Sick Kittens

It's not been a very good week for pets, I must say. First, AJ's hamster, Rex, died due to unknown causes. Then, over the weekend, Thomas disappeared.

He was hanging around the house as usual on Saturday evening. Later that night, he wasn't at home and we couldn't find him the next day either. Come Sunday night there was still no sign of him. We started to prepare ourselves for another cat going to the Big PAWS in The Sky, just like our previous cats.

Then on Monday morning he showed up in front of our gate, not too scraggly but somewhat quiet, not very energetic and even hesitant to come in to the compound. I usually give the cats a bath after a disappearing act like that because they usually would have wandered further than usual and/ or got into a fight and were too scared to come home.

After the bath he disappeared again until this (Tuesday) morning. He was hanging out outside our opposite neighbour's house, seemingly reluctant to come home. When I finally persuaded him to come in to our compound, he was walking very slowly and obviously unwell. Abang and I decided a trip to the animal hospital was called for.

We got there when it opened at 10am and after a check up, the vet informed us that Thomas was having a cough and slight fever. He administered one dose of medication (so I wouldn't have to do it!) and prescribed the rest for me to dispense at home. I even learnt a trick to do it since the medication came only in tablet form and not liquid. The Good Doctor suggested I stuff the tablet into some canned food and give just a little - not a lot - of the food to Thomas. That way, Thomas is more likely to eat up the piece with the tablet rather than eat up all the food and leave the chunk with the tablet inside.

Thomas wouldn't have any of that! When I tried it in the evening, he sniffed the food and walked away. Cheh. I ended up giving the tablet to him straight up, a'la Animal Hospital Vet. Looks like I'll be doing that the whole week.

Incidentally, Abang has been unwell too the past 5 days. He came down with a fever on Thursday and on Friday his paediatrician said Abang had tonsil infection. He's fine now, resuming kindergarten tomorrow.

From one sick kitten to another - looks like Nurse Mummy has yet another patient to look after for the next few days!

CSI Petaling Jaya

My nephew, AJ, is autistic. Sometime early this month, his therapists thought it would be a good idea to start a pet project at the centre where he and other children go for therapy. So they eagerly went out and bought 2 hamsters, the cage and other things the hamsters would need. They even bought the hamsters that were already in the same cage so that they would be used to each other.

Or so they thought.

Within 3 days of bringing them "home", one of the hamsters (Rex) had attacked and killed the other (Thomas). AJ and his therapist were the first on the scene to discover the body on a quiet Monday morning. It was quite obvious it was attacked by Rex because they were both in the same cage and, I was told, there were "no signs of forced entry". Plus, Rex had the opportunity although the motive is lost on us. AJ's dad had the unenviable task of cleaning up the mess and burying the body somewhere. Later he told us that it wasn't "spilt guts", it was Thomas' face. (Or Thomas' ex-face? Ex-Thomas' face? Ex-Thomas' ex-face?) There's another Eeww moment.

Although he didn't cry and claimed he was ok, AJ kept talking and talking and talking about it. Finally he said, "This is not a good day." My sister said if it were Cuz who saw all that spilled guts he would have definitely cried his lungs out, being quite the nature lover that he is.

Then, over the past weekend, Rex also died. My sister told me, "Rex died the other day. Undetermined COD." (CSI-watchers know that means cause of death.) Apparently he just died and nobody really knows why or how. My brother-in-law said, "Can't imagine what happened. No visible trauma."

CSI comes to PJ!

Incidentally, AJ celebrated his 8th birthday over the weekend. Happy birthday, AJ!

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

We caught a picture of Harun sleeping on top of Daddy’s car a couple of months back. Doesn’t he look like a roast chicken? Or maybe a chicken about to be roasted.

Once when Daddy was outstation, Harun would sleep on Daddy’s car, day and night, and even offered his kill (i.e. a dead rat) on the car’s rear wiper. I wonder if that’s his way of telling us he missed Daddy. Or perhaps that was just the most convenient place to stash the body. At first we were amused, then we were grossed out. (Our maid skipped the ‘amused’ part and went straight to the ‘grossed out’ part because she knew whose dirty job it was -is - to get rid of the carcass!)

