Village Life

Another long weekend, another family gathering across the Causeway where everyone is kept full and happy with endless gossipping, jibing, eating and merry-making (ie mercun firing, this is after all Malaysia). I turned 31 that weekend and enough people remembered so I feel important enough- heh.

It rained so much that we had to keep the kids indoors, much to their chagrin and to ours- try controlling 5 overactive children who kept smacking each other in a 10ft by 10ft resort room with the Astro down because of bad weather. Impossible!.. so after a while we let the kids do as they will whilst we all played pakau(I've lost my skill, last time I had it was when I was in NUS playing Chua Tai Ti endlessly with Haz, Theresa and the gang).. I think Arissa learnt some survival skills that weekend having to fight for her right with the bigger cousins.

But when the rain let up, we went out in droves to the Tangkak 'city centre' to romp around before heading back for the kenduri and feasting. Ah... nothing good kampung food and a lavish Hari Raya spread can't cure.

The geletis girl who can't keep still for 1 minute on the 2h drive from Singapore to Tangkak.


















The 'must-try' Tangkak chendol


























..and the 'must-try' Mee Bandung Muar
























Homestay
























The happily-fed faces


























Dad's family is in Muar, pretty close by, and Hafidz and I think its high time we brought Arissa there to visit seeing how she enjoyed the fresh air, the roaming insects and big wide fields of Tangkak. Perhaps when the monsoon season has passed, we will take her to the village I visited all too often as a child, chasing chickens around the house and picking fruits fresh from the trees. Too bad Dad's sold his 2ha field, the pleasure of eating fresh durians is indescribable (as indescribable as the stink afterwards) :D

Separate the sheep from the goats

..I'm not referring to the sheeps or the goats that are being sacrificed for the Qurban season. Although we are expected in Tangkak over my birthday weekend for the Qurban feast. I'm excited because Arissa will have her first taste of village life and being so hooked on the Upin & Ipin series, I'm sure she will enjoy it.

www.upindanipin.com.my

Just have to bring lots of clean clothes for she will get dirty and muddy running around chasing chickens.

But I digress. What I am referring to is separating the good childcare centres from the bad ones. You know, the bad ones are those where the teachers smack the kids around or smear their faces with chilli to get them to behave. Grrr...

Being a Nov baby, I forget that soon after turning 2, Arissa will be regarded as a 3 year old in 2009. Time to take the huge leap- for Mummy and Daddy that is- into school life. I'm still uncertain I will be able to leave her with a bunch of strangers while I head off to work but the apron strings have to be loosened at some point and Mummy just has to deal with it. After all, she is striking up conversations with kids her age at department stores or lift lobbies (gibberish aside) and loves to colour and read her story books (gibberish aside too).

So I drew up a list of criteria and right on top of my wishlist lies:


1) Location- Must be near mum's (in case of any emergencies)

2) Must be muslim centre (because I went to a Christian kindergarten as a child and accidentally ate a ham sandwich there).


So with the help of a very useful link (http://www.childcarelink.gov.sg/), I got one childcare centre that fulfils the top 2 criterions- rather sad really.

I called up the centre and the teacher on the other line sounded very professional and eloquent- pretty impressive. Fees are surprisingly fair, they have a mix of Muslim and non-Malay students hence a more secular education and I needn't worry about Arissa eating pork sandwiches- ha. Their curriculum includes art & craft, alphabet tracing and music amongst others.

I've fixed an appointment for Saturday to view the facilities and talk more to the teachers. If everything pans out, Arissa would be well on the road to lifelong learning by mid 2009. And then Mummy can start thinking seriously about Baby No 2.. *faints*

Simply having children does not make mothers

What kind of a beast can beat a small child to the extent that it breaks their little backs or causes their brain to rupture? What kind of a Mother turns her face away and numbs her heart when she hears her child scream with pain and terror? Or worse, inflicts more pain on the little body?

Nia Glassie, 3 years old, died on August 3, 2007, from massive bleeding between her skull and brain, 12 days after being taken to hospital.

* Kicked in the face, causing her nose to bleed;
* Hit, slapped, punched and jumped on;
* Objects such as shoes thrown at her;
* Verbal insults, for example continually being told she was ugly;
* Forced into a television cabinet drawer;
* Dragged through the sandpit half-naked;
* Shoved into piles of rubbish;
* Made to bathe in cold water in mid-winter;
* Folded into a sofa and sat on;
* Flung against the wall;
* Held high in the air and dropped to the floor;
* Used for adult wrestling moves copied from a Playstation game;
* Whirled rapidly on a rotary clothesline until flung off;
* Put into a tumble dryer and spun on high temperature;
* Had her head and feet dangled into the fireplace when the fire was lit;
* Kicked repeatedly in the head because she was crying;
* Left lying in a coma for 36 hours without medical attention.


