got this from is, and because it’s friday and my mind is not in a right state to finish my notes whose deadline is today and am feeling sentimental due to a mixture of female hormones and impending mid-life crisis, here goes…

(note: some questions have been purposefully left unanswered due to their potentially contentious or scandalous nature.)

1. Who eats more?
- izad, of course. like, duh! no one can argue with this. it’s a genetic thing, i think. his brothers all eat a lot too, it’s almost frightening. especially when fried chicken and prawns are involved. and he can also eat rice in its full glory as breakfast, ie. nasi rawon and the likes, which is just crazy in my books. cik abang oi, awak kerje keras di ladang, ke?

2. Who said “I love you” first?
- LOL! next…

3. Who is the morning person?
- izad. he says he thinks (and erm, performs) better in the mornings. i’m a pig when it comes to waking up in the morning, with personal records of staying in bed till past 11am. so since the little one is usually first to wake up in the morning, i’ll give a HEEEYUUGGE nudge to my bed partner, who will – eventually – trudge to the kitchen to prepare the desired beverage of choice for the little dictator of a boy or play ‘shoot gun’ with him. or switch on the damn telly.

4. Who sings better?
- izad! and he’s not too bad either. hehe.

5. Who’s older?
- izad, again, (hey, there seems to be a pattern here…) by about four months.

6. Who’s smarter?
- :p. ok, in terms of who went to the better schools and who’s got the right “papers”… let’s just say, i’ve always been lucky in that department, with ‘luck’ being the operative word here. (brains can only go so far, right? especially fluffy pink ones like mine.) as for who has the answer to almost EVERYTHING, including driving routes of the entire singapore and other seemingly trivial pursuits, then he’s got it – street smarts. bah.

7. Whose temper is worse?
- ah, finally i can say, hana! the one who raises her voice to glass-shattering heights when things go beyond her level of patience and keeps the little one in check. who then turns to his daddy, who has the zen quality of the one-thousandth patient in a packed polyclinic on a monday morning. yin & yang, you say?

8. Who does the laundry?
- both. he does his, and i do mine. coz mine requires one to press the ‘delicate’ button on the washing machine, while his is just the ‘regular’, and we both basically chuck everything in the dryer (except my really delicate delicates, which i hang to dry). obviously, mine is a more complicated process, so i’d rather deal with it myself, while his is a no-brainer which he is happy to deal with himself.

9. Who does the dishes?
- sigh. this i hate to say, but hana. why? why?? why???
(oh yeah. coz i don’t cook. ha ha.)

10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
- hana! well, i used to insist on sleeping on the left when i was pregnant with aniq, for some reason. but it’s back to the right side, coz his irritating alarm clock is on the left, and as i’ve mentioned, i’m not a morning person, so if i were to sleep on the left, that buzzing iLuv would long have been a dead pile of smashed-up plastic.

11. Whose feet are bigger?
- his! size 11. now what do they say about men with big feet…..?

12. Whose hair is longer?
- mine, coz his looks foppish like a gay hugh grant when it’s long and floppy. (i would know coz i’ve seen it when he had that hairstyle in sec school ha ha!)

13. Who’s better with the computer?
- hmm… ok, i think OVERALL, he’s better, in terms of hardware, you know, where to poke the wires and stuff. plus, he used to do computer troubleshooting (or something) in a previous job.

14. Do you have pets?
- no, we’re struggling to raise one child as it is. and we’re just not the animal sort, i guess. heck, we’re not even plant people. the various potted plants we’d adopted have died unceremoniously under our charge. i think i used to own a pet turtle when i was small but err, i think that died too. thankfully, the little one is made of stronger stuff.

15. Who pays the bills?
- half-half, for the house, the car, and aniq’s insurances. h/p bills are separate, and the rest, i pretend not to be aware of. :D well, i AM the self-appointed savings person between us! (or at least whatever’s left after my shopping expenses…)

16. Who cooks dinner?
- mum! or the makcik at the food court. or the nyonya at the fast-food outlet. we rarely use our kitchen unless we’re too lazy to venture out, and izad would then conjure up a sandwich or macaroni goreng, depending on what’s available in the fridge at the moment.

