carving pumpkin

 

our first jack-o-lantern

daddy came home with a pumpkin. :D

steaming hot sup!

it has been raining since late morning. well, these past few days were rainy days. we were down with cold (only kay is well now, recovered from cough last week and managed to stay healthy).

today is the first day of hubby's holiday. he will be at home with us till next wednesday! yeah! we stayed at home all day. cycling through the housing area in the morning, then welcoming old friends (with their 10 mo son) in the late afternoon.

now hubby is playing with the kids on the bed (jumping, swinging on the hammock, etc) and i am writing this while waiting for the bubbling pork soup on the stove ready for dinner. yum.

thank you lord. for everything. :)

sweet brother

the kids were playing jump-from-headboard-to-bed game last night. they took turn climbing the headboard then jumping onto the bed. sometimes they hugged each other or hold hands and jumped together.

at one jump, their heads bumped together. while still hugging his sister, laying on the bed, jove cringed and asked, "are you okay, sis?"

the sister, who was okay, was not paying attention. she stood up and continued to climb the bed's headboard again. but mommy (who stood there watching) was so touched. that boy felt hurt yet he cared more about the sister!

i really need to learn a loooot from that boy.

parenting

parenting is a path of maturation and growth if we dare to learn more and teach less.
-naomi aldort in her book, raising our children, raising ourselves

the only thing you can change

wonderfully put here.

grandpa baptized!

oh wow. another surprise.

my grandpa was baptized yesterday in the hospital. he will turn 90 this july. we just visited him the saturday before last. i want to write more... but no time at the moment. so leaving this note here first... ^_^

oh wow!

surrounded by beauty

beautiful sunset sky just from the front porch

These two days, the sunset turned the sky a glorious orange-pink color. Oh well, I'm not capable enough to describe the beauty (nor the camera is good enough to capture the real coolness of the sky). Just writing it here to remind myself that we are indeed surrounded by beauty. :)

planting green beans

we just planted green beans (or more correctly, mung beans) yesterday. they have been sprouting significantly today. :)this started because jove was fascinated with boowa and kwala planting green beans. check it out here. the instructions to plant green beans from boowa and kwala can be found here.

then this morning, i found this interesing site: ecoliteracy, which has this activity of making mini greenhouse from a recycled cd case.

exciting project for mother and son. :)

eight years

this date eight years ago, hubby asked me to be his girlfriend. :)

it has been a meaningful journey. and i thank God for the first day we start this journey together.

baptized!

we were late when we entered the church that wednesday night. five minutes past seven. the four of us, my husband, and the two kids. the mass has already started, the first reading was being read.

i could see papa and mama sitting in one of the front pews together with their catechism classmates, wearing white tops and black bottoms.

andi and i hovered around the back of the church with the restless kids.

then when the baptism started, there was a blackout! the lights went off with a loud sound (coming from the sound system that went off). so the baptism was done with candle lights in darkness. no microphone, sound system, nor any musical instrument. the choir just sang with their own voices. i thought that was how the first christians were baptized, and that was beautiful.

i remembered my prayers when i was younger and was pretty awed that God remembered my prayers even after i forgotten it. when my parents started going to catechism class, i was pretty surprised but still a bit skeptical. the realization hit full blast in the dark during the baptism. and i felt so grateful and loved and happy. :)

the lights went on after the baptism. so the anointing of the chrism oil was done in the light.

thank you, Lord.

one of those weeks...

some weeks, you just can't do any other thing than being with your kids and the people around you.

i am currently working on a personal exciting project and i take every available time to do it. i used to sneak up on my kids, forced poor husband to take care of the kids (while i ran off to the computer), and being grumpy whenever i could not have the time to do it... then husband and i had a talk. and what he said to me made a lot of sense.

this week, i had very little time to do the project. there was always something coming up. but instead of being grumpy, i am accepting the fact that all these flurry of activities actually show how rich my life is. and i am thankful for that.

we went to bogor last sunday, visiting engkong & emak's grave with my in-laws. tiring but a lot of fun. then my parents got baptized on wednesday night (deserve a full blog post on its own later). our dear old friend from singapore, donny, came visiting us today. and we had to wake up at about three or three thirty a.m. soon for our flight to semarang at six a.m. to visit grandpa.

i still have a little disappointment in not having enough time to do the project (that's why i'm writing this post, i think), but i count my blessings and i am truly thankful for this blessed week.

schools kill creativity

I find this talk by Sir Ken Robinson interesting. :)

playground

what if the world is really your playground?

enough

The word 'enough' has come several times to me this past two weeks. First, it was from a book I was reading (by Jostein Gaarder), about how we evolved to be human with two hands and two feet because two hands and two feet are enough for us. Then when I blog-walked a few days after, I encountered some blog post about being enough, one of them is this. Then just last Sunday, there was this column in Kompas, written by Samuel Mulia, titled "Enough".

I pondered on the word often.

As I googled the blogs for link references above, I found this article by Ruthe McDonald. I especially like this paragraph:

Yet, none of this is possible if I cannot accept who I am. If I cannot love me. If I cannot be content in the skin I'm in, until I am who God has called me to be. Don't get me wrong, when I say: accept who you are, I want you to always strive for what God says you can have. Accepting who you are, is the ability to love who you are and where you are going, without comparing yourself, or coveting what some else has. Accepting who you are does not mean that you stop dreaming, or living, or trying to enrich and improve your life. Accepting yourself, is loving who you are enough to become who God has ordained you to be.

