Sing, Sing, Sing!

She surprised us one day with this:

It was her very first song she sang by herself (well, almost).

You'll never be bored when you have kids around.

They are always coming up with surprises for you, good or bad.

Linking up to:

Hi, My Name is J. I'm the Queen.

Girlee: "1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 8, 9, 10!"
Me: "No, no. Count again.."
Girlee: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.. 8.."
Me: "6, 7.."
Girlee: "..8, 9, 10!"
Me: "Good. Let's count again from the beginning."
Girlee crosses her arms and pouts, her face black as thunder.
Me (just as determined if not more): "Count again.. c'mon.."
She stamps her royal feet & refuses to look at me.

Ah the terrible twos.. Classic tantrums and demands for autonomy. And she is not even 2 yet. How exciting.

Oh I'm not scared of you princess. You just try me and see if I will let you get away with bad behaviour. Just try and see.

Me: "Stop it. If not no playground tomorrow (or no sweet/no nai nai/etc)"

She snaps out of her 'trance' immediately.

Works every time. For now..

It has become harder to discipline her nowadays since she has developed a habit of relying on her grandma to do everything for her (such as picking up her toys after she has thrown them all over the floor) and will literally kick up a fuss when things don't go her way.

Her grandma dotes on her so much that she can't control the little tyrant she has become. *sigh* this is one of the cons of going back to work.

So whenever I get her to do something herself without assistance, she kicks up a fuss as is her queenly habit.

Me: "Ok, count again."
Girlee: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.. 8,"
Me: "7"
Girlee: "7, 8, 9, 10!"
Me (with applause): "Good job!"

My dear Baby Queen, in all your royal tantrums you forgot all about her highness Queen Dowager, yours truly.

Don't you ever forget that ;)

Mad-Made: 15 Inspirational Display Frames

I made a promise and I was going to keep it.

I promised my cell group mates a handmade gift from me and although it is 4 months late, hopefully it was worth the wait! (Hey it rhymes! I should be poet.. *laughs*)

And here it is! =)

Personalised Inspirational Frames

I decided to keep it simple by buying the exact same silver frames from Daiso. I also used the same purple colour as a background since it matched the frame so well.

The frames I got from Daiso
(It's dark because I'm a Night Owl that is the most productive at night when it's all quiet)

I also bought some lovely cloth tape (also from Daiso) and some scrapping materials from Popular that was so easy to use and dresses up the paper immediately.

I decided to print and cut out some of my favourite verses for each frame, which were randomly pasted because I wanted God to be the one who determined who got what verse so that hopefully if the verse spoke to them then it will be from God and not from me.

As I didn't have enough of the same silver frames for everybody (Daiso at IMM only had 14 left in their store and I wiped out every single one of it so it's sold out *oops*), I decided to use one of my own, which I reserved for my cg mate who's in Brooklyn doing incredible work with under-privileged children.

I like how the final product turned out!

They're similar yet each one is unique, just like how God made each and every one of us.

Hope you guys like it! =)


P.S: Wanna see more? Check out the 22 wooden door signs I made last year ;)

Every Girl Needs a Doll

Ok, I may have went just a little overboard with this one.

Baby girl's doll and its accessories, complete with F&B and shoes =)

I made a promised to myself (be careful when you do things like that!) not to buy the doll or too many doll accessories but couldn't help myself since they were so cute and Isetan was having 30% discount.

We let her play with all the doll accessories even before she can play with the doll (which is her birthday present) because she was so eager to open them. However, she kept losing the pieces so I ended up keeping them in my room and only letting her play with them when I'm around.

We always end up giving our children what we wanted but never got as a child. Kids these days are so blessed =)

Linking up to:

Are You a Cyber-Bully?

I was recently involved in conducting Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with representatives from schools on the current cyber wellness programmes that are being conducted on the ground. One of the aims was to find out what the current cyber wellness issues are and how the ministry can design the curriculum to educate the students and help the schools deal with these issues.

Other than gaming addiction, the most common issue that was constantly mentioned during the FGD was cyber-bullying.

Credits: CartoonStock.com

Students were ganging up on one another, getting an entire class to boycott one student and even setting up a Facebook group by the name of "anti-so-and-so" just to prove their point. Some wrote malicious comments on each other's statuses on Facebook, liked comments such as "so-and-so is a (input something bad)" and sent out tweets that destroyed the other party's reputation.

