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.

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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.

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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.]

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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!

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