Year Update 2007

先祝福您及全家人新春佳節愉快，願2008鼠年帶給你平安發財！
為了拯救一根樹枝及節省我自己的荷包，希望您不會界意我以這封EMAIL代替了聖誕賀卡。

2007年對我來說咻‧‧‧一聲就飛過去了。好像印象最深刻的就是在台灣渡假的那5個星期，其他的47個禮拜都過的好模糊。那個假期不讓人難忘？是嗎？在台灣的那5個星期是今年的高潮！在家住了3個禮拜，這3個禮拜對爸爸、如芯及棣仁和我來說非常的珍貴。爸爸的眼睛看不清楚了，所以索性更可以抱抱兒孫。住家裡的另外一個好處就是我不必煮飯，唯一只有為爸爸慶祝生日的那天下廚一次煮西餐請親朋好友。因為在家的時間長，所以我心情很放鬆，帶小孩去了很多地方，見了一些朋友。就怪自己沒有計劃好，不然會有更多時間機會會見更多的朋友。很多地方都喚起了我美好的童年回憶所以很值得帶小孩去。我覺得世界上沒有任何一個地方像故鄉一樣的美好。

如芯明年1月就要3歲了而棣仁已經14個月大，可想像今年是我非常忙碌的一年。我辭去易利信的工作現在是全職媽媽，在家帶小孩真的非常的快樂但是我發現自己以前從來沒有那麼認真辛苦工作過！直到我有如芯以前從來沒有想到我會那麼的有母愛，愛小孩愛到無法用字形容‧‧‧比“好”要多十倍巴！甚至讓我去修兒童保育的課程，今年九月開始至目前為止有學了相關兒童發展及行為管理的課程，非常喜歡也受用。非常期待明年的新課程。

如芯是一個非常聰敏、可愛及愛護弟弟的小女生，她總是愛和弟弟玩、喜歡抱抱親親他。她現在鐘愛粉紅色，睡覺一定要抱著她粉紅色的小熊睡。粉紅色狂熱症有時候也帶來麻煩‧‧‧比如說當她的粉紅色的衣服及襪子都在洗時‧‧。她的中文很好，溝通大致都沒有問題。她的英文很不錯，當她學新的中文單字時，她常會問我“這個ＤＡＤＤＹ怎麼說？”，她有時甚至自己翻譯，但不是每次都對。她鬧過好笑的有“ＭＯＭＭＹ妳看！黑色的小朋友”、 “ＭＯＭＭＹ妳要完﹝玩﹞蛋嗎？”、剪指甲的時候問她“ＤＡＤＤＹ怎麼說食指”她說“ＬＩＯＮ”。最近發生最好笑的是她很無辜的指著我小姑的大胸部說“ＢＩＧ　ＭＩＬＫ”！雙語有很多好處，有的時候她重複說了幾次我還是聽不清楚的單字我就會問她“ＤＡＤＤＹ怎麼說呢？”，我就明白她說甚麼了。


棣仁已經不是ＢＡＢＹ了，嗚呼‧‧‧我的ＢＡＢＹ已經變成小男孩了。他很喜歡自己玩，更喜歡追著姊姊玩。他還不會走路但是爬的倒是很快，他很貼心，總是喜歡抱抱親親我們。但破壞性也很強，他還不會說話，老是發出一些可愛的聲音。最厲害的是他超越的溝通技巧，現在他只要用一指神功加上“ㄜˊ”　就可以表達無盡。他覺得自己很厲害的時候他就會給自己掌聲鼓勵一下。書上說再過５年等他６歲之後，他就會比較不黏我轉移到黏ＰＡＤＤＹ了，然後他就會向老爸學一些五四三的，他老爸所謂當一個男子漢大丈夫應懂的技能：對電視大呼小叫﹝看球賽時﹞、對自己全然不懂得運動批評的有聲有色、如何打不到高爾夫球等等！

報告完畢，期待你的的回音也期待2008再相會！



Happy Holidays to you and your family and we wish you all a very peaceful & prosperous new year (Year of the rat).
I am just trying to save a branch of a trees as well as my own pocket so I am sending this Seasons Greeting email instead of Christmas cards.

For me, 2007 has really flown by! All I can barely remember was we went back to Taiwan for five weeks holiday back in April and the rest of the 47 weeks are kind of just….zoom!!! I guess those 5 weeks were the highlight of the year (I think most holidays are!) – we stayed at home for 3 weeks so we spent load of time with my father and it was so precious for Roisin and Dylan to get to know their grandfather as well as for him to spent time with us. He can’t see very well anymore so it was great for him to be able to hug them and hold them. The other great thing was that I didn’t need to cook. Only on one occasion did I do any cooking and that was for my father’s birthday where I invited our friends and relatives over for some western food. Because we had so much time over there I found I was very relaxed and saw a lot of places and faces, although I could’ve met more friends if I had been more organised. Loads of places we visited have brought back some lovely memories of my childhood which I think it’s nice to show Roisin too. I completely agree with the phrases - home sweet home and there is no place like home.

Roisin will be three in January and Dylan is 14 months old. It certainly has been a very busy year for me because of them. I have left Ericsson and now am a full time mum. I am really enjoying being home with Roisin and Dylan and having said that – I never worked as hard as this before! I never thought I would be so motherly…until I have my first baby. There is no word to adequately describe it; perhaps 10 times “Wonderful” will do! I love children so much that I have decided to go further with this – I started some childcare courses back in Sept and really enjoyed them so far. I have learnt so much about child development and behaviour. I really look forward to the new modules that I will be doing in the future years.

Roisin is a very clever, loving and cute little girl. She loves her little brother and she plays with, hugs and kisses him all the time. She loves her pink bear and she can’t sleep without it and she loves pink stuff and owns loads of them. This pink fever has caused some problems at times, i.e. when the pink tops or socks are all in the wash. Her Chinese is very good now and she can have conversations and all. Her English is not bad either. Often when she learns a new word in Chinese she will ask “how does daddy say this”. She will even do translations for us, although not always very successful. For example, not so long ago in Wexford, one evening her little innocent finger pointed to my sister in law’s boobs and she said “Big Milk” (in Chinese the same word is used for “milk” and “boobs”). I am sure you are all aware of there are some advantages for being bilingual even for adults, such as improving intellectual & language skills (easier to learn a 3rd language), enhancing mental development, strengthen creativity, exercising the brain much more which can combat against some age-related cognitive decline etc. I found that, best of all, I can communicate even better with Roisin. You know the way, at age 3, a child can be picking up new words everyday so she could easily mix up words and sometimes it’s hard to understand what exactly she is trying to tell me. So if it does not make a whole lot of sense in Chinese I just ask her the same thing - “how does daddy say this” and she can tell me in English.

Dylan is not a baby anymore (sob…my baby is a toddler now), he loves to play on his own for a little while and he follows Roisin wherever she goes. He is not walking yet he can crawl really fast! He is a very sweet little boy, he likes hugs and kisses and outright destruction of everything he can lay his hands on. He doesn’t have any words yet but he can make lots of fun and cute noises. The best communication skill he has at the moment is to point at something and say “arh” and he gets most of things he wants! He claps hands when he’s delighted with himself. I am glad to learn from a book called raising boys that I will have 5 more years to enjoy him before he attaches to Paddy. He will then learn important male skills such as shouting at the TV, the art of making critical comments on sports he has absolutely no understanding of, and how not to hit a golf ball.

That’s it for this year. Hope to hear from / see you all sometime soon in 2008.