Archive for March, 2007oh puh-leeeese. did they seriously think they could scare me with THESE?? sheeshkebab!
i mean, i could have them for breakfast!
i think i’ll keep them as pets for now. there, there, be good, now, my new friends.
i’ll let you loose on monday… on abang dadam! MUAAHAHAA! some time back, mum asked me to find for her some fake spiders and other creepy-crawly insects. no, not for halloween decorations, or for a strange fetish. she wanted something to ‘scare’ the little ones into submission. her grandsons – well okayyy, particularly one aniq izhan, is fearless of almost everything, and while some may see this as an advantage or a trait that should be encouraged, it also means that it’s harder for his caregivers to prevent him from doing something mischievous, or worse, hazardous. because granny’s scoldings are among the things that don’t faze him. (it also doesn’t help that a while after committing the crime, he’d push his face into hers and put on his most earnest “mmmaaa!”, subsequently liquifying her into mush.) he bulldozes his way around recklessly despite prior warnings of impending danger. “aniq!! jangan main dengan pintu tuuu, nanti tersepit kaki kauu!” he even knows when he’s doing something undesirable, purposely looking at us while waiting for admonishment for his misconduct. testing the waters, seeking attention, or just plain being a child, call it what you may, but it drives mum up the wall having a double dose of them in the house! (dadam being a whole other set of “pe’el”, heheee.) so she feels that a temporary solution would be to scare the kids with those toy creepy-crawlies. this is not to say that it’ll be a foolproof plan. for dadam, there’s a chance, coz he’s the “penggeli” sort. as for naniq, sure, he’d go “eeee!”, shake his head, and press his chest with his hands when we mention ants or spiders or ladybugs. (mum would occassionally capture live specimen for the boys, so you can say she’s kind of their science teacher, lol! but live ones don’t live long, and they scuttle off upon release.) he’d do the same when he sees them in picture books. but curiosity would get the better of him and he’d inch closer to the scene (like that line of marching ants), observe in awe, point and look at me, then try to prod it. if given a chance, he’d even do a ‘nunu’, who was recently known to pick a dead roach with her bare hands to show her mum. (heck, he’d probably try to taste it too, lol!) i think i may soon enough transfer my paranoia of lizards to him though, coz everytime i see one scampering away, i’d give my almighty scream and jump up and down like a hysterical baboon, much to his fascination. so he may just do the same some day, not for actual fear or ‘geli-ness’, but from mimicry. who knows? meanwhile, we finally found a bag of fake ‘scary creatures’ (i swear it says that on the label) at one of those neighbourhood shops this evening for a bargained price of $2.30.
i’m not sure if i should allow this ‘fear factor’ tactic to take place. what if he REALLY gets scared of cockroaches and spiders and lizards and millipedes and bugs? he IS a boy after all, these are naturally creatures he SHOULD embrace and befriend! and besides… if he becomes scared of them… who’s going to catch and kill them for mummy in her defence should she cross path with any of these offending creatures?? (by the way, let me tell you about my mum’s ophidiaphobia – yes, SNAKES! she’s so terrified of them, just the mention of the word will send shivers up her spine and turn her off her meal completely. i swear! i tried delving into her psyche and personal history, but she can’t seem to provide an answer to the root of her trauma. and no, desensitising never worked on her, coz the more we showed her pictures or shows on snakes, the worse it got. BUT! she is a terror when it comes to lizards! so… my theory is, she kills lizards, and i’m scared of them. maybe her mum killed snakes, that’s why she’s scared of them. ok. i’m doing it again, over-analysing, aren’t i? boo.)