The next day there was another carcass but this time it was on the floor just behind the car. Then we noticed the broken wiper arm. Uh-oh. Looks like Harun was actually having a go at his prey on the wiper arm.

Anyway, about free lunches. It’s mating season now and the "cat"-erwauling is getting to be very annoying. Luckily Harun and Thomas are both neutered, so they don’t go out looking for partners neither do they get into fights. Other tomcats that come across them just sniff them out curiously and then walk away. They’ve been very needy lately, wanting to stay close to us, probably because they’re a little freaked out by all the noise.

If that’s not bad enough, when other tomcats come over looking for food, Harun and Thomas usually just meekly let them have it.

Then they come running to us complaining, “That other cat took our food! And stole our milk, wa wa wa…” To the untrained ear it would sound like, “Meeeeee-yowwwwww! Meeeeee-yowwwwww!”

So inevitably we get strays coming over for what they think is a free lunch. But everybody knows there’s “no such thing as a free lunch”. Someone should inform those strays. Because once we get friendly enough with them, they’re going straight to the animal hospital to be neutered.

Snip-snip!

There’s a Mole in the Family!

And his name is … Abang.

It’s true. Abang has gotten me into trouble with Daddy on more than one occasion. The first time was when Daddy wanted to help Abang brush his teeth. Abang insisted on squeezing the toothpaste onto his toothbrush by himself.

Daddy resisted, “No, Abang, you might squeeze too much. This is something only adults should do.”

“But Mummy let me do it.”

Oh dear. Immediately I got The Stare. “Hey, no, wait a minute. I, um, well…” Suddenly I’m all flustered. The Stare continued.

“Ok, I only let him do that with the children’s toothpaste, not the regular Colgate,” I tried to explain myself while giving Abang The Stare, but it’s totally lost on him.

“Uh-huh,” Daddy’s not convinced at all.

“Little blabbermouth,” I muttered to myself. Daddy just laughed.

The next time, it was about putting my hair mousse on his hair. Same script – “But Mummy let me”, followed by The Stare only this time it was accompanied by a smirk.

“Hey, I choose my battles, ok? Anyway, I don’t let him put it on by himself, I do it for him,” again I had to justify myself. (And yes, occasionally Abang goes to kindergarten with spiky hair! He looks kinda cute.)

Last week it was, “But Mummy let me bring my toy to kindergarten.” I think as long as the toy is not too big and not obviously expensive, it’s ok. After all, some of the younger children bring their bantal busuk to kindergarten!

The best Blabbermouth Story was when we lost him at Tesco on Christmas morning. To cut a long story short, I made the mistake of asking him to wait at the water cooler while Daddy and I went grocery shopping. He got impatient and went looking for us. Eventually, a very nice Uncle Tesco took him, all cried out, to the customer service counter.

Needless to say, Daddy and I made absolutely sure this little (but very traumatic) incident didn't reach the grandparents. Unfortunately, Little Blabbermouth himself told the story to ALL the grandparents, the very people we were shielding the story from. Not to mention he told our maid, too, "Bik! Hari tu Abang hilang dekat Tesco, Bik!"

Blabbermouth indeed. Man, the grandparents gave us a lot of crap for that!

Photos from Yesteryear

Over the weekend I was in the depths of our store room looking for some paint when I found my stash of old photos (and I mean, O-L-D). So I've uploaded them.

Besides my kindergarten and Standard 1 class photos, I also found some of my kindergarten concert photos - quite by coincidence, doing a chinese dance just like Abang's school concert.

Have a good laugh!

The Joy of Giving

“I think he feels good when he gives something to others.”

That was my mother’s conclusion when I told her about Abang being the rather generous little boy.

Some months ago, Ant J bought a very nice IKEA light to put at her house which they use when he sleeps over. Ever since then he's been asking us to buy that same light to put in his room at home.

During the long school holidays, every time we went to IKEA, he’d ask for it.

“Please, Mummy, can I have this light? It’s very nice you know.” He’d pick it up and show me the light. Each time, I would say no. It’s either “You already have a light in your room, Abang” or “No, I don’t have money for that” or some other reason that I can think of on the spot.

