Amri's big day

After being postponed for several times, we finally managed to get Amri circumcised. Done by the kindly Dr A.Razak from DSH. The procedures were pretty simple. Just walked in to ER on the appointed date, waited at the day ward for your turn, went to OT for GA and surgery then back at the ward 40 minutes after surgery. The GA part was a bit difficult because Amri could still remember his previous OT experience and that pretty much freaked him out. But it went well enough. By noon, hubby, Amri and I ate lunch at DSH cafe and went home. No blood or dressing involved. Well...a little bit of dried blood but it went away after shower.


Amri sleeping off the GA after circumcision








Already awake and waiting for doctor to discharge. Had to buy numerous comic books to keep him occupied







Back at home and showing off his errk...that body part of him...and totally made kakak freaked out










What else...FBing. Which caused my MIL to scream in alarm looking at the way Amri tertonggeng surfing the net. FIL wisely gave up trying to get him to lie down or sit still after the first hour or so




While i was wondering how to give bath to Amri, whether I should call hubby to come back or get my father in law to help, Amri has already showered by himself, changed and ready to go play outside. I caught up with him just in time to stop him from riding his bike out.



Hmmph....really, things were either very easy or very difficult with him. There was no middle ground I guess. But I was happy that it turned out well.

The aftermath

I am still tired. If not because of this SOX nonsense, I wouldn't even bothered to show up at office until Wednesday at the earliest.

Playing nanny to three vacationing boys is no joke, people. Especially when one of them is just 14 weeks old. He may looks tiny but boy.....the loads we have to carry to accomodate him...probably 10 times his weight. All in all, I still think I am lucky because Adam will do whatever Amri does, though he will not necessarily eat the same food as his brother. But still, they wake up, eat, shower, swim, play and sleep at the same time. Aqil however, has his own schedule and quite upset when it went haywire but amazingly, not that difficult to pacify.

Give me one month of this, I'm sure I will have toned arms and high BP.

Well, it was a good trip. I did not have any high expectation since it was a company trip (hubby's company). I tagged along to lend extra pair of limbs and to nag at the boys. It was my hometown anyway. Still, I managed to show up 3 times at Padang Matsirat, which actually, exceeded my own expectation :)

Many thanks to the boss of hubby's company for the fully sponsored trip. Your company still owes me RM78 for taxi fare...heheh.

Other than that, I have lost:
~ one milk dispenser (somewhere at jetty point, i guessed)
~ Nokia mobile phone that I had unofficially given to Amri. But the hotel housekeeping staff had already called me and they'll keep the phone until I could send for it. I'll probably had to get Pak Su to help collect it from Frangipani then pass it to Ilah who'll be there on 29th and she'll pass it to Ira. I haven't yet work out the phone's travel plan from Ira's place at Rawang to BJ.
~ 1.4kg of body weight. So people, if you want to lose weight fast, you can take my three children to holiday.

Where shall we go next?

Amri and Adam saying goodbye to their favourite 'ship' :). This discarded fishing boat was rescued from Kuala Teriang fishing village and parked next to the restaurant and kids were clamouring all over it during breakfast time.

I took my hat off to this lovely resort. They seriously did try their best to be enviromentally friendly. Their kitchen grows their own organic herbs and vegi. And they recycled rain water to be used for watering their plants and for toilet flushing. There were a lot of trees around. Villas are using solar panel for hot shower. Discarded woods were used as signboards (as shown in the photo) and key holders. Recycling effort were in full force. The resort organised nature walk too but we missed it. Missed the yoga class too huhuhu...

They did a lot of other things too to preserve the environment. If you have small children, this place is great. Not only it was children friendly but you could teach your children lots of things without ever stepping out of the resort. Things that never made it to classroom. Like how to climb coconut tree, coastal fishing, gardening and of course, how to take care of mother earth.

If you're honeymooners, I am not too sure about it :) This resort was full of kids around Amri and Adam age. And full of baby strollers too. While it was fun for the kids to meet other kids from all around the world, and mommies strolling around pushing their babies, newlyweds may shy away from starting their own family, after a few days holidaying here. Disclaimer *all the kids there, including ours, were very well behave, just as kids were*

Amri and Adam trying their luck at a chocolate shop in the middle of Langkawi Airport. They said they wanted to win a bag for me...hehehe.....

Aqil in TheBabyLoft sling. I finally figured out that he was okay with this sling as long as the aircond was on or the weather was very cool (as in before 7.30am by the beach) and his head was out in the open. Took me three months to find out.

