House of Nae

A first jamboree

2010-10-25T11:53:00.005+08:00

Amri is attending his first annual jamboree this coming Friday and Saturday, held at his school field. I'm proud to say that, at 10 (nearly), he is no stranger to camping trip. And definitely not at a comfy school field. But this is the first camp he is attending as a boy scout and the jamboree will be organised by teachers and Malaysia Army staffs. How cool can it get?

What amused me was the list of the clothes he has to bring. Among other things:
4 t shirts
2 track bottoms
2 sport shoes
1 set of school uniforms
1 set of baju melayu (complete with sampin and songkok)
1 set of planters order*.

Honestly, Amri brought much less on a 3 days camping trip. But then, this is not a picnic cum camping trip. This is a lot more serious stuffs. I just hope Amri and his friends has enough time to change clothes throughout the day and night. It does sound like these kids are going to play dressing up though :)

Hope they have tonnes of fun.

*Planters order is a semi formal dress code, i.e long pants, long sleeve shirt, tie and smart shoes. In a letter from Amri's school, it specifically mentioned black shoes and black slack. I was quite reluctant to buy a 10 year old boy a proper slack so I settled for a docker like black pants :)

He still doesn't have a sampin!!

My last kindy concert ....

2010-10-10T21:21:00.002+08:00

for now, or at least until Aqil starts kindy. Which will not happen until at least another 3 years. It feels kind of weird really, because there was always a kindy concert every year ever since Amri started attending q-dees 6 years ago, then followed by Adam.

Well. I can start looking forward to Adam's first concert as a primary schooler next year:) But still....feeling a bit melancholic. And there is always Aqil. I can always starts him at 2 years old.

Frankly, I wanted to cry seeing Adam shaking his principals hand during graduation and then solemnly line up with his classmates. He looked so tall. My chubby little baby has grown up. But he is still my baby...

Adam in June 2009, with his best friend - Syafiq. During q-dees sport day.

Adam 1 year later (May 2010), at Amri's sport day

Cucu Tok Ki

2010-10-10T10:27:00.000+08:00

Someone needs a haircut :)

Sharing es teler with tok ki

The boys with tok mi and tok ki

Baby Aqil @ 7 months old

2010-04-20T14:24:00.011+08:00

He has mastered sitting down last month and later, lunging around which put us on high alert at all time

He then figured out how to crawl after spending a few days rocking on all fours tirelessly

Adam said Aqil is doing yoga - downward dog pose

And now, he is pulling up.

What is with the rush baby darling....mummy seriously can't keep up. I haven't even start shopping for high chair yet and now probably have to jump straight to buying safety gate and babyproofing the house.

Amri's big day

2009-12-22T23:24:00.004+08:00

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

2009-12-14T14:05:00.001+08:00

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?

2009-12-13T15:18:00.000+08:00

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

2009-12-12T14:49:00.000+08:00

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

2009-12-11T12:41:00.000+08:00

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

2009-12-10T13:43:00.000+08:00

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

2009-12-09T17:22:00.001+08:00

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

2009-12-07T12:52:00.004+08:00

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

2009-12-06T14:18:00.008+08:00

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

2009-12-05T16:16:00.005+08:00

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

2009-12-04T16:49:00.004+08:00

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

2009-12-03T15:00:00.002+08:00

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.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...

2009-11-30T11:56:00.004+08:00

And I am furious enough. With one cancelled anniversary lunch at 1world, one cancelled birthday party, one cancelled weekend class, one CP204 that i have to re-do (fortunately not for the main company) plus a secretary and a despatch that have to cancell their annual leave and numerous other cancelled smaller events....

Yep...you bet that I am channeling all that negative energy into formulating revenge. Not just one off revenge but more of a lifelong payback. Just you wait...

My 9 years old baby

2009-11-27T22:06:00.000+08:00

I've been married for 10 years!

2009-11-27T02:12:00.001+08:00

I still find it hard to believe. Even after 10 years, I felt like I barely knew my husband safe for the fact that he is everything I ever wish for a husband.

Thanks dear, for the lovely gift. What I really want is one of those ridiculuosly expensive diamond ring but my fingers are still not back to their normal size. So, this will do very well indeed.

Happy 10th anniversary.

p/s - we'll do our anniversary lunch some other time, okay :)

Turning nocturnal, painfully

2009-11-26T12:17:00.004+08:00

*sigh*

Night feeding sucks.

I guess most mothers with an infant are nocturnal creatures at least for the first 6 months or so. Myself included. With a couple of additional catch. First, I'm not able to fall back into sleep after the first round of night feeding. Or if I'm lucky enough to be able to do that, it will be hours afterwards. Second, since I'm wide awake at 3 oclock in the morning, my stomach will demand breakfast about one hour later. Naturally, I'll just ignore it. And by 5 am, i'll be rolling over in pain because my gastric problem has now decided to make a major comeback. By 8am, i'll be eating a nice hearty breakfast and by 9am, will be vomitting them out into office toilet bowl.

Repeat the cycle again in 24 hours.

Really, I haven't vomitted that much during pregnancy. And i wonder why, with that much pain and vomitting, I haven't lost any weight. And i also wonder if i avoid breakfast, can i avoid the vomitting as well. Surely bibik will be very happy if i tell her that i'll only be eating antacid for breakfast and please don't bother with all those scrambled egg or toast or nasi goreng.

*sigh*

I sure am cranky, sleepy and dehydrated (and somewhat deranged) woman today.

Amri's Annual Concert

2009-11-21T16:38:00.000+08:00

Adam's Annual Concert

2009-10-24T15:54:00.001+08:00

My one month old baby

2009-09-30T15:19:00.000+08:00

Generally speaking, Aqil is an easy baby. He was fuss free during the drive to and fro Kuala Terengganu. He has no issue with his baby carrier, though it looks oversize on him. He slept through hubby's spectacular firework show. And he slept through silat gayung show with the loud accompanying music just 5 feets from him. In fact, he will sleep through just about anything as long as it is not between midnight and early morning, when he will be wide awake and will insist on some kind of entertainment. He breastfed and bottlefed well and has no nipple confusion whatsoever. Funny that. Probably babies nowadays are born with the knowledge of multiple nipple option as part of their rooting reflex or something.

What else? Well, just like his brothers (and to some extend, his mother) he has no specific schedule whatsoever. He'll nurse as and when he feels like it, thus the reason i decided to seek the help of pacifier. Which created another problem. Unlike mommy's booby, the dummy kept falling out of his mouth. It was getting tiring to pop it back into his mouth so unless anyone could advice me what brand can I buy to minimise that, I am sorely tempted to put duct tape over it.

All things said, I am still in awe of his lovely hair and bright sepet eyes. I wish I can have that hair.

Baby Aqil @ 2 weeks old

2009-09-14T21:14:00.006+08:00

And still very tiny. Because of his size, I decided againts buying a convertible car seat and went for a small baby carrier instead. But he still looked dwarfed by the seat. I think I'll need to do some extra padding to make sure he is comfortable for the long drive to KT this Friday. I just hope that it will not end up as 12 hours journey.....

And, to prepare for the long drive, baby Aqil will be spending a few hours everyday in his baby carrier as a training. Adam and Amri did not need training at all and I expect Aqil will be more or less the same but still, it is better to be prepared. Plus, I have little else to do and moving Aqil from baby cot to my bed to a sofa to baby carrier to his stroller seems like a lot of fun. (Read: bored out of my mind)

Baby is here!

2009-09-01T23:51:00.002+08:00

And it is a boy (despite SJMC's pink blanket).
Born at 1.54pm on 01/09/09 weighting a mere 2.95kg.

Warning - big fat whining lady is here till 9 Sept

2009-08-31T21:43:00.000+08:00

After weeks of keeping my mouth firmly shut and my fingers away from keyboard, I've decided that my blog is the best place on earth to whine about my pregnancy blues. I'd rather talk with human but I can't seem to find anyone non-judgemental or one who could listen without giving me a religious sermon instead, family members included.

So there, you are forewarned. Please go away and come back one month from now if you can't handle this. Or organised a street demo.

The end is near

2009-08-29T15:15:00.000+08:00

I am considerably more cheerful now compared to the last 30 odd weeks. Been to hospital to see my gynae and we agreed to induce the labour on 1st Sept. If not sooner since I was already 2cm dilated this morning.

Thank God for this piece of good news. I guessed the hours of touring The Garden has paid off. Though, surprisingly, I came back with just a new digital camera and a new bag. Many thanks to hubby for both. And oh...the grocery shopping at tesco this morning must have helped too. If so, quite a lot of hard work just to self induced the labour. Sure, trawling the mall was lotsa fun. Even better when your husband paid for everything. But I'd get many sleepless night afterwards due to legs and knee pain ( and a few other body parts). Even crying myself to sleep did not work anymore.

Oh well. Forget all about it. Am looking forward to Tuesday. Really, really looking forward.

Out of office....for two months

2009-08-28T15:32:00.000+08:00

Today would be the last working day for me at office. I'll be working from home until the day I give birth starting next Tuesday.

Even better, the GM will not be in town next week. So, I'm pretty sure everything will be just fine. The temporary lady is superb. She is even more qualified than I am and has a steel for a spine - a necessary requirement in my job. I've talked and talked to everyone concerned about my leave plan. The thing is, I was taking my maternity leave as normal as a holiday break. However, I was soon to understand that it was not that easy, considering my position in the organisation and the hybrid organisation I'm in.

As soon as I broke the news, internationally, all manners of emails started flying. A representative from SOX department was sent over to talk to me in person about my leave plan. Gosh! I didn't even think of a plan yet at that time. In fact, I was still in denial over the whole baby things. Thankfully, the auditor was only interested in one thing, namely the sacred SOX procedure that I've already put nicely in place. As long as everyone continued to follow the guideline, I could not see any problem at all. But still, I swear to him that I'll look for somebody who is well versed with SOX to stand in for me (though dalam hati....kat mana le aku nak carik nih).

Next, I endured conference call after conference call discussing my leave. By then, i was already fully prepared with a detailed plan. My GM was in favour to get someone from HQ to stand in for me. That was the most ridiculous thing I've heard so far. Not to mention highly expensive.

The maternity leave was discussed again during June finance meeting, in detail. Thank God the controller did not suggest to meet the candidates in person because, errr, in truth, I haven't interviewed anyone yet. But I was pretty sure the agent will have lotsa candidates lined up in no time.

I was wrong again. Yes, there were many highly qualified candidates. I did a lot of phone interviews to screen out those that could not speak fluent English. No two ways about it. Temporary or not, you'll need to talk. A lot. In English. Period. I however, could not find any candidates with SOX background. So I setlled with a few who had internal and external audit experience. To simplify the matter, I arranged for interview during the period my boss was not in the country so that the authority to hire were mine. Sonang cerita.

