Vai - who’s turning two in less than a month - also has his own way of asserting what he wants and his unhappiness when he doesn’t get it (vocally and physically), although I must say he is less ‘hormonal’ (read : emotional) than his sister.

Anyway, here’s a good article for us all on this topic (I’ve shortened some parts of it).

Have a good read!

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From : Parenthood.com

We’ve all experienced it - the dreaded tantrum in a public place. Little Susie Q is screaming at the top of her lungs while an assortment of disapproving eyes are all focused on you. The pressure is on.

Fear not, you are not alone. There is no foolproof method that works for everyone every single time. There are, however, a few tips for handling a tantrum with a little decorum.

1. Put your child’s needs first. It is tempting to worry about what “everyone else is thinking,” but make eye contact with your child and let her know you are “present” to the situation.

2. Don’t make jokes. This is not the time to try and cajole her back to a calm state. If she is shrieking and thrashing around on the floor, put your grocery basket in reverse, tell the checker you will return another time, and physically walk out of the store with Susie in tow. Sometimes a different environment is all it takes to calm a child down. If she doesn’t calm down, leave … quickly.

3. Don’t make empty threats. If you say, “Susie, if you don’t stop screaming, we will not go to the park,” you must follow through. You must be consistent with your words.

4. Apologize to bystanders while you attempt to gingerly make your way out the door. You need not gush, simply say, “I’m sorry, we are having a difficult morning.”

5. Refrain from trying to act like the tantrum isn’t happening. Nothing is more maddening to bystanders than witnessing a mother attempting (and tragically failing) to ignore her child’s defiant behavior.

6. If a tantrum occurs in church, immediately whisk your child out the nearest exit.

7. Movie theaters are not the place to try and negotiate good behavior. If a tantrum begins in the middle of a movie, it is your unfortunate job to remove your child. This may mean that your other children have to miss the movie too, but the other moviegoers will appreciate your good manners.

Children are not mini adults and their expression of anger through an occasional tantrum is inevitable. How we, as parents, handle the situation is what makes the difference.

Although we mustn’t reward a child after a tantrum by giving in and allowing her to have her way, we can praise the child for regaining control by hugging her and letting her know that our love is unconditional

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If you’ve encountered tantrums in public, hope you can share your experience with us at the comments section (click on the link, right below the blog title).

How was it, how was the reaction of the people around you at the time, and what did you do to ‘control’ the situation?

Hear from you…

Now that I have two kids and am raising them fulltime, I can say I get this one question a lot from people :

‘How has it been so far? ‘ (or in other words, ‘How are your coping?’, ‘Don’t you get stressed out?’)

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I’ve shared quite a bit in the past on the ups and downs of life with kids, like the time when :

I wondered if I could survive managing my life with kids (I was pregnant with my no. 2 at the time)

I shared why I never look down on my decision to raise my own children fulltime (Anya, my first born, was 19 months at the time)

I wondered if I could love two children equally

I shared how my two kids’ different temperaments affect my ‘going out and about with kids’ activities

I wrote about the reality of having two kids

I shared my tough moments with the kids, and how every child will go through such periods as part of their ‘growing up’ phase

I compared how things were when I had only one and after I had my second one

I wrote about why I strongly feel we parents have very limited time with our children and why I feel our time is NOW

…

If anyone were to ask whether I enjoy my motherhood days, my answer will still be the same as the one I gave before :

I love what I do and despite the challenges and tough situations a fulltime mother faces each day, I still feel it’s such an honour and privilege to be entrusted by God with these little ones. And I’ll strive to continually learn to be a better Mom each day, the kind of Mom God wants me to be.

We had quite a bit of coloured straws and coloured paper at home, and so we made these paper flowers (that are supposed to look something like this if they’re real)

What you need :

>> Coloured paper

>> Coloured straws (for the stems)

>> Crayons, glue, scissors and scotch tape

What you do :

>> Place kid’s palm on paper and using a crayon, make an outline

>> Cut the outline (older kids may help out)

>> Paste a bit of glue on one side of the ‘handprint’ and make a ‘cone’ (on the lower part of the handprint cut-out)

>> Stick a straw in the middle of it

>> To ensure the paper flower stays put, use a scotch tape to stick the paper flower to the straw

It’s that easy!

I do feel this activity is more for older kids though as it is slightly more complex.

Vai - who is turning 2 years old next month - couldn’t really contribute much, other than lending his palm.

