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!

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*

happy 5th, my nephie-poo.

+-+-+-+

ok, i couldn’t help adding this. MAUNI MOUSE.

aniq’s new cousin! i’ve always had a soft spot for little boys, probably coz my firstborn’s a boy. just one of those mother’s bias hehe.

about ten hours after being induced, he was squeezed out, all 3.92kg of him, with epidural administered at one minute apart. =O

and it seems that the lil fella didn’t have much space or he liked a particular position inside his nine-month home, coz his feet are curled inwards. i’d never noticed baby’s feet like that, so i was quite fascinated. in any case, i hope my lil one inside has more than enough room to move and kick about (i KNOW she moves and kicks about – a lot – especially at two in the morning, grrr), so maybe a huge tummy/womb may serve a good purpose after all. and i’m also hoping that the ‘lowness’ of my tummy will help the baby come out faster/easier, since it’s already, err, so near the ‘exit sign’. you think? :S

ok, shan’t think of that for now. there’s no way we can predict what will happen in the delivery room anyway.

let’s focus on the present! here are the two energetic monkeys at, as the littler one would say, “oma aus” (oma’s house). yes, he speaks germanish hehe.

other than chase each other around the house, they also make up their own games, like the “big-small” game (of which the origin and rules escape me), hold conversations (with bursts of gun-shooting sound effects in between), make a mega mess out of lego bits, fight for their oma’s attention (and make her sing ‘buai laju-laju’ while she lies down and swings them on her legs – free exercise regime, no need for gyms!) oh, and she also kicks balls around with them, and when aniq says “oma, ek-sais!”, she obliges by leading them in stretching exercises. i swear.

my mum must be going mad at home. i think i would, hehe. :p

it’s nice to hear updates on his progress from someone other than mum. i don’t talk to them often since i don’t send him there myself everyday, but i know i can call anytime, like a few nights ago, which is nice.

coz now i know where he got the word “rainbow” from, along with the other songs and stories he participates in, the antics he gets up to, the friends he interacts with daily.

i also got an update on adam, who has a HEYUUGE crush on this chinese girl, whom he apparently looks at all adoringly and doe-eyed when she comes in the morning, lol! adam’s terribly shy, though, so he NEVER talks to her, which got her to conclude to their teacher: “adam cannot talk.” so, the teacher tried to get her to talk to him instead, and well, she attempted all right!

without success, i might add. now, let me try to recreate the scene. ahem…

girl: do you want some? (referring to her cereal at the dining table)
boy: *nods*
girl: can you say ‘please’? say ‘please’? please?? (continues pleading)
boy: *zips mouth*
girl: (to teacher again) adam cannot talk.

alamak, so cute can die!

of course, adam can talk very well, VERY VERY well, in fact. and count and read. but cute girls are a different ball game altogether, huh, hunny? :p

i’m not sure which one she is but i think she’s the one on the far right, coz i’ve seen him sitting next to her a few times when i dropped by. addendum: (from dadam himself) “the girl on the far right is chloe not sharmaine.” oops, my bad! lol!

my little one, on the other hand, is busy pursuing different ‘interests’ at the moment, like occasionally assisting the teacher to lay out the breakfast cutlery, and matching coloured beads with disastrous results (teachers end up vacuuming the floor), and doing the skinnymarinkydoo, and well, other stuff.

next year, fees will rise, which kinda makes me choke and cough a little.

so just how much has he benefitted from this daily, two-and-a-half-hourly experience?

i can see the pros, of course. for one thing, it keeps him busy for that part of the morning when his mind and body is freshest, most active and receptive. i’m still not keen on keeping him cooped up at home all day with little else to do except watch tv and play with his few toys (coz mum refuses to have her house littered with them), that’s for sure. mum is around in the mornings but she leaves for the hospital during the kids’ afternoon naps to visit the dad. so that leaves only the helper as his companion and ‘conversationalist’ for the rest of the afternoon, which is ok, but, you know, if only she could do more than just give custodial care. too much to ask for from a helper? well, of course. they do go by specific instructions, after all.

so ARE we asking too much, we working mums? i guess so. it’s all that guilt for having to be away from them for a good part of the day that makes us question how much we are really doing for our kids. sure sure, he’ll be ok and will grow up normal and fine and all, just like most of us with working mums did.

it’s just that… you simply can’t help but wonder if you’re doing enough. you know? :S

it’s official and an announcement has been made to the relevant parties.

