously) judge others from the kind of work they do.

If one works as a cleaner at a food court and the other is an executive working in a bank, there’s a tendency to value the cleaner less, and respect the ‘corporate worker’ more.

More respect (unfortunately) seems to be given to those who earn more dollars and cents.

We are all equal and worthy in the eyes of God, THE Creator, and we should also treat and value others accordingly.

The question is, how do WE treat others who are different from us? (economically, socially and intellectually, to name a few)

If our values do need a bit of changing, it’s never too late to start the process now.

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