Eid 2012

The raya itself was great. We went back to Kedah first.

But something worth celebrating happened on the first night at kampung - adam refused his nightly susu. And refused again the next night, and the next and the next. All through our one week raya holiday at kedah and terengganu.

Phew!!!

Could this be the end of it? I really hope so. After 8+ years, i had almost given up trying to wean him off his milk bottle and resigning to the fact that he may want to bring his botol susu to his marriage bed (wonder how his future wife is going to handle that, but now i'll never know)

Lets hope the bottle is gone for good.

Who is that?

Superman on mommy's bed.

One of the two PJ that his highness deemed fit to wear. The other one is not even a proper pj, morelike a tshirt with shortpant. With spongebob print.but Aqil loves it.

Sukati kau lah nak oi.....

My little prince is 3 years old!

Time flies!

One day I was holding a tiny little thing that weight 2.9kg, wondering how on earth did i ended up with a baby so small and the next thing i knew, there was a 22kg little terror running around the house yelling for attention.

Aqil is, at times so much similar to his brothers and at other times, so very different. So, at 3 years old, Aqil:
1. Still in full time diapers, unlike his babangs
2. Not much of a climber, unlike his babangs
3. A chubby little thing, very much like abangs
4. Loves his susu, unlike bang long but very much similar to bang ngah
5. Has 3 beloved bantal busyuk and 3 putings (puting orange, puting comel kaler blue and putting yellow - names were given by himself)
6. Too careful, unlike his daredevil brothers.
7. Plays psp and android tab like a pro and conquer the tv all the time
8. Has some weird fusion food taste
9. Manja to the max, obvoiusly
10. Prefer to wear bang ngah's old clothes than his own new ones *nih memang stress mommy dibuatnya*

Not so lazy Sunday

Thank you hubby for buying the breakfast and sending the boys to football so that I could stay longer in bed. I wish I could stay until 9am at the very least but I was kind of hungry after the missed dinner last night. But still, I managed to savour my lazy weekend up until 8 something.

Sunday was usually slow paced. I ate breakfast with Aqil (who decided to wake up early) then cooked some pasta for the boys and roasted some chicken cuts for lunch. The two non asians in my house love pasta. Today's menu would make them happy:)  I cooked extra just in case my girlfriends decided to come. If they could not make it to my house, then i could always freeze some of it for Aqil's lunch.

Nap time followed after lunch. Even Aqil fell asleep.

My friends couldnt make it, which was understandable due to heavy rain. But still, I made some bubur jagung for tea. Very nice to have on rainy afternoon

Aqil enjoying his pasta, roasted chicken and the must have tomato sauce

When bibik is not around, everyone must do their share, even the youngest. With bang long supervision, of course.

.

Saturday fun...

I wonder since when that my Saturday became ever so hectic...

I  had to drag myself downstairs very early to teach bibik how to make lempeng kelapa for breakfast. Then woke Amri up. Followed by breakfast with him. Add to it husband's uncertain decision whether to eat or not which ended up with additional trip to kitchen. And seperate brekkie for Adam and Aqil because they were not Asian and thus, could not eat lempeng kelapa for breakfast. Egg and bread is fine. Though the time they choose to eat the bread+egg could hardly be called breakfast hours.

Just barely enough time for me to get a quick shower and get ready for kickboxing. Thankfully, the instructor was late. One hour later, I limped back home, chased Aqil around, did some express hair treatment, showered and get ready to fetch Amri.

Decided on lunch at wong solo section 7, which was pretty good in my opinion but definitely not to Adam and Aqil. Ah well....could always feed them sandwich later.

Got home, forced everyone to take a nap. Ended up with Aqil playing with baby powder in our guest room where he and Adam supposed to take a nap. Thankfully he did not feel like putting it all over his sleeping brother.

.

Had a tough time waking up Adam for our next agenda - attending a birthday party @ lagenda. Amri thankfully was already dressed. Hubby gave a hand and managed to wrestle Adam out of bed and into some decent clothes. Arrived at party 10 minutes late. Aqil was left behind since he refused his nap - a cranky kid would spoil the party mood and mummy really wanted to chit chat with her friends. The food spread was a wow!!!!

I planned to leave by 4.30pm so that the boys would have enough time to change for football. But there was a magic show and Amri was enjoying it so much and refused to leave the party. Adam meanwhile would rather be playing football. In the end, I told the hostess that I'd be leaving Amri there while I sent Adam to football training.

