as a whale. :p

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izadnhana & aniqizhan hope you had a meaningful and blessed eid with your loved ones…

i can tell you that THIS boy has been enjoying himself tremendously! :D

can’t you tell??

some thoughts over raya:

- matching bajus serve a purpose. they are a kind of tool of identification, especially useful when you have children. rarely-met makciks would inevitably ask, “ni anak siapa?” or “yang mana anaknya?”, and all you need to do is point out “yang sama baju dengan bapaknya/maknya tu…” (depending on gender of child). ps: it is also useful when you are newlyweds.

- you’re filled to the brim from eating at EVERY SINGLE HOUSE which invariably serves the same fare of lontong/ketupat, lodeh, rendang, sambal goreng, ayam masak merah, etc. inevitably, the host of the last house you visit will be the one who FORCES YOU THE MOST to eat, even though you decline politely at least ten times while clutching your stomach and giving your best grimace. and inevitably, you give in and eat yet another plate of lontong/ketupat, lodeh, rendang, sambal goreng, ayam masak merah, etc.

- some of us ‘adults’ discussed that “duit collection” in general has become lesser (judging from the amount our kids get) over time. we remembered “during our time”, when we could “collect” at least $400-$500 a day, giving “kaya raya” a whole meaning by itself! we came up with a few theories on this. i) “during our time”, our parents brought us to visit a lot more houses. we visit fewer houses now, because many of the elderly we used to visit has passed on. ii) people were more generous back then, for some reason. iii) because we were old enough to remember how much we’d “collected”, it meant that our aunts and uncles had been working for a long time and had established their jobs/careers, so they could afford to give us more. most of our (currently very young) kids’ aunts and uncles are likely to have just started working or are just a few years into their jobs, so are perhaps more prudent with money, more so if they have very young kids themselves.

- i wish i could put up my hand when someone asks “is there a doctor in the house?” coz there literally was a doctor in the house during raya, being all useful. my doctor cousin (who’s freaking younger than me!) from KL was in town with her family, and she proceeded to clean my dad’s wound on his foot at home, which was rotting something bad, as in, white flesh exposed and all. this small little girl who used to play barbie dolls with me, all grown up now, steadily picking on bits of flesh with a pair of scissors in her plastic-gloved hands. now why didn’t i go and take up something useful like medicine when i was in school?? much help i am now, with my boring english degree, good for nothing much except to blog. sigh. (PLUS she’s getting engaged to a fellow doctor. how enviably grey’s anatomy!)

- i just realised i forgot to do the seek-forgiveness-and-green-packet from-husband thing on raya morning, in all the mad rush getting ready to leave the house. err, got late penalty or not?

- i came up with my own theory about why we SHOULD make an effort to tidy up and decorate the house for raya. ok, maybe some may say it’s to keep up with appearances or impress the joneses (or jenabs), but i think it’s a kind of respect to your visitors, to welcome them into a nice and clean house so that they would feel comfortable. well, at least i *hope* our house is nice and clean (and comfortable) enough for our ‘pendatangs’…

- when we were young and followed our parents to visit old people, we were always seen but not heard. we were rarely spoken to, except for the perfunctory “sekolah darjah/menengah berapa sekarang?” and pretty much stayed in our parents’ shadows or minded our own business, hardly asked for our opinions or invited to join in their conversations. now we’re thirty years old and it looks like not much has changed – we visit old people with the parents and it’s still them who do the talking and not us! our parents were our age when they brought us to visit all these elders, even distantly related ones, so who do we visit when we’re their age…? i certainly can’t think of that many, except immediate aunts and uncles. *scratch head*

- i still cannot get used to relatives saying that they read this blog. urm. i never know how to respond except, *gulp*.

- totally un-raya-related, but we discovered earlier today that aniq had climbed his way INTO his cot without any assistance, the monkey that he is, and instead of taking that as a warning sign that we MUST IMMEDIATELY LOWER HIS COT, we procrastinated and within minutes, he’d attempted to climb OUT of it, with a great big “GEDEBUK”, but of course. the bed is officially lowered now. as in, on the floor kind of low, lol! with no railings or whatever, so i expect that he will be greeting us at our bed in the morning instead of the other way round. we WILL get him a proper toddler bed. right after we figure out the logistic headache of where to place it.

so anyway, two days of syawal have passed. i expect i’ll have more (rubbish) to mull over for the rest of the month.

meanwhile, whoever’s working on monday – HAH!

