Keeping Them Occupied

I've always loved watching Neil Buchanan and his Art Attack shows on TV. The sheer simplicity of the art works, the colour and creativity are enough to make me want to pick up my paint brushes and get all artsy!

My kids too love his shows. Infact Hannan the slightly art inclined has a couple of Art Attack books in her posession. She's been pestering me for a loooonnng time to get her the art stuff so that this holiday... she and her brothers could have a go at one of the easy projects.

Dining table sacrificed for future art prodigies

don't we just love slapping lots of PVA glue

birthday cake for Ateh - blueberry and strawberry pandan cheesecake

A tale of the Korean Silk

Hubby came home from Korea the other day after spending the weekend there. He was invited to attend a conference and since everything was paid for...lucky man..he decided to go. The trip was meant to be his last overseas trip for the year.

Anyway, my kids made a point to be at home at the time of his arrival. They were excited when ayah finally arrived and immediately made a beeline for his...what else BAGS! Like many of hubby's previous trips, he would try and get something special for each child and not forgetting mama of course.

The kids were thrilled to bits when they received their little pressies which as you might have guessed...consisted of apa lagi..toys! And to my surprise hubby even managed to find time to get me some nice Korean silk ( aahh..so he was paying attention to my many not-so-subtle hints about getting silk in Korea).

Well as I held the materials in my hands..I had a funny feeling that they were rather short in length. So I had to ask. Were the materials already cut when he bought them. To this he replied.."Oh No! I had them cut specially for you...3 meters each piece".

Aiyaa! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did he say 3 meters????? Since when did I use only 3 meters for my baju kurung? Well perhaps a zillion years ago when I was a wee child of 12!

Anyway it was apparent that hubby had somehow rather forgotten that I required 4 meters for my baju kurung. When told about this, suffice to say he was very annoyed with himself for making such a silly mistake. On my part..though I was disappointed that my baju kurung would now turn into a baju kedah...I was also in a way pleased that in a moment of madness my dear hubby thot that after 10 years of marriage and 5 kids to boot.. I was le petite in size! And for that, I forgive him.

HOLIDAYS

Okay, hubby has been constantly reminding me to update my blog for the past couple of weeks. I've been promising him to do so but as usual procrastination is my middle name...

It's kinda hard these days since I come home from work later than usual and am usually dead tired by then, to even reach for my laptop...let alone compose something for my blog.

But since hubby is away in Korea this weekend and I'm usually home-based every time he is away..I have a bit of time to spare. So what do I write about...

Now, since my nephews and nieces have been stationed at my mom-in-law's house (their parents are currently away performing the Haj)..my older kids have been begging me to let them go to their Wan's house as well for sleepovers. I was just happy to oblige since I wasn't able to entertain them as I had to work during their school hols. So that's one less headache.

Atuk and Wan who relish the idea of having 11 grandchildren running around in their house for the entire school hols have taken the initiative of having the house equipped with games to keep their grandchildren entertained. Ranging from a basketball hoop to carrom board to pool table to ping-pong table to an X-box to a PS2game etc etc . As hubby would say it... the house has turned into a real Kid's Club!! and how he wished he had the time to have a go at all of the games.

But more interestingly though is that they have taken it upon themselves to teach the kids mengaji Al Quran everyday and among other things how to perform sembahyang jenazah. And like sponges these kids absorb everything that is taught to them. Atuk was happy to observe that all of his schoolgoing grandchildren were progressing well and would be able to recite the doa for sembahyang jenazah soon...

Atuk goes high-tech during the mengaji session after maghrib prayers

On the weekends when I'm free, I'd try and take the kids out for an outing to the nearby mall. Usually it'd be one day for girls and another day for the boys. This was the only arrangement possible as it would be humanly impossible to squeeze 9 schoolgoing kids into my Estima without being stopped by the police! I'd try to be fair and make sure that the outings are as similar as possible for both groups... a spree at the bookstore followed by makan-makan at Pizza Hut or KFC...just in case they compared notes!

my bodyguards

choc chip ice-cream anyone??

the girls at Baskin Robbins

Still Here...

Gosh! It's been about a month plus since I wrote my last entry. I had a million things I wanted to write about in the past month, but never got around to writing them down. I never seemed to have the time. The Raya month was in itself a busy time for me and others too I'm sure. With balik kampung and visiting relatives and friends as the main agenda.

I was pretty much occupied with all these but more so with a certain incident which happened on the 5th day of Raya. My son who was at my mom-in-law's house with his cousins decided to do what could only be described as a triple somersault which saw him landing or to be more precise slamming his face onto the leather sofa. Apparently he was running around the hall and had somehow rather tripped over his cousin's leg, thus resulting in the fall.

When I saw him after the fall, I nearly fainted from shock. The bruising and swelling was unbelievable. His nose had doubled instantly and lucky for him there was no bleeding nor fracture. Over the days, the bruise turned green, then blue, then purple, then green again and later became yellow...just like a true chameleon!

Anyway, it took about 2 weeks before his nose turned back to normal.. i.e to its orignal size and colour.

Hmm..at present when many of my colleagues are enjoying their break, I on the other hand have had to work. It's that time of the year when students have to sit for their exams and yours truly have to be on duty. And this will go on for another 2 weeks. I leave home as early as 6.10am and most times come home a good 12 hours later. By the time I reach home, I'm like a zombie just wanting to curl up in bed and sleeeeeppppp till next year!

When husband comes home after his night shifts, he doesn't bother to wake me up anymore...knowing that only a nuclear explosion would be able to wake me up from my deep and dead-tired slumber! And since I leave early the next day, there have been many days when I've hardly had a decent conversation with him. Perhaps the longest sentence I've managed to utter to him when he returned from work late one night was "Baju kat situ" (directing him to his pyjamas)...and that was it.