Another mad rush from lagenda2 to tropika2 to padang bola. This time with hubby and Aqil in tow. Left hubby at the field so that he could pay the fees and had his teh tarik with fellow soccer dads. Brought Aqil with me to the party to collect Amri. Ended up staying again and feeding Aqil and enjoying the chicken dance until it suddenly rain. With lightning and thunder. So off to football field to rescue Adam.

And...the five of us back into the house again, watching the rain while I halfheartedly cooked dinner (no mood sebab dah kenyang sangat).

Notes:
1.Thank you Elin for inviting us and for the nice food. I ended up skipping dinner...still too full to eat.
2. I dont usually cook on Saturday but this was bibik's weekend off so she had gone back to her husband's house after clearing up our breakfast, cleaning up the whole house and made the beds for all bedrooms  (not much of a day off then)
3. The lempeng turned out beautifully in bibik's hand. My excuse  - she didnt multitask and has no need to rush anywhere. Must remember to take picture next time.

Oh yeah.....

Friday again!

My feel good day. Abandones the office after lunch and off to retail teraphy.

A meni/pedi and a few blouses/pants later, I called it a day and went home. Thought of dropping by pasar malam but it rained heavily when I reached there. So I went home instead. Only to went out again to pasar malam when the rain let up. But with hubby in tow to speed up things :)

Hmmm....my new perfume smells nice....

b.o.d.y.a.c.h.e.s

Ouchhhh....

Yesterday bodyworks was fantastic (at that time). Haven't done serious strength training for ages. And today I'm paying for it...kehkehkeh....feels 90 years old on every single inch of me.

Ouch again. Especially on stairs part.

Decided to skip step aerobics today. Need a break from body torture. At least until I get me strength back. Quite a long way to go though...am still at 2 kg dumbell. I so want to be able to pump iron bar like last time.

Get well soon, little one.

Aqil was feverish last night. Hope he is getting better today. I'm lucky that bibik is so capable and knows what to do. But still, if he doesnt gets any better, I'm going home. In fact, I've been wondering myself why I bothered to come to office today. I probably just move on auto pilot.

Aqil seldom gets sick. So everytime he really is ill, I get more worried than I do with his brothers.

This is how he likes to sleep, with all the pillows under and around him and sometimes borrowing Adam's pillows.

Lovely Weekend. My Way.

Had one of the rare fulfilled weekend.

Managed to go to kickboxing on Saturday morning. Somehow, it was lower impact than I remembered. Probably because the cute instructor thought I was a newbie (lama giler tak attend) or maybe the other 3 ladies that I didnt recognised were newbies as well. Good thing as well, I had no intention of killing my body on saturday.

Had to miss PSG meeting. Hard to  manage with just one car, and many places to go.

Had lunch at Mohd Chan chinese muslim restaurant again, after fetching Amri from Dyslexia Centre. Amri loved it.  A lot. I ordered the yummy butter prawn again.  Adam and Aqil weren't impressed. Both toyed with their food. Adam asked for sandwich and chips. Aqil would have too, if he knew how to articulate the request.
*note to self - must only go to fusion or western food eateries if Aqil and Adam are tagging along*

Went to maxis centre @ sacc mall to get new sim card for Amri. Add a detour to mph. Adam and I came home with 3 books each.

Took a nap as planned. Right after coming back from SACC. Such luxury indulgence :)

Nap too long and didnt have much time to cook for tea...haha. So ended up with express chicken wrap for Amri, beef wrap with cheese for Adam and combo chicken and beef wrap for hubby dearest (not enough beef or chicken but plenty when combined). The wrap is very versatile, I think. Must keep more in stock, along with breakfast beef/chicken.

Bought a bicycle for Aqil after sending the boys to their Saturday football practice. He had a first go with it at dbayu while waiting for the brothers.

Read, read and read.

Woke up late on Sunday morning. And stay in bed with my new book, until hunger overcame. Another rare indulgence.

Heat up last week pizza for the boys post football snack, plus a huge cut of watermelon each. Then dragged them to get a haircut from Kraton. As usual, a visit to 7-11 followed. This thing started 10 years ago when I had to bribe Amri to get a haircut. Usually a lollipop. It had now been upgraded to twisties and juice, one set for each boy. Wonder how long this will go on, for the next 15 years maybe. I had given up bringing Aqil here for his haircut, prefering to cut his hair myself, as least for this couple of years. It was too traumatic for both Aqil and the hairstylist. But I'm not an adequate hairstylist, nor did I enjoy doing it. But a mother has to do what a mother has to do....