(oops, selamat hari raya, maaf zahir batin. heh.)

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as we approach the final day of fasting, i would like to officially thank the laki for taking over sahur preparation duties for the whole month and for taking care of his not-so-well bini by feeding her his various nasi goreng concoctions cooked at five in the morning.

i feel very lucky indeed. (except when it comes to washing the dishes and wiping the stove, ha ha. ok lah, fair is fair. you man, me woman; you hunt, me gather.)

anyway, we survived our highly-focused ‘hunting’ expedition at geylang on weds evening, and were quite pleased with our finds as well as our general navigation in the geylang maze.

we even came upon a stall with piping hot keropok lekor at just the right moment, fresh out of the oil-filled wok. the taste and consistency of the kerepok lekor was yummy perfect, so much so that i was even generous enough to let aniq loose on the “pok!” (as he calls it), much to his delight.

takpe, takpe, mummy kasi chan. nak raya punya pasal, mood ada baik.

we even managed to kill two birds with one stone because sheng shiong was right around the corner of haig road and we bought enough bottles of lemon tea to feed a small kampung.

and all that BEFORE ‘grey’s anatomy’! =)

had another ‘hunting’ expedition at parkway this evening. and i think i’ll forget about my plan to attack far east flora tomorrow because i:

a) am reminded that i am totally devoid of green fingers – live flowers and plants always commit kamikaze on me;
b) am broke;
c) just spent on some fake flowers, which are somewhat pretty and real-looking enough and won’t die out on me for sure!

ok. long day ahead. the list of last-minute chores has been stuck to the fridge. (yes, i’m THAT anal.)

to all of you dreading raya, err, wolf down lots of cookies and sugary drinks, that’ll put you on a high for a few hours, at least.

and to all of you eagerly anticipating raya, pace yourself with all that ketupat, lemang, rendang, sambal goreng, ayam masak merah, etc. or you’ll be raya-ing in the toilet instead!

good luck with the final preps, and happy last-day-of-ramadhan… :)

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ok, i suppose i should be doing some updating by now.

well, there isn’t much else to say at this point, except that i STILL feel crappy, despite having supposedly crossed over to the second trimester. :S

constant stomach upset, the windy kind, sometimes i think it’s gastric but i’m not sure. i’ve tried gulping down ginger ale, mylanta syrup, gastric tablets and antacid (yuk!), hot tea… but nothing works!

i don’t think i’ll ever sufficiently describe this miserable feeling, so i’ll stop.

i’ve been thinking that i’ve squandered away the whole of ramadhan believing that i’ll get a boy, when deep deep inside i know i should have made supplications for a girl and say “insya allah” each time someone suggests or hopes it for me. i’m so stubborn, i know. once i have an idea in my head, it gets stuck.

i find myself going “how DO they get one boy one girl so easily??” everytime i see a couple with two kids, one of each gender. in fact, how DID my own parents do it??

i know i’ve said i wouldn’t mind another boy, but of course, which parent wouldn’t want a balance of both, yin and yang, in their lives?

i always thought we could ‘engineer’ these things, but i don’t think i managed to put the theories to practice. haha.

ok. that’s my thoughts for now.

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thanks for the response, the playstation 2 was sold to a nice gentleman!! look out for more izadnhana specials in the coming months! thank you!

 i’m helping a friend to sell off his 11 months old sony playstation 2 (slim form factor). in good working condition. technically still got around 1 month left of the warranty. this is the mod version so you can play lots of “friendly” games!

so what is in the package? basically, it is what you see in the picture below:

• the ps2 console, fully modified to play “friendly” games (sorry, no box)
• 2 game controllers (1 original, 1 third party)
• 8mb memory card
• more than 20 “friendly” games as seen below!

bidding starts at $200. cheap rite? so why sell? it seems that he is funding a new gaming console, hehe :)

anyway to deal, please email me at -> izadd77@gmail.com

any questions regarding the ps2, you can leave a comment here. i will try to get you the answer, asap. so bid with confidence! seller hopes to seal the deal before raya, so that he can enjoy his new gaming console during the festive season!

thanks and happy bidding! (i will update you guys of the highest bidder once i receive any offers.)

