Pursuing beauty

I read this and just wanted to note it down so i am placing it here.
It came from this blog in my email feed that i really enjoy reading and being encouraged.

"

The Bible starts “In the beginning God created…”

In nature we can see God’s grandeur and beauty – we cannot watch television and experience this.

God is the source of beauty.

Whatever keeps us from his beauty keeps us from his presence.

Sally and Sarah tag teamed as they gave practical ways to express beauty inside our homes.

1. You can read books together – to make books even more beautiful – do it beside a fireplace with a warm glow.

2. You can serve the family a warm dinner – but if you add a candle and some light music it becomes an event.

3. Take the time to make holidays extra special – celebrate life together – this builds a beautiful strong foundation.

4. Read good books – you can only give to your children what you already possess inside. Good books are essential not a frivolity.

5. Expose your children to the best things – the best art, best people, best books, and the best thoughts."

I love No.4 & No.5. No.1 doesn't work cos we don't have a fireplace but we snuggle up in Eliza's bed, on the sofa, or at the dinner table to read. And coming to Canberra, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, there's so much more of God's creation to admire as nature is so much more around us (including large fuzzy spiders which we saw on our car window...yikes!). 

God is amazing. As Eliza puts it from her voice over with her Hello Kitty

HK: Who made the clouds?

Me: Ask Eliza

Eliza: God made the clouds

HK: Wow! I love God! 

Prayers too small

We pray with Eliza every night. And most of the time we pray for ah-ma's back, for her hurt leg, for my sore wrist etc. At some point i get that nagging feeling that it should all not be it. I try to encourage her to thank God first before all these requests (even though the requests are not always hers). And i was greatly reminded when i heard H pray for teachable, obedient and happy hearts; which reminded me that our hearts are the most important as it is the wellspring of life. And so i started to pray for our hearts.

Today I have been discouraged by the past 3 nights when it was a struggle to get Emily to sleep. I rationalized what is causing her lack of sleep. Is it because she wasn't sleeping enough in the day? Is it because of that 3rd late afternoon nap she took on Thursday and that started the bad nights? Is it a wonder week...as she was learning a lot of new things this week, like sitting up, crawling faster, pulling herself up, trying to cruise, self-feeding etc? It doesn't help that my mil questioned the state of cleaniness of the house. She asked "is it because the house is not clean enough?"...wait the cleaniness of the house is related to her sleep? (maybe..but we have been staying her for half a year already). And she hinted today that i don't clean Emily well enough cos when she was taking care of Eliza she'll wash her bottom every morning, bath her twice a day (i bathe Emily once a day only) etc etc. And that not cleaning enough is causing all the rashes and her eczema. She feels that the carpet is very dirty and Emily crawls on it and it makes her skin worse. (maybe?). Sigh...Wait...we are talking about sleep. I know i'm disgruntled. God forgive me. The last thing i need is to have someone blame Emily's difficulty to sleep on me not taking care of her well enough.

Anyway i have been having a baby who refused to be patted to sleep or her head rubbed or be sung to. She'll push away my hand and scream louder. When i carry her, she arches her back and bends backwards, making it difficult for me to even rock her. I am at a loss. No snuggle? No patting? How else can i calm her down? Thankfully, nursing her does. So out goes the "no nursing to sleep" rule. If it calms her down, i'll take it any day. Maybe she's hungry. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt (even though she just nursed 1 hour ago).

Every baby is different, isn't it? Eliza wasn't a exceptionally easy baby either..but Emily oh...a good challenge to my soul. She helps me turn to God and pray. Pray hard.

And in Manna for Mums devotion today, i read and was encouraged to pray for spiritual things. How could I have forgotten?

"Our prayers tend to be small. Limited. We ask for money to pay the bills, for physical health, or for a new job. Granted, those are all good things, and we should bring these requests to God when they arise. But if all we pray for is physical or material things, we’re missing a huge part of what prayer is supposed to be about.
....

Will you try something with me this week? Let’s ask God to open our eyes to the spiritual blessings we’re missing out on because we don’t ask. Let’s ask Him to show us what kinds of spiritual things we need to be praying about. Then, let’s ask Him to grant us the desire to do so, and the ability to remember to engage in this new habit."

