Mum's Inventions

It was not difficult at all, ideas came about due to boredom, and lots of recyclable materials, like packet milk and bottle caps, boxes of cereals and some straws.

I started to notice that Nathan is fond of bottle caps. He managed to screw and unscrew them from the bottles, and other containers, then I thought, how about making a ‘piggy bank’? So I used an used tea box, cut a circle, and have him put the caps through the hole. He succeed without any difficulty, and soon grew to love this new game.

I moved on to making a smaller hole using colgate box, I wanted something longer so he could put straws in. I cut the straws up into three parts, so its more manageable for his little hands. And again, he did it, and had fun.

The cool thing about this age is, once they get acquainted with a game, it tends to occupy him for a good amount of time. I should start recycling more things now in view of the limitless activities you can use them for.

Smiles At Swing

http://picasaweb.google.com/carisbay/SmilesAtSwing

Nathan loves going on the swing. You can see it for yourself, all the smiles while he was on the swing - my boy, the wind in his face, mummie pushing him, and making funny noises, he absolutely adores it. I enjoy bringing him to the playground, though we can't go very often these days as the weather is fast turning cold earlier everyday. The best time to get out of the house is at noon, but that's also nathan's nap time, so i usually only bring him out after his nap about 2. Today's a great day to be out in the sun, but it is still very cold.

Nathan @ 18 months

Nathan turned 18 months this month. What has changed? Today at Sunday service play group, he got into a lot of trouble pulling people’s hair, scratching faces and hitting heads, got a few parents upset with his violent behaviour.

He picked up some new skills, like stacking according to sizes, finally, throwing balls in a given direction, do fly kiss. What surprised me was picking up a book I ordered. He got it right quite a couple of times. I would say, ‘ Nathan, bring mummie ________ (title of book), and he would go to the shelf and picked the correct one up. I don’t know how he recognised it, but he just did it. I’m definitely looking forward to discovering more about him everyday. This phase is not to be missed.

How a day turns out

Does it matter which side of the bed you got up from? Not really, it's all in the mind. The choice to decide if you're going to have a gd day or bad.

I made that choice this morning - to be happy. For most of my other days, I depend alot on how I feel that morning to decide my fate for the rest of the day, which is not wise at all. The people around you could change it for you, make it worse, or better, but it is still up to oneself, to wallow in misery, or stand up against all odds.

I used to rely on how Nathan feels sometimes. When he behaves well, makes my day, or otherwise, I would be sad and miserable, ringing LC up to complain and pleaded for him to come home quick. I'm getting better now, much better, to overcome that hurdle of dependency on my little boy to decide my happiness for the day, I choose Jesus, my souverign source of JOY, no matter what happens.

Today went really well. Nothing extraordinary happened. Not becos I've mastered Facebook, or becos Nathan had a longer afternoon nap, or if the weather was extra cooling and nice, I mean all these things do help to make the day merrier, but most impt of all, I started it with God, read his word, did my devotion, and committed my day to the Lord.

How important it is to start the day with God, shows your priority, what and who is the most impt to you. If I got on with housework or some other chore, I wouldn't have had a better day than sitting down at Jesus's feet, and feast on his bread, his eternal dose of refreshment.

Rainy Monday

It was 3rd Sept, Teachers' day holiday, so incl my mum, she was on leave. She came to my place early this morning.

It started raining early.Carol came to visit us too. We took a cab to Thomson, hoping to eat some HK tim sum, but to our disappointment, it was closed on Mondays, as predicted by my mum, as do some hawkers who have their rest days on Mondays. We had noodles next door instead.

Went home, hoping to put Nathan to his second nap, then Carol and I could head to J8 for some tea and chatters. Both of us took a stroll from home to J8, just when we put our first step in the shopping mall, my mum rang me up saying that Nat was cryin uncontrollably. Oh shoot, we hailed a cab to take us home immediately. And when we reached the lift lobby, we saw a very tired boy sleeping on my mum. What a wasted trip I thought, but taking Carol's advice, we stayed home anyway, in case the boy would wake up and look for mummie and started wailing all over again.

We sat at the dining and chatted. It was always nice talking to old friends. We were truly transparent, nothing to hide, no big secrets to keep from each other, just sit and talk openly. Itruly missed this kind of fellowship. I had alot more of such during school days, esp after exams, when the brains were nearly half baked, we relieved ourselves by talking non stopped for hour. Somewhat over the yrs, we got busy with life, work and husbands, and now, children, we lost that precious kind of comunication.

Still, if one is willing to make the effort, we can make it come true. I had a wonderful day, although it was pouring cats and dogs, no nice cake or coffee to take us through our afternoons, we had a good time, enjoying the breeze from the rain, and talked.

Farewell with some old friends

http://picasaweb.google.com/mrsglam

Tuesday night, 28th August.

Some old friends came to our place for a pot luck farewell dinner. Grace prepared curry chicken using Prima premix, it tasted excellent, we almost drank up the entire pot of curry, and of course, no chicken pieces left over. Andrea asked her maid to fry bee hoon,she brought a really large pot, could have easily fed a class of pupils, haha, but also tasted yummy, loved the pork rib streaded meat in there ... and I fried some veg, and 'fake' breaded scallops.

Oh, the best part, Tina and Jim suprised us with a chococlate cake, with really nice engravings, I mean, simple but nice, "God bless your Family." Indeed, we need alot of that as we depart from home and head to a brand new place, far far away from the familiar.

As usual, we chatted about almost everything, talked about everyone, some nice old friends whom we missed that night, like Roger, who had to work, and some not so nice old friends we had before.

When the evening meeting came to a close, our dear friends surrounded us and prayed for us. Brought me back to all the good old days when we often did that in church in the days of our youth. They prayed for our safety, health, new friends that we would meet, and the fondest of all, a great time of intimacy with God, and with one another.

As much as we look forward to an exciting year ahead in Cambridge, we are starting to miss home already, our mums and dad, our friends. No matter how efficient technology might guarantee us, the closeness will never be dearer than being with with one another.

Play time

Nathan's at a really fun age now. He loves to play. The best part, he's learning new language, following instructions during play.

So we started playing games, like hide-and-seek. I would run nosily and repeat his name over and over untill he finds me. Whenever he approaches, he slows down and peeks, and gives a scream when he finds me, sometimes, he gets startled too, surprised by my 'wow'. This gamecan go on for a while untill mummie gets tired from running and hiding. He doesn't know how to hide yet. It'll be even tougher when he does that... when i need to find him.

And we like to play 'put your thing on my head'. We usually use the plastic coloured ring to do this. I would try balancing one on his head, he would take it out, then put it on mine, then himself. of course, he's yet to master that balancing act. But we always have lots of fun just passing the ring from one head to another.

Games are simple, yet really fun, and a great way to past time. Besides feeding and sleeping, at least we have one more thing to look forward to now, playing. He can play by himself too. He walks to his usualy corner where his books lie, take out one at a time to flip the pages. He can do that for a while. Sometimes he still gets the book upside down.

Last night, Chong and I were watching Oceans 12 on TV, and Nathan was keeping himself occupied the whole time, messing with tissue paper from the box, then with a little plastic cup and cover. This little explorere, you really don't know what he's thinking about during play, if he smiles, he's having fun, and to me, that's the most important thing.