To be honest, I can't wait for my duty to end and I'll be able to enjoy the hols with the kids. For the time being, whilst this harried mama is busy at work, the kid's grandma has taken over. Thank God for Mak Tok who comes to the house everyday to make sure the kids eat, read and get their correct daily dose of TV-time.

YUSUF turns 8

My son turned 8 on 10th October. For weeks and weeks...well actually months and months he has been asking both me and husband to get him something unique for his birthday present. Normal stuff that we usually give was not good enough... he wanted something extra special. Lucky for us, he revealed what he wanted exactly.

Nothing super extravagant, just a science kit. Something that would allow him to do a bit of experimenting with this and that. I guess all those times spent infront of the TV, watching Dexter's laboratory had in a way influenced his choice of present this year. So hubby and I had to go present-hunting at the shops for this so-called science kit. Husband said there was a specialist shop at Bangsar Village which sold something of the sort, but it has since closed down. Not making business I guess. Perhaps it couldn't compete with the attraction most toy shops would have when it comes to wooing childrens' interest.

I was getting a bit worried last Sunday because up to that day we still hadn't found anything for him yet. As we were driving around town looking for "lampu kelip-kelip" for our house, we passed by an old shop that my husband used to frequent when he was a child. It was one of those shops that sold electronic parts. Much of my husband's childhood was spent making transformers, model aeroplanes and fixing TVs/radios. It was his passion. And that particular shop supplied him with all the necessary parts and gadgets.

I quickly instructed husband to pull over and we soon found ourselves in the shop. There were so many stuff there, stocked from floor to ceiling. Browsing through, he soon found something which would interest my son. It was an electronic hobby kit. Something that would enable him to build a 4 digit Up Counter. I know it's not a science kit, but it was close enough...plus we were running out of time.

We also purchased other paraphernalia which were needed in getting the little science project running. Namely a soldering iron with solder coil, a flux vacuum and a few other stuff. To be honest, I was at loss looking at all these things. The names and functions of the objects were as foreign to me as coffee from Colombia.

Anyway, my son is looking forward to this long Raya holiday as ayah has promised to assist him in getting the counter up and running. And I look forward to him using it to count my palpitations everytime I discover he has forgotten do his homework again!

The electric shop at Jln Kapar, Klang

The present

Yusuf's little birthday do

Where Art Thou?

Of late I've been quite the busy bee with a new mission that I've put myself to. Eversince finding out that d's husband is ill, I've been trying hard to locate as many friends / acquaintances who presently know or knew them from the past.

It was very easy in cases where I was still in contact with friends from the past. I had their handphones and we were also in frequent correspondence via emails. It was a lot harder with those whom I've lost touch with over the years...this could go as far as 2-3 years to 11 or 15 years.

A lot of phoning was involved, trying to locate this person and that person through a friend's friend or through somebody's new wife or simply calling up the last known workplace and enquiring if he/she is still there. In most instances I've been quite lucky but sometimes I'm not so lucky and come to a dead end.

This is where googling comes to the rescue. Hours spent surfin the Net has brought many successful leads. This was especially true if the person is attached to a university. I was able to locate the exact department and name too. I must confess...much to my dismay full names of past friends / acquaintances have been lost in memory due to my multiparous activities over the last decade! Hahaa!

Using the new found leads, I managed to get in touch directly with quite a few people. While with others I wrote emails...often long ones too...as I've had to explain who I was, giving some background information of myself lest they forget. This in itself would take a paragraph or two.

To date I'm still waiting for replies from 2 important people who were very close to us back in the early 90s when we first arrived in Edinburgh as undergraduates. These 2 postgraduates who were doing their PhD's were there with their families, and they often invited us to their homes over the weekends. They not only nourished us with their home-cooked meals but our well-beings too with their weekly usrahs which we attended.

On the topic of googling, I also managed to discover an old friend who I presume is currently in the UK with his wife. I came across in the Net one of those pre-raya pics that Malaysians overseas would usually send to our local dailies. The info that accompanied the pic said Dr J was attached to Nuneaton Hospital Coventry while his wife Dr N was with Limerick County Hospital Ireland. You can imagine how surprised I was with this latest bit of info. D was also surprised as his hospital is quite close to where she is and told me that she would see if she could get in touch with him...this after 11 years of no communication.

The world has indeed become smaller with the aid of modern technology and how wonderful it is to be able to renew personal acquaintances and get in touch with long lost friends. And I look forward to hearing from all of them if not some.

A Prayer For A Friend

A couple of weeks ago, I was informed by a close friend of 17 years, that her husband (Mr d)was unwell.`Apparently he has been in that condition for the past few months. Visits to the doctors revealed nothing until last week when he was diagnosed with cancer.

This bit of information came as a shock to me and my husband. I have shed tears many times in private, eversince receiving the news. My kids who noticed my watery eyes would ask me why my eyes were red. This was often replied with "I'm sleepy...I haven't been getting enough sleep".

The whole thing seems so surreal. At times I find it hard to accept. I've known d and her husband for a very very long time. Both d and I were roomates for the most part of our university life. Her children are about my kids' age and in the past, we have not only been to each others wedding but also to each other's homes for birthday parties, kenduris and whatnots. She is not just a friend. She is like a sister to me.

For the past one week, I've been trying hard to get in touch with as many old friends who know d and her husband by calling them on their handphones or through emails. I'm doing this with the hope that they can give du'a and words of comfort to d and her husband during this very trying times indeed.

Perhaps in this special month of Ramadhan, God will grant our prayers and lessen the pain and sufferings of Mr d and his family.