Just came back from Talks in the City, organised by Adam Road Presbytarian. They've just started a new series, called conversations with God. Todays' talk was on worship, reading from Malachi 1. I'm glad I've started going again - it's been hard to focus on sermons on Sunday, because of baby; Also, I get to meet my ex-colleagues : ). In an hour, will be bringing baby to ICA, to get his passport done. We're planning a trip with my in-laws to Perth... I hope we actually get to go. Army has dreadful habit of interfering with all our plans. Seems like every trip we have ever tried to take, hubby will get a callback just before, ruining everything...

Have to give him his medicine first though... : ( Brought him to our ped on Monday, because he seemed to be wheezing again. He has been having a chest problem continuously since he turned 7 months! Seems like I've visited the Dr every 2 weeks since then. So anyway, Dr thinks he has bronchial passageway sensitivity, which could lead to asthma. Apparently, from 9-18 mths, when babies immune systems will tend to be lower, he might come down with a cough every month! : (.

So, its back on the nebuliser again... we have to sing non-stop while he's on it, or else he gets very upset. I don't know if he's afraid, because its a noisy machine, or if he's annoyed to have to stay still for so long. So everyone sits around and we try not to have any breaks between songs. Poor baby... he has a very deep and throaty voice now.


My favorite photo of baby - taken in Jan this year : )

Baby is nine months and a half, and isn't crawling yet!!! He manages to get around by twirling round and round on his bum - its very circuitious, but it eventually gets him there. Whether his destination is intented or a fluke, I'm still not sure :P. He sometimes tries to reach over for something, and gets into a promising pre-crawl stance - but instead of pushing off on just one leg, he has to push off on both, and ends up diving for the thing...

I went to Babycenter.com to see if there were other non-crawlers out there, and was very reassured to find some. However, I sometimes wonder if its worth trawling through the boards, because for every supportive and reassuring post I find, there will be another one that makes me feel all anxious or annoyed. One post that really put me off was one titled, "People are constantly underestimating my 6 mth old!". The mother lists all her genius baby's achievements and grouses about how terribly annoying it is to have to say, "No, my baby isn't 1 year old, she's only 6 mths - she's very clever for her age". Yes. And people will JUST insist on finding something to be unhappy about!

Hate comparisons, but also very aware that fact I am conscious of it means I'm guilty of it myself : P . Poor baby mine - its a very bad habit - I've always been hard on myself, and it looks like I may be carrying it over to my baby too... But one thing I'm glad Ive been able to resist (or perhaps I'm just too lazy is reason) - is signing him up for all manner of enrichment / yoga / playgroup type things. I KNOW, he is only 9 months, but there are people I know who signed theirs up when they were 6 months! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with signing kids up for such things - the problem is the motivation underlying the signing up. For me (and I won't jump to conclusions about other people), the motivation would primarily be "argh, everyone doing, I also must do", which I don't want to give in to.

My memory is crumbling!! I was trying to be too clever, and shift my important mails from my yahoo account - too much spam! - so I set the "reply to" e-mail as my gmail account. Then promptly forgot about it and blithely continued checking my yahoo mail for replies. Was feeling offended for past five days at total lack of response to e-mails, untl this a.m. when, on a whim, decided I should finally use my lonely, unclicked gmail shortcut on the bookmark bar. Horrors. Realise that just as I have been walking around feeling slightly offended, so have my correspondants - and more justifiably so. Worse, I don't know how to "reply all" on gmail... (ok, its because i didn't really bother to look too hard, not because I'm a total idiot, alright.. )... so, there are several still out of the loop...

It's our fourth wedding anniversary today! I forgot - again... My hubby reminded me on Sunday. Isn't it dreadful? But I guess I should be thankful its not the other way around, with me always remembering and my husband always forgetting... because he's male, he doesn't get all hurt and play silly mind games about it, viz, telling me instead of not telling me and waiting til the actual day to see if I remember or not. I KNOW this is what girls do, because some of my friends have said so...

So, we're going out for a nice dinner tonight.

Isn't the photo lovely? Made him a jeep using the Mexacomac (or something) toy, and he loves it.

So anyway...

Feeling a llittle defeated today. I hate when I get this way. I could feel this latest attack creeping up on me all weekend... It's pointless, probably reinforcing, if I do what I am about to - although I'm hoping it will work out to the contrary and actually be catarthic. Here goes then, a list of things I'm feeling defeated about:

1. Baby's skin problem - just diagnosed today. It actually looks better, but starting last week, he suddenly erupted in full body rash. It's worst on his face, red, splotchy, rough and patchy. We ruled out food allergy, bathing / detergent products. Our ped said it was probably viral and gave him some antihestemine for the symptoms. Today, my dad made me bring him to a dermatologist who said it was eczema.

