Christmas Man

Ay, tis the season of gifts and giving again. Usually, I get into the Christmas mood by popping my all time favourite Christmas CD (A Christmas Story by Point of Grace) into the player. But this year, it's already 19 Dec and its quiet in my home. No Christmas songs. Just no mood la.

Anyway, we were surprised to hear carols just now after dinner. Turned out, the neighbour across the street had a bunch of carollers over. They are catholic, so quite a number of the carollers were dressed in red and had Santa caps on. There was of course, a Santa. Aidan and Sean were excited but we couldn't see much from our house. When the carollers were leaving, Sean and Aidan were watching from my front door and Aidan sadly remarked, "Mummy, the Christmas Man is leaving!" He meant Santa Claus. I didn't correct him cos I didn't want to get into who's Santa Claus. Not tonight anyway. I prefer my kids to know that Christmas is really about Jesus.

The carollers reminded me of some of the best times I had as a teen. I was in Evangelical Free Church then. Each year, we'd pack into a school bus and go from house to house singing carols. We'd do this for two nights at least. We'd be laughing and singing in the bus and enjoy the cool, windy night. We'd always be so full from all the goodies at each home that it's sometimes hard to sing. I remember, one house we went to, the host, a doctor handed out lozenges to everyone! haha!

Yup, those were really good times. Doing two of the things I love most - hanging out with friends and singing.

Psychology

I find psychology fascinating. I've always had a habit of analyzing why people behave the way they do and sometimes even predict what they'll do or say. Dunno how or why I do that. Just seems like it comes naturally to me and I've been doing it forever.

Of course, I analyze myself the most. And most of the times, I don't like what I find. I'm still trying to be comfortable in my own skin after all this time (no, I'm not that old!) and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be comfortable with myself.

I don't have a degree on the wall so much of what I analyze and perceive...I've no concrete proof whether its right or wrong but I've seen what a vicious cycle is and its one of the most horrible things ever. Sometimes I feel like I'm disconnected....head and heart has lost its link and I find myself staring at a monster. A monster that's been trying to get out of a cycle but might as well try to get out of a whirlpool unaided.

So. JESUS be my AID. I need YOU. Amen.

What Lies Beneath

Aidan will be 3 years old this Friday. Time sure flies. My baby is no longer a baby. But he's still very cute. His vocabulary and observation has improved much these past months resulting in many funny, cute and endearing remarks or conversation. Today was no exception.

He woke from his nap but Sean was still asleep. He wanted to go to the loo and as I was dressing him after that, I thought I'd seize the opportunity to talk to him about wearing underwear. We wanted him to start wearing underwear sometime soon but so far he's refused. So, I told him its time he started cos he's a big boy now and etc. At first he wasn't keen and I left it at that. Then he said, "I want a red one". Oh boy, the ones I bought him were different shades of blue. I showed them to him anyway. All with Spiderman design. He pointed to Spidey and asked, "Is Spiderman wearing underwear?" Well, obviously, not on the outside like Supes but I said, "Yes".

He chose the dark blue one and after I put it on him, he looked pleased and said, "I'm so proud for my underwear" (I think he meant "of"). I was surprised cos he's not used the word "proud" before. And then, "I love my underwear because it look so nice. Thank you mummy, for buying my underwear."

After half a minute, he sat up and said, "Am I still wearing my underwear?" He lifted his t-shirt, checked and said, "Yes, I check edi, I'm still wearing my underwear."

After that, he proudly announced to Sean, my parents and Jason that he's wearing underwear cos he's a big boy.

Haha! So cute!

Works of Art

It's the school hols and Sean & Aidan are bored. Well, they get bored during school days too but the bored-o-meter is much higher during the hols. My stress-o-meter is higher too. :) Anyway, Sean starts bugging me to give them art & craft to do. So I bought a box of water colours, a palette and brushes. They couldn't wait to start.

I wanted to show them something fancy so I cut ladies fingers and dipped it into the paint and pressed it onto the paper and...they weren't impressed. *sigh* They just wanted to get their hands on the brushes and paint away. (Good thing I didn't make potato stamps too).

So paint they did. It was shaky at first as they weren't used to brushes and each colour in the palette turned black because they got too excited to remember to wash the brushes before dipping into a different colour.

But soon, Sean got the hang of it and started painting trucks. What else?! That's all he draws and talks about. Trucks, trucks, trucks. Aidan was busy experimenting with colours and turned out some abstract pieces.

I took snapshots of the paintings and put it in my Facebook. Just click here.

Now, to put my thinking cap on for the next art & craft project.