Songs to God

This devotion really spoke to me.

"Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music IN YOUR HEART to the Lord..." Ephesians 5:19

In our household, having praise and worship songs played on the CD player is no rarity. I take extra effort to surround our house with lots of praise and worship songs in order to instill in Han a love for His music. When I was reading the verse above, I was very struck by the three words "in your heart". God reminded me that songs to Him must be first made in our hearts way before it comes from our mouths. What is a praise and worship song to Him if we sing it, without first rendering that praise and worship from our hearts to God?

I can play an endless list of songs to Him from my player or even from my guitar, but I know what delights the Father is first a song that starts in my heart and offered to Him with all sweetness of my soul because He is God.

Lord, help me to daily have a song in my heart for You and to You, always giving thanks for EVERYTHING.

What To Munch for Lunch?

Taken from babyblues.com

Lunchtime for me is always challenging in terms of thinking of how and what to eat. It's the time of the day when Han is napping and it's out of the question for me to pop outside for even a quick meal. So over time, I have gotten used to the following options:

1) Sliced bread with a spread / homemade sandwich
2) Leftover porridge from Han's lunch
3) Re-heated meal bought in the morning at the food court (many times not available if  I'm down for an early breakfast with Han) 
4) Cereal and milk
5) Fast food delivery (yucks, hate this option unless I'm seriously desperate!)
6) Leftover food from previous day's dinner

My favorite is option number...... 6. It may be leftover food, but it's home-cooked and hot and yummy! Having a daily freshly-cooked meal for lunch is one of the things I gave up when I stopped working outside!

In any case, I do not place much emphasis on my lunch as I would rather use the precious 2 hours to spend time with God, rest or do some net-surfing!

If only there's such a thing as dial-a-hot-freshly-cooked-non fast food-taste like homecooked lunch...

She's drawing parallels - "This one's same as..."

Han has been drawing quite a number of parallels in her speech. Her favorite and most consistent example is that of drawing parallels to colours. Examples:

1) "Same colour as Barney!" (whenever she sees an object that is purple)

2) "Same colour as Baby Bop!" (whenever she sees an object that is green)

3) "Same colour as BJ!" (whenever she sees an object that is yellow)

You must understand why she loves to use Barney characters as her references. If you do not, you can read an earlier post!

4) "Same colour as Tigger!"  (whenever she sees an object that is orange)

5) "Same colour aaaaaaaas .........." (whenever she sees an object's colour that she's trying to match a parallel to)

These few days, she has been using shapes to draw parallels too! Examples:

1) "This one's (a) square, same as (the) table!"
2) "This one's (a) circle, same as (the) cup!"
3) "This one's (a) triangle, same as (the) highchair!" (referring to the highchair tray)

Today, she took her kangaroo soft toy, came up to me and exclaimed, "This one's same as (a) rabbit!!" 

And so she proceeds to the next stage...

Creation Week!

The theme for Han's Learning Time this week is the Biblical theme "Creation".

I did a couple of learning activities with her, in line with the passage in Genesis 1 which tells us about how God created the world. Firstly, there was no memory verse for her this week, but rather a memory statement, "God made everything.". Throughout the week, when I talked to her about the creations of God, I would teach her this statement. It's a simple 3 word statement, so I guess it rested pretty well on her. I would then proceed to ask, "Who made everything?" The answer is supposed to be "God." For the first few times, she said "Mummy!" or "Hannah!" It was really funny. Eventually she learned that the answer is "God." :)

We learned that God created the sky, moon, stars, clouds etc. So one of the art and craft activity that we did was a drawing-sticker craft. I drew the moon, stars, clouds and the 3 stick figures (representing our family). Han placed the star stickers by herself. This trained her fine motor skills a lot as the star stickers were pretty thin and small. A few months back, she could not have placed them so well, so I was very proud of her that she improved a lot in placing the stickers on. I topped off the activity by giving her Barney stickers to decorate her art piece. Needless to say, she was very happy!