 - praying for gentleness with Emily
- praying for spiritual wisdom to know what to do when Emily cries / doesn't sleep
- praying for spiritual strength to last the trying moments
- praying for spiritual words to encourage Eliza and guide her when she disobeys
- to be kindness and gentleness in times when she needs my attention but i'm too busy.

Night owl me

I am a night owl...even when i was working, i could stay up till 1-2am doing what-i-can't-remember. Oh yes occasionally it was work (unfortunately). It is my down time..time to catch up on reading stuff, on planning, on preparing, on resting, on just surfing. I don't really watch tv unless there's a favourite show like Amazing race or if i get swept up in chasing some drama serial. So i'm not really feeling deprived not having a tv around plus it is a good thing for Eliza as she doesn't accidently watch violent or tempting (the toys! haha)  or weird advertisements/shows. Of course she used to watch when the tv was on and would ask questions or remember how to sing almost the entire "爱" show song. 

So now i'm using my nights to prep for the next week's activities aka homeschooling. When my mil leaves, it'll be back to preparing food and chatting with Ww. heh. So hopefully i'll have time do to so then. 

My heart is heavy.
A dear friend has passed away today.

We have been praying with her in this difficult journey when she broke the news to us during our bi-weekly sisters sharing. It took me a while to take this in. We read everywhere of people who have cancer, people we do not know, or even people we know but not that close. And then it hit me, my friend, who is still so young, has cancer.

She has been sharing about trying for a baby prior to all this and was having problems doing so. At that point, it seemed that recovery is possible that she can still have a child in future. She adores children and Eliza, who doesn't warm up to people easily (that's when she's 2-3yrs old), once hung out with her in the sunday school room doing craft, just both of them. Wow, she managed to get Eliza to do that!

And then one bad news after another, then cancer spread to the bone, and brain etc. But everytime I see her she's so cheerful, so humble, so welcoming. Never a word of complaint. Maybe in her private times she has had her struggles and tears, uncertainties and regret. But she always asked of me, of Eliza and Emily. Even when we moved to another country far away, we have communicated via whatsapp and she always asking how i am and how their girls are and that she misses them so much.

Everytime i ask her how she is and how she's taking the chemo etc, she'll always reply in thanksgiving to God. She'll always worry about her parents worrying about her and know that they may not take the news well too. In one of her replies to me, she has said that God has been wonderful to her, giving her a peaceful mind to handle all this.

I know she is with the Lord, she is painfree and in peace. Still it doesn't take away the sadness of losing such a kind and endearing friend. It must be loads more difficult for her husband who has been such a wonderful source of strength for her and has always been with her as much as he can, insisting he drive her to her to the hospital even when he has work and her mum/mil can go with her.

Losing a loved one is never ever easy. I know one day it will come. Just not so fast please.

There are some days

There are some days you just don't wanna do anything.
Tonight is one of those days.
As much as Emily's sleeping is improving, she has started having the runny nose that Eliza had had three days ago. Sigh..so a stuffy nose night, praying she will still sleep well at night despite this. Had a hard time getting her to sleep...poor gal. It didn't help that we decided to check out the Nara festival that starts at 5pm today and came home late...late like 730pm? That's not late in singapore terms but late in our terms with a baby that sleeps at 7pm (which means winding down by 630pm). Eliza's still quite flexible so even though she didn't take a nap today, (and i tried to get her to have it but she isn't tired enough), we sent her to sleep by 8pm. Usually we'll send her to sleep earlier, at about 730pm.

This is really so different in SG where 7pm is nothing near bedtime...cos 7pm is like the time you start to do stuff, cos it's after work time, time to catch up with friends time, tv time etc. Maybe over here cos most of our friends aren't here, and with two kids to take care of (and no help from my mil like before), the kids sleep early, and our nights are seemingly longer cos they sleep early! So i get to do my cooking preps like chopping vegs/meat/fruits. Really food preparation is quite tedious!

So tonight i decided to give food prep a pass and will do tuna puff pastry tomorrow for lunch...and prob pull out the frozen stash of food for dinner. Wanted to do tortilla roll but it needs some preps which i don't really want to do tonight.

