A Year in Claremont

Migration

2008-05-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

We have outgrown this blog... so we are now here:

www.journallingthejourney.blogspot.com

Come and visit!

Farewells

2008-05-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

This will probably be our final post from Claremont.

We are in the final stretch.

We have spent the last two days saying goodbye. Me to the women at bible study, J and E to their teachers at school. It has been an emotional time, but how I thank God for the friends we have made here, some of whom have become family to us. They make it incredibly hard for us to leave and they will always have a special place in our hearts.

Slightly more than a year ago, a few youth from our home church in Singapore sent us off with a song. I heard the song again, quite by chance. As we pack up in our final few days here, it feels like we have come full circle.

We have had the time of our life.

For Moments Like These

2008-05-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

My favourite Mom moments:

1. When J tells me, periodically throughout the day, "Mom, I love you", sometimes accompanied by a kiss. I will never tire of hearing it. (Not to be outdone, E echoes him now. All the better for me.)

2. When E climbs into bed with me in the morning, snuggles into the crook of my arm and pulls my arm to wrap it around herself. She fills a space I didn't know was there before.

3. When J tells me, "Mom, I want to marry you next time"; he gets upset if I tell him he can't. He'll figure it out soon enough, so I don't burst his bubble anymore.

4. When J and E put K's and my shoes on, and in so doing take on our personas as well. J calls E Fiona or honey. And E calls J ah-nee kor.

5. When the kids join in our good-night prayers. Last night, J thanked God for Target, seeing toys and watching the train. All I could make out from E (who insists on praying lying face-down on the floor) was "Peeh God..... (then she mumbles for a couple of minutes!)". I trust that God will figure out her baby talk!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day Ad

2008-05-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

This has been my favourite Mother's Day ad that I've seen on TV so far...

For my second favourite, click here.

New Haircut...

2008-05-09T17:12:00.001-07:00

...complete with red highlights, to match his jazzy red Lightning McQueen shirt. J was really upset when I washed his hair during bath-time. But I want to show my friends, he said.

Waking up

2008-05-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

The kids usually make their way over to our bed when they wake up in the morning. This has really been one of the best things from this past year: having the time to cosy up and snuggle in bed with them in the mornings.

Just before they got up and stumbled into our bed today, I woke up from a bad dream. There was a blue and green snake involved (bearing a startling resemblance to J's toy snake!), which eventually imploded, but it sure got my heart racing.

After J was in bed next to me, I told him that I had had a bad dream. (He has bad dreams of his own regularly, so I thought: good chance to show him that he wasn't the only one.) In reply, J reached his hand under the covers, and patted and rubbed my arm to sayang me.

I sure felt a lot better after that.

California Dude

2008-05-04T21:13:00.001-07:00

What sprouts forth from the mouth of my little California dude:

Cool!
You betcha!
Definitely not!
Totally!
No way, Jose!
See you later, alligator! (This sometimes to random adults...)
I'm a cowboy! Hee-hah! Hee-hah!

Asking the Important Question

2008-05-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

As K steps out of the bath today, J asks, "Daddy, did you wash behind your ears?".

On The Seventh Day

2008-05-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

All The Saints Join In - (from Ps. 148)

Praise Him, praise Him from the heavens
Praise Him in the heights up above
Praise Him all of His angels
Praise Him all of His heavenly hosts

Oh praise Him oh you sun and moon
And all of you shining stars
Praise Him from above
Oh praise Him oh you highest heaven
Together with one mighty voice
Praise the name of the Lord

Praise Him, praise Him from the earth here below
Praise Him, all creatures and storm winds that blow
Praise Him, you mountains that tower so high
Praise Him, you oceans so deep far and wide

Oh praise Him, praise Him all you kings
You princes and rulers of earth
Praise Him with all power
Oh praise Him, both young and the old

Together with one mighty voice
Praise the name of the Lord

All the saints join in, all the saints join in,
Singing this heavenly song
All the saints join in, all the saints join in,
Shouting creations song

Tommy Walker WeMobile Music ©Copyright 05 CCLI #4556370

I have a princess... and a knight

2008-04-30T15:29:00.001-07:00

In what was probably our penultimate trip to Disneyland yesterday, E (completely of her own accord) asked for a 'princess dress'. "Me, pin-ceh dheh", all the while tugging at her own shirt to try to get it off.

We've managed a whole year of not buying any Disney merchandise, so I gave in and allowed J and E one buy each yesterday.

So E picked out a Cinderella gown, replete with poofy sleeves, a glittery bodice and a poofy organza skirt. It cost US$65! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), there was only one piece left and it had a bit of thread (glittery, of course) coming off already, so we had to look for an alternative. She passed on the Jasmine and Snow White princess gowns, and eventually settled on this pared-down (cheaper!) Belle gown.

We tried it on for size while still in the shop and I couldn't get it off after that. I had to put her on the cashier counter for the man to scan the price tag. She would only deign to take it off when she wanted to be unencumbered while playing with J's buy, a Disney racer track.

Once she has her princess dress on, she loves twirling and twirling around to get the full poofy skirt effect. I don't know where she gets it from - I hated all things frilly when I was young.

On a sidenote, J says he'll be the knight to mei-mei's princess and will rescue her from the dragon.

Why it's hard to say goodbye

2008-04-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of making lists and making memories, here are the things that I'll miss most about being in Claremont (in no particular order)...

1. Target - as K puts it, it is my 'happy place'
2. J and E's preschool - They have had such a wonderful time here, where they learn through play. They're free to choose whatever activities they want to do each day. And J has learnt so much about interacting and socialising with other kids (he now tells about when he mediates between his friends!). E gets to play with icky messy materials, things that I baulk at having at home.
3. KSGN - as long as we are within range, the car radio is tuned to it.
4. Trader Joe's
5. Our church - who has embraced us, taught us and challenged us in the past year. They were our family and support, as we made our decision to adopt.
6. Women's bible study
7. Disneyland, California Adventure, SeaWorld
8. Seasonal weather (although not the summer heat...)
9. Seasonal fruits - cherries and strawberries right now, all manner of stone fruit in summer...
10. Being within walking distance to my pilates studio, Starbucks and ice cream shops in the village (J will miss having the train station so close by. He's taken to running to the window to watch the trains each time he hears the train whistle. He did this for three or four months when we first came, then lost interest, and has suddenly picked it up again.)

Transition

2008-04-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

A week ago, I packed up 62 pounds of books in two boxes and shipped them off to Singapore. Thanks to half.com and Amazon, I’ve already sold many of the books we’ve bought this year to readers all over the United States. One book by St. Augustine went to someone at the Harvard School of Design. One book by Peter Drucker just went off a few days ago to Santa Clara, just up the coast from here. Other books have gone to Indiana, Florida, Connecticut and Missouri. These books – which we’ve mostly enjoyed, though some went barely touched – now lie scattered all over a vast continent. I like to think that they bear a whisper of an imprint of their time with us here in Claremont. Perhaps, as they go to their new owners, they contain, in their pages, the weight of the accumulated memories that they inspired in us and in all their previous owners.

In a course I’m doing now on the contemporary family, we’ve struggled with coming up with a working definition of what a family is today. I think one writer encapsulated it best when she described a family as a “community of memories”. We are memory-making creatures. Through our encounters and experiences, tactile or otherwise, we create memories that sustain, challenge, nourish, warn or inspire us. Our heads are not the only repository of such memories, for families, through their stories, photo albums and blogs, also serve as a way to allow memory to become a living part of daily life.

We will leave Claremont in about three weeks’ time, full of memories of a year rich in learning and experiences and growth. Growth has come because we have placed ourselves, deliberately, in new territory, untested ground, and found that we could still stand, even if a little unsteadily. I think we all need to find new ground and to test our footing every once in a while, if only to remind ourselves that we need to change as the world changes, as the people around us change. Plants grow and put deeper roots into the ground. Tomatoes and lemons ripen. Roses bloom in abundant profusion. But the plants adapt too. As the dense heat of summer approaches, our avocado tree has begun to shed its leaves; every breeze scatters a new shower of leaves green and brown, blanketing our lawn, reminding me that even in the full life of summer, some living things will fade away and die.

The snow has also disappeared from the lofty, austere mountains overshadowing our little town. The ski resort at Big Bear just closed two weeks ago, after a blistering spring weekend that made me want to jump into the fountain at Claremont-McKenna College’s central lawn. Final exams and papers approach. Packing to return home has become a reality, not a theoretical exercise. We’ve begun to throw away, or sell, or give away, many things that have become a part of our life here. Our futon, which took my father-in-law and I two hours to assemble, went off a few weeks ago. Clothes, books, toys, furniture – the detritus of our lives – have now taken on a strangely transitory sheen. Are they really here? Will they still be here when we return home to our little green house in Claremont the next time we go out?

Soon, even this little green house will fade away. Our memories will consist of our first live Christmas tree, our first fireplace, setting off the smoke alarms early in the morning, mowing the lawn – and living in a house that’s older than the independent history of most post-colonial countries, including Singapore. But our family will remain intact. This community of memories – my wife, my children – will continue to sustain me as we begin a new life.

For it is a new life that we return to. T S Eliot has said in over-quoted lines that we return to the place of our beginning with new eyes. He was partly right and partly wrong. New eyes teach us to see new things, to apprehend faces and colours and the shimmer over the water’s edge that we didn’t see before. But I think we return with more than just fresh eyes. We return home with old bodies and old memories chastened by the experience of testing new, uncertain ground, and knowing that we need to keep finding uncertain ground in order to grow, to live, to breathe. Or else the old ground hardens into glue, and we find that our feet can no longer move, and we remain, content, to become a pillar of salt molecule by molecule.

