Ephesians 6:4: "Parents don’t keep on scolding and nagging your children, making them angry and resentful. Rather, bring them up with the loving discipline the Lord Himself approves."

I was tired after a whole day of class and it takes a long time to walk from class back home with a bag full of books, a toddler’s school bag, a laptop and many other things with her happily toddling along, picking up stones and leaves along the way, dwaddling… I found myself nagging and almost at the verge of coercing, can you pls hurry up and walk faster!?!

Then at the end of the day as I was preparing for the next day’s worship on the Father Heart of God, I read this: -

"The other day I rushed into my den urgently needing some information from my files. As I sorted frantically through my papers, my five-year-old son repeatedly blew his shrill tin whistle. I told him again and again to stop. There was a period of silence followed by a deafening blast right next to my ear, including a spray of saliva. I reached around, swatted him with the back of my hand and bellowed at him in anger. Immediately I felt that the Spirit of God had been grieved. I remembered the biblical statement that God is slow to anger and delights to be merciful. I took my son in my arms and asked him to forgive me. It was only right that I should correct his disobedience, but our children should always know that we discipline them because we love them, and not because we are venting our momentary frustration.

Our Heavenly Father is at this very moment being slandered and misrepresented all over the world by man’s cruelty and selfishness. Not only in the home, but in all forms of human government. His laws of love have been ignored and our mangled hearts continue on in carrying out injustice to all those smaller and weaker than ourselves." Excerpt from John Dawson’s article on The Father Heart of God

Oooo here I am ministering the Father heart of God in class and causing wounds to my own daughter at home because I failed to represent God rightly. How sensitive am I to grieving the Spirit of God when I discipline Sophie? O Lord, teach me your ways.

Sophie and I had a really good time looking back our flickr collection of travel photos.

Batam, Indonesia Oct 07, Sophie was 13 months old.

Shanghai, China Nov 07, Sophie was 14 months old.

I usually write a "Dear Sophie" letter each month to Sophie but think I’m going to document her development this month coz she’s almost 3 1/2 years old!

ABCs & 123s
As you know Sophie doesn’t go to formal nursery even though she turns 4 this year and sometimes I worry how she’s going to catch up before she goes to Primary 1! In Singapore, she’ll have to be able to read and write pretty well in both English and Mandarin by P1. Most of what she knows she’s picked up at home or from watching videos e.g Letter Factory, Blues Clues etc…

As of now, she knows the sounds to the alphabets and she can tell what names of things begin with. She can even spell some of her friends’ names. She tried to spell "Oliver" on her own yesterday and she managed "Olv" which I thought was pretty good coz she sounded all the consonants all by herself! She tried "Agata" and ended up with "Ugt". Guess all her friend are going to get strange notes with their names spelt funny! She loves "writing" notes to her friends and they make absolutely no sense but she’ll just write a whole bunch of letters. One of the games we play is "letter box", we have two cardboard boxes that we use as letter boxes and she’ll write mail to me and I’ll write mail to her and we post things to each other. It’s a super fun Saturday thing to do. Most times she writes gibberish but she practices writing alphabets and I write real letters and she loves to hear me read them to her. It’s fun! Best thing about it? I can lie on the sofa in the morning while we do this and it’s pretty relaxing.

She can write most of the alphabets but there are some that she still stumbles over e.g. she gets her "b" and "d" mixed up and she writes "S" the other way around. Unfortunately I didn’t have a proper system of introducing the alphabets to her so she’s unable to recognise some of the lower case alphabets.

I haven’t been doing a lot with numbers with her. She can count stuff confidently up to 10 but sometimes she messes up. She’s starting to learn about addition from Blues Clues. We play cash register sometimes and we buy and sell things for fun so she gets to count "money". The "money" we use are just glass beads that we got from the good ole $2 shop. However, Sophie can’t really write numbers. 5, 8, 9 etc are just so hard to manage. Guess if we work at it a bit more, she’ll get it but we just haven’t really had time.

What about Mandarin? Er… no comment. We haven’t made much progress here at all. She only knows the names of animals and refuses to converse in Chinese. Sigh… help!!!!