Baby P, 17 months, died in his cot 3 Aug 2007 after sustaining 50 injuries to his face and body including a broken back.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours.

~Joyce Maynard

Bikini model meets Speedy Gonzales

Thank you Nana for my se-xy 2-piece suit...

























even though I look like I can barely open my eyes, I'm actually enjoying my swim with Abam Speedy Gonzales Iki.

..and she's 2!

Here's another mental note to self. Well, a few mental notes to self AND husband in case one of us develops amnesia and forgets how tiring the whole affair was:

1) We should organise a party for our child(ren)'s birthday once every decade only.
The next one for Arissa would be when she turns 12. Her coming of age (21st) party can be with cousins/friends to ensure no old boring party-poopers are around including Mummy & Daddy.

2) We should NEVER have any parties at chalets because we end up 2 times more tired- having to lug the whole kitchen there and back (ladles, deep fryer, pots and pans, airpot, teabags, coffee powder, sugar, dishwashing liquid, sponges, mats, paper plates, forks and spoons etc). If we can't do without a chalet, make sure its no more than a 15m ride from our kitchen i.e. the BBQ pit at Sembawang park will do.

3) Get guests to send presents directly to home address to save boot space. Or provide appropriate gift dimension/price guidelines to guests.

4) Hire Amah-on-Wheels to do the cleaning up afterwards!

But, hey, you guessed it.. we were none the wiser this time round and broke all the abovementioned rules for Arissa's 2nd birthday party. To make life more difficult, both Hafidz & Arissa were sick and I was getting there too, having to breathe the air contaminated by these two people in the bedroom.


Me, MIL and Arissa's babysitter/aunt chilling @ Costa Sands Pasir Ris


















Sous chef & Chef de partie
























Lamb chop in black pepper sauce, hot from the stove


















Chicken chop, sauteed prawns and buffalo wings
























Our guestlist:

...but don't things always seem a lot more fun on hindsight.. we had a great party, the Aussie-style Barbie concept by Hafidz & Fendi was a resounding success (minus the Caesar salad which never got made somehow) and birthday girl had so much fun she wasn't able to wind down at night. We ended up driving home at 4am just so she can fall asleep in her own bed (aka my bed), then up again at 8am in order to get back to the chalet in time for the big cleanup & checkout.

The birthday gifts are still unopened because Arissa slept from 6pm on Sun all the way through to 9am on Mon morning, a loooooooooong respite for me & Hafidz to nurse our aching muscles with heat pads and a spot of Simpsons, The Movie (hah, thats how long I've wanted to watch it).



















I plan on giving her one package every morning to open to lengthen the excitement because after all, the next big party is 10 years away.. Gotta milk this one for as long as I can!

My thank you list extends to:
Yani, who secured us the preferred chalet unit (Q1 in case I forget) at a very competitive price,
Joe Peter for purchasing the KungFu Panda party favours from US,
Hafidz & Fendi who worked really hard preparing food for our family & friends,
Sapna & Anil for the very yummy chocolate truffle bday cake,
Sanah for helping prepare the party and sleeping over in spite of being 6 months preggers,
Friends & Family members who came all the way with your gifts, ang pows, potluck deserts and well-wishes.

xxx

Tadaa!!!

:)

PS: It arrived a week later than expected so it missed an unvealing at our Eid Open House. Sappy, I wanted to surprise you but grrr...

Eid 08

My, my... looking at last year's Eid photos, its pretty obvious how Arissa has grown over the course of a year..

.. She looks so prim & proper here! How deceiving pictures are (it took me 5 takes and a lot of persuasion to get a decent solo photo with the hairclip on!)

And oh! the damage done to Mummy and Daddy- a year's worth of extra white hair and added wrinkles..




This year's standard line of questioning is "So when is No 2 coming?" to which my retort is "I'm skinny enough, one more and I'll disappear into thin air!"

Compared to last year where Arissa was a social butterfly and took to everybody instantly, this year she was at the other extreme- clinging onto me and burying her face in my dress until she warms up enough to the strange gathering of hot and sweaty aunties/ uncles/ cousins who make enough ruckus to wake up the dead.

We organised a mini open house the day after Arissa's Muslim birthday, 17 Syawal. Thanks all for popping in and hope you ate enough :)

Taking the bit between the teeth

I grew rather worried that Arissa had become so dependant on her NUK pacifier that we dared not leave home without it. So dependant was she that I had to stash 1 dummy at Mum's, 1 dummy at babysitter's, 1 dummy at home and 1 dummy in the car. I also put 1 in her Eeyore rucksack in case any one of the 4 got lost/misplaced/trashed somehow. And for long holidays, we brought along 2 pacifiers- 1 attached to my carry bag and 1 securely packed in the luggage. In case. Whatever the case may be in my paranoid mind.

