Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

The other day my friends and I were talking about our experiences as parents.

How we’ve perhaps taken steps in disciplining our kids and kind of ‘regret’ our approach afterwards. How we’ve responded or reacted in ways that we feel we shouldn’t have. How there are times when we feel we just can’t do the ‘job’ well.

Anyway. I think no one can instantly become good parents. We (need to) continually learn, improve and grow. Regardless of our age and our kids’ age.

Personally I learn and seek insights from books, the Bible and its principles (of course), websites as well as advices (and sharings) from friends, parents, other parents, their experiences, even the ‘mistakes’ they’ve done. I learn a lot too from sermons and fellowships. My hubby and I share, review and talk about parenting stuff too. And of course I learn most from my own actions. My own mistakes.

I’m (very) far from perfect, but I know that’s okay because I know I love my kids and I will strive to learn and become a good parent for them.

Parenting. Always a life-long learning journey.

Anya loves taking photos of stuff. The coffee table. Toys. Vai. Me. Daddy. Water fountain. Basically anything, really.

Even her feet and Vai’s.

And the fact that we now live in a ‘nearly-everyone-owns-a-digital camera’ era really helps in her experiments too!

After all, how can one discovers one’s talents if one never explores them?

PS: Just to re-confirm. Yes. Those four shots were taken by Anya.

I was in the kitchen washing the dishes when Anya came up and asked, “Mommy, how old is Po-Po?” (read: her grandma, my Mom)

I told her, “She’ll be 63 this year”. I then asked her, “So, is Po-Po young or is she old then?”

“She’s old.”

“Am I old or am I young?”

“You’re old, Mommy”

“How old do you think I am?”

[she paused for a few seconds]

“Eighty five.”

I do get asked about this at times. And so to those who sometimes wonder, here’s the answer :

Nearly all photos in this blog are taken by the Mommy. And so unless otherwise stated, like the one above (or when both my hands can be seen in the photo, hehe), if I’m in the frame then it’d be me stretching my arm out as far as I can, with the camera facing me and the kids.

All done in the name of ‘capturing moments though no one’s around to take them for us’. Hehe.

Captured and digitally treated by hubby.

Vivo City‘s rooftop water feature.

For the first time. Kids played. On grass. On water.

Anya hopped and held on to Daddy’s hand.

Vai crawled all around the ankle-deep water (and tried to munch on the floating dried leaves when I wasn’t looking!)

Weather was nice.

It was all really nice.

We’re all busy. Everyday. Busy with work. With kids. With housework. With deadlines.

And amidst our busyness we often forget how important it is to find time and get away from all that.

To just … unwind. Take our shoes off. Relax and enjoy some togetherness time with our loved ones.

The bedroom was unusually quiet. I went in and saw Anya sitting next to her bed, drawing on a piece of paper.

‘What’s that you’re drawing, Anya?’

‘A mommy, a daddy and their kids’.

*smile*

It’s always nice to see a kid explore and proactively draw something out of her imagination (instead of always needing to be told of ‘what to draw’).