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am suddenly looking forward to The Big Day, because a lot of things have been sorted out over the weekend, thankfully.

- kuihs sorted! well… 80% of which are nuts and crackers, though, hehe. we, along with what seemed like three-quarters of the entire malay community, had stormed into the Camel warehouse at defu lane over the weekend, as they were selling nuts and chips and other snacks at low, low prices. fabulous! so if you visit the izadnhanas over hari raya, you will be crunching and munching on nothing but nuts and chips, ok? be warned.

- air-tight containers sorted! because we’re having nuts and chips mah. none of those flimsy, wimpy kinds for the lazy-handed visitors. nevermind that they’re from Giant and not CK Tangs, no time! no time!

- curtains sorted! finally, SOMEBODY did something about the curtain rod in the living room which was tethering at the edge of a loose screw, and has been threatening to drop on someone’s head at any unsuspecting moment. it had kindly waited long enough until it got fixed by the curtain guy. and after three years, we finally made a new pair of curtains, ha ha. also, we got around to replacing that disintegrating bamboo curtain at the kitchen entrance that we’d bought from chatuchak, which had suffered much trauma from a toddler and other visiting children. it’s served us well, i must say, well worth the bahts we’d spent.

- bajus sorted! well… mine anyway. it had to be MINE first, then the husband’s and child’s, of course. as rini said, “dorang takpe, janji mak mesti jambu”. or something to that effect lah. looks like we’re going to have to brave the geylang madhouse ONE MORE TIME to search for their bajus. not sure if we’ll be perfectly colour-coordinated this time round, but, err, we’ll try. :p

last raya, merah menyala. hee.

- bedsheets sorted! this has ALWAYS been a tradition with my mum and me, especially when i was still staying with her. we’re quite anal about our bedsheets during raya – no one is allowed to crease it, not even the husbands! we get super excited when we buy a new bedsheet set, and will ensure there’s matching valance, pillowcases, etc. one of those mother-daughter quirks, i guess.

- accessories (somewhat) sorted! managed to sneak around vivocity and grab whatever i could, as the husband was sent to look for a decent pair of shoes for the lil bub. (white nikes! with baju kurung?? sheesh.) i’m going to forget about finding matching shoes or handbags for myself, i am so tak kuasa ok. anyway, i’ll be hard-pressed to find cute, glamourous little sequinned handbags that could fit diapers, extra toddler clothes, wet wipes, tissues, snacks, etc.

- messy hair sorted! had a quickie during lunch. (esah, malam ni ko nye turn potong ngan desmond, kan??)

- puasa sorted! haha, ok, almost. had to miss three days for medication, and hopefully nothing else goes wrong this week. phew.

let’s see, what else is there??

i’m sure i have a few more tasks to do. the washing machine and dryer will be working overtime for the next few days. the list for raya packets will need to be done (and what a loooong list i foresee this to be, haha!). and zakat, i think izad intends to do online this year. (has anyone done it this way? macam tak authentic gitu eh…)

why oh why do we mortals slave when it comes to raya celebrations every year?! i know most of the above are all so… unnecessary, even wasteful, and hardly reflects the true spirit of aidilfitri. i used to love the visiting people part, but then i WAS a kid, and raya meant something quite different then.

while i still enjoy the visiting as an adult, it’s… different since i got married. i don’t get to tag along with my mum to visit the relatives i traditionally go to every raya since i was young(er). and more so lately since the dad’s ill and can’t move around much. it was a little disconcerting having to visit all these relatives i barely knew on the first day of raya when i first got married, and well, i’m getting used to it. it just feels… sad sometimes, being an adult.

but nevermind, i think as new parents, we just have to keep looking forward to this special occasion, create our own family traditions, and make raya meaningful (and fun) for our little ones now.

just like our parents did when we were little ones. :)

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a few things were noted as i, well, ‘raided’ my wardrobe last night.

