(oh, and by the way, the role of bridesmaids is traditionally to act as a ‘shield’ to ward off evil spirits lurking around at wedding ceremonies, and bridegrooms dress up like the groom himself to ‘confuse’ them evil spirits, in case they get nasty and decide to, i don’t know, possess the groom into screaming out “i don’t!” at the altar or something. cool huh? like power rangers protecting the wedded couple liddat. only in better outfits. ok, i’ve been watching way too much kids central.)

so aaanyway, as i was saying, where there’s an occasion where food and girly fun is involved, you betcha i’m in! (coz really, we need as many excuses as we can to stuff our faces and leave the husbands at home, preferably with the kids.)

can you tell it’s going to be a girl? no??

more than that, it’s rallying around the mum-to-be (whether it’s her first, or fourth kid!) for support as she enters the final lap of that arduous nine-month journey called gestation, and showering her with the last bit of attention before the baby comes out and all eyes would then be solely set on the cute, crying, screaming bundle of joy. honestly, don’t you mums out there feel like you get sidelined and practically ignored the moment you’ve squeezed every ounce of your being in labour? hey, we need some lurving and celebrating for ourselves too, dammit!

so as you can see, i like the idea of baby showers, nevermind that we’ve pilfered it from western culture, and i’m glad that i had that memorable experience once myself too. (how can i forget that girl-on-girl kissing game?? lol!)

good luck and have a safe delivery… insyaallah.

now, who’s next?? *rubs hands in glee* babies popping out everywhere, you know!

…

with so many ‘highly-organised’ ladies in the group, what with more mums in the mix as time goes by, our yearly raya visits have become a progressively militant affair, with administrative details such as dates and routes efficiently booked and planned way in advance, through at least a hundred emails (at the last count) exchanged between us.

nevertheless, the (in)famous ‘janji melayu’ phrase holds true EVERY year, despite the “be punctual, XX:00HR SHARP” reminders.

oh wellll, kata melayu, beb… :p

and so, this time round, the madness started at 1pm and ended technically the next morning, close to 2am. the kids had all zonked out by then, while the crazy adults wrapped up their ‘happy hour’.

anak-anak pengsan kena dera dengan mak bapak

though i think i was close to collapsing right in the middle of that pile, lol!

so why do we crazy adults still insist on going through what others may deem as a seemingly logistic and geographic ‘nightmare’ every year??

1) we get a chance to see the others’ homes at their best (and get ‘inspiration’ for our own homes! ada yang berkenan dengan orang punye floor tiles, paintings/decorations, kitchen, piano cover…)
2) we meet each others’ family members and get to know them better (mengeratkan silaturrahim lah katakan. mana tau ada some undiscovered hot brother of so-and-so…)
3) we get to… eat! hehe. (kalau tak mee hoon goreng, kuih-kuih dan kerepek. standard! tapi this year, favourite macaroons, or as some may prefer to call it, “meringue”… *looks at fadz*)
4) we get to take lots and lots of pictures (lagi-lagi mereka yang kemaruk camera baru… *looks at pina & esah*)
5) we have a whole day to chat, catch up on each others’ lives, play ‘kakak-kakak’ counsellors to the ‘adik-adiks’ (sampai ada Survivor-type of tribal council to cast votes semua… *looks at Mr B*)
6) we get the kids together to play, babble, and, apparently, pillow-fight (mana tau, satu hari jadi bf/gf, kan??)

etc.

in short, you spend time with people whose company you enjoy.

till the next year… but will need to work on that ‘janji melayu’ part – a LOT, ok, bebs?

and their reply is always, “one IS a lot more, okaaay!”

to these abang-abangs, though, they don’t mind at all. he’s like a little interactive, animated, energizer bunny pet for them to play, chase and tumble around with, no batteries required.

i think this boy is meant to be in a big family, like his daddy. but too bad, hun, your mummy is already turning 30 and her body can only afford (God-willing), hmm… maybe one more of you? if you’re lucky, who knows, i may strike those twin genes in the family too, ha ha!

till then, i’ll make sure you get to hang out with all your wonderful little cousins and friends as much as possible.

