the littlest notebook

my little kitchen helper

My son Ian is such a joy to be around these days, especially now that he is speaking so well. I get glimpses into his mind when he talks. Just so I don’t forget, here are some of the funny things he said:

I always ask Ian to clean up his toys after he’s done playing with them. Of course he pretends he cannot hear me. One day, I was rather exasperated with his mess and said, “Ian, the house is so untidy!” He looked at me and replied, “I need to go somewhere cleaner.” Yup, that would be a good solution! Just leave the mess. Out of sight, out of mind. Only if you’re a three-year-old!

I tell Ian that his toys have to go back to their families every night so that they do not go missing (meaning I will confiscate them mwahah). I told Ian to put his train-set parts into their box, and when he did, I said, Good! Now the trains are all safely in the roundhouse. Then my son looked at me and said, but Mama, the box is rectangular!

I’m trying to teach Ian how to tell time. One day, I pointed to the clock and asked him, “What does the clock say?” He looked at the clock face for a long time and said, “Tock, tock tock.”

Illinois is known for its tornadoes, and we get tornado warnings now and then (most of them are practice drills). One day, one of these sounded. Ian came up to me and looked at me very seriously. He said, “Mama, I hear a tomato warning!”

Two nights ago, he couldn’t sleep well. The next morning, I asked him why he had trouble sleeping, he said that he was afraid of something. When I asked him what was it that made him scared, he said he had a dream of me in the kitchen holding a knife and chopping tomatoes. Well, my son hates vegetables and now that he is coming into the kitchen to “help,” I always make it very clear to him that knives are dangerous things and that only Mama and Daddy can touch them. Well, all that somehow became this strange nightmare he had. (Or was it just an excuse for him to climb into our bed?)

Before he started preschool, we wanted to neaten his hair. The only way we could get him to sit still is if we let him watch YouTube videos of the bullet trains in Japan. We cut his hair outdoors, so we dressed him and CW took him out. The seasons are changing so it can get cold these days. CW asked Ian repeatedly if he was cold. Ian, being crazy about trains, refused to admit he was cold even though he was shivering; he wanted to keep watching the train videos. CW decided Ian needed his outer coat, so they went back indoors to get it. Once Ian was safely home, he refused to budge. He said, “I don’t want to go out because our home is nice and warm!” CW found it so funny that Ian could give such a coherent explanation for his choice. We cut his hair indoors that day lah.

Although it is nowhere near Easter, my son still wants to play Easter Egg Hunt. I write a secret message in each egg and add a little snack before I hide it. One day, I wrote “Mama,” “loves,” and ”Ian” on three separate pieces of paper, with a heart to represent “love.” Ian found the eggs, enjoyed the snacks of course, and made the message “Ian loves Mama.” That really was an Awww moment

If there is anything I want to remember, it is Ian’s first independent prayer. Yesterday, he was being rude to Daddy, and I was cross with him. I told Ian that it makes Daddy sad when Ian is rude. I asked him if he loved Daddy; he said yes. I reminded him that God’s word says love is not rude. Then, to my surprise and delight, he said he wanted to pray to God! He clasped his hands together and said, “God, please help me to be nicer.” Wow! Praise God!

By Ian’s standards, Ibby is a relatively easy baby. She is slow to cry, and unless she is overtired or hungry, she is easily placated. She is happy to stay in her baby gym long enough for me to wash bottles and make a cup of coffee, or even have lunch. When she fusses at night, she tries to soothe herself back to sleep. She also loves to “talk.” We grunt and coo a lot. Yesterday, I thought she said Hallo (I must be imagining things). She smiles with pleasure when we play with her–she especially likes acting out Humpty Dumpty on my knee–and she tries to sing along with me (I am imagining things again) during music time. She is starting to roll over, and can push herself on her side. She is your regular curious little baby: she sucks on her fists and fingers and tries to eat her toys. Whereas Ian is always very task-oriented with his milk, it is taking longer to feed Ibby these days, now that her eyesight is developing and nearly everything distracts her from the bottle: Ian pretending to be a kangaroo, the TV, the leaves rustling outside our window.