17. Who drives when you are together?
- him, coz as mentioned in #6, he knows practically all the roads in singapore while i prefer to be in the passenger seat and act all tai-tai. (plus it gives him a chance to ‘bond’ with the car he pays half for, since i ‘bond’ with it enough five out of seven days a week.) oh, speaking of which, have i mentioned that driving a chunky ‘family’ car makes you feel VERY unsexy and matronly?? at least with babycolt, i could at least ‘pretend’ it’s a swinging singles’ car (nevermind the child seat at the back), but now it’s like, “hah, look at that lady driver, she’s obviously a slow, old, fat, frumpy mother of ten kids, hurhur, let’s overtake her.” ok ok, i’m exaggerating, and totally off-track…

18. Who pays when you go out to dinner?
- him, most of the time, unless he doesn’t have the time to meet Mr ATM, so then it’ll be me.

19. Who’s the most stubborn?
- him. NO, him, i say! REALLY!! HIM!! :p

20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong?
- i’m never wrong. REALLY, i say!!

21. Whose family do you see more?
- mine, coz we fetch aniq from my mum’s after work every day. but i like meeting his on the occasions that we do, and so does aniq. :)

22. Who named your pet?
- not applicable. but i did come up with aniq’s name!

23. Who kissed who first?
- :X

24. Who asked who out?
- he asked me out. a few times actually, which i rejected, until the final time when i said ok, and the rest is history, hehe. hey, patience IS his virtue, remember? (refer to #7.)

26. Who’s more sensitive?
- me lah. girl, mah. mintak beli roti, abis dia tak beli, i merajuk lah. suruh buang sampah, abis dia lupa, mengamok ah. etc.

27. Who’s taller?
- have you SEEN me in all my vertically-challenged glory??

28. Who has more friends?
- well… hmm, we tend to go out with mine more than his. but then again, i’m the more ‘sanggup’ one when it comes to planning outings and such, he’s more of the home-body while i’m the kaki jalan. so effectively, most of my friends are his. his are mostly guys, so not so fun (coz most are also married, hehe).

29. Who’s the more romantic of the two?
- neither lah. this coming from the wife who buys her own anniversary gift and claims it from the husband, lol!

30. Who wears the pants in the relationship?
- both. :p

ps: in between this, i actually finished and submitted my notes. woohoo for deadlines (and verbal diarrhoea)! i work best under pressure.

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since there’s actually a possibility of using a girl’s name this time, i thought i’d have a go at it.

it’ll definitely start with an A.

izad thinks it should be a two-syllable name, like aniq.

and since this person (i still can’t bring myself to call it a ‘she’ or ‘her’ in case i jinx it) is coming in april, how about ‘avril?? lol!

i’ve been trying to surf for girl A names but nothing seems to speak to me for now. nothing with islamic meaning, anyway…

is it a must, then, to find a name with islamic/arabic meaning? i can think of many baby names out there that aren’t, though of course the ones with meaning are more, err, meaningful.

i found out that my name means something like ‘light of happiness’, when loosely translated. err, i’m not sure if that holds true, but i think there’s something to it, if it means i’m pretty much a happy-go-lucky kinda person. :p

anyhoos, i’ll keep surveying for the right name. i just need bursts of inspiration. and wish i could use french names too. like amelie, which is my favourite movie with audrey tautou. or yeah, audrey. heh.