did you read in the local news about the seven-year-old child who recently passed ‘o’ level chemistry? gosh. i barely passed mine at sixteen. even if i lived to be a hundred, i still wouldn’t know what to do with a freaking pipette. (and this coming from one who unwittingly did pure chem in sec school and failed miserably at every test, till ‘o’ levels when i *did* finally get a pathetic ‘C’, which incidentally was what the seven-year-old scored too, so you can say my understanding of chemistry is that of a genius seven-year-old’s… hah!) according to his dad’s blog, the boy started crawling at four months (!), and started walking at six months (!), and started talking and reading earlier in general than his peers. and he does stuff like doodle atoms. (while i doodled stars – damn i should’ve taken up astronomy.) his youngest brother (aniq’s age) is apparently a “genius” too because he can do stunts like climb up the stairs backwards, started speaking at eight months, etc. !! try as we might not to compare our kids with others, or use their achievements and developments as yardsticks or benchmarks, there’s something inherently competitive in our nature as human beings to do just that – compare. we KNOW it’s unhealthy (for us and our kids), and we KNOW it’s unfair (coz every child is different), but we do it anyway, even if it’s somewhere at the back of our minds. “their kid can do that, why can’t mine?” it’s harrowing enough that we have to check against the developmental milestones charted in their health book every few months to see if they have the appropriate skills at the appropriate age. but measuring up to these proclaimed child geniuses/prodigies… hmm… you can’t help but wonder… and as our parental pride deflates, we swallow the humble pie, and be thankful that our child is simply healthy, happy… and undeniably average. he may not be a “genius” or a “prodigy”, but the future before him brims with hope and possibilities of being Someone Special or doing Something Good, in one way or another. we can only pray, and do our best to guide him…
meanwhile, the boy is way too busy in his own world to bother with “the rat race”. busy with what? “THWOWWWWW! THWOWWW BAWLL!” his current favourite phrase (and action – then again, he throws everything, not just balls), complete with exclamation marks at the end. do you notice how kids have a thing for exclamations? it’s like they have this incredible abundance of energy, not just in their perpetually propelling limbs, but also bursting from their lungs. “NAKK!” aiyoh, what next, “ROCK NEVA DIEEE!!!”? i’d never been particularly good with lego and… building stuff, and i never really had the interest in it. i hear it’s good for your left-brain. that’s to do with being good in math, isn’t it? well that figures. i suck at math. and other kinds of, er, logical thinking. :p but seeing the strewn pieces of mega bloks on the floor today, i thought i should give it a go once and for all. well, it beats clearing up the damn things. i might as well get some fun out of it.
all 100+ pieces of it. twasn’t so tough. tough is rubik’s cubes. (which i remember i used to cheat by peeling off the stickers…) erm, i guess it’s too late to be an architect or a construction worker or a phew~
Mar
23
2007
 
the playground is my oysterPosted by aniq in Aniqspeak, Antics, Dadam, Multiply, PhotographyCHAK!
i alarmed my Nanny when she released me at the playground the other day. she’d never seen me go down the slides or run across the rickety bridge all by myself before. huh, serves her right for not bringing me to the playground more often. but i guess that’s coz most of the day she’s not my Nanny. by the time she comes home in the evening from her other job to be my Nanny, it’s too dark to go to the playground.
dear Husband, (readers, please note that i will intermittently address the Husband directly via blog entries because, err, sometimes i forget what i wanted to talk to him about, so i’m typing it out for him to read later. very lame? nevermind, continue…) if it isn’t exciting enough that robert smith et al ie. the cure are purportedly coming to town come august, you have informed me through your dubious grapevines that snow patrol and kaiser chiefs too may wash up on our tiny shores in september. YOU SURE OR NOT?? hmm baru semalam kita nyanyi dengan penuh semangat “ruby ruby ruby rubaaay!” kat dalam kereta eh. si kecik tu pun ter-snigger-snigger kat kita (“heh heh… heh heh…”) after every line in the chorus. dalam fikiran dia, “apa mak bapak aku ni, sot agaknye”. mana lah budak tu tak jadi macam anak met rock. anyway i’m still miffed we missed pakcik bono down-under last year. pfft. and too bad we didn’t have any babysitter for si kecik when matt bellamy and co. were here. and i think if we’d gone to fallout boy, we’d be like the most freaking oldest and makcikpakcik-looking couple there. erm. but i don’t mind if panic! came tau. macam sedap gitu lagu dorang. ouhhh! i hear my favourite cornflake girl will be releasing her new album in may. any hope she’ll come too?
