Earlier today, our son was one of the recipients of the Silver Award for the International Singapore Maths Competition (ISMC), and in between trying to hold back happy tears and regulating my breathing to slow-down the pace of my heart bursting with pride, I can’t help but wonder how we managed to raise this incredibly talented boy.

Do your kids have household chores that they are truly accountable for? By “truly accountable” I mean one that if they do it, you, the parent (or your housekeepers) won’t be re-doing the chore once the child is out-of-sight; or if they don’t, then that job remains undone and your child is held answerable for not doing it? I just had to qualify because based on what I’ve observed, chores for kids, more often than not, mean “playtime activity” than a routine, necessary task that actually contributes to the household, effectively helping to off-load us parents or the hired help from the real task-at-hand.

Don’t you just love the early mornings (or for the night owls, the wee hours at night)? When everyone else is still (or already) asleep and you can actually hear yourself think or allow yourself the luxury to just appreciate what is right in front of you. In my case, that would be my son on my right and my husband on my left, both sleeping peacefully–sometimes snoring not so peacefully 🙂 — (and yes, I’m guilty of taking thousands of stolen photos of them sleeping. I can’t help it, they’re just too adorable!).

Almost six months have passed since I had to leave life as I know it to prioritize more essential matters, mainly my health, family and faith.

During my 37^th birthday last October 2017 at Padre Pio Church, I was filled with a deep longing to enkindle my luke-warm relationship with God. At that time, I would describe myself as a disengaged Catholic at best, attending Sunday mass, giving alms, more as a sense of duty than out of love and reverence for God, and I felt, well, empty and lost. Maybe as a result of that lost fire, I started feeling less enthusiastic about life in general and soon started noticing physical manifestations of the dullness I was feeling—in my skin, my hair, my lost appetite and foggy mind, and soon, I became irritable, impatient and perpetually angry and frustrated that I couldn’t snap out of that state of merely existing.