Some things to do in the coming week:
- prepare Emily's first food! rice cereal! wonder whether to grind it or just cook it directly...sooo many ways to do it till i'm so confused. I'm trying not to buy packaged ready made foods (including our meals as it is cheaper to cook from the 'original' foods than buying ready-made ones)
- plan Eliza's day. REALLY gotta plan, it is so much better when i have some activites and special things for her to do & learn. Even playdoh/painting/puzzle time.
- Emily's sleep. It has been a week trying to get Emily's sleep in order and I foresee there will be more to come, like getting her to take her 20min nap (when will she outgrow this?), and then Beco-ing her to get the rest of the nap cos she is still tired but can't get back to sleep in her cot.
- food price comparison. trying to list unit costs down so i don't forget as the numbers seem so similar.
- plan our meals more specifically. So that i'm not like planning what to cook the night before.
- print photos for photo frames. Something i've been so slow at starting to get it done....

Impatience

This whole packing thing consumes me. Add on having to take care of a kid and a baby doesn't make it easier. I have a baby that can only fall asleep when we carry her, rock her and walk around. Then I also have a kid who whines and whines it gets to my nerves. She's also having difficulties with obedience too. We have had 3 "meltdowns" with regards to this. And I have threatened to rake out the cane more often than I ever had in her 3.5 years. It doesn't help that at the same time, I am so busy I am neglecting her. Plus we are trying to learn to be more independent with regards to her sleep. That she doesn't need to see me when she wakes up. Like today, she woke up twice and whined and cried cos she didn't see me. I, can't stand that crying, scolded her instead. It doesn't help that the 1st time round I was trying to get Emily to sleep and her crying woke Emily up. My mum said I should comfort her but I don't want to encourage that behavior. I do at the end but not until she stops crying on her own.
Essentially, I am irritated. I don't want to have to be in the room waiting for her to sleep and esp when it can take up to one hour! That is after our talk and prayer! And i feel that my presence in the room makes it worse. I guess having packing to do and baby to take care of, I am super impatient and frustrated with her like that.

Sigh...I really do hope that she'll learn to sleep on her own in her room soon. This is also our fault that we cultivated that expectation that we need to be beside her when she sleeps. She can't accept that while we are not in the room we are still in the house. I guess now is also not the time to teach these esp when there's so many changes. I hope I don't make the same mistake with Emily.

Getting ready for Emily's arrival

It's the anticipation. We have gotten ready my mil to take care of Eliza, gotten all the food stuffs ready for the confinement food. I've packed my hospital bag. I've gone through with Eliza a few times to prepare her for these few days, we've read a book on arrival of baby. But we know not what will happen...how will Emily's arrival be. We have somewhat planned her arrival...somewhat like Eliza's (just that we have waited and waited for Eliza to arrive till the delivery had to be induced). This time the labour might also be induced for many reasons...because we wanted enough time to prepare to leave for australia, to be able to have good buffer time to make the kids passports (1week+), apply for visa (4-6weeks). Also because we hope that i would have finished my confinement period before Ww leaves and that we can do Emily's 1st month celebration before he leaves. So ideally, 1st may would be great so if Emily decides to come out earlier spontaneously that will be great. But then my gynae is going to be away on thursay! argh..so we likely brought forward her arrival 3 days earlier. I'm not sure...but we'll talk with our gynae later.

Looking forward to see Emily though! :) praying for a smooth and safe delivery, and a healthy little girl.

A year of separations

This is the first round. Of ww going to Canberra to start school first and familiarize the place. So this first round is 5 weeks. It's been ok so far, and missing each other especially since we have not been apart for more than 2 weeks. It think that was his school Vietnam trip which he had to go twice.

The next round will be after the birth of baby2 where he'll be going first to settle the rental of a new place and getting the necessary furnishing needed. I'm starting to wonder if we could still go together instead of him going first.

And the last round would be when he goes to UK and US to do his archival research for 5-6 weeks. Sigh. Will miss him loads then. So will Eliza. Esp since daddy's always the more playful one around.

