Had a birthday dinner with my library gang members yesterday! I can no longer say "library gang girls" as a default term because the gang now consists of one husben and one boyflen liao. How times have changed and moved along.

Anyway, my Diva, hope you enjoyed yourself! ;-P (despite the miscomm and my annoyed rumblings...)

Some (limited space and time, i'm sorry) of the photos are up on our yahoo group for viewing!

***

After the relatives left for the land across the straits, peace and quiet is once again restored to the home, and there's more space to move about in. Hur. It was fun while they were here, and i've discovered that i'm not that bad with children after all!

(case in point: when niece was crying from being in an unfamiliar environment and was calling for her granny, i went to her, held and soothed her, and she actually stopped crying. :-) I'm so pleased with myself. But then again, maybe she stopped crying because she wanted me to get away from her asap... Why? Because i was in my post-exercise gear which was reeking of Super Stink of the Century. heh heh.)

That said though, my niece is an intelligent 4 year old girl and is easy to talk to, so it wasn't too hard to get along with her. For now, i'm ok with kids who aren't the maddening frisky types.

After some introspection and reflection, i realize that one of the reasons why i dislike (or disliked? I'm still learning...) children was because i used to hold the perspective that they were innately wicked beings, and from there, it's easy to think horribly of them, get irritated by them and to find fault with them. But if you choose to see them as innocent little humans in need of nurturing, they definitely become more loveable.

Well, i choose to see them in both lights, but most importantly, i'm trying to love them, whoever they may be and however they come packaged as.

Another reason why i've always resented children (and hopefully this will be a thing of the past) stems from my own past of intense feelings of jealousy and neglect when my parents didn't give me the attention i wanted. This was especially so when there was another baby in the room. I grew to hate babies and young children with a vengeance, because all the love and attention was lavished on them, and i was pushed aside because "i was big already, no need to be baby-ed". Whenever the topic of having another sibling came up, i would SCREAM, CRY, and say nasty things to my parents.

I remember clearly how i always complained about not getting the affection i wanted. Yes, i actually used the word "affection" to my parents, even as a young kid.

While i still get caught in the darkness of my past bitter experiences, i'm on a journey to learn to soften my heart towards children, to appreciate them in totality, in their stages of development, to see them less as perfectly formed and informed monsters and more as little humans who need to be taught. I know for a fact that some behaviours of children are definitely NOT kind, and may even border on intended evil (trust me, i KNOW.) but that's because their actions are uncontrolled and not regulated by the "right/acceptable belief systems".