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[Photo taken by Wilson using iphone]

Life with children is full of ups and downs. I think all parents will totally agree with me on this one.

And now that we’re finally on the very last day of the year 2008, I hope we can all find a moment to re-discover and refresh our appreciation of life with children.

To not expect them to be ‘adult-like’ and ever-understanding towards OUR needs and situations.

To keep quiet for a moment and get ourselves together as best as we can when we’re really mad at them. Rather than choosing to immediately snap back and vent out our frustrations verbally.

To listen to them more. So we can understand them better.

To refresh our love for them and be all the more loving in our approaches towards them.

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Here’s to a new year filled with more patience, love and appreciation of life with children.

[me asking for favours from you]

I hope to inspire and reach out to a whole lot more people, more families, in the coming year.

And so if you find my site useful and have been inspired by it in one way or another, I hope you can take some time to share my site with your friends.

And to those who’ve been reading Our Everyday Things regularly, I’d like to thank you too for your continual support.

Do drop me an email or leave a comment on any of the posts to say HI anytime! I’d love to hear from you!

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I don’t know if you feel it too, but I feel this year has gone real fast!

I feel it’s not really that long ago when Anya went all emotional as she started going to nursery school. AND now, she’ll be in Kindergarten (and so looking forward to starting school!) in two weeks time!

Anyway, now that we’re at the end of yet another year, I’d like to share with you something which I recently heard at a fellowship, as shared by Ev. Maria Mazo. Such a timely reminder to me personally.

It’s about us and how we view our time and our life.

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In Ancient Greek, two words are used to describe time: Chronos and Kairos.

I quite like the definition given in wikipedia.org for these two words, which says:

While the former (ie. chronos) refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter (ie. kairos) signifies a time in between, a moment of undetermined period of time in which something special happens.

While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.

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Every one of us goes through the same cycle in life. One gets to be born into this world, grows up, grows old and dies.

Or, perhaps to some people, it’d be: One gets to enter this world, grows up, goes to school, graduates, works, gets married, has children, grows old and dies.

That pretty much sums up everyone’s life, if listed ‘chronologically’.

If one is to see life only in ‘chronos’, then he/she will most likely have a philosophy of ‘When ELSE can I do this and that? I should try and do what I wish WHILE I STILL CAN!’

The thing is, with this kind of life philosophy and understanding, people may end up trying out drugs, extra-marital affairs, or whatever things that they feel they should do (regardless of whether it is right or wrong, good for others or self, etc) because it is a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’.

In contrast, when one realises that there’s ‘Kairos’ in ‘Chronos’, he/she will see life as NOT just about going about doing our daily routine, because there’s something more important to life, and even more importantly, there’s an eternal value that’s tied to life. And upon such an understanding, that person can start living a life that’s of a ‘different quality’.

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We live in a temporary world, and one day we all will need to be accountable for the kind of life we’ve been living.

What kind of a life have we been living so far, or more specifically, this year?

Do we see our life as more than mere ‘chronos’? Do we hope to find more ‘kairos’ and important moments in life that are linked to eternity?

One thing is for sure, Christ has come to earth, suffered and died, and those who believe in Him can have the hope and strength they need to live a life that’s more fruitful.

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As I’m nearing the end of yet another year, I know I have lots to reflect upon for I do not wish to see my life passes by like a meaningless routine.

And for that to happen, I know I need to pray and ask for God to teach me so I can carefully see and continually appreciate things that are of eternal value in life.

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Some three months ago we had a nice little contest on this site. We gave out twenty pairs of Polliwalks shoes for kids to TWENTY lucky winners, for free! And all they had to do to be in the running was to leave a comment.

If you haven’t checked it out, click HERE to read some (or ALL) of them. We had awesome entries!

By now all twenty winners (from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia!) have received their prizes!

AND, some of them have emailed me photos of their kids and their Polliwalks shoes!

*Thanks guys!*

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Anyway, I hope to hear from the rest of the winners.

Do email me your photos yeah … and I’d be more than happy to feature them here!

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We had a nice gathering with friends by the beach at Big Splash (East Coast) today.

Nine families altogether.

And when it started to get rather dark, we had fun with fire sparklers too!

Vai was fine with them, but Anya wasn’t too keen on getting anywhere close.

Too bad I didn’t manage to get a shot of people doing a ‘2009′ with their fire sparklers! It would’ve been cool!

Anyway, though we all didn’t have our parents or relatives here in Singapore to spend our Christmas Day with, we had a great time spending our day in the company of friends!

It was all nice.

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How did you spend your Christmas day?

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Click HERE to see the larger version

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So have you heard about this mobile service that lets you - as a parent - keep in touch with your child, WHILE at the same time determine exactly WHO she can communicate with via her phone?

Well I just found out about it last week!

It’s called KidSAFE, and it was launched by M1 very recently!

Basically, this service lets parents heave a sigh of relief when their kids are not with them, ie. by letting them contact their kids easily, but stopping strangers from calling them.

Now I don’t know about you, but when it comes MY own two kids and their usage of today’s technology (eg. mobile phones and all sorts of other gadgets), I must say I’m rather particular about it.

I’m one who’s not into having my kids spending (more than necessary) time on gadgets, because at their current age, they can be easily, yet unnecessarily, glued to them.