I think I made a good choice. The lady was more than capable. Took her less than one week to get familiar. She started in early August so that I could have a full month to show her the rope. She'll be supported by Singapore and Australia FC too. So there! I'm on my way to enjoy my 2 months break from all things financial.

Pregnancy blahs: Bored with pregnancy

2009-08-08T11:48:00.001+08:00

Taken from www.babycenter.com

I'm sick of being pregnant! Is something wrong with me?
Nope, it's perfectly normal to feel that way. Many women get tired of being pregnant during the third trimester, and some even earlier. What's exciting and new during the first few weeks and months of pregnancy can become pretty tedious by the sixth or seventh month. Let's face it, there's nothing particularly thrilling about having to roll out of bed sideways, groan every time you stand up, and pee 20 times a day. Sure, you always get offered a seat on the train, but you also face little delights like hemorrhoids and heartburn. It's enough to wipe the rosy glow from even the most excited mom-to-be.
Bored is an understatement of the year. I am desperate. Very, very desperate!

Dealing with others
On top of your physical discomfort, you may find yourself enduring endless questions and comments from others about your pregnancy. "Once I started showing, no one at work ever talked to me about anything but being pregnant," recalls Susan Greer, an accountant and mother of one from New Hampshire. "By the sixth month, I wanted that baby out and my body and identity back."And then there are the unsolicited comments — and hands — on your physique. Many women get tired of conversation that focuses on their burgeoning physical state. Try steering conversation back to nonpregnancy topics — even if it's just the weather or the latest reality TV show. Feel free to tell your family and close friends that you need a reprieve from pregnancy talk, and you're back in the market for conversation that has nothing to do with food cravings and not seeing your feet.Also, give yourself permission to vent when you feel the need. Although family and friends (and even life partners) can sometimes get worn down from a verbal catalogue of pregnancy woes, you can count on finding a sympathetic ear in other pregnant women.
The other non judgemental pregnant friend I could commiserated with is a colleague at Houston office. But she has gone off for her maternity leave, leaving me without anyone to vent my black mood. By now, I almost felt like putting up a notice saying 'do not touch me or i'll bite your head off'.

Savoring your time
Despite all the annoyances you're weathering, now's the time to enjoy your last weeks or months of pre-baby freedom. During the months — and years! — after your baby is born, time to yourself will be a precious commodity.Some women use the days to plan for their newborn's arrival, setting up the nursery and shopping for supplies (tiny socks!) or mapping out the details of maternity leave and daycare.
What pre-baby freedom??? Baby care can be delegated. Pregnancy is NOT.

Sometimes, though, you need a break from all things baby-related. Go ahead and plan activities and dabble in hobbies that a new mom couldn't possibly squeeze into her busy schedule. Some ideas:
• Make lunch dates with friends.
And suffer another bout of heartburn afterwards

• Learn something new. Take a chance on books at the library that you normally wouldn't pick up.
I'd like to learn voodoo please

• Streamline your space. Clean out your files, sift through the junk in the kitchen drawer, or put those boxed-up prints in the closet into photo albums.
Not in a million years

• Treat yourself to a massage. For a less expensive treat, spring for a soothing pedicure instead.
Would be nice indeed if I didn't feel like punching the daylight out of anybody who touch me

• Set up time-savers. Make yourself a haircut appointment for a new, easy-to-manage style, collect takeout menus from restaurants around town, and set up an online bill pay account.
I dream of the day that I could go and have a thorough hair treatment to my now ruined hair followed by a very complicated hair style. No. Make it top to toe treatment.

• Pick up gardening.
And risk a major come back of sinus? No, thanks.

• Connect with your partner. Enjoy some peaceful, romantic dinners together — whether you venture out to a restaurant or cozy up at home with comfort food — and focus on each other while you can.
How romantic can a heartburn be? And the only one who still showered me with hugs and kisses is Adam. Only him.

• Escape to another world. Tuck in to a nice big novel or rent a few movies that sweep you off your feet into another place or time.
That's what I did. Until the blurry and spotty vision took over. Plus, watching movies with Adam is a big pain. About one million questions per second and no break at all.

To the idiot at giant shah alam...

2009-08-06T16:21:00.000+08:00

who parked his empty trolley behind my car a few weeks ago...
-may you suffer from incurable sinus for 38 weeks
-may your weight shoot up out of control
-may you lose your sleep for the next nine months plus
-may you have spotted vision while reading your newspaper
-may you have big fat pimples sprouting all over you face
-may your back kills you
-may you have swollen feet, hands, joints and face
-may you suffer the nastiest of heartburn
-may every step you take feels like a long knife slicing your leg muscle

But all are forgiven if you happened to be a preggy mom with husband being out of town for the day.

The reason (though I dont need one) I was mightily pissed off was that, I only noticed the trolley once I was already inside the car. And I could not get out of the car because there was another idiot driver who by that time, has parked too close to my door. At my normal size, I'd be able to slither out. At this size, no way! So I backed out anyway, hoping that stupid looking giant guard would come to my rescue. He was not. It was an elderly grandma who rescued me.

Forget about being decent...

2009-08-04T22:54:00.001+08:00

How do you teach kids to respect the privacy of your bedroom? I've been trying for many years but still the two boys regarded my room as an extension of their bedroom. Barged in anytime, never bothering to knock, much less asking for permission.

I've resorted to locking the door if I need to undress or change. Or if I need to use my full length mirror to have a good inspection at my urmm....swollen thigh.

But I have a roommate. Who legally has all the right to barge in. Barging in was not the same as knocking on the door and waiting it to be unlocked and opened. And being pregnant means that you could not reach the door in a split second even though it was barely two metres away. The most annoying thing was, after I made so much effort to reach the door quickly, there was no one waiting outside to enter. What a waste of energy. As if being pregnant was not tiring enough.

Oh well. This is my house anyway. I've decided to do away with decency. I'll wear what I want to wear, in any part of the house. And if the boys happens to open my door while I was naked, so be it. Hopefully they would be traumatised enough by the sight to respect my personal space, if not putting them off girls forever. I'll probably strut around in any state of undress around the house checking out the various mirrors hubby installed...in the hope that I could find one that makes me looks good to my own eyes.

Note:
I've just had an idea. Everytime the boys enter my room without permission, they will be charges Rm1 each. There. They may never understand boundaries by they understood value of money very well.

Hiway blues

2009-08-03T22:01:00.000+08:00

I think it is about time that I keep to driving on the left lane in highways. Or, at the very least, middle lane. With my blurry vision, legs cramp, slow reaction and my tendency to shut my eyes when sneezing (which I did every few seconds), I think I'm a danger to other drivers.

However, driving on left lane equals to being stuck behind that slow overloaded lorry which is probably older than me moving at 15km/hour. And moving to middle lane means following behind the equally slow vehicles trying to overtake the ultraslow lorry.

I like driving and I love being in my car but sitting behind the wheels 30 minutes after breakfast meant that the actifed I took after breakfast was starting to take effect. While I am okay with the after effect of actifed, driving at 15km/h with drowsiness was pushing it too far. I could feel myself nodding off barely 5 minutes afterwards. Which I think is even more dangerous. Taking actifed after reaching office was not an option since I loath to be sneezing all the way, plus I hate the dirty look hubby gave me when he saw the piles of soiled tissue inside my car.

So?

Back to the fast lane then. With some luck, I could reach office before legs cramp started.

This is the reason I no longer venture outside my route to and fro office. With this route, I'll be on autopilot and I'll know where I'm going. Also the reason I have to decline going to Jenan's potluck at Ina's house. Though I know where BSP is, I will not be able to read roadsigns or street/house no. Too bad. Maybe next time girls.

Happy Birthday!!!

2009-06-04T23:27:00.002+08:00

Hubby with his cake, surrounded by impatient and starving kids

On the same day with akad nikah, my dear husband and his youngest brother the newlywed celebrated their birthdays. The same date, only with 15 years between them.

We celebrated by way of satay, meehoon singapore and of course, two cakes. Also joining the ceremony was their eldest brother whom birthdate was on 6th of June. The pengantin, understandably, went missing with his new bride during cake cutting ceremony. Only to appear much, much later when only a few strands of meehoon left in the tray.

Ayah Long, cutting the other cake

Happy Birthday guys.

Cakes are ordered from http://darulimancupcakes.blogspot.com/

Selamat Pengantin Baru to Hasnan & Hasrina

2009-06-04T16:33:00.001+08:00

My bro in law gets married. To his childhood sweetheart. They used to walk to kindy together, once upon a time, before the bride's family moved to another town.

Anyway, today was for akad nikah. Held at the beautiful Masjid Kristal at 3.30pm. The wedding will be on 12th June in Kemaman - the official residence of the bride.

To this newly wed couple, congratulation and may you live happily ever after.

From Kedah to Terengganu

2009-06-02T23:07:00.003+08:00

Timur Barat Highway rest area.

We arrived at Terengganu for the second part of our trip.

It was hot.

If I thought Kedah/Penang was sweltering, Terengganu was even more. Even with rain. If you thought Klang Valley was hot, think again.

God...being pregnant during this kind of weather was a torture. I bid farewell to restful nights (or days for that matter).

After a few hours, Adam was covered in rashes. Red welts appeared everywhere, private part included. Poor boy. Bepanthene and extra shower helped though.

Amri however, couldn't care less. He'd survive just as well anywhere, any weather. Acclimatised? Who need that.

Happy 26 years old

2009-06-01T15:55:00.002+08:00

Happy 26th birthday to Ajoe. Many happy returns.

My dear brother turned 26 years old today. We just celebrated it at home since birthday boy was due to return to his own place today and back to work tomorrow. He'd probably just as anxious to go celebrate it with his brand new fiancee.

We did not buy a birthday cake too. There was a nice cake given as part of engagement hantaran yesterday with his name on it so we cut that one :)

My bro was engaged

2009-05-31T21:26:00.003+08:00

On this sweltering hot afternoon. I was a wee bit worried that the engagement cake would simply melt.

We made our way to Kepala Batas around 3.30pm and regrouped at masjid badawi. Then off we went to the girl house sometime after asar. It was not too hot anymore by this time but, with the dress and all, I sweated buckets. Adam was red in the face and after a few glasses of cold sirap and a piece of kuih, dissappeared to play with the neighbourhood kids. Probably lost appetite due to hot weather. Amri however, helped himself to two bowls of mee soup and every other food served. Gosh.

The event went on smoothly. My mom was over the moon with the prospect of having a future daughter in law that was a complete opposite of her own two wayward daughters. I'm sure both my bro and his fiancee would keep each other happy. Congratulation Ajoe & Yati.

Feeling the blues

2009-05-28T18:28:00.003+08:00

I skipped my 6th month appointment with gynae today. Reason being - I was beginning to feel like some sort of a single mom. Always showed up alone for appointments. Sometimes with one of the boys, which did not help much to cheer me up. Moreover, I feel absolutely fine (read: no less miserable than the past 25 weeks)

On the other hand, I rather enjoyed having the big bed all to myself.

