Birthday Prayer

Dear Lord

I’ll turn 36 in less than an hour. The birthday cake was cut yesterday, together with the girls and Di, in the comfort of our home. It was so sweet of Di to get YaYa a birthday cake in advance as well, so we had 2 different cakes for breakfast! Yummy!

And there was also the lunch and tea session with my pals last Saturday, and another lunch and tea session with my siblings on Wednesday. I thank You that I am indeed very blessed with so many loved ones around me, and I really have nothing more to ask for.

Reeling through the past year, I thank You for answering all my prayers. The list of answered prayers is too long to be posted here, so I thought I’d just share a few below:

• I asked for strength and courage to face challenges, as well as wisdom to discern situations, and You were there for me whenever I needed guidance, be it in school or at work.
• I asked You to prosper Di, and he did really well at work.
• I asked for favour upon the munchkins in the childcare centre, and they were well loved by their teachers, the staff and all their friends (including those from Playgroup and K2, which I just came to learn about recently). Thank You very much!

The coming year would still be a challenge to me as I continue to play the role of a wife, mother, daughter, sister, student, employee, employer, friend, etc. Family still, and will always, come first, and I also hope this coming year would be a year of spiritual breakthrough for my family. This is especially so for the children as I try to demonstrate to them the importance of loving You wholeheartedly. May You continue to be the head of this house hold.

In Jesus' name, amen.

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. – Deuteronomy 6:5 (NKJV)

Imperfection

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. - James 1:17 (NKJV)

As I sit by in the munchkin's bed earlier, watching the 2 girls sleep peacefully, I started wondering if I had been a good mother to them. What can I do to make myself a better mother?

Through moments of quiet, self reflection, I wondered if I was too hard on them (and myself) at times, despite constant reminders (to myself) to let them grow as kids ought to. Then it strike my mind that striving to become perfect is not even half as challenging as coming to terms with imperfection. And to my precious, dearest Lord, thank you for reminding me that the beauty of life lies in its imperfection. Thank you very much, once again!

Three Years Old

The munchkins turned three yesterday. Three!!! Wow! All it seemed to take was the blink of an eye and my sweetie pies are now preschoolers.

Looking back, I love having them as toddlers despite those difficult moments when communication was a major challenge. Now that we've overcome the "language barrier", I somehow missed their babbles and having to guess what they really wanted from their incoherent behaviour and seemingly meaningless speech fashion. Strange...

Nevertheless, their 3rd birthday was a memorable one to the munchkins, or so I believe. Their previous birthdays (only twice to be exact!) were all planned by me and there wasn't much involvement on their part except to be present during the party and cut the cakes. This time round was different. They started off the day with the family (aka Di, myself and Ya Ya) singing them a birthday song and a palm size birthday cake for each of them for breakfast. Its "tradition" that each of them should have their own birthday cake, even if its a small one, to remind us they are two separate individuals even though they are identicals. Gong Gong was sweet enough to purchase those cakes the night before (thanks, dad!). The girls left for school after that, looking forward to receiving their much bigger birthday cake and the afternoon tea party with their friends in the childcare centre.

By 3pm, Di, myself, Gong Gong and Teng (my sister) were outside the school gate while the teachers changed the girls into their "party" dress. Once we entered the school premise, we were greeted by a group of sleepy-heads (some looked as if they were still in dreamland after their nap). There, right in the front of a cubicle, was a wooden table with a Hello Kitty cake on it. En & Xuan were seated in front of the cake like princesses from the royal family. Kekeke...



Okay, side track a bit on the choice of the cake. About 3 months ago, I started asking what cake they would like to have for their birthday. And over the 3-month period, I gathered answers like Strawberry Shortcake, Princess Ariel, Snow White, Aurora, Belle, Hello Kitty, Little Einsteins, Pooh Bear, Dora, Mickey Mouse, Barbie Mariposa, Cars (aka Lightning McQueen), Tweety, blah blah blah... They were changing their minds every other day, so I decided to pick my personal favourite - yes, the kitty without a mouth or otherwise known as Hello Kitty or HK in short. Anyway, the munchkins kind of rekindled their love and interest for the kitty lately when Teng bought them each a HK candy house and HK doll house. San-yee even promised to buy them HK birthday presents from Sanrio Land on her holiday trip to Japan.

Back in the school, while the children were happily feasting on the cake, all the Playgroup kids had at least one portrait taken by Di. Di was amazed at how responsive the kids were and he was glad the children enjoyed having their photos taken by him. A plus point for the photographer! Then I was told to be prepared to bring a portion of the cake back home because I overestimated the size of the cake (I ordered a 3kg instead of 2kg). Surprisingly, most of the kids asked for a second helping and the entire cake was nearly gone in 30 minutes. Whew!!! I'm so comforted to know the kids love the cake.

En & Xuan received their birthday gifts from the teachers and friends before we left with them. We had coffee at the mall before leading them to Kiddy Palace. Both were so excited they were allowed to choose a gift of their choice. En chose a Cinderella top with matching skirt while Xuan opt for a layered, pastel coloured dress. They had another set of white skirts and a new "Barbie and The Three Musketeers" DVD as bonus gifts. All the gifts were paid for by Da-yee (thank you so much!!!). We then left the mall to fetch san-yee from RP and there, the girls received their loots from Sanrio Land wrapped in pretty HK packaging.

And guess what? Its not over yet.. . Xiao-yee is returning from Beijing this weekend, hence there will be another special delivery of birthday gifts next week. In addition, plans have been made to take the girls off school for 2 days so I can spend some time with them since I'm having my term break. So much for their birthday activities! No wonder they are so reluctant to return to school today... :p