In God We Can Trust

I was very blessed today by a devotional post - On Why I Like Lilies - at Faith Lifts. It’s a powerful testimony of God as Jehovah Jireh, our Provider.

It brought me back to 1995 when I had joined the Doulos for 6 months. It was an incredible time where my faith just grew by leaps and bounds. In that 6 months I got to witness God’s miraculous providence over and over again. Experiencing it first hand just blew me away. The ship needed a doctor or we couldn’t sail and we were due to leave the port the next day. We all gathered to pray that night. Next day a doctor arrives to join the ship. Another time we didn’t have enough finance to pay for the port fees and it was due tomorrow. We prayed and someone donates the exact amount.

There were other miracles I can’t fit into this post but one more I just have to mention. We were sailing and was about to arrive at a port in Tanzania. An announcement was made for us to gather for prayer. There were no tug boats at this port. Usually a ship stops its engine some distance from the port and tug boats come and “tug” the ship to the assigned place at the port (pardon me but I’ve forgotten most of the ship jargon). With the absence of tug boats there was a danger of the ship hitting the side of the port and be damaged. So we prayed for no strong winds and perfect weather conditions. That day when we arrived at Tanzania, the sea was calm and there was a gentle breeze that helped the ship dock perfectly. It was an amazing experience as I stood on the deck and watch the ship slowly move into position perfectly!

That was in 1995. Fast forward to my mommyfied life today, I’ve not witnessed such miracles for a while. Sometimes I even seem to see more unanswered prayers… why are kids still sick? why couldn’t I had a natural delivery? blah blah blah. Yes, sadly it’s quite myopic.

But at times when I tilt my head back just a little and look a little further and harder then I can see traces of my Father’s grace and hand in guiding me in my journey all this while. God helped me meet fellow “mommy-friends” nearby (who has since become my good friends) just when I thought I’d go crazy cooped up at home. There were times when I felt like I was going to a melt down due to exhaustion only to have hubby call to say he’s coming home early and do I need him to buy dinner? Small simple blessings He had a hand in just to remind me of His love. His miracles are still present, just not in the “grand” or “glamourous” fashion.

Yes indeed we can trust God and in Him we will find no lack in our lives. Thanks Ruth for the reminder.

Read Ruth’s post, On Why I Like Lilies and be blessed too.

Educational and Entertaining Kids’ Sites

Our top 3 favourite kids’ sites for sometime now have been:

UpToTen.com - This is a wonderful entertainment site for toddlers and preschoolers. Enter Boowa & Kwala for animated storybooks, songs and games for 0-6 year olds. As I’m not a subscriber of their premium site, I find the storybook stories not that great but hubby-jr loves the songs and games.

Tumblebooks - Unfortunately this is only free for me as I’m living in Singapore and a member of the Singapore National Library. I log in through Singapore’s National Library Board website where tumblebooks link is found under eResources, eBooks. The site has wonderful online stories of actual storybooks. They’ve animated the pictures of the storybooks and highlights the words as it’s being narrated. At the end of each story, hubby-jr enjoys clicking on individual words from a list. Each word is read out at each click. Great for encouraging word recognition.

BBC CBeebies (Stories and Rhymes) - I love their wonderful selection of stories and rhymes that’s interactive and very well animated. They have songs and games too but we stay mainly at their stories and rhymes section.

In addition to these, I recently found Puzzle Pixies.com-Preschool Kids’ Games. Having discovered that hubby-jr enjoyed playing matching pairs game, I surfed for an online version and stumbled upon this site. Their games are a little more educational, umm, mind challenging? Besides the matching pairs game, there’s counting game, jigsaw puzzle, tic tac toe and even a kid’s version of Sudoku. We’ve not ventured beyond matching pairs and counting as yet. This is a kinda no frills site, no fantastic animation but good enough for kids. (P/S: They’ve games for kids up to their teens)

AND just yesterday, I was reminded of Starfall. My friend shared it with me sometime ago but I thought at that time that it was too slow or boring for hubby-jr. However I came across a post on Parenting Times hailing it’s effectiveness in teaching her kid to read. So I decided to try it out on hubby-jr. To my surprise he enjoyed it too. Although he didn’t read the words out loud as he was going through one of the books I think he was taking it in. This morning when he saw the letter “a”, he repeated the phonetic sound for “a”. Hmmm… yup, I’m definitely going back to Starfall again!

Any other great sites I should not miss?

Little Missy’s Walking, Finally!

My Little Missy’s finally walking on her own! Just like that, tonight while hubby and I were having a late dinner (hubby was caught up at work), Little Missy kept herself busy walking! She toured the kitchen, her brother’s room, living and dining area on twos not fours! Pardon the number of exclamation marks but I’m just euphoric!!! It’s a long awaited moment and I’m savouring it (I’d probably be smiling in my sleep tonight)! I’ve just been a walking stick for too long!

Yes, she’s been practicing walking every night but only if hubby and I are there as her 2 poles. She’ll launch herself from one of us and walk her way to the other. On her own she hardly ventured beyond 5 steps before sitting down.

Her motivation to walk independently started 2 days ago at the playground. Little Missy met her newfound “best friend”, a 14 month old boy. Somehow she took a liking to him (and his mom). She liked him so much that she just wanted to follow him wherever he went. He was one brave boy, walking, falling, crawling and climbing. So as if distracted from her fear of falling she “walked” after him. I think after a while she realised she could walk quite well. When she came home she practised a little more but not much.

Yesterday, Little Missy repeated her walking stint at the playground despite the absence of her best friend. So today I brought my kids to playground with excited anticipation. I was quite disappointed when she hardly wanted to walk on her own, clinging to me… even with best friend around. I thought she was “regressing” and came home deflated.

Then suddenly, ever so suddenly she just started walking non stop at home! Picking herself up to start again when she fell. Practicing “u-turns”, stooping to pick something and continue walking again, etc. It was such a joyous spectacle!

So I am elated to announce that this will be my absolute very last entry about Little Missy’s journey to walking!

Babies not as innocent as they pretend

Babies not as innocent as they pretend, reports Richard Gray, Science Correspondent at Telegraph.co.uk. Below are excerpts from the article.

Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.

Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.

Infants quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or trying to distract parents’ attention.

By the age of two, toddlers could use far more devious techniques, such as bluffing when threatened with a punishment.

Hubby’s response to the article sums up my exact thoughts, “like we don’t know this already!” In addition I want to say, “I could have told you that!” 

Yeah, it’s really nothing new. Still I guess it’s nice to have in print officially. It could prove to be useful especially when dealing with grandparents. “See mom, they’re not as innocent as you think and it’s not just me saying so. The experts agree!”

Watch this video clip of Little Missy and see for yourself. Her older brother interprets what she wants very well at the end of “the show”. 

Mommy blindness?

A good friend dropped by for a visit today. Once again she echoed just about almost everyone who sees hubby-jr, “He looks just like his daddy. A walking mini replica.”

To be very honest, I can’t see the resemblance. Honest! I just go about agreeing. More than that, I go about telling others who’s never met hubby that hubby-jr looks just like daddy. I figured if everyone tells me that, it must be true. So I go about saying it like some rehearsed memorised thingy. All the while, I just don’t see it. I just don’t see it. Honest!

No, I don’t think he looks like me. To me hubby-jr looks like hubby-jr. Actually to me he still looks the same as when he was a baby. I can still catch a glimpse of my baby when I look at him even though he’s a little boy now. And yes, even though he’s obviously changed quite a fair bit. (See my previous post for a montage of hubby-jr since birth)

Is it just me or is it a mommyfied phenomenon? I dunno. You tell me.