A few days ago I was having lunch with a friend and our topic turned to kids. As always, people always ask when our Number 2 will come along. I guess it’s the natural progression from the time when we had no kids and people would ask when we’re starting a family. The questions don’t seem to end! Haha.

Anyway, my friend was sharing with me what many people are thinking in their minds but probably not saying out aloud. He was saying that we should have more kids as they are a source of “insurance” for parents. Being Asians, I think we have a mentality where we do have some kind of expectations to be “taken care”  when we grow into our golden years.

But times have changed. Maybe that was very true for the generation before us and even the generation before our parents. These days it’s very different. Lots of children grow up to get their education out of the country and end up finding jobs far across the globe from home. And parents even encourage that as many believe that their children have better opportunities out there.

And once they establish themselves in their jobs and lives there, it is unlikely that they would want to return home at all. More so if they settle down and start a family.

So then where does the “insurance” come in? There’s really none…and I don’t think it’s fair to expect that kind of insurance anyway. People have got to live their own lives, the way they want to, even if they are miles from home.

So we might as well start buying some real cheap insurance instead of counting on children, huh?

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

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Have you ever wondered why the flight attendants give instructions for you to put on your safety vests and oxygen masks before you put them on for your children? The logic is that once you are taken care of, you will then be better able to take care of your dependents.

While I find this to be quite true, I sometimes wonder, when in a state of panic and where time is of the essence, what is your natural instinct like? Wouldn’t you think first of the safety of your children and do things to help them first?

I was listening to some motivational speakers talk about living life the smarter way, taking proper care of yourself and your family and he too repeated this. We should take good care of ourselves before we’re able to take care of the ones in our care. Do we all realise that? Not everyone, I think.

I used to think that my flesh and blood is more important than me, therefore taking care of Ryan becomes my first priority. But now I’ve learned to start with myself first.

So if you have not already realised this as a parent, give this some thought and start to take better care of yourself in terms of being in excellent health so that you are always fit and ready to do whatever necessarily to protect your family.

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A recent survey was done to ask adult children if they would pick their mothers over fathers in some given circumstances and the result was that 70% of them picked mum over dad. To be fair, the author did say that the sample size was only 300 which is considerably small. But is this result representative of the majority?

You can read the article here. I actually found this article in The Star but there isn’t a softcopy online (I wonder why!) so I just made a quick scan to share it here. You can click on the image below to enlarge it so that you can read it.

The survey was done in the US, so these are views of the adult American. How close are we to this result? Mind taking a little poll just to see a show of hands whether people in Malaysia would pick mums over dads too? This poll will remain anonymous, of course, as it doesn’t register who votes for what. So feel free to be honest in this poll.

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As the little boy grows and learns everyday, we’re finding more and more joy in all the things he says and does. And kids these days definitely have a mind of their own at such a tender age! He’s not even two and he’s choosing which songs he wants to listen to when we play his nursery rhymes!

As a result, I have to learn by heart the track numbers of his favourite songs so that I don’t waste time having to keep searching to find the songs he wants. This doesn’t come easy for someone who doesn’t have that good memory, especially of late. I wonder if every parent must go through this stage where they need to start building up memory to deal with a kids who have such sponge-absorbing brains!

Nowadays, to keep him engaged and occupied, we also have to talk a lot more with him. We are now learning to be better conversationalists who can talk away at anything and everything, anytime! We’ve started making up stories just to keep him seated still for a little longer. Whenever he gets fussy in his car seat, we’ll need to quickly come up with something that will hold his interest. On days when I’m tired and low on ideas, I really dread jams or long distance travels. And don’t even think about taking the scenic routes on toll free roads when going out of town!

Having said all the above, it’s been really fun to interact with him at this stage. Everyday, he comes home from the babysitter’s with something new to amuse us. And although we’re tired from a long day at work, we still look forward to these moments with him. And as for the new skills we have to learn to be better parents, I guess they are rather useful in other aspects of our lives too. Who wouldn’t want to have better memory and everyone likes to have a great conversationalist amongst them to keep things fresh and lively, right?

Parenting does have many advantages and valueable lessons!

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I’m having a really long break from work this new year. I’m only going back to work after Chap Goh Meh, isn’t that just great? I love it! But of course it comes with a very good reason. I’m taking time off to help my little boy settle in at the new babysitter’s when he starts going there on Monday. I plan to stay for a while when I first drop him there and check up on him off and on through the day for a week. I truly hope it’s not going to be difficult for him.

Anyway, how was your new year? It’s been a good break for us. We’ve visited most of our family members by now. The boy has met many of his cousins, aunts and uncles, grandaunts and granduncles too. He’s very well behaved when in other people’s homes, so much so that they think he’s a real gentle little boy whereas at home, he’s the king of the house and is very loud! It has been fun watching his antics when mixing around with other kids and adults alike.

He’s also learned some new words in the last one week. We taught him to greet people Gong Xi Fa Cai; he can pronounce “ang pow” very well; he also learned the word “botak” when we used it while showing him a picture of him as a bald baby! But most impressive of all, he learned how to count 1 to 10! I don’t think he understands that he’s counting numbers, he just knows the sequence of the words one, two, three…etc. For that, we’re already extremely happy and proud of him!

While the little boy learns all this during the new year, I’ve been putting my cooking skill to use during this period. You see, he doesn’t quite want to eat his porridge as main meals anymore. For a while now he’s been loving steamed white rice which I sometimes feed him when we eat. Seeing that he doesn’t want his porridge and asks for rice, I decided to cook him rice and steam fish and vegetables for him. The daddy went one step further, pan frying fish and eggs for him. Unfortunately, our efforts in the kithen didn’t pay off that much. He ate a little bit and would rather food that we didn’t cook! Sigh, are we bad cooks or what? I guess so.

Speaking of cooking, I also got to witness for the first time how the famous Hakka dish of abacus is being made. During the new year, my PILs were trying the dish out for the first time and it was actually pretty good. Here are some pictures of the process in shaping up the abacus. Sorry, no pictures of the completed dish because my camera battery ran out by then!

The yam all rolled up into little balls

They were gently flattened down with a chopstick

Here they are, ready to be soaked in water

Don’t they look quite like “tong yuen” too?

Fishing out the soaked yam, ready to be stir fried

How was your new year? Any good stories to share? I bet you have, so share your new year time with us.

By the way, I’ll be running a giveaway soon, and if you are headed towards a holiday in the US or live in the US, stay tuned for it!

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