Our Wedding Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary.  Time flies, we have been married for 4 years or 5 years if you count from the date of our ROM.  Our ROM and traditional wedding are on the same day, one year apart.

Nope, no surprises, no gifts, no flowers, no romantic dinner.  None of the works.  Just a “Happy Anniversay, dear”.  Except perhaps for the 1st anniversary, we had not celebrated our anniversaries.  Hubby is a practical person, he does not think anniversaries should be a big fuss, as long as we remember and love each other everyday.  In all the 11 years we have been together, he had only given me flowers on 2 occasions.  Now, no matter how many hints or obvious hints I dropped, he will always say its a waste of money.  I also think flowers are a waste of money, but you know, sometimes girls just love to be pampered and surprised.

I know hubby will be most happy if we live our days in peace and happiness.  Not all our days are like that, most of the time due to my bad temper and impatience.  I need to change, and pray that God will lead me to be the Godly wife that I should be, and to love,  respect and honour my husband in all that I say and do.

Dear, I thank you that you have always been so supportive of the decisions I made, despite some of them requiring sacrifices on our part.  I thank you that you are always there for me.  I apologise for those times when I had been unreasonable and bad-tempered.  Let us cherish and love each other now and forever, and let’s work together to create a happy and loving home for Sarah and ourselves.

The Price of Children

Got this from the AP forum. Really good one.

The Price of Children

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from
birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk
about sticker shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,

* $741.38 a month, or

* $171.08 a week.

* That’s a mere $24.24 a day!

* Just over a dollar an hour.

Decisions

These 2 days were good.  I went back to my quiet time with the Lord (my daily devotions stopped during the busy CNY period), Sarah’s behaviour has improved, and she managed to finish her meals with minimal fuss and frustration from me.  She talks a lot now, it is a joy to hear her talk, although sometimes I don’t understand what she is talking about.  She likes to parrot what I says, and is starting to speak in proper sentences, not all the time though.

It is days like these that made me really want to be a SAHM, to spend all my time with my precious girl.  For quite some time now, I have been contemplating homeschooling.  I have pondered over it, read a lot about HS and talked to other HS moms, researched on HS curriculums.  It is truly my desire to homeschool, and I believe the Lord has placed this burden on my heart because this is what He wants me to do.  But here I am, still working part-time.  Why?

Giving thanks

In Sarah’s school, the teachers will get the kids to fold their hands and give thanks before having their snacks. They do this by singing a simple song like this:

Thank you thank you Jesus, thank you thank you Jesus, thank you thank you Jesus in my heart (2x) Amen.

So today, I decided to let Sarah give thanks for lunch by singing this song. Surprisingly, she is able to sing this song herself. After the song, I got her to repeat after me, “Thank you God for the food”, which she did. At dinner just now, I asked her to sing the song, she did and at the end of the song, she said “Thank you God for the food” without me prompting at all. This made me a very happy mom indeed.

I think it is really a great idea to get the kids to give thanks by singing a song. They find it fun and they remember it better.  Actually I can’t remember the tune to this song, so I asked Sarah to sing the song.  She sang a few words and that jolted my memory.

The Mystery of Me-ma solved

I have taught the little princess to address my mum as Grandma. Lately she has been calling her me-ma. I though that is because she still can’t pronounce Grandma correctly until hubby solved the mystery 2 days ago. Hubby say she calls me ma-my, and calls my mum my-ma.

Of course that is just a joke. The little princess has difficulty pronoucing Grandma, that’s all.

The Aftermath of Chinese New Year

It must have something to do with age. I feel tired after 3 days of holidays and festivities. Not that we ran about a lot or had lots of activities. 1st day was spent at my in-laws, 2nd day at my mum’s, and yesterday was spent resting at home. But I feel sooooo tired.

Not that I don’t like holidays, but I feel that CNY is just so different from other holidays. The excitement about CNY builds up over the week before it, and then when it comes and goes, it leaves you feeling deflated. Not to mention it disrupts your normal routine so much that it is difficult to get back the momentum. The little princess had been sleeping late for the past 3 nights, I can see she is tired too. She is napping now, I think I should go take a rest too.

The CNY pictures will be posted later after hubby has sorted through them.

2 sick cats

Poor Sarah is down with cough yesterday. Just now, half way through her nap, she coughed till she vomitted all her milk. Poor girl, kept coughing, unable to have a good nap. After she vomitted all the phelgm out, she is able to sleep better.

Poor mummy is not spared either. I am having a cough, sore throat and a bad headache. Thought that I can have a rest while Sarah naps, but I have to change her and the bedsheet instead cos of her vomit.

I pray the God will grant both of us a speedy recovery, and that Sarah will be able to have a good rest, and that we will enjoy Chinese New Year tomorrow.

Discipline

Recently, two mummies wrote about discipline and punishment on their blogs. For the past few weeks, I have also been thinking about this. I don’t know if this is the terrible twos phase, or that Sarah has picked up bad habits from school, she has been quite difficult recently, easily throwing tantrums when she can’t get her way, and disobeying our instructions. For eg., last night, I told her not to throw her color pencils on the floor, and yet she did it on purpose. Dh then spanked her butt and told her to pick and keep the pencils. She picked only 2 and then ran off.

We have never used the rod (never kept one at home). I guess as first-time parents, we tend to be more soft-hearted. We will try to explain that what she did was wrong first, and if she persists, we spank with hands. Most of the time, she will not committ the offence again, and even if she did , a reminder will suffice. But this does not work anymore. I find that nowadays the words that often come out of my mouth is, “If you do that again, Mummy is going to beat…”, “Do you want Mummy to beat?” I know that this is not the right way to discipline, but I usually run out of patience.

Dh and I have been contemplating whether to start to use the rod, and it has to be used correctly. I do not want Sarah to obey only out of fear of the rod. More importantly her heart has to change.

“He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” (Proverbs 13:24)
“Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not set your heart on his destruction. ” (Proverbs 19:18)

“”My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.” (Proverbs 3:11-12)

“If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:6-11)

I pray that God will grant me wisdom, love and patience in disciplining and bringing up Sarah so that she will truly become a “woman after God’s own heart”.

Skills Checklist

At the playgroup last week, a mummy was asking about the skills a 2 year old should know. I found this skills checklist on a homeschooling website, and found it to be quite comprehensive as it covers areas like reading & phonics, science, social studies, and bible and spiritual growth. I find that I can use this checklist as the backbone of my homeschool curriculum.

There are also checklists for years 3 to 5 as well.

Height Calculator

Found this height calculator on the web. It says my little princess’s adult height will be 1.65m.  Sure hope so, cos don’t want her to be like mummy, so short.