I’ve often seen kids who sit together with their friends and families, side by side, but each of them is well engrossed in whatever they have in their hands. There’s no communication, no interaction with one another. Yes they are physically very close to each other, but they don’t spend time WITH each other.

And I sure want to avoid such a situation from happening in my family.

I’m one who tends to value relationships and family time, and so I naturally try my best to instill such a value in my kids too.

I prefer to see my kids interact, run around silly and SPEND TIME with family and friends who are AROUND them, rather than be engrossed and glued to whatever technology that is on their little hands at a corner somewhere (read : lack of actual social interactions)

Having said that, we do let them play with our mobile phones once in a while though, eg. They’d watch a short episode of ‘Bob the Builder’ on Wilson’s iphone. At times, Anya would use my phone’s ‘notepad’ and just play with numbers and alphabets.

For safety reasons (and unforeseen emergency situations), we’ve also taught Anya how to call us (she knows our numbers by heart) from any home or mobile phones.

I believe each family has its unique situation and needs, and KidSAFE may suit your family, and help you in keeping in touch with your kids, giving you a better peace of mind.

As for us, when Anya and Vai are older and have started going to school, extracurricular classes, and other places ALL BY THEMSELVES, then YES, we definitely will go for KidSAFE mobile service!

As parents we definitely want to be sure that Anya and Vai are okay, that they’ve reached their destination safely, that they can conveniently sms or call Mommy or Daddy when they need help or when something (good or bad) happens.

And rather than going for the usual mobile phone service, we feel KidSAFE will be a much better option for us. And mainly because we can program only selected mobile numbers on our KidSAFE phone, thus eliminating the possibility of strangers contacting our kids.

Really. When we feel that it’s time for our kids to have their own mobile phones, I would imagine that there’ll most probably be only four pre-programmed numbers on their KidSAFE phones.

Home. Mommy’s. Daddy’s. And, sibling’s.

After all, shouldn’t our technology work to our advantage and bring loved ones even closer with each other?

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[More info on KidSAFE]

- KidSAFE service is offered only by M1, but is available to everyone, regardless of their existing provider

- Special offer now : $0 for the KidSAFE phone and free subscription on M1’s Sunshare plan!

- Security measures include : 6-digit parent PIN that’s required when phone book entries or any of the KidSAFE functions need to be amended

- Parents are able to view the last 10 blocked actions (eg. details of mobile phones attempting to sms or call your KidSAFE number, and outgoing calls (and sms) attempts made on the KidSAFE number to unauthorised numbers

For all other details, please do contact M1 directly.

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Sometime ago I shared my very first Photography Tips, which was on trying out different camera angles.

And today I’d like to share another one. It’s about positioning our main subject in the frame.

When taking photos, quite a lot of people automatically place the subject in the middle of the picture (see sample photo of Vai above).

But the interesting thing is, when the subject is NOT placed directly in the centre of the frame, the photo can actually be more interesting and dramatic.

Rule of thirds:

I remember hearing the term ‘Rule of thirds‘ for the first time from my husband some eight years ago.

And this was what I learned at the time:

-  Imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines dividing the photo into thirds (see image above)

- If your object of interest (eg. a building that stands higher above the rest, or a child’s face in close up shots) is placed on one of the points where the lines intersect, your photo will most likely turn out looking more interesting (read: better and less boring).

Here’re two photos to compare:

[Top photo] Vai is placed right in the middle of the frame

[Above photo] Anya is positioned slightly to the side, ie. off-centre

Verdict : The positioning of the subject makes Vai’s picture looks more plain and less interesting.

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And here are a few more samples from my photography archive:

- When Anya kissed Vai on the cheek : click HERE to view

- Anya having fun with her water pistol and balloon at Vivo City: click HERE to view

- How Vai might look like if he’s grumpy : click HERE to view

- When Vai happily ‘roared’ to the camera : click HERE to view

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Please take note though that when you’re placing your main subject off-centre, you may need to ‘lock your focus‘ first (because otherwise your main subject will be totally out of focus, ie. blurred)

In most cases, you may need to focus on the main subject first, press the shutter button half way down (and keep it that way!), move the camera and position the main subject accordingly, and press the shutter button all the way down.

Now. This is just one of the basic principles that I’ve come across. Perhaps you’ve even applied the principle unconsciously when you take photos.

Anyway, the next time you take photos, why not try positioning the main subject at different places in the frame to see the effects you create. Does your photo tell the story better when the main subject is placed at a certain place in the frame? It’d be interesting to check them out yourself.

Happy experimenting!

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Here’s something which I thought will be fun for the post.

See which of the five shots below that you prefer / tells the story best. Any reason?

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Anya and Vai came along to watch Daddy and friends practise and play tennis.

And one of the things they both always looked forward to was when everyone stopped playing and started collecting the balls. They’d IMMEDIATELY get themselves busy.

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We don’t know if they’d grow up sharing their Daddy’s passion for the sport. But then how could one even start to be passionate about something if they have never heard, seen, observed another and be involved?

Start simple, aim big, perhaps?

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[Photo]
Anya and Vai keeping themselves well entertained at a friend’s one-month-old baby’s celebration some two weeks ago. Best wishes to the Chia’s family.

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