Some of these cyber-bullies may even be victims of physical bullying themselves! They don't know how to stand up to the other party in real life so they had to resort to taking their anger and frustration at the perpetrator to the internet, thus resulting in cyber-bullying. So it can sometimes be difficult for the school to determine who's right and who's wrong.

As I listened to the discussion, it dawned on me that I wasn't actually surprised. Physical bullying has been a problem in schools for centuries and with the advent of social media such as Facebook, it was only natural that the bullying is continued in cyber-space where they think there are little, if any, consequences to their actions.

But that was not what made it unsurprising to me. It was the fact that adults are doing the very same thing!

Just think about the latest incident where a Ferrari smashed into a taxi resulting in 3 deaths and 2 injuries. The moment the news came out, people started to make nasty and even hateful comments on online articles as well as Facebook (of course there are sympathetic people as well, not saying it's the majority).

So seriously, what do you expect from our children? If adults don't understand the concept of not being malicious on the internet, you really cannot expect the same of our children.

And another interesting thing that the participants of our FGD pointed out was that many a time, these students don't even realise that what they are doing constitutes as cyber-bullying!

They don't know that by posting a nasty statement of someone on their status or worse tagging said person is considered cyber-bullying. They feel that their Facebook wall is their property and they have the right to post whatever they like, even if it is something bad about someone else.

Sound familiar? I'm sure many of us may have even made these mistakes too once upon a time when Facebook just started. I know I did!

So we're seeing a real need to educate students and raise their awareness on cyber wellness issues such as cyber-bullying so that hopefully in future, there will be more consideration and kindness on the internet and far less rage and retaliation.

I think we're fighting an uphill battle but seriously, someone's gotta do it.

It might as well start with us. As role models for our children, we must show them how we can spread the good on the internet rather than the bad. We must learn to stand up to the bully in an assertive but polite manner, for example by adding comments in the lines of "hey, that's not a nice thing to say!" When our children see that the internet should be used to spread messages of faith, hope and love, then hopefully they will learn to do the same.

Someone's gotta do it. Will it be you? =)


P.S: FYI, there is a cyber wellness website set up for parents that gives you more information on cyber wellness in Singapore. You might wanna check it out =)

It Finally Happened to Me

You know how sometimes bloggers would complain about not having time to blog and I used to brush it off, proud that I never went more than 3 or 4 days without blogging?

And then I went to work full-time. And got a part-time job as a lecturer at a private university. And a job as a private tutor (short-term) for an undergraduate student (sort of regretted doing it). And then there is blogging, which is totally a part-time job considering all the hours we put in to write posts and edit the photos.

Between spending time with my girl, working full-time in the day and part-time at night, I've had almost no time left over to do much else.

I know, I shouldn't be complaining since I'm earning good money but it can really be tiring.

So I took time off to extract my wisdom tooth, thinking that that will give me a whole week of catching up with blogging and crafting but between suffering the immense pain and trying to distract myself by sleeping or watching How I Met Your Mother, I didn't have much time to do much at all. In fact, when I looked back, I really didn't feel like I accomplished much or rested well at all.

You know what I need? I need to stay home and do nothing but paint or craft. And catch up on my Gossip Girl or Grey's Anatomy.

I wish...

Preschool Hunt & Snack Time

I took leave last Friday to visit a potential preschool for baby girl.

We arrived a little before 9am, which is when lessons start, and were warmly greeted by the English teacher. The nice thing about this cosy little preschool is that there is only one small little classroom with only one class of about 10 children. And since there were two teachers, one English and the other Chinese, that meant a small teacher-to-student ratio. I thought that was hard to get nowadays, plus the price wasn't expensive so I was keen to sign baby girl up. Too bad it was full but she was next in line when the new semester starts in June *fingers crossed*

The teachers were nice enough to give baby girl a chance to experience what it will be like to attend their class by allowing her to take part in the lessons. As this is the first time baby girl has ever attended an actual class in school, she was not used to it at all. She had no respect for rules or the teachers and did as she liked, which is actually totally age-appropriate but I was still embarassed anyway. The only time she was obedient and polite was snack time -_-.

After that experience, I thought it was time to introduce baby girl to a more structured play group in order to help her to adapt to school.

Which was why I decided it was time that she got promoted from Nursery to the Children's Church!

Left: A warm welcome into Children's Church with a larger-than-life welcome gift
Right: Playing on the slide, again and again and again!

This play group is generally for 2 year olds, which baby girl will be in just 2 months (OMG, so fast!). Baby girl was encouraged to take part in the activities but she wasn't really interested in them.