***

PS: GREY’S ANATOMY SEASON THREE 2230HRS CHANNEL 5 MEDIACORP TV MUST WATCH MCDREAMY OR DIE
*end of transmission*

so, my strategy is, as always, to keep him as occupied and make him as tired as possible in the day, so he’d retire early and sleep like a log at night, to minimise his presence as, it is, by right, his oma’s ‘off-duty’ hours and we were encroaching on her personal time. we couldn’t help but feel guilty, in any case. :S

anyway, back to my mission. since dempsey road was too far away, i brought him to a nearby ‘heartlander’ version of go go bambini – the eXplorerkid @ downtown east. can use ntuc link card, got discount ok!

…

the play structure here is not as high and not as challenging as GGB (though pretty slippery and holey!), but fun nonetheless. also, easier to manage with young toddlers like ours. the ball pits are equally big, but the one here is more open and the highlight of the place. kids would peer directly into it through the window display from outside, go mental, beg their parents, make a beeline for it, and not leave it for the entire hour. don’t ask me what the big deal is with ball pits! i’ve been tempted to get one for the house myself, but the thought of picking up a hundred balls under sofas, tables and every possible crack and crevice around the house… er, let’s stick to that $3.90, made in china, plastic bowling set we bought from the neighbourhood shop, eh?

so, sufficiently tired out (and i’m talking about myself here), i said goodbye to (a clueless) him and got ready to go to SIS (that’s the Singapore Indoor Stadium to you, ha ha)…

(to be continued)

wow, only one of you left then, eh? *winks at lyd* lol!

circa jan 06!

anyway, the bub above here has shown signs of displeasure at not wanting to share mummy’s arms with any other little human beings other than him. his lower lip would quiver at the sight, tsk. so tak abang-abang ok?!

just how do they learn this – ‘jealousy’ – anyway?

nevermind. we shall keep ‘brainwashing’ him till he warms up to the idea. must prepare in advance mah. (way, WAY in advance, in this case.) :p

so, anyone else have babies we could borrow?

i’d like a replay of what went on last weekend – but with less calories, please…

…
…

maybe a little story about the food above.

there’s the meats feast on kak m’s birthday at amirah’s grill. yes, meats – beef, lamb, chicken, fish. all devoured in one fell swoop, like true carnivores that we are. the rest had mint sheesha to top it off while i, and my lungs, remained steadfastly smokeless. what a party pooper eh? anyway, it was my night off without the kid, in the company of hawt (and need i say, hawny) women, and the only missing meat was… well, you figure it out.

then there’s the potluck at esah’s, where we (ok not ‘we’ per se, as in izadnhana, but more like ‘we’, as in ‘izad’) were supposed to cook up something exotic, like, erm, fried macaroni (ok, ‘we’ aren’t THAT culinary-inclined). but because we had to bring the little one to kkh that day where he was put on an adrenaline mask (like he doesn’t have enough adrenaline as it is!) for his cough, ‘we’ ended up bringing… murtabak. hey, not just ANY murtabak ok, victory murtabak ok.

right, where was i… ah, the cheesecake which you see up there. loaded with an indecent amount of oreos that could feed a small village. and what more, made with lurvvve at three in the morning. needless to say, it tastes better than it looks! (really. reallly realllyy.)

the hostess also cooked up a wok-full of oglio alio… alio oglio… aglio olio (ok, i can’t for the life of me get this right). pandai, right?? the closest to italian i can make is ‘spaghetti d’eau’.

ok and that last intriguing piece, that’s is’ vietnamese springroll, also made with lurvve (i don’t know what time she was up making it though). there’s what i believe is vermicelli, prawns, and vegetables wrapped in rice (?) popiah skin, and eaten with fish sauce. i think. aiyah, i dunno lah, i’m very jakun lor. i only know can eat.

