Thirty and loving it!

He knows how much I love surprises, so he did just that, 2 days in a row!
Well 30 is no biggie, in fact I love who I am now more than who I was in my twenties.
Alhamdulillah I'm blessed with skuirtgun who loves me unconditionally and his joy is to make/see me happy, indefinitely, and two lovely kids I'd love to grow old and be with them :)
I'm overwhelmed with wishes from friends and family all over the world, thanks to the technology and social media.
What more can you ask, thank God for letting me see and experience all this.xoxo

Ramadhan 2010

Wow, how fast time flies. Suddenly it's 16th day of Ramadhan.

We're training Aresha to fast the whole day, well uhm I mean full circle, not half-day, not yang yang yok

Alhamdulillah she made it through the till today except for one day when she came home and said she's hungry and straight away grabbed a drink from the fridge without I even have the chance to say no.

That's puasa for a 6yr old. At least she didn't try to curi-curi makan while I'm not looking. Always ask before sipping a drink or a bite on that carrot cake ;)

Normally I'd scream NO but that would be too hard on her isn't it. I don't have to force her to fast she wants to do it herself. That's good enough. She's only 6 and I must say she's really strong for a kid her age. Normally her sahur would be a quarter portion than ours. Wonders how did she managed to not get too hungry by afternoon!

She naps more often since I told her so, to get her off thinking what to eat and counting the hours.

Oh yeah, my brother Erie starts his own business right before Ramadhan so if you're at PARAM in Kelana Jaya, look out for Mr Nasi Ambang, stall no 26. Business is good, syukur. Another stall is at Mutiara Damansara PARAM and right in front of TV3 guardhouse. Cheap yo, RM4.50! Complete meal of rice, serunding, sambal goreng & ayam masak merah. Scrumptious too!

Sadly big sister haven't got the chance to check out herself. Not much a pasar ramadhan frequent. Till this date we've been only to one at Jalan Daud, Kg. Bharu. The rest would be home cooked or mom's/MIL's cooking. 

We need to improve on tarawikh though. By the time we retire for the night, we're too lazy/sleepy to do so. Bad excuse, bad bad excuse :(

This year we've prepared early for raya celebration. Got the baju raya sent to the tailor a month before puasa. Aresha got her kasut raya already, still contemplating whether to buy here or online. Got my eyes on those Oxford boots/heels, would it be okay to wear with baju kurung though? At least I got my new hair cut, super easy maintenance (read, no maintenance at all) No need to comb, Nurse Jackie style ;)

Ooh I'll be 30 in 2 days! Also fell on Ramadhan last year. Wow thirty eh, skuirtgun would be so happy we're finally in the same age circle, heheh. He got all sort of plans for me. Even got the prezzie earlier than previous years. Celebration starts early, we'll have dinner on Friday,reminiscence of my last year as a twenty-something. It doesn't matter, no one would believe I'm thirty anyway.

Shall go back to  sleep now, this Barney Aresha's watching now is killing me. Cartoon time starts right away after sahur for her this month. 

Damnit, I didn't lose any weight at all this year, hmmphh

Routine X 3

I love what I found after re-reading. Sometimes at first glance you might misinterpret or misunderstood sentences but quickly get the picture after reading it again. With these two I would be lucky to finish a book, most of 'em are read half-way, quarter-way or sometimes just few lines :P
Been reading before your kids drive you crazy, read this! by Nigel Latta and realized I've been doing some of the tricks/rules wrongly.
First, before even thinking of disciplining kids, you gotta be disciplined first. KEEP the routine until it all seems natural and NEVER give up easily.

