Disney Frozen

The upside of parenthood is being able to transport back to childhood - reliving the missed bits and revelling in childish acts without being labelled as 'childish'. Recently, my kids and I synced our inflight movie and watched the acclaimed Disney movie Frozen together; we enjoyed the plot and musical. I was pleasantly surprised that the supposedly girly movie captivated my boy too. We downloaded their favourite song titles from Frozen on iTunes and played them during car rides, both of them would sing along and reenact the scenes from Frozen. It's a delight watching them giggling in their antics, such simple joy :-) The combination of an entertaining movie and great musical songs keeps reverberating in our memory, so much so that I'm inspired to needle felt Olaf and my first attempt of a huge figurine, Anna!

Felissimo Koala

While visiting a friend in Kobe in 2012, I chanced upon a Felissimo Happy Toys Project Exhibition. It was a delightful display of handmade koala bears in patchwork or crochet, created and contributed by different individuals who participated in the project. After the exhibition, the multitude of colourful and vibrant bears would be shipped and donated to various children in the world as a gift,  how heartwarming! 

The project was launched in 1997 in Japan and carries out yearly missions of collating handmade toys. The mascot changes every year, ranging from teddy bears, dogs, reindeers, elephants to cats. Being Japanese, the mascot never fails to be KAWAII.... I missed out taking part in the project for 2013 but will certainly be looking out for the new project this year. I can't wait to sew my own patchwork mascot and make my contribution.

Here's my version of Felissimo Koala in needle felt :-)

Cookie...

While I professed to be a cat and dog lover, I would have never thought I'll have a Chihuahua in my household, as the minuscule breed is the last to uphold the characteristics of dogs that appeal to me - charisma, security, 'huggability', rowdy play, gracefulness, etc. However, when I first saw this puny shivering ball of 3 brown spots on its body of white coat, it warmed my heart as it reminded me of our late Jack Russell Terrier, Rusty whom departed last August. Something stirred within me, I cannot pinpoint. As I watched the tiny 800g trembling within its enclosure, I had the desire to comfort and care for it. In the snap of minutes,  in crept the various reasons to justify why we should have this Chihuahua in our household: a companion for Coco that will not create chaos in the house, a dog for my girl whom she is able to manage by herself, a dog for my boy to instil in him 'responsibilities', a creature for me to care for like a baby since the factory for human babies is officially closed...

Since it's technically the kids' dog, they named it Cookie, despite a protest from my brother that it should be named Yoda due to the sheer resemblence between the two in his opinion. Thus Cookie's other nickname is Baby Yoda. It's been a month since Cookie came along and it finally had its last dose of vaccination. Even the vet who examined it was tickled that Cookie is such a teeny Chihuahua. After consultation, the vet actually came out and requested a picture of Cookie ;p 

Cookie (keeping fingers crossed!) has yet to exhibit the typical yelpiness of a Chihuahua, she barely barked more than twice in her stay with us, and both times merited with good reason. We've brought her out a couple of times in a doggie bag; she would be trembling initially till she settled comfortably in her bed within the bag, without making a wee bit of noise while we carried her about. Hopefully Cookie will be a great companion to my girl in her growing up years :-)

Baby Bump :-)

Pregnancy is an amazing journey – from the physical transformation of a woman’s body, physiological bonding with baby within, to the psychological nurturing of a mother’s instincts. It is a journey prerogative only to women, not one which men can undertake nor understand.

 

Even as myself had gone through two pregnancies bringing my precious ones to the world (they are both 8 & 10 already?!!!), it is still bewildering to me how a sperm of disc head 5 micrometer by 3 micrometer, when finding its way to an ovum of 0.12 mm diameter could fuse to develop into a foetus and eventually grow into a mature baby of 50cm, all the while happening inside a woman’s womb! I am constantly amused when I see Preggies with their ballooning belly stretching to contain the growing baby, the sight of their tummy so tender yet robust!

 

Perhaps the experience of pregnancies has conceived my view of Preggies – they are one lot of beautiful curves!

Love

Love is both profound and confounding. No one has a simple definition to Love as it encompasses a multitude of virtues. The first time I came across the meaning of Love in the Bible during my pre-teen days, the beautiful verse stuck in my heart ever since - 

Love is patient, love is kind. 

It does not boast, it is not proud.

It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, 

It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. 

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

As life deals with us, we realise Love is not as simple as it sounds. The intricacies of life complicates the simplicity of Love. It may take a lifetime to unravel the mysteries of Love, or not… I am learning, even in my adulthood the true meaning of Love. 

At this juncture in life, I am reminded that "The best expression of Love is time". As Rick Warren places it "We all have different amounts of energy, wealth, and talent, but we all have the exact same amount of time: 168 hours a week. You can always get more money, but you can't get more time. You only have a certain amount of allotted days, so you have to decide: What is your time worth? The most valuable thing you can give someone is your attention, because when you give attention to somebody you're saying, "You matter to me. You are valuable. You are worth listening to. You are worth my time."" This is applicable to all sorts of relationships!!!

Teddy Bears

I don't particularly fancy teddy bears but a teddy never fails to warm my heart. It's funny how teddies are marketed as cute and lovable, when in reality a bear is ferocious when threatened. Similarly, a hippopotamus is by far the most 'dangerous' due to misconceived perception of being portrayed as an adorable creature! Puzzles aside, teddy bears tend to have a heartwarming effect on children and adults; I am one of those who love cuddlies, ie soft furry or fabric toys. I wonder if loving a cuddly means a person has a soft side? My boy, despite his love for soccer, knights, soldiers, lego, minecraft, etc has a soft spot for soft toys - at the age of 8, he was equally thrilled when given a cushy bunny for Xmas ;p

Some bears have an inherently cute look - my favourite is Polar Bear. White and snowy :-) 

Confession this Christmas..

As I made my confession this christmas, it greatly relieved me of my doing as being 'Santa' all these years!!!

It all began with an innocent intent - the joy of seeing my kids lit up genuinely as they received a surprise gift from Santa. However, I foolishly stepped up my game by dropping a little gift in their santa socks daily in the month of December till Christmas eve and this tradition stuck for many many years. They started off believing in Santa and would wake up eager and chirpy in the morning shoving their hands into the socks and retrieved their finds. It was easy to get them little gifts as toddlers as little items would delight them. As they grow, they develop their likes and tastes, it became increasingly difficult to find economic buys that would truly delight them. This is the reality of growing up - kids appreciate less of simple joys as they grow into pre-teens. I had the chance to break the myth years ago when they first had their initial doubts about Santa as their friends claimed that Santa was not real but I remarked that "If they believe it is real, then Santa is real". They chose to believe as they loved to receive gifts.

This year prior to putting up the Christmas socks, my boy being the more logical brained had questioned me on the existence of Santa again but my girl, being more sentimental chose to believe Santa is real, and I reiterated the same line. They thus chucked their doubt aside and continued to receive little gifts from Santa. However, my job was made tougher with age - I would forget to slip in the gifts and jolt up awake in the middle of the night to drop the gifts into their socks and returned to bed, sleep interrupted!!! Furthermore, I observed that the gratitude gained from Santa is diminishing, which reduces the spirit of the intent. Hence I decided to stop torturing myself and confess to my kids yesterday morning. Since they already understood the true meaning of Christmas, we will scrape away the myth of Santa ;p

Nonetheless, we had our fair share of 'Santa' stories and memories to live with. After Santa, they started to question me about tooth fairy….