Harun and Gagak Food

Harun the Hunter has been busy lately. Every few days we'd find a carcass on the porch - usually a rodent, once it was the remains of a burung gagak.

Interesting that he would catch a gagak because usually the gagaks eat the rodent carcass. Perhaps Harun is moving "up the value (food) chain". In fact, Daddy usually would toss the rodent carcass out to feed the gagaks. So our code now is "Gagak Food!" whenever we find a little present from Harun on our garage floor.

Last week, we didn't even notice until much later in the day that Harun had left HALF (the bottom half) of a baby gagak food right next to Daddy's car. Wan and I only noticed it after Daddy had left for work and when we were about to go to Atok's house. At first we thought it was a baby bird and then we realised there aren't any feathers about. And the tail was too thin and long. Ewww.

I'm quite sure it's Harun, because I hardly think Thomas is, well, as inclined to go hunting:

Happy Hunting, Harun!

Two Weeks On ...

Well, we've been maid-less for 2 weeks now and honestly, it's not so bad! Of course there's more to do around the house and it's puasa now too, so that makes it more tiring, but really? How ... much ... more ... t..i..r..i..n..g ... can ... i..t.... b...e...zzZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZzzzZZz....

Huh? What?

Sorry, where was I? Anyway, yes, not having a maid is definitely tiring but it's not like I'm breaking new ground here. Lots of people do it (and with many more children, I might add) and in the West it's unheard of for regular middle-class folks to have a live-in maid.

I find that I'm actually more efficient with my time, now that I have less of it. For example, Adik's class at Tumble Tots ends at 10:55am. By the time we actually leave the mall it's about 11:05am (hey, have YOU tried ushering a fidgety 2-year old to the car?) and it takes us about 20 minutes or so to get home. That gives me about 15 minutes before I have to fetch Abang from kindergarten. However, that day, I also had to mail some letters, deposit a cheque and go home to hang out the laundry before fetching Abang (better to do all that with just 1 boy attached to me and not 2). Adik and I managed to do all that AND with time to spare when we got to the kindergarten!

Then another morning, after our usual breakfast routine, I realised that I only had half an hour before leaving the house to hang out the laundry (hmmm, seems like there's a lot of laundry to do), water the plants, shower, get Adik ready plus pack his essentials - diaper, pacifier, biscuits and drink. And guess what? I made it in half an hour!

One interesting observation I've had since Bibik left was that Adik seems to have regressed in his toilet training. In fact, I can safely say it's gone down the toilet. (AAHHAHAHAHAHaaaaa ... man, I need to get out more.)

He's probably a bit upset/ confused that she's not around anymore so I've been mopping up plenty of peeing accidents. But now I know better than to let him sit on the sofa or carpet for a long time. Let's just say Fabreeze is my new best friend. Plus he's pooping in his diaper again! Argh! Back to training.

Dinner time is also done in a very assembly line method. "Here are your highchairs, here are your cups with water, and here's your food, GO! Don't ask for anything sweet to drink until AFTER dinner because a) it'll kill your appetite and, b) I have stuff to clear up, laundry to bring in and what not." Notice the gap between Abang's and Adik's highchairs - it's to keep some peace. And yes, ignore the fact that Adik is only wearing his pull-ups.

So we're surviving, although puasa month makes it a bit harder to blog as often because I try to get to sleep early to wake up early to makan.

Daddy Masa Kecik

Ant J found some old - and I mean OLD - photos of Daddy (and Ant J, too, but I don't think I'll be allowed to post those) when he was a wee young 'un. The photos really are black and white, by the way, they haven't been Photoshop-ed or Picasa-ed except to brighten and crop. I found some similar ones of Abang, but in colour of course.

Check these out.


Daddy focusing intensely on a magazine.


And here's Abang with a Fortune magazine when he was about 2 years 3 months old, just a few weeks before Adik was born.

Daddy on his bicycle.

And here's Abang on his bicycle too!

