Smiles and Milestones

Ben lost his first tooth on the first of this month.

Soon after that last week, Kait pedalled away on the trike!

See their 'BIG KID' smiles? :)

The growing up, and the "I did it!", are the things we try and get our children excited about on a daily basis, too, and yes, even with the most basic things! Easier said than done though. What's also true: the smiles from all three kids put smiles on my own face, too.

Why smile? Because: God loves us, gives us His peace, and wants us to grow. Came this timely reminder for me from Sunday's sermon -- of what I heard, never mind not in these exact words.

Keep going, keep growing...
The trike is our present for Kait who turns 2 today! Go, gal, go! Oh, how time flies!

The long and short of it

In the picture from last month: Kait after her bob cut, with her brothers who thought she looked different, so different that "we don't recognize her!"!

It's since grown (some), and grown on them, more or less.

But the daddy dearest up till the other day was still lamenting, on her behalf, the loss of her former (crowning) glory:

Miss Hairdresser, what have you done to my hair?!

For the record, I asked him like a hundred times before taking Kait, that was nice of my friend J to go with us earlier on our Singapore visit. It made sense in that heat and humidity, and especially with her not letting me tie her hair up or put a clip even. The rashes that flared up on her back also only cleared up after we got back.

Anyway, hair can grow back, right, was what I assured Vern -- more than once! I had mine cut, too, not that anyone really noticed ^_^!

I do of course have pictures of our li'l princess sporting her long tresses. Or should I say Her Majesty, not princess?! Ben, when asked by Auntie F in Singapore whether Kait was the princess, had replied without missing a beat, "No, she isn't. Mommy is the princess...

"Kait is THE QUEEN!"!!!

Ho, ho, ho, how'd you like that "revelation" as F called it, or should I say, more like an unspoken truth?

I really think Kait looks just as adorable, don't you think so? Do you "like it" or "don't like it", as our very own queen who's good at letting us know her preferences, says? She's quite opinionated, and also tells us "I want that" besides already associating that with "Buy!". Not so sure I like that, but it's definitely nice whenever she says "please", "thank you" and "welcome"!

***

In other hair news...
The children are in each other's hair a lot, and the crying, screaming, and fighting have me up to here :(. I'm hanging on to those really precious moments when the children will try and play nicely, and agree to help me with something around the house that's simple enough and not beyond them. I can think of so many ways, yet they have so many really-hair-pulling excuses. But it does really help me if besides the youngest being the most enthusiastic one, the older two can make an effort to pick up after themselves ("put your plate away", "dirty clothes in the hamper", and "hang back that towel") rather than having to be asked again and again.

There's also all our existing messes, not just the recent ones, we didn't just wake up to! OK, so we aren't the neatest of people, and decluttering is not my forte. Good thing the husband is not leaving me alone to try and put some order to our various messes, the house seems to be overrun with them :(. Yet only so much energy, barely, we've got left at day's end to try and work on them while the children are sleeping -- one night at a time.
It's a long shot, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it's not just in my dreams when we can have a place for everything? OK, not every single thing, but the main stuff such that the "please put away this and that" part will be more intuitive for us all.

Picture added to earlier posting, I'm trying to fill in the blanks with a shot here and there when I can get to it. But caught up as usual with my motherly and housewifey duties, I have not been able to sit down to the pictures from last month and there's still more backlog from the way-too-many-pictures I take. It's time to pare down!

Ride like the wind!

In Singapore on my father's birthday, he took the children out with me.

It must have been decades since he rode a bike. But for the boys, he gamely hopped on one, and they rode off -- with the wind in their hair!

Kait spread her wings, too, and flap, flap, flap she went after a crow scavenging on someone's discarded lunch!

She also dug sand as we watched the waves come crashing in.
So began some carefree moments during our visit, and picture the li'l girl singing her "Happy day, happy day!" song she made up out of the blue last month :).









Of course kids being kids, they get restless more easily than they stay rested.

That's true also of the rest of the boys' summer hols to try and occupy them and their sister meaningfully. There's the not playing nicely and fights among them, not just between the brothers but also when Meimei does her "bully Gor Gor" to Ben!

More later, I'm toggling between the past and present to write it down when I can steal a moment, and write it out 'coz I need to (for my sanity)!







(Pixes added to earlier posting).