2. Baby's upbringing - Is baby too attached to maid? I'll say equally. I feel that I hand him over to her quite often in the day. It would drive me mad not to... I feel awful, because she has housework to do too, and I essentially hand him over so I can chill out (like now). Another, he's getting so irritable / unsociable. He insists on being carried nine times out of ten, he cries with strangers, he cries when I get up from his side (to do something inocuous, like fetch a book from his cupboard). I worry that I'm not doing enough to stimulate him - not playing all the games listed in my Gymboree 100 developmental activities for babies, not talking enough when I'm with him, not bringing him out enough, not teaching him sign language (!! - which I taught to my nephew)

3. My uselessness - basically, my day consists of bits when I'm with baby, and bits when I'm not. In those bits I'm not, I'm essentially doing nothing; and in the bits I am, as outlined in 2., I think I suck at! So, what happened to the housewife that would bake cookies and do lots of crafts with her kids? It was an extremely optimistic, very unrealistic, unlikely to be transmuted to reality, fantasy.

4. My laziness - ditto, above, re: bits I'm not with baby.

5. A glum household - I really lost a lot of joy. I know its not being close in my walk with God. And it's spilled over and infects my husband, my baby, our helper.

Okay. I need a perspective change desparately. I KNOW the key to 1-5 is my walk with God, or, more accurately over the past months, my walk away from God... I'm a little encouraged to report managing to do a devotion today but am reserving celebrations for now as I need to see how long I manage to sustain this... ARGH, again, doing things in my own strength, see what I mean about a need for a perspective change?

Praying for better things.

Day after National Day...

Using my new iMac : ). Though, when I think how much we spent on it, makes me blanche. I wonder if this is how everyone else feels - I think I actually enjoy wanting something more than the actual possession of it. The wanting in it iself isn't even all that enjoyable to start with, because, obviously, you are in a state of dissatisifaction, there is something you think you lack... but married with that is the pleasure of anticipating the item and imagining all the cool stuff you're going to do with it, which is kind of fun.

Then you actually buy it, and that feels good for, maybe, the first few hours or so. Then the novelty starts to wear off, and before you know it, its just another thing in your life .

Having a lot of stuff actually bothers me. I really liked when I was in university, the feeling that all that was essential to me was packed in one suitcase, and some of that I could also do without. The problem is, every new thing I get, becomes something else I can't do without, and will be painful to not have. For example, anime DVDs. In uni, I had a few fav books, cds and that was it for entertainment. Now, I can't imagine not having my DVDs or my computer games, on top of the books.... so, I can no longer pack my life into one suitcase. It has since spread out to fill an entire 1700 sq ft flat.

And, more stuff! We now own a new apartment. Well, according to my husband, the bank, the developer and the governement... We also have a massive new loan. I've always been really conservative with money - provincial in attitude - so, I'm leaving it to God, and trusting in the good sense of my husband. I don't think we'll ever live in it though, as we're hoping to rent - maybe after 2 years, although by that time our family may have grown and there's no way I can imagine us squeezing into that place. It is 500 sq ft smaller than our exisiting place!!

Ok... have to go..

Who remembers the CDIS videos we had to watch when we were in Pr school? My husband has been humming an irritating tune which he claims is the theme song to those videos - but it doesn't ring any bells for me. Maybe they updated the soundtrack in my year?

Some of it is coming back now.. there was an alien called Magoo, and the chinese girl was called Shufen.

I have got to have the most boring blog in the universe... should start a competition and give awards. So us unfrequented blogs can feel a bit better about ourselves, you know.

Yay, LOST tonight... AXN are doing a marathon screening of the last 5 episodes this Sat - !!

Met up with some old friends for lunch yesterday. I've been observing that people tend to be closest to the friends they had in secondary school - asked someone about that and she said, maybe its because we have less hang ups then (?! hmm? rebellious teenage years? raging hormones?) or that we're more innocent (!?!) or something. But I'm not particularly close to my secondary schools friends... the only ones that I feel warmer towards are those that I got to know better after we left.

Funny. I think we were a wierd group of friends anyway - more thrown together than drawn together. Sort of, Nerds of the World, Unite!!

Anyway, it's nice to meet up occasionally, though felt a bit out of place in fancy restaurant and amgst power suits. Conversation tended to stray into pple they knew in common, so you know, had to listen to stories about pple I don't know, but feel almost like I should, because their names keep coming up... was a little annoying!

Argh!!! Am late!

Ezekial 33:12
Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, "The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. ..."

So I shouldn't let guilt stop me from coming back to God - here's more on why I shouldn't. Taking the second part of v12 - "the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it." Simply, what it says to me is this: God doesn't care about what you did in the past - its history, and over. He cares more about what you are doing NOW, at this very moment.

Take this weekend - I allowed myself to get so busy, that I didn't read my Bible or pray. I could, like the Isrealites did in v 10, waste away over it - obsess about my failing and say, God is not going to forgive me because for the millionth time, I have put myself over Him. However, God is telling me -"The weekend is over, it's history. It's Monday now, 3:05 pm. What are YOU doing now? Are you continuing in your sin? Or are you turning away from it? This is what I care about." Every minute I waste obsessing and feeling guilty, is a minute I've not turned away from my sin and made a fresh start. And there is God's wonderful promise that he doesn't focus on what I've done before - His main concern is my attitude towards Him at this very moment. "I will remember their sins no more..." - I've seen this so many times in the Bible.

