And Speaking of Numbers...

... Abang started doing Sudoku!

He's been exposed to it for quite awhile now because Cikgai absolutely loves doing Sudoku. And my mother is a very patient person who can sit down and explain to a very curious 4 year old boy what she's doing.

So yesterday I took the boys book shopping at KLCC and I stumbled upon a Sudoku For Kids book. They have Book 1 and Book 2 so I got Book 1 for Abang. When I looked at the first few puzzles, initially I thought they looked too easy with only a handful of blank squares. But then I realised Abang has never actually done it before so the last thing I want is for him to give up because it's too hard.

That evening I took the boys to the playground and Abang insisted on taking his new book along because "park is for playing so I must do my work first before playing". Needless to say that took me by surprise - probably been taught that at school - but I wholeheartedly agreed with him and replied, "Yes, that's right! Let's do Sudoku at the park and then you can play on the swings or slides."

I explained the concept to him and then we did one puzzle. I reckon he'll continue needing some guidance before he can do it on his own but I think it's great that he likes it. He's certainly enjoying his numbers and he absolutely loves going for his e.nopi classes.

He does his e.nopi homework without any/ much fuss, so I think that's great. So if he can also start doing Sudoku on his own, our smart little tike is just going to get smarter. Mummy and Daddy will have to work harder to keep one step ahead of him!

Sorry, Wrong Number!

A few days ago I received a miss call from an unknown number. No big deal - I usually ignore these things unless the person leaves a message. A few minutes later, I received an sms from that same number.

It basically said "Hi sayang, this is and I just got back from the kampung. I really miss you, give me a call."

As per my modus operandi, I continued to ignore it. After another miss call, I didn't receive anymore calls for about 10 hours. I thought maybe she'd got the correct number for her sayang or she got herself a new sayang.

Unfortunately (for me), it was not to be and I got another call and yet another mushy sms. I'm beginning to think it's one of those pranks where they try to get you to reply and then "berkenalan."

HAH! I'm too smart for that. For I have more important things to do with my time than to answer some unknown sms. Instead I shall ... blog about it.

Which is why I never reply these "wrong numbers".

How Time Flies (Part 2)

I can't believe it's already a week since Abang's concert. Talk about how time flies, here I was thinking what to blog about next and before you know it, it's already one week since he was singing and dancing on stage.

Anyway, lately both boys have been very keen on painting. We got some art blocks with ready printed pictures to be painted (for Abang) and regular colouring books (for Adik).



What's interesting is that they're both using paintbrushes that are over 30 years old. I kid you not. Ant J found her and Daddy's old paintbrushes which they used all those years ago (and we know it's theirs because their names are written/ carved onto the brushes) and now Abang and Adik are using them!

Rather amazing, if you ask me. As you can see from the picture, Mummy was still an amateur at that time, allowing them to paint using their regular clothes. So today, I gave Abang an old t-shirt of mine and Adik got one of Abang's old t-shirts. Also you may notice that Abang's, um, "masterpiece" is an entire page painted the same dull colour. Rest assured, he is doing much better now.

With the school holidays on, I think they'll be doing more and more painting!

Also, it's been 4 weeks since Daddy and I took both of them swimming. I could have sworn it was just last week. But then, last week we were not free; the week before we were at Janda Baik and prior to that Abang had concert practice.

It was great - both boys are definitely getting more used to the water and less nervous. Too bad Daddy and I both had to be in the water with them so we couldn't get any photos, but we do have some of them clowning around at home:



Hmm .... I'm not sure if Adik should be on the coffee table though. The other day he nearly tipped it over!

How Time Flies

UPDATE: Thanks Ant J for downloading the photos so that I could upload them! :)

Well, it's that time of year again! Yep, it's kindergarten concert time again. Doesn't time fly? Feels like just last month when we were all 'ooh' and 'aah' with Abang performing his first concert.

The welcome dance performed by the older children was full of muhibah-ness (actually, the entire concert was very muhibah). It started with 2 'dragons' made up of 2 Chinese and 2 Malay boys prancing on stage. Then a Chinese girl who did some pretty impressive gymnastic-like moves (involving very flexible body movements!) followed by an Indian girl doing some Indian classical moves and finally a Chinese girl dressed in a baju kebaya doing some Malay dance movements.

After that was a pom-pom dance blah blah blah not involving MY CHILD blah blah blah danced to the tune of "Push It" blah blah blah

And then, TA-DAH! It's Abang's turn, hooray! This year, he performed twice - one was a teddy bear song with his classmates and the other was a Chinese song with his Mandarin classmates.