Managing her emotions
I’m not exactly sure why but Sophie went through a phase a few weeks ago where she kept screaming when she didn’t like the way things were. When someone takes her toy, she’ll scream REALLY loudly. Or if someone hits her, she’ll scream REALLY loudly. When that happens, it just make me cringe. She used to whine or cry but she didn’t really scream. So when it started to happen, my first reaction was to curb it because it just didn’t go well with my upbringing. Kids are to be quiet! (Right?!?)

Anyways, two things happened, I realised that she’s really just defending herself and it really made the other kid stop. The other thing we did was to begin to teach her that she can say "I don’t like that. Pls stop it!" in a firm way and if the other kid didn’t stop, she had the option to tell an adult. Giving her the space to express her emotion and frustration plus giving her words to that helped. Whenever I stopped her from screaming immediately, it always made things worse because she must have been thinking it wasn’t her fault and she was just telling him "no!". Sophie has a very strong sense of justice and being unjust to her really got her mad (I can totally understand that). Well, I’m not sure if it’s all working but we are monitoring this. I’m really thankful that she has not much problems telling us how she feels e.g. I really miss Evan and Eli or I’m really angry. I find that spending 5-10 mins with her walking slowly from school to lunch really helps for us to connect and she shares everything that happens in school. Very precious times.

Language
It amuses me to watch how Sophie is interacting with adults. I remember when she first arrived in NZ, there was a time when she went over to the neighbours’ house and sat down next to my friend and ask her "How are you?". Yesterday I saw her attempting to join in my conversation with her teacher. We were talking about Christchurch and Sophie said "Gabriel, you know we went to Christchurch and we did this this and this…. ". I forgot what she said exactly but it was so cute watching her telling her teacher about her holiday. Like a big girl! She’s normally shy with strangers but if she knows the person, she wants to join in all the conversations!

Character
Sophie in relating to Evan seems a bit bossy. She keeps telling Evan what to do. A little worrying. However when she’s with Toby who’s a year older, she’s happy to just go along. When she’s face to face with another bossy kid her age e.g. Leanna, they just go head on with each other. Leanna is quite strong willed too. Amanda (Leanna’s mum) and I had to bear with the two girls irritating each other all the way to Rotorua from Matamata! 1 and a half hours! I guess Sophie is pretty headstrong when she knows she can be but she can follow as well.

She’s quite clownish in a lot of ways. Everything needs to be special and different to get her attention. She enjoys variety and loves to be different. Creative in many ways. Sometimes she really amuses us.

Very sensitive. She is sensitive as a person and also sensitive to others. If she ever sees me sad, she’ll come up immediately to comfort me. Quite a pastor at heart.

Relationships are very important to her. Spending time is definitely her primary love language. If Evan is not around, she REALLY misses her. She’ll tell everyone that she misses Evan and Eli. When they are away on holiday, she’ll make cards for them.

Gifts are important to her. I think that is her other love language. She can remember who gave her what. Today someone asked her about her sunglasses and she told them that godma and godpa gave it to her. That was almost a year ago!

Meal times
Sigh… community living always makes it SO hard for a 3 year old to sit still to eat their dinner. She’s improving in this area but sometimes it’s frustrating! She’s so kiwi now - she eats sandwiches for lunch! Yeeks! Lunch normally consists of a jam/peanut butter sandwich with a fruit. Ang moh to the core ah? She can eat 4 slices of bread on a good day. I comfort myself in making sure it’s grain bread. She’s more into pasta and noodles than rice. She loves stir fry veggies e.g. spinach. I was surprised that she loves bean sprouts! All the veggies that I loathe growing up! However we only have that on the weekends when I cook. Most days she’s just eating peas or corns. Ooo and she likes lamb! When I cook lamb, I almost have no chance to get to it. She also loves seafood… hmmm wonder who she got that from!?! Of course that’s also only weekend food.

