Happy Birthday, AJ!

AJ recently turned 9. Imagine that, 9 years old! I distinctly remember going to the hospital to visit my sister after she had given birth to him, such a tiny little thing. Cuz was 1 year 5 months old when his brother was born and he's now a lanky 10-and-a-half-year old boy.

My sister organised The Amazing Chase Petaling Jaya modeled after The Amazing Race but toned down to accommodate children as participants.

Here are some snapshots:

Bloggable Pictures

I'm just posting some rather nice bloggable pictures tonight. Not really in the mood to be writing much because I've been having some pretty bad gastric pain the last few days. Having to eat every 2 hours (otherwise I feel hungry and the gas and pain start up) with the associated wind and stomach discomfort makes me feel like a colicky newborn baby!

So here they are:

Energetic Abang!


Adik, the Ice Cream Boy.


Boys with too many toys, so they end up playing with the box instead.

Isn't this funny? I caught Percy napping in that position but then when I opened the window to snap his picture, he woke up and gave me this stunned deer-in-front-of-headlights look. Probably turned out better than if I got a picture of him actually sleeping. Percy is a semi-stray that came over for food and we managed to catch him and have him neutered (our community service). So he comes over everyday now looking for payback.


And, finally, here's one of Harun (everyone who comes to the house says, "Besar, kuching tu, kan?") resting on his favourite tree.

Sign O'The Times

It's a sign o'the times, when:

1 - I forget that my own son Abang is turning 5 soon and have to be reminded by his teacher (his teacher, of all people!) that he "is 5 years old already, so will be coming out of class a bit later" when I turn up at the 4-year old dismissal time at his kindergarten.

2 - I forget that Abang's closer to 5 than 4 and keep buying him clothes for 4-year-olds.

3 - I rejoice when Adik doesn't have a peeing accident in the lounge (or worse, on the sofa) and runs to the loo and helps his Mummy save the environment and some diaper money.

4 - I start glaring at drivers who speed, and not just those who drive Alfas heheh

5 - An extra diaper, wet wipes and tissue paper are more important things to carry in my handbag than compact powder and lipstick.

6 - I no longer tut-tut kids who throw tantrums in public, nor do I silently curse their parents for bringing such ... such ... terrors around, annoying other people.

7 - I get all happy whenever it's a blisteringly hot and windy day because that means the laundry will have no problem getting dry. (Yes, sad, I know.)

8 - I'm proud to drive a big van even though I only have 2 children.

9 - Directions are best given to me in relation to schools, kindergartens, tuition centres and playgrounds. E.g. "Ok, after the playground take a left where there's a montessori kindergarten, straight down past the sekolah menengah then you'll come to some shop lots. See the tuition centre there? Ah, ya, just 2 doors down from there."

10 - Daddy and I talk about the boys (or other people's children) whenever we go out on our date. Sigh, what to do!

It's a Sign O'The Times, indeed!

The Hungry Chatterbox

Abang has been quite the chatterbox lately. He goes non-stop, telling us about anything and everything - what he dreamt, what happened in kindergarten, who did what, his favourite cartoons, the computer game he's playing - which somehow or other is linked to the previous topics mentioned above ...

After awhile, Wan and I had to ask him to slow down. He did, for all of 5 seconds and then he revved up again!

Non-stop, I tell you. I finally had to ask him to stop talking for a few minutes because it was literally giving me a headache. I was telling Daddy that I feel so bad for asking him to stop because it's not like he was being intentionally annoying, but he just feels like there's so much to share with everybody. But it really was giving me a headache, especially when he's like that in the car.

He's also been a real hungry bunny. Perhaps he's making up for the time he had the stomach flu, or maybe he's going through a phase. But Daddy tells me it's just a prelude to when the boys become teenagers and they'll be eating everything and I have to start shopping at Tesco Extra instead of a regular Tesco.

Today for dinner, he had a whole bowl of rice with veg and chicken (and Wan is not the type to put small amounts of food in the boys' bowls). About 20 minutes later he saw a loaf of relatively fresh bread and asked for a slice of that which he duly finished 5 minutes later. Oh, while he was eating that he also said he wanted some jagung.