And each time, my little angel will say “Ok” and put it back.

By the fourth time we went there, my resolve was starting to wane and I thought since he’d been pretty well behaved the past week or so, I would surprise him by actually agreeing to it. Right on cue, at the children’s section, he picked it up and asked for it. (And he also likes to play masak-masak there!)

“Hmm… well, I’m not sure whether we can get it for you, Abang.” (Cannot just give in straight away, right? Must haggle a bit first!)

“No, no, it’s not for me. It’s for Wan (my auntie). It’s for her room.”

Ok, this was a bit unexpected. But never mind, I played along since I was planning to say yes anyway. “Well, alright then, Abang. Let's buy it for Wan.” He was SO happy!

Near the checkouts he picked up a rattan ball and asked for that too.

“But we already got you the light. If you want, you can choose between the light and the ball,” I told him.

“No, the ball is for Adik. Kesian Adik, he doesn’t have this ball.” So is that sneaky, or is that cute? How was I supposed to say no? After all we want to encourage him to be generous and think of others. So I agreed.

When we got home, he excitedly told Daddy about the light. (Of course I had already briefed Daddy on the way home.) Then Daddy said, “Wow, cool! Come on, let’s go put it up in your room now.”

“No, Daddy, this is for Wan’s room.”

“Really? It’s not for your room?” Daddy’s quite good at portraying the innocent look.

“Ya. It’s for Wan.” And he has never asked for it again, or asked for it to be in his room. It’s still in Wan’s room and I think he’s very pleased for having negotiated the present for his Wan.

Similarly, he gave the rattan ball to Adik, “Here Adik, this is for you.” That ball is always referred to as “Adik’s” and Abang has never claimed ownership over it.

I have to admit, I did wonder if/ when he would start claiming those things are his. Oh, me of little faith!

All's Quiet on the School Front

Abang has been fairly easygoing lately. I expected a lot more resistance to going back to kindergarten after the long holidays, but I got barely a whimper. Resistance, I suppose, is futile.

All through the long school holidays he kept talking about "no more class" which such finality that I got the impression he thought his schooling days are over. In fact, whenever we used to fetch Cuz from school on Fridays, all Abang saw at the primary school were children running around, children playing, children snacking, children chatting with friends and children generally having a good time while waiting for their transport. So his idea of 'primary school' is 'having fun'. He even told me, more than once, "When I bigger I go to primary school and I will have NO MORE CLASS."

Oh boy. It is SO the opposite extreme of having "no more class" I wouldn't even know where to begin.

So back to present day reality. I decided not to send him to kindergarten on the very first day of school because it's usually very hectic. If it was anything like last year, his principal told me that they even had a clown come in to distract the children. That would have totally put Abang off going to kindergarten, and I'm sure his reaction would have been the same as that at his school concert.

Towards the end of the holidays I did set expectations, though, about going back to kindergarten. I would play up how he'd get to see his friends again, play with them, and how he can tell his teachers what he did and where he went during the holidays, etc. On the first official day of school, I would mention to Nenek (who was wondering why he wasn't in school) that Abang "gets to start school tomorrow".

So when D-Day arrived, he fussed a bit, but I managed get him showered and in the car. When we arrived, there were 3 new teachers waiting for the children at the driveway. Abang was a bit wary, but willingly walked in with me.

"This is promising," I thought, but I still braced myself for some major fussing. While sitting on the bench taking his shoes off - very slowly, the procrastinator - I kept the conversation going with him until one of his teachers from last year came out. He was so relieved to see her, he actually replied, "Good morning, teacher," when she greeted him good morning.

He went in with her and ever since then I have not had any resistance from him about going to kindergarten. Fingers crossed!

By the way, Abang found my old sunglasses from yesteryear and this is what he looks like wearing them:

He really enjoyed wearing them until Daddy said he looked like "Aznil" (as in the Astro fella) and immediately Abang took them off, put them down and said, "Not nice. I don't like."

Ha ha!

Things that Make You Go “Eeww!”

