exactly 2 years ago, aniq had a milestone moment with his first visit to the dentist, at 2yrs 2mths old, and auni was, well, -2mths (ie. unborn!):

uh oh, i sense a cliche coming now —> “how time flies!”

it’s become a yearly routine and this being his third visit, he knows the drill, so to speak – come in, play with toys, talk to the doctor, sit in the reclining chair, open mouth, scrape, spit, brush, choose a reward from the treasure box.

of course, it helps that he gets HEAPS of praises from the friendly doc for his good teeth and behaviour. sheesh.

his canines have this greenish stain which we can’t remove with a toothbrush despite our nightly attempts. apparently it’s common among kids (actually, even more common are blackish ones instead of what doc described as aniq’s more ‘textbook’ green), and simply genetically inherited. case in point: his cousin, adam, came in right after, and was found to have the exact same green stains on his teeth. sooo, it just HAS to come from my chlorophyll-rich side of the family tree. (by the way, adam would need braces some day, coz his mouth is so small, his teeth would be overcrowding. braces! so cute, right?)

but the stains were easily removed with the right tools (doc said to DIY with a toothpick next time). the ‘gappy’-ness of his teeth makes it hard for food to get stuck in between, so they’re generally easy to clean. remember when you aunties called him ‘madonniq’? turned out to be a good thing after all, heh.

pronounced as cavity-free, his good-as-new, post-polished teeth (i’m not kidding, they look awesome, sigh – dear aniq, please pleaseeee don’t ever mar them with smokes and coffee in the future) were photographed by the doc, and then it was auni’s turn.

okaaay, so ALL the doc managed with our wriggly worm of a girl was count her teeth (16) and made her promise to let mummy or daddy brush them every night (to which she nodded in a very ‘macam paham’ way), before she successfully made like a slippery eel and slid out of her daddy’s clutches on the reclining chair, and ran off to play in the wendy house at the waiting room.

better luck next year, doc.

M: auni, tadi makan apa? (what did you eat today?)
A: asi! (nasi = rice)
M: lagi? (some more?)
A: eeken! (chicken, obviously, duh) ayam! (she has, as at last check, on 3 feb 2000hrs, decided to answer this instead of ‘eeken’.)
M: lagi?
A: opok! (keropok = fish cracker)
M: eh? sedap? (nice?)
A: dap!
M: pandai! (clever)

and when asked the various body parts in malay, she will obligingly twitch or point accordingly. yesterday, she saw her oma half-undressed and went, “eh, tak alu!” (no shame!).

ah. there is hope yet for you, my young padawan.

=========

M: aniq, ‘fish’ dalam melayu apa? (what is ‘fish’ in malay?)
A: …
M: (prompting with first syllable of ‘ikan’) eeee…?
A: eeee… er san!
M: O-O <--- (talk about culture shock.)

=========

in any case, they're both smitten by upin & ipin, you know, identical twin pre-schoolers who are the cutest cartoon characters, like EVUH, hailing from a fictional kampung in malaysia. (well, there was Lat the Kampung Boy back in the days - remember him? - but upin & ipin are so... arrrgh, DEM CUTE, and there are two of 'em!) the husband and i totally approve of the series, more so since the dialogue's so chuckle-worthy and in malay, and, i mean, WHO NEEDS TO LEARN SPANISH LAH, RIGHT?

so smitten by the characters and their antics, that even the little one has taken to mimicking the dialogue. a particular one that stuck to her was where the token effeminate youth in the kampung insists that his name's not Salleh but Sally, and attempts to spell it out: "S-I-L-L-Y", dismissing his misspelling with a flick of his limp wrist, "apa jer lah, tak kuasa aku." ("whatever!" - another thing about the beauty of localised humour - the english version simply does not translate sufficiently. right? betul betul betul?)

maybe i should send them to a kampung in malaysia, if anything, to brush up on their malay.

speaking of kampungs, the other night, in one of my meandering discussions with the little boy after an episode of upin & ipin, i described to him how in kampungs, they have no toilets with a flushing system, and potty business had to be done in an outhouse or behind bushes in the forest. (AS IF i know anything about rural life, hah! but mothers being mothers, must sound convincing and knowledgeable lah, right? betul betul betul?)