But there's a flipside to this as well. I can't build up a store of righteousness that I can redeem my sins against. Imagine if I had been perfectly good all my life, up to yesterday. Then today, in fact, right at this moment, I sinned for the first time - suppose I decided to be selfish for the first time ever in my life. Every part of my human reasoning is telling me this should be ok - it's just one slip up, I've been good all my life. But God says, no. "The righteousness of the the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys."

I guess its telling me that I need to be on my toes all the time. It's my attitude right now that counts, nothing matters that I've done before. It also tells me that God's attitude of love and forgiveness to me has nothing to do with what I've done - He doesn't love me less or more if I've been bad or good. He loves me just because He does, and His love is equal even if I was a perfect saint or the most hardened criminal.

So here I am, sinned over the weekend, and God is calling me - turn away and be restored. How am I to feel about my sin over the weekend, after I've been restored? If God tells me He cares only about now, then can I just be indifferent to how I've acted in the past? Uhm, no. Substituting my name for "house of Israel":

Ez 36:22, 32 "Therefore say this to the house of Israel, "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. ... I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!"

So, can't walk around feeling smug about God's goodness to me -!

This is something I wanted to do earlier, just never had the time..

Ezekial 33:10-11
"Son of man, say to the house of Israel,"This is what you are saying, "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?". Say to them, "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?"

These two verses really spoke to me, because I KNOW what Israel is feeling! Like them, I live a life richly blessed by God - chief amongst these blessings: having been chosen by God to know Him and to have faith in Him (Eph 1:4, 8-9). Beyond that - my material needs MORE than met, safety, peace, family, opportunities... blessings too numerous to count. Yet inspite of these, I've constantly turned away from God in sin. Not an abrupt turn, but more a gentle slide away from Him - now and then, putting my own fun over prayer or reading the Bible, allowing myself to get absorbed by my concerns, ending up relying on my own strenght and not trusting in Him. All this time, my conscience is broadcasting warning signals, but by the time they finally get through and I'm able to wake up to what's happening - I find myself far from God.

Time to turn back! But like the Israelites say in this passage, "our sins are in the way!". It's not like when I first believed, and was forgiven - I didn't know better then. But now I do, and STILL I've turned from God - for the the xth time! I really deserve to be punished - in fact, I know I'm going to get it! It's just a question of when!

Have you had that feeling too? The guilt is like heavy iron chains wrapped around your soul.

But here's what God said to the Israelites, and to you and me too: "When you sin, you deserve to be punished - but I don't take pleasure dealing out punishments! I'd much rather you turned from your evil ways instead." So here were the Israelites wasting away in their guilt, not wanting to approach God because of it. God said, "Why will you die? Why are you willing to die, rather than come to me and have our relationship restored?"

Guilt keeps us from coming to God, to receive His forgiveness and to be restored. We know we deserve punishment, and we sit around, waiting for it. Guilt makes us forget that God isn't like us - He's merciful and He doesn't treat us as we deserve. He doesn't WANT to punish us. If we would just approach Him honestly, admitting our wrongs and ready to turn from them - He WILL forgive and He WILL restore. : - ).

Reading these verses made me realise anew how different God is from man, and how strong and deep His love is even when I treat Him so badly. It made me WANT to turn from my sins and get close to Him again - who else loves me like God does? Who else will be as faithful and true?

Here I am - my baby right next to me, squealing away! : )

Went househunting this weekend. Partly the government announcements that prompted us to start, in combination with all the other news - IR, Orchard revamp... The last 2 were more compelling, but the govt news got us off our butts, I suppose cause everyone else was starting to look, and prices moving up...

It was wierd how fast everything was moving - a bit feverish / frenzied, yet hubby says this is only the beginning. Can't imagine what it will be like when the frenzy really sets in... if it does... There was a bit in the news today that sales plateaued this weekend. Hmmm. Good - hopefully they won't raise prices on us again, then.

Just to give an idea of what was happening.. we made an appt to view some apts in the afternoon - at the time, there were at least 10 available. In the morning, we got a call that the developer was pulling all the apts off the market... some fund was buying up the lot! Argh! we loved this development, so we were a little sad. Nevermind, we moved on to another development just a street down - pricier, but also good investment. 3 units were left... just as we were about to view the units, the agent announced that one had just been sold. Fine, 2 left. We viewed one of these, and said, we'll get back to you tonight... the agent got a call. Guess what - it's just been taken... The last unit was still available, but we'd have been real duds to buy it.

So anyway, we saw some interesting things... a very cool lifestyle mini condo that is just SO going to be a gay enclave... the development is tiny, very communal, very glass-bowl existence. The studio apt was done up in total metrosexual style, with b&w photos of good looking men with bulging muscles everywhere... even the gym, pool have glass walls, and are facing the units. Wow.. talk about target marketing!

Uh-oh, baby is getting restless...