Amri serenading Ibu

To scale a mountain

2009-05-27T21:38:00.005+08:00

On Monday, Amri brought home a letter from school - inviting students for a five day trip to Mount Kinabalu this December. Amri begged to go. I gaped at him.

Not to ridicule his non-existing hiking ability, I asked him to google and discuss Gunung Kinabalu with his friends. No point giving too much information from my side at this time. This boy trusted his friends (and internet) more than his parents.

I was not mistaken. On Tuesday, he came home from school and decided not to go. Hehe. Chickened out, heh!

Tonight however, he said his homeroom teacher was telling all good stuff about Mount Kinabalu. About how climbing it is just a piece of cake because there will be guides to help you and carry your bags and of course, teachers will be there as well. And a few of his friends are already planning to joint the expedition.

God help me now. He could not even manage the climb the tiny hill in front of our house without clinging to his father for dear life.

However, that was not the issue here. Fitness wise, I could train him to be physically fit enough to hike a mountain. But come December, he was just two weeks into his 9th birthday. Not matured enough to be let loose on a mountain. At least not without the presence of his overprotective mother hen. He'll get his fair share of mother nature, that I can promise. But it will be according to my footstep. First camping trip at 10 yrs old followed by moderate hiking at cute little mountains around the neighbourhood. We could also go back to Kedah and hike Gunung Jerai, for good old time sake (terkenang zaman sekolah menengah). Till then, he'll just have to be contend with occasional hiking at FRIM while waiting for his mother to unattach herself from her comfy bed/sofa.

My new baby

2009-05-18T13:16:00.003+08:00

Not of the human species though...:)

My much awaited built in shoe cabinet. Finally installed on Sunday. Ironically, my last shoe purchase was wayyyy back in February, when I needed something flat and sensible (read: boring). I've also noticed my feet was going to get bigger and I really did not want to spoil the shape of the shoes I have at that time. Especially my boots.

I've stopped buying shoes since then. But looking at this shoe cabinet, I'm getting the itch again. Adoila. If I buy any shoes now, I might not be able to wear it post delivery, when my poor feet shrunk back to their normal size. Hmmph. And now, since all the shoes are housed in the same cabinet, i've noticed that hubby has more shoes than I do. How come? I'm feeling rather shoes deprived right now, which can't be good for the unborn baby, don't you think?

I've located two more nice cozy place to put another shoe cabinets but put it away as 2010 project. We'll have another tiny person to buy shoes for and hopefully I'll be back to the previous size that could accomodate high heels without having the risk of broken heel.

Looking forward to add built in bookshelves next.

Macam ayah tak?

2009-05-14T15:47:00.002+08:00

Adam was acting very cute today. He woke up early and I overheard him telling bibik that today Ibu had a conference call so if he wanted Ibu to send him to q-dees, he had to be ready earlier than usual.

Wasn't that very considerate of him? Actually, I do not have conference call today but I usually did every Thursday morning. I'd usually remind him the night before that I had to be in office by 9.00am so in order for me to make a detour to ttdi jaya, we'd have to hit the road by 8.00am. This arrangement started when we moved to BJ and thus altering our travel time, plus I got myself pregnant and found out I lost the ability to super-multitask while driving. Which made handling the cumbersome blackberry while focusing on the road was out of question. Added to that, I had one hand perpetually holding a tissue to my nose, thanks to pregnancy rhinitis. More often than not, I asked him to go with his father when I lost all the patience to wait for him.

Adam was around once or twice during thursday morning call and was fascinated by a few different people talking in a few different accent of English. Now that he knew what conference call was about, he talked about it in a matter of fact way that I found so cute. But the best thing is, for one day a week, I do not have to prod and nag him to take his shower, dress up and eat breakfast.

Maybe I should have conference call everyday.

Wonderpet

2009-05-13T17:20:00.004+08:00

Blue fish belongs to Amri and the red one is Adam's.

The boys now have a pet each. Their first pet. Adam's fish is named Dolphin. Amri's..err....the name keep on changing every few minutes and they all sounds incorrigible and no one knows how to spell them.

They bought this pair of fish at section 6 wet market last Sunday, while waiting for me doing my weekly supply trip. And keep on bickering about it till today. Amri wanted to bring his fish to school. When denied, he threaten to take back mothers day card he gave me. Duh....mana aci! Adam with his famous itchy fingers wanted to hold the fish and managed to do it once when I was not around. He even took it out from its container. Nasib baik panjang lagi nyawa fish tu.

There was also the issue of feeding the pets. The fishes need to be fed once every 2 days. Since none of them could remember to feed thair own respective pet, bibik did it for them. But then, once they remembered, they wanted to feed the fishes then and there. These couple of fishes were certainly overfed by now.

And water changing? Bibik did it for them. The boys felt cheated out of it but could not actually remember that the water need to be changed every 4 days. So both of them changed the water again even though bibik had already done it the day before.

I felt quite sorry for the fishes. They are pretty though.

My little vain child

2009-05-05T14:51:00.004+08:00

Adam's 11 stitches.

Adam was supposed to have his stitches taken out on Thursday so I took the day off, bought him a toy for bribe/distraction and off we went to see his surgeon. Anyway, a day out with expectant mom could never be straight forward. As soon as we reached hospital, I was so thirsty I could barely talk and walk. Thank God for valet service. Went straight to registration counter, skip GL counter and told the nurses that we would be having a snack time first. By the time we made our way back to the surgeon office, the doctor was off for emergency surgery. Settled the insurance thingy first then went back just in time for the doctor to be back from OT. However, the doctor said the stitches did not completely healed yet so we need to come back on Monday. Hmmm....

Poor Adam...he was very nervous. The thing is, his surgeon had to use the traditional stitches so that the hair could regrow on that scar. I agreed because I knew how vain Adam is. As he grow older, I guessed he would be even more vain. Amri had different kind of stitches two years ago. His was a kind of self dissolving stitches that would just melt away as the wound healed. Very convenient. But Amri's injury was at his forehead.
(can't believe i'm comparing injuries and stitches of all things)

We spent the rest of the day having lunch and latte, buying vcds and picking up books from mph. Bliss.

Come Monday, I was not free. So hubby took him instead. Kind of breezed in, took the stitches out and breezed out. Adam was back home before 11am. Very fuss free. And I had Adam complaining to me until today.

Adam after the thread was taken out. No cries, surprisingly but got himself another toy.

That was yesterday. Today Adam still refuses to go to kindy. Reason being - he looks ugly. He checks his head everytime he walks pass by any mirror. And we have a lot of mirror around the house. He is not upset with his bald spot but not that happy either. Vain..........

Adam on the mend

2009-04-24T21:10:00.002+08:00

Adam with his new power rangers toy

Adam was put under 24 hours observation so we stayed another night. We here meant Adam and his Ayah. While mommy crashed at home, on her king size bed. Hehe....

Anyway. When it came to staying put, Adam was no better than Amri. He was restless and only slightly entertained by the toys, astro and colouring book. Even a piece of hospital rubber glove became his toy.

By 9 ++ am, the surgeon declared Adam was fit enough to go home and signed the discharged papers. We however, had to wait for hours until everything, from insurance to pharmacy supply before we managed to get home. It was lunch time by then.

I cought him climbing near the lamp just before this. Checking out the many switches there

Adam clearly missed home. He visited all rooms and went up and down a few times. When Amri reached home from school, he was overjoyed and started chattering non stop. They played cards, watched tv and god know what else while I had a bit of lie in.

I needed to get a few things from giant and the two boys tagged along. Adam decided to wear a cap to hide the big tape on his head and persuaded Amri to do the same. The cap hid the bandage well enough but soon Adam complained about the edge of his cap was rubbing painfully into his stitches. Hmmm....

We had our lattes then headed home.

Upon reaching home, Adam decided to ride his bike again. So soon? Tak serik? I guess not. Can't blame him for that. I could not remember being prim and proper myself.

Unrepentant.

But still, between these two boys, I'll end up with a full head of white hair before I hit 50. I'm getting quite worried with the little unborn one. What if the baby is a girl? What if the baby is a girl who will ride her bike the way his two daredevil brothers rode? God help us....

Adam @ OT

2009-04-23T21:44:00.006+08:00

Adam waiting to be taken to Operating Theatre

By half past eight, Adam was ready. He was definitely a model patient. Though he complained that he was hungry and his hospital gown looked like girl's dress, that was the extend of it. Really fuss free. And he enjoyed being pushed in stretcher to Operating Suite.

By 9am, he was well under GA and I kissed him one last time before being ushered to the waiting room.

Half an hour later, I was shown to recovery room, where Adam was retching badly and cried a bit. Upon seeing me, he said he wanted to go home. That made me sad, because, I've never heard such thing from him. Or from Amri either. Both of them were brought up to be flexible and could just survive everywhere. But he said that many times.

Adam post surgery. Spending his time watching cartoon network

Once he was a bit more settled, the nurses transfered him to his own room. A few minutes later, he asked for milk. I gave a small amount, fearing that he would vomit again. Thankfully, he slept soon after.

Adam woke up not even one hour later and asked for porridge. Then rice. Then polished off soup, milo and pudding, both mine and his. He asked for twisties and I told him that it would have to wait until his father arrived because I would need to go and buy it from the shop. He asked for milk instead and was content with that.

Adam enjoying dessert

Hubby arrived soon after and I suddenly felt extremely exhausted. That was about as much adrenaline this pregnant lady could handle.

Dejavu

2009-04-22T20:51:00.003+08:00

It happened again. This time it was Amri who ran back home saying that Adam fell from bicycle and was badly injured. We found him sprawled and covered in blood in between two park benches. It was this all over again. I knew what to expect and what to do but still, my heart skip a beat. Maybe more.

Bundled a bleeding Adam (from top to toe, indeed) into the car and drove off to the nearest clinic. Dr. Rasool and his assistants were very prompt and efficient. They cleaned up Adam pretty fast, gave him painkiller, wrote a referral letter to surgeon and even called the hospital to expect us. Adam's cut on his head was a lot worse than I expected. The full length and depth of it could only be seen once the doctor finished shaving his hair around the area.

We went home after the clean up. Asked bibik to change Adam's bloodied cloth. Packed an overnight bag, fished out Adam's medical card, called hubby who was outstation and gave Amri his pocket money for tomorrow. Cu Nan would spend overnight here to keep him and bibik company (thank you, bro).

I went straight to ER. Adam slept the whole time. Asked the nurse to help moving Adam from my car to wheelchair. Once in ER, the bandages were changed and Adam cried again. He however, did not struggle at all. But once the bandages were replaced, he was back to his cheerful self. He then was taken for head x-ray just in case there was any fracture to the skull. Unfortunately,I am pregnant, thus could only accompany him to the door. Adam was okay though. The surgeon scheduled Adam for surgery the next morning, after 6 hours fasting.