The teddy bear song was very cute, featuring a GIANT white teddy bear in the middle of the stage. Of course we had to crowd around the front to take a gazillion pictures - as would any self-respecting proud parent - and I overheard the teachers discussing, "Are you sure the teddy bear won't fall over?" "No la, hope they just don't touch la."

It went very well, Abang was seen (and heard) singing the song while doing the steps in a way that could only be described as, well, perfect. Honest. Other kids? Peh.

After that was an animal show and then, there it is! Abang's Chinese song performance. It started out rather like a recital where they did some movements and recited what sounded like a story. I was watching Abang very closely and could see (and even hear) that he was actually reciting the stuff in Mandarin just like the other kids. He had to refer to them a fair bit for the movements (see? I'm not so biased) but I was absolutely amazed that he had memorised the whole thing.


Only then did they do an actual song and dance. Again, I was amazed with his performance. Sigh ... makes us so proud!

(Just yesterday I overheard him humming that Mandarin song. I deduced that it's that song because I hadn't the foggiest what he was humming.)

We couldn't stay for the whole concert and graduation because Adik was getting fidgety. Or rather, Adik was getting more fidgety plus it started to rain and we were all pretty tired.

And in case you're wondering why there are no pictures - what self-respecting proud parent wouldn't take pictures at their child's concert - it's because Mummy is a blur case and returned the camera to Ant J without downloading the pictures first. If *ahem* Ant J would be so kind as to download them and send a few good ones to me, I could post them ... heheh ...

Abang, The Kind-Hearted (and Sleepy!) Boy

Under the defiance and other irritating 4-year old boy habits, Abang is an extremely kind-hearted little boy. It really makes us feel so proud and warm inside whenever he says these nice things.

For example, many times when we drive past a construction site, he would say, "Kesian the Uncle engineers kan? (To him, anyone wearing a hardhat is an engineer, which may be true sometimes but not when it's a construction worker.) They work so long and then his anak at home will be saying 'I want Daddy, I want Daddy'..."

So I chip in, "Ya, they do work very hard. And look, it's such a hot day today somemore kan?"

Then he continues, "Maybe we should go buy them some food, or something like that, or a drink, Mummy."

So sweet of him! Although I'm not too sure about turning up at a construction site with food and drinks for the 'Uncle engineers' so I just praise him for being so thoughtful and suggest maybe we do that for the security guards that man our housing area instead.

Last Sunday was Wan's birthday. If I'm not wrong, she just turned 66. We had already told the boys on Saturday that it would be Wan's birthday the next day. As soon as he woke up, Abang wished her a Happy Birthday and invited her to go shopping for the TV that she's been wanting to buy for her kampung house, to replace the one that's gone bust.

"Takpa Wan, kalau Wan tak cukup duit, Abang punya Yippie (that's his coin box) ada banyak duit. Can use that to buy your TV."

How do you NOT give him whatever he wants at that point in time, right? A car? Sure! Your own Astro? No problem ... Of course, he has offered his coin box savings to Atok to buy an air-conditioner for Atok's lounge but I suspect that could also have been in self-interest.

The latest incident was when we got our new cooker oven delivered to the house. 2 very friendly and helpful gentlemen first carried the old one out before bringing in the new one. Then they reconnected the gas, tested each burner and showed us how to light the gas oven. I negotiated with (i.e. paid) them to help us send the old oven back to Atok's house because Cikgai wants to use it for her 'wet kitchen'.

As they were about to leave, Abang came up to me, "Mummy can I whisper something to you?"

"Sure, what is it?"

Then he leaned in and whispered, "Why Wan don't give the Uncles some kueh for Hari Raya?"

I was so proud of him and actually rather ashamed of myself for not thinking of it first! Unfortunately, by that time they were already at the gate and it was too late so it didn't happen.

But let that be a lesson to me not to forget next time.

Spending the Day in the Car

Ant J joined the four of us for a trip to Janda Baik today. Our good friend invited us for their open house and we even packed everyone's swimming gear plus pool toys for a splash in the pool before we set out on a leisurely drive home.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.


Unknown to us, there were roadblocks all over the city, slowing traffic down to a near halt. We left the house at 1:30pm and only finally reached the house in Janda Baik at 3:30pm. First, there was a roadblock on the KL-Seremban Highway. Then, it was jam from Desa Petaling all the way until the old Sg Besi airport, although we donated RM2 to Samy Vellu's Retirement Fund and used the SMART Tunnel and emerged on Jalan Tun Razak in front of RHB. It was fine but only until the elevated part of Jalan Tun Razak just before IJN.

Then we crawled to the Jalan Pahang roundabout after which it was ok, i.e. lots of cars but still moving, and then through Gombak to come out on the MRRII. As soon as we got onto the MRRII it was chock-o-block again. Luckily, the Genting turn off was the next exit.