So the last two nights, sleep training starts over. Wasn't a smooth stroll as I have big kid and small kid sleeping in the same room and methods explained in the book is quite different for both.
But heck, I gotta make this work right?
So, right after the family's fav SOA on FXHD, milk,brush teeth, diaper changing and wee-wee one after another before we hit the sack.
I'm determine to wean off Zara of boobies before bedtime. That translates to continuously pick her up-put her back to the bed. I even lost count on how many times she tried to climb out but noooooooo, she needs to sleep inside the cot not stealing Aresha's space.
She seems to love head massage, well, more like body massage. Took like 20 minutes before she finally yawned. Her sister however, tried her tricks on
 'oh, I'm not sleepy'
'I can't sleep, mommy'
'Can you stay longer?' 
right until the ultimatum of not going to school trip, she slept all through the night, without stealing our bed. Alhamdulillah  :)

Tonight was much easier for eldest but Zara still resist but surprisingly didn't ask for milk. So, that's a good start. Mommy just need to persevere or else all these effort will go down the drain.
Keep in mind, routine is the way to go. Routine, routine, routine!

Now mommy needs to train herself to sleep earlier but, not until daddy sleeps too!

Little update after long hiatus

Been slacking off again. Not so much has happened the past few weeks anyway other than Zara been admitted on 23rd March for high fever which leads to febrile fit :(
It was the longest yet scariest 90 secs of our life which will be written in another entry soon.
Marlia blogged about it here right after she visited us. (thank you darling for being right by our side, you both know we LOVE you right?)

We don't really have so many friends but we know who they are & they're always there for us :)
Zara loves, loves having 'em around during those thoughtful visits.
Surely make us feel loved all those phone calls,smses, do'a & get well wishes!
My family came (that includes my brother, SIL & grandma) & brought laughters with them.

Most of all we thank Allah for blessings and reminder not to take high fever for granted anymore.
We're all prepared with thermoscan now ;)

          

          

On another note,I'm all geared up to focus on Aresha's reading lessons. Problem is she can read & thinks she can read.
She thought reading is about making up own words (especially her favorite books).
So, she excel in those books & clueless on other material. She has limited patience on spelling one by one. However there's one trick that works everytime. Spelling info on PHDC channel!
See, wasn't that easy to raise an artist. Understanding that little mind of hers take loadsa patience and mommy ashamed to admit sometimes she ran out of it :(

Haih, this is definitely random update. Am now typing away without specific direction on where the next sentence is heading to.

It's 2am now, off to la-la land! Keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be another entry! xox

the young artist

She has wild imagination and often caught talking to herself.
She could spend hours doodling/drawing/colouring.
We've come to a conclusion that even if she's not going to excel in academic, we'll encourage her to be an artist,  in any field she like ;)
Her drawings is beyond the tender age of six.
Darling, by now you already know how proud we are having such a talent in the family.

Reaching for the stars

Day 1 completed brilliantly I must say, she's working hard towards her goals ultimately Barbie Rapunzel.
Amazing how 'little' push & motivation leads to positive outcome.
Thanks to Lu, the Beijing-based child counsellor for her advice ;)
Mind you,it's pro-bono and when I ask for help,we've just sat together for 10 minutes!

Will update more on the chart I'm working on, meanwhile I'm loving this!

Next,potty training Zara! Wuhooo!

Kids say the darndest thing ;P

Was cleaning up the kitchen drawer  & found a piece of paper where I scribbled some notes, bet this is at least 2 years old ;)

*As we watch the baby's sonogram
It's a girl!
Now, what's her name?
Girl!
Just girl?
Yes, girl!

*Then, when she realized, baby is a human ;P
What do you want to call her?

Pikachu!

Can I touch the baby?

Mommy, did 'adik' move?

Come, put your hands on my belly!

Wow! She move!

*Going through her old clothes
This is for  my sister :D

*She put on her old (fake) wool jacket
I can't get this (her hands) out!
It's too small sayang,
Ok, let's give it to adik!

Cats DO NOT cause asthma

It makes me wonder how did people come out with a theory that cats(fur) causes asthma? I've read blogs and comments that no matter how much they love cats, when baby comes, they would give away their cat(s). It's sad isn't it?