1) once i start, i CANNOT STOP! the obsessive in me rears its ugly head whenever i rearrange my wardrobe, in colour codes and order of preference, no less. which is why i avoid this activity as much as possible.

2) there are clothes that i can’t, or simply won’t, wear anymore, but i can’t bring myself to part with them. these are what i classify as ‘milestone clothes’ – they remind me of some important points in my life. i guess this is what you would call “sentimental value”. so these get to stay in the closet, tucked away in a corner.

3) i discover embarassing fashion faux pas of the past! these have been thankfully stuffed into a separate garbage bag, and will be duly deposited down the rubbish chute, ASAP.

4) i unearthed an old radiohead tshirt that once belonged to izad, which was given to me during our dating days. he asked why i never wore it. i said because his smell on the tshirt had disappeared. besides, it’s way too huge for me, vair unfashionable. it’s too tight for him now, however, having acquired a husbandly + fatherly paunch over the years. i think this goes back into the closet.

5) it takes all of fifteen minutes before my nose starts to itch from all the fabric and dust. which is why, again, i avoid this activity as much as possible. *A-TISHOO! ~sniff sniff~*

6) i’m so bad at folding clothes, ha ha. i mean, look. my red/purple/pink pile AND my brown/beige/orange pile are like two miniature towers of pisa!

7) my blue pile is pathetic, which is strange coz i used to wear nothing but clothes in blue hues when i was in uni. maybe it reflected how depressed i was back then ha ha. but i make up for it now with an overwhelming amount of blacks. which is not as depressing as blue, i think, just… erm, classic coz you can NEVER go wrong with black, can you?

8 ) whites are the WORST to keep, i swear! you don’t wear it for a while and yellow patches appear, sometimes even mossy green. yuk. so i think it’ll only make sense to buy cheap white clothes, so you can keep replacing them when they decide to change colours.

9) ok, only i and i alone would understand my wardrobe system. so, err, don’t bother trying.

10) i have more space in my wardrobe now after the ‘raid’! (AND it looks considerably neater than before.) hurrah! let’s go shopping!

… but not before i get some money out of THESE first. :S

so please drop by tomorrow, ok! :D

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ok, so here’s the deal.

if you’re sick of geylang bazaars and looking at brightly-hued baju kurungs and kebayas hanging from the ceiling, here’s an alternative.

Wardrobe Raids is FashBash’s “very flea” little sister — the one who shops at Far East Plaza and wears Topshop, MNG, M)phosis, bysi, and This Fashion. i.e. Wardrobe Raids is the FashBash version of the flea market!

There’ll be 120+ stalls where peeps sell their second-hand or even brand-new, never-worn clothes, shoes, bags, accessories. Expect to see some local retailers too, clearing stock and samples. Awesome!

Date: Sunday 7 October
Time: 4pm to 8pm
Venue: POWERHOUSE, St James Power Station

Rain Or Shine
Ample Parking at St James Car Park
CASH TERMS ONLY
(UOB ATM at St James, but please bring enuf munny.)

there are also special discounts on the drinks but ha ha, puasa eh bebs, and takmo togok-togok tu benda, tak halal. :p

the reason why this is up here is because someone we know has a stall there (stall #32), and just maybe some of izadnhana’s pre-loved rags will be there too.

which means we’ll need to get down to the business of digging up our wardrobes for the next two days (and hope not to get attacked by nasty dust mites, or other undesirable creatures lurking in there, yikes).

spring cleaning lah, kata kan.

so… flea you there!

disclaimer: if stall #32 turns out empty, it either means a) everything’s been snapped up… or b) the stall owner couldn’t find anyone to babysit their little one that day, heh!

pps: hmm, maybe the little ones could be used as live mannequins…

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we finally managed to redirect our long blogsite url to something shorter and easier to remember. so instead of typing www.blog.izadnhana.org/wordpress, you just need to remember something shorter.

www.izadnhana.org

yep that’s it. very easy to remember, rite? the url will redirect you to our blogsite. simple? now try it :)

also, i had optimised the blog to load up faster if you are using your pda or mobile phone to view our site. if you are using a pda to view our blog, the page will automatically be formatted and optimised for your small pda screen. it will also work on certain handphone models. but so far, the only model i tried was the sonyericsson k800i.