Another nap after lunch *another sweet indulgence*

Adam and Aqil played in the baby pool at backyard while I was cooking cekodok and apam lenggang (multitasker queen turns mad cook) and I had plenty of fun watching and feeding them cekodok panas from kuali straight to the pool. The cekodoks were gone without me having to serve it properly on dining table but not many takers for the apams. That was until Amri emerged from his cave and mistook the apam for lempeng kelapa (???) and gulped them with chicken curry *gosh*
Tea time at backyard was rather fun this week :)

Decided to cook dinner then quite lost the mood for it (sebab dah  kenyang makan cekodok kah kah kah). Simple dishes then - just seafood+vegi tomyam and fried fish.



Aqil riding a car @ sacc mall with Adam controlling it via a remote device. Aqil didnt know though and was quite annoyed when the car didnt go to whereever he wanted it to go ...muahahaha.

End of weekend. Praying for more weekends like this one.

Friday love affair

I love Friday.

Who wouldn't? But ever since I have my own family, Friday took on a new meaning. It was the day of the week when I changed hat. From a part time mom to a full fledge queen of the house. I'd be planning menu, activities, shopping list, delegation of duty list, where to go, party invites, books to read and about a million other stuffs.

And lately, I've moved from planning stage to partial implementation stage. I did my pasar malam round on Friday after work and grocery shopping after dinner. More often than not, I'd be driving to office on Friday morning with my pasar malam shopping trolley and tesco shopping bags in tow so that I could go straight from office. And the wierdest thing is, I enjoyed doing that, despite feeling rather pathetic sometimes. I guessed I'll keep on doing the same routine (with occasional break) for as long as I enjoy it and then, hubby or Amri can take over. Queen of the house is entitled to be moody and inconsistent of course.

There were times when I thought I must be the most boring people on earth, especially when I realised my plan for the weekend was to vegetate at home and the highlight of my Friday was grocery shopping. But it gave me such joy that I doubt there'd be any human dares to call me boring in my face. I just love the home I made, termites and all. And I'm starting to realised, there are a lot of people who love puttering around at home too, if not more. A lawyer planning her menu while waiting for the lift at her office, a banker friend who every first Friday of the month would make a detour to Sg Buloh to restock his plants, seeds and fertiliser, another who'll get his ps3 games ready on Friday for the weekend, a lovely neighbour whose idea of a perfect weekend is baking and movie marathon with her kids, a vogue mom who'll hit the mall to pick up her family reading lists on her way home on Friday night (those lucky people who works on top of a mall) and of course, yours truly who spend her Friday with grocery shopping and then a visit to nearby bookshop for books and comics. Come Friday night, we all morphed into domestic god/goddess who find joys at the most basic thing.

Of course, give me a blocked kitchen sink and I couldn't get out of the house fast enough.

The gray area of striking a balance

I read an article today about how some top executives were lamenting about their so called over flexi working arrangement which ended up with them working 24x7.

Well.

I worked 24x7 too but unlike them, my annual package is definitely not 7 digits. And unlike them, my 24x7 working hours totalled less than 40 hours per week. Heheh...you win some, you lose some.

I worked for a multinational organisation which runs like an ER. Almost everyone is on call (the cleaner does not). There is always emergency at any one time (read : revenue). I go everywhere with blackberry attached like an appendage. I tot around laptop during holidays. I do not have any specific working hours. I read and reply to emails at ungodly hours. I've had to recrunch numbers that already been crunched beyond recognition on Saturday morning because someone is US did not agree with it on their Friday. But I love it. I love every boring second of it. And most people find it hard to believe. Those few who believe, asked me for time management tips.

Anyway. There is no specific tip. I just got lucky to stumble into a kind of environment that I thrive in . I managed to mash home and office nicely. The famous flexi hour allows me to fool around with my boys (young and old) and occasionally with girlfriends while sticking to my 40 hours per week. I work from home occasionally, when I think I can stand Aqil bugging me. Most time, it is wiser to hide in office and bring part of your home affairs to workplace. Things like organising birthday party, stalking the boys facebook, harassing the husband, searching for recipe, emailing the teachers, online shopping or holiday planning are best if done at office. Again, must remember 40 hours/week rule. Integrity must always be intact. Anything less will deign you a thief. Work at 3am if you must but the pledged 40 hours must be accounted for.

