A: “Tuhan… Tuhan is… everywhere?”
M: “yes, EVERYWHERE!”
A: “Tuhan is here? in the room? on my bed?”
M: “yesss, he’s EVERYWHERE, aniq.”
A: “everywhere? inside the body? inside my heart also?”
M: *pause – i never thought he would think of his heart, or his body for that matters, as a physical residence, but…* “YES, of course he’s inside your heart, to protect you. that’s why you don’t need to be scared when you sleep! see, you are not alone, because he’s always watching you. you just say Bismillahirahmanirahim and don’t worry, no bad dreams, no nightmares. just say that before you sleep. (and must wash feet also.)”
A: *thinks* “then, Tuhan got watch tv or not?”
M: “no lahhh, how can he watch tv? he has to watch everyone. EVERYONE, aniq! how is he going to watch you, and auni, and mummy, and daddy, and your friends, and everybody if he’s watching tv??”
A: “ohhh. then can teach me how to say again… bis-mi-yah…?”

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M: “oh, i went to watch a movie.”
A: “movie? girl movie?”
M: “yah.”
A: “no shooting? no fighting?”
M: “nope. it’s about girls, going shopping, wearing nice dresses.. love, boyfriend-girlfriend…”
A: “eee!”
M: “what eee! nanti you dah besar…”

(and so the conversation meandered to a topic we’ve visited a few times before.)

A: “mummy, why boy and girl must marry?”
M: “when you grow up, you’ll know lah.”

(now we know why our parents always tell us this – they didn’t know how to explain ha ha.)

A: “i want to marry you lah.”
M: “mana boleh. you have to choose someone your age. nanti you dah besar, you find someone you like, then you marry her.”
A: “then i choose batrisyah lah.”

(this, the mysterious batrisyah from his classroom. her name seems to crop up like a regular cast in a tv series.)

M: “you sure she likes you?”
A: “yes, she likes me.”
M: “how do you knowww?”
A: “i know lah.”
M: “but HOW do you knowww?”
A: “i KNOWWW.”
M: “yah, but HOWWWW?”
A: “I JUST KNOW LAHHHH.”

ahh, such is the conviction of a 4-year-old. (and to think Mr Big took 10 years to figure it out and finally marry Carrie.)

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sometimes it’d be kinda nice to have a mute button for the shrill “I WANT MUMMY! I WANT MUMMY!” (repeat x 18356 times) coming out of the children, and a delete button for their individual ways of driving me up the wall. or even a reboot button on exasperating days.

but oh well. am thankful nonetheless. srsly.

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auni at 2 years…

whether they’ll eventually inherit their mommy’s dyscalculia is yet to be seen.

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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.

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it was really hard getting the twins in the same picture – either one was asleep while the other was awake.

so we had fun watching the older kids instead. boy-chasing starts early for some girls, apparently! so much for our warning on aniq zohan’s t-shirt – lock up your daughters. ;p

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for all the diapers you’ve changed…
for all the psp games you downloaded for me…
for all the silly things you put in my head…
for all the scolding you rarely did…

i present to you, a little card i (sorta) made myself in school!

(ok fine, so teacher helped me.)

they say i take after your “naughtiness” when you were small.

i wonder if it’s true.

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*dump-truck, train, motorbike, and tiny cars not included.

hmm, not a bad collection, seeing that mummy & daddy didn’t buy a SINGLE one of them for me.

now mum, get off my bed – you’re making a huge dent in it! (i know this was just an excuse for you to lie in it, ok.)

have a good weekend, everibodeeee… remember: don’t drink and drive!

*****

(heh. i *do* get out and head straight to mummy & daddy’s even BIGGER bed when i wake up in the morning before them, and climb in to squeeeeze in between. freedom indeed! :p)

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our host server fan was malfunctioned or something, thus the downtime.

time for a change, ya think? hmm…

* * * * *

anyway, while it was quite, er, liberating for a while not to blog, the compulsion is still there (fortunately, or unfortunately for some of you, ha ha).

exciting things have been happening, in particular one project rini and i have gotten ourselves involved with. but more on that later, maybe end of this week. (if the server doesn’t go kaput again.) :p

anyway, perhaps i’ve neglected Aniqspeak for a while lately, so let’s hear from him, shall we?

* * * * *

mummy’s asked if i want to go to the Dentist. i’m not sure who this person is, but i’ve agreed anyway, so she went ahead and booked an appointment for next month. because my paranoid of a mother found out from the Dentist’s office that she should have brought me there upon my first birthday, so she’s like, ohhh, a whole year late. *come, let’s all roll our eyes*

i think she’s now trying to look for books about visiting Mr Dentist to prepare me, and even managed to borrow from her friend an elmo vcd to educate little children like me on proper dental care. (she’s weird like that – mummy, not her friend).

what? no spidey vcd instead??

and here, i don’t know why mum finds it amusing, but she said my penmanship has changed quite dramatically without her realising it. where i used to draw wide lines and large circles with much force and flourish, is now replaced with tiny little scribbles.

she thinks i’m trying to either: a) write mandarin characters, b) forge daddy’s signature, c) draw the various species of ants i’ve discovered so far, or d) all of the above.

on other news, mummy is getting fatter by the day, and even one of my damdil brudders think so, coz he kept lifting up his shirt and touching his tummy when he stares at her. (either that or he’s a right perv.) ha ha!

ok, back to you, fatty mummy.

* * * * *

pfft. :p

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