Its totally a recipe for an overbite.

I never had a soother as a baby and neither did hubby so, in spite of my paranoia, I could not understand her need to suckle excessively. In many ways, I blamed myself for introducing her to the dummy during the breast-to-bottle transition and then for allowing her to get hooked. And I wanted so badly to undo the damage before she became a candidate for braces- not an easy task when most think I'm being an wicked witch for refusing a two-year old her beloved soother. Whenever I brought this up, Mum or babysitter would comment "..usually they give it up when they're ready" or "but she doesn't need it all day, only to fall asleep..."

But I wasn't taking any chances with an overbite. Taking the bit between the teeth is a mother's number 1 job, so I picked a 'calm' period- as experts recommend- to unleash my 'evil' plan, first in the cover of darkness then in broad daylight:

At night, I hid the damned soother from her. After the last feed, I simply turned off the lights and played dead. Some nights were easier than others, especially when she is exhausted from the day- she simply snuggled against me and fell asleep without fuss. Other nights, she would start crying and refused to settle down. When this happens, I'd give her a 10 minute grace period and would try to turn her attention to something else, and if that doesn't work, will raise the white flag and offer her the dummy. This I kept up for about 3 weeks and by the end of it, realised she does not even ask for her pacifier anymore at bedtime. Hurrah!

In the day, weaning proved lots harder. Without the cover of darkness (a natural sleep-inducer for her at bedtime), she would point to her lips after a full bottle, wide-eyed and alert, crying "teng teng! teng teng!" (short for puting aka pacifier). Drastic measures had to come into play- I kept her awake longer than usual so she's totally knackered and then manually rocked her to sleep. I also refused to replace any of the dummies when they tore. She hated sucking the sharp edges and eventually never asked for it at naptime. Yippee!

And now, a good month and abit later, she has officially completed the dummy weaning process. Some days she remembers the beloved soothers, and we allow her the occasional regresses but after barely a minute, she finds it a nuisance and pulls it out of her mouth in disgust. Success!!

BEFORE:

















AFTER- dummyless even in sleep:















Now, I'm left with the bottle weaning process and the toilet-training process.... looks like my scheming can't stop anytime soon.

'Tis a season to be jolly

Doting grandfather

deep in conversation too @ Nek Putih's house

The mafia convoy- all black

Arissa & baby Aliya- knackered after 4hours of visiting

Rushaidi, Arissa & Elisha

My fellow road-trippers in Perth- Tok Chu & Tok Brahim. We covered the whole south WA in 4 days and had to rough it out in a caravan- it still brings tears to my eyes talking about the good ole times! (She is at an advanced stage of colon cancer now.)

Blood is thicker than water :)

The things I don't know can fill a warehouse

Fact 1)

Wakaf is such a neat community-building effort. I've only today discovered that any Muslim can contribute to mosque-building if one cares to. The husband wanted to 'wakaf' his late father's assets towards the building of a mosque and right now, MUIS is taking donations for the building of Masjid Muhajirin.

For S$5, one can purchase 1 brick for the mosque, for S$12 one can purchase a square metre of carpet and for S$250, one can purchase a square metre of classroom space (desks and chairs included).

We went away happy to know that Hj Mohd Amir Bin Hj Hassan would be recognised in God's eyes to have contributed to the building of His house. Amin.

Fact 2)

Yes we are all worried about the global crunch and bloody Chinese capitalists putting melamine in baby formulas are not helping to upkeep consumer trust. But before you think I HAVE TO SAVE ALL MY MONEY, think how low the China shares are all now. 'Tis the best time to be buying shares and stocks in China! Ok, forget putting your money in consumer products like toothpaste and baby formulas, those are too risky.. "but how about Telcom shares? Utilities shares? Transportation shares?", my boss whispers to me. Aha, so that's the trick to becoming rich quick. Instead of buying LV Mini Lin handbags, one buys stocks and shares and wait for it to double.

Now, where can I find US$20,000 to invest is another question. :D

On a wing and a prayer

Daniela Prina is a 13 month old baby who will be undergoing surgery today for Hirschprung Disease. I have never met this little angel in person, as she lives far away in Brussels but her mother, Imelda Paulina and I are friends from my early days in IFA.


Im and I text and call each other from time to time, usually when she's home-sick and missing good homecooked Indonesian fare but we haven't been in touch for a good 6 months now, as duty call means we're too busy with our bubs to keep in touch as often as before. So her email last week came as a surprise, albeit not a very pleasant update- an appeal for our prayers for the safety of her little girl. I cannot imagine if Arissa had to go through the same deal, I don't think I would be strong enough like Imelda to take it in stride.

