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This year Anya’s taking part in kidscraftweekly’s Christmas card swap again!

And so while Vai napped, she made four cards!

We used only watercolour today (she said she’d like to use glitters tomorrow!)

Basically I let her draw whatever she felt like drawing at the time. And she used the brush as well as her fingers.

Anyway.

I think it’s good when our little ones are given the opportunity to learn and create something FOR someone else.

Especially when they’re at an age where everything tends to always be centred on ‘themselves’.

We all are born with God-given talents and potentials. And it can be anything, really.

Playing music. Singing. Leading. Teaching. Cooking. Writing. Drawing. Ability to understand technical stuff. Listening ears. Encouraging others through our positive words. The list is endless.

We all have the responsibility to continually ‘dig’, explore and develop our potentials AND most importantly, use them for the good of others.

Potentials and talents that are kept to self are meaningless.

What’s important is how much we can contribute to others, not our financial status nor how much possessions we HAVE during our lifetime.

Because history will remember those whose lives have CONTRIBUTED well to the world.

>> When one receives something without working to achieve or accomplish it, there’s a tendency to take what was given for granted (read: less appreciation for it).

>> We all love and nurture our children. But when we make our children’s life materially and financially comfortable at all times, always giving to them whatever things that they ask for (sometimes, even when they’re all grown-up already), then we’re actualy letting them grow up not knowing:

- that it’s actually okay if they do NOT always get what they want
- that time, process and hard work are normally involved before something is achieved

>> Many things in life are gifts, given to us for ‘free’. And yes, we need to be grateful always. Appreciating the givers and the gifts.

But the thing is, in life many things do not happen ‘instantly’. There’s a process involved. And that means it involves time and hard work too.

Like how a mom carries a baby in her womb for nine months, often going through tough first-trimester morning sickness phase, before going through labour pain to deliver the baby.

Or how a husband and a wife need to work hard together in educating their children and in building a ‘better’ relationship with each other that’s based on trust, understanding and love.

When we go through a process and work hard towards something, interestingly, we get to enjoy the fruits of our labour more.

This activity book was actually a gift when Anya turned two! But I’ve only introduced it to her today because she’s (finally) shown ‘more’ interest in actually learning about telling time.

[oh btw we also choose to gradually give toys or presents we receive to the kids. I mean, not all at once. This way, their play can be maximised when it is more 'age-appropriate', and ... for us, we have something 'new' to give to them from time to time too, hehe]

So far she knows about the long hand and the little one on the clock. She understands too when I ask her to finish up her meal by the time the long hand is say, on the number eight. She has a small clock next to her bed. She has a talking (read: mumbling) toy clock too.

Somehow I notice, as I introduced the colourful book to her today when she herself is ready to learn about it, she seems to have more fun with it and ‘absorbs’ the info ‘better’.

Anyway.

Click HERE to see quite a useful site (comes with printable worksheets) on teaching kids about telling time. And HERE for a more advanced interactive one.

PS: Anya’s ‘terrible three’ days are a little bit ‘better’ (read: lesser daily frequency) these past couple of days. I’m so happy!

(and let’s hope things CONTINUE to get better AFTER I write about it on my website!)

Anya created her own simple little drawing today.

We used:

>> Plastic caps for the flower’s ‘middle part’

>> White paper as the base, crayons, glue, scissors, scotch tapes

>> Crepe paper (for the ‘grass’ bits at the bottom)

We taped the caps to the paper. Then she scribbled and drew the sky and the petals. She then cut strips of the crepe paper and pasted them.

[Throughout the process, our curious little Vai climbed onto his tricycle, stood on the saddle, held onto the dining table and sort of watched what we're doing and tried to play with whatever stuff that's near him]

In the end, the ‘flowers’ sort of looked like three sunny-side up eggs (but I kept this opinion to myself. Heh)

Oh well.

Other than wanting her to exercise her scribbling, cutting and pasting skills, Anya herself was pretty happy with what she’s made.