Likes
Colour - Red (Hiak! Thank God not pink!). Actually if you ask her, she’ll say "red and black".
Toy - Toy watch and eye looker (don’t ask me what an eye looker is - it’s a plastic thingy that came with her bicycle. It’s not even part of the bicycle. She gave it the name. :)) She sleeps with both of them, plus her kitty and Windy. Both of which came free. Who needs expensive toys?!?
Video - Elmo, Blues Clues
Friends - Toby and Evan (Toby wants to marry Sophie!!! Faint…)
Clothes - Dresses, must be able to twirl, if not, not counted.
Anything thing of nature - sticks, leaves, twigs, stones, shells, flowers… my house is filled with these things!
Breakfast - cereal with milk, eggs, pancakes
Lunch - Bread with jam/peanut butter
Dinner - pasta, noodles, stir fry veggies
Fruit - pear, oranges, actually she’ll eat any fruit, even durian
Treat - jelly, gummies, san zha
Drink - babychino, Ribena
Activities - Listening to Winnie the Pooh audio stories, du shu (study)… ya she loves to do worksheets and sit down to study, crafts (painting, drawing etc), read, play pretend, watch TV, chit chat

Dislikes
Activities - Slides. She refuses to go on slides. She’ll climb, she’ll jump etc but she won’t go on slides. She’s not keen to sing in public.
Food - Carrots, broccoli, onions, tomatoes, lettuce
Clothes - She’s not keen on wearing pants/jeans, prefers skirts/dresses. And she prefers to go barefoot.

We have really full weeks.

From Mondays to Fridays, Sophie goes to school both in the morning from 9 - 12.45pm and on Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays, she also goes in the afternoon from 2 - 3.15pm. Personally i think it’s too long for a little kid of 3 years old to be away from her parents, I really struggle with that. I know she really misses us and sometimes she whines about going to afternoon school because she’s a bit tired and just want to cuddle up. Sometimes either James or myself have to do work duty in between those times. Of course in addition to that, she sleeps at 7pm so we really don’t have much time with her.

But but, it’s only for a season and only for 3 months at a time.

So we try to make it up during the weekends!

During the weekends, I spend the earlier part of the morning with her. We do some crafty things and sometimes we get the paints out and just do painting. And then I CRASH. Serious. By 10am, I need to go back to nap. That’s when James takes over and he’ll bring Sophie out. Last Saturday, he brought her to the old pool area by the back of the base and they had a great time jumping in their boots (Thks DN!) in muddy puddles and searching for tadpoles. It’s really great fun.

There’s something about a child jumping in muddy puddles that makes me smile!

I’m a big fan of Sophie’s drawings, only coz I love how it just develops over time and it’s so cool to watch! It prob doesn’t mean much to anyone else but it’s super cool to observe how little kids develop their sense of proportions and spatial understanding over time.

Here’s a sample of her drawings over the past year.

Jan 2010 - That’s Daddy. Check out the hair. She never drew hair like that prior to this. So cute!

Sept 2009 - Our family. Daddy, Mummy, Sophie and Baby lying on the floor with a balloon upside down in its face. She’s been wanting a baby brother or sister and makes her requests known through her drawings.

June 2009 - She drew this and said it was Tigger’s House while Ling and I were having tea. The green thingy on the left is a flower. She got me to draw a roof coz she said she didn’t know how to draw a roof. Btw, at this point in Jan she draws her own semi circle roofs on buildings that she draws.

May 2009 - She drew this in Vanuatu. James coloured it in. It’s a smiling King she says. So cute lah.

YeYe, this photo is for you! Sophie ate ji jiao! Chicken feet! And she loves it!

Pris, ya! Chicken feet!

Btw, this was our first dim sum meal since we left Brissy. So shiok ah….

And thank you MaMa for sending the Xia Jiang Ji (Prawn paste chicken mix)……. So so so shiok…. really helps with the cravings!

There are a few things that Sophie really likes: -

1. Fabric - any type of cloth. Big one, small one. She uses them for anything - picnic mat, house, blankets, hankies etc… My tea towels always go missing esp after the laundry is done.

2. Cushions - acts as beds for her dolls

P/s James has this special s/w on his iphone that makes vintage pictures. So cool ah… minus the ugly white border.

Our little one can count pretty confidently up to 5 things now. No messing with her - 4 pancakes means 4 pancakes.

Beyond 5 tho, sometimes she gets a little muddled up. Being rather stubborn at times, she’ll insist she counted 7 when it’s 8 so it gets frustrating trying to reason with her.