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the plan was to get the tickets at the last minute. it could backfire if no one is selling them. i initially wanted to get the standing tickets but the wifey wasn’t too keen on jumping up and down and moshing around with the rest, dah tuek she said. anyway, my bro called me up a day before the concert, “got tickets, $100 for a pair, want or not?” he asked, not bad since the usual price was $60 a piece. but i got a feeling that i could get it lower. i told him, “$70, for a pair, tak nak takpe, besok confirm dia desperate.”

i told him the lowest i could go was $80. so he offered $80 to the guy, the guy smsed back, “$100, firm“. ok, we didn’t buy his bluff. so true to my gut feeling, he called up the next day and sold off the tickets for $120 for 2 pairs!! haha, good things come to those who wait, indeed!

we got there around 745pm, managed to grab dinner at McD. the stadium was still filling up with queues snaking up right to the main steps. saw many people in office attire. a few angmoh parents were with their kids. aniq would definitely enjoy the concert, but darned, only kids above the age of 7 years are allowed. or well, another 5 years then before his first live concert!

our seats were up at the balcony, which was on the second floor. it’s ok, since the objective was just to chill and enjoy the performance. i could see that the standing area was almost 90% filled up. they had these huge white curtains covering the stage. the anticipation was really building up. the crowd was really getting all hyped up, cheering at every sound check, expecting the curtains to come down any time.

anyway at around 9pm, after waiting for what seemed like forever, the lights dimmed, and through the curtains, we could see the band members’ shadows, which was followed by rousing cheers of the crowd. with the curtains still down, they played the instrumental song, ”wake” to build up the crowd momentum, and just right at its peak, jumped into their first song, “given up“. the crowd wasted no time in showing their approval by jumping and shoving and screaming to the lyrics. but right after the second song, chester saw that the crowd in front was really shoving too close to the stage, stopped and pleaded to the crowd to back up a little, and remarked jokingly, “it’s like live aid all over again!” before going into the next song, “no more sorrow“.

they played the songs from the last few albums, but i especially enjoyed the unplugged version of “pushing me away“, just mike shinoda on piano, and chester bennington on vocals, the haunting line, ”….. the sacrifice is never knowing why” kept repeating in my mind. great bands always play their songs differently during concerts, and the stripped down version of “pushing me away” showed how versatile the band is. even the first part of “breaking the habit” was a slow build up to the original upbeat version.

i always prefer the angry raging songs of their older albums, but i guess after years of anger, they had to mellow down. my wife is one who enjoys the songs from their latest album. especially the song, “shadow of the day“, even comparing the song as U2ish. but from the feel of the crowd, they definitely enjoyed the hard rocking numbers, jumping and shouting, especially the crowd favourite, “in the end“, even esah was seen singing screaming along to the lyrics!

overall, it was an enjoyable evening. great tight set. the sound was perfect, the music didn’t overpower the vocals and chester’s voice was great even after a few screaming songs, it’s amazing how he managed to stay on key. after the performance, the group paid tribute to the fans by thanking and bowing to them. they even found the time to throw their guitar picks, drum sticks, t-shirts and splashed water playfully at the crowd! best concert so far this year!

more linkin park pictures at my flickr site!

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so the soft-hearted parents went straight back home after the show and picked the lil one up, whose eyes popped open when he found himself in the car in our company. and they even afforded him the rare privilege of bunking in their bed for the night, out of guilt for not fetching him on time before sunset.

and it extended the next morning when the mummy called for a half-day off in the morning to do her motherly duty of spending time with him, and daughterly duty of sending her own mum to cgh for a check-up.

and now, guilt absolved, she’s back to the grinding mill…

till the next night out! :p

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linkin park?

tonite?

should we or should we not?

$80 for two tix!

nevermind that it’s in the B gallery. loud music is loud music, we’d definitely hear it. :p

but the guilt of leaving him behind for a night is… urgh.

he woke up at six this morning and went “mimmy! mimmy!”, appearing next to me in bed with a smile on his face, “dwaw! dwaw!” because the night before, we had a loooong magna-doodle session in his bed which he clearly enjoyed since it was the first thing he thought of this morning.

also, last evening, while i was washing up, i really listened to his ‘play-acting script’, which went on outside my bathroom, and realised what he’d been going on about the past few days:

“bang bang! i shoot… bang bang! i shoot. arrghh… ATI DA BOT!”
*proceeds to turn his firetruck over*

ok, the first part was easy enough, he was indulging in his daily (and apparently, nightly) game of shooting, this time with his toy trumpet, which kinda makes a good makeshift machine gun if you look at it. the last part had been a bit of a puzzle to us but we thought it was just his usual gibberish.

but the antenna in the mommy-translator buzzed last night, and it dawned on me.

he’d been watching the transformers dvd his daddy had bought for $12 at mustaffa the other day, thus the line, “MATI THE ROBOT!”, which i, of course, was guilty of commentating during the show.

so i sought clarification, “robot dia mati?” and he nodded.

so there. the fire truck was his victimised autobot.

anyway, back to the linkin park conundrum.

to go or not to go?

will i miss out on another ‘epiphany’ if i do?