M: ingat tak, citer upin ipin, kawan cucu tok dalang sakit perut, nak pegi toilet tapi dia takut pasal dah malam abih tempat dia jauh? ahhh.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. kat kampung takde toilet.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. macam gitu. abih ingat tak, kawan cucu tok dalang nak berak, dia sembunyi belakang semak-samun? (at this point, even i can’t believe i just said ’semak-samun’, an almost archaic word for thicket/undergrowth.)
A: why??
M: ye lah. pasal takde toilet!!

you can imagine how this conversation went on – endlessly.

like this bridge we trekked last weekend, in our attempt to bring the children close to nature.

well, as close as we could get to the semak-semak, anyway. no potty business going on here, though. it’s as sterile as everything typically singaporean is.

and mummy – again, ever-convincing and knowledgeable – explained away the many whys. sometimes with more than a “ye laah”.

yes. trees and branches may fall. take care.

berhati-hati di semak-samun, kenak-kanak.

is it too late for new year resolutions? it’s still january, so technically, the year is pretty new and the table calendar in front of me is yet unmarked and crisp as a karipap.

not a firm believer of resolutions that often get forgotten by the, hmm, third month (on average, based on purely observational records), so you know, don’t take me seriously (except #3). so here goes:

1) live a healthy lifestyle – so all those years of scoffing at the gahmen’s calls to lead a healthy lifestyle and snorting down cheeseburgers and fries like there’s no tomorrow, it’s all bitten me – hard – on my (expanded) arse. i won’t be so delusional as to say that i’m OBESE OR ANYTHING OMG, but it’s more like a… ‘relative’ thing, you know? as in, i am now (in delicate terms) ‘meatier’ than i ‘relatively’ was, say, a year ago, or heck, even just six months ago. so how did that happen? how did all those carelessly consumed calories suddenly make its appearance so markedly known? tummy, arms, thighs, hips… oh the atrocity! the treachery!

ok, so i expect many of you at this point would point out, “oh, but nice what, meatier… more to hold, more to love, blablabla”. sure – IF I WERE KFC CHICKEN BREASTS. i wanna be lean ayam kampung, dammit. marinated in kunyit and ketumbar and deep-fried… mmmm… but i digress.

i cite several factors for this hysterics-inducing epiphany:

a) age: = slower metabolic rate

b) birth of children: nature’s way of saying “your body’s done its job of mating and reproducing, that’s enough attracting of the opposite sex now, time for it to go into frumpy-mode and focus on tending to your young.” THANKS NATURE.)

c) end of breastfeeding: the whole year i was on TBF, i was invincible. input means output, producing milk was a workout by itself, which didn’t require any physical exertion other than pulling my shirt up. remember that episode on desperate housewives, where lynette’s female employee broke down when her 5-yr-old stopped wanting to be nursed and she lamented that breastfeeding was the only way she could stay thin? well, yeah, coz it worked for me that way. now, i can’t possibly b/f the kids till they’re of legal age, can i?

d) the office: a deskbound job means you’re sedentary for at least 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week. the few minutes you stand up to walk is to get lunch, or to go to the pantry for snacks. (unless, like me, you hoard snacks in your drawer under your desk, which HEY requires absolutely no standing/walking AT ALL.)

e) spouse: who loves eating. ‘nuff said.

which leads me to The Action Plan.

i) exercise more: yes, the one thing that i dread most (apart from cooking). the one thing i avoided like the plague throughout my years since school. the one thing that makes my muscles quiver in fear. but as Mr Nike once said, “just do it, dammit!” and turned it into a (less objectionable) slogan that many an athlete has lived by, do it i did. it’s been a month since my discovery of the painful pleasure (a masochist talking here) that is ‘working out’. now, like i said, it’s ONLY been a month, so no, i have not exactly jumped in the deep end of the pool that is the GYM (i confess i have a deep-seated fear-mixed-with-embarassment of ‘abang-abang body’ who are omnipresent in there). so for now, it’s easing these rarely-utilised muscles in doable stuff like low-impacts, pilates and yoga which i quite like, surprisingly. i don’t expect to turn into jo/jo sinclair or even half of her well-defined buttock, but at least, you know, i’m in control (a control freak talking here).

ii) eat less: i used to be this bird-pecker of a girl, you know, the kind who eats to live, too shy to actually buy food at the school canteen, too lazy to lunch at work. but eversince (b) and (c) above, it’s become quite a habit, this eating-actual-meals thing. see, i have this theory. you know how animals, like wolves and sharks and vultures, they go on feeding frenzies when they have to compete for food? well it’s kinda like that as a family grows in numbers. whenever there’s food meant for us, ie. mummy and/or daddy, along come the little children, like wolves and sharks and vultures. “WAH!” says the big one. “MAMAM!” says the little one. and together, they form a tag team to steal bits of our food WHILE WE EAT. it is indeed a rare occasion to have our food untouched by either of them, except when the dish is extremely spicy, so what we do, is gobble up as much as we can, as fast as we can… ok so, no connection, this theory. the point is, i’d turned from a bird-pecker to a wolf-shark-vulture mutant. i’ve never been that much of a foodie, unlike (e) above, so it should be pretty easy to cut down on evil stuff like processed meats and carbs. i think.