I thought after becoming a parent, I wouldn’t be so easily grossed out. Admittedly my "Eeww" Meter is not as sensitive as before, but still some things gross me out.

I remember when Abang was born, those first couple of days at the hospital Daddy and I basked in the glory of having someone else do all the diaper changing. Then we realised, Oh crap (pun intended), when we get home we’ll have to do all that ourselves, perhaps we should learn from the nurses while we’re here.

The nurse gave us such a strange look when we told her we wanted to “learn how to clean the baby’s bottom”. If I recall, it was a Bloody-First-Time-Parent kind of look. Anyway, it just so happened Abang did a MAJOR poop job. Like, Oh My God, it was all over the diaper and after the initial, “Eeeww!” my next thought was, how did something so small produce something so … so … nasty? And so much too!

Eventually we got used to it. I know many moms other than myself who don’t think twice about washing our children’s bottoms halfway through our meal and then after a thorough hand wash, just resume the half-eaten meal!

One thing that still makes me go “eeww” is when my mom swats a cockroach. No tools, no rolled up newspaper, no old Economist magazine – just her bare hands. EEEWWwwww!! I even have to look away when I know she’s about to pounce.

Then my latest “eeww” moment was when we had our plumber over a few months ago. We had a couple of clogged sinks and the drain hole in the shower stall was a little slow in draining the water.

When he was done with the sink, I told him about the drain hole in the shower stall. He flipped open the cover, shined his flashlight down the hole and said, “Aaahhh … ada batu la.” That’s when he REALLY grossed me out.

He stuck his hand and practically his whole arm down the hole to get the stone out. I stood there, wide-eyed, my “eeww” sound frozen in my throat, wondering if I should run away screaming or just stand there and politely nod, “Oh, ya ke?”

I chose the latter.

He went on, “Waa… banyak besar ini batu! Ini masa buat rumah punya batu dia masuk situ.” He looked almost pleased with his find. Then he proceeded to wash it.

I can’t imagine what for. Eeww!

Who Says Civil Servants Don’t Deliver?

Adik and I had a very interesting visit to the immigration office at Subang airport recently. It was interesting because we only spent 10 minutes there! (Ok, 12 minutes if you include the time it took to go buy him a snack at the canteen.)

My passport expired so I had to apply for a new one. I know the immigration office there has a Kaunter Khas for pregnant ladies, applicants with babies and very young children (under 2 years old, I believe) and senior citizens. Basically they have a queue to themselves, making it faster for them to get their business done.

Ok, I admit, I brought Adik so that I can use the Kaunter Khas. It turns out I need not have. You can see in the picture the many rows of empty seats behind Adik. Not to mention the excellent parking spot we got.

Last year, when I took Adik and my auntie to the same office to get their passports done prior to our Brunei trip, the office was full of applicants. It was standing room only (almost like a rock concert except no screaming or flailing of arms) and the play area for children was packed. However, with the Kaunter Khas (I had a baby AND a senior citizen) it only took us 20 minutes to get things sorted.

I remember being so impressed – not only did they have a dedicated counter for the 3 special groups of people, they also had a play area for children (this is the immigration office, remember!!) AND a baby room. Admittedly the baby room is just a partition with a sliding door that has a table to change baby’s diaper and a chair for mommy to nurse her baby.

Mothercare it ain’t, but then this isn’t their core business so I think they’ve done very well to provide all those facilities with the resources that they have.

Care to Talk?

Adik has been trying sooooo hard to talk. His babble goes on and on and it sounds almost like a real monologue except that the words just don’t mean anything. But his intonation is exactly what it would be in a ‘real’ conversation.

Several words do stand out, though. When he hears the gate opening and Daddy’s car pulling in, he goes, “Da-deee! Da-deee!”

The most often used phrase is “Dah! Dah!” (as in ‘sudah’) whenever he is done with something. If he’s full and can’t eat anymore, he repeats that and if you still try and feed him, he’ll pull your hand to the seat belt of his highchair, indicating that you please unbuckle him and let him down.

Similarly, if we’re watching TV and the credits start to roll at the end of the show, he goes, “Dah! Dah!”