My favourite picture which shows so obviously where Abang inherited his green thumbs from.

Next time I'm at Atok's house, I'll have to dig up some old photos of myself. I've been told that Adik looks exactly like that!

Isn't Initiative Good?

When I fetched Abang from kindergarten last week, his principal sent him to the car. My first thought was Oh-oh, she must have a message for me.

Ha! I was right. She walked with him to the car holding his English Activity Book. Then she showed me some pages which he had done.

"Um, this is his activity book and he's already done the pages for letters 'P' and 'Q' which the teacher hasn't gone through with them yet. Plus he's done the writing in colour pencils. So actually he's not supposed to do the activities yet."

Then she turned to Abang and said, "Remember, don't do the pages after the homework, ok?" Uh-huh, yeah. Reminding "him" indeed!

I was too surprised to say anything more than, "Oh, ok." I think Abang may have felt a bit betrayed because I actually ok-ed him doing all that. I remember when he was doing the homework for the letter 'O' - which included half a page of writing the words beginning with that letter and another half a page of activities/ colouring - he finished it so fast and wanted to go on and do the following two pages.

There didn't seem to be anything wrong with that, in fact I was rather pleased that he wanted to do more than the homework assigned to him. I figured, he was obviously enjoying himself so why stop him?

The last thing I want to do is to 'stifle' him by telling him "You're not supposed to do more than you're told to." I think that would just dampen his spirit. As it is, he doesn't particularly like writing or colouring so when he offers to do more than required I encourage it.

Perhaps next time I'll whip out a different activity book when he feels the sudden surge of initiative.

Bye-bye, Bibik!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I was busier than expected at work, so whatever free time I had was used up to ease the Mommy Guilt (i.e. spending time with the boys including Daddy) as well as attending to Household Administrative Matters (i.e. paying bills, some of which were overdue!).

Anyhow, as you can tell from the title of this post, our maid Bibik has left us to go home for good. We sent her to the LCCT on Friday morning and I was glad that she was happy and excited to go home although I knew she would definitely miss the boys - especially Adik.

She arrived when Adik was exactly 2 months old and in the car on the way back from the Maid Agency she coo-ed at Adik and he smiled back at her. What a lovely way to welcome her to our family. Abang took awhile to get used to her, being 2 and half years old at that time he was firmly attached to his Daddy, Wan and Mummy - in that order - and this complete stranger was, well, a stranger. Still, over time, they got to know each other better and by the night before her departure he was hanging out in her room with her, watching and "helping" her do some last minute packing, giving her the weighing scale to weigh her luggage and generally spending some final moments with her.

We had already prepped him during the week that "Bibik is going back to Indonesia and she won't be coming back to our house" so he understood what was going on. We told Adik the same thing but being much younger he didn't - still doesn't - really fully grasp what it meant. Once in awhile now Adik will ask for her, "I want Bibik!" or he'd go to her room and call for her, "Bibik? Bibik?" So we just keep explaining to him where she is.

The morning we sent her to the LCCT was rather extraordinary. First, the Maybank near our house didn't open until 10am and I had planned to change her money for her before we left for the airport at 9:30am.

So on the way to the airport we had to stop by another Maybank slightly further from our house which I didn't want to do because parking there is impossible. I had to do the unthinkable and double-park, ran in to the Bureau de Change and asked for some Rupiahs. They had only half the amount I needed so I said Never mind, I'll take whatever you have.

At the airport, the check-in queue was the longest of all the queues. That bought me some time to go walkabout with Adik to change the rest of Bibik's money for her. When we got back, they had barely inched forward. Wan and I decided to pump the boys up with some fries at McDonalds, ye ole standby. Finally, it's Bibik's turn to check-in! She had to go immediately to the departure gate and we said our thank yous, goodbyes, she hugged and kissed the boys and went in.