*drumroll*

there will be an addition to the family!

here’s a quick recap of what the person in question will be going through in less than nine months time…

oh, and here’s another hint.

IT’S NOT ME!

look out, dadam & aniq, you’re gonna have to work even harder for your oma’s attention soon…

ps: aniq ONLY just turned nineteen today, so shh, no suggesting/requesting/coercing/demanding that we plus 1 ourselves YET, hokay? shh!

this month, i didn’t see abang dadam very much, but when we do, rest assured we get along REAALLLY well.

if you can call hitting, beating, pulling, pushing, and general bullying each other ‘getting along’. hehe.

we had a belated father’s day for opa, who kept wanting to eat at han river in eastpoint. he’s always craving for buffets, my opa. the other day we brought him to sakura at downtown east, but he couldn’t get enough. despite all he eats, he’s skin and bones. it’s hard getting opa around these days, he has his own stroller which is much bigger than mine. the wheels on his stroller are huge too! he needs two people to carry him from his stroller. i suppose that’s coz he’s much heavier than me. it only takes one person to carry me, but even that person (ie. mummy) complains after ten seconds and shoves me at daddy.

anyway, in the evening of my first day of the so-called ‘holiday’ that mummy and daddy have declared, they took me to…

the moon!!

or so i was led to believe.

daddy got a discount for the trip to the moon via the DHL balloon. i don’t think he could afford what NASA charges for the trip on their rocket. did i mention that the balloon is REALLY giganormous?? it was bigger than daddy’s head, even!

we were almost reaching the moon, what with the strong gust of wind blowing us up higher and higher, but it hung frozen halfway during our journey! i didn’t mind though, coz not only did we have a mesmerising view of the shimmering lights from below plus the cool air, there were fireworks just across the sky, bursting in colourful sparks at the same moment we were up there!

the fireworks lit the sky in thunderous glory. wow. i can tell mummy loves fireworks very muchly. she kept going “WAHH!!” like a little schoolgirl. me? i hung on to mummy for dear life, like a little schoolboy teehee. (shhhh…)

and yeah, that’s how the first day of my so-called ‘holiday’ started.

with a right bang!

oh, and i guess i’ll take a rain check on that trip to the moon. i’m sure NASA’s price will drop soon.

“diddy” (that’s what i call him now, yo! is that hip hop or what?) is not as tok selampit as mummy, but he’s getting there…

mummy said he used to tell her stories ALL the time when they were dating. i wonder what kind of stories they were. i’m sure they were not of the ‘goldilocks and the three bears’ kind, though. hehe.

we were at a reading festival (no, no, not THE coolest annual music festival in england – speaking of which, omg, look at their lineup this year! a reunited smashing pumpkins, arcade fire, bloc party, interpol, waaah… ok, digressing.)

it was an attempt to get 10,000 diddies to read to their little ones. i think they were trying to break a guinness record or something, though looking at the grey weather and sloshy grounds at east coast that day, i think they should have been less ambitious and tried for 1,000.

ah well. what can i say about the attitudes of diddies in our country? work, work, work. maybe they would be better off reading to us their work reports. or better still, the newspapers. or even better still, blogs! haha!

perhaps the event needed some star appeal, like brad pitt reading to shiloh, and tom cruise reading to suri… (then you’ll get even MORE than 10,000 – mummies, that is!)

or ouhh, how about david beckham reading to brooklyn and romeo?

urm, ok, maybe not. :p

that’s dadam singing a loud birthday song to his baba and blowing out the candles prematurely on his behalf. and the little kepo naniq next to him just had to follow suit, blowing out the already-blown candles. there’s something about cakes and candles that make children of all ages terribly excited, isn’t there?

till now, i’m still amazed at how my mum could pop my brother out exactly on their first wedding anniversary, right on the dot, perfect timing. i’m sure she didn’t consciously hold him in, or talked him into waiting it out. i believe it’s just a darn good case of coincidence at work.

maybe i should ‘engineer’ our next offspring to come out on our anniversary too. it’s also the Husband’s birthday, so it’d be kinda fair, since aniq’s a decemberian like me.

let’s see… august 30. *counts backwards* oops, shoulda done it last november. we’re five months too late!

oh wait… *counts forward* that’s another seven months down the road. aniq would turn two while i would turn thirty the following month. which means, aniq would be four months short of turning three years (and i, a wrinkly, saggy, energy-sapped thirty-one-year-old coot) if our plan works out beautifully!

