Parenting 101 - Variance Analysis

Three months into primary school (Amri, not me) and guess what.... I saved loads of $$$! There was only one off minimal fee in the beginning of the year and that shopping spree with his school stuffs that cost quite a lot because Amri and I got a bit carried away. Plus I didn't really know which one is really needed so I bought them all. And those funky stationaries were kinda cute.

He no longer had high monthly fees as were his kindy years. Amri's pocket money only cost me about RM50 per month. His Qiraati class cost only RM40 per month. Weekly Tae Kwon Do class is RM18 per month. School itself has no monthly fee. No school bus expenses because I ferried him to school, hubby fetched him and he cycles to Qiraati class. No tuition class whatsoever. I doubted there'll be any tuition teacher on earth that could knock some sense into his head. Plus I already figured out how to tutor him. Pretty easy actually. Just turned everything into monetary term. If he couldn't figure out what is 6 + 6, just asked him what is RM6 + RM6. Trust me, he only took a few seconds to answer.

Sometimes I wonder how his brain works.

Well, the findings of the analysis is, primary school is good on the wallet. But not too good on other matters. Junk foods, foul languages, heavy bags and who's idea was it that school uniform needs to be WHITE shirt and WHITE shoes?

Adam the photographer

Found a lot of pictures taken by Adam, either using digital camera or my previous handphone. Some are pretty good, like this one here. Not bad for a three years old. Of course, there were also millions of junk photos

Amri at the backseat of my car. Just fetched him from tae kwon do class. He is the ever willing model for Adam :)

This is me, driving. Adam took this one using my old handphone. He kept asking me to smile, which I found very difficult to do while navigating Malaysian traffic. The best I could do is grimace.

Again....

Sigh

Banjir lagi....

Though not as bad as last year's flood. It only reached our car porch. But still, if the rain went on for a few more hours, I am pretty sure the flood would have reached our living room, if not the whole ground floor. Amri and his friends have a field day though. They were having loads of fun cycling through the flood water and getting drenched from head to toe :)
Adam however, is still at bed, thank goodness. Otherwise he'll be out there with Amri as well and I could just imagine another round of coughing-vomiting-med-doctors bill.

I am stranded at home in the meantime

Rain rain go away...

...and come again a little bit at a time.

So much so for a draughty season forecasted.

11.oopm : front neighbours started removing their cars to a higher ground.
11.20pm : next door neighbour removed their cars
11.23pm : i smsed amy and milly who lived at mayang sutera, asking about water level there
11.29pm : amy replied "alih your car cepattt"
11.43pm : kak azie called to check on me
11.45pm : smsed hubby to come home by boat
11.47pm : a neighbour rang the door to remind me that the water is rising
12 ++ : dozed off then awaken by warning siren, car horn and somebody using a heller to inform people that, really, the river was overflowing again
12.21am : martin rang the bell and checking whether i was aware of the situation.
12.30++ : hubby was home and set to removing our cars to mayang sari
12.47 : azida called to make sure we were okay
1.00am : went back to sleep
2.am++ : rain get heavier and water reached our porch....alamak! started to move a few stuffs upstairs then tried to go back to sleep
3am++ : cheryl called

I was not sure what time the rain stopped but the water stayed there.

Off duty...

I was feeling rather disoriented. First, it was school holiday so Amri was home and did not require my chauffeur service. I was also relieved from my duty as his alarm clock. Second, Adam was home as well, with a bit of temperature but still in his usual sunny self. I took two days off from work which at first, with the plan to tag along to Lumut with hubby and let the boys run wild at his national service camp. But the plan changed when hubby had other things to attend to, Tok Kie was here visiting and Adam was a bit off colour, all in one go.

So here I was, with practically nothing to do and feeling very weird. I used to rush between Seribadan, home, school, factory, daycare then seribadan again and now I had nowhere to go. The boys, as usual whenever grandparents were around, left me totally alone. I cooked, took a nap, surf internet, read one of my new books and it was not even lunch time yet.

I might as well enjoy this :)

Where's everyone?

Pretty quiet around here today. Peaceful. It is SCHOOL HOLIDAY!!

Both Amri and Adam are at daycare. Even next door kids were gone, probably balik kampung.

I feel like celebrating! But I'll start by taking a short nap first.

Books Galore

Other ladies received jewelry from their husband. Not me. I got a fully sponsored and chauffered trip to MPH distributor sale. And what do you expect when this makcik was let loose on a book sale? Hehehehe. Enough to say that I was so relieved when hubby carried my purchases for me. It was a rather heavy bag and quite a long walk!

Somehow, Amri was into books as well. Now and then he'd refused to trail obediently behind me and plopped himself beside a boxful of books. I was worried sick to leave him by himself but thankfully he did not budge at all. Not even one inch. However, he turned up his nose at whatever I picked out for him to read, preferring those Spiderman, Batman whateverman books. He even picked out a couple of Barney books for Adam, whom was contend to wait outside and eat icecream with his ayah.

I got the latest Kinsella's shopaholic series as well - Shophaholic and Baby! I read one of her book a couple of years ago and love it so much that I bought the whole shopaholic series plus her two other books. They were entertaining. Just the right stuff to read after a hard day at work.

I wind down by reading, okay. Preferably with my feet up. But actually, anywhere is fine for me

p/s: I finished the yummy Shopaholic and Baby on the next day, 2am. 10 hours after purchase time. But there were a trip to Kelana Jaya office and burger king Sg Buloh in between

note to hubby: Thank you very, very much. Also the reason I prefer a nearly 3000sqf built up house rather than one with large compound is that, erm.. I need a whole room to store my books (and your books too)