We need to walk on water every now and then, and discover, to our infinite surprise, that the water can hold us up as we begin to grasp the patterns of new life, new ways of living, new ways of thinking and creating and tumbling off into the tumult of old and new relationships.

And even if we sink, even if the ground beneath us gives way, we learn. We can survive and build again. And we will know how to walk better, to build better, the next time.

Playing Dress-up

2008-04-28T10:44:00.001-07:00

Watching her kor-kor learning to dress himself has inspired E! She put this look together herself. (J saw me wielding the camera and ran to join in the picture.)

On The Seventh Day

2008-04-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Preschool Open House

2008-04-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

We visited J and E's preschool for their open house this morning - lots of pictures of the kids doing the things they do usually!

Playing with flubber (a mixture of glue and liquid starch - the teachers regularly make up batches of the stuff). Very sticky. E loves playing with it, J hates it and will only touch it lightly with one finger before moving off to something else.

E's artwork, done the week they were reading a story about blue and green.

J's class has a planter box in their yard. The kids love watering the plants and looking for roly-polys.

J's teacher tells me that one of his favourite things to do are puzzles.

Making patterns on a crown.

Trying to arrange the sticks by height.

The tyre swing in the yard in front of J's class is always a big hit. E hardly ever gets a chance to swing on it, but she loves it when she does.

Now that the weather's warming up, J's teacher has put up a comfy cushion outside for the kids to lounge on while looking at their books.

Their preschool will be one of the things we'll miss the most when we get back home to Singapore.

Volcano in our backyard!

2008-04-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Coke & Mentos!

Photo Essay: Spring is...

2008-04-20T16:28:00.001-07:00

Spring is...

...blowing bubbles in the backyard
...bouncing on the trampoline
...giggling
...beautiful flowers
...running through the spray
...vibrant colours
...playing in the sun

On The Seventh Day

2008-04-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

What the kids brought home from Sunday School today...

Singapore Boy

2008-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was inevitable that J would pick up some American-isms in our time here. He says dan-s for dance, tenny for twenty (not quite managing to get the w sound in there) and hut dog for hot dog.

Today he spilled a little water onto his clothes drinking from a bottle, and a most annoyed Aiyah burst forth from his mouth.

I have to admit, I was rather pleased to hear it.

Noah's Ark

2008-04-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

There was a reference in the LA Times a few weeks ago to a Noah's Ark exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center (a Jewish cultural center). It's a really great exhibit, made with lots of recycled materials - and the kids got a lot of hands-on action!

Asian elephant - Chinese steaming baskets for its trunk

Making the rain fall...
...and the wind blow.
J got to built part of the ark

And then we sent the animals up two by two

With the animals they love
E enjoyed making an ark collage.

And to finish off, we caught a rainbow...

Pajamas

2008-04-14T19:45:00.001-07:00

These are the pajamas that actually caused E's jaw to drop. She so loves them, she actually cuddled them before I put them on her. And then she proceeded to thank me profusely for them: "Kyu, mommy. Kyu, mommy."

On The Seventh Day

2008-04-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

As I was dressing E after her bath today, I asked her, "Who loves you, Emma?" I thought she'd say mommy or daddy or kor-kor. Well, she did. She said mommy. But after a pause, she then said, "God."

Amen!
K and I were pretty impressed!

Standing Corrected

2008-04-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

One of E's favourite books to look at is a Diego picture book, filled with many animals, some of which we (K and I) aren't particularly familiar with.

This has been the book of choice for bedtime for quite a while now. Today, daddy was going through the animals with her. He pointed to one, and said, "That's an anteater."

J looks up, and says, "No... I will show you." He then proceeds to hunt down E's Diego field journal toy, so that he can find the picture of that particular animal, press the button beside it, and tell his daddy, "Aardvark, daddy. Aardvark."

Storytelling

2008-04-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

E is quite the artist. She loves drawing, and has begun to put stories to her squiggles.

Me: What is this?
E: Bird.
Me: What colour is it?
E: Waid. (Red)
Me: What is it doing?
E: Pie. (Fly)

Daddy takes over...

K: What does it have in its mouth?
E: Tsee-weed (Seaweed, which is what she calls all vegetables.)
K: Where is it bringing the seaweed?
E: There. (Points to telephone) Peed bay-bee. (Feed baby.)

Yosemite

2008-04-08T23:20:00.001-07:00

Yosemite. Was. Beautiful.

(We all enjoyed it, even the kids.)

Inspiration Point

Yosemite Falls
(which was only a short walk away from where we stayed, Yosemite Lodge)

Mirror Lake

Bridalveil Falls

Sidenote: I had bought a travel-size Hungry Hippos game for the kids. J's been asking for it for quite a while now, so he was thrilled with it.
At the tender young age of two, E has already figured out how to push her kor-kor's buttons. When she tired of trying to make her hippo eat the little balls, she just laid her body on top of the whole toy. Leaving J haplessly trying to hit his hippo lever without being able to see what he was doing.

Travellers

2008-04-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

We are spending one night in Bakersfield, en route to Yosemite National Park.

The kids are excited to be out of the car. And are even more excited to be in the pool.

Their first words when we got into the hotel room...

J: Nice sheets!
E: New bed, woo-hoo!

Little Bakers

2008-04-01T21:57:00.001-07:00

News flash: J cracked his first egg today.

Quite out of the blue, J asked to eat banana bread one day. He who usually abhors all fruits and most veggies! Naturally, I had to oblige. I found a really simple recipe for banana bread here; my main criteria was that it would be easy enough for the kids to do.

So they did everything here. I just helped out with some measuring of the ingredients, and making sure that all the ingredients were mixed in properly at the end, with no random bits of just flour.

All ready to go into the oven.

The final product

Oh, and notwithstanding the fact that it was his idea, J ate a mere two bites.

In other related news, E saw me drying the dishes a couple of nights ago, and decided that she wanted to help to. Who am I to turn down help from my children, especially when it comes to the household chores?

Appreciation

2008-03-31T22:10:00.000-07:00

In one of my classes this semester (MGT 537B: "The Executive Mind II - Mastering Reactions"), I've been required to keep a log of things I appreciate in my life. Here are the words of the actual assignment:

Project B
In our first module, we practiced "re-newing attention". Many people reported that the exercise awoke a sense of wonder and appreciation for the positive and healthy aspects of the work and home life that they had previously taken for granted. This practice builds on that exercise.

As we start Project B, which is a reorienting of attention to the things going well in life, begin each day with a list of 10 things you appreciate in your life. Simply write the first 10 things that come to mind, without editing. They don't have to be deep or profound and no one else will see the list beside you.

Unless, of course, one decides to put the list for the past week up on a public blog. I've found the exercise clarifying and provocative. Is there a qualitative difference, for instance, between appreciating a transient object (like an item of food) and a less transient person, like my spouse? Is appreciation the same emotion as gratitude? (Not quite. "Gratitude" implies that something tangible has been given and suggests a greater sense of locality and presentness. "Appreciation" to me suggests a more ongoing emotion, a recognition of the richness of life.) Can I feel appreciation for something long past? (Yes, I would argue so, and my list reflects this sentiment -- because many things in the past have left their luminous and indelible imprints on me, which I savor and sometimes rely on for strength and wisdom in dark times.)

So here's my list, in no particular order. There are 70 items on this list, reflecting seven days' worth of logging.

1. Good sushi (but only salmon and tuna, please, and no exotic fish like fugu)
2. My new Kenneth Cole shoes
3. Earl Grey tea
4. Strawberries in season (as they are now)
5. Ripe mangoes (especially the South Asian types)
6. Our "little green house" (as my children call it) in Claremont.
7. Friends who keep me sane and remind me of my limitations and my dreams.
8. My new Honda Stream waiting for us in Singapore.
9. My faith (for the last 20 years)
10. My parents, who patiently endured my angst, pride and self-will
11. Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure
12. The ability to play the piano
13. The ability to rollerblade
14. The San Gabriel mountains that I can see here in Claremont
15. The flowers blooming now riotously in my back and front yards
16. My job and recent promotion
17. Singing
18. Thai massage
19. Spaghetti with meatballs
20. My haircut from Bliss Salon in Claremont
21. Claremont United Methodist Nursery School
22. The towpath by Lake Carnegie in Princeton
23. The view from my living room in Singapore
24. My laptop
25. My lefthandedness
26. Fiona, who reminds me who I really am when I have trouble remembering
27. Joshua and Emma, who think I am Superman, a horse, a cook, a gardener and a racecar driver all in one
28. Skiing in Vermont and Colorado
29. Calvin Klein
30. Yosemite National Park
31. My new, extra-wide running shoes (no more blisters)
32. Singapore Airlines
33. Cable TV
34. Broadband wi-fi
35. The seasons
36. Costco
37. www.pandora.com
38. Wee Nam Kee chicken rice (from Novena, Singapore)
39. My teachers, whose examples I try to emulate when I teach: Braema Mathi, Antoine Monti, Diana Fuss, Leslie Foster, Derek Trueman, Esther Schor, and all my patient Chinese teachers who had to deal with me
40. That people are now (finally) paying more attention to fuel efficiency
41. Kindred Spirit and PEF at Princeton
42. Bill and Debbie Boyce
43. Bill and Debbie Williamson
44. My trusty, faithful Tag Heuer watch
45. Changi Village and Changi Spit in Singapore
46. Great mechanical pencils with HB graphite (which I've used for most of my writing for the last 15 years)
47. God's immeasurable grace to me
48. My beloved teak four-poster bed and armchairs in Singapore
49. Philip Yancey
50. iTunes
51. "The Wasteland" and "The Four Quartets"
52. East Coast Park (Singapore)
53. Chocolate
54. My new suit
55. The woods of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton
56. My trusty Toyotas - first, the Vios, and now, the Sienna
57. Ice cream
58. Netflix, which has allowed me to watch great movies like "Notes on a Scandal" and "Munich"
59. Rollerblading in Pasir Ris, Bedok Reservoir and East Coast Park
60. MercyMe
61. The Bible (and though I know I shouldn't play favorites, I especially like the letters to Timothy, the Gospel of John and the Psalms)
62. Rich Mullins (especially "Bound to Come Some Trouble")
63. My swimming trunks
64. That I have a pleasant walk to school
65. Elizabeth Bishop
66. The "weekend" section of the Los Angeles Times
67. www.addall.com
68. C S Lewis
69. The churches I've gone to: Changi Baptist, Westerly Road, Baseline Community
70. Clean and Clear's zit-busting gel

So there it is. I officially appreciate all these things, people, experiences, and lessons. Thank God for all of them.

