Celebrating our children - Rediscovering the world through their little eyes

My dear 'A's

You have made the world so colourful for me and you are constantly teaching me, every day, that even the simplest things in life can be special in your little eyes. Putting in and taking things out of a container can bring you great satisfaction, a silly old box can transform to a million things in your imagination and just so you know, I'll willingly be bandaged here and there every day while you pretend to be Dr. Ng.

I love to watch the two of you play, whether you are playing together or alone, there is always that look of wonder and curiosity in your eyes and your faces. Where does the cup go when you throw it off the high chair? You look inquisitively around the floor for the hundredth time while I wonder how the cup survives all your torture while you discover gravity.

You have taught me that squatting down and watching ants haul their food back to their nest can be such joy, though watching you in deep thought as you wonder about the ants is more fascinating to me. And you have made me realise that it is possible for the heart to almost burst from contentment overload while picking seashells with you by the beach. You have taught me to slow down my pace and take in the simplest sights and find happiness in that simplicity.

I love that innocent love you have for people, for me. My heart melted the instant when I asked you what you'd do when you grow taller and stronger and you answered without hesitation, you'd wash the dishes, for me. What else will you do, I probe. And you think for just a moment and answer, you will cook... and iron the clothes for me. Apparently, you have noticed all that I have been doing for you and I think you must have equated that with love. It touches my heart to know that despite your young age, you have it in you to want to help your dear mummy out with the mundane stuff, some day when you grow bigger. I hope you keep your promise.

You know, watching how your hair moves when the wind blows, no matter how short or little hair you both have, can bring me a sense of contentment, just knowing that you both are here, with me. And I love to smell your little heads too, no matter how smelly your hair is (by the way, I love smelling those smelly toes too!), though I really prefer to smell your heads after a good bath when I'm reading you your story. Who would have thought that such smells can evoke strong feelings of love? You don't know of course that I'm secretly enjoying myself sniffing at your head in between reading the story for you. I often wonder how many more years of such pleasure I will have, of you sitting in my lap while I sniff your hair and read you a good book. But let's put that thought aside, I just want to enjoy that moment for now.

Most of all, thank you both for showing me that simplicity is happiness and that is the way we should live our lives. I realise now that I made the right choice when I made 'rediscovering the world through their little eyes' as my tag line when I created this blog, because that is the way it has been thus far with you two little imps showing me the world I thought I knew, through your untainted lenses of pure innocence and love.

You are the love of my life!

What have your children taught you about life?

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Learning to look beyond the present

I had one of those mornings today - the girl woke up late and took her own sweet time to do everything and I had to literally scream at her to finish her food. We missed the usual bus we take to school anyway and I had to bring her via the stroller with lil boy strapped on my trusty carrier. We reach the school, she sighs and doesn't give the usual goodbye kiss. When I finally sit down for my lunch, I took some time to think about the morning events and I started to think... about my little girl.

I love to hear those saccharine-sweet requests about doing art or practising the piano and I love to see that silly grin of pride on her face when she manages to play the tune correctly or when she creates a piece of art.

I love those moments at night when after I've tucked her to bed, she'd sneak over quietly to my bed and whisper, 'Mummy, I forgot to give you a hug and kiss' when we already had many hugs and kisses over at her tiny bed. And she'd do this more than once sometimes.

I love the way she tries to bargain for an extra bedtime story when she's already had one.

I love those moments when she'd ask, 'Mummy, can you walk me back to my bed? Alicia cannot see in the dark' and I'd hold her little hand and bring her to her bed.

I love those moments when after I've walked her back to her bed and she sits down on her bed and asks, 'Mummy, are you going to sleep with me on my bed?' but I'd tell her 'no' because her bed is so small. But really, sometimes I'm just rushing off to lie on my bed (finally!) and have some time to myself to check my Facebook and play silly iPhone games.

Today, when I think of all that I love about her, I realise that I'd really miss all these moments with her when she grows up and no longer asks mummy to sleep with her, or hug or kiss her or read that last bedtime story with her. I take it for granted that she'd continue to ask all these of me, but today I start to wonder (and fear) when mummy will be relegated to second place. I tell myself, I need to look beyond her faults and love her for the way she is now. Sure she eats like a snail and is a rude, petty girl sometimes. At the end of the day, I know she'll always be my little darling and it really is no big matter to be late for preschool occasionally.

And me-time can wait. I will have lots of me-time when my kids grow up and mummy is no longer the centre of their universe.
                                
So tonight, I'm going to chuck my phone aside and I'm going to lie down with her in her puny bed and read that extra bedtime story.

Here she is taking her kiddy ride on our Wednesdays-out-with-Mommy yesterday :)

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Musings about canes...

Read a friend's blog post about canes today and I was inspired to write my thoughts about it too.

Does caning really break a person's spirit? I don't really think so. I grew up with the cane being an all too familiar 'tool' in the house. And no, it wasn't hung up in the house for show. 

My mother is quite the perfectionist and she always wanted us to get perfect scores when we were young. I remember coming back home from school one day feeling very happy that I got 98/100 for English but all she saw was that it wasn't 100/100. Why did I make that silly mistake? Why did I mix up 'blink' and 'wink'? Till today, the difference between blink/wink is etched deeply in my heart. I wasn't caned for that test though. I think I hardly got caned for results. It was always the behavioural problems that rendered Mr Cane's presence. 

I used to dislike how my mother disciplined me - she's very old-school. But then I think about how it has shaped me as a person. I'm very stubborn by nature and I think it wasn't easy to get me to obey her. Would reasoning have helped? I'm not very sure since I don't recall her trying to reason with me. What I do know however is that I think she instilled enough discipline in me so I sailed through my studies, got my scholarship and degree (for semesters I scored a string of As, she would ask why not A+ - some things never change), got my diploma in piano... basically I think I fulfilled my duties as a daughter academically. Of course, all that doesn't really matter at the end of the day since I chose to be a stay home mom. :) 

What matters to me now, is how I'm going to instil the same sort of discipline in my children, not only for academic success, but more importantly, how to be a good person. 

I don't have a cane in my house, not even for show. I don't really want to buy one though I always joke about which colour cane my daughter wants when we walk past a shop selling canes. Not using the cane doesn't mean that I'm not old-school. My daughter gets her fair share of beatings discipline when she's naughty. I reason most times with her, but sometimes I think it's not all that harmful to discipline the kid once in a while. After all, I do believe in 'spare the rod and spoil the child', though I am currently not using a 'rod' per se.

I hope I never have to buy a cane.

I really hope so.

Do you own a cane? :)

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