And so he did a simple hand-eye coordination exercise (while Anya and I worked on the flowers) : he placed coloured matchsticks into the straw.

And since we keep the ’stretchy’ part of the straw slightly bent at the bottom, the matchsticks remained inside the straw. Only when it’s full that he straightened up the straw, and let the rest of the matchsticks fall out!

[Matchsticks do get 'jammed' in the tunnel]

Anyway, we liked the flowers we made!

And Anya held on to the bunch and pretended to be : a salesgirl at a flowershop, then a flower girl walking down the aisle!

When Anya attended a trial tennis lesson some two months ago, she was required to try and hit inflated balloons with her little tennis racket.

Being light weight, these balloons’ slower move allows little children more time to concentrate, aim and hit them with the rackets.

It’s a great hand-eye coordination exercise!

And these days, Vai likes to do this too at home. He’d go around the house hitting a balloon up in the air with his little ‘badminton’ racket, looking up and following its movement closely and hitting it upwards again with his racket.

And I often join in the fun and help keep the balloon up for as long as we can!

PS: Other than using a racket to reach for the balloon and hit it upwards, he’d sometimes use his palm, my plastic ladle (!), even his sister’s plastic toy plate among other things!

Hehe. That’s us waiting for our bus home after we sent Anya to school.

Yet to watch ‘Hancock‘, and am looking forward to catching it on DVD with hubby on our regular ‘movie date’ at home!

PS: A few others that are on our ‘waiting list’ : The Dark Knight, Wanted, and Kungfu Panda, and The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor!

Hence, when one puts one’s trust and hope on another, it is possible for him to experience disappointments.

It is only when one puts one’s trust, hope and life on God the Source of Life and the Creator of heaven and earth, that one can be rest assured of HIS promises and words, for HE is unchanging, loving, almighty, true and eternal.

I was browsing through my photo archives and found this one. One of my favourites! Anya’s only about 2.5 years old here.

AND to think that I took it some two years back! How time flies!

Kids. They grow so fast and however much we want to turn back time and re-live those cherished sweet moments with our little ones, we can’t.

Our kids can’t stay little forever.

They grow, become increasingly independent and they’ll one day go and live a life of their own with their own family. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it should be.

And with this in mind, I’m glad I’m here today to spend those precious growing up ‘bitter-sweet’ moments with my little ones. Fulltime.

Soon after we made those jellyfish hats, the kids insisted on playing with their coloured matchsticks.

And so we decided to make some prickly creatures. I was open to the idea of making some sort of a sea urchin or a porcupine.  And both kids chose to make porcupines.

What you need :

- Chloroform cups
- Masking tape
- Coloured matchsticks

What you do :

- Tape the two cups together
- Let the kids carefully poke the matchsticks through the cup

This seemingly simple task apparently required so much concentration and effort from these little ones because they had to carefully poke through the cup and avoid tearing / making too a big hole. If they’re not careful enough, the sticks would slide INTO the cup and ‘disappear’.

Other than learning how to focus and concentrate, the kids exercised their fine motor skills too here!

Oh btw, they didn’t finish making their ‘porcupines’. Instead, they had fun ‘tearing’ and ‘plucking’ the sticks out when the ‘bodies’ were half covered with sticks!

Oh well. As they say, sometimes the ‘results’ don’t really matter as much as the ‘process’ of learning itself ?

The other day both kids refused to nap, and since we had quite a bit of time to spend together, we made this jellyfish hat! Very simple and relatively fast to make.

What you need:

- Paper plates (plastic bowls are great too!)
- Cream-coloured crepe Paper for the long wiggly bits
- Glue, scissors

What you do :

- Cut out the crepe paper into some 25mm-wide strips
- ‘Unroll’ each strips and cut shorter strips from each one
- Kids : apply some glue onto the back of paper plate and stick the strips
- Just so that the hat will ’stay put’ on the head, glue a shorter strip on to the plate - from one side of the ear to the other

When they’re done with their hats, Anya put hers on and ran around the house (and with her speed, of course it kept falling off too!)

And Vai, well somehow he refused to have those wiggly bits around his head.

And he preferred to just, lie on the floor.

Kids.

Because,

We giggle.
We snatch.
We cry.
We help.

We tease.
We poke.
We annoy.
We care.

We tickle.
We share.
We refuse to share.
We laugh.

But on top of it all,
we love.