Most Beautiful

Conversation with 3-year-old Janine after she overheard me telling her sister Janelle that she is beautiful.

Janine (pouting): "What about me?? Am I beautiful??"

Me: "Of course! You are most beautiful to me! Both jie-jie and you are beautiful!"

Janine (smiling): "Jie-jie is most beautiful, and I am most beautiful, but not Joie! Because Joie is most beautiful to Aunty Alice!!"

Such profound yet true words from my little girl! It is true that my girls will always remain most beautiful in my eyes - as will Joie be most beautiful in Alice's eyes. Seems like beauty does indeed lie in the eye of the beholder! 

In the same way, I am reminded that we as children of God are highly favoured, greatly loved, and beautifully and wonderfully made! Our Father in heaven looks down on us - His children - with great love and favour. How blessed are we!  

Josiah - 11 months old

Gosh where has the time gone?? Josiah is already 11 months old and in fact, we'll be having an early 1st birthday celebration for him this Sunday as his Grandpa would still be here in Sydney to celebrate with us!

Josiah is getting cuter and cuter (in our biased opinion as parents) and he has changed so much in the past 2 months! He has learnt to clap his hands, raise his arms to praise the Lord, play peek-a-boo, tease and play with us, etc. I think in terms of the social aspect, a baby really expresses so much more from 9 months onwards. It is absolutely delightful to see how excited Josiah gets at the sight of his 2 sisters, and equally delightful to see how Janelle and Janine simply love playing with Josiah and showering him with cuddles and kisses. 

Josiah has also started showing his discontentment by crying and whinging when he is caged up - whether in his playpen, high chair, or car seat. Gone are those days of him being an unprotesting and quiet baby!

Today, Josiah has learnt how to stand without any support and he was so excited about it that he actually stood up and clapped his hands as though applauding his own effort! Such an amusing sight to behold :) 

It is really interesting to see how different boys and girls are. Right from a young age, Josiah was already fascinated by wheels, balls, and cars. Basically anything that is round attracts his attention! And I must say he is a good climber. He climbs on top of everything and anything. He's already mastered climbing up our staircase, much to my horror! And when we discipline him by scolding him or smacking his thigh, he actually turns to us and gives us a BIG GRIN and laughs as though it's a joke! Is this a "boy-thing"?? The same treatment given to any of my 2 girls would have yielded a repentant cry and inconsolable sobbing, but to Josiah he just laughs as though it's funny. Hmm...

That aside, Josiah has 3 teeth that have sprouted out. See if you can spot the single upper tooth that makes him look like a little "Ah-Beng". I'm admiring this one-toothed smile of his as the other upper tooth is emerging soon!   

Of Castles and Princesses

As we were driving past a majestic-looking Sikh temple (or perhaps it is an Indian mosque) along Parklea markets....

Janelle (gushing with excitement): "Look, Mummy!! It's a CASTLE!!"

Me (grinning): "Oh? Is it?"

Janelle: "And do you know who lives in there?"

Me (puzzled): "No. So who lives there??"

Janelle: "Princess Jasmine!!"

I burst out with laughter but so as not to dampen Janelle's excitement, I decided not to correct her. Nothing wrong with children having their own little fantasies about things! 

Josiah - 9 months old

Josiah is already 9 months old and still as cheerful and good-natured as ever! These are some of the interesting things he can do:-

1) Climb up the staircase! (most dreaded milestone for a baby to reach, because it means we cannot leave him on his own already...)

2) Cruise while holding on to furniture

3) Vocabulary: 

"teh-teh" (meaning jie-jie refering to his older sister)

"daa", "dee", "ba", "aahhh!"

Unfortunately, despite my many attempts to teach him the word "Mummy", he is nowhere near saying the word "ma" yet!

4) Absolutely detests water. Even baby fruit juice does not entice him at all. He now refuses to play with his water bottle (let alone drink from it) because once he sees the water bottle, he associates it with plain-tasting water. 

5) Eats a gigantic bowl of porridge for lunch and dinner. In fact, I am pretty sure the amount of food he eats is bigger than the size of his stomach! Wonder how can a tiny baby eat so much?!

