bedtime conversations sometimes meander into the mystical (oftentimes murky, in my case), realms of the theological…

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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as i’ve mentioned more than enough times, i’ve never been much of a sports person, but since the beginning of 2010 (see post on New Year’s resolution) and the realisation that my body is in slow but certain deterioration (my bones creak every time i bend down these days, what’s that about?!), i’ve taken to gearing my activities to the less sedentary. well, as much as i can, anyway. (i STILL can’t cycle.)

and i sorta had an epiphany – maaaaybe the reason why i never warmed up to this whole active lifestyle was because my parents didn’t really bring me out to do sporty activities as a kid, or supported my school sports’ events? i don’t know, just a theory. (so what DID we do then? i think i was indoors a lot. my childhood’s a little hazy – and apparently, lazy.)

anyway, the kids’ school had a sports league thingy, in line with their theme and i suppose, the upcoming youth olympic games, and i thought, what the heck, it’s one saturday morning that’s already thought-out for us. (we’re always racking our brains thinking up of things to make them tired on weekends, so they’d turn in early at the end of the day – not that it ever works.)

hey do you remember your school sports days?? the only thing i remember is the ICE COLD MILO they used to give out in small plastic cups! it tasted SO delicious back then, for some reason. of course, the rest of my memory is of hiding in corners of the bleachers with other anti-sports friends. heh.

speaking of friends, each school had displays of what they did to tie in with the theme, and guess who aniq introduced us to…

… the mysterious girfriend he’s always talking about. she IS real.

i liked that they highlighted little anecdotes and photos as evidence of what they did or talked about in class, coz i think most times, we parents have little idea what they do in there, five days a week. my daily question of “what did you do in school today?” has them invariably answering in the standard “i eat” / “i play toys” / “i donno”, or if i’m lucky, random ramblings of who pushed who, or who was naughty.

and importantly, we also got to see who they hang out with, five days a week.

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P1100376, originally uploaded by izadd.

we’ve actually long stopped buying formula for him, and he’s been drinking fresh milk for a while (even that, upon request). oh well. have never been a big fan of powdered milk… though we were reminiscing fondly how we used to drink this particular brand as a kid, KLIM, which we only realised later in life, was MILK spelt backwards. anyone remembers that? now-defunct. probably because someone found out it STUNTED GROWTH. (ok, just a theory, so don’t quote me, lest nestle comes after me for defamation…)

anyway, this event was timely coz we’d run out of auni’s milk (yes, she still drinks it, of course, wouldn’t want to risk stunting HER growth), and being kiasu parents (don’t judge, you’ll know when you become economical parents), got a good deal, $99 for 6 tins. and confession: sometimes we give aniq her milk. i mean, milk is milk lah right? (another theory – different packaging for different age range, other than for infants’ milk, is just a marketing ploy… but again, don’t quote me.)

so, err, bottoms up…

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one of those things i’ve been meaning to do but never got around to, due to my… erm, non-sahm status. bad excuse, i know, but weekends always seem to whiz by with little time to execute such activities at leisure. and it’s not much, but oh well, at least we were inspired, if only for one afternoon.

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The Big Pancake, originally uploaded by izadd.

her brother’s speech and drama assignment for Literary Week. he’d chosen the pig character in The Big Pancake for some reason. (this from the boy who went on ’stage’ during said speech and drama presentation and declared “my dream pet is a dog”.) the makeshift pig’s snout had unfortunately disintegrated by now. mummy’s obviously not too great at art & craft.

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was chatting with aniq over chicken nuggets and fries about what mummy did yesterday with her friends while he and his sister were with their daddy.

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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i love these mini supermarket trolleys that cold storage provides little shoppers with. navigating the thing kept them busy, and they were more than happy to push around the items we dumped in. family-friendly supermarkets ftw!

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maybe i should send the kids for proper music lessons… (coz i don’t have a musical bone in my body, couldn’t even carry a tune on the recorder in school! and would take at least ten minutes to figure out the entire ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ on a toy piano/xylophone.)

oh well, i’ll just stick to being a groupie.

and happy birthday to the rockstar-to-be…

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the organisation had its Family Day last weekend. with discounted tickets, considerable food vouchers AND retail vouchers, how could i not go?

brought not two but three kids who were excellent company, with nary a whimper or complaint despite the slightly schizo weather and long, snaking queues.

20- to 90-minute queues for 3-minute rides! we ended up on most of the kiddy rides, as you can see.

we had the most fun at Shrek’s Far Far Away land, especially the 4D show. and what’s with everything going 3D these days? saw a whole set of fairy tale books at Times the other day with 3D glasses, i mean, what’s next, assessment books in 3D?!

anyway, aniq and adam had their first taste of the rollercoaster. a junior one, short but thrilling nonetheless – and i think they were fairly traumatised. no tears but a little dazed at the end, and when asked if they wanna go on a rollercoaster again, they unanimously went “DOWAN!”. dem wussies, i tell you.

so we were wondering, with the current hype on Shrek 3, all the wonderful details in Far Far Away land, and obviously a lot of money poured into building it, will our Universal Studios be stuck with this theme forever after? the Jurassic Park theme already feels dated, the last movie was what, almost 10 years ago?, and even the merchandise weren’t so compelling (except for that $15 dinosaur tumbler thingy we bought – with our free voucher of course – similar to one my parents got me when we went to Universal Studios in LA a loooong time ago! #relivingmychildhood).

look, Gingy and 2 donkeys! (Gingy’s my favourite character, btw. he just looks… delicious.)

Ancient Egypt, where i could not help but ogle at the model on stilts with perfectly smooth and sculpted washboard abs, and OH, that pelvis (if it were a Greek theme, he’d be Adonis). the other highlight was the Revenge of The Mummy ride, which was the only adult ride izad and i managed to go on while the kids were in another queue. tip for mums and dads – strategise your rides!

2 of the Battlestar Galactica rides in Sci-fi City were down, which was probably why we were compensated with all those free vouchers. i’m quite a sucker for rollercoasters, so it was quite a bummer. but the kids loved this one, an updated version of the spinning teacup.

feeling New York…

and Hollywood…

the rides and shows end at 7pm, which was about the time we came back to the starting point. you’d think the kids would be pooped by now…

but nooo, especially when there’s a Hershey’s chocolate store outside. and the wonderful smell of Garrett’s caramel popcorn!

some points:
- i liked that most of the restaurants are certified halal, so we didn’t need to lug around a picnic basket, and with active and perpetually hungry kids, the food joints were convenient for a quick meal on the go or while waiting in queues.
- wish the rides were generally longer, but i suppose if they were designed longer, waiting time would double, and besides, sentosa’s too land-scarce as it is to build any bigger backlots. but perhaps they could do tram ride tours or something to ease the queues?
- i hear that you can enter from 7pm-9pm for $2 on fridays and saturdays, just to walk around, eat and shop. that sounds like a cheap yet fabulous date! coz it’s quite nice at night, lively and scenic.
- ouh, parking at the place itself, while convenient, was costly. goodbye $20 from our cashcard, lol. and that didn’t include the $7 entrance fee at sentosa. there are shuttle buses, of course, but we were too lazy to lug around the kids and stroller, etc up and down buses. SPOILT lor!
- i’d probably go again. maybe without kids the next time. :p

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remind me to make a dental appointment, been having so much cake lately…

rayhan’s 4th:

damdils’ 4th:

fina’s xth:

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