Head in the Clouds, Feet on the Ground

2008-03-31T12:40:00.001-07:00

J looked at the shape of his half-eaten egg tart this morning and said, "Look, Dad! A couch."

To which, E responded in a slightly annoyed tone of voice, "Noooo, egg tart!!"

Quiet Days

2008-03-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

This is what we do to amuse ourselves on days when the kids have no school and I have no bible study; when we are at loose ends.

On The Seventh Day

2008-03-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Sing to the King
Sing to the King who is coming to reign
Glory to Jesus the Lamb that was slain
Life and salvation, His empire shall bring
Joy to the nations when Jesus is King!

Come let us sing a song
A song declaring we belong to Jesus
He is all we need
Lift up a heart of praise
Sing now with voices raised to Jesus
Sing to the King

For his returning we watch and we pray
We will be ready the dawn of that day
We'll join in singing with all the redeemed
Satan is vanquished and Jesus is King!

Palm Springs

2008-03-29T17:51:00.001-07:00

Our short trip to Palm Springs was defined mainly by the amount of time the kids spent in the swimming pool. It was hot weather, so the pool was a great way to cool off. It was also the first time the kids got to try on floaties (as J called them), which we had borrowed from some friends. J, in particular, was a lot more comfortable in the water because he had the floaties on his arm.

The float was fun even on dry land.

When not swimming, we visited The Living Desert, which was basically a zoo set in the desert, with desert animals. So so hot. Right near the entrance is a huge model train set-up. We didn't know about it, so we hadn't mentioned it to J at all. But when he saw it... Let's just say that he was so excited, he peed in his pants. And I mean that in the most literal sense.

Other fun things that J got to try: rock climbing! He's still too little, but he was willing to give it a try so we let him.

Signing off

Photo Essay: Looking At The Sky

2008-03-24T22:15:00.001-07:00

We should do this more often.

Easter

2008-03-24T22:06:00.001-07:00

No, I do not know why she's posing like that.

At church

Winning at the highest cost

2008-03-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Every year, International Place at the Claremont Colleges gets students and community volunteers to put together an international festival to showcase the various countries represented here. This year, for the first time in several years, Singapore will have a booth at the festival. I managed to rally about seven or eight Singaporean graduate and undergraduate students, and we will be serving chicken curry, and iced fruit cocktail. (If you're Singaporean, you won't need to ask what that is. If you're not, don't bother to ask. Just come and try it out.)

Two weeks ago, I placed an order with Prima Taste in Singapore for enough of its Singapore curry paste and spices to feed about 200 people. The box arrived a week ago, and it has been sitting in one corner of our house. Here's Prima Taste's description of "Singapore Curry": "Traders and immigrants during the early days of Singapore brought curry from India. With cross-cultural influences thriving in our multi-racial society, the dish has evolved into many versions and styles of cooking. The Singapore Curry boasts a smooth rich gravy infused with coconut milk, and a delightful aroma that will surely whet one's appetite!"

That got me hungry!

And it also got me thinking: what we have in that box in the corner of our house reminds me of our wonderful human capacity to adapt, to absorb new experiences, sights and tastes, and to create out of these experiences something new. My own convoluted cultural DNA bears that truth, in a slightly different way. My grandparents were impoverished farmers and fishermen from southern China who dared to dream of a different life and came to Singapore. My parents grew up in a British colony with British teachers, sang the national anthems of Great Britain, Malaysia, Japan (in my father's case), and finally, Singapore, and spoke English, Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien and some Mandarin. I grew up in an independent, sovereign Singapore, studied English and American writers, and went to the US for college, where I learnt to speak Russian (and where I began to regret not becoming a better Mandarin speaker).

It almost seems to me that as human beings, we need to absorb new things, to adapt, to integrate, to explore, and to create. To seek out, as my grandparents did a century ago, new horizons of experience, new worlds of meaning. To assimilate, as my parents did, different cultures, different perspectives, into the plenitude of their own identities. We are always seeking.

It is Easter Sunday today. Easter reminds me that God sought me out. He undertook the search, and he turned the world upside down to find me. Consider these words from Edmund Spenser's "Easter Morning":

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin,
And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win.

God turned the order of things upside down to win me back to him. The writer Anne Rice describes the Maker dying on a Roman cross as "the great inversion". God paid the full price -- and more -- for me, to adopt me into his family. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it in his classic articulation of "costly grace",

Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field, for the sake of which people go and sell everything they have. . . It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it cost people their lives; it is grace, because it gives them their lives. . . Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God's son . . . And because the life of God's son was not too costly for God to give for our lives.

God "won" me at the highest cost. Because of that, I have God's great promise of new life. God's promise to me is a creative, and re-creative one. Just as God confounded the natural order of things and neutered the mighty power of death on Easter, He will do the same with me. I will die, but I will live. I like the explanation by the theologian Michael Jinkins: "The faith we have in God to raise us up on the last day is the faith we have that God's ways are higher than humanity's ways and that all the subordinate powers that try to usurp the place of God will finally be subdued, that even the mighty power of death will be relativized by the power of God to re-create us from the dust of the earth. The resurrection of the body is the proclamation of God's creative and re-creative power over all inauthentic claims to power".

God adopted me at the highest cost, so that even though I die, I will live again.

A few weeks ago, we reached a major decision: our next child will come to us through adoption. Paul's letter to church in Ephesus reminds me, I am adopted too. These following words will be my first love letter to our child:

My Father moved mountains for me. He cast off all he had to find me, because he knew that I was his and belonged to no one else.

Like my Father, I know that you belong to no one else but us. You are ours. Even before you were born, God intended you for us.

You are ours. And because I am unshakeably convinced of who you are and to whom you belong, I will move mountains to seek you out. I will empty myself for you. I will pursue you, because you are mine. Anything that stands in the way I will obliterate. Because you are mine, and I will give everything I have for you.

Welcome home.

Easter

2008-03-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here..." - Mark 16:6

Graffiti

2008-03-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Playing with sidewalk chalk.

It was not too long before E decided that it would be more fun to colour her body.

On another note, we sold off our couch today, and will make do with one of our extra mattresses for the next eight weeks. The kids get to sprawl, so they're happy. E lost no time in making herself comfortable. As she settled in, I could hear her muttering to herself, "Wok wee-wee." (Translation: Watch TV.)

Egg Hunt

2008-03-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Good Friday passed by with nary a whisper this year. There wasn't any mention of it on the Christian radio station that we listen to, and K had class Friday night so we weren't able to go for Good Friday service at church. We are looking forward to our Easter service tomorrow morning though.

K had school all day today. The rest of us kept busy though. I brought the kids to church for their annual pancake breakfast and Easter egg hunt. Do I even need to say how much fun the day turned out to be for the kids?

Here they are waiting impatiently for the adults to finish breakfast and for the egg hunt to start. Then off they went...

Checking out their loot.

It has been a day of sugar aplenty. And this is with me already rationing out their candy.

Fill-in-the-blank

2008-03-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

Me: There's nothing better....

J: ...than birthday parties.

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

2008-03-19T22:31:00.001-07:00

What a way to wake up in the morning, to be told that the day you've waited for and counted down to, has finally arrived!

J was so happy he started singing the birthday song the moment we woke him up for school this morning. After which he instructs me to sing the birthday song to him. He was too excited to have breakfast.

Upon reaching school, he proceeds to inform EVERYONE he meets that it is his birthday. Literally, everyone. So he gets plenty of birthday wishes, from his teachers and the parents of his classmates.

As a treat, I made chocolate chip cookies for his class. (The cookies had to be dairy-free and nut-free, because of allergies that his classmates have. It wasn't taste-free though! It was a great cookie mix. Lurve it.) And the kids sing the birthday song for him. Miss S tells me how picky he is during snack time in class. Apparently, he religiously rejects yoghurt, pretzels and all manner of fruit.

De rigeur: birthday balloons, birthday song (two from Singapore, one in school and several at home), trains and birthday cupcakes (which the kids helped to bake!).

This is what anticipation looks like. We had the kids close their eyes before we took the gift-wrapped presents out.

The spoils: Geotrax from Grandma and Grandpa, Wordworld magnet playset from Kong-kong and Ah-ma and magnetic building blocks from Mom and Dad. He has been waiting for his new toys for so so long.

The kids get to stir the cupcake mix and decorate them (once I've poured the batter into the cases). It wasn't too long before they figured they could eat the sprinkles directly.

Birthday cake

As per J's instructions (I want a tall tall tallest cake, Mom!), I had to make a pyramid out of the cupcakes. No frosting this time because the kids didn't really go for it the last time around. I was mostly worried about getting through the birthday song without the pyramid collapsing.

All in all, he had a great day. As bedtime drew near, he kept saying, "My birthday's almost over." Very wistfully.

