Hey there,

It’s been a while! The year end season had me overwhelmed by the need to meet the demands of having kids at home on school holiday, my regular work for my day job, preparing for the Christmas season, scheduling and being present at meet-ups and more. It was a good kind of busy, but I’m also glad that we’re now back to the routine mundane days where I find comfort in familiarity of daily rhythms.

I wonder if you took some time to evaluate the year that just passed, and thought about what you’d prioritise in the year ahead. The telltale sign of what we truly prioritise is not what we make lofty plans and goals about, but instead, where we spend our time in our everyday. As I look back on 2023, I’m thankful for a year of great personal growth. In seeking to grow my children well, I find that I am the one who has been most changed.

Retraining habits, building new neural networks

Most of our decisions are made by habit. We decide to brush our teeth, to hold our chopsticks in our right hand, to signal before changing lanes (or not) - by habit. As adults, we have many established habits which help us function (or dysfunction) in our daily lives, and we direct our attention to other “bigger” decisions.

During the first few years of life, a child’s brain forms synapses at a faster rate than any other time in life. At age two or three, a child’s brain has up to twice as many synapses as it will have in adulthood. Repeated use strengthens synapses; repeated action forms habit. The surplus connections are gradually eliminated throughout childhood and adolescence, a process known as pruning. This means that there is great opportunity to set a child up well for life by guiding them to develop good habits by repeated action in their early years. In a home, this could look like inculcating habits of picking up after oneself, helping out with chores, speaking kindly and respectfully, and expressing gratitude and concern for others.

There is still hope and grace for us who are older, in the concept of neuroplasticity - the ability of the neural networks in the brain to change. While our neural networks are more solidified than a child’s, we can rewrite neural pathways by intentional repeated different action. In other words, we can stop bad habits by replacing them with good habits.

As with everything else in parenting, it has to start with me. Some things I’ve been working on include waking up early, driving without the help of realtime GPS guidance, and responding with a gentle tone even when I’m in a snappy mood. Incorporating these small habits into the ebb and flow of our daily intentional rhythms has borne fruit, and I see how I’ve grown alongside my children over the past year. This, is how we cultivate virtue.

Buying supermarket flowers; pursuing beauty

If, like me, you grew up in the evangelical church tradition, or have simply lived in the past few decades, you’d likely be wary of “pursuing beauty”. After all, we are told not to judge people by their physical appearance. Even the Bible says “charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting” (Proverbs 31:30). We should be focused more on function and utility rather than appearances. Or should we?

Beauty is an idea I’ve been wrestling with. If it is something to be disregarded, if it is not objective, if it is not worthwhile, then why are we all similarly enraptured by the colours of sunset, or the majesty of snow-capped mountains? Such an encounter attracts us, delights us, evokes great joy.

One of my favourite hymns has a line that goes “Tune my heart to sing Thy grace”. I’m discovering that my heart is being tuned when I surround myself with beauty, as it shapes my desires and longings for what is good and true.

I can find no words adequate to explain beauty - and perhaps that is just it, because it is not something to be explained. One of the best ways to captivate the imagination is through story, and so I will leave you with just that: Andersen’s tale of The Nightingale (free to read online!).

And so, against the utilitarian mindset ingrained in me, I’ve started to buy flowers (from the supermarket) for the sake of presenting beauty in the home.

​

May your days be filled with beauty that takes your breath away,

​

On the blog

Looking for trip ideas? Check out our itineraries for Hanoi, Jeju and Kyushu! Or for a budget all-in family friendly resort just a short hop away from Singapore, this resort trip was our easiest family holiday!

... & visit my shop page for more recommendations!

P.S. You’ll hear from me via this newsletter next month, or you can follow along on the blog or Instagram. If this email landed in your junk mail, please remember to mark this my email address as “safe” or add to contacts so that it won’t happen again!