Family worship time and Pilgrim Dad leads the children in a reading-cum-artistic interpretation of the Fall of Man.

They are having a right good time drawing the snake and the fruit and the Man and the Woman (complete with censorship blocks over vital anatomical bits).

After they are done, Pilgrim Dad asks them what they think God is teaching us.

Without hesitation, Porthos says, “Fruits are bad for you.” We dissolve in chuckles, during which time he surmises his answer was not quite the authoritative interpretation.

“Don’t listen to talking snakes?” he ventures in all sincerity.

By this time, Pilgrim Dad and I are in fits. Athos decides to have a go as well and calls out, “Don’t listen to your wife!”

Let’s just say my boys don’t appear as yet to have bright prospects as men of the cloth….

Story time with Aramis so I asked him what he wanted me to tell.

Aramis: Bear bear and the logs.

Pilgrim Mom: You mean Bear Bear and Dog Dog? (regulars in the Pilgrim cast)

Ar: No, Bear bear and the logs. With the porridge.

PM: Ah, you mean GoldiLOCKS and the Three Bears.

I proceed to tell the story.

PM: So what story do you want next?

Ar: I want Loggage and the Bears again!

Update on 28 Sep
What story for today? Aramis says, “Goldi-blocks and the bears!”

It’s 2am and I’m still awake. I had every intention to go to bed at a decent hour but for some reason, my mind was churning with thoughts about the future, of work and family and health and life’s larger purposes.

So I decided to listen to a new compilation I just bought. What joy to find another beautiful gem by the gifted (and – may I venture – anointed) Corrinne May. And now I am off to bed.

The Answer

Lyrics by Corrinne May Ying Foo
Music by Gustav Holst, ‘Jupiter’ from The Planets Suite

I believe you are the answer to every tear I’ve cried
I believe that you are with me,
My rising and my light.

Give me strength when I am weary
Give me hope when I can’t see
Through the crosses I must carry
Lord, bind my heart to Thee

That when all my days are over
and all my chores are done,
I may see your risen Glory
Forever where you are.

Athos and Porthos have a Mandarin tutor who coaches them through their school syllabus. This has led to, I must confess, a rather lackadaisical attitude on my part when it comes to the boys’ progress in Mandarin.

And I was caught out today -

Tutor: 我已经开始准备孩子的 CA2.
Pilgrim Mom: CA2 是什么？
Tutor: 你这个妈妈真没用！

Ahem. For the record, CA2 is Continual Assessment 2. And I still don’t know what that really means….

We had family and friends over for National Day dinner and parade-watching on the goggle box. (Wasn’t this year’s just splendid?)

Anyway, earlier in the afternoon, Athos, Porthos and I created this patriotic and healthy dessert using grapes and canned lychees. Simple fun, and I must say the end result looked pretty decent too.

Happy 44th birthday Singapore!

There’s something about my middle child and his hair. Elsewhere in this blog, I’ve catalogued his self-administered haircut, and his foray into gel-based styling.

And now this morning.

It was just after 6am and Porthos came into our bedroom, woke me up, and pointed at his head. I turned on the light and there it was – a massive lump of electric green silly putty, enmeshed into the hair at the back of his head.

Even at that bleary hour, I wanted to laugh.

Porthos had been playing with the putty just before bedtime, and must have left it right next to his pillow and fallen asleep on top of it. The stuff had pushed right into the roots, and there were tufts of hair sticking out in all directions. I had no idea what to do.

Ordinarily a Google search would have been my first instinct. (Oil? Alcohol? Industrial-grade solvent?) But Porthos would have to leave for school soon so I didn’t have time.

We went to the bathroom and suffice to say it was the combination of lots of water, lots of shampoo and a fine-toothed comb that eventually coaxed the stuff out. I silently thanked God that Porthos was in a good mood that morning, and apart from an “ow” now and again, he seemed none the worse for wear.

“Do we have to throw away the putty?” Porthos asked woefully.

“I’m afraid so. And the comb too – I broke two teeth,” I said.

In the midst of the commotion, little Aramis woke up and called out, “Mummy…. Mummy!…. MUMMY!” (When you’re a third child, that’s about how many tries it takes to get the attention you want….)