After that it was ok, but we could see the jam on the opposite side of the Karak Highway, once right before the toll due to another police roadblock and then another about one kilometre down due to a pretty horrific accident.

All in all it took us 2 hours to get to Janda Baik, although the sight that greeted us was quite worth it:


Coming back was worse! It basically took us 3 hours to get home. So in total, we were out for 6 hours, 5 of which were spent on the road and only 1 at the open house.


What a day to be out and about...

Happy Deepavali

A belated Happy Deepavali!

As it was a public holiday yesterday, Daddy and I thought we'd take the boys to check out Pavilion in KL - goodness knows Mummy needs to get out more, eh.

We fully expected the rest of Klang Valley to have the same idea we did, which is to check out a new mall on a public holiday, so we were quite prepared to just come home if the entrance to the parking stretched for a gazillion miles a'la Midvalley Megamall.

It was just a little jam on Jalan Bukit Bintang but getting into the car park was no problem. There were many people, but not insanely so. We got into the mall near the supermarket and, it being Malaysia, the restaurants and food court were jam-packed with people stuffing their faces. And then I saw throngs of people outside J.Co Donuts and I was wondering like what's going on there?

Apparently they sell some "super doughnuts" (as we now refer to it) which make people queue up about 30-deep and God knows for how long to get some.

Well, we were just there to check it out and see what the Pavilion is about. It's quite nice, although I think it lacks resting places. The shops which are new are quite a novelty and it's generally got a nice feel to it. Daddy and I were amazed at how many young children and babies can sleep amidst all that noise!

Nice but a bit tiring. Maybe next public holiday we'll go and see what's at The Gardens at Mid Valley.

Standing Up For Yourself

Ever since Adik was born, I've always tried to make sure that Abang is a good Abang to Adik - loves him, "protects" him, helps him out, etc. So of course when Abang gets a little overzealous (read: bully) I step in to nip the problem in the bud.

Unfortunately, that may have inadvertently made Adik a bit of a wimp, always running to Mummy at the slightest incident. After awhile I decided not to be so quick to admonish Abang especially if it was Adik who provoked Abang. I know, it's very unfair to Abang to always hear "Adik is very young, he still doesn't understand..." so I make sure that Adik is similarly admonished.

Sometimes I just let it be if it's not a major incident, to see what Adik would do if he were by himself with no Mummy to run to. I think I'm seeing some results.

Lately, if they're by themselves in the lounge and I'm in the kitchen, when I hear them start to get in each other's way, more often than not I will hear Adik say, "No, Abang, no! Abang no!"

Let the pushing and shoving begin!

My First Conference

Today I attended my first Parent Teacher Conference. This past week has been 'exam week' at Abang's kindergarten and only the 3-year olds were spared.

I just shrugged it off when he told me that he had "exams" because these assessments/ tests/ exams can't be a big deal for a 4-year old. And I'm glad I didn't get all flustered about it because during the Parent Teacher Conference, his principal told me that after the instructions were read to him he just went ahead and did it in 10 minutes flat. Apparently, some of his classmates got very nervous and some started crying! Poor things! (I guessed that they have older siblings whom they have observed getting stressed over exams.)

As expected, Abang did very well and so I asked my usual question to his principal: how is he doing, socially? Does he get along with the other children? Is he friendly, etc?

"Oh, he's doing very well," came the reply. "He's very friendly with the others, extremely polite and well-mannered. In fact, some of the other children are learning from him how to be polite."

I almost fell off my chair.

She continued, "We love to hear him talk. It's very cute the way he talks. Today I asked him why he didn't come to school yesterday and he let out this big sigh and said 'Hai-yoooo.... sooo many things la teacher...' which made us all laugh."

So I am very pleased to give a glowing first progress report for Abang!

Proud to be Malaysian

Daddy and I watched P. Ramlee The Musical last weekend and really, it makes us Proud to be Malaysian!

It was absolutely wonderful, the delivery was very powerful and when the love songs were being belted out, I got chills even. The only negative thing about it was the difficulty in getting tickets. Not because they were sold out, but because the ticketing agent was not up to standard.

The website is not easy to navigate, it looks and feels like it was developed by a student and their staff don't seem to be well trained to handle customers, judging by my telephone interaction with them. I could go on and on but I won't.

Suffice to say the Musical was well worth the suffering I went through to get the tickets. Apparently there are still seats left, do check out http://www.ticket2u.biz/ (but let me warn you here and now: This website is quite kambing). Which reminds me I should give feedback to the organisers about this.

Also find out more about the actual musical at http://pramleethemusical.com/

Proud to be Malaysian!