2) harnessing my Wild Things, a.k.a The Children – i think i may have made too many compromises lately where the lil ones are concerned. the boy since he turned four is becoming a little worrying. it’s SO HARD not to get mad at him everyday over some silly little thing. the girl, well she’s at that extremely-cute age so although i get mad at her over silly little things too, it’s easier to forgive simply for the fact that she’s not two yet and when she says “awi ami” (that’s “sorry mummy” in tod-speak), it makes you chuckle. but the boy… argh! it’s just SO HARD, raising Wild Things.

3) NOT get pregnant again (or evuh) – arising from #2. because, seriously, i am, at this point, highly doubtful of my parenting skills, and bringing forth more Wild Things from my womb unto the earth would be irresponsible, not to mention detrimental to my mental health and personal well-being.

4) read more books – i may actually have listed this in every new year resolution, and i think i did pretty ok last year (hey the Twilight series count). don’t ask me why this is still important in this age of blogs, internet and short-attention-span. i’ll tell you it’s for the purely selfish reason of the tactile experience.

5) write more – coz i need these kind of posts to purge myself of all the toxic build-ups in my brain.

and i could probably go on, but that would not be a good idea because #6 would have been ‘go to bed earlier’, and i’ve already broken that one on 26 counts since the dawn of 2010.

little wolf-shark-vulture Wild Thing: we are SO not sharing this ice-cream with mummy lest all the calories go to her thighs, BOO HOO HOO.

so there was the “Bumper Car” incident on the road two days ago, which resulted in a few inconveniences for us. for those of you who aren’t privy to our tweet-world, i was banged from behind our car was banged from behind while i was driving home on the PIE by a young fella in his early 20s, who apologised and admitted that it was his fault.

the guy’s father called me soon after, asking to settle the bill from the damage without going through the insurance company. he even offered one of his cars (!) as a replacement while our car went to a workshop owned by his friend. overnight parking coupon? “it’s ok, just buy and claim from me later,” the father says.

i asked if his son was ok, since he mentioned that his son had blacked out briefly before the accident. (i know right? behind the wheel! in an overtaking lane! spells ‘road hazard’ in capital letters to me.) the father, either in truth or in defence, said he too had encountered such momentary black-outs, so could not fault his son. he then took our car ALL the way to jurong where the workshop is, and when the car was repaired, drove ALL the way back to return it to us. through all this, we did not hear or see the son at all (he drove his dad’s car to work).

luckily we’d dealt with a nice, honest man, and luckily for him too, we didn’t give him a hard time. luckily, as much as we love owning a car, we’re not exactly car-lovers. we don’t give our car a name, or decorate it with fluff and frills, or go insane if either of us gets it into minor scrapes (“gives it character”, we say, and shrug it off). inside, it’s probably one of the messiest cars you’d ever seen. my mum occasionally nags at us when she sees the backseat littered with crumbs and artfully-strewn crap. she insists how the neatness and pride one has for one’s car is a reflection of one’s personality. welllll…

aaaanyway, back to my story.

so izad had this epiphany while we were driving in the little nissan march loaned to us (the car that, incidentally, banged into our airwave).

“kesian, bapak dia.” (“poor thing, his father”.) the lengths the chap went to for his son, taking time off work to meet us and send our car to the workshop, sacrificing his own car for his son to use, footing the bill…

he imagined if it were aniq who messed up like that some day in the future – and we’re quite sure he’s capable of messing up to some degree, not that we’d wish it, of course – he too would be the one to “clean up his shit” (hey, his words, not mine). because, “that’s just what fathers do” (again, his words).

his perspective on fatherhood made me grin a little despite myself. just yesterday, i got mad at the little boy over something and told him i was SO angry, i was not going to talk to him, which made him cry, which made me even madder, and i told his daddy to deal with it.