hehe. BF-ing a piglet ten years ago. wonder how the piglet’s grown since… ok, that’s all for now, Husband. thank you for your not-so-reliable updates. at least it gave me something to blog about. by the way, i can already hear whispers of ‘dah tua tak sedar diri, pergilah syarahan ke, ceramah ke’… hurhur. to end off, here’s something irreverent for your entertainment. they came in an email with the subject “why daddies shouldn’t buy baby clothes”. ho ho, i’ll say…
maybe we should really get into the baby t-shirt business, hor? ok dah. see you later! ps: i’m not having dinner tonight. dah makan free lunch kat carousel tadi, ber-round-round sampai lagi sikit nak jadi bullimic. i think i gained 5kg in one sitting. tapi best. next time i bring you ok? yours, we like bringing him for jabs… coz it means we get to skive off work for a day (shhh!). well, ok, we apply for leave through the proper channels and all, but still, it feels like a whole day of gallivanting. but try as we might to make it on time for our morning appointments, we’d more often than not end up late, and then we’d wait around at the clinic some more till half the day is gone, just like that *poof*. the boy is still just past the 10kg mark, and everything points to him being at a very average 50th percentile. a quick run-down of the assessment checklist too seemed about right. like your typical first-time – and might i add, sinjaporean – parent, i’d been a bit paranoid that he’d ‘fail’ some of the ‘tests’ in the checklist, or that he’d fall way, way below the percentile thing. and it didn’t help that he’d had a bit of a fall in the toilet the night before (no thanks to our incredibly negligent selves, who left the bathroom door open, despite knowing his penchance for playing with water), and i swore i thought the loud thud i heard was his skull knocking against the slippery floor (the Husband assured me it wasn’t), and that the incident might in some way affect his performance and subsequent development. :S anyway, after the two jabs on each of his thigh (which he forgot all about as soon as it was over), we deposited him at mum’s for his nap, and proceeded to do what we’d been dying to do for a loooong time…. GO DATING! haiyah, no hot and steamy scenes were involved hokay. all we wanted was a decent, undisturbed meal together (with no messy and impatient toddler at the side), a bit of a leisurely stroll and unhurried shopping around the mall (an impossible task when you’re running after a two-legged tornado), and a no-brainer movie to top it off (urm, can’t remember the last time we huddled in the love-seat of a cold cinema together). then, it’s back to reality. not to say that the ground we fall back on is any less than great – it definitely IS great. having him around is like having our very own personal entertainer most of the time. and having your child kiss you everyday without being asked is like, The Best Thing In The World. then, of course, boys being boys, there’s also the wrestling. (did i tell you about our nightly wrestling matches? he’d pin me down again and again, and slobber all over my face into submission, despite my wretched cries of “NO!! DADDY HELLLP!”. the highlight of my day indeed. and no, daddy never helps, heh.) even though we’d planned this date some time back, that morning itself we both felt guilty and had last-minute thoughts about bringing him along. “macam kesian gitu eh, nak tinggalkan dia…” but left him we did. coz this whole ‘dating’ thing, well, it’s just… important, you now? there’s so little ‘us’ time, we usually forget that there is an ‘us’. so anyway, we couldn’t get enough, and had another day of it. this time with nothing planned, just a little aimless drive around…
… and no, no hot and steamy scenes of fogged up windows either hokay! will you people stop it already?! :p now let’s see… when’s the next jab…? do you spy with your eye a boy with three chords and the truth?
come up the bus with us! (and the real message, for the record, is here.) ************* oh, i should also mention the craaaazy thing we did afterwards. attempt to buy groceries at the Giant across the road! it was a Gigantic mistake, to say the least. the crowd was Gigantically impossible, but the worst thing wasn’t that. it was the sight of sinjaporeans FEASTING on the fruits and other perishable goods that were in the open, making the whole place a freaking buffet line! they swarmed around the 49cts/100gm roasted chestnuts and blatantly stood there, peeling off the chestnuts and had a heck of a Gigantic time eating them! a few steps ahead, another group swarmed around the oranges, peeling off the skin and munching away! i stood with my jaws open and stared at the sight of these vultures. why stop there? go ahead, bite into the apples! dig into the ice-cream! open up a few cans of coke while you’re at it! needless to say, we left feeling rather disgusted (yet somewhat bemused). … and headed to parkway’s Giant where the air was fresher and the people more civilised. tsk. Selling on behalf of my brother. A brand new XBOX (First Generation) console, never opened before with an additional original controller. Also included, not 1, not 2, not 3 but 5 brand new, sealed original games! Take note, all items on sale here are brand new, never been used before!!
