Hello?

Yeah, I’m still here. Suffice to say that blogging, while enjoyable, isn’t the thing I really have time for. Facebook – now that’s different. I can update my status in two seconds. A post takes far more work.

Today, I was explaining to S that learning is a lifelong thing. We want to keep learning. I gave examples of adults she knows who are still learning new stuff. I’m trying to inspire her to enjoy the learning process, but am afraid it feels like an uphill battle. Maybe I make it too painful, but really, how else do we learn Chinese characters other than practicing?

Some months now since we’ve expanded the family and I still feel the oldest is my biggest challenge. M is proving to be cooperative on most days and N, while itching worse than ever, remains chirpy, if not downright mischievous. S, on the other hand, is a delicate balance of happy sunshine and sullen stormy weather. I struggle, but I must be doing something right – at least we are not fighting half as much as we used to. I still have to work hard to rein my temper in, but I am learning to accept that this child is not the docile, melleable little girl I wish her to be.  She is her own person, very different from me, and I have to learn to work round her character to teach and guide her, rather than get thoroughly annoyed that she just won’t listen to me.

Aside from babies, babies, babies, I have very little bandwidth to consider other things. There is stuff brewing in the works, more than what I wish to talk about here, and that is taking up my time outside the children. In telling S about adults still learning, I wistfully brought up my time at HKU where I was ostensibly learning something. Writing seems such a faraway prospect right now. I hope once we’re more settled into the new year, and M’s into routine, perhaps I can find a little pocket of time to find myself once more.