“You’re right, Adik, it’s the end of the show. Fi-neeeeesh!” I gesture to him that the show is over and the Little Einsteins have gone home to have their dinner and rest. When I switch the TV off, he will either a) lie on the floor, stiffen up and scream, i.e. throw a tantrum, because he wants to watch some more TV, or b) point to the DVD remote control (not the TV remote control, clever little fella) saying “Deh! Deh!” which I think means, “There, it’s right there! That’s the one you want to use!” It pretty much depends on his mood I guess.

Other words he can say consistently include “Ta-toh” for Atok, “Ek-ga” for Cikgai (my mother), “Ba-ba” for Abang and – drum roll, please – “Mam-mee” for Mummy! Hooray! He has managed to say the magic “M” word. Occasionally it sounds more like “Muamm-mee” but it’s ok, I’ll take what I can get.

Last week, I took him to the playground and there were lots of older children playing there. He started babbling away, pointing to things, pulling me by my finger to the bottom of the slide indicating his need for some help to climb up the slide.

Then he saw some girls climbing up the slide and said, “Ka-ka. Ka-ka.” I guess that’s pretty close to “kakak”. He said the same thing once when we were at Tesco and the PA system came on with a lady’s voice making an announcement. He stopped what he was doing and listened very closely.

I asked him, “Who’s that, Adik?”

“Ka-ka. Ka-ka!”

The next few months – and years – should be interesting. He’s going to be one of those children who start talking late, but once they start, they can’t stop!

Sloths Unite!

I think this picture of Adik pretty much sums up the past few weeks for me. Slouching on the sofa watching some mindless politically incorrect children's show without any real urgency to "get anything done". Feeling extremely sloth-like, I didn’t do any of the work I had set myself to do and instead just basked in the glory of not having deadlines to meet and played with the boys a lot.

Yes, the boys are usually very active and boisterous, but even they know it's good to slow down once in a while. Well, once in a long while.

Anyway, since I'm having intermittent connection to blogger, I better not take too long with this post. (Something must be wrong with TMNuts.) Just some photos showing the boys relaxing and taking it easy.

We have much to learn from our children.

The Year That Was 2006

Since it's early 2007, I thought I'd recap the year 2006 and do it mostly in pictures, with some explanation. One year ago, Abang was only 2 years 9 months old while Adik was a mere 5 months old.

January 2006 saw us looking after 4 newborn kittens (born 22/12/05) after their mom, a heavily pregnant stray, found her way to our home. She had 2 boys and 2 girls and just for larks we gave them very traditional Malay names - Abu and Harun for the boys, Salmah and Tipah for the girls.

(Once they were weaned, we decided to give Salmah, Abu and their mom to PAWS and keep Harun and Tipah. Salmah and Abu were much 'cuter' so greater likelihood of getting adopted. Tipah was generally not in the best of health so we thought it best to look after her. She died though, sometime in May.)

That's Harun in the cage and Abu in the food bowl, while Salmah (left) and Tipah (right) try to get through the glass door to play with Adik.

There was also a trip to the Butterfly Park in KL and later that month Abang started kindergarten. Chinese New Year saw our family continuing the age-old tradition of visiting my mother's uncle and his family at Overseas Union Garden (OUG). We do that every year on the first day of Chinese New Year.

In April, we celebrated Abang's birthday at Megakidz. He had a blast, as did many of our friends' children who had to be pried away from the play area after the party!

The following month, Abang, Adik, Nenek, my auntie and I took a trip to Brunei to visit my parents. The boys had F-U-N! The grandmothers (remember, there were 3 on this trip) had even more fun buying kain ranging from regular inexpensive stuff to the phoo-shey silk. Ok, I admit, I bought a couple of pairs too.

Most of the time there we just drove around to see the sights and did some shopping.

Then in July we managed a family trip to Langkawi, made even more interesting when Abang came down with a fever that morning we left for the airport.

August saw Adik turning 1 year old! We held his birthday party at McDonald's although he was more interested in just playing while Abang was the one who wanted to blow the candles, sit on the birthday chair and be the Birthday Boy again.