… or will i miss out on the excitement and possible drama of heart attacks and fits in the audience from the loud music and strobe lights? :D

ouhh, decisions, decisions…

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i mean, seriously.

how could i NOT pass through an nc16, or even r21, movie with an obvious bump like that?? lol!

anyway, i’m not sure how differently shaped my tummy is compared to previously. i could’ve sworn from my vantage point that things are looking just as pointy as before. then again, it could be that obscene belly button protruding out way, way too much (and too early), like a nipple in freezing alaska.

rounder? lower? hmm.

one thing’s for sure, the waist is definitely disappearing into an abyss of meaty (and unnaturally heavy!) hips.

have always been fascinated with bumps, so there will be many, many more such narcisisstic shots. heh.

ps: fell at the stairs on my way down this morning, just as i knew it would happen some day or other. i NEED flats, pronto! :S

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after being ‘locked up’ at home the whole of saturday, the disgruntled mummy went mental and decided to break free from mummyhood on sunday and leave the lil one with his daddy at home to go gallivanting with her cousin.

it’s been a while since i went to the cinema for a movie with a rating that’s neither G nor PG.

ok, so the show we watched was not even R(21), but NC(16). ‘lust, caution’ was a bit too heavy for us, and i thought we could go with “some nudity and sexual references”.

and here’s the biggest joke of the day.

we were asked for our I/C before entering the cinema!!!

we looked at each other incredulously, then we looked at the ticket girl incredulously, me in all my, err, motherly/matronly/mak-mak glory, insisting that i’ve had a child, for heaven’s sake, i’ve SEEN more than some nudity (and not just my baby’s bottom) and am acquainted with more than some sexual references, but i guess rules are rules, and out came our almost-peeled-at-the-corners I/Cs (which i understand, is due to be changed by the end of the year when i turn FREAKING THIRTY!).

to think we were more concerned that they would confiscate the burger king meals we’d smuggled in our Forever21 shopping bags.

we ended up laughing and tripping our way to our seats like the giggly teenagers we were supposed to be, and that surely made my day – looking suspiciously under the age of 16.

we really should have stuck to watching ‘bratz’.

anyway, other than that (and one of nur’s friend asking if i’m her younger sister, wuahaha! – whoops, sorry babe, i mean, that’s just wronnggg…), we had a satisfactorily girly time trying on clothes, and searching for shoes and bags (unsuccessfully, i might add – we NEVER find what we want, murphy’s law in shopping). and no, i didn’t even look for any kids’ stuff or clothes. strictly mummy stuff. coz sometimes, mummies need to feel something other than mummies.

and it looked like the little one too had his good time with his “diddy”, who said he didn’t even look for his “mimmy” the whole time she was gone. pfft!

“this used to be my playground… wait, this IS my playground.”

“mimmy? what mimmy? doo dee doo…”

hey, liddat i can leave you two at home more often during weekends hor, yey!

(tsk, such typical wayward teenage mother behaviour… :p)

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so for your second pregnancy, you don’t even mind going for appointments alone anymore. you hardly care if you come across to others in the room looking like a single, unwed, pregnant mum, heh. you look at other couples and go, “hah! been there, done that. pfft, amateurs.” :p

anyway, izad had his IPPT in the morning, so i went to the clinic alone after sending him. since i arrived pretty early, i was #4 in the queue, so i was in and out in less than two hours.

the doc, as ever, made me feel good, which is his magic. everyone who walks out of that door always has a nice big smile on their face. really!