Wan and I just pooh-poohed that request and told him "Yes, yes, ok why don't you have a bath first then you can have the jagung after that" fully expecting him to forget about the jagung.

The first thing he said after I showered him was, "Yay! Time for jagung now."

And he ate one whole tongkol of jagung. Amazing!

Slow Down, Mummy!

Abang is known among family members to be rather forthcoming with "advice". Not to say it's a bad thing, but it takes some getting used to when you get told off by a 4-year old. In fact, he's been doing it since he could talk.

I remember when he was much younger - maybe 3 years old - he told my sister off for talking on her handphone while driving but without wearing a headset. And since he regularly gets told off for wasting water, lo and behold, it came back to bite me when I was running the shower to let the water get warm before bathing him and he said, "Mummy, you are wasting water."

Oops!

So now, before bathing him, I run the shower but let the water collect in a pail. Thanks for the tip, Abang!

Another time he chided me for "driving so fast". (I wasn't, really. Honest.) "Slow down la Mummy, you are driving so fast," he said in his usual like-duh-can't-you-see-what-you're-doing tone.

"It's not very fast, is it?" I asked.

"Yes laaa ... why you drive so fast, Mummy?"

That actually caught me by surprise a little. There's always so much to do and we're usually rushing from one place to another that "rushing" is almost automatic for me. When he asked me, I suddenly was at a loss for words. Why WAS I rushing, anyway?

So I said honestly, "I actually don't know why I'm rushing. We're not late for anything. Thanks Abang, we really should learn to slow down and enjoy the journey, kan?"

Even Adik in his own way is telling me to "stop and smell the roses". Or in his case it's "stop and smell the weeds that look like flowers". Whenever I take Adik for a walk he absolutely loves to stop and collect what he calls flowers. They're actually weeds. But it's so cute the way he says, "Adik nak get 'owers" and he bends down and slowly but deliberately plucks them from the ground.

When his hands are full then he passes them to me, "Mummy hold 'owers?"

A stretch that is normally a 1-minute walk would take 10 minutes. But I've learnt to slow down, so that's ok.

And I'm happy to hold weeds for my son.

Breakfast, The Most Important Meal of the Day

And for me, the longest too.

We normally have breakfast together but somehow or other I end up being the last to finish mine. My breakfast starts at around 7:30-ish in the morning and ends sometime around 10:30am. Not to say that I am sitting facing my food the entire 3hours.

Far from it. In fact, the reason I take that long is that I'm hardly at the breakfast table! It usually starts with tea and whatever we are having for breakfast that morning, e.g. nasi goreng, or roti canai, or french toast, etc. Then about halfway through one or both boys will require a trip to the loo and will, shall we say, take a long time.

Then there's the regular fight for a toy that needs to be resolved. Then there's the whining to nip, and recently it's been Adik who's been waking up on the wrong side of my bed.

Ok, another couple of mouthfuls of breakfast and it's time to get Abang ready for kindergarten. Shower, brush teeth, pack his bag, etc. I'm fortunate that all these tasks are usually shared between me, Wan and Daddy which is probably why I can even eat some breakfast at all.

Oh yeah, there are also the cats to be fed.

After leaving my half-eaten breakfast to send Abang to kindergarten, I come back to some peace and quiet and cold toast waiting to be eaten. And then there's the laundry all done and ready to hung out to dry! Yay!

I just realised that this is not unlike what my breakfast was like when I was a child. Except that I didn't have all these chores to do and I actually DID sit at the table for hours attempting to finish my breakfast.

Back then, apart from Milo, milk and toast, our breakfast included a half-boiled egg. I absolutely could not stand the taste or smell of that thing. But we were all made to finish it, by hook or by crook, no matter how long it took. So it would literally take me hours to finish it. Each teaspoonful had to be drowned by a big gulp of Milo or milk, after which I would need about 5-10 minutes to recover.

Yes, torture indeed. Until today I cannot tahan that stuff. I can eat scrambled, fried, hard-boiled, poached ... but show me a half-boiled egg and I'll gag. Really.