we missed out on the other foods coz we left earlier than the rest of the guests, who were, as usual, ‘rusty stars’.

and that’s that. ps: i starved the rest of the week.

so anywaaay, i think i should stay put this weekend, though i’d be lucky if i get to read even one measly chapter of THE BOOK at home, uninterrupted.

would anyone know of a Muggle Child Repelling Jinx i could use on He-Who-Must-Not-Bug-Anyone-Else-But-Mummy?

ouhh, this show is way better than that christina akurela concert!

the birthday princess fell into a deep slumber before the cake-cutting. no she was not poisoned by an apple by her evil stepmother, she was just totally knackered!

o where art thine prince to wake you with a kiss, fair lady fynna?? zzz…

the other little ones, on the other hand, were WIDE awake. like that boy in the blue shirt who managed to swipe some cake with his tiny finger (and grabbed a chocolate spire with his grubby hand).

i bet christina akurela didn’t give out cake at her concert, nyeh nyeh!

i think his naughty streak is rubbing off on me. oops, sorry kids, i think i exceeded the weight limit on the trampoline. (hey what’s a birthday party without at least trying out one kiddy activity?!)

bouncy bouncy smack smack, i’m gonna give me a heart attack!

meant to go to the free happy feet screening at the botanic garden since it was so, so near, but looking at the queue of cars waiting to get in, i guess other cheapo singaporeans had the same idea. bah, we’ll just have to wait for it to come out on HBO then.

and speaking of cheapo singaporeans, a bunch of them were found dotting the side of the river across stadium, waiting for another kind of free show. the little one didn’t care so much for that, though, he was too busy running around with the other kids, as usual. hehe.

and the show? as rini put it, macam ayam kentot lor! LOL!

poot…

WITHOUT ME, can you believe the nerve?? hmph!

but looking at her pictures, maybe i was better off with daddy and yai. i didn’t see any balloons or balls at her party, so it must’ve been downright dull. pbfftt.

so anyways, she more than made up for it coz she thereafter not only brought me to one birthday party, but TWO!

and they were really my kinda party. not only were there balloons and balls, there were also boogie-ing and babes! woohoooo…

the last time i went to kakak iman’s birthday party, mum dressed me up in a bear romper coz The Theme was animals. thank goat this time she didn’t make me wear some other kiddy outfit.

BUT! for my brudders, damdil’s birthday, she was at it again, dressing me up to follow The Theme. she and unty nur attempted to stick something on my arms, but they didn’t succeed, and eventually settled on my leg. it looked like a creepy-crawley, which incidentally is also the name of some ancient rock band. according to mum, they had long hair and wore tight pants. scorpions, i believe…? thankfully, my hair isn’t long, and my bulging diapers prevented any possibilities of donning tight pants, phew.

hmm… somehow, i have a feeling mummy thinks the parties were also for her. she was boogie-ing and rock-ing along like there’s no tomorrow and all.

oi mum! these parties are for little people like me, ok? please stick to your boring ones with the aunties! :p

weekends = bbq!

but i think daddy enjoyed himself tremendously eating the bbq-ed food on saturday to celebrate my brudder rayhan’s first birthday. he (daddy, not rayhan) raved about the buttered prawns and kept going back to discover more things to eat.

being the helpful little person that i am, i thought i’d give them a hand (in return for my daddy’s apparent gluttonous behaviour ha ha).

satay, anyone?

that’s my daddy and the other daddies (eh wait, got one non-daddy-cum-non-liverpool-fan sesat to the left, to the left). they watch too much football.

that’s the birthday brudder with the mummies and aunties (and one hot lil babe, feewitt!). they watch too much… desperate housewives?

and being the helpful little person that i am (as you may have gathered by now, and which i reiterate), i busied myself with the distribution of fruits. but i kept getting distracted by these pair of googly eyes looking at me. reaally creepy, i tell ya.

gerrit off me!