So to Imelda and Adamo.. our prayers are with you during this difficult time. Little Daniela, may you get better in record time sweetheart and I hope to see you soon when Mama comes through Singapore for her home trip.

Not a lost cause after all

I have said this time and again- the 10 years I spent learning the piano was a lost cause. But my parents never gave up, which was why they ended up paying for the lessons for 10 years and not 10 months, at the expense of expensive toys I could've far better enjoyed.

And now that I'm a Mother, I am starting to understand why they never lost hope. When I saw Arissa tinkling on the piano, it gave me such a rush (even though half the time I had to grit my teeth as it was all just plain, loud noise she was making) that this offspring of mine is seemingly enjoying the display of her musical prowess. The fact that I clap my hands as though she had just finished a Vivaldi in D-minor piece helped boost her ego too. :D




















That's a Bach, Beethovan and Brahms piece she's trying out- not too shabby eh!

I started playing the piano with her every Mon, Tue and Thu nights at Mum's, as that is where my old piano is still, after all these years. And magically discovered that not only do I find playing de-stressing and enjoyable, I was still able to read those damn notes I had cursed all my childhood..

Forgotten favourites came to life at my fingertips all over again especially Schubert's Lilac Time Serenade.. a lilting, melancholic piece about love lost.

Arissa has a few favourites of her own and she makes a huge effort playing it out. I must say that in my biased opinion, I can very clearly hear Jingle Bells in this solo recital, can you? (many apologies for the horrid singing in the foreground!)




Up next are This Old Man for Arissa and Everything I do (I do it for you) for Mummy.. I can't wait!

4 Hallmark Moments

10 Sep is a special day on our calendar. Not only is it our wedding anniversary, it also marks Sapna's turning a year older. And I'm always elated because between September and December of every year, I can tell her "I'm NOT a year older than you." :D

But 10 Sep in 2008 has more celebratory reasons- the opening of Hafidz's new venture Fish & Chicks @ 991 (sorry guys, he's not in open market YET) and the new home @ Villa Marina (NOT ours- hah!).

Everyone enjoyed the foodtesting, we had a load of laughs and look forward to popping in again after Ramadhan for a Barbie!

Enjoy the clip:

Thank you Anish

Dearest Anish,

I know you're still small and enjoy your sleep a whole lot. Your Mummy is terrible, putting those huge sunnies on you. Never mind, Godma will get you one of those styrofoam sunglasses that Kakak Arissa has from SKP. She ate hers up, so I've warned your Mummy not to let you chew on them.



Godma wants you to drink lots of milk and grow up quickly so we can all go watch LIVE shows together. In the meantime, because your Daddy knows you probably won't enjoy having music blasted in your ears while you try to catch some beauty rest, he has given your tickets to Kakak Arissa and Abang Rifqi who enjoyed the show thoroughly. Kakak will give you a wet-kiss to thank you soon enough.

Godma misses you much and can't wait to cuddle you on Weds! See you soon pumpkin!

xoxo

I want a famous face..

..is the new strand of reality show on MTV. Its aired on prime time and we all know everyone between 4 and 40 watches MTV from time to time, especially if you have cable on.

"By showing how much of a positive impact plastic surgery can have on a person's life, I Want a Famous Face shows how much of a change plastic surgery can have on a person. Besides affecting a patient's appearance in a drastic way, plastic surgery also makes a person more confident and comfortable with themselves", cites www.plastic-surgery.net.

I watched it after a full plate of chicken rice and immediately felt sick to the stomach. Two disillusioned twins from Arizona, Mike and Matt, who in their quest to look like Brad Pitt (laughable!!) underwent the plastic surgeon's knife for rhinoplasty, chin implants, and porcelain veneers. Mike wanted to look like Brad in the "Meet Joe Black" movie; Matt wanted to look like Mr Jolie in the "Legends of the Fall" movie (so sick, its not even funny!)

BEFORE:



AFTER:








The surgery was gory enough, you actually get to see their flesh cut open and bloody, getting pumped and skinned and stitched like the dead spring chicken in my sink every Saturday morning. But what made me more sick was how the pair went from down-to-earth regular people to boastful, pompous twats:

"We're going to be the next biggest twins. Watch out Hollywood" *wink*

*barf*

And they don't even look like Brad Pitt yet! Faaaaaaaaaaaar from it. So far, in fact, that they look more like the Bros brothers if we primed them for the 21st century.

No one's new to MTV's take on idol worship- its how they, as a channel, survive the times. The more sensational the series, the better the viewership and subscriber base. Sorry MTV, I've always been a fan of reality- I like Run's House and all the other crap you guys churn out but this one just propels idol worshipping to a new, disturbing, almost pathological level.