because that’s what i do when i get mad – i tell them to GO TO DADDY. because daddy is the calm ocean to mummy’s turbulent tornado. (as to why she is predisposed as such, is for another day to discuss and dissect.)

so… yeah, daddy cleans up the shit.

driving lesson 101: DO NOT – i repeat, DO NOT – bang into anyone in front of you. or your mommy will get REAAALLY MAD.

for so long, i’ve been sending abang aniq to school skool, and every time, i keep trying to get past the door to play with his friends and all those TOYS. sometimes i do manage to weasel my way through, but someone always catches me and tows me away before i could so much as say “DORA BUSHUK!”. it’s SO unfair. why does he get to do all the FUN stuff?? *pouts*

so aaanyway, if you don’t already know, it’s a new year and abang aniq is going to K1. that’s Kindergarten 1 to those of you who’ve never been to school skool. and since i’m turning two this year, mummy said i can go too. like, duh, finally! there initially wasn’t space for me in the toddler class, but i pushed a girl off the swing at the playground the other day and she got scared and told her mummy she was never going to school skool coz of mean girls like me, so then i got to take over her place, yey! [mummy's edit: no she absatively (absolutely+positively) did NOT push any girl off the swing, pls pardon little missy's over-imaginative mind from watching too much high school shows.]

and since boys are such, ugh, BOYS, i had to help abang aniq pack his bag…

make breakfast…

coz mummy was, of course, too busy putting on her boring work clothes and her going-out face. (have you SEEN her wake-up-from-bed face? pretty much worse than abang aniq here, WHO DIDN’T BATHE YUKKKS. but it’s ok coz he insists on bathing in school skool with his friends and he’s a BOY, they get away with their hair sticking out all over the place when they leave the house. thank gawd he brushes his teeth at the very least. boys are yukkks, ok?)

so then i walk him to school skool…

send him off to his new class… (ouuh, scary-looking aunty. K1 must be tough, like being in a concentration camp. a lot of concentrating going on there you know, spelling and counting and stuff.)

and wave bye-bye at his window…

sigh. he’s growing up so fast, my abang aniq. tsk.

just across his classroom is the toddler class, where i’m headed for. not that i’m TODDLING anymore, mind. i kinda… scuttle around. really fast. but i guess scuttler class doesn’t sound so fancy. so aaanyway, my teacher asked me to take off my shoes and put them in the shoe rack. mummy made me kiss her and daddy, and they said bye-bye.

i remember abang aniq always had a special place to keep his bag, and heyyy, so do i now. a cubby hole, i believe. so cute. just nice for my dora doll. and my bag of pull-ups.

there were SO many things going on in the next few hours, i kinda forgot about mummy until hmm, i think it was lunch time and i called for her coz *sheepish* i didn’t like people feeding me, BUT! i do like chicken, so i ate some of that, then just as i was asking for “shushuu!” (that’s milk for you non-toddler-speaking people), someone came to fetch me. saved by the bell! (well, ok, not literally, coz this isn’t like high school skool and they don’t have bells ringing and… well you know what i mean.)

and by the way, i may not know how to spell correctly right now, but… why do i keep getting these squiggly red lines under the word SKOOL?? ok, just wondering. bye-bye.

[mummy's edit: dropped by after work to ask how auni did in skool school and was given a thumbs up. discussed the programme, curriculum, familiar languages, food preferences, fetching arrangements. and guess i'll pack her "shushuu" tomorrow too. hell, i'm just thankful she's not a fusspot and for allowing her oma more time to herself in the day. here's to your growing independence, my babies.]

some happy pictures to kick-start the new year.

Auni & Aidin…

Adam & Aniq…

and we ended 2009 with a new addition to the list of Kid A’s…

Akid!

to all my family and friends who are trying for kids this year (you know who you are), i wish you happy TTC!

(warning: this is gonna be a majorly pictorial entry.)

bali happened for us on 14th dec, an impulse holiday decision, just because mummy needed a distraction. :p

it was our kids’ second flight, the first being earlier this year to kota kinabalu. on their way to become seasoned travelers, hopefully?

we did the touristy thing – rode on the horse-cart, got excited at finding familiar brands at the mall (there was a Topshop!), looked out for the famous Hard Rock Cafe, strolled along a very crowded and hot Kuta beach, ate….

the intercontinental resort bali where we stayed was fabulous, and HUGE! doesn’t look so from outside, but everytime we walked the length from the lobby to our rooms, we’d exclaim in amazement at the vastness of the resort. it was vair pretty at night, with candlelights flickering all along the walkways. we’d even brainwashed aniq into bringing his “wife” here next time and taught him to say that the hotel is “romantic”. coz it was! and he should!