… how to get to sesame street!

what can i say, our trip to bintan was a blast! but first, we must express our gratitude to the neos (jeremy, heriati and naufal) for planning the trip, from the sourcing of accommodation, to the booking of ferry tickets (taking leave to do so, just to make sure things were in order), even right down to the itinerary and checklist and, ahem, requesting for baby cots. heck, they even handed out to everyone anti-mosquito patches and slathered sunblock on all the kids. they were ever so reliable! you can become our vacation planner anytime. without this resourceful family, the trip would not be even  possible.

we must admit, on any trip, there will always be glitches, so most of the time we ended up free-and-easy and made the best out of the situation. “no whining!”, just as we always tell aniq…

we managed to try the kelong seafood that Is visited. the gong-gongs (ie. snails) are da bomb! although the price is a bit on the high side, i must say, the seafood is excellent. the freshest i’ve ever tasted, better than the kelongs across the causeway, which pale in comparison.

i managed to capture 2 days of bintan sunrises with my shutterbug buddy, jeremy. although the skies weren’t that ideal, we weren’t complaining, we just needed to train our eyes and lenses better to capture the morning view, which by the way, jeremy managed to capture beautifully. check out his flickr!

i had a great father and son bonding with the lit’ one. it’s a great feeling when he would come to me (for a change) instead of his mother, pull my hand and point to something he wants, saying his favorite phase of the moment, “nak!”. we went swimming in the pool for 2 days straight! i remember when i was little, our family had regular trips up north and everytime we checked in the hotel, the first destination would be the pool.  just put down our bags and changed into our swimming costumes. aniq is also becoming like that, he just loves the pool. he would constantly nod his head, point to the water slide and say “nak!” but just don’t get the water in his face! even when he is crying, i would deliberately ask him, “nak pergi swimming, tak?” and he would immediately stop crying and answer nonchalantly, “nak”, the little brat! haha!

we had the BBQ on the second night as the pits were all rented out the first night. there were no worries of running out of charcoal as they provided us with plenty, enough to last a week. although more than 50% of the food that Jeremy and i BBQed were on the “dark side”, we enjoyed the ntuc ready-made satays, which tasted really good, especially the gravy.

on the last day, we had a sumptuous breakfast buffet at the hotel. they had everything that you could ask for, except prata. that, you need to get in good ol’ singapore. since we had nowhere to go after checking out, we decided to take a trip to pasar oleh-oleh. (but like what moby said, “not recommended if you have a hyperactive 7 month old baby and an even more hyper 2 year old toddler”…) what i didn’t know was that the place had not changed since i last visited the island, which was like 5-6 years ago. it was really a ghost town, without your love, like a ghost town, baby, can’t you see…. opps, sorry i digress!

it was a really hot and deserted place, but we cooled down in one of the few air-conditioned cafes, ordering tehbotols. i guess we stayed quite a while at the cafe, coz the music suddenly died down, but after we ordered another round of drinks, the sound of bob marley miraculously appeared again as if on cue!

the next shuttle bus back to nirwana wasn’t coming anytime soon, but aniq, being really friendly, managed to charm one of the bintan babes into carrying him. she could be our potential bibik since the current maid’s contract is expiring soon. (well, we DID offer the bintan babe a babysitting job in singapore, hah!) he also effortlessly attracted a cute little thang, but he wasn’t really interested. perhaps someone older?

with the shuttle bus still nowhere in sight, we hitched a hike in a cab with the mobys (thanks dude!), who were becoming rather uncomfortable in the hot sun, back to the resort, but not before aniq made us buy a mini tabla for his musical collection.