Adam waiting to be sent to his room

Adam liked his hospital room well enough that he had trouble to go to sleep. He also found that being pushed in wheelchair was funny and grinned all the way from ER to his room.

The day I turned 35

2009-04-21T10:29:00.005+08:00

Today I am one year older and still none the wiser but of course, grumpier than ever.

Adding to the grumpiness is the fact that i had very little sleep last night in between sneezing, gasping for oxygen whenever both air passage were blocked and get this, i let my not so little darling adam slept with me. On my bed. Reason being, he injured his feet during one of his cycling stunt.

Now here, I am not one of those supermommies who enjoy having their kids co-sleeping with them. Honestly, I'd have put the kids in their own room from day 1, if not for the inconvenience of stumbling around all night long for nightime feeding and diaper changing.

Anyway. Adam does not have Amri's high threshold for pain. He looked so pitiful that I finally gave in and let him sleep beside me. Big mistake. King size bed or not, there was no escape from his super active limbs. He slept like he was seriously practising tae kwon do and gymnastic at the same time. I was sorely tempted to push him down to the carpet.

This morning he declared he was not fit enough to go to kindy. I agreed because his ankle was kind of swollen and I doubted he could wear his socks and shoe. But a YM to hubby later revealed that he was cycling outside all morning and now was watching the contractor fixing our auto gate. Hmmph!

Blissful Sunday

2009-04-19T16:05:00.000+08:00

I woke up in the morning without headache and just a very mild stuffy nose, which was a rarity indeed. Maybe I should do this every morning - gradually inched my way out of bed sometime after 9 am.

Feeling a lot better in weeks, I gave bibik the day off and sent her to giant for her monthly shopping. Then nagged the big boss to drive me around town. Managed to buy one thing out of a few hundreds that i planned to buy plus a whole lot more that I've never intended to purchase. So far so good.

I just wish that I could have more days like today. Then I wouldn't be so grumpy and whiny

Stuffy nose during pregnancy

2009-04-18T12:44:00.000+08:00

Why do I feel congested all the time?

Believe it or not, it's pretty common to have a runny or stuffed-up nose during pregnancy. About 20 to 30 percent of pregnant women have congestion without having allergies or a viral infection like the common cold. This condition even has a name: rhinitis of pregnancy. It can start as early as your second month and last until you have your baby or even a few weeks afterward.Higher amounts of estrogen during pregnancy can contribute to swelling in the mucous membranes lining the nose and even cause you to make more mucus. What's more, the amount of blood in your body increases and your blood vessels expand during pregnancy, which can lead to swollen nasal membranes as well. Other hormones may also play a role.

How can I tell if my congestion is due to my pregnancy or to something else?
If you have no other symptoms, it's probably rhinitis of pregnancy. If your stuffy nose is accompanied by sneezing, coughing, a sore throat, mild aches and pains, or possibly swollen glands or a fever, you probably do have a cold or another infection.On the other hand, if you have symptoms such as sneezing and itchy eyes, nose, throat, or ears along with your congestion, then allergies are a likely culprit. Pregnancy can make your allergies worse or cause you to be sensitive to allergens and other irritants that never bothered you before.Of course, you won't always be able to tell what's causing your congestion, and it's possible that there's more than one cause. For example, you could be suffering from allergies as well as rhinitis of pregnancy.

What can I do for relief?
Remember to drink plenty of fluids and keep your head elevated at night. These measures can also be helpful:• Steam can temporarily relieve congestion and it's often very soothing. Take a warm shower and hang out for a while afterward in the steamy bathroom. Or moisten a washcloth with hot water, hold it up to your face, and breathe.• Try saline nose drops or a buffered saline nasal spray, available over the counter at the drugstore. Spritz or drip a bit into each nostril and within five or ten minutes you should be able to blow your nose more easily.• Use a humidifier or vaporizer to put more moisture into the air and keep it near your head at night. Be sure to follow the cleaning instructions that came with your humidifier. Change the water daily since it can become a breeding ground for bacteria. You'll need to replace the filter often as well.• Avoid potential irritants, such as cigarette smoke and alcohol (which you should already be avoiding!) and sudden temperature changes. Also avoid exercising outdoors on days when there's a lot of air pollution.

Are there any medications I can take?
If congestion continues to make you miserable, tell your practitioner about your symptoms and ask which medications are safe for you to try. It's generally best to avoid taking any medications during your first trimester, when your baby's organs are forming.If your practitioner says it's okay, you can try a decongestant. Avoid overusing decongestant nasal sprays, though, because they can cause rebound inflammation and make your congestion much worse

Source : www.babycentre.com

*sigh*

I'm living with this for weeks now. Nasal spray doesn't really work. And the so called safe medication make me drowsy but does not help me to sleep. I am so miserable that I felt like applying for unpaid leave until the day i give birth. But I guess, staying at home will make it worse since my next door neighbour is doing major renovation and across the road, contruction for dPuncak bungalows is in full swing. And so does the dust that come with it. Plus, not all part of my house is airconditoned. I'm better off in my office.

*sigh*

18 more weeks.

Halfway there

2009-04-17T10:08:00.002+08:00

I have gone through a miserable 19 weeks.

Another 19 weeks to go. I'm due on 9/9/09

Hoping for better weeks to come.

Amri's Sport Day 2009

2009-04-11T14:18:00.003+08:00

The school termed it Athletic Day. Amri gleefully spent three days of this week at mpsj stadium, rehearsing for the event.

Unfortunately, the transporter did not fetch the students for today so us parents had to get going earlier so that these students could be at stadium by 7.30am. Fortunately, Adam woke up and get dressed very early and fuss free. Amri of course, was on his regular schedule. Just before he get dressed, he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to wear long pants for today. Grr...mana nak cari school long pants di subuh buta ni. Tak kan nak pakai jeans kot. Hish...budak nih. But Amri, being Amri was just as happy in school short pant as in any pants. Ibu nyer pulak yg self concious sebab most of the students turned up in long pants.

Amri warning Ayah not to take his marching photo.

Brothers aka partners in crime

Amri waiting his turn

Huge mommy. Can't believe the baby is just 157gm. What are the rest of 3.8kg I put on?

Yey.....Primary 3 Blue House won first place.

Went home around noon and all four of us crashed out on the living room sofa later. Only Amri ate lunch. The rest of us couldn't be bothered with food. Besides, we were going out for a wedding at 2pm so catching 40 winks was more important.

Apsal penonton pulak yg exhausted lebih lebih ye....

A shiny new, red bicycle

2009-04-06T10:15:00.007+08:00

Someone has a shiny new bicycle!

Yesterday, Hubby brought it back from bicycle shop sometime near noon and Adam had been outside cycling ever since. Even Amri joined him even though his was not new. Then the boys were joined by a new girl whom family was in the midst of moving in to the corner lot house that day. The trio cycled back and forth half of the day, ignoring the heat and the occasional drizzle.

We were busy with our reunion guest and I guess the girl's parents were busy with a few huge lorries worth of furnitures to pay much heed to these kids. They were in and out of the house many times though. And every now and then they would line up at the buffet table and helped themselves to some food, presumably for sustanance for another few kilometres of cycling. Us parents were left blissfully alone with our guest :)

Amri with his new friend/neighbour. He was doing a power ranger pose initially until the girl gave him a good whack and asked him to stand properly :)

Now, when can we get rid of the training wheels?

eMBA6 reunion

2009-04-05T22:29:00.004+08:00

We hosted a reunion for x-eMBA6 group at our home. Some of the photos are here, but the rest will be in the yahoogroup. I think I'll need someone to help me draw a proper road map. Giving direction was a pain.

Makan time. We had roti jala, meehoon, chili con carne and chicken kebab.

Some of the ladies

Some of the gentlemen

To mamarock, thanks for the heavenly brownie. It arived just in time when my muffins were almost gone. I didn't dare to bake a large batch due to the missing kitchen scale. And of course, agak-agak the quantity has never been my strong skill.

Faiz testifying mamarock's brownie. Serious, it was delicious. And it came with the porcelein bowl.

To the rest, thanks for coming despite the rain and the sesat all around BJ case. And many,many thanks for the gifts, though it was a reunion, not a housewarming party. Hope all of you had a good time.

Damage control

2009-03-26T21:59:00.002+08:00

Rajin anak ibu buat homework....

Or so I thought. Definitely not. He was busy sabotaging Amri's halfway done work when Amri dissappeared downstairs for a few minutes.

Gotcha!

Luckily the damages were done with pencil so i was able to quickly erased them all before Amri came back. Phew! This kind of thing could lead to a serious war. Honestly, Adam is dangerous if he is all nice and quiet for more than five minutes.

Adam acting like nothing happened.

They look strangely camouflaged by all that colours.

Homework blues

2009-03-05T12:32:00.004+08:00

Adam starts to have homework this year. And boy, there are a lot! A page of maths, writings and some language skills. He'd usually brought back three books per day. At first Adam was thrilled with the homework. His status was elevated to almost the same level with Amri who had mountains of schoolwork. He gets to enjoy the same amount of attention during homework hours at night.

But the novelty soon wore off. Especially when Amri had lesser homework once he managed to catch up with new subjects at school and spent his spare time noisily constructing robots from his lego set. Adam complained, grumbled, sulked and one day refused to go to kindy. I, the most laid back mother in Klang Valley simply called his teacher and requested her to stop the homeworks. Which worked well for two days. Then Adam started to feel left out both at kindy and at home. To my surprise, he asked his class teacher for some homework. The equally surprised teacher promptly gave me a call to get an all clear.

I decided to meet his teacher in person instead. We sat down together with Adam and finally concluded that Adam was bored to death doing the repetitious dot to dot, ABC, 123. He had done all that last year. So now Adam brought back just one homework per day. Things like math, fill in the blanks with correct letters/words and the likes. He is happier with this arrangement and sometimes, when the mood strikes him, completed the homework by himself in the afternoon. Most of the times, he is just his playful self with short attention span. But the homework gets done. Sampai terkoyak rabak buku.

Well, I'm glad the way it turns out. Especially now that homework coaching falls under the category of nauseous activity. Not good.

Hiatus over

2009-03-03T13:53:00.003+08:00

Quite a long break I have.

Well, to answer some questions...nope, I was not out of country. I was not even out of town. I was just busy baking little muffin. Since I was not much of baking person, this little muffin caused a big chaos into my not so orderly life. Many thanks to bibik who always came to my rescue.

But I'm slowly coming up for air. And, silly as it might sound, am back enjoying driving on the most right lane on nkve. Been out of action for quite some time.

Am glad to be back.

Adam is 5!

2009-01-12T13:18:00.000+08:00

My baby is 5!

We had our usual family birthday dinner last night. And today I gave Adam his birthday present, a skateboard, ignoring hubby's horrified look.

