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Hobbies I picked up due to kids

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By Rena
My goal for this year is really simple. It's simply to focus on spending time with my kids, and myself. So, in other words, I'm looking at doing just things I really really like. 

I was looking back at my past posts. One of them, I talked about finding passion from impulse, where I find a hobby I truly enjoy by trying out. I named 5 hobbies in this post here: (1) gardening (2) Singing/ Music (3) Teach (4) Write (5) Artist. 

I kept saying that I did nothing, but I realize how untrue that's. Looking back, thanks to my kids and this blog, I actually did lots of those.

Singing/ Music
I have been teaching my daughter piano, and whenever she comes home with a new song she learnt in school, I'll play it on the piano while she sings. Of course, I also taught her formally. Best book to use is John Thompson's books. I started learning the piano with these books and I realized why. By repeating the few notes so often, the little ones will know those few notes by the time they complete the book. And what's more, they get to play songs despite those super easy notes, motivating them to play. 

I also taught her ukulele, though she is still stuck at C- chord and of course Am7 chord (where you press nothing!).  Well, at least she can play hot- cross bun now on the ukulele (with just C- chord. I know it sounds better with another G chord, but you still can do it with just C- chord).

Teach
Thanks to my kids, I have been teaching consistently since 2015. If I were to add that to my resume, it would be 5 years experience in teaching pre- school students. Subjects taught - English, Chinese, Math, Programming, Science, Arts, Nature, Playing, Eating, Toilet training and more.  Experienced in preparing the curriculum and teaching materials for lessons. 

Art
My daughter loves art, and thanks to her, I am exposed to a wide variety of art. From the usual drawing and painting, to making soap, jewelry making, pottery, clay dough figurines and more. Some of her art are quite well done, and I'm proud that she could come up with her own design as well (instead of simply copying the design from books).

Write
I haven't written much. Perhaps, the best place for writing is actually this blog. So I'm thankful I started this blog, and wrote, despite inconsistently.

Gardening
Well, my son (who is 3 years old today) had a homework assignment to grow green bean plants. And I guess, that's some form of gardening as well. 

Thanks to....
So this is actually the report card of my hobbies for the past years. And many of them were THANKS TO MY KIDS! If not for my kids, I would probably still be busy running on the treadmill without really understanding why. Without them, I would probably have not realized so many other aspect of life. 

While many people would see it as I'm the provider for my kids, I see it as my kids are the provider for my soul. Without them, I wouldn't have exposure to so many more things. 





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