Aqil was still sleeping. He slept from the moment we checked in our luggages and his stroller, through the boys shopping spree at chocolate shop, my own bag shopping spree, lunch, boarding and take off. He was awake after that until we reached home but totally being angelic.

Langkawi Day 4

Activiti di pagi hari. Celik mata je terus jenjalan/berendam/kutip sea shells kat pantai. Until they became too hungry to stay. Breakfast would follow.

At the Crocodile Farm. For some reason, the boys were really interested to be here. I was not. Poor crocodiles looked bored to death. Sometimes you could not even distinguish between real crocodile and a stone/concrete crocodile put up there as decoration. They were that still.

Langkawi Day 3

Aqil woke up rather late. I was famished. He had his schedule gone crazy as well and by now, quite able to adapt. He had no problem with strange cot though I had my doubt seeing that it did not have bumper pad. But we were provided with loads of towels so I used some to pad the sides and two small pillows to pad the front. The mattres was a little lumpy but I was not too worried. Aqil could lift his head pretty well and on top of that, could shuffle forward. Which was the reason why padding was of utmost important. Anyway, he slept soundly and did not move at all. The blanket stayed the same way when we tucked him in 12 hours ago. Penat maut nih.

Amri with some sleeping sharks at Underwater World. Both boys were at first, quite reluctant to go and only grudgingly agreed after I mentioned penguin. But once here, they went wild. Especially went they could spot some of the cast of spongebob.

Earlier on at the penguins, all photos taken were rather dark. So I changed to night mode. The result - Aqil's stroller looked rather weird with the reflective light on the lining. Hehe. It looked hot, literally.

The boys were impressed with this huge stringray. I was impressed too, especially when it sailed past above your head.

Langkawi Day 2

Started our day with a long walk by the beach until the sun was up. The two boys collected all kinds of seashells and dead 'patrick'. Followed by breakfast once Aqil was up and given his bath. Then back to the pool for the two boys until it was too hot to swim.

We were having lunch at Mak Su's house today and Amri took the opportunity to check his email (macam le banyak) and update his facebook using Hafifi's PC. He no longer complained about not being allowed to bring laptop along. I didn't bring mine either, for the obvious reason - my hands were full with Aqil tagging along. Plus, blackberry was enough as my battlesword for these few days. Huhuhu.

Feeding the ducks at Oriental Village. Nice place but I wish it was more green - lots of trees and grass. It was super hot though.

Cable car ride. Adam and Amri was very excited. They screamed (gleefully) as if they were on a roller coaster. Which in turn, scared Aqil. Poor baby bawled his eyes out. It took hubby and I quite some time to calm him down. Phew!

The Langkawi Suite was big enough to accomodate 2 extra single beds and 1 baby cot. As usual, Amri and Adam would put their bed together, turning it into one queen size bed. And they parked their bed right in front of the tv. Duh! Made more exciting when they discovered it had disney channel. Interestingly, Aqil enjoyed watching tv with his brothers as well. Hmmph. By 2012, I am so carting off all three boys to their own hotel room. No more sharing with parents. Period.

Langkawi Day 1

A few minutes after we arrived, the boys promptly jumped into the pool. Made more convenient when hubby upgraded our room from SeaView Villa to Langkawi Suite Villa. It was like, a few steps forward to the sea and a few steps to the left for swimming pool.


Beautiful Pantai Tengah during sunset. Honestly, I think Pantai Tengah is more peaceful than Pantai Cenang.

My poor little baby. He had a rough day. First, he panicked at home when others were rushing around packing things up (typical in my household....last minute lagi syiok). Then he had his first experience of ear pressure during take off and landing. On top of that, he poo pooed during the flight and was getting uncomfortable. At the moment this photo was taken, it was way past his bath and bedtime but mummy and daddy were not quite ready to go inside.

Overheard

Last night, while I was putting Aqil down to sleep, I heard Amri asked his father whether he could bring the laptop during our holiday trip this coming Wednesday. And for the past few days, he was coming up with numerous excuses on why he should not be travelling with us. H1N1 was amongst them.

I guessed he ran out of excuses and simply resigned to the fact that he will be stuck with his vacationing family for five glorious days. But if he can't escape, the least he could do is improvise. His idea of entertainment are FB and a few gazillion online games.

Hmmm...

And he is only 9. I wonder what is in store five years from now.

In a way, he is very much like me. Except, at 9 years old, I had my nose buried in a book. A few gazillion books.