Hehehe! Mothers privileged, I insisted. Afterall, I knew what my son could handle. What i really didn't know was, how to wean him off milk bottle but still maintaining his milk intake. How la to do that? Amri weaned himself off milk at 2 years old and later it was easy to trick him off bottle as well. By that time, he was a veteran eater and quite capable to request his preferred meals. Adam on the other hand, was a fussy eater and so far his only favourite food is chocolate cake. Thank God Adam was quite vain and wouldn't dream of swinging his milk bottle in public.

Happy birthday, my dear!

Oh oh..

2009-01-11T13:16:00.001+08:00

OMG.... I am so in trouble.

Crashed again

2009-01-09T12:59:00.001+08:00

I was typing an email to my aussie counterpart when the XPS screen suddenly froze. Shut down and restart (my ultimate cure all solution) did not work. The IT guy spent an hour trying to revive my beloved xps before he admitted defeat and announced it as a gone case.

Huhuhuhu.......

My photos. Dated all the way back from Raya Haji, Cu Nan's engagement, my new padang bola backyard, Adam's birthday and God knows what else. Adoi la. I've been too busy to transfer them to CDs.

While I was brooding, the IT guy told me that XPS shouldn't be paired with window xp. I needed window vista. But due to our new ERP security issue, it was downgraded to xp. And now it was dead.

*sigh*

I quite love this xps, despite the fact that it was really, really heavy. But since I do not travel much, then it was quite allright. I could handle a bit of weight from my room to the car park. I am going to miss it. But not before i insisted on data recovery. Namely my photos. The other files could RIP.

Btw, Happy Birthday to my dear sis, Kak Cik.

School blues

2009-01-07T14:46:00.003+08:00

So far so good. Everything went smoothly in my household. Note that, our definition of 'smooth' may be a little bit different from others.

Amri woke up at 6.30am, showered and dressed up pretty quick. He was fuss free like that. However, for some unfathomable reason, he wanted me to feed him breakfast. Spoonfed him to be exact. Well, if I had 5 children, this might be the time when I turned into a banshee. But I only had two. One was still in bed. I could certainly afford the time to spoonfeed one eight year old boy. So I quickly showered, changed into office attire and went downstairs to meet the royal highness who has wasted a good 20 minutes waiting for me at dining table. I managed to get 2 spoonful of fried meehoon into him when his van arrived. 10 minutes earlier. The van driver accidently drove a few doors away and took some time to reverse back the bus to our front gate. During that time, Amri managed to eat a few more spoonful of meehoon, drink his ribena and wear his shoes. Then off he went. That was 7.20 this morning.

I had a ten minutes break before I went to attend to son no.2 who really took his time from opening his eyes, to putting his foot on the floor to getting undress. Then he refused breakfast. Then he wanted that ultraman socks that bibik had to dig back from washing machine. Luckily belum basuh. After a little bit of chasing around, bibik managed to put that little laughing tyke in the car and I drove of to his kindy. Only to be told that today was orientation day for 3 and 4 yrs old only. What? Checked his communication book and there it was. A letter from kindy stating the specific date for every age group. Adam's would be on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Signed by my other half. Grrrr!!! So I turned back and sent a very puzzled Adam home.

Well. For a smoother ride, I think I'll just need to readjust a few things. First, see to Amri's breakfast before my own shower time. He refused to be accompanied by bibik. So, for as long as needed to, I'll feed him breakfast. This kind of phase usually will only last a few weeks. As for Adam, no matter who already signed whatever letter, I'll need to read it and commit to memory. Or bberry. My memory can't probably cope with all these things.

Easy peasy

2009-01-05T21:00:00.004+08:00

I had it easy this school year. Unbelievably. Minus a little bit of drama in the morning.

Amri woke up easily and was sent to his new school by his father. Pretty much undaunted by new school, new teachers or new classmates. Hubby left him after his break. Amri's only concern was that I should top up his cash card with as much money as possible since he would be eating lunch at school. And he wanted to eat at secondary school's cafe because it sold icecream. By the time i took a sneak peek at his classroom around 3.00pm, he was very much comot (from eating too much ice cream, of course) and exhausted. Poor boy, after 6 weeks of running around, he had to sit still for 7 hours straight. By 3.30pm, class was dismissed and I was introduced to his new best friends. 10 minutes later we were in the thick of huge chaos at school cafe, where everyone going back by school bus gathered. By 4.00pm, I left Amri with his new school van driver and went home. He was too tired to run around so I was sure he would be allright.

Adam meanwhile, woke up at 5 in the morning, grab a towel and went to my room asking for hot shower. Told him that it was too early and sent him back to his room. When I check on him 10 minutes later, he was still sitting on his bed wrapped in towel, pouting and very close to tears. Gosh.... my pujuk pujuk skill was practically non existent at 5 in the morning, okay. Tried to get him into his clothes back, totally failed, then simply tucked him into bed with towel and all. I let him slept until 7.30 and had quite a hard time waking him up. Adoila....fenin mokcik, tau. But things got better after his shower. He settled down in his class happily, sitting beside, who else, his best friend Syafiq. I was quite prepared to request for a change of class if Syafiq turned out in different classroom. But he was okay and I could hear him from corridor, admiring someone's Ben10 water bottle.

Phew!

Brave kids...

2009-01-04T18:28:00.000+08:00

Not mine per se . I was just remembering Amri's school orientation the other day. Amri took it easy, probably because he was already in Year 3 and though new, it was just another school. The moment his class was called, he bounded off to join his class teacher and new friends. After an hour, the kids already memorised the layout and in the case of Amri, the exact location of school cafe.

What impressed me most were the Year 1 students. They looked tiny but very brave. None of them looked teary eyed or clingy. And this being a little bit out of the way school, the students must have come from various places. With little chance of meeting you kindy mates. But when their classes were called, none of them hesitated to join their respective class teachers. No one cried or at the very least, looked scared. I couldn't remember being that confident when i was 7 years old. Amri was very easy too last time but he was familiar with most of the kids. They either came from the same kindy or his playground mates.

Anyway, parents being parents....we were all anxious. As soon as the little ones left to join the class teacher, their respective parents started to tag along. Until the teacher gave this announcement on the microphone:

"Children, please leave you parents behind at the hall. We will be back in an hour"

The whole hall erupted in laughter.

We parents must have annoyed the teachers beyond words.

Saturday rambling

2009-01-03T19:22:00.002+08:00

Phew! Saturday is God's gift to humankind. Nevertheless, I still had to reluctantly drag myself out of bed on this rainy morning.

First stop was q-dees. Paid the fees while chatting with some of the teachers. We were discussing on which class to put Adam. Not that it was of utmost importance but most of them knew how very extremely reserved Adam is. So we all agreed on en-graham bell, simply because Adam was familiar with the teacher. Whereas the other two classes would be taught by new teachers. Adam's new teacher was known as pretty strict but the rest assured me that Adam was so adorable that no one would feel the need to be strict with him.

Excuse me, but adorable? My not so little Adam who is capable of inflicting bodily injury to boys much larger than himself is adorable? But then, miracles do happen at school so I leave it to the teachers. If they say adorable, so be it :)

The so called adorable adam meanwhile clamped his mouth shut, pursed his lips and drifted around the building visiting one classroom after another, talking to no one and only answered a greeting from teacher azira. Well, knowing him, that was very good indeed. As long as there was no tantrum. However, I took monday off, just in case.

Next stop - section 6 wet market. One of my favourite place. I stayed away from this place during maidless months because, well, it was fun to buy fish etc but cleaning them up afterwards was not something I look forward to on a weekly basis.

I was glad that my life was finally going to be boringly normal again. At least for a few months.

Oh yeah...I am also coming up with additional new year resolution - I am going to learn how to cook. Seriously. Everything fancier than ayam masak kicap and sup sayur. Reason being, my new kitchen cost a bomb and it will take a full year of not eating out to get a reasonable ROI out of it. Of course, this resolution will inadvartently cause me to lose weight. A lot of weight. Afterall, how good a novice cook wannabe could be? I am so looking forward to this. Where do i start actually...buy a cookbook, chef wan dvd or sign up to cooking class?

Yesterday...

2009-01-02T18:25:00.006+08:00

....were spent frolicking at Lumut beach and hotel pool from sun up to sun down. And eating a lot.

You'd have thought that after eight years playing mummy I would have morphed into a somewhat responsible mother over the years and spent an off work day to prepare school related stuffs for her school going child.

Obviously not.

After the boys turned a shade darker then only I remembered that I need to buy a pair of school shoe for Amri's orientation day tomorrow

I drove around Lumut town but unable to locate any shoe shop. But then, I was not familiar with this town. Hubby drove us later to a nearby giant where for some reason, I only bought 1 pair.

We ate a seafood dinner again and arrived at the front door by 11 something. Luckily the boys went straight to bed. Unfortunately, I was not able to sleep until i totally shower off the pool chlorin, the sweat and the seawater from every inch of my skin. It was way past midnight when I hit the pillow.

This morning, to my surprise, Amri was already up by 6.30am. By 7.30am he was ready to go to school and ask me to eat faster. I wolfed down breakfast sleepily while listening to Amri using the exact copy of my usual lines "Could you eat faster please, hurry up please, finish your breakfast now....."

Grrr.....

Well, enjoy your school year, dear.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T21:26:00.001+08:00

I've decided on my 2009 resolutions (or plan)

1. Am going to work in office for only one week in December 2009. Dec 2008 was a complete chaos. Managing new ERP, new house, new school and new maid at the same time was indeed very stressful. Everything ended up badly done. So this coming Dec, I'll dedicate 2 weeks for holidays/fun/balik kampung and 1 week for school stuff. Like buying uniforms, books etc. It was rather dreadful when I was in the middle of a long queue to buy Amri's school books and had to answer 11 calls from 4 countries. Embarrassing even but i still was not about to let go my position in the queue. I knew hubby was not too keen on this back to school part and would rather stay out of it. I on the other hand, enjoyed every second of it. But dashing from school-home-office a few times a week was, at the very least, bad for my health. Thus, i'm going to spend one week in 2009 just looking at uniforms and books. There. Everyone should be happy now.

2. Not buying furniture, lightings, cabinets or anything to do with house fitting from June 2009 onwards. Honestly, I've seen and bought enough to last a lifetime.

3. I want to spend more ME time. Be a little bit selfish. Pamper myself silly.

That's about it. Happy new year everyone!

When the going gets tough...

2008-12-31T23:00:00.001+08:00

....yours truly ran away! Heheh.

Seriously, I was at my wits end. Nothing went right from the moment I step into the office. Internet connection decided to choose today to act up, something was terribly wrong with some of the servers (probably all of them), all the people i need to talk to were on vacation and...ermm...boss was no where in sight too.

So, after taking the remaining staffs to company year end lunch on behalf of the missing boss, i declared a half day off. It was new year eve anyway. Made a few phone calls, talked hubby into it and went home to pack. We were going to Lumut for an overnight stay so that I, the stressed out FC, could wind down and think straight again. The boys, blessed my new maid, were already dressed and packed.