I am enough.

I am loved.

lent and bedtime

During this season of Lent, I am abstaining from complaining. It was easy during the first day, then I tend to forget about my abstinence.

The struggle is harder around bedtime, which in my family happens around midnight. No matter what the activities are, Jove seems to have his energy renewed in the few hours approaching sleep. His favorite activities consist of playing with his cars on the bed, watching movie (he has been playing UP every single night for more than a week now), jumping up and down the bed, drawing, and being read a book (his latest favorite is a children's encyclopedia). Sometimes he asked for a snack or a glass of milk.

I used to become so grumpy if he didn't want to sleep at around eleven. But I stopped since being grumpy irritated my husband and my children, plus it didn't make Jove sleep earlier anyway. I tried to be involved in his activities and enjoyed it. Our favorite is to put the children on a blanket, then my husband and I will swing them while singing some songs. The we drop them on the bed giggling and asking for more and more until my hands are red and sore (being stronger, husband has no problem with that).

Last night, I was tired. Jove did not nap during the day and he was still very physically active at midnight. I got angry and I forced him to sleep. I complained high and low about how tired I was and how I needed rest and how I was sore of breastfeeding Kay to sleep (she kept on waking up because of his brother's activities). He slept at last. But I regretted my actions.

This morning, my husband told me that I should not force the kids to sleep again. Because sleeping is a peaceful act, the kids should be able to fall asleep in peace. Well, I completely agree with that. I just need to figure out what I can do to stay nice and sweet till my kids fall asleep peacefully.

everyone has talent

On Thursday, I went with mom and the kids to Mall of Indonesia, Kelapa Gading. When we crossed the ground floor to go from lobby 5 to lobby 1, I glimpsed an x-banner ad by Jaya Suprana school of performing art (if I was not mistaken) and a beautiful quote by Erica Jong written on top of it. We were walking quickly with the two kids in tow and I missed the ending of the quote (with no chance to walk back and re-read). I found it just now, accidentally, when I was blog-surfing.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

I did not know who Erica Jong was. After a few clicks, I know that she is apparently a well-known novelist, essayist and poet. I also found her writings here.

couldn't fail

What would you do If you know you couldn't fail?

goodbye engkong...

This morning, my mother-in-law's father passed away. We called him Engkong. While I knew him only for the past four or five year, this remarkable man had a tremendous impact on me. Let me share some memories that I treasured about him.

This note below was written in my journal on Saturday night, 24 January 2009.

He smiled his special smile again when I asked him the question. That smile always reached to his eyes and made them twinkle with some sort of warm glow. He answered by telling me his love story.

Engkong and Emak were married when he was twenty and she was fifteen. They had seven children. They had good and bad times and were together through it all. They lived in Lasem, a small town in the northern East Java.

Their children grew up and started to move to other big cities till only the two of them were left. After that they used to travel by car visiting their children. He told me smugly that he used to drive all the way from Surabaya to Jakarta in one go, just stopping for meal breaks.

I gawked at this! I used to go with my family from Jakarta to Semarang (and back) by car and I always felt tired after the 10-hour journey. And I did not even drive! I asked whether he felt tired or sleepy at all during the whole day-long car drive. He smiled, that smile, and answered like this: "As long as she was with me, I didn't get tired."

They apparently talked and enjoyed each other company so much that driving 725 km was a cinch!

Then in my note on 26 Jan 2009:

Engkong said that husband and wife had to support each other and be a good team in EVERYTHING. This is the key to success.

Emak died in 1992. A sudden death that shocked him. He told me in several occasions that after she died, he was like an empty shell, just waiting to die... waiting to meet her again. It's a pity that I've never met her. I would love to be able to witness their wonderful marriage. He said that their children had been planning to celebrate their 50th anniversary (in 1995), but she died...

During our stroll in a mall once, when I walked with him, he told me that he would always be the one gave in after every fight. He would do that before they went to sleep. It was easy to win her heart with a hug and a loving kiss, he told me with a chuckle. Ooooh, how I hope my husband inherited this trait!

Engkong always included Emak in every card that he gave his children and grandchildren. During Chinese New Year, he would put his name card inside the hongbao, and 'Engkong & Emak' would always be written there. When my husband was sick, he gave us a hongbao with the name card and a written get-well-soon note, from Engkong & Emak. Whenever he gave his blessing, like the one during our wedding, he talked in behalf of Emak.

When I received the news that he passed away, I imagined him smiling his special smile. At last the day he has been waiting for eighteen years has arrived... the day he would meet his sweetheart, his first love, his wife, his best friend.

It would not be easy for us, we will definitely miss him... but I'm sure that today Engkong is happier than ever.

Thank you Engkong. For being a wonderful grandpa, for being a huge inspiration in loving, for all of your attention and smiles and precious advices. I'm just beyond blessed to be able to know you and become your granddaughter even just for a few years. I love you. Be happy now, with the Lord, and with your sweetheart.