I am very grateful for my children. I put myself in their shoes and I get an inkling of how hard it must be to be a child. My kids go where we as parents decide to go and they have to fit their routines to ours. So much of how happy they feel relies on how well we read their signs or interpret what they are saying; if you are a three-year-old boy just learning how to say M&Ms (Ian says M-m-Ms, with the right inflections), you don’t always get what you want; if you are a three-month-old baby, lagi worse! They must feel a disorienting lack of control over themselves and their circumstances. Because I am the older child in my family, I remember how it was like when my brother was born, and I am (overly) empathetic towards my son. There was a moment in my childhood when I distinctly felt that my world was falling apart. I know at some point, many firstborns must feel this way; the crucial thing is that we as parents have to change that situation into an opportunity for learning and growing. We explain to Ian that Mei-mei is young and helpless, and we need to care for her so that she can grow big and strong. We tell him that Ibby wants to do things on her own but she still is not able to. We tell him how much she wants to be like her kor-kor, to be able to run and jump and eat all sorts of things. I try to make time alone with Ian, and I want to be the one who puts him to bed at night. We always tell Ian how much we enjoy spending time with him and that we love him because he is our one-and-only Ian. Just the other day, I asked him if he knew I loved him and he said yes. I asked him, do you know why Mama loves you? He said it was because he was a special boy. Curious now, I asked him how he knew he was special, and he said “I am your son.”

In more ways that one, my children have made me a better person. Because they are so reliant on me, I have to be strong for them. And when I am weak, I have to show them where to find hope. They have definitely saved me from being the self-indulgent, pessimistic victim that I thought I was. They have shown me that I have a God who cares, and who guards His own. It is mind-blowing to come face-to-face with the marvel of creation every day as I look upon the faces of my little ones. And in each smile, each milestone, each I love you, I am touched again by how lovingly and intricately and wisely our God has made each masterpiece.

I am a woman so I will always think that men have it easier. I mourn the years I spent trying to be what the world said a worthy woman should be and how she should look like. I remember groping my way around life, not really knowing what I wanted for myself. Even in church, I so often hear that the best thing I could aim for was to be a Proverbs 31 woman. And if I took that literally–which many of us do–that meant that my life and efforts had to revolve around my husband and my family and our household. But I know in my heart that Jesus didn’t create us to be Marthas, and that He looked on Mary with favor. She who sat at his feet and seemingly did nothing but hang on to His every word, had chosen what was better; she chose to fix her heart and eyes on Jesus.

So how can a girl live through life unscathed? If I examine the women I know who radiate an unassailable beauty, I suspect I will find one common trait: self esteem. As a Christian, my self worth is always found in the cross of my God. As fellow traveller on earth, I would define self esteem as the confidence I have in my competency to face challenges and self respect. As a parent, I know I have to work hard to nurture strong roots in my children that will ground them regardless of where their wings take them. Is our home a safe place to grow up physically and emotionally? Do they know they are special and valuable and beloved even if their friendships fail? Do they believe they can surmount life’s problems, or at least have steel enough to learn from their failures? Do they love themselves enough to trust their own instincts? Do they live with purpose (by God’s grace, His purpose)? Instead of just focussing on report cards, I want to keep asking myself these questions. And honestly, even if they ended up as taxi drivers (Singaporean mothers shudder), I would be content if Ibby and Ian can say yes to all of the above.

Many in the generation before us had children and then waited for them to become sensible adults. The world we live in today doesn’t allow us to adopt the same childrearing methods. There are so many voices and value shifts that it has become ever more difficult to discover and decide what really matters. I am terrified for my young ones. I cannot bear the thought of them confused, bullied, and jostled by the world’s untruths, but I know I can only keep them safe for that long. And I know that they will have to turn the corner themselves and find their own way. So for now, and forever more, I will love them with all my heart and respect them as human beings made in the image of God and live, with His help, a consistent, God-fearing life. If there is one thing I will ask of them, it will be that they love Jesus. Then, everything else will fall into place.

For the record, I think my little girl is exquisite from the tips of her crazy hair to the ends of her fleshy toes. Small eyes, thunder thighs and all, she is wonderfully and fearfully and lovingly made. I pray that I will never stop telling her that, and that she will never stop believing me.