Actually, it was hubby who was supposed to be at his Lumut office tomorrow for God only knows what. I rarely tag along. Honestly, who would have wanted to leave one office only to show up at another ? But this time, I was determined to stay at hotel with the boys and try to recuperate. And hope that all the servers were up and running by Friday.

Well...after a delicious seafood dinner somewhere at Lumut area...I felt almost human again :)

Home alone

2008-12-08T20:49:00.003+08:00

I so love Subang airport. I landed at 7.20pm from KT and was home by 7.50pm. I'll use this route more often from now on, rather than driving all the way to KLIA/LCCT.

Aidil Adha this year was rather quiet and wet. Thankfully, the heavy rain was over. We had drizzle all day long though.

I wonder if my kids realised that their mom was not there at Losong.

Amri is 8!

2008-11-27T23:02:00.003+08:00

Though he is still a bit confused - why just 8 years old when Year 2 is already over? He insists that he is 9.

He had a small party earlier at daycare, with Ben10 cake. Poor boy, he wanted a birthday party at home but I did not feel up to it. So we just had a birthday dinner

Birthday boy and his birthday icecream

Helping Cu Nan finishing dinner

An innocent post with Aunty Cik

Tuck in!

More school holiday programmes

2008-11-25T13:43:00.002+08:00

Since people are asking, here are a couple more....

Swimshark School Holiday Swimming Lesson
Venue : Pusat Akuatik Shah Alam
Time : 9am and 5pm (err..not too sure), every Monday to Friday
Contant person : Shahir/Marilyn
Contact no : 012-3912513

Smart Reader TTDI Jaya
1. Craft Workshop (4-10 yrs old) RM25
2. Kids Cooking Workshop (4-10 yrs old) RM30
3. Intro to ABC (3-6 yrs old) RM30
4. Drama Workshop (5-12 yrs old) RM35
Contact no: 016-6842834

I think I have a lot more scattered around in my already chaotic house. But by the time I managed to wade through the mess and actually come across anything, the holiday would be long over.

School Holiday Programme

2008-11-23T10:41:00.006+08:00

More than ten years ago, when I was still single and working at a Japanese factory, I was always baffled when, come school holiday season, my colleagues would start planning their vacation with military like precision. The three moms and one dad in my department were always gloating about the fact that their departments had two singles who could take over the workload. Our manager was single too but too scary to be counted in. In between the vacations, they'd be busy planning for the children school holiday program, from swimming to ballet to summer camp. Or, if none available, the kids would be carted off for a fortnight stay in kampung with their grandparents, with maid in tow. Of course, packed with loads of activity books that the kids were supposed to complete during their holiday.

I always marveled at the buzz during that period but secretly told my ignorant self to just take it easy when it was my turn. My kids could spend all day playing outdoor or watch tv all day if that is want they want.

Now I know.

I definitely do not want my boys to watch tv all day. It is too dangerous to let them play by themselves outdoor. Playing indoor is dangerous to my bank balance, the boys seem to break everything except the wall.

So, I found myself doing exactly whatever my seniors then did. Scouting for holiday programme, arranging vacations, balik kampung trips, intensive mengaji class etc. With military precision. My seniors at the jap factory are now enjoying kids free days (and empty nest syndrome for some). I'd better enjoy this while I still could.

Here are a couple of good holiday program near my place:

Sri Kayangan Language School Holiday Programme
Address: Jalan Opera U2/L, TTDI Jaya, Shah Alam (above Big Food Restaurant)
Period : 24 Nov 2008 to 19 Dec 2008
Time : 9am to 3pm
Activities
Weekly - Tae Kwon Do, Swimming, Yogakids, Computer, Cooking Class, Art&Craft
Daily - Quran/Moral Study, English Conversation, Speech & Drama and a lot more
Fee : 8 yrs and below RM480, 9 yrs and above RM650 . 10% sibling discount. Fees inclusive of food, material & weekly field trip
Contact : Aisha Zanariah Abdullah 016-2831002
Transport can be arranged.
My boys attended this programme last year and for some reason, preferred to converse in English for the whole school holiday. They still kept the art& craft project till now.

Akademi Qurra - Pusat Bimbingan Al Quran & Fardu Ain
Address : TTDI Jaya shoplot, above Pasar Mini Lina (cant remember the street name)
Activities : Daily Quran/Qiraati, Fardu Ain, Intensive Solat, Bahasa Arab
Fees : Rm70
Contact: Ustazah Roslina 019-3401053 (one of the most wonderful teacher that I know of)

Have fun.

My little dancer

2008-11-22T23:37:00.000+08:00

Yesterday morning, hubby & I went to q-dees for the final parent teacher meeting this year. Adam had done unbelievable well. We just ignored the straight C's for his Mandarin. But the rest was great. And Teacher Azira mentioned that Adam loves dancing and enjoyed his concert training tremendously. He likes signing too. He has a bestfriend - Syafiq, and always shared food with him. Bless you, Shafiq dear. It is not easy for Adam to make friends on his own, always in the shadow of the very outgoing Amri. Must remember to invite Shafiq & his parents to Adam's birthday party next January.

I am so happy that Adam is no longer the introvert quiet mouse that he was 11 months ago. He now talks a lot in class, sometimes playing a goody two shoe - telling Teacher Azira what his classmates are up to, and volunteers for almost everything. Am also happy that he is developing his own personality, instead of trying to copy whatever Amri is doing at any given time. He finishes 4 1/2 of his english readers (out of 8) which i think is good enough for a four year old.

Before we left, Teacher Azira commented again that Adam could really dance and he has no stage fright. Okay....could be from following me to all those aerobics/hip hop & belly dance classes.

This morning, we were at q-dees again for their fun fair. Adam was excited to go but became dissappointed when he noticed none of his friends were there. Especially Syafiq. Muncung 14 le cik tembam nih. But he did joined the games , albeit unsmilingly. The games were conducted in 4 different classroom, managed by 4 groups of teachers. Every time we entered into a classroom, the teachers would commented how good Adam danced during the concert and how fast he picked up the step. Flawlessly.

Then I entered the principal office for next year reenrollment. The principal gave the same statement. And so does the admin manager there, adding that Adam should be narrator next year since he loves the microfone so much.

Gosh!

I did not noticed that I had one son that is musically inclined. True, he sings a lot at home but so did Amri during that age. To think that I only had two boys to pay attention to. What do I do now? Adam did ask me some time ago whether he could have a drum set for his birthday. But I was thinking about Amri at that age, whom changed his interest almost weekly.

I'll wait and see first.

Rest, recuperate and rambling

2008-11-06T16:04:00.002+08:00

SOX Audit was over. Did much better than last audit but still, not good enough.

I am exhausted and stressed out.

I need a break. Something to put my internal system back into its track.

A cardio kickboxing session would be nice. (kick the auditor would be better)

Anyway, since juggling is my main job description nowadays, I'll settle for a few laps during the boys swimming class tonight.

Or maybe not. First, I'll need 3 pcs of 50 cents shilling for locker. And i'll be using outdoor pool while the boys are at indoor pool. I still could not get over the anxiety of leaving 4 years old Adam at 6 feet pool (or more) no matter how good his instructor said he is. The way I see these two rascals pushing at each other...oh no...the instructor will need a few pairs of eyes all around his head to make sure they are not trying to drown each other. Wonder if they will let a non student swim at the indoor pool...

*Sigh*

I'll just grab a book then and curl up somewhere at the poolside.

I'm thinking of taking up aikido. Perhaps after the outstation business trips season is over. Want to join?

It is only 9am and yet..

2008-11-05T09:13:00.002+08:00

Please God....help me go through the rest of today. It is early yet but already I feel like throwing a big tantrum.

The microwave died on me just when I was rushing to get breakfast going.

My blackberry refused to start up after I left in on the charger the whole night. Was there a power surge or something?

I have a SOX audit this morning.

I had less than 3 hours sleep.

My laptop failed to detect LAN connection so I have to rely on wireless network.

So help me God.

Pizza online

2008-11-04T21:10:00.000+08:00

I had a busy day. The big boss was out of town and so did the bogger boss at home. What is it with these two guys? I felt like they were planning their travel itenary together just for the fun of seeing me in the deepest trouble I could find myself in at any given time.

Since I had to rescue Adam from his daycare and be at home before Amri arrived from school but none of my report were completed yet, i decided to work from home. If I were to work from home, I did not want to spend the 'home' time looking for dinner and get drenched in the process. Plus, I needed to finish up quickly before we had to go out again for the boys swimming lesson. So i ordered pizza online. Clever me.

Only that, it rained heavily. It took me an hour to reach home. Pizza delivery only took 20 minutes. Fortunately, I've already paid the order by credit card. So the pizza boy left it on my doorstep. I must admit, it was rather a happy occasion to reach home and found a box of pizza smiling at you right on your doorstep.

Reunion 2008

2008-11-02T20:59:00.002+08:00

To sum it up, we had a great time!

This time round, the reunion was 90% organised by hubby, while I just helped out a little bit here and there, thanks to my chaotic schedule. Anyway, hubby did just fine on his own. It was a smaller crowd this year and we opted for potluck. Which we all agreed was a good option because we ended up with huge varieties of yummy foods. Add to the fact that we were picnicking by the poolside :)

A big thank you to all that participates and very sorry because we were not able to give out vehicle pass to everybody. Priority went to those with babies/toddlers and who brought heavy food. Mind you, we even had a watermelon, still uncut by the end of the day. Thanks to Erma and hubby for handling the registration and collection. Thanks to May/Azlan for the bagful of pressies. All kids ended up with one pressie each :)

Due to one of the organisor too busy to think up of suitable activities, the reunion ended up as a makan a lot + sembang a lot session. All kids (except Amin's tod) were safely in baby pool so the parents were left in peace. Amri, Adam and Irfan refused to enter baby pool and opted for adult pool instead. which caused quite a commotion when the other children started to follow. I didn't know how other parents did it but all kids were back safely into baby pool after a few minutes. All except these 3 boys. Grrrr. But since no other kids attempted to join them again so we just let the three boys enjoyed showing off their half baked swimming skill.

We had trouble to get the kids out of the pool and enter the drawing contest though. But they were out eventually. After 4 hours inside the water. Gosh...these kids!

Anyway, we had loads of FUN. It was so lovely to see you guys again. Lets do another one soon. Something like this. A combination of pools and plenty of food. Perhaps somewhere where we all could drive and park right beside the pool. Bukit Cerakah is great but to carry the loads (kids+ food) on foot is pure torture. Lets get a beach resort instead.

For anyone interested to organise a small get together at Bukit Cerakah, the rental is pretty cheap. Pool (baby + adult) is RM200 and poolside (2 pondoks with powerpoint & fan) is RM100. There is also a cafe nearby for extra food/drinks. Changing room & toilets are horrible though.