more touristy stuff on day two – our reliable travel companions, len & ren, hired a driver and a small minivan to bring us to the market at Ubud.

a lot of interesting hand-carved wood works and handicrafts…

had Padang food… which wasn’t that great here, unfortunately. we thought our own padang food in singapore was better. (sg patriots we are, see?)

but the kids had fun. yes, aniq, must marry first, then bring her to the “romantic” hotel, ok. and check out the name, heh. (we missed you, baby Natra!)

we’d heard so much about the factory outlets there that they practically became our holy grail. but we didn’t manage to find many, and the few that we managed to discover along the way, were not as sale-worthy as we’d imagined. mostly surf gear and beachwear, and since i couldn’t fit into a bikini (hurhur) and am not a regular beach-goer in any case, no damage was done.

we were also told about the seafood at Jimbaran bay – some said not to bother, some said it was worth a try. and being the tourists that we were, we tried it. so happens that it was energy-saving night, where the government imposes blackouts on a regular basis in the effort to conserve energy (and money). so everywhere was almost pitch dark, save for the moonlight and generator fluorescent lights flickering away where we had our dinner, along the windy, sandy beach. we gotta give it to the ambience, it was pretty romantic, with entertainment in the form of children performing traditional dances on stage. but the seafood, sadly, was not up to our standard (compared to the wonderful spread we had at kinabalu), and the bill had us admitting that this was indeed a ‘tourist trap’.

the husbands had gone off for a massage at one of the many spas nearby on the first night, so the third day, it was the wives’ turn. (we’d brought the kids to the in-house kids’ club, Planet Trekkers, where we paid around $8 per kid to play for an hour before bedtime to tire them out when the daddies were out.)

len and i left the kids after breakfast in the good hands of the daddies, and headed out to a spa just across the resort for a full-body balinese massage. meanwhile, the kids enjoyed their pool time.

so much that some crying was inevitable. LOL!

ahh, this is the life, yes, chewren? (they’re bored coz they’re waiting for their beloved mummy to come back, heh.)

refreshed!

back in town, we had the best meal of the trip – at bubba gump shrimp & co.! yes, how unlikely, but we’re spoilt singaporeans that way, we like good service, good food, comfort, kid-friendly… and the bill came up to the same as our jimbaran seafood meal, so it was definitely worth it, since everyone (including the kids – yes, our eczema-prone kids!) lapped up the delicious shrimps and desserts.

back at kuta, we hunted for bargains. some tshirts, little dresses and knick-knacks for the kids, and souvenirs for those at home. none for myself, again. the markets are pretty much like those in bintan, lombok, kinabalu (where we’ve been), so there’s nothing terribly novel or exciting to buy.

i was determined to spend SOME time at the beach (seemed that there just wasn’t enough time, when the beach was RIGHT THERE), so on the final morning, we woke the kids up and shooed them there, unbathed (coz if they set foot in the hotel room’s bathtub, they could take all day!). like in KK, the sun rises really early, so we always woke up to a very bright morning even though our watch showed that it was still early. the resort, being the kid-friendly one that it is, had beach toys for sharing.

we attempted to bake in the sun (not very successful, since we had so little time) and had a bit of a swim. the waves were pretty good, although when we went that morning, it was low tide. i wouldn’t say that the beaches we saw in bali were fantastic – i believe thailand probably still has the better ones in the region? – but i don’t know, despite the beauty of the place, i could somewhat feel the environmental repercussions of its tourism.

yes, us tourists. in the big fancy (but damn nice) resort.

i think 4 days weren’t enough (!!) to fully experience bali, but thanks to our great company, it was a worthwhile one and time well-spent bonding with the kids (who had the most fun, in the water, heh).

and so that wraps up our trip to end the year. what will 2010 hold for us wanderlusts?

*hums ‘empire state of mind’*… (yeah, right!)

did a couple of test shots on the d90. i think i’m in love with the camera!

i’m selling my very new white macbook and its not even collected yet from epicentre.
this is from the singnet promo. can collect with me on monday.

specs can be found on the apple website here.
retail price is $1588. student price is $1488. izadnhana special price $1350!!
that’s a saving of $238, cheap cheap!!

interested buyers please email me at izadd77@gmail.com to deal. thanks!

Thanks for your interest. Item sold!!