Now that I think of it, I am a lot worse than he is at the moment. I have half a nose buried in a book and another half stuck to a laptop. Perhaps I should take up new hobbies, like watching tv and bake cakes. But,I am just afraid that I will end up doing all of above at the same time and forget to turn up at work.

a mokcik point of view

Some times ago, I read somewhere (probably newspaper) about a telco client who was not too happy to receive his refund via foreign bank cheque. He was saying something along the line of patriotism of using local bank which had more branches everywhere.

Point taken. We all should support local products.

For one thing, bank negara regulates the number of branches these foreign banks are allowed to open. For another, an organisation as huge as the said telco might need more banking facilities than just issuing cheques. Probably for the ease of internet banking especially when your organisation has huge number of outlets and branches but one centralised finance / cash management unit. You'll need the ease of swapping all cash from all location to be invested overnight and returned to their respective location on the next day. And the need for secured and reliable foreign currency remittance for overseas investment or payment to overseas suppliers (or payment of loan/other debts). Or probably that bank also offered the best rate for financing. Plus corporate credit card. And probably, for the reason of outsourced cheque printing and delivery. It was easier and cheaper to generate the list of creditors to pay, send over to the bank and have the bank print the cheques, payment vouchers and mailed them out than to hire an entire department of accounts payable staffs.

Of course, local banks offered all those cash management thingy too. Only you'd have to be very, very patient and often had to grit your teeth. Or in my case, I was grinding my teeth on top of the first two. So, afraid that my teeth would soon turn to powder, I jumped ship. That is, I changed to foreign bank. But of course, for the obvious reason, I still maintained local bank for payroll purpose. Needless to say, my teeth are no longer in any danger of dissappearing except for biological reason.

But then again, it was just my point of view, a mokcik who rarely venture out from the comfort of her finance world.

Recharging

Look at Adam. Isn't he sweet? Hanging toys at Aqil brand new playgym. A gift from hubby's friend. Aqil is now 3 months old and still receiving gift....I am so jealous. Honestly people, how about giving a gift to me as well? I am badly in need of everything new too.

The closest I can get to a smile. He was not going to smile actually but rather, fretting noisily.

My life has started to return back to its normal, pre-pregnancy routine. Almost. Saturday morning is about going for a breakfast with Amri, send him to Dyslexia Association at USJ then straight to Section 6 wet market. Breakfast would be better if we could go to Amy Cafe TTDI Jaya like old time but both of us had spent too much time in the bathroom thus had to make do with BJ mamak restaurant.

Hope I can do some serious cardio and weight training soon. 6 months seems rather too long to wait.

I had a bad day

Hmmph! I declared today as the worst day of the week. It started at 9.30am with a conference call and went seriously downhill afterwards. At the end of the day, I was a complete wreck and longed for nothing else except to curl into a ball and weep pitifully. Privately of course. Instead, the tears refused to wait a bit longer and I broke down inside the car. Thank God I was not driving. Oh well, I guessed it made no difference whether I wept in the car with my husband or at the privacy of my room at home. He was bound to come across me sooner or later. As it happened, I received no comforting words from hubby, who apparently had plenty of issues of his own. Nor did I expect any. It would probably made me weep longer :) But, but ...a big bear hug would be very nice wouldn't it. Though I wonder how we were going to manage that while speeding down NKVE highway in heavy rain.

Okay...time to restartegise. Do it different way. Get some help from other bosses since my own boss decided to leave me in the mess and go for a vacation instead. 2 weeks, no less. And froze my leave from 21st Dec onwards.

Haha.

Very funny. I did not really have any new strategy up my sleeve. Nor did I have the energy to think of one. I would just enjoy the weekend, play monopoly with the boys and go see some movie. And only worry about my future after 8.30 Monday morning.

By hook or by crook, I have to wrap up everything by Tuesday. Because, by Wednesday we'll be off to Langkawi....woohooo......about the only cheerful thing I have at the moment. The last thing I want is holidaying with a laptop attached like an extra limb. And it is not even for a pleasurable endeavour of playing chef at FB cafe or blogging :)

I am still seething over the frozen leave though. How could he? True I do not celebrate Christmas and I had just came back from 'enjoying' 2 months break. But I was saving the leave to spend with the boys during school holiday. Help....

SOS Carry Bag

Anyone has a Mclaren stroller carry bag I can borrow for a week? The online shop is out of stock and I don't think I'd be able to go strolling the mall looking for one this week.