When I went on to teach her how God created the flowers and plants too, we did 2 other activities. One was a simple flower arrangement activity. I got some bunches of fake flowers and a ash-tray with many holes from Daiso. You could also do this using a big salt shaker with many holes. This allows Han to practice her motor skills as she places the stalk of flowers into the holes and at the same time allows her to be creative in arranging her flowers.

 She asked me to take a picture of the finished product.

I wanted to show Han how plants grew. The fastest and fuss-free way was to germinate some beans. By the second day, they grew visibly. By the end of the week, they were so tall that they protruded out of the container. Han greets her precious bean plants good morning every day and she lovingly holds the container of plants sometimes to just look at them. I like the gentle way she handles the plants!

We also read some books on animals when I came to the part of how God created animals. Two of her all-time favourite books are Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Eric Carle) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle). We also did a few animal puzzles. I am very happy to see Han enjoying puzzles more and more! I hope she can enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles next. For now, I really must flame up her interest in puzzles first.

When we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I also incorporated these 2 puzzles for Han. Both items only cost me $6 in total. Han loved the magnetic puzzle very much and she did it repeatedly. She was also able to put in all the pieces well too for both puzzles! I thought the 2nd puzzle (below in picture) captured the life cycle of a butterfly very well. I got this for less than $2 at a clearance sale.

We also started on reading a Chinese book every day, using Novum chinese readers. I really like them as the books have bright and attractive pictures and the chinese words are large. I got them for $2 each at Giant sale.

 By the 3rd or 4th day, Han was conversing to us in Chinese sometimes. So I was very encouraged by that! I must persevere in teaching her Chinese!

We also managed to make a trip down to a fish farm with my parents on Friday and that topped off our week of learning about God's creation. Next week, our learning theme will still be on Creation, focusing more on the creation of man. Looking forward to more fun learning to come!

Staying Connected!

 It was a great time of fellowship and of worshiping the Lord together during G12 meeting! For tonight's meeting, one of the things pastor shared was from Galatians 6:2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."

I am always thankful to God for the community that He has set around E and I, and especially for the group of G12 sisters that I have. As a mum, I think it's vitally important to stay connected! First to God, and also to His people. You cannot parent alone (and this we all learn when the child arrives). Many a times, when the demands of parenting gets into me, I must confess it is easier for me to just want to be alone and "sort things out". One thing that God is constantly reminding me is that I must stay connected and not seek to solve things by myself. What an important lesson to learn everyday!

Psalm 133

 ¹ How good and pleasant it is
   when God’s people live together in unity!
 ² It is like precious oil poured on the head,
   running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
   down on the collar of his robe.
³ It is as if the dew of Hermon
   were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
   even life forevermore. 

So mummies, stay connected to your Source and to the body of Christ!

Favorite Song

I was washing up for Han today when I asked her casually, "Hannah, what is your favorite song?" She looked at me and seemed like she was thinking hard. I thought she did not understand what "favorite" meant, so I asked "Hannah, which song do you like the most?"

She replied without hesitation, "Jesus Loves Me."

Her Reality of Consequences

Seems like many interesting conversations and lessons are taking place at the food court, our daily morning place for a good breakfast.

Han saw the cleaner mopping the floor and was observing her intently. Han is no stranger to the idea of cleaning the floor as she sees me doing that everyday. And then she said: "Uncle (actually it was an aunty who was wearing a cap) mopping floor..Hannah cannot walk...Hannah will fall down." I nearly choked on my food as I heard that. Besides being one of the longer sentences that she has been churning out, it was to me, a sentence of profound meaning! What Han said reflected that not only did she understood the reality of consequences (if she were to walk on wet floors), but she was able to retain that idea and articulate it out in another similar setting! Wow!

I am very encouraged because this means each time there is a need to explain consequences of actions or  discipline,  I know that she can fully understand and she's able to apply it to similar situations the next time (I hope this continues!)! All those times of reiterating caution and instructions have not been in vain after all:)

I continue to pray that she has a teachable and soft heart that she may walk in the ways of the Lord always!