Little Man

2008-03-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

One day old

One year old

Two years old

Three years old

Today, four years old

***

Today you turn four. How did we get here so fast?

As you get bigger, will you remember how excited you were, and what a great day you had? I will. I will remember how you woke up with a smile on your face, how you started singing the birthday song to yourself (Happy birthday to me!), how excited you were to tell everyone that it was your birthday. I will remember how happy you were with your presents and your birthday cake. And how much you wanted to make the cake yourself (What a great idea, I think we should do this every year. The cake will always taste better because you made it.)

When you came into our lives four years ago, you rocked our world. Truly. Your dad and I learnt the meaning of sleep deprivation. Basically, it meant getting hooked on coffee (to your dad) and walking around in a sleep-deprivation-induced haze (to me).

What else have we learnt? Let's see. I've learnt or am starting to learn way more about trains, dinosaurs and race cars than I ever cared for. I've learnt how much a child can make you laugh. And how the best sound in the world is a good belly laugh coming from your child. I've learnt that I can feel tired just from watching you run around and play. I've learnt that even though I get bored watching a train go around a track, you don't!

I wish I had a big brother like you when I was growing up. Already, I see how you try to protect Mei-mei when we discipline her. I think she's lucky.

Don't grow up too fast, my little man, I like it here. Happy birthday, sweet boy.

Pre-celebration

2008-03-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

To kick off J's birthday celebration, we brought the kids to Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena today. J had had an incredibly fun time at the kids' tricycle track the last time we were there - and it was just as much of a hit this time around. He loves speed! And his testosterone is kicking in already. I watched as he and another (bigger) boy eyed each other, and picked up the pace of their pedalling, so that they ended up racing with each other.

Seriously, is this not the cutest swimsuit ever ever ever???

E had a go on the littlest tricycle they had, her little legs can just about manage a couple of rounds. We'll have to get more practice in when we get back home to Singapore!

My water baby had a ball with the water play parts. She never made it indoors the whole time we were there, she was kept happily busy with all the outdoor water play structures. There even was a small stream that she was hiking through quite happily. J, the water-averse one, was doing all he can to keep his feet dry.

Happy birthday, Grandpa

2008-03-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

Air Kak, My Tuh

2008-03-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

This is J just about to have his hair cut today. See previous post for the after pics. We think he's incredibly adorable!

No, E did not have her hair cut. (Not long enough, methinks.) But true to form, she insisted on it once she saw J having his hair cut.

"Air kak, air kak," she'd say. Then more insistently, "My tur, my tur. Air kak!"

Online Gamer

2008-03-14T17:20:00.001-07:00

J has discovered online games at www.nickjr.com. Right now, his favourites are games involving The Backyardigans, simply because they involve race cars and spy missions.

He grows more adept at using the touch pad each time.

Diamonds From My Son

2008-03-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through a catalogue this evening with J next to me. He caught sight of a diamond ring on one of the pages, pointed to it, and exclaimed, "That's it, Mom! I want to buy that for your birthday next time."

Pause.

Then he continues in a woeful tone, shaking his head, "But I don't know how to get it."

When will he know that he, and his sweet generous heart, is the gift for me?

Helping J Count Down

2008-03-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

New Loves

2008-03-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens...
- The Sound of Music

J's new faves:

Spelling! One of his favourite shows right now is Wordworld.
Counting. Up to 100. And down to his birthday.
Rockets, planets and outer space. J has gone through the whole gamut of boy things like trains, race cars, dinosaurs and has now entered outer space. Sample of recent questions and statements: How come Saturn has rings? Holes on the moons are craters (although he said something that sounded like kay-ers, which led to some confusion). Crayons and bottles turn into rocket ships that take off from Mars in his hands. Good thing he has a Dad who was just as fascinated by outer space as a kid.
Cooking. J and E fight for the honour of pouring pasta into the pot. And few things make their day like baking and decorating cupcakes.

E's new faves:

Dancing and singing. E breaks into song all the time, although right now she's usually the only one who understands what she's singing. Mom gets it once in a while.
Being the centre of attention. E's class at school does this song where each child gets a chance to do a trick in front of everyone; she loves it so much we do re-enactments at home almost everyday. E's turning out to be a pretty good actress too. Her fake cry is worthy of an Oscar, we think.
Going to sleep with her dolly. She comes out in the morning clutching her baby by its arm. And when she doesn't see it, she says, "Me baby?"
Cooking. See above.

Improvisation

2008-03-06T19:45:00.001-08:00

I gather from J's sudden bursts of song that the kiddies have been singing He's Got The Whole World In His Hands at church while I'm at bible study.

After singing through the first verse (complete with hand actions, of course!), J starts to improvise...

He's got all the kites in his hands...

He's got all the whales in his hands...

What a hoot.

I love you so much that my heart will explode like ice.
- JTK

Bounce Around

2008-03-05T15:19:00.001-08:00

J has been pestering us for a trampoline for the longest time! We haven't gotten him one, but this is a close approximation.

Dreams

2008-03-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

From his reading for one of his classes, K tells me that children around J's age start having nightmares because they are beginning to grasp the concept of mortality.

We are so living this right now.

J wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare with all too much regularity. He'll cry and scream, sometimes (not always) waking E up in the process too.

A couple of nights ago he gave me the most lucid explanation so far, even though he was crying and could only explain haltingly.

My best friend dropped into the water! My puppet, Tung (this was what it sounded like to me, I still have no idea what he was talking about), fell into water! Mom, how to get him back? He's my best friend, Mom! *followed by more wails*

For the record, we don't have a puppet named Tung at home.

Popsicle

2008-03-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Words of Wisdom from K:

Eating a popsicle is lots of fun.
Watching a child eat a popsicle is not so fun.

On The Seventh Day

2008-03-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Jesus Paid It All
Elvina M. Hall, 19th cent.
John T. Grape, 1835-1915

I hear the Savior say, "Thy strength indeed is small,
Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all."
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

Lord, now indeed I find Thy pow'r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper's spots, and melt the heart of stone.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim
I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calv'ry's Lamb.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

And when, before the throne, I stand in Him complete,
"Jesus died my soul to save," My lips shall still repeat.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

See here for the music.

Snow Daze

2008-02-29T22:00:00.001-08:00

After talking about this for a couple of months, we finally took the kids up to the ski resort at Mount Baldy (only about a half-hour drive away) this afternoon for some snow play.

As with everything that is new to him, J started out nervous. He took one look at the ski lift and declared that he wasn't going on it. But since it was the ONLY way up to the resort, he was left with no choice in the matter.

This is not a happy face. But to his credit, he settled down after a few minutes and began to enjoy the ride.

I, on the other hand, remained slightly nervous. First of all, this was my first time on the ski lift, and there is sort of a technique to hopping on and off. All this while, the ski lift never stops moving. Second of all, I had to do manage this while carrying E. Thirdly, there is only the skimpiest safety bar, and E can be a wriggly baby at times. Nevertheless, we survived, and I managed to hop off, E in my hands, with the help of the guys running the lift. Hopefully, without looking too ungraceful.

She only looks like she's grimacing. She loved the snow.

So once we got to the ski resort, we brought the kids to the tubing area. Basically, you get to slide down a slope, sitting in a rubber tube (which looks like a bigger version of those round swimming floats). You slide down to the bottom and then you get to pull your tube as you hike back up to the top. Of course, when I say you, I really mean K.

Once again, J took a while to warm to this, but he really got into it, and was soon shrieking, screaming and laughing his way down. E took no time at all, she loved it from the get go; and it got to the point where I had to physically restrain her while we waited for K to pull the tube (sometimes with J in it) back up. She was so eager! At one point, K turned away to speak to J and in that few seconds, she managed to clamber into the tube herself. I was so worried though - I kept having visions of her slipping and rolling down the slopes like a ball. There'd be no way for me to chase her down short of sliding down the snow myself.

Anyway, she loved loved loved it. And thank God, we all emerged unscathed at the end of the day.

Oh, J eventually got up the nerve to try going down on a tube by himself (they had these kiddie-sized ones) and naturally, E decided that she wanted to too. There was no way I was going to let her. Again, I had visions - this time of her flying through the air. She got SO angry, she was crying and screaming. And since she couldn't have her way, she decided that she didn't want to go tubing anymore, despite K's repeated entreaties. If not her way, then no way at all.

Sigh. Does anyone else see a strong will?

***
Postscript: When J was saying his good-night prayers tonight, he said, "Thank you, God, for not making the mountain so steep."

Grin.

On losing and finding

2008-02-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

I can almost predict, with an almost viral precision, when I will lose my voice. Every year, I encounter this situation at least once, sometimes during predictable periods of anxiety and stress (such as Christmas 2006, when I was slated to speak at our Christmas youth service) or, two weeks ago, when everyone else at home was sick.

I like to talk. I believe I am a fairly competent conversationalist. I have strong views, and I enjoy articulating them to the unconvinced. And so, I am a poor listener. I get impatient when people ramble. I get weary of trying to figure out what they're really trying to say, what they want to say but aren't saying. I interrupt, I cut in, I put words in their mouths, or I just don't listen.

And so, when I lose my voice, I lose one of the most potent and arresting pieces of my emotional and intellectual arsenal.

It is Lent now, the season of contemplation leading up to the days when we remember the death and resurrection of God. In 1930, T S Eliot published "Ash Wednesday", the first poem he wrote after his conversion to the Church of England. The fifth stanza of this poem contains these accusing lines:

"Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those walking in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice."