End march

It's end march.
Weiwen is back in SG after 5 weeks in Canberra to start school. It has been wonderful to have him back *grins*, to have his company and extra help with Eliza (like washing the bottles!). Eliza has been elated to have him back despite denying that the 1st week he was away.

So i have another month to wait upon the arrival of Emily. Yes Emily. We have chosen her name, with the help of Eliza whom when asked on several occasions chosen Emily over the name Esther. Now she calls my big bump 'mummy's baby' or 'Emily'. I'm not sure if she understands what it means to have a baby sister. She will affectionately talk to Emily, asking her what present she wants, saying she'll feed her milk & bathe for her. My prayer for both of them that they will grow into a close relationship as sisters, to encourage each other as they grow, to inspire each other in walking with God.

We have a good mind to stop at two. Just two girls. Perfect for road trips. Even though more will be nice..but i'm unsure of wanting to go through another pregnancy (it's not the most fun), nor am i sure i want to deal with the baby care round 3. Ha...but if it happens in many years to come, that let it be God's will.

Meanwhile, we enjoy each day as God blesses. We enjoy the fun days with Eliza, playing Lego with her, going out to the park/playground, drawing, writing, reading etc. We also deal with the usual defiance on her part, her want yet not want issues, her coughing this week that makes me cringe and wake up at night. We love her so much. We love to hear her talk. I think i love this stage more than any of her other stages so far.

I still have my cooking skills to hone. And i'm not pressured to cook cos my mil will always ask whether we're going over to eat which we still do 2-3 days a week. And yes, i'm a little lazy....i would rather buy in. We're in SG! Anyway, we're making pizza again tonight. :) For Eliza's fun & daddy who have missed our last 2 pizza making. I think the crunch will be when we are in aust, when i definately have to cook everyday and/or make freeze food. And i'm realizing the foods that i don't really like to cook and eat, esp bean based foods, mashed soups, one pot foods, seafood (with the exception of fish).

Really need to spend my time more wisely.

The weight is getting on to me and I'm feeling the exhaustion as well.

I'm still fuzzy as to how we will do things when Emily arrives.

Housewife-ing

I hate rewriting my blog posts. But so it is. Tap something wrong andthere goes everything.

Anyway here goes again.

I've stopped work since last Wednesday and it has been good. The feeling of not working!! And being paid (my maternity leave) till i leave singapore in june. But of course that means I'll have to get in the groove of doing housework which I don't really like and cooking which I'm not really familiar with. But still I hav to start somewhere.

Not working also means that I get to spend a whole load of time with Eliza. And I'm kinda thankful that she goes to school in the mornings so I get my 'break'. Usually on work days my time with her is really limited to just getting the daily routines done. When I come home from work there's just enough time for me to bathe and eat dinner and shoo her off to bed. of course I don't have to do mealtime with her which can be difficult with my lil picky eater.

Anyway so far this week I've been at my mil's place for meals cos she said that there's a lot of food to finish cooking. So I've been enjoying my favourite braised pork with rice meals for 2 days, which Eliza had rejected by today and settled eventually for rice rolled in seaweed (sushi style). By tmr I'll be cooking for Eliza and me. Meal planning is a bit of a headache sometimes, especially when i have to think of cooking food Eliza will eat. Anyway, tomorrow we'll be having roasted potatoes with bacon and veg or chicken; and spaghetti on thurs.

I've been enjoying my days with Eliza :) we have been drawing and drawing, doing her homework, playdoh-ing, cuttin paper, colouring, reading, going to the playground, playing my iPod touch puzzles, watching her fav BabyFirst. Have been mulling over whether to get the Kumon activity books which are really fun but ex. It's $50+ for 4-5 books, even with a discount.

And it's been 4 days since Ww has left for Canberra. So far we have video skyped (which is the most ex due to the amount of data used), we have used whatsapp most of the time to chat and talked on skype voice. He's still using the 3G data plan cos wifi seems to be hard to come by, even inthe campus where his wifi access will need to be activated only in a weeks time. So we're kinda missing each other, especially when our usual talktimes after Eliza sleeps is disrupted by different timezones.
30 more days to go!

Meanwhile I hope I'll be able to b less sluggish and use my time I have much better.