I'm a full-time mummy

Phewww... what a day!!

Ben is particularly active today, refused to take his daytime nap until it was about 2 hours past his usual nap time hours... causing me to think of more activities to tire him out.

From L to R:

* Ben stacking up the Mega Bloks while sitting in the storage box with Elmo & Cookie Monster

* Ben answering phone calls (seems urgent and very confidential)

* Ben checking out the new book mummy received for review under Booksneeze program.

After Ben had his naptime for about 2 hours (about 5pm+ by the time he woke up from his nap), we spent some time checking out this new book that I received from Booksneeze to review (*stay tuned for the review sometime in the 1st week of September) then I peeked out at the balcony and saw the most beautiful sunset outside and decided to spend a short while playing with Ben at the balcony.

Just look at the glorious sunset view... Wouldn't it be a waste if we don't enjoy it right?

From L to R:

* Ben pointing at the balcony light, obviously very intrigued with it since it's his 1st time seeing the balcony light.

* Ben trying to spray water at the balcony light.

* Realising he couldn't spray the balcony light, he turns his target to ME. Sorry for the blurry picture cos I was trying to avoid from being sprayed!

After the brief playing at the balcony, I bathed Ben and then we went downstairs, I proceeded to make Ben's dinner while he spends some time with his grandma.

 After dinner, Ben also had a few bites of durian... Then we played again in the room, this time daddy joining in after a hectic day of rushing a project for his client.

And Ben finally goes to his dreamland at 11pm+... quite late for his usual sleeping hours.. but it's because he doesn't get to spend much time with daddy today so he's trying to stay up as long as he could... :P

So there you have it... a tiring Thursday for mummy and Ben...

What do you do when you want to tire out your child? (Heheheh...)

Oh well, it's summer all year long in Malaysia anyway, so everyday is a perfect day for summer!

In any case, here are some of the recent photos of Ben which I'd say described

a picture perfect summer!

Ben pouring water from the mini water sprinkler to a mini pail...

Ben trying to smack some air bubles using his mini water sprinkler...

Ben walking around with his colorful mini windmill at our porch...

Ben practising his coloring at our porch...

Ben looking out and enjoying the rain...

This post is written as part of this week's Writer's Workshop.

I was feeling pretty upset this morning. Decided to try to use the oven for the 1st time by baking a ready-made pizza dough. Just required a few instructions to follow along using the oven and you can have the pizza ready to eat in about 15 minutes. Thought I'd give the oven a try, and also give me a mini boost to conquer my fear of baking first.

The pizza calls for the following instruction:

1. Preheat oven to 220℃

2. Take out pizza dough from box and internal plastic wraps

3. Put pizza dough right in center and bake for about 8-10minutes, or until cheese melted and you see the crust is golden yellow

4. Ready to eat!

Simple right?

I thought this is just a mini warm up start for me to get used to following instructions on baking and using the oven... But, the moment I got ready the oven, I hear this coming from my MIL:

"What? You are going to start using the oven already? Sigh... you all just do things for fun because it's a new thing" (I'm translating this from Cantonese to English.. the words in Cantonese were harsher... it's actually 'San Si Hang' which practically means new toilet seat.. something which Chinese like to say to represent people getting excited for the first few moments over new stuff and then forget and stop doing it when they get bored of it)

So anyway, yeah.. those 3 Cantonese words goes to my ears and stabs right in my heart. Maybe you think I'm over-reacting but it hurts.

Baking things IS a new thing for me. Is it wrong for me to get excited over this new thing?

But who is she to assume this excitement is going to pass? And I'm still wondering what else I did that made her assume that?

I told her nicely that "If everytime someones tries to attempt something new and you go telling the same 3 words to people, how will they get encouraged to continue on? You already branded people that way and assume people is going to stop doing it. Can't you be more encouraging?" She kept quiet after that.

Sorry for venting out but I reminded her that she is the same person who told me 'Guns and weapons won't hurt people if you leave it there, but a mouth can turn a gun and weapons to hurt someone. A mouth can tell someone to get a gun or weapon and hurt someone'.

So why is she doing this?

Nevertheless, I grit my teeth and continue on with the pizza thing and now that I'm typing this, I'm more determined to prove her wrong. I thought to myself.. why am I letting her discourage me? True, it's her mouth and I cannot tape it shut and I've got no control over what she wants to say but I got control over my ears.

I can choose to ignore and NOT listent to those negative words. Read: Ephesians 4:29 (NIV), John 14:1 (NIV)

My 1st SIL is coming this weekend to show me some demo on a few of her baking recipes. Wish me luck with my baking adventure!

Read: Mark 10:27 (NIV), Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV), Philippians 4:13 (NIV), Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)