i got the ‘long card’, which is given in your second trimester. the card has all your pregnancy details and you’re supposed to bring it everywhere you go in case anything happens to you and you need medical attention, the ‘long card’ has what the emergency doctor would need to know about your pregnancy.

i’m officially 17wks now, and out of curiosity, asked the doc to count the date of conception. according to his round calendar, it was end of july, which STILL perplexes me, coz i could’ve sworn it was during the national day holidays… :p

then it was on to the bed, where he did the scan…

and voila!

ok ok, to the virgin eyes, they’re just a blur of streaks, right? but what would be of REAL interest to you would be the first pic on the left. see the little pair of drumlet thighs on the top left corner? the doc looked at it and went:

“ahh, i don’t see anything sticking out in between… there’s a high probability that it’s a girl… i think it’s very likely to be a girl!”

and THAT, my friends, was the point where this entire pregnancy shifted its paradigm, and my enthusiasm, which was previously lacking, took a 180 degree turn, and my heart leapt, while a yelp escaped from my lips – alhamdulillah!

i told – no, ordered – him to scan it again, and again, and he said, again, that there’s a high chance it’ll be a girl, although we can’t be 100 per cent sure if, say, its scrotum or whatever is still in its abdomen, not yet fully formed.

but STILL! :D

i think i remember (and so does izad, when i told him the news later) that aniq’s balls of fire were pretty much in-yer-face when we scanned around this time. heh.

in any case, i dare not hope too high, and will wait for the next full scan, which will happen two days before my birthday next month.

… but STILL! :D

hope is a pretty powerful thing (although it still doesnt eradicate all these irritating physical discomforts i’m having 24/7). not to say that i’d be awfully disappointed if he’d said it’ll very likely be a boy, but you know…. there’s all this pressure from people who found out about my pregnancy, and the first thing they ask is, “so, is it a boy or girl?” followed by “if it’s a girl, good ah! can close shop!”, which is fair enough, coz i catch myself saying the same thing to others as well. it’s got to the point when i snap at well-meaning people with an “i don’t know lah!! don’t ask me can??”, simply because i don’t know, dammit! and yet another good as any reason to keep this pregnancy hush-hush for now.

i asked the doc to show me how high my womb is now, and with the span of his two hands, explained where it is, including my appendix, intestines, stomach, etc. macam biology lesson! :p the womb is currently at the borderline of my bellybutton, which is getting more and more protruding by the day.

oh, and yeah, the baby was moving its arms around pretty much while i was scanned, although the doc said i have a very “cooperative baby”. but look at that, that hand with the little bony fingers – it looks like it’s doing a “bang! bang!” gesture, JUST LIKE ITS BROTHER, lol! obviously, aniq has been ‘asking’ the baby to play “shoot gun” with him. (he literally brought one comb, his makeshift gun, to my stomach once, and insist the baby take it, while he held another comb. oi, kecik-kecik ajar orang jadi terror/ist??)

took the blood tests after that, which required much coaxing of my almost non-existent veins. didn’t succeed the first time, so i was punctured twice. like the first time, i’m fascinated with the amount of blood that comes out of my arms. am hoping baby #2 will also have a high threshold pain like its big bro.

kak maya had already predicted it’ll be a girl from the last massage, from what she gathers looking at the shape of my stomach and my ‘symptoms’ (ie. sweet tooth and bad skin). and again, she made the same prediction when she came for my third massage session in the evening. but then, she said, although doctors give assurance, sometimes the baby has other surprises in store. like her first born was 90% confirmed girl, and voila! out came a boy.

so, we’ll see… till the next month’s (much anticipated) detailed scan at eastshore! *flutters*

afternote: i dug up aniq’s old archive and yeah, there’s a visible difference between the two at around the same time!

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ok, so here’s a snippet of the lurrrve that went on between adrianna and aniq, lol!

oi! please show some respect, she’s older than you ok? (by two days, actually!)

though i always trip my tongue and refer to him as “abang” and her as “adik” coz he’s bigger, being a boy and all, and she’s so teeny and dainty like a little doll. (don’t let that fool you though, she’s a tough one!)

ps: yang kecoh suruh “take picture take picture” tu, is none other than esah, of course. who, i’m sure, didn’t manage to take a picture of them at all, from the way they were tornado-ing around the room, hehe.

