All families have after dinner conversations (unless the TV dominates) and whether the conversations are casual, formal, sarcastic or random - it’s a good place and time to really sit down and bond with your children (I think). Although I find that the conversations with my children range from as early as the time they wake up to right before they pass out for the night.

You have to give Vanessa credit for being direct.  I’m not sure she was referring to the meat of her body or the meat she …

I know I have been short and slow on getting my momics out, but this is how it is with executing something that requires a little extended usage of my RAM and minimal allotment of time.  The problem really is that I can only do things in bursts of time, like the 5 minutes I have while my daughter is tearing down the house when I get home, or the 10 minutes I have while she’s finishing an episode of Dora I put on so I could put down Victoria, …

Charity is a very important lesson to teach children.  We may not be rich or swimming in money, but it is always important to give back to the community and others who are less fortunate by ways of donations, volunteering and even helping out where you can, when you can.  The best way to teach your children this lesson is to set the best example you can.  I will ALWAYS donate to flag days in Hong Kong - which happens every Saturday and Wednesday mornings.  You can donate $1 or …

It’s not uncommon that if one child is sick, the other will get it as well.  So you can imagine that when both are sick with noses full of “stuff” that their bodies will decide to expel the excess at the same time at one point.  I guess it’s easier to negotiate with Vanessa not to lick anything than her sister, so of course I wipe Victoria first and tell Vanessa to play “FREEZE”.  Hopefully when they get older, they can wipe their own noses and then they can sneeze …

All children pick their nose, it’s a given.  I remember picking my nose as a kid.  I remember classmates picking their nose and then wiping it under the table in grade 2.  I see other kids pick their nose - even adults pick their nose in hiding and just don’t admit it.  It’s a natural cleaning process and probably one of the easiest since the tools are readily available.  I think the teaching to walk away here is to make sure that Vanessa is picking discreetly and then disposing of …

Yes, there is such thing as literal “free” trade these days.  And it happens in my home.  It’s interesting to see how Vanessa develops mentally and to get a glimpse of how her brain gears are turning.  My mother says that I did this to Tracy (sister #2) when she was little as well.  I guess it’s no surprise that she picked up some of these “manipulative” skills from me.

Everyone needs a reference point.  The whole world is based on references.  You reference one thing to another in order to understand what it means to you.  In fact, everything really is “made up” and defined by ourselves.  What really is a centimetre?  And how come it’s only —- this long?  So before you start judging children, maybe we should look at ourselves and think of how silly we seem to THEM.  LOL, the centimetre.

Translated in English, Vanessa is saying “Auntie Sandra is a nice, nice person”.  Hmm, gee, I hope that this classification of people isn’t permanent.  Where would that put me?

Here is my first “momics” series.  I was bored last night and couldn’t go to sleep, so I was thinking of a creative way to catalog Vanessa’s oh-so-cute behaviour and comics popped into my head.  So hence begins my series of children’s steps (or missteps) to adulthood.
I am not a fabulous artist.  In fact, my drawings are relatively primitive compared to real comics, but it’s a start for an amateur artist.  Maybe I will play with different styles of cartoons as I progress, but this is just the beginning.
Enjoy.

Let me explain.  …