But of course, I take some measure to ensure this from the beginning. I can still remember years ago, after being offered a job here, I made a call to office at 5.30pm, for a few days straight and again on Saturday. If someone pick it up, then I was going to turn down the offer, or at least, will not stay past my probationery period. Thank God the phone kept on ringing. Thank God, a few years later, no one is staying in office after 5pm (save for a staff who carpool with his brother so has to wait for the other).

So far so good. I get to attend all school functions, be home/school in a jiffy if one of the boys is taken ill, have time for parties with my girlfriends, occasional lunch date and movie with husband, read tonnes of books and whenever the mood strike, put on my mad cook hat.

All this at the price of having a rather significant less pay than my friends at KLCC...muahahahaha.....but seriously, my leisure time is priceless. No way i'm giving it up.

The rare race to office

Phew!

Almost thought I couldn't made it. There was a webex session scheduled at 8.30am. I rarely arrived at 8.30 am, much less with enough time to set up my laptop for video conference. And i wasnt entirely sure whether my new blackberry could handle web conferencing and even if it did, no way i'm showing my face while driving.

But the boys were fuss free this morning and by 7.00am both of them were already in the car. No last minute toilet call or missing smartcard. And the road was clear all the way. The boys clocked in at 7.23 am - the earliest this year. Hopefully they stay put in their respective classes until HRT showed up.

The road to Sunway Damansara was okay too. Queue jumpers havent arrived there yet, I guessed. So I managed to make it to office by 8.00am. Had to move to meeting room since I was told to invite 4 other staffs to join the video conference and my minuscule office could only accomodate the not so minuscule me. Some 20 minutes later, everything were up and running. Laptop nicely connected to projector and a speakerphone, BB put on silent, crap instant coffee made, make up and jacket put on and madam sit back and prepared to listen to latest company strategic direction whatever from the other side of the world.

Tuned out (while looking sharp and clever)

Regress aging

Honestly.

I have more pimples now (a month before 38th birthday) than when I was 18.

Anyone want to analyse my blood and hormon to find cure for aging and wrinkles?

Rain Rain Go Away...

At 2 years 7 months old, Aqil only knows two songs. And this is one of the two :)

School Holiday 2012 - Kidzania

I took the rest of the week off and decided to spend some fun time with the boys. First stop - Kidzania.

Amri opening account at CIMB

Adam cashing out his check of 50 Kidzos

Dell design engineers

paramedics, with Amri as victim

There were too many kids, due to school holiday. The boys managed to try out at Court (Amri as judge, Adam as defence attorney), Emergency room, Dell factory and a few others.

I made a surprising discovery - Adam likes working as design engineer the most. He loved it that he didnt have to go out or speak with anyone. He totally disliked working at emergency room because he would have to go out on the street and gave aid. Being seen on the street embarrassed him. How weird. Amri meanwhile, would rather be outside, preferably riding the firetruck and making as much noise as possible.

Hubby and I left them there to catch a movie. When we went back to collect them, Adam still have a lot of kidzos with him, after spending some on trinkets for himself and Aqil. He wanted to get to college but run out of time. Amri spent all kidzos earned on cellphone rental and entertainment. Adam gave him some kidzos so he could buy something for Aqil too but Amri spent it all for himself. Kah kah kah.... oh my...I guessed I get a peep onto the future.

And I met this beautiful lady in the thick crowd leaving the premise. Or rather, her sharp eagle eyes saw me. Nice meeting you, sis.

White water rafting

My first!

After hearing so much about it from my Zumba friends, I decided to give it a try. And of course, dragging the boys and their father as well (minus Aqil). Liza suggested Slim River as the grading is from 1-3 and suitable for first timer and kids. I just went along with it, having no idea of the grading and only asking about what to wear.

My take.......I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!!!! Hopefully the organisor will send me our pics soon so I could put them here and brag about it.

The yummeh food after the ride. We were starving so even Adam, who is not a lauk kampung food eater, ate without a peep.

Amro of course, would go for second helping

Ayam masak lomak, ikan goreng, sayur kobis, sambal belacan, ikan masin and lovely friends

Bye Slim River....we'll be back!!!

Can't wait until aqil grows up and then we can have the whole boat (raft?) to our family.