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…

with so many ‘highly-organised’ ladies in the group, what with more mums in the mix as time goes by, our yearly raya visits have become a progressively militant affair, with administrative details such as dates and routes efficiently booked and planned way in advance, through at least a hundred emails (at the last count) exchanged between us.

nevertheless, the (in)famous ‘janji melayu’ phrase holds true EVERY year, despite the “be punctual, XX:00HR SHARP” reminders.

oh wellll, kata melayu, beb… :p

and so, this time round, the madness started at 1pm and ended technically the next morning, close to 2am. the kids had all zonked out by then, while the crazy adults wrapped up their ‘happy hour’.

anak-anak pengsan kena dera dengan mak bapak

though i think i was close to collapsing right in the middle of that pile, lol!

so why do we crazy adults still insist on going through what others may deem as a seemingly logistic and geographic ‘nightmare’ every year??

1) we get a chance to see the others’ homes at their best (and get ‘inspiration’ for our own homes! ada yang berkenan dengan orang punye floor tiles, paintings/decorations, kitchen, piano cover…)
2) we meet each others’ family members and get to know them better (mengeratkan silaturrahim lah katakan. mana tau ada some undiscovered hot brother of so-and-so…)
3) we get to… eat! hehe. (kalau tak mee hoon goreng, kuih-kuih dan kerepek. standard! tapi this year, favourite macaroons, or as some may prefer to call it, “meringue”… *looks at fadz*)
4) we get to take lots and lots of pictures (lagi-lagi mereka yang kemaruk camera baru… *looks at pina & esah*)
5) we have a whole day to chat, catch up on each others’ lives, play ‘kakak-kakak’ counsellors to the ‘adik-adiks’ (sampai ada Survivor-type of tribal council to cast votes semua… *looks at Mr B*)
6) we get the kids together to play, babble, and, apparently, pillow-fight (mana tau, satu hari jadi bf/gf, kan??)

etc.

in short, you spend time with people whose company you enjoy. :)

till the next year… but will need to work on that ‘janji melayu’ part – a LOT, ok, bebs?

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it’s that time of the year again… to plan december leaves!

time to caaarrreeefulllyyy engineer and maximise whatever pathetic balance of leaves left for the year, and minimise the total time spent in the ghost-town office that month.

now, let’s all flip to the last page of the calendar, shall we?

07/12/07, friday: eve of birthday. good time to arrange for some kind (any kind! frisk me for all i care!) of medical appointment, which equals to an MC, which saves me one day of leave.

10/12/07, monday: aniq’s birthday. aren’t they always encouraging us to spend time with our children and families? yes, yes, must take leave to ‘celebrate’ this special occassion. even if it’s just to sleep in longer and let the birthday boy run amok around the house.

11/12/07, tuesday: eve of payday. that means there should be some $ in the kitty for that MCR concert, no? ok, KIV that. it *would* be nice for a little time-out for mummy and daddy. hmm.

21/12/07, friday: woah, another hari raya! always good to rest after all that, err, kambing action and mutton rendangs.

24/12/07, monday: well, why stop at hari raya? let’s get jolly and celebrate the eve of xmas too! (and no, husband, i am SO not up for that long drive to m’sia, nevermind that we have a bigger boot space now for aniq and me to golek-golek around in.) (wait, didn’t we plan to go on a REAL holiday this year? bah. stupid bank account.)

31/12/07, monday: new year’s eve. ah, what the heck, who wants to come to work on the eve of new year, AND a monday at that? sheesh.

*counts* hey, five days in all! not bad, and i still have a balance of, err, 3.5 days, which would probably be squandered away this month alone. (forget about bringing over to next year, life is short, baybeh, spend it all while you can!)

oh and in between that, there are always child care leaves, courses, and unnecessary meetings to be arranged. ;)

so, ho ho ho, and merry leave-taking, everybodeee!

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