"Take care of yourself"

In two weeks when Ben starts school for the first time, I will have 2.5 hours for three times a week, all to myself! I don't know if I will be the more anxious one of us two over the initial separation, or if I'll feel lost momentarily, since he practically goes everywhere I go.

But before school starts, friends who know that this is going to be the longest block of time I will have for awhile now -- since I was never good with putting Ben down for a nap even while he was a baby and needing to be nursed as often as 1.5 to 2 hours, and he gave up napping too early, too soon -- are curious to hear how (wisely) I am going to use it.

One suggested that I should try and volunteer my time in a "big" way, that the little bit I'm currently helping out in our church (only once a month) amounts to nothing. Yes, one way is I could go ask the school principal and teachers if they could use my help.

Or I could head back home after dropping off the boys and their daddy, to get some chores out of the way, prepare food, go shop for food, etc. Or better yet, do something about our ever-growing messes around the house, that isn't the easiest thing to tackle with the boys around, and the last thing I want to do at the end of a long day.

Or I can do some writing, not just blog, or some other creative project, that I sometimes dream of doing, but haven't got round to, because whenever the boys go to bed and after some must-do chore, I just surf the net, blog, read, or watch some latenight show, even though I should hit the sack myself.

Or I can try and go through all our many photos and come up with some sensible archiving system because those in Flickr right now are but a portion. And it would be nice too, if I can get round to shortlisting which ones to print out, and put together, should somehow the digital images die on us one day.

My husband thinks I should just stay out, because all that driving to and fro, back and forth (and Ben will end earlier -- before Jon, and Jon, before Vern), is going to er "kill" me. I'm thinking the library (to sit down and read), or the museums without kids to run after and tote around! Now isn't that a lot more tempting, than just staying home doing the things I already do all the time?

But really, there's no shortage of ideas for what I can do. And you will have good suggestions for me, too, I bet!

However, now, as I'm finishing up on the book by Keri Wyatt Kent, "God's Whisper in a Mother's Chaos", that I had randomly picked out from our church library many Sundays ago, there's one thing in particular that she wrote, among several others that speak to me, that's causing me to pause and think about what I'm doing with my time.

She asked, (and I'm paraphrasing it), why is that whenever we have a pocket of time (no matter how small it is), we must jump at filling it up, to do this and that, when what we really need is to retreat to solitude?

To sit back and relax, to be still and know that He is God. To pray, to read the bible, and let God speak to us. And simply let it be a time of us and Him only.

Yes, the Quiet Time as I knew it. It has been awhile. A long while.

Mothering small children and keeping house, means the closest I get to practising the presence of God in my own busy and can-be-very-crazy day, is at best, calling out for His help in my desperate moments when the kids are not behaving themselves, when they are fighting with each other day in day out, and I am like what the author herself said, "at the end of my rope". Or at worst, limited to a simple grace we say at mealtimes. And slightly better, if we don't forget that quick prayer with the boys at bedtime!

But aside from these little ways, when there's a chance for a break, can I walk away (briefly) from the messes and chaos that's typical of any mom's life, and allow myself to connect with God (not just with my dear friends in blogosphere, and elsewhere in the world)?

Another friend asked why not I just use the time when Ben is away in school, to be a time of 'forced rest'? How many of us moms are not tired, with young children we wish we have more energy to keep up with?

And if I don't go to the Source to be replenished, to let the joy of the Lord be my strength, it's risky business running on empty, like an accident waiting to happen.

When I was in the doldrums not too long ago, I felt some of you giving me a pep talk of sorts, probably because I wasn't (and still isn't) the supermom you expected me to be. But I'm really just human through and through. Those who knew, told me to take care of myself, to nourish my soul, and find rest and peace in God.

"Don't forget to take care of yourself", was also the very advice a friend ended her email to me, and I told her the same too, when we were both caught up in our own whirlwind of activities, and knowing how exhausted each other must be.