When we were walking to the exit, I saw the sky outside look very hazy. Hmm... I don't recall it being hazy lately. Aaargh! It's not haze ... it's ... it's ... very very heavy rain! And none of us thought we'd need an umbrella because it was bright and sunny when we arrived. Oh well, nothing for it, Mummy will just have to run in the rain to get the car. But first, let's pay for parking at the Autopay station.

Dig, dig, dig. I could have used an excavator in my handbag and still not find the parking ticket. Oh no, I must have left it in the car. Sigh.

I ran in the heavy rain and was completely soaked by the time I got to the car. (Honestly, if I had bigger b**bs I could have won a wet t-shirt competition.) I looked around for the ticket and couldn't find it. Checked on the ground (yes, in the rain) around the car in case I dropped it and it wasn't there. Spent a good 10 minutes looking for it, including looking in my handbag for the third time. Finally, I dumped the entire contents of my handbag onto the passenger seat and went through each item to make sure it wasn't the parking ticket.

That's when I saw it. A chip coin. A @#$% chip coin! No wonder I couldn't find it, I was looking for something that didn't exist! Ok back out into the rain, only this time with an umbrella, to the Autopay station, paid for parking, collected Wan, Abang and Adik who were kept occupied with Smarties and M&Ms. Hooray for funpacks.

We got home, fed the boys and I put Adik down for a nap on our first maid-free day. It's not been too bad so far. I think we'll be just fine.

A Very Happy Birthday

Cuz turned 10 last week! It's amazing - I remember very clearly going to the hospital just after he was born and seeing him in the nursery. And now he's 10 years old already.

His birthday party was at Atok and Cikgai's house today. His mom limited his invitees to just 3 classmates and it so happened they are all boys. So it was just as well that he only invited 3 of them because they created such a ruckus! Bear in mind that I alos have 2 boys, plus AJ; then our cousin and his wife brought their 3 sons as well. Our auntie and uncle showed up with 2 of their grandchildren - a girl and a boy. The poor girl was SO bored because she was the only girl at the party! And our family is so "boy-heavy" that we have no "girl toys" at all.

One of Cuz's classmates who came for his party is a boy called Nabil. For some reason, Abang really took to him and was happily telling us that he has a "new friend". After the party it was Nabil this and Nabil that; quite cute really. I may have mentioned this before, but it's interesting how Abang gets along very well with older children. At home he talks more about his friends who are in the 5- and 6-year olds class, as well as the primary school children who have siblings in his kindergarten and are there for "full day", which means daycare.

Adik managed to catch a 45-minute nap which was actually pretty good considering the all ruckus. The aquaplay was set up and Adik was sooooo happy playing it, especially after the bigger boys decided playing some gory computer game was more fun and left Adik to play by himself. This was one of the times when Abang asked me, "Have you seen my friend? The one in the blue shirt." (That would be Nabil. I really hope Abang doesn't talk in his sleep tonight.)

Other than that, I'm pleased to say I've started making cupcakes again. I did try to make excuses due to my 'finger accident' but no go. This time I experimented with different colour icing which gave Abang green teeth for awhile and Adik a purple mouth before it got washed off. We even borrowed some to put on the chocolate birthday cake.

A fun (for the kids) but tiring (for the adults) day!

Hoping for a Better Week

So last Thursday I had a fight with my razor blade and I lost. Badly. And it's making me typr with lors of miatskfe

After a weekend of resting and enjoying my all-time favourite mini series, I rather dreaded Monday morning not unlike having the Monday Blues but on a Sunday Night.

I don't know when or how I angered The Jinx Gods but they must have really had it in for us. For on Monday morning, I was all set to send Abang to kindergarten and ... my car wouldn't start.

No crank or anything, just a little 'click' when I turned the key. I turned the key again and it did the same thing. I thought I'd try it for the third time and still no luck. Then a message flashed before my eyes: CAR BATTERY DEAD. NO AMOUNT OF WISHING WILL HELP.

I ran upstairs and told Daddy, "Houston we have a problem. My car won't start."

"You'll have to send Abang in my car then," was his reply.

