The age of your firstborn child is always the marker of the number of parenting years you’ve survived lived. That’s just one of the many reasons why firstborn children are special. (Item: I am the firstborn child in my family). So in my case, that’s five years. Five years of parenthood. And five years with this terrific little fellow. So what has this past year leading up to five been like? Well in a few key words, it includes… School (i.e. kindy) New friends . Memorable dates . Swimming lessons. Discovering new interests . Deepening conversations . Everyday kindnesses . And Lego . Lots of it . For his birthday , hubby and I bought him this mega-sized Lego City police station set. Actually we bought it during the Boxing Day sales the previous year and intended to keep it as a surprise for his fifth birthday. As hubby was discreetly trying to sneak away to pay for it, Nathan spotted him and asked who it was for. So we had to tell him the truth. He was very cool about ...

This is just sort of a surprise hello after my unannouced extended blogging break. January has always been kind of a slow month, going into energy-saving mode after the busy December holiday season. I’ve been induging in the rare luxury of just chilling out in my spare time doing nothing in particular, especially after finishing a highly intensive year in 2015… with Nathan going to kindy (and learning to juggle the school drop-off and pick-ups into our daily routine), two almost back-to-back trips to Singapore (and Bali ) and Kota Kinabalu for my brothers’ weddings , and getting down to business to finish off my Diploma in Early Childhood Education. And in between all those big highlights, the year was just jammed packed with lots of learning, work and play … intercepted by incredible and profoundly beautiful stories and scenes like this one about four-year-old kindness and friendship , and this one about two-year-old support for tough moments in life, and also this one about...