Earthquake

Yesterday, at around 3 PM, there was an earthquake in West Java, Indonesia.

I was at home, with my family. My sister, my son and I just got home from running an errand. Hubby was napping after a sleepless night shift.
All of a sudden, the house was trembling. The walls were shaking to the left and to the right, as if going to fall down. Some stuffs even fell off the cupboards and walls.
I grabbed Darren, and shouted for Hubby with all my might.
We live on the 3rd floor, so we frantically rushed down the stairs. My sister and our helper was also running downstairs, out to the streets.

Outside, people were all over the street. Some were panicking, some were just numbed by shock.
The quake lasted for about a minute or so (who’s counting?).
Afterwards, when it seemed that it all had stopped, we looked at one another, and we just realised how my sister and Hubby were running bare foot. My sister had the chance to grab her purse and cellphone as she ran downstairs.
When the earthquake happened, I also had my purse right by our “escape route”, with some handy & valuable stuffs in it for sure. But although I passed right by it, I didn’t even think of grabbing it. The thought of getting some valuable possessions did cross my mind, but was instantly and subconsciously outweighed by the urge to make sure that my loved ones were safe.

I guess when it comes to an unexpected emergency, we only hold on to what’s TRULY important to us. Although possessions do matter, and much needed, when we face a life-and-death situations, we only hold on to our most precious possession: the PEOPLE that we love.

Like father like son

Here's a scene of Darren and Daddy's fun time ^___^

Good Boy Darren

Dear readers,

Been so long since the last time I wrote a post.

Life’s been kinda hectic. I couldn’t encourage myself to squeeze some time to write, sorry!

But, thanks to Ershinta, who gave me my first blog-award, I got the encouragement I needed to keep posting. THANKS SO MUCH, Shinta! ^___^

Guess I’ll write my readers’ favorite topic: Darren :)

He’s now a challenging 19 months old. He rebels at every possible moment. He throw things although we continuously emphasizing that only balls are to be thrown, and even so, not to be aimed at people. He hits his dining table, the floor, the wall, even people, always making this particularly witty excuse: “ADA NYAMUK!” [= there’s a mosquito!]. We let him hit the floor and table, and the wall, and it seems to hurt him a bit, so now, thankfully, he almost stops doing it. With hitting people, his excuse is “TOSS !” [= high five-ing]. He would high five the palms of our hands when he’s nice, but when he loses it, he’d try high five-ing our hair, our glasses, our cheeks! We strictly told him to only high five the palm of hands, and with other parts, he’ll have to rub gently. It’s starting to work, thank God for that...

It’s the beginning of terrible two, and I’m nearly shaking at the sight of it hahaha....
Now we have an extra item for our daily family prayers (we say it outloud, so that Darren can hear it): “Bless Darren to be a good boy, Lord...”
And he’d heartily say, “AMEN!” ^__^

Wonton Recipe

This is one of Darren’s currently most favorite meal:
Wonton soup with meat filling or in Bahasa: Pangsit Kuah.

A friend of mine who is also following this blog gave me the recipe (thanks, Nop!), which I modified a little to match Darren’s taste and for my convenience ^__^

Ingredients:
* 6 pieces of wonton dumpling (readily available in supermarkets, or you can make it yourself if you want)
* 50 grams of minced meat (chicken, beef, or pork if you like. I use pork)
* 2 pieces of chicken feet, boil with 500 ml of water, bring to boil to make chicken broth (or you can use any kind of chicken broth that you like to use)
* 1 carrot, cut into thin, round pieces
* 25 grams of broccoli (or as you like it), chop roughly
* 2 onions, chop
* 2 garlic, crush and chop
* celery, chop
* chives, chop
* salt, pepper, sugar to taste
Here goes:
1. Deep fry onions and garlic, divide into 2 portions, set aside.
2. Mix minced meat with a portion of fried onion and garlic, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, some celery and chives. Divide into 6 portions, put each portion into a piece of wonton dumpling. Wrap by joining all 4 corners of the dumpling, use a couple of drops of water to stick them together. Set aside.
3. Boil chicken broth, put the dumplings into it, along with carrot. Wait until they’re cooked (takes some 10 minutes or so). Put the other portion of onion into it, broccoli, celery, chives, salt, and pepper, also sugar if you like. (For Darren I don’t use much of them.)
4. Unless you like chicken feet, get rid of it so you wouldn’t freak certain people out (in my case: hubby ;D )
This recipe makes 2-3 kid’s portion (depends on how much your kid eats. Darren eats it in 2 meals).

It’s so cute to see Darren ate wonton soup so ENTHUSIASTICALLY. He’d ask for his own bowl and spoon, then I’ll put slices of wonton into his bowl. It’s so slippery (even for adults!) to handle so Darren has to struggle to put them into his mouth. He barely uses his spoon, coz it’s easier to eat by hand, even so, he still has to work so hard. It’s MESSY, I’m telling you, but it keeps ALL the usual distractions away. He concentrates with his wonton, and keeps asking for more even while his mouth’s still full of it haha… Maybe Darren likes it is because it makes meal time almost like playing time.

I bought a pack of dumpling which probably has some 25 pieces in it. It expires within 5 days or so, so I usually cook half of it right after I bought it, and cook the other half 2 days later.
If you wonder about the rest of the dumpling, I make some also for Hubby. He LOVES deep fried wonton. It’s the same recipe, only simpler coz you just need to deep fry the dumpling after you fill it with meat, so you don’t need the chicken broth and the vegetables.

