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”.
i’d screamed my head off each time she attempted to climb over the back of our new sofa, and also at her brother whom she was imitating. her daddy told me it was no use coz she’d already done this stunt a few times, but only at the point of me capturing this vid that i discovered she really could do it – without harming herself, apparently.
grrrr.
note her “dare-you-to-stop-me” look while she performed the stunt for my benefit, and then gleefully dancing her arms about as she tottered away from me in escape from persecution.
i once overheard an old makcik, a long time ago in my teenage days, loudly warning her young charges who were swinging on railings or whatever – “jangan buat gitu! nanti kau jatuh, kepala kau pecah!” and i remembered thinking, come on, makcik, seriously? break his head? how melodramatic! hyperbolic! exaggerating! coz it seemed ridiculous that a kid, an agile one at that, could drop on his head from swinging on some mere low railings, and have his skull crack open, spilling its bloody content out all over the ground.
but now, many years later and having become a mom, the image has turned into a highly possible (and gory) reality, and the same phrase, which i once scoffed indignantly at in my arrogant youth, is perpetuated on my very own children.
“TURUN! JANGAN BUAT GITU, NANTI KAU JATUH, KEPALA KAU PECAAAAH!”
yes, i have turned into that histrionic makcik after all, in this great, karmic circle of life.
a few things happening here, if you wish to observe:
- lil A, like most kids, especially girls, loves to dance.
- the part where the chicks go “cheep cheep here, cheep cheep there”, she interprets as “cheek cheek”, which is why she pats her cheeks.
- the twisting thing she does with her hands and wrists, that’s her trademark, reserved for songs she likes best.
- like most girls going wild on the dance floor, she gets jeered at by boys, in this case, a bigger boy, and in turn, her silly brother. the bigger boy started it, pointing out her diaper peeking out of her skirt, and the two boys went into hysterics over her diaper showing, for some reason. boys! *rolls eyes* she has no idea why they’re laughing at her, but whatever, maybe she’s hawt (she does have a thing for bigger boys, remember?), so she goes on dancing, oblivious and enjoying the attention. it’s all very paris hilton.
- her “quack quack” action is more like shaving her armpit.
- the girl beside her is older by a few months but she’s got to learn some moooves, man.
i gotta buy more loud nursery rhyme cds.
*-*-*-*-*
so it was adam’s 5th birthday, and his aunt and uncle (no, not us) wanted to surprise him with a party. so sweet of them to throw him one. then again, i think i’d do the same – if i haven’t had kids myself.
he’s not close to me as much as i’d like us to be, but circumstances being so (he’s taken care of by his other grandma and only visits my mum once a week, at most), i hardly get to see him, or his brother, often. sad coz i remember when mum looked after him as a baby, i used to rush home from work, or steal away during lunch time, just so i could play with him, and i’d be all when his parents reached there before me to fetch him home.
and he’s so big now. very smart. very articulate. still shy. i gave him a book entitled “how to talk to girls”. i’m sure his parents won’t let him read it. (yes, he can read.)
the boys who used to fight for attention and toys when they were babies and toddlers, are crazy about each other when they meet. they go into animated chatter and form their own games only they get. i wish for them to keep bonding through the years. imagine them as teenagers! they’d surely cringe at these. *chuckle*
not sure why, but when she saw my 11-yr-old nephew, she flashed herself – and kept doing it when she met him another day (means she remembers him specifically; she doesn’t do it to anyone else… i hope). then she kept tugging his shirt from behind, giggling when he carries her.
omg. smitten with boys at 18mths?? :S
speaking of reaching 18 mths, have been thinking of placing the lil one in either her brother’s previous playgroup for a daily 3-hour programme, or half-day care at his current childcare centre. asked him if he would help look out for his sister if she were in his school. he said he would. “adik can go in baby class,” he says.
i like that the boy is largely independent, too curious for his own good, mischievous to no end (!!), but loving and lovable in his own rambunctious way. his sister has somewhat similar traits, but a girl being a girl, has a certain… je ne sais quoi that makes her a bit more adorable AND annoying at the same time. (how do you explain the nuances of ‘mentel’ and ‘menggeramkan’ in english anyway?)