The circle of life continues ...

Ushering in the New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

We decided to 'treat' ourselves to a New Year's Eve dinner since both boys had a relatively decent late afternoon nap. On the way to the restaurant - our regular favourite - we called up to order our food so that we didn't have to wait too long. Within 2 minutes of sitting down our food and drinks arrived and we immediately started dinner.

The boys were very hungry, starving even, so they sat down quietly and ate their dinner with much gusto. Actually, "attacked the food" is probably more appropriate.

Abang tackled Wan's fish and chips like a rugby player, claiming, "Mmmmmm, yummy, this is the best chicken I ever had!"

To which Daddy replied, "Probably because it's fish."

"Oh." Pause. "Mmmmmm, yummy, this is the best fish I ever had!"

By the way, Abang is just getting better from a bout of the stomach flu so this was his first 'real meal' after 3 days of consuming nothing but plain bread, soup, water and the occasional diluted ribena. So he was very very enthusiastic about his meal.

Adik too, was so hungry that he fed himself some fries while Daddy fed him some rice, noodles and lauk.

Which sets the scene nicely for a very pleasant dinner for us.

Unfortunately, the table next to us had a different plan. It was a big party, about 10 adults and 2 children. Oh, the children. The son is about 6 or 7 years old (definitely older than Abang) and the daughter looks about 18 months old (I'm quite sure younger than Adik). It was terrible! They were running around the table, laughing and screaming. If Atok was with us that night, he would definitely have told them off. For sure. I can imagine his deep, deep frown already.

After becoming a parent, I'm a lot less judgemental. I know we all have our off days. So we watched with some amusement at how it was NOT our kids needing to be restrained. However, after awhile, it wasn't amusing anymore. It was just downright annoying.

The adults were more interested in having their conversation leaving the maid to try and deal with the kids. Occasionally the mother and/ or the father would try and ask them to stop running or stop screaming. But they did it anyway.

Once, the brother stood on his dining chair (I kid you not) and 'walked' across to his dad's chair, standing right behind his dad. And his dad just kept on yakking away! Like, wtf? And the sister was totally maniacal. Maybe she missed her afternoon nap - I certainly recognise the symptoms - but that doesn't excuse the parents from dealing with the consequences. Then another time, they grabbed cutlery and napkins from the next empty table and stood on those chairs instead. The brother went so far as to shake the chair while standing on it.

Nope, no adult in his party told him off. It took a very brave (and obviously very annoyed) waitress to scold him and tell him to get down.

Our boys watched all this with some amazement. Probably wondering how come the adults are not telling them off. We've been wondering the same thing. I know for a fact that Daddy and I would not let our children get out of hand like that. If they needed to burn some energy we'd take turns taking them outside the restaurant to run around. I am also very very sure that Cuz and AJ's parents wouldn't stand for any of that behaviour either.

When we were almost done, Abang complained that all that noise was causing a pain in his ear. No kidding. We rushed and couldn't wait to get out of there. However, as we left, Abang realised he needed to attend to some, um, business so I went with him to the loo.

While we were in the cubicle, we heard "Damian" come in with his mother. His mother was scolding him - obviously had enough of his antics - and then we heard another cubicle door close.

Then all hell broke loose. He was screaming, crying and kept banging on the cubicle door. At one point he screamed for "kakak" whom I assume is the maid. My initial thought was "Wow, the mom can't even go to the loo in peace". Later, it occurred to me that he was more likely on the other side of the door. I suspect his mom 'locked' him in the loo as punishment.

After what really was an eternity for Abang and me, not to mention Abang's overstressed ears from all that ruckus, they left the loo. As they left I heard the mom still scolding him and at one point calling him "demented". I was quite shocked at that. Name-calling your own children? That's not on. And such a strong word. I don't even call my own children "bad boys" when they're pushing my buttons because I'm a firm believer of the saying "There is no such thing as a bad child, just bad behaviour."

Needless to say by then we were only too happy to leave. We praised the boys for their good behaviour.

So here's to an even better 2008 - hopefully with fewer tantrums and screamings. And that goes for the kids too!