In our accustomed, onward rush towards achievements, goals, objectives and targets ("noise", as Eliot puts it), we have no time for silence. "The right time and the right place are not here". We lose our ability to listen, to turn inwards in rest. "Not here, there is not enough silence" -- what an accurate indictment of our world. And so, without silence, without the cultivated discipline of listening, our hold on the things of value, of meaning, of transcendence, slips away. We deny the voice. Why need ears at all?

We spent the weekend I lost my voice at Carlsbad, a nice seaside resort town about a 90 minute drive from here. On Monday, we drove to Sea World and spent several happy hours there. This was our fourth visit, so we were quite sure we would not watch the dolphin show. But on our way to lunch, we turned a corner and came across something we hadn't seen before. In a fairly large lagoon just off the main lagoon where the dolphin show takes place, a group of about 12 children were in the midst of Sea World's "Dolphin Interaction Program". They were dressed up in wet suits, in the pool with Sea World's dolphin trainers and several dolphins, and were playing with the dolphins. The dolphins did tricks, jumped out of the water several times, and swam along the delighted children. 10 feet away, we watched, transfixed. For me, the dolphins weren't the show. The children's laughter, joy and surprise with the opportunity to interact so closely with the dolphins drew my attention more. Listening to them, I felt infected with their joy, their delight.

Later that day, E fell asleep. But J, as usual, wanted to see the beluga whales, the penguins and the polar bears in Sea World's excellent penguin encounter and Wild Arctic experience. F took him to see the animals, while I sat outside to watch E in her stroller. In one of my classes, we've been learning a series of meditation exercises designed to strengthen attention and mindfulness, so I decided to use the opportunity to practice one of these exercises. As I deliberately quietened my mind, I had to wrestle my attention away from thoughts such as where we would go for dinner that night, whether I would need coffee for the drive back, the reading I had to do for class that week and so on. As I listened to myself, to the inner cacophony, the voices began to die down. And in those moments, I could hear the breeze rustling through my hair. I could hear Emma's gentle snoring. I could hear children more than 200 feet away asking their parents to buy a toy from a shop. I could hear my heartbeat, my breath. I could hear silence.

And in that silence, the Voice that we truly need to hear speaks to us. For only then do we avoid confusing the Voice with the chattering, brazen and venal voices in our heads, the voices that so often are the only ones we pay any attention to.

An act of rapt, meditative listening lies at the redemptive heart of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which I just finished reading. In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra, the tenacious 12-year-old protagonist, listens to an older woman relate the experience of falling in love (note -- there are no spoilers here):

"As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, she felt other doors opening deep in the darkness, and lights coming on."

I had many points of aesthetic and theological frustration with Pullman. But on this key point I would agree: those who have come to positions of authority do a terrible job of listening. And when any authority stops listening, Hell literally breaks loose. Wisdom dies. Insight fails. We must never stop listening, never stop seeking new stories, new paths, new views of the world. We may get tired of the dolphin show, but the dolphins will still surprise us, if we know where to look.

And those moments, those piercing moments of insight, come fleetingly. Blink an eye, take a breath, and we lose those moments, like water slipping through our fingers. Our fingers are wet, but our thirst remains unslaked.

Today, one of those moments visited me.

I was at the end of a long run at the gym. Those who know how I run will know that my mind switches off as I run -- a practice I've cultivated over 20 years of running to get my mind off the complaints of my body. I had my iPod plugged in, as usual, and had been listening to MercyMe's wonderful song, "Bring the Rain".

I can count a million times
People asking me how I can praise You
with all that I’ve gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It’s never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you oh Lord
My only shelter from the storms
But instead I draw closer through these times

So I pray, Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there’ll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that’s what it takes to praise You,
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
the dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what’s a little rain

Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

As the song came to its end ("Holy, Holy, Holy / Is the Lord God Almighty") and I started cooling down, an image floated into my mind: the people of my frail little church, singing those final lines in worship, in hope, in grace. And as they sang, the people of Heaven joined them. Sweaty, panting, my legs burning, I began to cry, my tears mingling with my sweat to run down my face. My heart felt close to bursting but I knew it was not from the running.

God visits us in our most naked moments, when we expect Him least. But what does it matter? We have nothing to offer him anyway, except our nakedness. And when He comes, when we get those fleeting glimpses of His will on earth as it is in Heaven, we'd better be listening with every atom of our being.

Getting Into Scrapes

2008-02-28T15:04:00.001-08:00

He looks like he's having fun here, but he's actually calling out, "Help! Help me, Mom! Help!"
For the record, he's the one who wanted to climb the tree.

Yes, that is a bruise on his cheek.
He was fooling around, doing some funny march when he walked into a wall.

He wasn't laughing at the end of it, but K and I were in stitches.

Snapshot #2

2008-02-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

Today's lesson for me: Never. Leave. Home. Without. My. Camera.

I walked out of bible study this morning, to see E racing with the other boys in the toddler class on the front lawn at church. How to put into words how cute this looked? She looked a little lost, like she didn't really get what the point of all this running around was, but she gamely joined in anyway, trailing after them on her two short little legs.

Sidenote: D, who takes care of E's class, told me today, "She's the bravest little girl." To which I reply, "That's because she thinks she's just like J!"

J joined in after I picked him up from his class. And started racing with the other boys from his class too. Just to see his face all lit up with unadulterated joy, laughing and tumbling around with the other kids - that was my moment of parental bliss today.

E was running around with another little girl, a few months younger than her. When those two hugged each other, cheek to cheek, that was precious. The other little girl tired of hugging after a while though. Her advances rejected, E burst into tears! She sulked all the way home and complained to her daddy the moment we stepped into the house: K___. Uh (shakes her head here). Hug. Me.

Today's Panic Moment

2008-02-27T15:47:00.001-08:00

When J decided to paint his face with his watercolours. And when I wasn't sure if washing with soap and water would get all the paint off. And so I was faced with the prospect of a little green Incredible Hulk look-alike for my son.

Ok, time to get some proper face-paint.

Snapshot #1

2008-02-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

There are some things that I wish I could take a snapshot of. Only, a camera cannot capture everything.

It is late. K and I have just come out of the kids' bedroom after their bedtime stories, good-night prayers, and I-love-you kisses.

This is the ritual: I walk out the door, calling out, "Good night! Mommy loves you! See you tomorrow." And they respond in kind. But then just before I close the door, J asks me to come in to check on him. Not to be outdone, E echoes the request, "Mama. Check. MEEEE!". And so I promise to return in a few minutes.

I close the door. And there is silence. But only for a few seconds. Soon, I hear their voices. Sometimes, I hear E clearly, singing her own little song. J shushes her. There is amusement in his "shhh", or exasperation if she's been singing for too long. Other times the murmurings are indistinct. I don't know what they are saying, just that they are talking to each other.

I think of doing the 'mom' thing. Should I poke my head in to shush them - they have school the next morning? But I am loathe to interrupt them. This is how they bond.

So I let them be for a while. There'll be times for shushing later on.

Poet In The Making

2008-02-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

J is rhyming.

When we say, "Five, four, three, two, one..."
He says, "Everybody have some fun!"

Then we say, "Five, six, seven, eight..."
He says, "Everybody on a plate!"

Hah!

On The Seventh Day

2008-02-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

This really is one of my favourite verses.

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

Mighty To Save - Hillsongs Australia
Everyone needs compassion
A love that's never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations

Savior
He can move the mountains
My God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender

Shine your light and let the whole world see
We're singing for the glory of the risen King...Jesus

Affirmative Action

2008-02-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

When asked a question, J has taken to replying in the affirmative in one of three ways:

No problem-oh!
Yessiree!
You betcha!

The first is his favourite.

Joshua Is In The Bible

2008-02-20T22:06:00.000-08:00

K and I have talked about how sure we are that E is going to one day ask us why there is no book of Emma in the bible. (She is not one who will be left out of anything. She fights fiercely to be included, and even when she's not sure what's going on, she jumps right in anyway.) So since there's the book of Joshua in the bible, surely there must be the book of Emma.

That day has come.

J wanted to hear about Joshua from his bible at bedtime this evening. And E was watching and listening. So when I flipped the book open to start on the story, she pointed to the picture on the page preceding it, and said (loudly), "Me!"

When I tried to point out that she was actually pointing to Moses, she indignantly insisted, "MEEEEE!"

So yes, my daughter now thinks that Moses is about her, and perhaps more importantly, that she actually precedes Joshua in the bible.

***

It's been ages since they've been in a pool! But our hotel in Carlsbad (where we were over the weekend) had a heated pool and sunny weather. So it was perfect. E the water baby threw a fit when it was time to come out. (Actually she throws a fit everyday when I tell her it's time to come out of the bath. She's going to miss the bathtub so much when we get back to Singapore.)

First game of Jenga!
(The kids were more excited about having the blocks collapse, so that became the point of the game.)

LA Arboretum

2008-02-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

We had perfect weather to visit the LA Arboretum today. Really lovely.

She Sings

2008-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, she does! My little two-year-old has a favourite song. One that she sings all the time, by herself, without anyone else prompting her. How cute it is to see her playing or lying in bed and singing at the same time. This is what she sings, with my translation for some clarity.

Jee-che... meee... nee ner nooo...
Jesus loves me, this I know

...bye-ber... soh...
For the Bible tells me so...

She has discovered the hat as a fashion accessory. She wore it to school one day, deigned to take it off while in school, then insisted on wearing it back home. And when we went out after dinner to pick up some groceries, she wanted it on again. Never mind that it was dark out.

Be My Valentine

2008-02-14T13:50:00.001-08:00

The room at bible study this morning was all done up for Valentine's Day - pretty pink table cloths, candles, a tea-cup of pink, red and white M&Ms, delicious homemade sugar cookies and a pretty centerpiece of flowers at each table. My name got picked to bring home the centerpiece today so here it is, arranged by one of the ladies. Lovely. (E was very taken with the pink glittery heart stuck in the middle.)