“Yes dear?”

“Come and sayang me,” he said. (Sayang is Malay for “love”, and in our household, code for hugs and snuggles and the like.)

So putty problem solved, and Porthos finally settled down to breakfast, I dutifully went to snuggle with my youngest.

And that was just the first half hour of this mother’s day! (Later that morning, my bottom got pinched by a cracked toilet seat. But another story for another day….)

The aftermath. The big lumps of putty were assembled after the fact - they were actually spread out all over the back of his head. Note the two broken teeth of the comb.

A few days ago we were playing Bible Quiz over lunch with some friends. One of the adults asked – “Who can name the first five books of the Bible?” After Genesis and Exodus, none of us were entirely confident about the order (which speaks volumes about our Bible knowledge!)

Anyhow, it was an opportunity to teach the kids about mnemonics, specifically first-letter mnemonics. The one I learnt in school for the colours of the rainbow was “Richard Of York Gained Battles in Vain”, which I always found a bit odd since the poor Duke is mostly unknown to Singaporeans. Much better that we come up with one that makes sense for ourselves!

Anyhow, I challenged the kids to come up with one for the Pentateuch so we wouldn’t be lost for the answer again. And the title of this post is Athos’ attempt, which I thought was quite a winner!

A friend sent me this. Brilliant!

1. no1 b4 me. srsly.

2. dnt wrshp pix/idols

3. no omg’s

4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)

5. pos ok – ur m&d r cool

6. dnt kill ppl

7. :-X only w/ m8

8. dnt steal

9. dnt lie re: bf

10. dnt ogle ur bf’s m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.

ps. wwjd?

In the midst of this impossibly hot weather, I’ve been trying to think of things to do with the kids that don’t involve us (well, me really) getting too sticky and sweaty.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before but ICE is such a great, low-cost, boredom buster. Today we spent a good hour outside doing icey things, which worked so well in this nasty heat. And you can always teach some science on the sidelines – freezing, melting, surface tension, adhesion, cohesion, hydrophilia, hydrophobia blah blah blah.

But it’s really too hot to get into the science. So on to the activities -

• Ice-racing – Give each kid a piece of ice and get them to blow it across a table. The first person to blow his ice off the opposite end wins. It helps to wet the table thoroughly to minimise friction. One variation we also tried is to use drinking straws to focus our blowing more precisely.
• Ice carrom/hockey – Kids are to use their fingers to flick their ice cube carrom-style into a goal (I just used my hands in a V formation). They can also use straws, spoons or some other item as a stick or bat.
• Ice fishing – Fill a basin with water and throw in some items that sink like marbles, coins or paper clips. Cover the surface with ice, the more ice the more challenging. Give each kid a spoon and they are to fish out as many items as they can. If you mix items you can give more difficult ones more points. To increase squeal factor, instead of spoons they are to use only their index and middle fingers (like chopsticks). If you have a bigger basin, you can also try bigger items which the kids must fish out use their feet.
• Ice bags – Fill a small Ziploc with ice cubes and seal. Practice throwing and catching, and take cool break in between!

Stay cool!

It turns out the most popular post on Pilgrim Parent at the moment is
Birthday Cakes for the Fun-Loving and Frugal

So here are more cakes, created since that last post. All are made from Betty Crocker cake mix, and the icings are either butter or whipped cream based.

Porthos’ 6th birthday cake – an aircraft carrier with Lego figures and models made by Porthos himself.

Milo powder and nuggets simulate soil and rocks in this military-inspired, sugar-saturated creation for Athos’ 7th birthday.

Aramis’ 3rd birthday cake is a train featuring chocolate-chip cookie wheels, windows made of Loacker biscuits, and Kit Kat tracks.


Athos is begining to outgrow cutesy cakes so we had some difficulty brainstorming for his 8th birthday. Since he likes Lego so much, we decided on a Lego block cake. I’m a little embarrassed to say most people had difficulty recognising it

Make sure to check out these other cake posts too!
Birthday Cakes for the Fun-Loving and Frugal
The Smoke-Emitting Prehistoric Cake
The A380 @ Camel Diaries