sometimes we like to try to figure out who or where they get their particular traits from – her hard-headed stubbornness from mummy? his playfulness from daddy? – then give up, because it didn’t matter; they’re a mishmash of DNAs, each the way they are as a result of personality, circumstances, environment; a cocktail concoction of nature and nurture. and as they say, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. besides, i’ve asked mum on several occasions whether i was ever like either of them in terms of behaviour, and she could never confirm or deny, excuse being she “can’t remember”. i wish i knew, coz from the few unsmiling pictures of me, i figured i was quite a grumpy child. (not much has changed then.) on the other hand, EVERYBODY on izad’s side of the family tells me he was the naughtiest and most mischievous of the lot, so looks like that part didn’t skip a generation (darnnit).
so anyway, back to my so-called ‘planning’ and ’strategies’. sure, letting the lil one hang around at home would be the easiest solution. it’s not so much for lack of support from the grandparent or hired help that i seemingly ‘banish’ them to playgroups and childcare. but rather, for the chance to explore, discover, adapt to other activities and people, big and small, in the expansive world out there, outside of the house and the gogglebox, that i wish to contribute to their whole, with whatever limited means that i have. do they really need it? will they be deprived otherwise? maybe, maybe not. i don’t know, i lean more towards the ‘let’s-expose-them’ camp than the ‘let’s-shelter-them’ camp.
but meanwhile, err, let’s not over-expose yourself there, lil one, and STOP FLASHING YOUR BRITNEY BITS!
we used to do this on aniq to amuse ourselves, now it’s her turn.
==================
(purely for recording purposes):
i guess i should note for posterity, like i did the last time with the elder one, that she’s weaned herself off b/f-ing at around 16 mths (11 of which were exclusive). a mean feat? i think so, seeing she wasn’t as much as a guzzler.
guess we both didn’t have the drive to keep going till she turned two years after all. which was just as well, coz the supply had gone dismal, and we’re both happy being independent off each other.
so yeah, no more baby hanging on mah titties! *throws confetti* (though there’s actually little for celebration, as i’ve learnt the last time, re: deflated boobs, slower metabolism, etc.)
quite possibly my favourite pic during our short (by our standards) convoy raya visiting this year. courtesy of our in-house ‘art director’ and resident perv.
watch out for that ass! *szzzzzz* (sizzling sound)
too many last minute things cropped up among us this time round – so much for advanced planning. but important thing was getting to meet, catch up, salam-menyalam, peluk-memeluk, maaf-bermaafan (ahem)… and, of course, MAKAN!
“come, adik natra, since you can’t eat the yummy kuihs, i share with you my milk, ok?”
“ok, kakak auni. can’t wait for us to grow big and look silly like our mommies.”
after a morning of inexplicable crying and fussiness, we brought her out for a few visits, and she was distracted enough to momentarily forget why she’d been so irritable.
then something set her off, and she went cantankerous again. PMS much??
we made a discovery the other day, while we were writing down our orders at eighteen chefs.
no, our little boy did not suddenly break into a calligraphy of a shakespeare’s sonnet. no, he did not even manage to list down his own order of cheese fries and hot chocolate.
well, you have to start somewhere. chicken scratches are a start. even though chickens are known to never end up writing great script.
it’s the letter A, yo!
it’s funny coz of all the things we never got around to doing, is to shove a pencil in his hand and force him to churn out the alphabets on demand. so it was something of a surprise for us. i was hoping it’d be something he’d pick up on his own when he’s ready. so apparently, he’d already picked it up in school… somewhat. (coz the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’ are about as far as it goes, lol.)
and another thing we discovered was his ability to draw… stick figures. you know, with a head, eyes, a mouth, limbs. he calls it “alien” though. wth?!
needless to say, i guffawed to no end when i saw his artwork. (i still do.)
his daddy asked why his alien was hypnotised. (refer to googly eyes.)
when i was small, i remember being forced into one of those supplementary art classes in school on saturdays, and we were taught drawing methods in precise shapes to form figures like, say, chickens. you know, e.g. big circle for body, small circle for head, smaller circle for eye, triangle for beak, oval for eggs, etc. it was sooo weird. it was more like a math lesson. where was art, in its freeform style? sky – must be blue. grass – here’s green crayon. sun – yellow, of course. it’s a good way of finding out whether one has colour blindness.
as for my penmanship, that went pretty well. no chicken scratches there. teachers used to write in my report books commending my “neat” handwriting. like how important that turned out to be, in this age of perpetual typing and incessant texting. :p
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when his parents reached there before me to fetch him home. 
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