J has apparently been working on his gift for weeks! They took the photo one week, then made the photo-frame another week and then assembled it altogether. So he had a gift for me today! As well as a card that K got for him to give me! Which he signed himself! Precious. J has really gotten into the spirit of Valentine's Day, so I've been showered with lots of kisses and I-love-you-s. Not that I'm complaining!

Strongman

2008-02-14T13:48:00.001-08:00

On a visit to the Science Center, we managed to lift a Toyota Tundra!

This Is How We Play

2008-02-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

I found mention of this book, Unplugged Play, on a website that I was reading, and immediately got a copy. The kids watch too much TV as it is, and I really like the idea of them having play that requires no batteries or plugs. Just good fun that gets them dirty, if necessary!

K made them a little cubby, with a blanket and an extra curtain draped over our dining table. It was supposed to be like a secret hiding spot for them, but they basically turned it into a stage, with their dinosaurs as puppets. This was J's made-up story:

Once upon a time, there was a Mommy dinosaur and Baby dinosaurs. Then one day, the Mommy dinosaur couldn't find her Baby dinosaurs. So she roared really loudly, and that woke them up.

We were pretty impressed that there was an actual plot!

***

This was basically a modified game of soccer. An empty carton served as the goal-post, and for lack of a better alternative, our Christmas ornaments were the balls. They could kick, roll or throw. J quite got into the whole scoring thing. E did too, in her own way. In spite of my instructions, she'd stand right up in front of the carton to fling the balls in. Then, she'd yell, "Ta-dah!"

***

Pizza play! This, I thought, would be lots of fun. Each kid would get a flour tortilla (we had these lying in the fridge, anyway) to act as the pizza base. I used a small tub of yoghurt that was probably a little past its prime, as the "sauce". Then they got to assemble the pizza themselves, using whatever snacks we had in our pantry. Cheerios, raisins, Teddy graham crackers, multi-coloured Goldfish and marshmallows.

This was interesting too in revealing their characters! J is, true to form, quite meticulous. None of that sprinkling nonsense. He put each ingredient on his pizza in its precise spot. And even though his favourite marshmallows were out, he was so focused on getting his pizza done properly, he didn't even remember to eat any of them. He does not like to get dirty, so he'd call for a tissue the moment he touched any of the yoghurt.

E, on the other hand, started snacking the moment she saw the Cheerios. Only after she popped a few into her mouth, did she remember about making the pizza. Quite the opposite from her Kor-kor, she is of the 'sprinkle' school of thought. After a while, she started pouring the ingredients straight from their plates on to her pizza. Why waste time picking them up?

So no prizes for guessing which pizza belonged to whom.

Bai-Nian

2008-02-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

Xin Nian Kuai Le from California!

Must make pretty.

P.S. Check out his T-shirt - he so loved it, he was showing it off to everyone he met at bible study this morning!

Happy New Year!

2008-02-06T22:32:00.001-08:00

Reunion Dinner, Improvised

2008-02-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

The concept of a steamboat, executed on the stove-top.
(Not as good as the real thing, but it had to do.)

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

On A Prayer

2008-02-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

The highlight of my day!

This afternoon, I told J that I couldn't play racing cars with him because I was having a headache. So he tried sayang-ing my head a couple of times, each time then asking me if I felt any better. A little bit, but the headache was still there.

Then completely without any prompting, he said, "I'll pray for you, Mom. Please, Lord, take away the hurt in Mommy's head. Amen."

I was just about in tears by then.

Growing Up

2008-02-04T14:56:00.001-08:00

E's first day at school! (J has a picture similar to this on his first day of school too.)

E's classroom - the first table she went to had a bucket of blocks for her to sort.

How'd she do???

We stayed for a couple of minutes when we brought her to her classroom, then I told her I was going to leave, told her to say bye to me ("Buh-bye, Mama"), gave her a kiss and scooted towards the door!

She saw us heading for the door and got antsy, but I closed the door anyway. And from outside, I could hear her starting to cry. Her teacher swooped in though, and a brief five seconds later, all was quiet.

When I picked her up, Miss Siri said that she did great! (Even J's teacher told me she heard that E did really well on her first day. A mom of J's classmate overheard and congratulated me! She was looking forward to her second child starting school too!) E tried out all the stations (sorting blocks, painting, and digging outside). The only time when she got upset and cried again was when both her and J's class were having outdoor play-time and she caught sight of her Kor-kor. (Their classes have separate outside play-areas, but are next to each other.) She wanted to go to him, but Miss Siri brought her indoors and gave her another activity and she was fine.

I am incredibly proud of her.

Postscript: Will have to see how she is towards school on Wednesday. And on Friday, I'm due for parent participation in J's class, so I'll probably have to do some quick ducking to make sure she doesn't see me.

Oh So Quiet

2008-02-04T11:42:00.001-08:00

As I type this, the house is strangely quiet. No Diego singing in the background about rescuing animals. No J complaining about how boring Diego is, and asking to watch his show instead. No E, insisting on "Eh-go. Eh-go. EH-GO!" to J.

Both kids are in school.

K and I came back just a few minutes ago, after a shopping trip: to Kohl's to get bedsheets, to Vons for groceries, and to Target to get J's birthday presents. Can you imagine, we actually did ALL that in about two hours. When there are no kids around who have their own ideas of what they want to be looking at, and who have their own ideas of which direction they want to be walking, it is amazing how quickly you can get things done.

Truth be told, I have been looking forward to today, so much so that I do feel a little guilty about it! But those strings that tie E to me have to be snipped at some point - and today, we made another small snip.

French Flies

2008-02-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

Since we had all these helium balloons in the house yesterday, it was the perfect opportunity to try out an experiment that J had seen on one of his favourite TV shows, Peep and the Big Wide World.

Q: What would float when tied to the balloons?

A: E's plastic toy french fries.

There go the french flies! Haha!

When I Don't Know What To Do

2008-02-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

This song reminds me of something that E (and probably every other toddler) does. Even though she's perfectly capable of walking and getting around by herself, all too often, she'll come running to me, arms outstretched, calling out "Mama!" to get me to carry her. And so I pick her up.

This is a picture of me too, I realise. Arms outstretched, I look up to God my Father for Him to carry me. And how reassuring that He always picks me up.

When I Don’t Know What To Do
Tommy Walker WeMobile Music ©2005 CCLI #4556332

Lord I surrender all to
Your strong and faithful hand
In everything I will give thanks to You
I’ll just trust Your perfect plan

Chorus:
When I don’t know what to do
I’ll lift my hands
When I don’t know what to say
I’ll speak Your praise
When I don’t know where to go
I’ll run to Your throne
When I don’t know what to think
I’ll stand on Your truth
When I don’t know what to do

Lord I surrender all
Though I’ll never understand
All the mysteries around me
I’ll just trust your perfect plan

Bridge:
As I bow my knee
Send Your perfect peace
Send Your perfect peace, Lord
As I lift my hands
Let Your healing come
Let Your healing come to me

Our Inspiration for Scripture Memory

2008-02-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

E's Birthday Celebration

2008-02-02T20:41:00.001-08:00

Main Ingredients:

Birthday Cupcakes:
Trader Joe's Vanilla Cake Mix (our favourite!) and milk chocolate frosting

Our loud rendition of "Happy Birthday",

sung really fast because the birthday girl couldn't wait to stick her fingers into the frosting

Talking to Kong-kong and Ah-Ma in Singapore, who had a birthday cake and candles all lit up, and who sung the birthday song for E. Birthday wishes from Grandma and Grandpa also came over Skype. The wonders of technology.

Birthday Presents:
Little Doctor's Kit,
purchased from Granville Island
(We continue to reap the rewards of our visit to Vancouver.)

E finally has her own lap-top, Diego-themed, no less. In this picture, J has commandeered it, claiming to "like Diego very much", when usually he protests my turning it on for E to watch, complaining that "Diego is so boring". This is how a new toy can change the tune you sing.

Birthday Balloons,
which we got from a shop selling party supplies. Possibly our best buy, seeing as how both kids were playing with, and fighting over, them (even though we had gotten four!) practically the whole day.
What is it with children and balloons?

A Two-Year-Old

2008-02-02T20:32:00.001-08:00

Another milestone is reached - my baby girl turns two today!

How do I love her? Let me count the ways.

1. I love her for being a sleeper! After our struggle with J's poor sleeping habits, this was such a huge blessing. Even now, when I tell her it's time for her afternoon nap, she'll actually go toddling off on her short little legs into her bedroom. (J, meanwhile, continues to fight sleep!) Unfortunately, E has started waking at super early, just a bit past 6am! Ugh.

2. I love her for being a girl, and thus allowing me the opportunity to dress her in pretty dresses and cute hair-clips. It's been a while since she's been in a dress though, because of the cold weather, but we expect to pick this up again soon, as the weather warms up in the next couple of months. Hair-clips... well, she (finally!) has enough hair to clip, but the hair-clips never stay in her hair for long; she pulls them out in about five seconds, maybe less.

3. I love how she now knows her P-s and Q-s. She can do her thank yous unprompted (although she does need some reminding at times): "Kyu, Dada" or "Kyu, Mama". We're working on please; she says, "Pea, Dada", but this requires more prompting.

4. I love that she's starting to demonstrate a generous heart. She loves to feed me or K, and just yesterday evening, brought her cup of water to J for a last sip before bed-time. When she's Skype-ing with her grandparents, she'll willingly hold up whatever snack she has in her hands, and feed their images on the computer screen. She's still more possessive when it comes to non-family members, but we're working on it.