Amin, Xanna & Intan....dont forget the photos, ok.
Sis May, thanks for the foods & watermelon
Edi & wife, we love the nasi impit
Whomever brought the mee....it was lovely. Adam ate twice.
Xanna, the choc cake was heaven
Amin, the pudding was just perfect on a hot day
Kak Azi & Nelina...you guys missed a lot..hehe

Kids at baby pool

My genius senior, Erma - volunteering as treasurer for the day. Thanks, Erma

Amin & family. Next time bring swimsuits ok.

Mr Organisor and his corporate gang

Organisors

Adam & Irfan

Yummy foods

xPKL Reunion cum Family Day

2008-10-31T12:39:00.007+08:00

*copy and paste from externalzone yahoogroup*

Venue : Pool Side, Camar Rimba, Taman Pertanian Malaysia, Shah Alam (aka. Bukit Cerakah)
Date & Time : Sunday, Nov 2, 2008. 9.00 am - 1.00 pm

Events :
1) colouring & drawing contest for kids
2) water activity for kids (pls bring suitable cloth for their splashing time)
3) animal visiting and feeding session
4) makan makan for adult :)

1)Invited members:All former students and lecturers of UITM Pusat Kursus Luaran (ACCA,ICSA, MICPA, CIMA)

2) How to reach Camar Rimba:
Buy the entry ticket (RM3 for adults,RM1 for 6-12 yrs kids, free for kids below 6).
Take the bus, advise the driver that you want to go to camar rimba. The driver will drop you near the taman haiwan. You need to take a 5 minute walk before reaching Camar Rimba.

3) Things to bring:Your own food since its a pot luck event. There is a nearby stall, just in case you wish to order simple foods.

4) Cover charge:RM10 perfamily, to cover site rental, some drinks and gifts to our kids. Pay on the day itself.

5) Souveneir exchange - Please bring a beautifully wrapped souveneir for gift exchange session. Neither big nor expensive. Just a token for friends

Queries - pls email Mr Organiser - En Mohd Sidki Hasan (ACMA, MBA)

It is a sunny day

2008-10-27T22:20:00.003+08:00

Good, isn't it? After weeks (or months) of battling with congested road due to flash flood somewhere, we are now blessed with a few days on sunshine. It was hot but it was allright. Up until last Friday, I was seriously considering to buy a cloth dryer. Or maybe a washer cum dryer since space is going to be quite an issue at my next house. In fact, I was already comparing between bosch and electrolux and wishing both companies would come up with a nice looking model like LG. A maroon washer would surely liven things up in my tiny kitchen :)

Well, anyway. Since the sun was out and loads of laundry were dried up naturally, I think I'm going to shelve the washer/dryer plan get a maid instead. Have to. My poor kids are now breeding lices on their cute little head, courtesy of some friends at daycare. And I am due in HK by mid December and I seriously do not want to ask my mom and MIL to come again.

Sigh! How did other moms made it look/sound so easy? To have a family, a career, a little bit of travelling, no maid and a hobby or two and still being sane enough at the end of the day to answer a few schoolwork questions from the kids...

Happy deepavali to my indian friends

Accounts mapping

2008-10-20T15:43:00.002+08:00

I think it was a mistake when I decided to bring in the SL7 team to our office rather than I flew to Melbourne and did these things there.

For one, my big boss didn't feel the need to stay in office (or in Malaysia for that matter ) if I were around. Thus, all daily stuffs were automatically diverted my way. Obviously, big boss feeling was mutually shared with my bigger boss at home. Needless to say, household management were mine too.

I might be boasting about my multitasking skill numerous time but to pull a stunt like this, you'll need to be a qualified magician. The kids riled me up, ruined my schedule and the big boss was emailing with this and that requests. I ended up getting very bad tempered and equally useless at home or at office. I locked myself inside the meeting room with the Aussie team at office and then locked myself inside master bedroom at home.

Well, I completed the mapping beautifully and the two boys were still alive. Please pat me on my back.

I think I'll agree with doing the training at Hong Kong. Anywhere else for that matter. Or, if we were going to do it in Malaysia, I'll book a hotel + meeting room. Not just for the visitors, but for me as well.

Aidilfitri this year

2008-10-01T22:02:00.002+08:00

Quite a quiet one. Tok was not well. She did not even recognised me anymore. Met some of the cousins but not all of them.

Amri and Adam had loads of fun though. Plenty of duit raya and bunga api as well as their favourite food. Amri was a little bit uncertain though during breakfast. He wasn't quite sure whether he was allowed to eat but the food spread were there waiting. So he gingerly nicked one ketupat. The another. Then after asking around for a gazillion times whether he could eat...he then really sit down and has a big feast. And that was before solat. Another round of feast after solat aidilfitri. Wonder where did all the food went to.

Balik kampung....hati girang :)

2008-09-30T21:44:00.000+08:00

After much deliberation, we decided to take it easy. Started the journey around 10am. Packing was hellish. I did not really finished unpacking from Shanghai trip actually. This was more like taking out another luggage and try to forget about the first one.

Traffic was marvelous. None of dreaded crawling traffic across three states. PLUS did their job well. Or maybe, most of the usual drivers were already at their kampung days ago. We were among the last few travellers. Heh.

Hope the boss will present 2009 budget well. I was just extremely happy that I was not the one presenting it at HQ at this time of the year. Sadly, not a chance for me to leave the laptop behind. Sigh. Sometimes, different time zones could put you at disadvantage

Arrived at Kedah pretty early. The boys did not sleep at all during the journey. Amri was still fasting. 30 days. I was so proud of him.

Still hard at work

2008-09-29T21:30:00.001+08:00

This was one of the reason why I dreaded going to Shanghai last week. While 80% of Klang valley population were already on their way back to their respective hometown, or already happily cooking lemang at kampung, I was still here. Miserably slogging away at my desk. Could not even came in late because I had an appointment with an insurance broker at 10am. The only good thing was that traffic was ridiculuosly clear. The drive to office took about 20 minutes. All the queue jumper morons were absent as well, perhaps busily jumping queue at highways.

Office was quiet. My brain cell was either still at shanghai or already back to my hometown.

Phew....glad to be home

2008-09-26T23:55:00.000+08:00

Reached KLIA at 3.30pm after quite a bumpy ride towards the end.Really, really glad to be home. Now I could start shopping and packing for Eid.

Shanghai FC, Malaysia FC, HK FC, new boss - aka VP and Australia FC. Singapore FC is very camery shy and prefer to be photographer.

Had a bit of scare last night. I was out shopping at nearby mall when Mr VP called me back for a short meeting. Mr VP just joined the company three months back and this was his first meeting with financial controllers all over the world with Asia Pacific being the final group.

The meeting turned out to be just a coffee break and the reason, get this, he was concerned with my huge age gap from the rest of the FCs.

Gosh! How could that be an issue. Granted, I was not as well versed on technical side of GAAP compared to the rest but I knew I did well. Shanghai GM, who used to be malaysia GM came to my rescue though. I was voted the best FC he ever knew and lets not forget that I managed malaysia/brunei operation for about six months while waiting for a new GM. Phew! I knew I could stood up on my own but it never hurt to have a third party vetting me through. Now, if only I could live up to the glory :) Thanks xGM. I'll buy you lunch next time you were in malaysia.

And many thanks to Shanghai FC too. Being quite new to the group, he dilligently googled the net for information about ramadhan so that to make my stay as comfortable as possible. The new VP was also given a crash course about islam and ramadhan.

Yey!!!

2008-09-25T16:27:00.003+08:00

Meeting has finished. All topics has been wrapped up nicely. I'm itching to go out and hit the road. There is a nice fake stuffs shopping place nearby, at Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. Or maybe I should take a peep inside the museum as well. After two days being confined inside a meeting room, there is nothing I need more than retail theraphy. As well as some exercise to straighten back all my aching, screaming muscle.

But.............it rains!!!!!!!! Heavily.

Hmmmm. Well, I'll just wait it out for now. Iftar is in about one hour time. I'll go my free way with full stomach. More energy then. Rain or no rain.

Boring le pulak. Singapore FC and HK FC are already on their way to airport. Australia FC will follow suit shortly. Lucky them. I have VP, IT Manager and Internal Auditor for company if I need one. Or shanghai FC. But I'd rather be on my own. Two days is more than enough. Until the next finance meeting in about 6 months.

Rain....please, please stop soon.

This must be the reason why this hotel provides an umbrella in very room.

Missing home

2008-09-24T10:08:00.001+08:00

My workstation for these few days. The wireless connection is not so stable but broadband is pretty good. I forgot to bring my adaptor and had to spend 10 minutes explaining what I need to the hotel housekeeping staffs. Finally their assistant manager came to my rescue

Nice big bed but nobody to snuggle to :(

There is a nice big lcd tv too but nobody to fight over the channel with.

Miss the boys....

KL - Shanghai

2008-09-23T21:13:00.003+08:00

The plane was was super smooth on the first half and extra bumpy on the other half. Probably due to typhoon at Hong Kong. Why though, I had to fly economy class when I am entitled to 5 star hotel? Thank God I escaped the Dallas trip.

I had two surprises today. First at KLIA when I bumped into an IT manager from Melbourne office, heading to Shanghai as well. Haven't got a chance to ask why he made a detour to KL first. We were in the same flight but thankfully were very far apart.
A second surprise awaited me at Pudong airport, in the form of my exGM. Now promoted to Asia Pacific MD and based at Shanghai. I was so pleased to see him. He came to specifically fetch me from airport and drive me to hotel. He was, and still is my favourite boss. My savior during the time I was an acting GM. We took the magdev and then drove to shanghai office, which was now relocated to a bigger and a lot nicer place. He then drove us to Parkview Hotel, our designated place for the next 4 days.

Had a simple and quick buka puasa in my room and later set out for dinner with HK and Spore FC, headed by Mdm HK GM who understandably, was starving for woman's company. This organisation was almost monopolised by men. Dinner however, was ruined by horrible food and the arrival of the big boss from US. But it felt good though to exchange gossips.

I'm off to bed now. Hope the two boys did not drive their father up the wall. I felt rather guilty leaving for business trip without a maid to help out at home.

Iftar at Shanghai?

2008-09-22T22:06:00.004+08:00

The bags are packed. Presentation was prepared to the best of my ability (in between blog hopping and planning for Eid). I'll be leaving for shanghai tomorrow morning and be back just in time for an iftar with my family. Whom I hope would be missing me so much that they decided to book me for the most lavish buka puasa buffet in town this coming friday :)

Actually, it feels good to be away. If only to escape from the never ending house chores. I've reached a point where I was sorely tempted to hurl all the dirty dishes to the wall and set fire to the mountains of dirty laundry. I didn't, though. Because they are not cheap and I am obsessed with proper sit down dinner with nice plates and all. And hubby + laundry shop took over the laundry nightmare. But I did disposed a thing or two once in a while, when I couldn't be bothered with cleaning them up and pretty sure no one would miss them. Well....when the going gets too tough, the maid agency was just a phone call away, I guessed.