the ferry back to Singapore was delayed for more than an hour, but that didn’t deter aniq from spreading his cheer (and saliva) to the other passengers who were rather amused by his antics. shaking and hi-fiving their hands, from the angmohs to the koreans, he was really enjoying himself amidst the long delay. (his mother’s “no whining!” warnings really work after all.) we really are thankful to God for giving us such a bundle of joy, literally!

so, in the end, the 3 days were well-spent indeed with the family. can’t wait for the next holiday! looks like the mobys have sworn off all holidays for now, so… where to next, neos? ;D

multiply: siji… loro… telu!

that’s my ‘pretend’ siblings. they’re actually mummy’s cousin’s kids, which, i believe, make them my second cousins. well, second, third, fourth, fifth… there are just so many of them in one family, even their mummy had to pause to think how old they each are and their respective birthdays, wahaha!

help, i’m seeing double! i must be getting old. hand me my bifocals pls…

anyway, as i was saying, i really love the sun.

but i discovered something i love even better…

SNOW!

it makes my fingers freeze and my eyes tear and my nose trickle and i had to wear a whole lotta stuff on me, but it was faaabulous.

mummy, for some reason, couldn’t stop giggling the entire time, especially when she looked at me. why ah?? i look funny is it??

…

hey, don’t ask me where this is. my theory is, it’s probably somewhere in south park, colarado. that’s where kenny, my alter ego, lived, you see.

oh my god! they killed kenny!

where was i? oh yes, there weren’t any skiing on the snowy slopes, but we were each given a little tyre for our little tushies, and downhill we went, with mummy screaming her head off next to daddy and me. wheeeee~!

i’m bugging daddy to bring me again. just mention the word “snow” and i go “NAK!” – well, then again, what else CAN i say in response to that, right?

next time, i’ll make some snowmen. maybe two.

oh my god! they killed kenny – twice!

following the previous post, i wanted to say, i wouldn’t want too large an age gap between my offsprings, like it is between my brother and i. that’s a five-year gap, practically a whole different generation altogether (we have totally different tastes, interests, inclinations, etc). my mum said they only decided to have me after five years to keep HIM company. (till now i resent that!) of course, it didn’t work, coz we spent most of our growing up years fighting or ignoring each other. it’s taken a long time to build a bridge between that five-year gap, and well… it’s still, a lil rickety.

so yeah. i think a three-year gap is, for me, ideal. not too close, not too far. still, i’m grappling with the rationale for even having a number two. can i handle another child? is one not enough? do i need two kids to justify my existence? (ok ok, i know, i should just have them because it justifies my existence as a human being with the ability and responsibility to procreate and to ensure the longevity of the human race… but am i worthy of contributing to the human population with my offsprings and average genes? arrgh! ok ok, stop it, hana! – sorry, my inner dilemma with eugenics and quasi-existentialism should be categorised under random ramblings.)

i guess the right answer too all this is, we can plan all we want and talk about it till the cows come home, but in the end it’s pretty much… up to The One Above.

ok lah, i’m sure it’s not SOOO bad.

happy birthday, rin and sha! <3 <3

full celebrations will come soon. meanwhile, i offer you two, a special chippendale dance, for your pleasure. (sorry i couldn't find someone more beefy, and calvin kleins had to be substituted with drypers.)

daddy, my fwens look a little hungry. can you sizzle more schnitzel for my nizzle, wizzle? err…

by the way, daddy said the burgers he got were better than ramly’s, and mummy almost wanted to make a banner and set up a stall in the middle of paris park. unfortunately, we only had 8 buns. and they were gobbled up almost instantly by the hungry aunties.

ouhh, the hot dogs were good too. (i know coz i managed to steal some behind mummy’s back, hurhur.) if only unkle jeremy caught some fishies in the water, we could have some bbq fishies. but i’m not surprised he didn’t catch any. the fishies were surely frightened off by the unsightly humans splashing about in uncivilised manner at the beachside. hee hee!

phew, all this sun is taking a toll on me.

can we try snow next, mum?