'Tis the Season To Be A Transformer

It may be "school holiday" season out there, or "monsoon" season bringing heavy rain daily, but at our house, it's Transformers Season right now.

The boys are totally into Transformers. Adik loves watching Transformers Animated while Abang really enjoys Transformers the movie as well as playing Transformers on the Nintendo DS. And it pains me to say this, but I too, yes Mummy indeed, find the movie e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y cool and you should have seen Abang's eyes light up when I managed to complete one of the more difficult missions on the DS. (Yes, sad, I know, hence why it's painful to admit.)

Everytime we have the movie on I find a scene or two that I have never watched before. Even though the movie is showing everyday at Mummy's Cinema, Mummy has never watched it in its entirety before - you know how it is - and since I keep finding scenes I've never watched before, obviously I haven't watched the whole movie.

Meanwhile, Adik will usually request the first episode of Transformers Animated. He's starting to quote lines from it already. One morning, when the boys were up a little earlier than we would have liked, by 9:30am we had already had one round of the movie and one round of Transformers Animated.

Not that I'm complaining. I remember last year was Cars season when we'd have multiple showing of Cars on a daily basis. When Abang was much younger, I think before Adik was born, it was Finding Nemo.

I'm all for keeping the peace in this house.

KLCC Park on a Saturday Morning

The title says it all!

I've been suggesting to Daddy that we need to start doing some regular exercise, preferably as a family, and I thought Bukit Jalil park would be a good place to go. A little far, but then it's very big and quite fun as we've been there before several times.

Daddy had a better idea - why not KLCC park instead?

So we packed up the boys and some drinking water and after a nasi lemak breakfast, headed off to KLCC. The boys were a little confused as to why we were going there so early in the morning. To them, KLCC equals:

1. Aquaria, or
2. Petrosains, or

3. Lunch with Daddy on a workday,

all of which was just not possible at 8am on a Saturday morning. In fact, Abang kept saying he'd rather go KL Tower than KLCC.

We parked at the KL Convention Centre (where Aquaria is) and made our way to the park. It was about 8:30 in the morning and there were already lots of people out and about but best of all, no mosquitoes!

We let the boys run around, burning off their excess energy, until we got to the children's playground which is like a gazillion times larger than our neighbourhood playground and with as many playing equipment. Good thing Wan wasn't with us, or she'd be constantly yelling at them "Jangan lari!" which I don't think is realistic, when you have young children at a playground.

The park itself has lots of lights, making it very well lit for night joggers. The toilets were fine, i.e. clean, not smelly and has toilet paper, and there were drinking fountains as well. There were many workers sweeping dried leaves or cleaning the ponds. (There was one pond being cleaned and had the sign "Dalam Tindakan" which left us a bit perplexed.) Security officers were also seen around the park.

By the time we walked back to the car, getting some MILO ais en route, both boys were stumbling about, alternating between "nak dukung" and running on adrenaline. At one point I carried Adik and he leaned his head on my cheek and I was so grossed out by all his sweat that I had to put him down and rummage his bag for a tissue. Of course, he thought it was a game when I started chasing him with a tissue in my hand and would run off further away.

So that was a good reconnaissance mission (or "recky" in local lingo) - I am quite sure Daddy and I got the exercise we were looking for and the boys had fun. Mission accomplished!

Spencer Update

As you can tell, we are all very excited over the new addition to our family. Yes, I know, I said it would be a "temporary addition" but all bets are off!

Both boys absolutely love Spencer and they really enjoy playing with him, and vice versa. Yesterday we had both boys playing in the tree with him. Good thing Wan was inside the house or else all of us (especially Mummy) would get such a telling off.

Spencer even used the litter box all by himself, almost instinctively!

My monthly IAMS bill is going to shoot up. Besides Harun, Thomas, Percy and now Spencer, we also have 2 kittens from the back lane sneaking in for their meals.

Some months ago, a mummy cat gave birth to 4 kittens in the back lane and they've been living there since then. Daddy and I considered capturing them (once they're old enough) and send them to be neutered. Essentially, that's our goal - to neuter as many cats, stray or otherwise, in the neighbourhood.

But these are true-blue strays, i.e. they run off as soon as they see us. So if we are to get friendly enough with them to get hold of them and put them into the carrier, it's going to take a lot of IAMS.

So far the plan is on track.

There's a brown and white kitten that's more adventurous than its siblings and would even sit and wait patiently for Harun or Thomas to finish eating and then take what's left. Lately, its sibling, a black and white kitten, has been getting braver and braver.

Therefore, in actual fact, we are feeding 3+3: 3 full-grown cats and 3 kittens.


