lessons learnt while kite-flying last weekend (to be taken literally, or otherwise):

1. investing in a good string and spool makes a difference in the kite-flying experience.
2. expect false starts in the beginning – not all kites soar immediately, depending on its shape, size, material, the wind, your skillfulness, and luck.
3. there are a lot of kites up there and everyone’s competing for air space, but therein lies the challenge; solitary kite-flying’s just not as fun.
4. once your kite is up, let go of the string – slowly, or it’ll reel off uncontrollably; tug it or reel it back in occasionally so it’ll stay on course.
5. guide and navigate your kite with care, especially when you see it dip to the ground or about to get tangled up with wayward kites.
6. the easiest solution when strings become entangled in a confusing mess is to burn the knots and shorten the string; but untangle them patiently and you get to keep your strings intact.
7. let go as much of the string as you can, but keep the end tied tightly to your spool.

and most importantly,

8. never leave your spool unattended in a very young child’s hand – your kite is, more often than not, likely to fly away. far, far away. lol.

and that was what happened to our kite. i’d let her hold the spool, with the string at the end of its tethers, thinking it an exercise in trust and confidence for the little tyke, but unfortunately, the poor kite fell to its untimely demise upon a construction site some unreachable distance away from the field where we were at. oh well,

9. sometimes, kites fly away. you gotta just let go and move on.

10. we are SO not getting another kite.

coz the little boys, for whose benefit we went kite-flying in the first place, were more distracted by the open field of opportunities to run wild with their imagination and creativity (and causing general mayhem in the process). well, at least that’s free.

i know everyone says auni looks like her daddy but seriously, look at that little girl on her daddy’s lap. (yes, that was me, maybe less than a year old.)

SURELY THE RESEMBLANCE IS BLINDING.

that’s me again, probably just a little over a year old, with an aunt. c’mon, admit it.

and this is totally embarrassing but for the sake of proving a point… (i wasn’t kidding when i said i wasn’t a pretty baby.)

so, there. next time you see her, tell me she looks more like ME (fine, so maaaybe she’s a little bit cuter), ok?

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.

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!

(warning: this is gonna be a majorly pictorial entry.)

bali happened for us on 14th dec, an impulse holiday decision, just because mummy needed a distraction. :p

it was our kids’ second flight, the first being earlier this year to kota kinabalu. on their way to become seasoned travelers, hopefully?

we did the touristy thing – rode on the horse-cart, got excited at finding familiar brands at the mall (there was a Topshop!), looked out for the famous Hard Rock Cafe, strolled along a very crowded and hot Kuta beach, ate….

the intercontinental resort bali where we stayed was fabulous, and HUGE! doesn’t look so from outside, but everytime we walked the length from the lobby to our rooms, we’d exclaim in amazement at the vastness of the resort. it was vair pretty at night, with candlelights flickering all along the walkways. we’d even brainwashed aniq into bringing his “wife” here next time and taught him to say that the hotel is “romantic”. coz it was! and he should!

more touristy stuff on day two – our reliable travel companions, len & ren, hired a driver and a small minivan to bring us to the market at Ubud.

a lot of interesting hand-carved wood works and handicrafts…

had Padang food… which wasn’t that great here, unfortunately. we thought our own padang food in singapore was better. (sg patriots we are, see?)

but the kids had fun. yes, aniq, must marry first, then bring her to the “romantic” hotel, ok. and check out the name, heh. (we missed you, baby Natra!)

we’d heard so much about the factory outlets there that they practically became our holy grail. but we didn’t manage to find many, and the few that we managed to discover along the way, were not as sale-worthy as we’d imagined. mostly surf gear and beachwear, and since i couldn’t fit into a bikini (hurhur) and am not a regular beach-goer in any case, no damage was done.

we were also told about the seafood at Jimbaran bay – some said not to bother, some said it was worth a try. and being the tourists that we were, we tried it. so happens that it was energy-saving night, where the government imposes blackouts on a regular basis in the effort to conserve energy (and money). so everywhere was almost pitch dark, save for the moonlight and generator fluorescent lights flickering away where we had our dinner, along the windy, sandy beach. we gotta give it to the ambience, it was pretty romantic, with entertainment in the form of children performing traditional dances on stage. but the seafood, sadly, was not up to our standard (compared to the wonderful spread we had at kinabalu), and the bill had us admitting that this was indeed a ‘tourist trap’.

the husbands had gone off for a massage at one of the many spas nearby on the first night, so the third day, it was the wives’ turn. (we’d brought the kids to the in-house kids’ club, Planet Trekkers, where we paid around $8 per kid to play for an hour before bedtime to tire them out when the daddies were out.)

len and i left the kids after breakfast in the good hands of the daddies, and headed out to a spa just across the resort for a full-body balinese massage. meanwhile, the kids enjoyed their pool time.

so much that some crying was inevitable. LOL!

ahh, this is the life, yes, chewren? (they’re bored coz they’re waiting for their beloved mummy to come back, heh.)

refreshed!

back in town, we had the best meal of the trip – at bubba gump shrimp & co.! yes, how unlikely, but we’re spoilt singaporeans that way, we like good service, good food, comfort, kid-friendly… and the bill came up to the same as our jimbaran seafood meal, so it was definitely worth it, since everyone (including the kids – yes, our eczema-prone kids!) lapped up the delicious shrimps and desserts.

back at kuta, we hunted for bargains. some tshirts, little dresses and knick-knacks for the kids, and souvenirs for those at home. none for myself, again. the markets are pretty much like those in bintan, lombok, kinabalu (where we’ve been), so there’s nothing terribly novel or exciting to buy.

