How Puzzling ...

... that Adik can have such patience to do his jigsaw puzzles.

He's been doing - and has since mastered - these 12-piece wooden jigsaw puzzles he received as a Christmas present. Whenever he finishes one of them, say, the fire engine, then he'd give himself a big pat on the back saying, "Yay! Adik do fire engine!".

Since he's very familiar with these puzzles I decided to give him a different one for him to try, a Thomas and Friends 25-piece puzzle with a frame. Somewhat more difficult but since he's mastered the 12-piece ones it's time to move on and present him with greater challenges.

So this morning I opened the box for him and put all the pieces out for him. It's his first time and I had to really hold myself back from helping him. But I'm still amazed how patient he is, trying each piece, one by one, rotating them one way and another to see which piece fits where. Sometimes he has the correct piece but not in the correct order and then he just puts it aside and tries another piece. The only time I 'help' him is when he's got the correct piece in the correct place (for the nth time) but he's struggling to fit it because the other pieces have moved slightly. So I encourage him and say, "Yes, that's right! That's where it goes." Or worst case, I hold down the other piece that keeps moving.

Here's what he did with very minimal help from Mummy:

Great job, Adik!

Adik's Curry House Experience

Today I took Adik to the nearby curry house (a somewhat nicer way of saying "mamak restaurant" I think) while I got the car washed. Notice how there is always a curry house next to a car wash? Complementary services.

This was actually Adik's second time at the curry house. The first was a few weeks ago , also when I got the car washed. The first time we went there, some of the waiters were trying to chat with him, pinching his cheeks and stuff. Offered him sweets too.

This time around, almost ALL the waiters were all over him as well as what I suspect is the proprietor of the restaurant. In fact, one of them 'teased' him by casually taking his toy away and waiting to see Adik's reaction.

My initial thought was, "Ooooh bad move, mister. If I were you, I'd give that back and fast."

And I was right! Adik's lips started to quiver when he said, "Where's my itu?" and before you could say "Don't cry Adik" he bawled his lungs out! Right in the middle of the restaurant. Of course the waiter promptly gave it back to Adik, apologising profusely while Adik completely ignored him and continued bawling away. It took me awhile to calm him down.

Almost on cue, 2 sweets appeared before our very eyes and that helped Adik bring himself to forgive that mean and cruel waiter. Once our MILO ais and roti tissue arrived, all was forgiven and forgotten.

Maybe next time I'll bring Abang instead when I get my car washed.

Happy Overpriced Day!

Here's what my 2 little valentines have been up to lately:

Abang playing at TTDI park.

Adik plucking 'flowers' on our way to the playground.

Abang relaxing (or "chilling", as I like to put it) at Ant J's house. Look at those long legs! Like, when did he grow up? How do I stop this?!? Sigh ... just today he complained his kindergarten uniform gym shorts are tight. This past week I've expanded the waistband on 2 other shorts. AND this evening I opened up some stitches to make Adik's pyjama pants longer ... sigh ...

Adik doing his jigsaw puzzles. He's really into jigsaw puzzles these days. He is so incredibly focused when he does them. I watched from afar and I noticed just how patient he is, trying different pieces in different slots, rotating them - especially when he doesn't know I'm watching. If I sit with him to do the puzzles he tends to get a little lazy. If he finds he can't fit a piece then he just lobs it at me and says, "Mummy buat." Like, excuse me! Still, it's nice for me to get half an hour of peace when he's focused on his puzzles.

And here they both are attempting to climb our mango tree.

Happy Overpriced Day, everyone!

Lions in the Neighbourhood

One of the houses down the road from us had a lion dance today. Initially when the cymbals started crashing and the drums started rolling, both boys had a slight look of panic. Rather like a "we're being attacked!!" look.

So I had to manage it by exclaiming in my best fake happy voice, "Yay! A lion dance! Let's go check it out." I immediately swooped Adik out of his highchair and tore him away from his lunch, shirt covered in soup and all, and headed for the door. Abang was on his way to taking a shower so had stripped down to his underwear but I let him out of the house anyway. We observed from our own garden because we could see the lion dance quite well from here.

I would have loved to take them both to see the lion dance up close and maybe take some photos of them next to the lion dancers but a) my older son was wearing next to nothing, and b) my younger son was obviously happy to not be too close to all that noise. Adik kept referring to it as "Dragon" - when they were dancing he kept saying "Dragon go home!" but after they left he'd say "Dragon come back!".

The picture above is about the best I could do from so far. At this point the "lion" was just about to reach up and grab something that was hanging from the ceiling (I don't know what it was; if I was closer I could have seen it!).

Anyway it was great fun. A bit loud, but I guess that's part of the package. It ended with the firecrackers. Strangely enough, as this first team was about done, another team pulled up and about 15 minutes later they started doing a lion dance too!