*nervous giggle*

erm, i think all this math is making me dizzy.

i’d better go layan aniq. he’s hurling wood blocks all over the room and i think he’s targetting at me. (meanwhile, the Husband’s in the kitchen making fish & chips with some weird stuff in the batter. ouhh!)

some time back, mum asked me to find for her some fake spiders and other creepy-crawly insects.

no, not for halloween decorations, or for a strange fetish.

she wanted something to ’scare’ the little ones into submission.

her grandsons – well okayyy, particularly one aniq izhan, is fearless of almost everything, and while some may see this as an advantage or a trait that should be encouraged, it also means that it’s harder for his caregivers to prevent him from doing something mischievous, or worse, hazardous. because granny’s scoldings are among the things that don’t faze him. (it also doesn’t help that a while after committing the crime, he’d push his face into hers and put on his most earnest “mmmaaa!”, subsequently liquifying her into mush.)

he bulldozes his way around recklessly despite prior warnings of impending danger.

“aniq!! jangan main dengan pintu tuuu, nanti tersepit kaki kauu!”
“aniq!! keluar dari bawah katil omaa, terhantuk kepala nanti!”
“aniq!! berapa kali oma cakap, kau gedebang-gedebung cermin tu, nanti benda tu jatuh pecah kan!”
etc.

he even knows when he’s doing something undesirable, purposely looking at us while waiting for admonishment for his misconduct. testing the waters, seeking attention, or just plain being a child, call it what you may, but it drives mum up the wall having a double dose of them in the house! (dadam being a whole other set of “pe’el”, heheee.)

so she feels that a temporary solution would be to scare the kids with those toy creepy-crawlies.

this is not to say that it’ll be a foolproof plan.

for dadam, there’s a chance, coz he’s the “penggeli” sort.

as for naniq, sure, he’d go “eeee!”, shake his head, and press his chest with his hands when we mention ants or spiders or ladybugs. (mum would occassionally capture live specimen for the boys, so you can say she’s kind of their science teacher, lol! but live ones don’t live long, and they scuttle off upon release.) he’d do the same when he sees them in picture books.

but curiosity would get the better of him and he’d inch closer to the scene (like that line of marching ants), observe in awe, point and look at me, then try to prod it. if given a chance, he’d even do a ‘nunu’, who was recently known to pick a dead roach with her bare hands to show her mum. (heck, he’d probably try to taste it too, lol!)

i think i may soon enough transfer my paranoia of lizards to him though, coz everytime i see one scampering away, i’d give my almighty scream and jump up and down like a hysterical baboon, much to his fascination. so he may just do the same some day, not for actual fear or ‘geli-ness’, but from mimicry. who knows?

meanwhile, we finally found a bag of fake ’scary creatures’ (i swear it says that on the label) at one of those neighbourhood shops this evening for a bargained price of $2.30.

i’m not sure if i should allow this ‘fear factor’ tactic to take place. what if he REALLY gets scared of cockroaches and spiders and lizards and millipedes and bugs? he IS a boy after all, these are naturally creatures he SHOULD embrace and befriend!

and besides… if he becomes scared of them… who’s going to catch and kill them for mummy in her defence should she cross path with any of these offending creatures??

(by the way, let me tell you about my mum’s ophidiaphobia – yes, SNAKES! she’s so terrified of them, just the mention of the word will send shivers up her spine and turn her off her meal completely. i swear! i tried delving into her psyche and personal history, but she can’t seem to provide an answer to the root of her trauma. and no, desensitising never worked on her, coz the more we showed her pictures or shows on snakes, the worse it got.

BUT! she is a terror when it comes to lizards! so… my theory is, she kills lizards, and i’m scared of them. maybe her mum killed snakes, that’s why she’s scared of them.

ok. i’m doing it again, over-analysing, aren’t i? boo.)

“let’s gang up on oma and give her the heebie-jeebies, what say you?”
“ok… but first, get your hands off my spiffy elmo garb, yo.”

CHAK!

i alarmed my Nanny when she released me at the playground the other day. she’d never seen me go down the slides or run across the rickety bridge all by myself before. huh, serves her right for not bringing me to the playground more often.

but i guess that’s coz most of the day she’s not my Nanny. by the time she comes home in the evening from her other job to be my Nanny, it’s too dark to go to the playground.

there! the playground’s THERE, i say! now stop taking pictures and take us there, you lousy nanny you…