i was determined to spend SOME time at the beach (seemed that there just wasn’t enough time, when the beach was RIGHT THERE), so on the final morning, we woke the kids up and shooed them there, unbathed (coz if they set foot in the hotel room’s bathtub, they could take all day!). like in KK, the sun rises really early, so we always woke up to a very bright morning even though our watch showed that it was still early. the resort, being the kid-friendly one that it is, had beach toys for sharing.

we attempted to bake in the sun (not very successful, since we had so little time) and had a bit of a swim. the waves were pretty good, although when we went that morning, it was low tide. i wouldn’t say that the beaches we saw in bali were fantastic – i believe thailand probably still has the better ones in the region? – but i don’t know, despite the beauty of the place, i could somewhat feel the environmental repercussions of its tourism.

yes, us tourists. in the big fancy (but damn nice) resort.

i think 4 days weren’t enough (!!) to fully experience bali, but thanks to our great company, it was a worthwhile one and time well-spent bonding with the kids (who had the most fun, in the water, heh).

and so that wraps up our trip to end the year. what will 2010 hold for us wanderlusts?

*hums ‘empire state of mind’*… (yeah, right!)

lost a few blog posts, including the last one on aniq’s birthday, thanks to some problem with wordpress and the server. sighs.

blogging is a somewhat emotionally taxing thing for me, and when i lose important posts like that, it really sucks. yet after so many times being let down by technology, i still never learn my lesson to BACK the eff UP.

sorry, aniq, if you ever get to read this blog and find that mummy lost this year’s post – mummy’s such an unreliable blogger. (and please pardon my french. yes, “the eff”, it’s french, bad french. really. don’t use it, ok.)

***

we didn’t do a big birthday bash this time round, what with the holiday trip to bali and all (which he really enjoyed, btw – though, in all his four-year-oldness, he has no inkling that the holiday was in compensation for a big birthday bash).

what we did instead was do a typical cake-cutting and goody-bag-giving session with his friends in school. having a birthday at the end of the year means you’ve done this birthday routine more than a dozen times throughout the year, and well, practice makes perfect. his friends and him have it all down pat – the singing of birthday song, the posing for pictures, the thanking in unison. such a difference a year makes! last year when he first celebrated his birthday in school, the kids were all so… blur and clueless. now – cuteness personified.

EVIDENCE OF CUTENESS:

*note the boy beaming and kept asking if he could cut the cake, his sister beside him equally beaming.

*the sister in the midst happily licking away at the cupcake icing.

and having your birthday at the end of the year means having to wait for your turn. torturous when you’re seemingly forever having to tell people you’re three years old when you’re supposed to be four already. frustrating when it’s everyone else’s birthday – your friends’, your parents’ friend, your oma’s, even your own mother’s, but not yours, not yet. heck, i kinda remember that feeling.

so pardon me for that bit of momzilla moment i get when it comes to his birthday. mommy’s got a soft spot for december babies like herself. :p

his nursery class – K1 next year, gasp.

one of the few times we get to see the kids whose names we only know from the boy’s daily reports.

sugary treats from Simplycupcakes.

sugary hugs and kisses from the birthday boy.

you know it’s worth whatever little effort you put in to make them feel special, especially when they’re old enough to say “thank you mummy” and “i like mummy”. (i’m recalibrating that word “like” to “love” – understandably, the concept’s a little confusing for him at the moment, especially when barney says/sings the word ‘love’ in such a disposable, wimpy, babyish, and admittedly un-macho, manner. he’s getting there. “like is small, love is BIG”, i tell him. “ok lah, i LOVE mummy,” he says.)

lost a post about the kids, so just gonna post the recent pics i like of them.

as you can see, we bring them out as much as possible. for fresh air and exercise and bonding and all that. coz it’s vair healthy for them.

i can’t imagine functioning without a social network and being so… ‘insular’, you know? so… self-sufficient within the confines of immediate family. coz, well, some of us just aren’t that way. and since i don’t intend to provide my kids with more siblings, i’m glad to have friends with kids of the same age, whom we meet regularly, as an extension of our family.

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.

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

ever thankful for being bestowed a pair of these. (yes, despite their – and MY – many grouchy moments.)

CHEEKY OR WHAAAAT?! (yes, the girl’s back to her usual pleasant ways, except if you try to snatch anything she’s holding on to, then YOU DIE.)

ok, and so many pics of auni and me, must be fair to this fella. (plus, mummy dah penat-penat pakai make-up, mesti letak gambar jugak.)

So we got an explanation for the crankiness. Little A’s got Roseola aka false measles.

“Roseola is a common viral infection in children. It is also known as erythema subitum. Roseola is not a major health problem. It goes away on its own without treatment.

Roseola is caused by a viral infection. It is spread by droplets in the air when someone who is infected sneezes or coughs. It most often affects children ages 6 months to 2 years.

Symptoms progress in stages. The stages are:

Stage one: 3-4 days of high fever (102-104°F). Your child is likely to feel cranky and uncomfortable during the fever.

Stage two: A rash that appears on the torso after the fever goes away. The rash is red and can be raised or flat, and may sometimes spread to the face or limbs. The rash is not painful. It tends to wax and wane (get better and worse) over the course of 3-4 days. Your child may feel cranky or itchy during the rash stage of roseola.

Other symptoms are fussiness, loss of appetite and sleeping less.”

You can say hers are typical textbook symptoms, coz the doc literally opened her drawer, took out a medical textbook, and flipped open the page on roseola, with pictures and exact descriptions of the virus.

Aiyah, why you never sayyy, ah girl.

So anyway, mystery solved. Her oma can rest well now. Sheesh.

On another note, think we’ll make raffles medical at tampines 1 our regular paedi now. So convenient and we paid subsequent consultation fee although it was our first time, coz she was born at RMH.