As the year draws to a close...

Looking ahead!

Two sides to a crepe... Ben eats his plain as can be, as you can see! Jon (below) has his with jam. To compromise, I add a bit of sugar and maple syrup to the batter before it goes into the frying pan. It does seem to get burnt easier, but it's not so bland, if you ask me! The same trick I use for our pancakes!



There's no school for Jon and Ben until end of the week, a generous Christmas break that enables those travelling to other parts of the country to have a good year-end visit with their families and friends.

For us, staying home means a good break for me from the usual driving to and fro, between home and school. That's nice! But it also sees many more boy vs. boy, boy or boys vs. parent or parents, and yes, even mommy vs. daddy moments, throughout the day! No, not nice at all!

It's never easy to find something that the children will want to play just as much at the same time, because of their age difference, their different personalities and interests. How you wish when they are playing together nicely, it will last forever. But turn our backs for a wee bit, and at least one of them starts screaming!

Perhaps if I were more structured in organizing our days, but me not feeling too well became the other excuse, besides that it's the holidays after all, for the boys to take over the computer (to play games), watch more TV (it's OK when it's erm educational stuff, as the husband rationalized more than I did, in the likes of "Mythbusters" and "Dirty Jobs"), and go to bed later!

I would be happy to just read with them all day long, if they would sit still. But there are some other ideas that turned out better than I thought, and are great as fillers, and I'm not talking about the storebought kind that sometimes will only hold the kids' interest for just so long.

A bit of good old-fashioned fun here and there...

Showing the ropes to Jon -- there are names for each step that follows, do you happen to know what they are called?

... and taking a few minutes to cook up some dough for Ben to play with (click here for the playdough recipe that works for us)!

The way our break is going, for how spur-of-the-moment we are with what we do, food is about the only constant in our rather haphazard days! And the boys are asking this mommy, a lot, day in day out, "What's there to eat?". We need our supplies to be replenished faster than usual. I sent the husband to pick up the grocery instead -- just half the list, so it wouldn't be overwhelming (for him who does not like to shop), and also the boys to go along, to help him hunt for this and that!

Eating our way through the week, with our usual one-vegetable, one-meat policy. If not rice as the carbo, potato and noodles or most pasta work better than bread, unless it's pizza!

Trying not to sweat it, with a meal like this of roast pork (marinaded with soya sauce light and dark, pepper, rice wine, sugar and maple syrup or honey), I cook extra portions, so it doubles as lunch the next day, in the form of fried rice, for example, with a few other ingredients like shrimp, and eggs, for a bit of variety.

I like stir-fry this and that, which on a regular schoolweek, I do less of, because it's easier to just pop something into the oven, or leave on the stovetop to cook away!

Sometimes I do wish that things are just as straightforward as my simple one-meat one-vegetable policy, that as you can see is hard to shake off, but works to set the tone for our meals. And I don't have to rack my brains too hard, to come up with more complicated ideas.

However, at this time when you may be making resolutions for the new year, I'm thinking, we still have all these old grounds to cover! Such as, the sons, brothers two, to get along better. And besides me as mommy, me as wife too, I'm reminded, in "The Heart of Anger" by Lou Priolo, that even reversing the roles of the wife submitting to the husband, or the husband as the head -- from the biblical perspective, as stated in Ephesians 5:22-24 -- could also be the cause of family disputes.

I hope also, as the only female in our home, I will learn to share my chores (hehe!), and especially to involve the two youngest members, even though it always does seem easier if I just took care of the tasks myself. That's not a bad idea, eh?

I'm starting small, and just thinking everyday things, like having Ben take his bowl and fork and spoon to the sink for me to wash after a meal, and Jon, gladly wiping the table -- without having to be asked. Oh, and also packing away their toys after they're done playing, being a more automatic thing, with both boys!

I know, these should be things they ought to know by now. I hadn't reinforced the consistency message, and maybe I had made it a tad convenient for them. Perhaps with some stuff, it's just got to be works in progress! Might this be the time to bring back those rewards charts? Only thing is I do not really like to play up the rewards bit.

What are some of the immediate things you wish to see yourself make progress, in the New Year?

Have a great one now!