Remind me....

If you find yourself stuck in traffic; don't despair. There are people in this world for who driving is an unheard of privilege.

Should you have a bad day at work; think of the man who has been out of work for years.

Should you despair over a relationship gone bad; think of the person who has never known what it's like to love and be loved in return.

Should you grieve the passing of another weekend; think of the woman in dire straits, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week to feed her children.

Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance; think of the paraplegic who would love the opportunity to take that walk.

Should you notice a new grey hair in the mirror; think of the cancer patient in chemo who wishes she had hair to examine.

Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what is life all about, asking what is my purpose? Be thankful. There are those who didn't live long enough to get the opportunity.

Should you find yourself the victim of other people's bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities; remember, things could be worse. You could be one of them!

When you think you have it bad, there is someone out there who wishes he or she had it as good as you do.
If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it. Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. All situations will be resolved, but in His time, not yours.
And once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life now.

Bingley

Last Sunday turned out to be a great outing for us three in which we coincidently visited the 3 & 5 Rise Locks on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Bingley. Built in the 1700s, they were such an engineering marvel at the time.

Back in the days, river navigation couldn’t solve all the transport problems of industrial Yorkshire, so artificial waterways, or canals, were cut into the landscape. With the Pennines being so hilly, locks had to be introduced to raise or lower the level of the canal. Bingley Five Rise lock, which alters the height of the water by almost 60 ft, is the most impressive in Britain.

An 18th century engineering masterpiece, these five locks operate as a 'staircase' flight in which the lower gate of one lock forms the upper gate of the next. When completed in 1774, thousands gathered to watch the first boats make the 60 foot descent. Now, over 200 years later, the flight is still in daily use providing access to 16 miles of lock-free cruising on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal in the glorious scenery of the Yorkshire Dales.

my little one was admiring the canal

Mya as usual, being her self-willed cheeky self, insisted on picking up little stones as we walked along the path and throwing them into the canal and I equally insisted on not letting her near the canal's edge in case she tripped and fell over. And at one point she was crying her trademark cry for more..more...because she had forgotten even though I kept reminding her that she should never go close to the edge. I physically had to stop her from enjoying her little games.

Just another example of how this tiny little cutesy of mine always seems to know which wrong button to push.

"Mya..not to close to the edge please.."

"ok..that's it now"

"Mya...you are not listening.."

"more mommy..more..."

"making up time"

"now daddy's turn to watch over me..."

say cheese...

say cheese...again...

"...you are so heavy now Mya.."

happy face.....Muahhhh darling!

Twenty Two Months

I love her to bits. Sometime, she likes to push the boundary a bit far but I know there is nothing wrong with that. The only issue is me. Sometime I felt like I just didn’t have the wisdom nor the patience to tolerate her normal toddler antics and I snapped. And then my guilt would just take over soon after. She is very apologetic too so my hearts would just dissolve whenever she says “Sowiii…kiss?…kiss?”. Sometime even when I did not mutter a single word but looked cross and upset, she could sense it immediately and apologise, even when it was not her fault.

She is a keen helper too. I always send her on simple errands and she just enjoys being helpful and getting it right. She likes helping me finding the remotes and whenever dinner is ready she would help calling her daddy out loud to let him know that it is time to eat. What a delight.

At 22 months, her ability to communicate is progressing remarkably, and I am always impressed at how quick her brain could pick things up. She is learning to count, she has not quite grasped the concept yet but she can pronounce the numbers from 1 to 10 though not in the right order. She is now able to put 2 or 3 words together for example, “mommy, come back”, “mommy, look”, “mommy I want this, please”, etc. She sounds so endearingly cute when she speaks but I suspect the last example would probably do more harm to my hard-earned cash later on.

I always wonder if her amazing progress is as normal as any kids her age would have. But I know being a first time parent will always have something to do with that wonder. Though sometime I try not to get carried away into thinking that my child will be a super genius toddler who will graduate with first class degree in quantum physics from Oxford by the age of 8.

Her lovingness always touches my heart. Every morning before I set of to work, we would do our daily routine of kisses and cuddles. But this morning, she gave me extra as I was about to go out the door. She came running back to me and adoringly gave me another big hug. And it just made my day.

Precious Gift

When times seem too hard to bear & I l feel like giving up
I vision your beautiful face, the twinkle of your eyes and things of such
The bond we created from my womb to the day you were born
Is a mother and daughter bind that can never be torn
With the strength and guidance of God and the blessings he pours down from above
I want to be the best mom I can be to you and embrace you with all my love
You are as precious as a flower and as gorgeous as a rose
You have been specially made to the very tip of your nose
You are as sweet as honey; such an innocent young child
You are brighter than any star in the sky every time you smile
I want you to be proud of who you are and strive to be the best
Put forth your efforts to achieve your goals and let God do the rest
I will always be your mother first, but I'm also your friend
Your are the most precious gift, that I've ever been given

With All My Love,

Mommy


© Sherri Lawrence

19 Months

At this age, she is actually quite chatty and friendly. And being in a multilingual household, her range of vocabularies is quite a mixture. These are her current expanding list:-

1) Mommy
2) Daddy
3) Kakak (big sister)
4) Nenen (milk)
5) Mamem (eat)
6) Pepet (pacifier)
7) Hello….Hi ya…
8) Bye Bye
9) Come.…come…Walk..walk…
10) Up..up
11) Hot
12) Car
13) House
14) Sleep
15) Kiss
16) Nana (banana), apple, yape (grape)
17) Sky
18) Snow
19) Amau (anything scarry)
20) Hair, Eyes, Head, Mouth, Nose, Hand, Perut (Tummy) , Tummy, Teytek (Breast)
21) Akut..akut ( I’m afraid)
22) Aaakit…(it hurts)
23) Sowiiii (Sorry)
24) Aii…yu…( I love you)
25) Aaa…kiu (Thank you)

I always encourage her to speak and to tell me what she sees around her by asking ‘Whats’s that Mya?’ Sometime she gets it right and sometime she would just murmur anything. Last couple of days, whenever we watched the telly together, I noticed she kept saying the same words over and over again, which sounded so familiar but I couldn’t quite figure it out.

Only last night did I realized that she was actually asking me ‘What’s that?’

Well I guess she now understands the concept of questions & answers. Or perhaps she is just being her normal copy-cat self. But either way, she just makes me smile all day…

Silly Idea

Just because some people eat more chocolates than others, it was proposed that chocolate tax should be introduced in order to put people off buying them. So, to combat obesity, cutting out chocolate is deemed to be one of the solutions? I get the point but this is just absurd. Ridiculous.

So utterly fabulous

I really should not spend a penny on these but they are so irresistible. The moment I tried them on, I was surprised of how well fitted they are on my feet. And at an unrealistic tag of £12.00 I think that’s an absolute bargain. Sod off credit crunch….

But too bad I don’t have a pair of long gorgeous leg to show them off. Let alone the occasion.