happy father's day

well.... yes, i had not been blogging for more than a week. kind of busy at work and too tired for anything in the evenings.

here's the recollection of how we celebrated father's day.

i made a mental note early june that i must celebrate father's day. i bought a card which had wonderful wordings and gave it to nadia nasira to give it to her daddy a week earlier. i got mixed up with the dates, you see!!!

the day before father's day, nadia nasira and mummy made a card at her playschool, with the help of teacher rahmah. nadia nasira gave it to her daddy right away. daddy beamed with happiness. on father's day, we lazed around at home and went to bangsar for dinner.

happy father's day, daddy. thank you for being a great daddy to our two children. may you have the wisdom to love and raise our children in the right path, the guided path of Luqman Al Hakim.

another important milestone - muhammad nashwan nasr

for more than a week or so, my dear son has been trying to stand without support. he reached this milestone at 13 months. i noticed that he loves testing his ability when he is on the sofa....i think he loves it when he falls back on the sofa, it bounces back.

i have been encouraging him by asking him to clap hands while he is standing. and he has been doing that as well too....the what was momentary attempts has now prolonged to more than 10 seconds or longer. he loves it when i applaud him. i have yet to capture him in action, though.

i should be looking forward to more challenges once he is up and about. way to go, son.

layang-layang

every evening, on my way to pick the children up, i always see a group of people flying kites in the neighbourhood. i would point them out to my children.

one evening, we took the children to closely look at them, flying kites. my children were so excited looking at them.

i make it a point to have little little activities for my children, especially for nadia nasira who has outgrown her toys. i believe that children develop mentally as well as socially when they are exposed to a variety of experiences that form a balanced learning environment. well, the best part of it all is these are experiences that give us the quality time together.

powder puff girl

i promised nadia nasira a trip to macdonalds for an ice-cream treat last weekend. she was excited as she related it to old macdonalds. she kept saying, 'mummy, nadia makan ais-krim kat macdonalds'.

i got nadia nasira ready and was busy getting her brother ready for the evening. in order to ensure nadia nasira sat still and be safe, i let her have the talcum powder.

this is the result.... nadia nasira, the powder puff girl!!!!

language acquisition

i have been trying to write about nadia nasira's language acquisition and this has been a draft for a long time. that is purely because every time i make a mental note to record some of the cute things she said, i won't be able to remember exactly what she said and how she said it.

my darling nadia nasira started talking before she was a year old... she started saying maa for amma but ended up with mummy. i use both interchangeably when i refer to myself. she calls me amma now and then when she wants to manja with me which is very well fine with me. i didn't keep tract of her vocabulary until she was 18 months old. i read that one of the milestones to be achieved by 18 months is the ability to say at least 50 words.

both my husband and i did a quick count in the microsoft excel just to make sure she has achieved the milestone. when the list hit 51, i stopped counting.

mummy car tepuk dog mosque cheese
daddy bas abang miaw bag jump
nanni eye shame wow wow rice
na tree tutup adik up
mama go boom baby down
light key poo poo moon bye
red nana aeroplane star
stop bear kakak a ball
eat fish jojo b water
air clap cat flag susu

she is now 27 months, going on 28. she is fluently speaking a mix of malay + penang malay + english + bits of tamil. i have to say that my MIL's penang malay has a very strong influence on her language development.

there are some words which she says wrongly but it is so funny.... she says, tekkulung for telekung, bekkalang for belakang, gapru for garpu.

she sometimes amazes me with the things she says...

...mummy, slipper nadia lingkup (actually, when i carried her, one of her slipper landed on a plant).

...mummy malu, mummy tak pakai baju (i came home from office and removed my jacket as i was going to feed her dinner).

...nadia nak makan nasi lemak, nadia high (she meant tall), strong.

...mummy go, motorcycle fly (we stopped at the traffic light and when it turned green, the motorcycle that was beside my car fled away).

well, this is what i remember for now...i shall continue with this now and then....

mummy's son

I’m so in love with my son....

wait! wait! don't make conclusions. i love my daughter too, in the trillions but my daughter had always been emotionally independent and also, she is a daddy's girl. we have good times together all the time and yet, able to say bye bye. not so much of separation anxiety. only now that she has a brother and much older, she has learnt to want her mummy more often. she has started to say 'mummy, jangan go office, mummy' each time i drive towards her nanni's house (that's where i leave all of them, including the maid, when i go to work). she even says the same to her daddy.

as for my son, since he had to constantly give his mummy up and settle for his nanni or the maid due to his sister's demands, mummy's household chores and career as well as a lot of other things...he rather have her to himself when he finally gets her. i love the way he receives me in the evening, my daughter too (i think she learnt it from her brother)... something that i look forward to....going home. he really expresses his happiness when he sees me in the evening. he is all laughter, on his knees with hands up in the air wanting to be carried....now that he is able to stand, he would pull up on me. he has started his baby talk, he would say all kind of things…. i wish i understood.