the mobile edition makes your surfing on the small screen faster. anyway, if you still prefer to view the site in its full glory, you can change the settings in the mobile site. we hope these small adjustments will help to make viewing our site, a more enjoyable experience :)

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so we went for the second check up on monday, and all my previous posts? add TWO weeks to them. coz i’m further along than originally thought.

i’m in my 12th week already! :O

yet still, i feel crappy. still no spewing, just a bout of gagging over the sink in the morning, and a WHOLE LOTTA FREAKING GAS, making my stomach bloated, and escaping every few minutes in a loud, acrid belch through my oesophogus or whatever that carries gas out from the stomach upwards. woe is me.

anyway, can’t believe how much GROWTH happened within four weeks. the last time we came, we only saw a dark blotch of waterbag with barely a pinprick floating in it. and now, poof! an entire head, body, and limbs, all 42mm of it, and a flickering heartbeat appeared on the screen as if by magic. estimated due date has now been pushed forward to… 17th april. *gulp*

it’s funny but… i just lay there and felt… blasé about the whole thing. i’m still feeling the guilt thing, what more with the baby coming even earlier than we thought, plus the miserable sensations in my tummy over the past many weeks, so i can’t seem to muster much excitement from it all. it’s so strange – i feel so detached, it’s almost inhuman. :S

and i feel very ungrateful. i remind myself of the women out there who have a hard time conceiving, or can’t at all, and i know i should be very very thankful that my eggs and tubes are working perfectly fine. i think i just need more time to get used to the idea.

meanwhile, i was telling someone that he has an ‘intimate relationship’ with my belly button these days, lifting up my shirt at the mention of the word “baby” and making smoochy with my belly, after the cursory “ello!”, of course.

he’d poke it, pinch it, peer into it, talk into it, and occasionally, offered it his toy car or a sip from his water bottle or made it watch tv with him.

mum kept saying that he’d never seen a child have such a “relationship” with its mother’s stomach the way this one does, and that his adik would probably recognise his/her abang’s voice very well by the time he/she’s born.

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izad always has colourful stories about his childhood, mostly involving his escapades with his bevy of close-knit cousins and brothers. according to him, he was the leader of the pack (self-appointed, i’m sure), being the eldest boy, and the rest would usually follow his silly suggestions or play along with whatever games he comes up with.

i’m not sure what it is about the different dynamics of our families, but i can tell you that izad and his group of cousins are much closer than i am with mine today. perhaps because they are all more or less around the same age, with less than five years between them each, or perhaps because they all lived so close to each other then.

i think with our shrinking nuclear family sizes, and further distances between our homes than before, it’s harder to get our younger generation to meet often and bond.

but kids being kids, it don’t matter how little they meet, they’ll always have fun when they do!

i wonder who the leader of the pack will be this time round, though you can tell it’ll be the eldest of the group, aka that rambunctious-looking one in the middle, lol!

but i think our fella definitely won’t have a problem fitting in at all, being a rambunctious one himself. :)

ps: arshad, cepat besar, boleh main-main dengan haziq, hazim and aniq!

oh, and note again the jarring gender profile of our cousins’ kids:

izad’s – 4 boys vs 0 girls
hana’s – 9 boys vs 1 girl (!)

although, i understand, my doctor once said that genes do not matter, and everything is “fifty per cent”, like tossing a coin… yah right! :D

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radiohead is coming out with their new album in 10 days time!! this is totally unexpected!

but get this, they are not distributing it by the traditional way, no major labels are involve in the distribution! they are totally cutting off the music label companies and straight to their fans, no EMI, Capitol records in the picture, nada, zilch!

they’re only selling it through their website (at least for now), and for the digital download version, they’re letting listeners pick their own price for the album – it’s literally a donation-based product. so its really up to you to decide!

the recording industry is so screwed! a superband finally got the guts to stop the unrealistic recording industry demands! i guess this could be the new business model for musicians alike. who need the recording campanies when you can DIY it yourself! way to go, radiohead! woo hoo!!

btw, i ordered mine through their website, and they already sent me an email informing me about about my purchase. guess how much i donated, in pounds, ok!

source from boing boing and green plastic.

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