Anyway. How do I survive two days of being closeted with a bunch of accountants and talk shop? With a week away from Eid. God help me. I have enough RMB with me to occasionally sneak out from the hotel and hit the road. But I doubted I could get away much.

Looking forward to break fast at 5.50pm tomorrow :)

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-12T14:29:00.003+08:00

Thanks to Hurricane Ike, my budget meeting at Singapore next week is cancelled. I may have to present it again next month at dallas, though.

It sound a bit selfish if I were to be overjoyed with the cancelled meeting now. I hope all bosses and colleagues over there in Dallas & Houston will be all right. Most of them have storm tracker installed and closely monitoring it.

And hoping that the hurricane will not cause any major spike in oil price too.

Dear boss, could we cancell/postpone Shanghai meeting too?

Gambar anak anak

2008-09-09T15:18:00.000+08:00

Adam and cousins. The pint size Nadia is actually a few months older than Adam. Due to her teeny weeny size, Adam looks like a giant beside her.

I brought Amri for a haircut and he told the stylist to make 'rambut cacak'. However, he has soft straight hair and within a few hours the style went down. He insisted I buy him hair styling gel. Aduhai anak mak sorang nih.
Well, I bought him a bottle of water based gel. He was very happy and even brought the gel to daycare. To wear before he goes off to school.

Doom and gloom

2008-09-08T10:21:00.000+08:00

The good news is, I managed to get Friday 10am direct flight outta Shanghai. The not so good news is, my visa is still pending. The latest I heard from our travel agent, the embassy requested my bank statement. Sabor je mokcik. Thank God for internet banking, without which I may not be able to produce bank statement at all.

Another not so good news, I may be required to stay more than overnight in Singapore next week. Which meant, it will run into my Saturday. Weekend. Duh! I've already worked saturday, voluntarily, during budget meeting last year. But that was in Malaysia. I'm not about to work another Saturday this year. Especially not in Singapore. So how do I escape?

All the best to mommies of UPSR candidates. Take care okay, there is no need to scare the kids by being more nervous than they are :)
-pandai le aku cakap-

My eldest darling is still fasting

2008-09-07T23:23:00.000+08:00

One week into Ramadhan and Amri is still doing okay. Hopefully he does not cheat and end up buying drinks from his school vending machine. But, if the state of him upon returning from school is any indication, then yes, I think he is strictly fasting. At about 6pm, the school van will drop him exactly in front of our gate and from that spot on, he would be dragging his feet and his school bag all the way into the house. Once inside, he'd flop on the sofa and refused to move anywhere. No point asking him to take his shower until after iftar. After which, he would be back to his normal self and the first thing to do was of course, pick a fight with Adam. But boy, could this one really eat. I felt like he ate more than hubby and I combined. I just noticed that he loves kerabu taugeh, lala, siput sedut, tepung pelita and pulut udang (northern version, of course). All the stuffs that I've never cooked at home. Nor I have any idea how to cook one.

He followed me to 1U to shop and chose for himself 2 pairs of pants and matching t-shirt from parkson. Fussy giler. Then flopped down on nearest sofa whenever he spotted one.

Hopefully he'll be allright for the rest of Ramadhan. He is also amazingly easy to wake up during sahur and he eats with gusto. More often than not, requesting nasi tomato or fried mee. However, just like his ibu, he declined nasi putih + lauk for sahur. My menu is more like brekkie menu and I am glad that Amri's is almost the same (except for nasi tomato part). Good boy this one, senang kerja ibu.

Monday......sigh

2008-08-25T17:18:00.003+08:00

My painstakingly prepared budget was rejected so I had to prepare a new one.

Budget meeting would be in Singapore and finance meeting would be in Shanghai. One week after another *sigh* Of all the months in a year, the big bosses felt that they needed to squeeze in all Asia pacific related meeting in one month, namely September, namely Ramadhan. I actually did not mind a little bit of travelling. But I'd rather not be overseas a mere few days away from Eid. The period I'd usually frantically preparing the ringgit notes for duit raya, ordering cookies in 3 sets, buying baju raya for everyone and making a mad dash to shopping mall almost everyday every time I suddenly remembered I had one more nephew or Amri suddenly had a growth spurt and could not fit in into his shoes. Rotten timing.

Well, I did not mind Singapore trip as much. But Shanghai is a different matter. I am no longer anxious of what am I supposed to be presenting on the meeting days. I am more concerned of buka puasa timing and how to fit it into everyone's schedule. Plus sahur of course but I could order room service for it (about the only perks of being an FC - authorising your own expenses)

What could be more boring than being locked in a conference room with a group of clever accountants for two full days? Especially during fasting month when my soul is more comfortable with pasar ramadhan than crunching numbers. Hmmmmm.......

I sure had a blasted Monday

Back home

2008-08-24T17:17:00.000+08:00

I need another holiday to recover from this holiday

Kuala Terengganu - Shah Alam

2008-08-23T17:10:00.003+08:00

Shopping day!

There was a new shopping mall that I hope in future would replace Pasar Kedai Payang. It has nice elevators & escalator, airconditioned and had a staircase climbing up Bukit Puteri. I must try that next time.

We had nasi minyak lunch at mak su's house then we were off to Shah Alam. We had one leftover wedding present because I had cancelled Kerteh stopover, hence could not attend one of the technician's wedding.

There's no place like home!

Still at Kuala Terengganu

2008-08-22T16:46:00.000+08:00

I decided againts going to Kerteh office since I was coughing like mad plus the boss was still at Shanghai office. Spent the day alternately sleeping a lot and reading a lot. Eating a lot was out of question since my sorethroat made even swallowing water a nightmare. That was okay though, I could do with a little bit of losing weight. Plus, the only food I really like over there is satar, which I believed was almost extinct (the good, not too sweet ones).

Boy, Ummi's house was sure full of babies. Thank God the two boys were old enough to fend for themselves. After a few days surrounded with babies, I didn't think I could manage a baby at my age now. How on earth did I survive the boys babyhood last time? Sure, I had a lot of help - maid, hubby, parents but still, I did the majority of night feeding myself and I even breastfed Adam. And still turn up at office promptly (somewhat). Could I do it again? Probably but I'd rather not. No offence to all supermoms out there. I took my hats off to you.

Adam in Merdeka spirit. Though hubby said he looked more like he conquered the Everest

Pantai Kelulut

2008-08-21T23:36:00.003+08:00

There was a hidden beach near Gie's (my bro in law) house at Marang, that was so lovely. We wouldn't know how to find it if not because Gie was kind enough to be our tourist guide..he heh.

Adam, terrified of Mr Crab and hating the feel of sand under his feet, stayed close to his Ayah

Having lotsa fun frolicking at Pantai Kelulut. Caution: no changing room or public bathroom in sight

A slightly less terrified Adam. Though later he used a quarter box of tissue paper to wipe the sand off his feet and slipper.

From Kedah to Terengganu

2008-08-20T23:40:00.003+08:00

View at Lebuhraya Timur Barat

Isn't it gorgeous day?

I was hoping that some elephant would crossed the road. I've seen them once before. We also bypassed Belum Forest Resort, near a very picturesque Tasik Banding. I would have like to plan a stay there and I was pretty sure hubby would have love it but the two boys were a lot more of city boys than I thought. I have no idea though how to make them fall in love with nature. Didn't help that lately my idea of camping trip is about pitching a tent in front of a nice, air conditioned chalet. Somehow, it seemed important to me that the two boys are introduced to the joy of fishing, swimming in a lake, paddle a boat (definitely not a speedboat)and everything else that I've enjoyed in my childhood. Oh well...one step at a time, I guess.

We dropped by at a lovely beach near Merang for our lunch. There were some fishermen just arrived with their bounty but I was not quick enough to capture that.

An hour after we arrived, I was down with fever. Probably because i was coughing pretty bad after the bucketful of rambutans. Anyway, if I were to be ill, this was a perfect place for it. I could sleep all day and no one would bat an eyelid. The two boys would disappear with their cousins and hubby was definitely having a good time with his family.

We were still in Kedah

2008-08-19T13:48:00.002+08:00

The weather was good enough today for us to step outdoor.

Took the boys to nearby waterfall. Adam hated all the rocks and sand. He wanted a swimming pool like river..duh! Amri did not mind the rocks but insisted on his goggles. Bantai je lah....mana ada budak lain kat situ yg mandi sungai pakai goggles. I need to expose the boys more to outdoor, I think.

Then we decided to pick some rambutans ourselves, ignoring the protest from makcik esah and the fact that paksu already had a pile of rambutan ready for us to tuck in :)

Until Adam was bitten by some kerengga.

So he decided to use his slingshot instead. Boleh?
Actually,he was getting awfully good at using that thing, after 2 days of training. Mak gave him some buah cenerai to use as bullets so that he would not cause too much damage.

We were in Kedah

2008-08-17T12:55:00.000+08:00

Since yesterday, that is. We were at Lumut before that and it was horrible. The hotel was not only full, it was overflowing. There were 4 different groups of family day event there from various part of Perak. And some people did not just stop the definition of family at just wife and children, they needed to extend it to include parents, grandparents, tok ngah and the whole town. Adoi la...I doubted even the refugees camp meal time could rival the scene at breakfast buffet table. And don't get me started with people jumping in fully clothed into the pool...ewww...

I think I need to copy BeingNormal and only go for holidays off season. Anyway, we had a good time at a wedding in Lumut. It was why we were there in the first place.

Well...I've never been so glad to see my parents house and especially my bedroom with the nice comfy bed and no one to disturb me. The boys were well taken care of and were having lesson of slingshot techniques from their Wan. Jakun sungguh anak mak.

It was so cold here....felt like on top of Cameron Highland, minus the tea and strawberry

Pemadam

2008-08-15T13:51:00.003+08:00

Adam is pretty annoyed. Someone in his class at q-dees calls him pemadam.

Poor guy. Heheheh. Can't help you there, I'm afraid :D

Adam during his chicken pox time

Holiday!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-15T11:25:00.003+08:00

Starting tomorrow of course.

We'll be away for one week. Not too sure though if vacation is considered as taking a break. I'd usually ended up even more exhausted. Plus being with the boys 24x7x9 days seriously will drive me to the brink of sanity.

Nevertheless, I'd gladly welcome the change of routine and scenery. We'll be doing our Shah Alam - Lumut - Kedah - Terengganu - Cherating route. Maybe a stopover at my Kerteh office, if I'm in the mood for it. Or go interview the new salesman if the boss agrees to go with me.

My plan for the holiday is to eat a lot and sleep a lot. And leave the mess to hotels staff (or my parents) to deal with.

Dare I leave the berry behind? Oooopps...