While Harun is adjusting well to Spencer, Thomas I think is a bit merajuk, wondering what all the fuss is about, while Percy doesn't care - so long as there's food for him, he's good to go. Anyway, Percy is still more like a semi-stray and only occassionally does he sleep at our house. Most of the time he only comes over for meals.

I should rephrase - we're That Crazy Family with All Those Cats!

A New Addition To The Family

Of the four-legged variety, albeit a temporary addition.

On Saturday morning, we did something different and went out for breakfast at the nearby Curry House. When we got out of the car, a little kitten approached us meowing away.

It was interesting that it approached us because most stray cats run away from people. Adik instinctively reached out to stroke it (much to Wan's chagrin, "Adik! Kotor!") so I just ushered her into the restaurant to find a table. Daddy and Adik continued to play with the kitten for a bit. (Abang was at a sleepover at Atok's house.)

Over breakfast we concluded that it must have been 'dumped' there by its previous owners because not only was it friendly, but it looked relatively healthy although a little thin. We decided we would take it home, fatten it up then send it to PAWS or SPCA and pay for it to be neutered.

As we were leaving we were going to pick it up to take home with us but it was busy playing with another customer, gnawing away at her shoe. So, as Daddy says, "a bit shy-la" and we went home.

This morning, Daddy decided to go back to the Curry House and look for it - if it's not there then we probably just were not fated to help it. Lo and behold, it was there playing with a customer! Daddy politely asked to take it, "sebab kesian dia", put it in a box and brought it home.

It wolfed down the IAMS and settled down comfortably (another indication that it was pre-owned), investigating the surroundings as well as being investigated by Harun. We just let it be, it seemed like it was ok to be left alone, and it explored the garden and even climbed the mango tree.

Adik is so happy to see the kitten at our house. "Awww, look Mummy, the little kitten so cute... what's your name little kitten? What's your name?" he asked the kitten.

At some point I got 'flashed' by the kitten and I informed Daddy that "it's a boy!" After some deliberation we decided to name it Spencer, after the character from Thomas and Friends. It was Adik who gave me the idea, because just the other day I asked him what our cats names are and he said, "Thomas and Friends." Which is true, since we also have Percy, another character from the train set Thomas and Friends.

That would make Harun the relative from KTM as Ant J puts it. Anyway Spencer is quite appropriate, I think, since the real Spencer has some black stripes on a grey/ silver body.

I've nicknamed Daddy "The Crazy Man With All Those Cats". Who wants to bet that Spencer will never make it PAWS or SPCA?

Hooray!

Abang's done it again! (More or less.)

I picked up Abang's report card this morning and he scored 100% in Maths, Bahasa Malaysia and Science and 78% for Mandarin. I passed his English paper back to the teacher because after going through all the papers, I noticed that he had 2 mistakes in English, for a deduction of 4 marks, but yet was given 100%. Upon closer scrutiny, I realised that the question could probably have been clearer, so he could actually be forgiven for not getting it right, but I did not want to assume that that was the reason for the discrepancy. I chose instead to assume that the teacher had just made a mistake. I'm willing to bet that my assumption is correct.

Anyway, they'll get back to me on Monday as the teacher was attending to another parent when I arrived to fetch the boys and inquire about Abang's English paper.

As for Mandarin, well, obviously not as good as his mid-year assessment of 96%, but, hey ... worse things could happen. I feel getting 78% is a very good score for someone who doesn't get any help whatsoever on this subject from his parents. Actually, if anyone's Mandarin is improving, it's mine. And it never ceases to amaze me how he can remember so much of a language that's completely alien to him. He's probably just as amazed at how Mummy can remember so little! Like when I get the characters for "door" and "window" mixed up. ("Haha Mummy, that's door la! Not window... Mummy so funny.")

I'm currently mulling over whether I want to continue Mandarin for Abang but on a one-to-one basis with his teacher. Next year I plan to switch him to Agama class at kindergarten, instead of Mandarin, so that when he starts Primary School in 2010 he won't be at a complete loss. Decisions, decisions.

As usual I asked his teacher about behaviour, is he polite, etc, and, as usual, I get the "oh he's a very good boy, so polite..." response. Which is always nice to hear.

Adik, well, Adik, is "still a bit manja" according to the principal. I'll take that over hiding/ playing under the classroom table any day!

Parent-Teacher Conference Again!

It's that time of year once again, report card day. I will be receiving Abang's report on Friday, and I'm looking forward to getting another glowing report! (Nothing like setting expectations, eh.)

As for Adik ... well ... I'll be happy with a report that doesn't say "he likes to go under the table" ...

Watch this space for kindergarten reports!