5. I love her strong mind. This girl, she got spunk. She's become increasingly independent - pretty much feeding herself nowadays, and the mess she makes is a little - just a little - more contained. (She still has a Princess moments though, when Mama is required to do everything from feeding her to holding her water cup while she sips delicately. Thankfully, these moments are the exception rather than the norm.) E also loves brushing her own teeth. I don't trust her to do a good job, but I'll let her have a go after I'm done, so she'll stick her toothbrush in her mouth and wiggle it around. She's got a strong will, which can be a struggle on some days, but at least we know she won't be bullied in school!

6. I love her dancing. She does this butt wiggle when she hears music, and will on occasion do a little hop-skip as she moves around the room. A few months back, her butt wiggle was enhanced by her left hand being placed on the actual wiggling butt, but she has since edited this action of the hand. To my disappointment.

7. I love that she's great at hide-and-seek. She's got the hiding part down, and will manage to stay really quiet. Often though if we take too long to find her, she'll come popping out from her hiding spot, yelling, "Ta-dah!"

8. I love how enthusiastic she is about greeting us after not seeing us for a spell. She'll go careening at top speed to the door when she hears K returning from school. She'll run to J, shouting "Kor-kor! Kor-kor", to hug him when he comes back from preschool. And she'll yell, "Mama! Mama!" and toddle to the door when I pick her up from the toddler room at church. I love it.

9. Most of all, I love her for reminding me of God's grace in blessing us with such a precious gift.

***

Emma, one day old

Emma, one year old

Emma, two years old, today

Test Of Wills

2008-02-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

At dinner time today, E decided that it would be fun to sprinkle some Fruit Loops that she had in front of her on the floor. Now, this is behaviour that we've been trying to correct. So we instructed her to pick up the cereal. This led to a huge crying/screaming fit.

Each time we instructed her to pick it up, she'd adamantly shake her head, and cry even louder. The battle was on. I was determined not to back down. And so was she apparently, for she stood in one spot crying and screaming for a good ten to fifteen minutes. Not only did she not want to pick up the cereal, she was very clear that I was supposed to do it: "Mama, up!", and then pulling my hand close to the cereal on the floor. Anyway, she finally did back down, after what seemed like a really long time, and picked up the cereal, crying all the while.

Then it was soothing cuddle time with Mom - lots of hugs, kisses, praises for finally obeying, and general sayang-ing.

We won this battle. But as I watched her obey us, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and her cries ringing in my ear, my heart broke, just a little.

Making herself comfortable on a massage pad we have.

Chawanmushi

2008-02-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

For reasons unknown, the Japanese restaurants here just do not have chawanmushi on their menus. So it has been a long time since we last tasted it; back home in Singapore, it was one of J's most favourite dishes.

Voila! After a trip to the Asian supermarket today, where I managed to procure dashi stock (in a granulated form) and mirin, and after some research on the Internet to find a recipe, this is the result.

It was DIVINE. (If I do say so myself. And on my first try too.)
Definitely a do-again!

In Chains...

2008-01-31T19:25:00.001-08:00

...for Christ.

J made this in church today. Each link bears one word, that together say

"Stand firm in the faith - 1 Corinthians 16:13"

And so we have our next memory verse.

The Mad Hatter Visits

2008-01-31T19:21:00.001-08:00

Poor things, they have to put up with their parents putting strange things on their heads.

Postscript: I showed this picture to E. She did not approve! She pointed at the ears on her head, shook her head and said, "Noooo...."

Role Of A Kor-kor

2008-01-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

E has the most annoying habit of flinging to the floor anything that she doesn't want, and this can range from pieces of tissue paper, to cutlery, to bowls of food.

We've been working on getting her to stop this, so K will smack her hand when she does it.

This afternoon, in the wake of her getting punished with a smack (with the crying and screaming to prove it), J decided that he had had enough: "Dad, stop it! Dad, you're hurting Mei-mei's feelings!"

Bless his little heart.

First Memory Verse

2008-01-28T16:23:00.000-08:00

This rose is blooming fiercely in our backyard.

Yesterday evening we watched a two-and-a-half year old boy at church recite from memory 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Listening to him actually made me tear up. More importantly, it has convinced me that J can be taught memory verses from Scripture too, when I had previously just assumed that he was too young. So we are now working on James 1:17 -

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father...

He's got down the phrases so far, now to just put it all together! When I try to help him, he tells me to stop, because "I want to say it".

At The La Habra Children's Museum

2008-01-28T16:18:00.002-08:00

A Brave Girl

2008-01-25T22:50:00.000-08:00

Today, I brought E for a couple of injections, to bring her up-to-date as we try to register her for preschool. She did incredibly well!! So much better than I expected. Our earlier experiences with this had taught us that she has a very low pain threshold, and that she'd struggle. So I prepared myself this time, holding her tightly. But she didn't flinch at all, just sat there quietly. Maybe it was the promised reward of two stickers (for two injections) that did the trick! I was very proud of her today.

J, on the other hand, was very upset that he did not get to see, as he put it, "the doctor's stuff". And he was even more upset that he missed out on the stickers. He kept asking E for one sticker, but she quietly and adamantly shook her head each time. She finally had something that he didn't! Oh, but she did eventually relent - it took a handful of chocolate cookies, but she willingly handed one over in the end.

How We Know We Have Reached The Terrible Twos

2008-01-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

Let me count the ways.

1. Demonstration of the Classic Temper Tantrum when things do not go her way. For example, stamping feet (when standing), kicking feet (when seated), bawling at the top of her lungs (with eyes closed).

2. Loud exclamations of "Me! Me!" to indicate whatever she thinks belongs to her, regardless of whether they do in reality or not.

3. Petulance. Kor-kor will lean over to give her an unsolicited kiss, and in response, she'll use her hand to thump whichever part of him is closest to her, whether it's his head or body or limb.

A Ker-thump And A Sentence

2008-01-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

I was in bed a few nights ago, reading a little just before going to sleep. Then I heard it. A loud ker-thump. (The floors in our little wooden house are a very good conductor of sound.)

I tip-toed to the kids' room to investigate this mysterious sound. I opened the door just a little to peek in at E's bed. I couldn't spot her in the bed at first and initially put it down to not being able to see so well in the dark. But when I pushed the door open a little wider, I saw her. Sleeping. Face-down. On the floor!

***

E said her first full sentence today.

Dada. Buy. Me. Cheet. (Translation: Sweet.)

Walking on water

2008-01-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Slightly over a week ago, on a rare, rainless winter morning in Vancouver, we found ourselves on a suspension bridge fifty metres above a rushing river bounded on both sides by sheer, rocky sides. On our right, a small but spritely waterfall gushed over the edge of its cliff into Lynn Canyon. The rapids below us roiled with the rainwater collected throughout the Lynn River’s pristine catchment, but we could see the rocky riverbed strewn with boulders, sand banks and the odd plant. Signs near the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre had warned of the dangers of the river and its canyon. Walking through the forest to the bridge, the canyon’s edge, obscured by the dense trees, came up suddenly and surprisingly. Various people had died in the waters of the river; in one grisly case, the body of an unfortunate hiker spent five days trapped under the hydraulic pull of a waterfall along the river before it could be recovered. Just before the suspension bridge, we had also come across a small memorial to a young woman whom the river had swept away suddenly. She had apparently been sunbathing on a large boulder on the canyon floor.

Such macabre reminders did not detract from our enjoyment of Lynn Canyon and its suspension bridge. Joshua was absolutely enthralled with the idea of crossing the suspension bridge, and went across it four times fearlessly and enthusiastically. A group of Korean tourists had come just before us, in their dark suits, jackets, trousers and leather shoes, but the canyon still felt like it belonged us. Above the canyon, surrounded by the sound of rushing water that silenced every other man-made sound, we felt excited and enervated, strangely anticipating something mysterious and revelatory beyond the bridge, or around the next corner. The clear, cleansed air, scrubbed and fresh and almost glistening in its purity, felt like it could carry our voices and our thoughts for miles above the roar of the water.

We spent the rest of that Friday at Granville Island. Despite its status as one of Vancouver’s major tourist attractions, Granville Island has somehow avoided the trap of kitsch and feels authentic and unforced. It’s not really an island, but a small piece of land sticking into Vancouver’s False Creek that, up till the 1970s, had been filled with derelict sawmills, machine shops and other corrugated-tin factories that disposed of their toxic wastes right into the waters off their doorstep. Since the 1970s, Granville Island has experienced a remarkable transformation, one that similar sites in other cities have rarely repeated. Many of the original structures and buildings now house galleries, art and cooking schools, nonprofits, theatres, housing, parks, marinas, a wonderful children’s market (where we happily spent many hours and hard currency) and of course, the Granville Island Public Market.

If the availability of great seafood, fruits and tasty baked goods were the sole criterion for judging the quality of a city, Vancouver would trump just about any other city in the world. And the Granville Island Public Market would be the place to find it all, from cheesebreads to organic M&M cookies (we bought one for Joshua, only to have a sugar-deprived seagull grab some of it right out of his hands), to honeyed planks of smoked salmon, and piles of berries, mushrooms and doughnuts light as air that we gobbled up in a flash.

The previous night, we had watched Nigella Lawson prepare fried calamari for her supper, which had caused Fiona and I to crave, with almost indecent desperation, for something similar for our lunch at Granville Island. In good Singaporean fashion, Joshua, Emma and I waited for a table in the crowded eating area of the market, while Fiona joined the line for fish and chips, and, of course, calamari. While walking through the market, I had earlier seen a shop selling stuffed cabbage and greasy latkes with apple sauce, which I decided that I had to have too.