We are thankful for him being such a good and endearing baby, who does not mind anyone carrying him at all. I suppose that's the difference between girls and boys - girls tend to be more sensitive about such things! 

Does Jesus Live in Your Heart?

"Does Jesus live in your heart?" is the question that Janine has been asking me since a couple of weeks ago. 

Today I had the great privilege of leading my 3-year-old to say the sinner's prayer and invite Jesus into her life. After taking some time to explain what it means to have Jesus live in her heart (ie. doing and saying things that will make Jesus happy, sharing toys, being kind to others, etc etc), she prayed this simple prayer with me:

"Dear Jesus, I invite You to come into my heart. Thank You for dying on the cross for me. Thank You for forgiving me of all the bad things I have done. Help me to do and say things that will make You happy. In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen!"

After praying, I then asked her: "Where will you go to when you die?". Janine excitedly answered: "Heaven!!". 

It was a divine moment in the midst of daily hustle and bustle. One would think that such a moment would be sacred and take place in a church setting or something like that, but with young kids it is probably as impromptu or as unexpected as can be. In fact, this simple prayer took place at our dining table just after I had fed Josiah his lunch and he had done a poop. But he was still sitting in his highchair, happy to watch us pray and talk. 

Straight after that, we went to give Josiah his bath and as I was doing so, I reminded Janine that there are so many beautiful angels in heaven dancing and singing because they are so happy that she invited Jesus to live in her heart. (my version of Luke 15:10 - "...rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents")

I am so reminded of this verse:

"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."

(Matthew 19:14, ESV)

Funny Episodes

Episode 1

As we were driving past McDonald's....

Janine (excitedly): Look Mummy! MacDonald's!

Me: Oh yes. Do you like McDonald's?

Janine: Hmmm....Yes!

           And I like the pigs, the chickens, and all the animals in the farm!

Me: ?!?!

After-thoughts: Glad that Janine has got this 'McDonald's-innocence'. To think she associated McDonald's with "Old MacDonald had a Farm"!

Episode 2:

After Josiah regurgitated some milk....

Janine: Eeewww! Yucky! 

*pause*

(pointing to Josiah): Di-di is yucky! 

(pointing to herself): And I am yummy!

(pointing to me): And you are Mummy!

After-thoughts: Never knew that Janine could conjure up such an interesting rhyme.

Episode 3:

I was downstairs and the girls were upstairs in their room when the garbage truck came by to collect our garbage. Both Janelle and Janine then came downstairs to look for me and this conversation took place right in front of me...

Janine (to Janelle) in a loud voice: Jie-jie, don't tell mummy that the rubbish truck came to take our rubbish, okay?

Me (trying to suppress my laughter): haha!

Janelle (to me): Mummy, mei-mei said don't tell you that the rubbish truck came to take our rubbish.

Me: Hahahahahaaa!!

After-thoughts: Both my girls are so silly!!

Josiah - 7 months old

It seems that with each month that goes by, our little boy just gets cuter and cuter! I suppose that's the beauty of parenthood - that your child always seems cute in your eyes

Crawling
Josiah has started crawling efficiently around the house and so we have barricaded the kitchen entrance from the living room. However he has also learnt to crawl round the other side of the living room to get to the kitchen so there is no way to prevent him from entering the kitchen :( Another downside of Josiah learning to crawl is that he deposits his regurgitate or puke all over different parts of the carpet!

Eating
Josiah eats really well and enjoys most foods! He still dislikes water or juice and spits it all out. Very smart boy indeed! He has also tasted some forbidden foods like chocolate - from an easter chocolate egg that was left lying around by one of our girls. Apparently Josiah managed to find the chocolate egg, peel off the foil wrapper and munch on the chocolate while we left him unattended for a minute!

Standing
He can now pull himself to stand and each morning, we open his room door to find him standing in his cot with a big wide grin on his face :)

Communicating
Josiah can really communicate more now through his expressions and blabber and actions. It is so endearing to see him "appealing" to me to put him to bed, or to feed him milk, or to carry him!! Thankfully he is still very contented to allow others to carry him and is a very cheerful little boy