being a first time mother, i used to worry whether my baby would love me the most….nothing anyone said was a consolation to me. only, when my son came into my life, he taught me that love of a child towards his/her mother is divine.

no one has made me feel so wanted except for my son. hhhmmm…daddy’s got a competition here!!!


my adorable darlings at 7.00 am this morning...

playgroup performance

nadia nasira and her playgroup had their first performance on 30 May 2009. they had been practising during their playgroup sessions and the mothers were supposed to make sure they practise at home. they did 2 songs.... new zoo review and skinnamarink.

Skinnamarink-a-dinky-dink.
Skinnamarink-a-doo I love you
Skinnamarink-a-dinky-dink.
Skinnamarink-a-doo I love you
I love you in the morning and in the afternoon
I love you in the evening and underneath the moon
Skinnamarink-a-dinky-dink.
Skinnamarink-a-doo I love you.

i had been helping nadia nasira to practice but i let her have her own pace and not pressure her into performing. alhamdullilah, she picked up the steps and did quite well with her group during the performance.

when we arrived at the 3C complex next to sunway pyramid, she was all excited. she got on the stage, warming up and making friends. it was fun to watch all these children perform. the sad thing was daddy left to work that morning and had to miss nadia nasira's first ever performance. sigh....there will always many others to come.

a lost child

i went to the night market last night. as i moved on from the vegetables stall to the fish corner, i heard a girl, who could not be more than 5 years old, screaming for her mother. the scream got louder and louder. she was so frighten. apparently, she drifted away from her mother.

being a mother myself, i felt tormented by the screams. suddenly, i had the anxiety attack and my chest was so tight when a thought simply crossed my mind. what if it was my daughter...... i could not bear the thought, sickened by it. i silently prayed that my children or any other children for that matter, would never have to go through it even for a minute. i felt a sudden anger towards the girl's parents... why do they bring small children to night market? maybe, they didn't have anyone to look after them. but then, how could they be so careless? what was their priority? i prayed to God, please let her find her parents.

as i was driving back to my office just now, i heard the screams again in my mind. this time, though i felt the same emotions, i reflected upon my own actions when i saw the girl.... what did i do? be like everyone else who looked over their shoulder with pity and scurry on with life? did i make an attempt to help? i could have stopped to ask, help and ensure that she was safe, at least with the police.

i thought, with glassy eyes, of all the children in many parts of the world at this very moment....going through pain in its many forms....fear, abuse, poverty, hurt and the list goes on....

here's me offering a little prayer to those children.... God, please safe them, help them through these moments and don't let the circumstances break their spirit to live a life.

i am grateful to Allah and my parents that i am not one of those children.

bollywood night

nadia nasira and muhammad nashwan nasr had an eventful night yesterday. their dad's first cousin's wedding reception. we arrived at the reception quite early since we were part of the family. all of my husband's cousins were so dressed up to the bollywood theme and being the first daughter in law of the family, i didn't want to be left out too. furthermore, i needed to preserve the image, ahahhaha. it's a pity my husband was on one of his trips. however, having toodlers, night events are no longer suitable for me. it kind of upset my children's routine though very exciting for them.

my children were the center of attraction for my husband's cousins who do not have small children in their household. someone was always taking away my children. i had to keep asking..... where were my children and would get the same reply.... with so and so.... the names kept changing. i had to keep telling the maid to go get my girl or boy. it was quite a relieve to be at a function and having endless babysitters to tend to your children, though.

it ended quite late, way past my children's bedtime. my son was wide awake, internalising the event but as for my daughter, she has her limits. i could see that she was too sleepy and needed the cue to sleep. when i carried her, she said....mummy, tido kan nadia. my heart went out to her. she slept right away and was not disturbed by the commotion.

i had my moments as well with all the girls. we had so much fun and it was great event. the wedding had some resemblance to my own and it brought back some dear memories.

playland

last saturday, i took the children to the playland. it was where i took nadia nasira the day after her 1st birthday. i made a mental note that i should let my son have his fun too. all the places that we take him....either he is being carried or strapped in the stroller, this is the only place other than home where i can let him be on his four.

my son had the time of his life while nadia nasira behaved like a big girl who knew how to have fun on her own. she did make some friends along the way with some older children. i enjoyed every minute of my time watching them having fun. daddy missed it again. i thought to myself that we must make a trip here with daddy.

it is so true... children come in a total complete package to their parents and tie them down for a lifetime...with responsibility, joy, test, pain.... whatever else you can name it. hope that there is always a cushion for us to fall back during the trying period of the parenthood journey that we take.