Left: She refused to allow other children to hold her shoulder in the train formation
Right: While everyone was singing and dancing along with the teacher, baby girl was more interested in watching from the sidelines

I know she's still new to it and I should really be patient but I really wasn't very patient. I gave her my signature glare (not proud of it) and she finally sat down for storytime.

Trying hard to get baby girl interested in story time

She was interested for a grand total of 10 seconds and then wanted to get up and run around again -_-

But knowing me, I was determined to get her to participate (come on, where do you think her stubbornness comes from?). She did eventually join in the singing and dancing from time to time and enjoyed it.

Nevertheless, the only time she actually sat down quietly and listened to the teacher was...

All the children sitting very quietly, waiting for...

...you guessed it, SNACK TIME! =)

Biscuits for everybody!

Busy eating, do not disturb!

Ah well. I suppose I should be more relaxed about it since she has the rest of her life to do structured things but she has only these few years to run free and do whatever she wants.

Note to self: Chill mad, chill.

I am kind of looking forward to her going to school. It's like an important milestone for every kid! =)

A Real Wordless Wednesday, Literally

You can see why I can't really talk.

1st time extracting 2 wisdom teeth

It looked like I took out more because they had to drill and break the bottom one into 3 in order to pull it out 'cos it was growing sideways. It's all the cutting and drilling that caused such a swell on my face. Not that I'm letting it stop me from talking though, I'm such a chatterbox.

But since it really worsens the swelling a lot, I'm trying very hard not to talk much today. Let's see if I'd succeed... *sigh*

I hope you'll have a better recovery than me when you extract your widom teeth =)

Linking up to:

The Day I Became a Wife

Three years ago today, I got married to the love of my life and became a wife. After a week of anniversary celebrations we had the last few days, I thought it was apt to reflect on our journey to the altar.

It all started with the hubby's secret proposal to me at the darkest part of East Coast Park on 7th July 2007. With the help of his friends, he put together a 'message' on the beach using light sticks.

My proposal at East Coast Park

The heart was made by breaking the light stickes and pouring the liquid into jars, which he said was a really difficult thing to do. I had absolutely no idea of his plans until we arrived at the beach.

Me (walking towards the restaurant): I'm sooo hungry!
Then-boyfriend-now-hubby: Hey why don't we take a walk at the beach first?
Me: Huh?!?

And then I suspected something was up! It was so unlike the unromantic hubby to choose a walk in the park over food. Like seriously?

When he popped the question, of course I said yes, even though I was only 23 years old! Haha.

We were both very poor then as I just started graduate school so we decided to have our bridal photoshoot at Johor Bahru instead of Singapore as it was 50% cheaper.

Left: Bridal Photoshoot at Superstar Studio, City Square Mall, Johor Bahru
Right: Outdoor photoshoot at Kota Tinggi

It was a tiring day but I really loved our shots at a real waterfall! Everyone thought it was photoshopped but we actually went into the waters and got our hands and feet wet!

We decided to get married on 2nd May 2009 because it was an easy date to remember (day after labour day) and because it fell on a Saturday (I would have preferred if it were 7th September, which is the day we became a couple, but that was on a Thursday).

In our bridal car, a BMW borrowed from a family friend

We chose to get married in the 1st church that the hubby attended when he's a young boy, brought there by his late paternal grandmother. I used to go to this church once in a while too when my maternal grandmother attended church when she was healthier so you can say we both have some affirnity with this place.

Our matrimony and signing of our marriage certificate at Grace Assembly of God 

It had the old school cross and pews that we both liked =) Although the day did not go as smoothly as planned, we still had a great time with our family and friends.

The next day (we didn't want everything on one day for fear that we'll be too tired), we held our wedding banquet at Dragon Gate Restaurant at Harborfront Centre (I'm told by friends it's not there anymore).

Wedding Banquet at Dragon Gate Restaurant

We decided on a restaurant instead of a hotel because it was cheaper and the food was good and value for money. We were more relaxed at the banquet as the restaurant managers took care of everything for us so we didn't have to worry about a thing =)

As with tradition at every wedding banquet, friends of the hubby got him so drunk, he nearly couldn't stand up. Amazingly, he was still conscious enough to shake hands and thank our guests as they left.

Although I was only 25 years old when I got married, I never regretted becoming a wife and mother at a young age. I love my family and wouldn't change a thing =)