I learnt't the hard way. Pre-baby we had a Kasut, 8 years old female cat, who loves me so much that she'd sleep the same pillow as mine & waited for me to come home everytime! When Aresha arrived, she wants to sleep with her too! Back then I didn't think of asthma, it's just Kasut is an outdoor cat. Her fur were always dusty. Being a new mom, I became paranoid and chased her away. Cats have feelings, this is for real, she left an never came back, used to look for food from the back door but after a while we couldn't even catch a glimpse of her. I feel bad and couldn't forgive myself :(

So, when we move out, the first thing we did was adopt one from SPCA as Aresha's birthday present. She's always been surrounded by cats since she was born and she knew how to take care of 'em at the age of two! Naturally, Bambi( the new cat) slept with her and now goes to school & come home together!

Aresha & Bambi

Eventually from one we have four, even Zara had her own, Tiger, who died before New Year :(
Tiger is much more special, he slept with everyone including guests who stayed with us. Cousin Eyda who came for few hours even remembered how manja he was :) In a stint of 2hrs, Tiger slept with her on the sofabed! When we adopt him from Mak, 2 months after Zara was born, we quickly decided he's gonna be the baby's cat. Little did we know, Tiger loves Zara so much that he lets her do whatever she wants without clawing or scratching her once! Zara would roll over, poke his eyes, most of the time they'd lie down together like brother & sister ;)

Zara & Tiger

It is important to teach your kids how to handle pets. It really pisses me off when the neighbour's kids tried to scare our cats by making doggy sounds "Woof! Woof'. We even saw them trying to step on those felines. The parents would just stood there as if the cats deserved to be treated that way.
One time I heard the other neighbour told a boy she babysits not to touch Bambi, because it's dirty. Oh my! No wonder kids these days treated animals like shit, they were told not to get near let alone keep one!

Kids were born naturally curious & love animals. If you don't like to keep pets please at least educate your children to respect them.

Here's a nice write up on Cats & Kids
also, Ain tweeted about Cats & baby can coexist

To be  honest, I think myth on cats causes asthma escalated by cat haters :P

Number ONE!

Lately I've been bombarded with the same question, every single day.
"Mommy, why you want more than one kid? I want to be the only one!"
I was like 'What?"
And she kept reminding me she's number one and Zara's number two.

Can you see where she's going at? She's numero uno, priority must be given to her. whatever I do, I have to put her first before anything else!
Why do I have to bear with such torment? I mean is it really our fault to plan the 4 year gap?
Come on, you're too young to obviously know that what we did was kinda a mistake?

Oh, don't remind me countless times she knocked her off while running.
"Oops, I didn't see her mommy,"
Of course, she didn't see poor little creature just right above her waist.
To scold or not to scold, to be angry or not to? I mean she's just a sucker for attention, be it constant eye contact or just " Why did you do that?"

I'm sure little sis will grow up to be tough cookie, I mean with that kind of training who wouldn't? And sometimes it hurts to see how she'd get up, and with a wide grin, like nothing happened.

Oh, this is a gentle reminder, do not, I repeat DO NOT say that her sister is cute.
She's the cuter one, baby sis, NOT cute. ;P

Six!

So The Killers didn't become a part of our Anniversary celebration, boohoo! Unforeseen circumstances forced them to cancel Asian Tour BUT will continue doing Aussie, bah!

We've traded roadtrip to SG, Zam-Zam Murtabak, Badoque Cafe, meeting my SG girls, eye candy at Orchard, queuing to get the best spot of our stage front tix & having a blast at the gig with calm, yet private night out with our girls ;) I must admit it wasn't as fun, still bummed & in disbelief (yeah I'm bitter, so what?) but it's a blessing in disguise.

The kids had so much fun tho', Zara especially enjoyed her two feet wandering around the mall. Aresha being a big sister, carefully keeping an eye on her sister, wanted to hold her hand but the trigger happy baby sis refused to!

Anywhere with my loved ones makes me complete. And I did get to show-off my new purse! (Well, not really, by the time we finish, even the mall is about to close)

Being in the arms of my dearest & girls would be the celebratory dance for this year, yayyy!