Gugukdog

Darren’s been crazy about dogs these past couple of weeks. He borrowed ALL stuffed dogs from his auntie who loves stuffed animals, and bring them to his playroom.
He totally “has” 6 dogs, 3 of them are the dogs from “the Cat and the Dog” brand, if you know what I mean; 1 is a Golden Retriever puppy (named Kenny, like the real one in our house), 1 is an old brown puppy, and the other is a tiny, orange, ugly dog that used to be a key chain, named Chop-chop.

Darren still sleeps with his favorite Panda bear and a little cow headed bolster. But it’s been about a week since he insisted on having Kenny in bed whenever he’s going to sleep. That Kenny dog, has to follow him EVERY WHERE in the house, in the car when we go out to buy groceries (I strictly forbid him bringing it along into the stores, because it’s too bothersome), Darren even wants to bring it along when I take him to the bathroom to pee! It takes a wit to distract him from bringing it into the bathroom.

When Darren wakes up in the morning, he would take Kenny out of the bedroom, and start “registering” each and every single one of his dogs. He knows all of them by heart: Kenny, the “abu-abu” (grey) dog, the “coklat” (brown) dog, the curly white dog, and tiny Chop-chop. He assemble each one of them, line them up in front of the window, and together, watching the wind blowing the curtain (he loves it so much, watching the wind). Sometimes when the day is cold, he put a blanket over himself and his “friends” to keep them from the cold wind ^__^

When we go downstairs, he wants to bring all of his dogs along, but I usually make him choose a maximum of 2. And say he brings Kenny and the grey dog, when we return upstairs and accidentally forgot the dogs, we HAVE to go back downstairs and pick them up! I once got curious, so when I got back downstairs, I took both dog, but gave him only one of them. He immediately asked for the other one, precisely naming which one!

Grandparent's Beloved

Darren’s rapidly learning new words and is now consistently using a 3-word sentences, sometimes even 4-word sentences. For example: “Want more wonton” or "see big wind" or “want big carrot.”

Darren also has this ritual of saying goodbye to his Daddy when his Daddy’s off to work.
He’d remind Daddy to put his glasses on, “ATA PAPAW” (= Papaw’s glasses), “PEN PAPAW” (= Papaw’s pen), and then hug and kiss his Daddy goodbye.

The other day, right before Daddy left, they had this conversation:
Daddy : Where’s Daddy going?
Darren : JA (= work)
Daddy : What for?
Darren : UANG (= money)
Daddy : For whom?
Darren : DEN (= Darren)
Daddy : For what?
Darren : CUCU (= milk)
Daddy : CUCU for whom?
Darren : CUCU EMAK... CUCU KONG-KONG...
When my parents came, my Mom taught Darren that he was “CUCU EMAK” (= Grandma’s grandchild) and “CUCU KONG KONG” (= Grandpa’s grandchild).
Now that’s what we call a “short circuit,” Darren mistook “milk” for “grandchild” because he pronunced them similarly ^_______^

Excellent!

How time flies.

I still remember when I was entering my 3rd trimester of pregnancy with Darren, when I had to be admitted to the hospital because I kept having premature contractions.
Hubby and I were SO WORRIED! We prayed and prayed, and so did the rest of the hospital complex (we were living in a missionary hospital complex in West Borneo, and were both working in that hospital). With every single day that passed by, we were grateful because Darren got to spend another day where he belonged, in Mommy’s belly. By God’s grace, Darren was born full term, healthy and perfect ^___^

Today, Darren’s a healthy, happy, super active, 18 months old toddler.
He excels in many areas: physical development, language skills, motoric skills.
He runs around, fully toilet trained, speaking a vocabulary of probably around 400 words (of course I’m not counting, that’s just a rough estimation. I’m guessing that amount because some 80 of which was animal vocabulary, probably another 80 was vegetables and flowers, maybe another 50 was names of relatives, friends, those in Sunday School, and the rest would be enough for his daily conversation words). He’s using sentences of 3 to 4 words, although still without preposition yet. For example: “Papaw... work... (to earn) money... (for) Darren... (to buy) milk...” (in Bahasa)
Or he’d tell you a story, his current favorite is a Bible story of Jesus calming the stormy sea: “[the disciples] ATUT... [takut / fear] ANGUN.. ANGUN [mimicking their waking Jesus up]...,” he says, and now with his arms stretched out, “IAM... [diam! / silent!] NANGLAH! [tenanglah / calm down!]”
He mostly does it without being asked. Sometimes when he almost falls asleep, he would chatter and babble up a series of words like those.

He also counts from 1 to 10, although many times he does it in 2 series: 1 to 3 or 5, and after a few seconds, continuing to 10.
He knows colors, except yellow and orange. His never mistaken colors are: GREY and BROWN (weird, isn’t it?).
He sings -as in completing words and sentences of the lyrics when we sing for him- of MANY Sunday School songs along with the gesture for each song.

It’s just too amazing to watch a child grow, especially mindwise. I remember Darren’s mind still being a bit “empty,” oblivious to our speeches just a few months ago.
I wonder how he got the creativity of inventing “GROWTH”, from a single embryo into a baby, a child, and further on, an adult human being.
Our Creator’s TOTALLY AWESOME, isn’t He?