The end of August saw us making yet another family trip, this time to Kuantan, as well as a "Merdeka Walk" organised by Abang's kindergarten to celebrate National Day.

Cuz celebrated his 9th birthday in September, also at Megakidz (I was told the venue changed many times!). See how Abang insists on being right in front of the cake? Somehow he managed to elbow his way past all the older and bigger boys.

The next few months were fairly uneventful, the boys were playing, swimming, doing regular little boy things. Except, of course, when Abang was admitted to hospital because he couldn't stop vomitting. Before you know it, the school year is over, Abang is dancing away at his kindergarten concert and it's practically the end of the year already!

Time flies when you're having fun, right?

Or, "Time's fun when you're having flies," one frog said to the other.

Cats & Kids, Kids & Cats

Whenever we take the children for a walk around the neighbourhood, inevitably Harun will follow us. He won’t follow us all the way, but maybe just around the corner then when he realises we’re going further than he’s comfortable with, he just turns around and goes home.

Thomas, as I’ve mentioned before, is a bit more sedate (and it shows!) so he generally prefers to just watch us from the garden.

“Yea, you guys go have your walk,” he’s probably thinking, “I’ll just stay here and … zzzz … be on … zzZZ …. guard duty … zzzZZZZzzzzzz.” What’s he guarding, the cat food from other cats? He does a fantastic job of that!

There was one time, though, when I took the boys to our neighbour’s house across the road to give them a fruitcake for Christmas and they both followed us there! When we came out both Harun and Thomas were milling about outside our neighbour’s compound, as close as they would get since our neighbour has a pretty big dog.

I haven’t got a picture of Adik doing a wrestling pin on Harun yet (Thomas just scarpers when he sees either of the boys), but it does remind me a lot of Abang when he was Adik’s age, playing with KKU.

The best thing was recently, after a nice evening walk, Harun decided he would try Adik’s stroller for a change. He looked really comfortable in it, until Adik found out.

“Hey!” Shove. “Gerroff my stroller!”

Non-toddlers like you and me would have just heard, “Ca-ca! Ungh ungh ay-ay-ay-ay!”

And so Harun’s comfort was short-lived. I’m sure he’ll try again soon.

First Day of School

Update: See the bottom of the post for old (OLD) kindergarten and Standard 1 photos!

Do you remember your first day at school? Strangely enough, I think I do. I’m not sure whether it’s exactly what happened but I vaguely remember bits and pieces of my first day at primary school, back when it was called “Standard 1”.

Here’s some background. All through kindergarten, I cried my lungs out. I cried practically everyday. And everyday my teachers had to do something different to pacify me. (Or maybe they had 5 different methods and just repeated it every week, of all the sneaky...) The method I remember best was taking me to the edge of the kindergarten grounds to watch the cars whizzing past on the Federal Highway. For some reason, that helped to stop the crying.

Anyway, when I started Standard 1 I remember crying only once and from then onwards I didn’t cry anymore. It’s like I found the “OFF” switch. Actually, it was a little boy who helped me find the "OFF" switch.

Nudge-nudge-wink-wink? Hardly.

The class had been told to line up in a straight line. Remember how you would stretch your arms straight out and put your hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you? I guess we did that. After putting our arms down and while waiting for our next instructions, something happened behind me and I got shoved towards the boy in front of me. He didn’t like that at all!

So he turned around and slapped me.

It’s a wonder I didn’t cry everyday in Standard 1 after that incident. That wasn't very nice, to say the least, but that stopped the crying didn't it? Obviously I survived and without too much psychological damage (I think). Children are very resilient, as I have found out in the past 3+ years.

The other thing I remember was wearing a brand new school uniform (isn’t it time the uniform was revamped to look more modern? For God’s sake, children wore the same thing 30 years ago!). It was scratchy and stiff and not very comfortable. The only time I felt comfortable was wearing the PE uniform of comfortable cotton t-shirt and shorts.

Looks like I have to go hunting for some 30 year old photos …

Kindergarten Class of 1977

Standard 1 Class of 1978 - now where's the fella who slapped me...?