It's true. If we don't take care of ourselves, how can we expect to do a good job taking care of others?

Have you been taking care of yourself lately?

Right now, 'forced rest' sounds really appealing to me! And if you must know, I have no grand plans of how to spend the bonus time coming up! I think I will just take it one day at a time, and it will be good for me to get back to basics and do some soul cleaning.

"Solitude is difficult because we must sacrifice our to-do list in order to make time for it... The joyful paradox in making time for solitude is that it slows us down enough to help us realize which things on our list are actually worth doing, and we end up with more time to do the few things that truly matter."

- Keri Wyatt Kent, in "God's Whisper in a Mother's Chaos"

Kids can bake: cake-like sugar cookies

The mercury's rising, we've been indoors nearly the whole time this week. The boys like to fight (and cry!) over who's not sharing, and who's right, who's wrong. And if the older one's not going "No fair!", or "Stop bossing me around!", then the younger one is telling me, "Gor Gor is terrorising (a new word I taught him, that I shouldn't have) me!".

No, life as a parent isn't always fair either, but we get by, and it only gets not necessarily easier, but hopefully better!*

So then, in the middle of all this, I whipped out a simple cookie recipe that we were trying for the first time. See those smiles all round? Nothing like getting the boys to do a bit of mixing here, and stirring there, to help ease the tension.



I'm normally still the one doing the plopping of the dough by the spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Then, we just have to leave it to bake, and from start to end, about 30 minutes or so, we can have freshly baked cookies in our mouths. With these, we also went and shared them with some friends who could use a little treat!


This recipe is one of those printed on a box of baking mix, like several of the other simple cookie/cake recipes that have also worked for us found on other packaging -- for butter, chocolate chips, chopped dates, and oatmeal, etc.

This particular cookie isn't the usual chewy or crispy, but softer with a dough/cake-like texture and it crumbles easily (so little ones may be a little more messy eating it). I don't think it's got to do with the fact that I substituted the shortening with butter (do you think so?), even though I know it doesn't work that way normally.

But we did like how the cookies turned out. We had also added dried cranberries and raisins, and walnuts, too, to the dough, just to give it more texture and bite!

Recipe for Sugar Cookies
Source: "JIFFY"


2 cups JIFFY Baking Mix (any other should work nicely, too)
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
5 Tbsp soft shortening (we used butter instead)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
(On our own: 1 cup total of dried cranberries and raisins, and 1/2 cup walnuts, or more if you like).

• Preheat oven to 350 deg.
• Grease baking sheet.
• Combine all ingredients.
• Beat until well blended. (We just stirred everything together, and added dried cranberries, raisins and walnuts).

• Drop by tablespoon onto prepared baking sheet. Makes 3 dozen (we made ours bigger and had about 18 cookies).
• Bake 8 - 10 min.
• Remove cookies. Sprinkle with sugar. (We skipped the sugar because with the dried fruit, the cookies are fairly sweet already).

*My boys are bickering over something again, now as I am trying to type this out at record speed. And blogging when they are awake -- it is just not a good idea!

Mars vs Venus

He has a different point of view. Or looked at from another way, she has a different point of view.

It arose because another man and another woman had different points of view from each other.

So many points of view. Which one would you go along with?

In the wise words of my elder, almost 7 year old young son, "Women are more fierce. But men are more powerful!". Then, in almost the same breath, he added, "And the One who made us and the world is a Him!".

Hmm... maybe I should go ask a "she"/"her", for a different opinion?

So, should the good wife submit to her husband? Or should the good husband "defer" to his wife? ("Defer" happens to be my husband's choice of words, which in this wife's opinion, isn't a very good one).

*Sigh* Do we need all these differences to spice up relationships?

Of course, the good thing about "Two are better than one" is that depending on the situation, sometimes the husband is the magnanimous one, while other times the wife's magnanimity wins the day. And that's just really what we all need, no?