I wolfed down my lunch, and took Emma (who was happy with ketchup for her lunch) for a walk after that. We walked outside the Public Market, along False Creek. Emma initially was quite happy to walk; she toddled a few steps after me, sometimes making faces through the glass wall to the hungry diners inside and waving to them. I think a group of Japanese tourists even took a photograph of her. But then she grew nervous and wanted me to carry her. She had stopped looking at the people and at me, and had instead looked down at her feet. We were walking on the boardwalk outside the Public Market, directly over the waters of False Creek, with the Granville Street Bridge soaring right above us. She had stumbled on the wooden planks of the boardwalk and had seen, through the planks, the water beneath, and grew afraid of walking by herself. I had to scoop her up, and after that, she refused to walk on her own on the boardwalk.

Some time before our trip to Vancouver, Joshua started asking us questions about death and mortality. “Mo-o-o-o-m,” he would ask plaintively at night, after we had put him into bed, “are you going to die?”

- “Ermm, no, not for a very, very long time. . . But you don’t need to be scared, Joshua.”
- (With increasing panic) “I don’t want you to die, mom . . . Am I going to die?”

At this point, he usually starts to whimper, and we try to make comforting noises to get his mind off the topic, at least for the moment. We’ve even tried explaining that even if we were to die, our souls would live on – but even I, at 33, have problems grasping the immortality of the soul (or immortality, for that matter). So the discussions along those lines haven’t quite resonated with him too.

I don’t often think of death and mortality very much. I exercise regularly (and even enjoy it), eat good things like granola, fruits, vegetables, wild salmon, brown rice and multi-vitamins, don’t smoke, drink lots of water and tea rich in anti-oxidants, and I laugh quite often. (Fiona and I recently watched “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” and laughed ourselves silly in the scene in which she skies herself right into a Swiss pharmacy and tries, with gesticulating hilarity, to buy a pregnancy test. Yes – I watched a “Bridget Jones” movie.) At my last full physical, just about a year ago, I had a clean bill of health. According to RealAge.com, my body is 25 years old. So, mortality does not enter my consciousness much, although, perhaps at 33, it should.

So Joshua’s questions have reminded me of the reality of death. And I wish I could convey to him that we have nothing to fear. That day, on Granville Island, Emma started to fear when she saw the water beneath the planks, and did not want to walk on her own anymore. But earlier that day, we walked on a slender, narrow suspension bridge across a roaring river, with no fear. We trusted that the bridge would hold, that each piece of wood on that bridge was securely fastened, solid and sound, that nothing would give way under our blind and trusting feet. And in the absence of fear, we felt freedom and we tasted the slightest tang of eternity.

Sometimes, however, our eyes will turn away from the planks that hold us up and will instead grow fixated on the roiling waters underneath us. And when those times come, we will grow anxious, stricken, and allow the shadows in our hearts to grow. And we will not want to keep walking anymore, but we may stand, paralyzed, frozen, unable to see the road ahead, the way out.

But, like Emma on that beautiful, cold Friday in Vancouver, I know that I have a Father to turn to, who will carry me on His shoulders, even when my sight fails. And in that way, I can keep on walking.

What Are The Odds

2008-01-16T22:27:00.002-08:00

Upon arriving at Ontario airport, we found that we were less one carseat. Again. And again, E's carseat is the one that has gone missing. It is inexplicable. We await further news.

This was a good moment, when both kids were actually watching something on the portable DVD player. E has a hard time flying though. She just cannot understand why she has to be so confined, so she makes sure we are all aware of her unhappiness. The look on her face here pretty much captures it all.

J, on the other hand, is a happy camper, so long as he has something to watch.

Victoria

2008-01-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

Victoria is a very pretty town, but it felt very quiet. Maybe it was because we were coming from big bustling cities like Vancouver and Seattle.

This was the highlight for J - we visited Miniature World, and naturally there were trains. "Next time, I want a toy like that," he proclaims as we were leaving.

Science World

2008-01-16T22:03:00.001-08:00

The fact that we spent a WHOLE day at Science World (with a short break out for lunch) is testament to how much we loved the place.

The kids were captivated, and this was before we even stepped inside.

It was a wet day, the day we were at Science World, so we were very glad to be indoors, where it was warm and dry.

This was lunch! The best fishballs we've had outside of Singapore. Needless to say, J was ecstatic.

The Daredevil Among Us

2008-01-16T21:43:00.000-08:00

So here we are, catching up on our posts.

This is how we spent one of our days in Vancouver: crossing the Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge in the morning, then exploring Granville Island in the afternoon. A day of great fun, especially for J. He discovered how much fun crossing a swaying bridge can be. Several crossings were made because he enjoyed them so.

There is a Children's Market at Granville Island that is loads of fun. And the toy shops there have great toys too! Birthday presents have been bought...

You can see, we were blessed with a rainless day! Which was much better than our first day in Vancouver when it dripped and dripped and dripped. J was very concerned about the rain, and would give us no peace about it until we got him his own "shark" umbrella.

Here we are doing a quick march down Robson Street in Vancouver. Our destination...

Roast Pork

2008-01-14T23:35:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how well we've been eating in Vancouver already? We're trying to make up for the lack of over the past 8 months.

We've had roast pork twice already.

The first time, J decided he wanted to eat the crispy skin from the roast pork on my plate. He liked it. Very much. Thus began his slow poaching of it all.

When there were two pieces left, he generously told me that I could have it all. Then two minutes later, he asks if he can have one of the two. I could have the other one, he points out. Then two more minutes later, he forgets and almost asks to have the last one too, but swiftly corrects himself to ask, "Can I share the last piece with you, Mom?"

How to deny him when he so obviously loves it? He had it all.

PS. Photos will come when we finally get back home to Claremont.

No Smoking Allowed

2008-01-13T21:58:00.000-08:00

On the ferry to Victoria this afternoon, J noticed a 'No Smoking' sign. He knows what it means, as I've explained it before. (He went through a little phase of wanting to be told what signs meant; particularly when he was in preschool in Singapore, he'd look at all the signs on the MRT stations and trains on the way home from school.)

He then pointedly K, "No smoking, Dad." It took a couple of seconds for us to realise that he was talking about the steam rising up from K's cup of coffee.

LOL!

The Cutest Sound

2008-01-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

E has learnt to say okay, except that she says "oh-tay". It is super cute when she says it, and then toddles off to do whatever she just agreed to do.

This is rivalled only by her "sorry" which comes out as "Orr-Wee". I can't help laughing everytime I hear her say it.

On a separate note, E has inherited J's love for Go, Diego, Go (while J has moved on the other things; he now complains about how boring Diego is). It's the only show that she ever asks to watch at home. This afternoon, while she was napping in the car, she actually called out Diego's name in her sleep! (She says, "Eh-Go") K says it's her first crush.

Chicken Rice

2008-01-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

Within three hours of learning that there was a Prima Taste Restaurant in Vancouver (thanks, Rosie!), we were at the restaurant buying dinner.

We were just out for a walk, but when the kids fell asleep in the stroller, we decided to walk all the way down to Prima Taste Restaurant, about 12 blocks away.

Dinner consisted of chicken rice, laksa and fried Hokkien prawn mee. The kids loved the chicken rice! True Singaporeans.

The Lost Carseat

2008-01-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

We flew up to Seattle yesterday, only to find upon arrival that E's carseat didn't make the flight with us. Oh well, as K points out, if we had to lose any piece of luggage, at least it was the carseat (which the airline replaced with a carseat of their own, on loan until ours caught up with us), and not a piece of luggage. (Postscript - E's carseat finally caught up with us this morning.)

[Sidenote: J has been ill, running a fever off and on from Saturday evening through Monday evening. This was cause of some worry for me, especially since we were flying off Tuesday morning. So we were praying. I am very happy that J has been fine since Tuesday. God is good. And as I type this, he is busy watching Cars and playing with E at the same time. It is wonderful to see him back to his energetic self.]

Seattle is as lovely as I remember it to be, even with the rain and cold weather. I think it is the presence of water all around - rivers and the ocean - that makes the difference for me. An island girl, I am.

We walked to Pike Place Market this morning for breakfast, and J could recognise it from our last trip to Seattle in August! He remembered in particular a toy shop we had found the last time around, and that was, naturally, a must-visit.

Mid-morning, we made the drive from Seattle to Vancouver. Lovely drive - lots of pine trees, so there was greenery, even in winter. We had to go through customs, which was very reminiscent of driving through the border at J.B., except it is off-season now so there weren't that many cars, and the weather outside was around 3 degrees Celsius.

Anyway, we are now in Vancouver, having partaken of a late dim sum lunch and a fantastic Japanese dinner. Our hotel is located wonderfully: we are within walking distance to many restaurants, most of which look really good. One in particular - Banana Leaf - will definitely be visited within the next couple of days.

On Mortality

2008-01-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not even sure how this started.

But every once in a while now, J will turn to me, in all seriousness, and ask, "Mom, are you going to die?"

Now, I have always thought that I should be honest with my children. I want them to always trust me, and so I try not to say or do anything that could betray that trust.

But this question...

The first time he asked this, I told him that although I'd die one day, it wouldn't be for a long time (God willing), and even then, we'd still see each other in heaven. Not good enough for him! Tears! I think it's too big for him to understand.

Last night, he asked THE QUESTION again. And once again, he started tearing up! He worried about if I was going to die, and if he was going to have new mommy... ("But I don't want new mommy... Mom, are you going to die??") I told him that he shouldn't worry about it, and that he would always be taken care of. It wasn't the answer he wanted to hear: it wasn't enough.

How to answer him? On the one hand, I certainly don't want to lie to him. On the other hand, he is so sensitive that telling him the truth upsets him.

I am stumped. And reminded of how much we need God's wisdom!