Which of course is an important part of learning too.

Strongly wanting what other people have (or what the SHOP sells!) is part of Anya’s daily requests these past few months.

And apparently, this is pretty common amongst grown-ups in general too, huh? Being sinful human beings and all.

Wanting to own something that we actually don’t ‘need’, not feeling content with what we currently have, or secretly envying others who seem to have ‘more’.

Ah. Kids somehow have their own ways of reminding us of things that WE ourselves need to change, don’t they?

Well. ANYWAY.

Other than needing to so frequently explain why there are things that she CAN and CANNOT have, fortunately there are things that she WANTS and we can try to MAKE them. Ourselves.

She saw her friend’s hand-made paper fan yesterday and wanted what she had. She talked about it so much and so we made one today!

What we used:

>> Thick carton

>> Coloured paper to decorate the fan

>> Scissors, glue, masking tape

>> Disposable wooden chopsticks (ones you get from takeaways) as the handle

As she requested, I cut a heart-shaped carton for her and she started cutting out her coloured paper (to whatever shapes she liked) and glued them onto the thick carton.

We then stuck the chopsticks at the back of the fan with a masking tape.

And that’s it!

It was a very simple paper fan, really. But she’s very happy with it (and stopped wanting one afterwards too!).

Whenever the three of us go out, that usually means the kids are generally the ‘happier’ ones and I’d be the more ‘physically tired’ one.

Carrying Vai in the sling when Anya naps in the pram. Going after Vai when he’s entered a shop all by himself. Entertaining Anya’s many questions. Or even handling her tantrums (which I’m not too sure why her Terrible Three days are simply NOT ‘gone’ yet).

But really. Somehow I prefer being outside rather than be confined in the four walls of our home.

I guess it’s because when we’re outside, there are simply more distractions for the kids. Birds and animals to observe. People, cars and buildings to see and talk about.

AND it’s always nice seeing them laugh and have fun.

Lately I’ve somehow been thinking about kids and the way they value and view things around them.

And here’re some of my thoughts.

Little children heavily depend on adults, especially their parents and their main caregivers, when it comes to finding information on everything in their ‘world’.

They observe their surroundings, adults’ reactions to things, words they say and things they do.

If they watch a TV programme from the Animal Planet channel and their parents are often heard saying something like, ‘Oh look! The lions ate the poor little deer. How cruel!’, then their kids slowly learn to view lions, tigers and other similar ‘predators’ as cruel animals out to eat defenseless animals (rather than learning how in the animal world, there’s a food chain and predators hunt because they need to in order to survive).

And if we often make negative judgements in front of our children (like, ‘Urgh! That restaurant’s food doesn’t taste nice!), then our little ones will pick up similar judgements too (ie. negatively comment on things around them).

Other than the parents, kids also learn from the media, TV, teachers and friends when they start school. That’s why to me personally, I find it very critical for us parents to always try to be aware of our own actions and words as well as ‘monitor’ what our kids watch, read and hear.

Though it’s not always possible to control our kids’ environment, especially after they start school (ie. being physically away from us for a period of time), I personally believe we parents can still put in the needed effort to follow our kids’ developments and the kinds of exposure she’s getting. At home and outside.

It’s never an easy task, especially since perfect parents are non-existent.

But I guess we can always try our best.

One of the things that we all can never avoid in our lifetime is suffering.

And suffering (or discomfort) will be experienced by everyone, regardless of their religion and spirituality.

Difficulties, discomforts and challenges will sure take place in order for something to ‘move on to a higher level’ or for something to reach a ‘better state’.

Like how we must go through stressful school exams before we can pass and go up another level.

Or how inventors sure go through phases of failures and difficulties before solving their problems and coming up with new inventions.

When we go through a phase of suffering, let’s try to remember - though it sure is hard at the time - that it is not ‘the end’ of everything.

And if we have God as our Lord, we can trust that HE will give us HIS grace and strength to go through all sorts of storms in life.