But these pretty velcro counting thingy (no clue what it’s called but it’s from a Montessori learning set that my godsis passed down to us) really helps her to learn and have fun sorting and counting.

I saw a recipe in Women’s Weekly (NZ) and I thot it’ll be fun to make these cookies with Sophie. Well, ours didn’t turn out like the ones in the pictures, sigh, yet again. But but they tasted oh so good and the second batch was prettier than the first. That’s the thing about baking, it gets better and better!

It’s fun roping Sophie in to help.

First, we need to wash the cookie cutters! It’s so hard to find cookie cutters in these parts. Finally I found cheapo ones at the $2 shop and they are great! It’s plastic so I don’t have to worry about Sophie cutting her fingers.

Next make the dough. Soph helped to pour in the stuff but we didn’t take photos coz it’s always pretty messy and sticky to bring out the camera.

And then the fun part, cutting the cookies. Then adding the chocolate sprinkles. Of course she tried at every point to taste :).

Finally we all eat the cookies and give some away to our favourite friends. I love that part about baking, giving away some. So, we’ve stopped buying store cookies and desserts for a while and are happy making our own. I even bought a little red cookie jar to store the cookies. No country kitchen is complete without a cookie jar!

These are really the moments to treasure.

Sophie is only 3 now but the past 3 years spent with her has been amazing. I’m truly glad that neither James or I have missed a lot of it at all. Her personality is blooming and very infectious. She’s more gregarious than ever and her emotions are so free (good n bad here :)). She knows what she wants and it really take a lot to put her in her place without squashing her 101 ideas in her tiny little head. Ooo but what a joy to hear her thoughts.

I know I’m bias as every parent is, to say that I think that Soph is the most amazing 3 year old I know and she definitely has the most Krisflyer air miles.

P/s The year is coming to an end and I’m doing a lot of reflecting so I’m taking the opp to blog all I can before we return to expensive internet on the base!

"I want peas!"

"What peas?"

"Peas!"

……

Oh… peas. Edamame. They are boiled soya beans. She finished the entire packet on her own.

Ok now for the good part.

The hospital stay was such a pleasant one for Sophie and us. We were really blessed with friends on the base we took us to and fro the doctors and hospital. It’s times like these that I’m so thankful that we live in community.

The nurses and doctors at the pediatric ward were all pediatrics trained in Waikato Hospital, apparently it’s not the case everywhere. We were so worried about Sophie having to receive an IV treatment because she had a real bad experience back home when she needed blood extracted for a test. But we was so surprised that they do it pain free here! They administered a local cream(!) anesthetic. Ya CREAM! Duh why didn’t they do that for Sophie when she needed the blood test when she was a baby! Argh! Anyways, we were really thankful that it was pain free and they even used a teddy bear plaster to cover it up. Sigh… so sweet. When they took out the IV on the last day, they covered it up with a smiley plaster. Sigh… what a comfort.

The best part of the stay was that Sophie got to go to a room ran by a group of Play Specialists. YA! That’s really what they are called - Play Specialists! I would like a job like that! On the first day, Sophie was still confined to the bed so they sent over a tray of craft materials, a box of Duplo and some books. Aiyo, so sweet lah. The next day, Sophie went over to the room with her IV station and did painting, played with Playmobil etc.

Sophie painting in the play room with her good hand, quite a Picasso huh?

We also met a wonderful Filipino family who shared the nursery room with us. It’s so nice to meet fellow Asians! And we got a taste of amazing Asian hospitality - the family prepared and packed breakfast (rice with luncheon meat and eggs! Shiok!) for us every morning while we were there! Food SO warms our hearts. That really really blessed us. We got to pray for their son who has an acute case of eczema before we left.

Finally the thing that really shocked us - all we needed to pay for was the medicine and it only cost us NZ$3.20. Seriously, I had a shock when the pharmacist told me $3.20. I almost laughed. I learnt about welfare system in school but having experienced it, I’m truly amazed. I know there was pros and cons to any system but being on the receiving end, I must say we are truly blessed.

So all in all, it was quite a scare and I must have broken down crying at least 2 times but God has held us and we have been so blessed. Sophie’s leg is still healing from the blisters and she is still on antibiotics but she’s finally eating well and running around like normal again.