I was very nervous because I'd never driven Daddy's car before. It's one of those automatic with a manual transmission. Or is it a manual with an automatic mode but without a clutch? I don't know. All I know is I was very tense driving it to Abang's kindergarten. And so was he. (Daddy, not Abang. Oh wait. Abang too.)

In the meantime I called AAM and they said they'll arrive in an hour. But those lovely folks at AAM actually arrived within 25 minutes! Wonderful. After checking and doing what they do, the nice "Uncle AAM" told me that the battery is actually rosak and will be changed under warranty.

Yay!

But there's a catch. They're out of stock and I can only get one "petang nanti".

Alamak - now how do I fetch Abang from kindergarten? Our regular Childcare Outsourcing Consultants, i.e. my parents, said they'd be out and about - from Shah Alam to KL - all day. So Mummy had no choice but to do some exercise and take a 10-minute walk to fetch Abang. His teachers were quite surprised to see me turn up sporting a hat and an umbrella and exclaimed, "Wa... so good! Mummy is exercising!" I was like, "Actually no, my car battery died and AAM can't get me a new one until evening." They were most sympathetic. Oh yes, then on the way home he needed to pee - his exact words were: "Mummy tak tahan I want to kencing" - but didn't even make it to the drain so he walked the rest of the way home in wet shorts and shoes.

Still, technology is wonderful. Even though I was house-bound the whole day I managed to get some urgent work delivered just by coordinating via e-mail and sms. Lovely!

I suppose that's the good news of the whole day.

Daddy arrived home from work well before the AAM guy arrived with my car battery ("petang", my ass, more like "senja"). So I had to drive Daddy's car - again with tense shoulders - to the nearby clinic to get my dressing changed. Daddy stayed home to wait for the AAM guy.

All's well and I went home.

This morning The Jinx Gods were visiting our area again and Daddy twisted / sprained his back. He tried to drive to work but only made it around the block and realised it's too painful so he'll stay home and rest. The painkillers he took during the day didn't seem to be very effective so after dinner I drove him to our friendly nearby clinic.

The doctor saw me at the reception and asked if my dressing had come off and I said no, actually it's my husband who needs to see you today!

Besides other medication, Daddy got a painkiller shot too, just like Mummy last Thursday, and I can honestly say those painkiller shots are a real pain in the ass.

So now I'm just keeping a low profile. Hopefully The Jinx Gods will go away.

(Oh yes, and this morning our housing area experienced a blackout leaving us with no electricity or Telekom line. But it was "only" for 2.5 hours so it's hardly worth talking about.)

North and South

No, I'm not referring to Abang and Adik.

I'm actually watching the 1985 production of John Jake's North and South starring Patrick Swayze, James Read, Kirstie Alley, Forest Whittaker, Jonathan Frakes and a whole host of other big names in Hollywood.

It was just as a by-the-way thing that I mentioned to Daddy that the next time anybody we know goes to the US maybe we can look for the DVDs on Amazon and order them.

And because Daddy's The Best, one day he surprised me with a hey-dear-look-what-I-have-for-you and lo and behold, it was North and South! I practically squealed with delight. Or maybe it was a very loud giggle. Anyway the surprise was just in time too, for me to watch it during my downtime this weekend. We outsourced the boys to alternate grandparents while I "rested" to let my finger heal from the accident.

Before watching it this time, though, I had to force myself to lower my expectations a little because many times, things we remember as kids that were SO GREAT turn out to be not-so-great when we're adults.

Well, it's as good as I remember it to be! The first time I saw it, it was shown on TV (can't remember if RTM or TV3) back when I was in Form 4 in 1987. Not only did I watch it faithfully every week but we also videotaped it so after that initial screening I watched it several times over.

So now I have to force myself to ration this out, otherwise I might end up doing a marathon. (Although with normal school days and my part-time work this coming week, I won't have any trouble "rationing" it out.)

If you'll excuse me, I have to go ... uh ... brush my teeth. Yes, that's it.