The XBOX Back To School Set consists of
So what’s the price? Bidding starts at $160. If you really die die want to buy, I might be able to close the auction early if the price is right So, to bid, just comment on the post. Don’t forget to include your email address!! Happy bidding! The auction is closed! Sold to a nice lady! Thanks for the support! i’ll be at ikea on sunday afternoon, if anyone asks. maybe i’ll try to get into that hot ‘club’ called Småland where there’s always a loooong line of cool kids waiting to get in. but dang, i hear the age limit is 4. maybe i’ll pretend to be part of a band playing a gig in the club! of course, i’ll have to put on something more spiffy than my pajamas here.
i could do with an entourage, and maybe a few groupies. coz i hear something’s happening outside of ikea that day. not sure what, really, but mummy says i’ve got to be on my best behaviour as there’ll be a guest-of-hawner present.
hah! best behaviour indeed. as if rock star wannabes like me subscribe to that ethos, sheesh. well, if things get too boring (and i don’t get into that Småcrap – age limit, bah!), there’s always that new big-a** Giant hypermart next door! no age limit there… see ya, homies! (eh, ni dah jadi ghetto rapper pulak.) *parental guidance advised: contains nude graphics i’d never seen so many barbie (real name barbara? barbarella?) dolls under one roof in my life (barring toys r us, but they’re all fully clothed, so, not so exciting heh), so please pardon my fascination and ‘kejakunan’. i simply had to make the six-year-old owner spread them out in the open to do a body count. behold the line up…
i mean, WOW! :O i’d only ever owned one of these in my entire lifetime, and even that was a gift from someone who was not my parent when i was a ripe age of eight. she was called ‘peaches & cream’ and she came in this incredibly frilly chiffon gown and big blonde hair (somehow jessica simpson comes to mind), and thereafter i’d managed to wheedle out of my parents a few other tarty outfits for her when we went shopping. then there were the shoes, oh the shoes! tiny little colourful plastic pumps and heels that delighted me. and of course, with all those clothes and shoes, naturally i HAD to have the closet to fit them in, right? right! then came the vanity set, coz well, she HAD to have somewhere to sit to do her hair, after all. soon after, i took to making stuff on my own to add on to her burgeoning ‘lifestyle’, such as an old sharpener wrapped in paper and decorated to look like a radio set, for example. you think back and realise what a ridiculous thing to play with, this waxed figurine with fantastical vital stats and assets you once imagined you’ll automatically get when you grow up some day. (i’m STILL waiting!) you clothe them, preen them, press them against ken and make smoochy sounds… (come onnn, ‘fess up, you’ve all done that last one before, haven’t you??) i’m not sure what owning a barbie did for me, but, come, let me try. i learn to: why, all useful and practical life skills, doncha think? LOL! vilify barbie if you must, for conveying the image and personification of the ‘perfect’ Woman – tall, leggy, slim, shapely, elegant, glamourous, fashionable (aren’t you hating her already?)… and, as a reflection of newer generations, global (she has mutated into a multi-cultural variety of skin tones and hair colour since my time). but she has, no doubt, carved a niche in our collective psyche, and successfully associated herself as a ‘role model’ for millions of young girls (and boys??) out there. i’m sure many socially-conscious parents have refused to buy their daughters what they deem as ‘false idols’. i did in fact have an ang moh uncle who denied my young cousin ownership of a barbie (he also didn’t allow anyone in his family to drink Coke, heh, so i guess he’s an anti-consumerist species of his own). but there surely are some redeeming values that barbie imparts on her followers. i don’t think there’s any REAL harm with a little role-play and imagination (and fantasy?) with barbie and friends. unless your kid grows up… bullimic or anorexic or with low self-esteem or whatever psycho mambo-jambo you can come up with, from idealising barbie – but hmm, that should be our fault and not barbie’s, shouldn’t it? (oh, and you’d probably be a teeny bit concerned if your boy, perhaps, spends more time with barbie than GI Joe or ultraman, lol!) say… i wonder if there are baby barbies and tiny barbie prams and cots out there too. imagine barbie holding a cell phone in one hand, pushing a stroller with the other, wearing