Fascinating.

CNY!

It's that time of the year again, when we get together to go visit our Chinese relatives. As I mentioned last year, this is a time-honoured tradition dating back to the late '70s.

This year, we were the first ones to arrive. And for some reason, Adik has been obsessed with mailboxes lately. So as soon as we arrived, he didn't go to the front door. Instead he went straight to the mailbox and see if there's any mail in there (I guess). Usually the mailbox at Atok's house has lizards nesting in there but this one seemed safe enough.

I found out that my mom's uncle, whose house we were visiting, is 95 years old. Amazing! I thought he was maybe around mid-80s but I was wrong. He is a little hard of hearing - there I go again, shouting at an old man - and walks a little slowly but his mind is as sharp as ever.

We hung out for a little while, munching on various cookies, chatting and catching up. The children had a ball attacking all different types of kueh, some more messy than others. As we were about to leave, more and more family members arrived to visit.

It's nice to get together even if only once a year.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Play First, Homework Later!

UPDATE: We've decided that Spiderman 2 is too violent a game for Abang to play so Daddy explained to him that the game will be removed. Abang then suggested removing Spiderman 3 as well, since it's "for bigger boys". Now he's happily playing Sonic and Kim Possible.

Unbelievable, but true. Daddy said that to Abang one evening when Abang wanted to play Daddy's Nintendo game and even - get this - offered to finish his homework first before playing.

And what did Daddy say to that? "No, no, play the game now. Do your homework tomorrow morning."

Suddenly we looked at each other. Hang on, did we actually ask, nay, tell him to play first and work later? Even Abang looked shocked. But only for a second before he pounced on that too-good-to-be-true offer.

We actually had good reason for that. It was evening and Abang's brain is SO active that if he does his homework just before bedtime, it might affect his sleep. So we prefer for him to do mindless things like watch TV or play these electronic games.

Having said that, I do worry that he takes these games a little too seriously. For example, when he plays Spiderman and asks Mummy to "help him kill the bad guy" and "just throw the bad guy off the building" and Mummy totally messes up by running in the opposite direction and gets Spidey's butt whooped instead. Oh, Abang gets so upset when that happens.

What's more worrying is that I find myself "practising" the game when he's not around ... heheh (I did manage to finish Chapter 1!)

Ode To Our Cat

Ever since we watched P.Ramlee The Musical, I've become a huge fan of Sean Ghazi. In fact, Daddy already had Sean Ghazi's album, Semalam, prior to the musical and I quite liked it too. So when we got the chance to watch the musical, it was a no-brainer.

So now the Semalam album is on repeat in my CD player in the car. Until, of course, Abang realises it's been playing non-stop repeatedly and asks to change to something else.

Anyway, one of the songs on the album is a cover version of "Rambut Hitam, Mata Galak". The chorus goes " ... rambut heee-taaaam, mataaaaanya galak..."

It seemed quite appropriate when Daddy modified the lyrics to suit Harun and started singing "Bulunya oren, matanya buntang!"

I guess you have to know the song to appreciate this ...

The Drama King

The day started out all wet and gloomy this morning. Perfect weather to sleep in, but of course Adik had other ideas. He was up and about before 7am while I was still wishing the rain would induce some sleeping-in on his part, but alas ...

By afternoon the sun was out and it was a very nice afternoon - not too hot but not raining either. We decided later we would go for a walk to the playground nearby. However, by the time we actually left the house, half the sky was covered in dark clouds. Oh well, we attempted it anyway.

As always, Harun and Thomas followed us when we left the house on foot. When they saw us running, they ran too. Actually Harun doesn't run; he gallops! Thomas, while carrying a rather full load of belly, can sprint too.

At one point I turned around to admire the cats running not realising that Abang had taken a tumble on the road. He, Adik and Daddy had been running and suddenly he tripped and fell. He howled. Daddy and I checked out his legs and he had scraped the inside of his knee quite badly.

He howled some more, understandably as it was probably stinging, and Daddy and I tried to calm him down. We ditched the playground idea and made a U-turn to go home. I had to fetch Adik who was running ahead and when he saw Abang crying, he asked, "Why Abang crying? What's wong, Abang, what's wong?" (He can't say "wrong" yet; he says "wong".)

By the time we reached home Abang was chatting away like nothing happened. The funny thing was that when he showed Wan his leg, he started howling again! Adik and I were in the garden and I could hear him - as could the neighbours, I reckon.

What a drama king!

Can't imagine where he got that from.

Hmmm ... of course, there was this one time when he asked me to help him with a computer game he was playing. So when my character kept getting attacked I would make the required sounds and arms flailing as if I really was being attacked and Abang said to me, "You so drama la, Mummy."

Oh no!