a dkny-inspired power suit, her SUV keys jingling in her handbag, her hair perfectly coiffed, smiling smiling smiling. now, that would be something i could have aspired to. oh, and where’s ken in this picture? well… if ken (funny that rhymes with ‘men’) were perfect, he’d be the one in the power suit and handling the baby instead, wouldn’t he…? come to think of it, hmm… i guess it’s all about GIRL POWER, y’all! it hits you like a brick in the most unexpected way, this thing called Motherhood, and the realisation that there is a Power you get to wield with that title. the Power of Emotional Blackmail, aka The Guilt Trip. many generations of mothers no doubt have discovered the full force of this Power, even further than the days of si tanggang and batu belah batu bertangkup. cavewomen probably used it on their caveoffsprings when the latter tries to do something stupid like club their cavemummy’s heads. the little one had so far been somewhat ‘immune’ to my shouts of “NO!” when he attempts to wreak mischief, oftentimes eyeing me while continuing his endeavours, or escaping with a grin before coming back to repeat the offence. he’s also used to my ‘jentik’ punishments, offering me his hand when asked for it. there was one time when i tried another tactic of holding him down and getting him to “look at mummy” while i tell him not to do something particularly naughty, but he leaned close towards my face and made googly eyes, which made me burst into an uncontrollable fit of giggles… and he wriggled himself free to do that particularly naughty thing again. last week, we were having dinner outside, and as usual, i was the last to touch my food, being occupied with the task of feeding my little caveoffspring his dinner first. he’d had a bit of papadom (yes yes, very oily and salty etc, i know, tsk tsk) coz he loved all things crispy, and halfway through his rice, he demanded another bit of papadom. instead of the usual “NO!”, i gave him The Look. yes. no words, just… The Look. if you have a mother, i’m sure you’d know The Look. The Look that says a thousand “no”s, the kind that withers flowers, the kind that emits palpable disapproval, the kind that radiates displeasure, the kind that makes, well, little boys cry. which was exactly what he did, scrunch up his face and burst into tears. his grandpa quickly shoved a papadom bit into his hand, while i continued giving The Look. the boy, papadom clenched in fist, was torn. he looked at me, his desire to gobble up the papadom overwhelming, called out a pathetic “maaa?”, and his face immediately scrunched up into tears again. a giggle almost escaped from my lips, but the rule of the game is to maintain The Look, or forever undermine the power bestowed upon you. i’m an evil, evil mother. again the wimpering “maa?” almost broke me, coupled with the tears and snot, but his grandpa swooped in and carried him out to distract him (and let him eat his papadom in peace). and that was the moment it occurred to me that i have The Power. the lights turned on above my head. NOW i get it. so THIS is how sons (does it apply only to first sons? only sons? or all sons?) develop The Guilt when it comes to their mums. woaah. anyway, i finally got to have my dinner (which, as usual, had grown cold), and a while later, the grandpa came in with the little bub, all smiley again. he said he kept going “maaa.. maaa…” and looking at my direction while he was outside, and seeing me without my Medusa impersonation made him feel better. ahh. i think i shall bask in The Power while it lasts… (which i foresee will end when he finds himself a Wife, lol!) As promised, this is the second part of the trailblazing pictures. The light streaks were captured last weekend on the way back home from Jurong Point Shopping Centre. Managed to get the CTE tunnel shots. Same settings, same camera, same car but different photographer. Yep, make no mistake, these pictures were taken by my wife. She was in the front passenger seat while Aniq was at the back seat, sound asleep. She mounted the camera on the tripod, set to aperture mode, and began clicking away.
Critics and comments on the pictures welcome. You can also check out my flickr site for more pictures. really, daddy. WHAT’S THE POINT??
masking tapes are for amateurs, man.
tsk~ parents. they try so hard. i feel sorry for them sometimes. they really shouldn’t undermine our sheer intelligence and power of determination, you know. now, where’s that crowbar… that prison cot of mine needs a teeny bit of a ‘reconstruction’…. |
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