Appointment With Uncle Alex

We just got back from Penang. Nadiah had a session with her therapist, Uncle Alex (note: In previous posts I always refer to him as doctor but he really isn't. He's a clinical psychologist and is refered to as Mr Alex and not Dr Alex. Well, you go to a hospital and the person you always see when there is something wrong, you would automatically call doctor. Same goes for surgeons). The appointment was at 11am but we had to wait half an hour because Uncle Alex had to push the time forward of one of the patients, but we still get a 1-hour session. Nadiah was really getting impatient because she had to wait for so long. She wanted to go in the room as soon as we arrived. Not because she was looking forward to seeing Uncle Alex but rather looking forward to the toys in the room. I'm so glad that she likes going to her therapies. And nowadays she would be so earger to follow directions as long as she gets to play with what she wants. The first few times we went, she would try to grab everything to play at once and gets angry when she's not allowed to. Now, she would quickly sit on the chair and pull the table towards her (note that she doesn't pull herself and the chair towards the table but the table comes to her :D) and impatiently wait for Uncle Alex to bring a toy to play. But not for very long though. If the toy is not to her liking, she would just jump up and go ahead and get another one. But it's a good start.

Today we happily informed Alex of Nadiah's success with paddling her bicycle. He was glad to hear that and encourage us to push Nadiah more because he can see so much improvements with her. And we showed her this video :


I kept showing this video to everyone in the family coz I am so proud of Nadiah. It has taken me a year to get her to paddle to the front. She kept paddling backwards and couldn't figure out why she wasn't moving forward like everyone else.

I also recorded this video of Nadiah playing with bubbles during the session.


You may ask what sort of therapy Alex is doing with her. Nadiah is supposed to try to poke or catch the bubbles. It's to see how good her finger and eye coordination is. I love this kind of therapies. It's just playing games that she already loves. Keep doing this and pretty soon she would be able to point to an object or identify a certain object by pointing. This is because auties rarely points to an object. They would grab your hand and make you point/touch the object. Neither would they look when we point to the object. It's great! I never thought that by playing bubbles, we can make it into a therapy that would help Nadiah.

We left Alex's room with yet more exercises to practice with Nadiah and set another appointment for the end of November. One of the things that I have to do with Nadiah is to massage the inside of her cheeks and her tongue using a baby toothbrush. She is talking a lot more but some of her pronunciation are a bit stilted as if she's got a short tongue. It's due to lack of speaking that her muscles have stiffen up. By using the toothbrush and gently brushing in an outward motion on her tongue would help to soften it up... I hope!! Shukri said it's just like training to get a bird to speak. Some people asah (sharpen) the bird's tongue so it can talk. He's comparing his daughter to a bird??? tsk tsk tsk!!

The big question is: do birds have tongues????

After that we had lunch at Gurney Plaza and a quick stopover at Toys'r'Us, of course. And Mama made a really quick stop at MPH to get a couple of books to read. Yeay!! Usually after her sessions with Uncle Alex, we would treat Nadiah with anything she wants (within reason and budget, of course) at Toys'r'Us. Guess what she insisted at getting this time?? A firefighter's costume. It's red and it's a "fire fire" (Nadiah says "firefighter"). She's been watching Elmo's World lately that has firefighters in it. Tried to get her interested in something else at the shop but she just wouldn't budge. So Baba closed BOTH eyes and paid for it (Mama still busy browsing at MPH... hehe!!). Here's Firefighter Nadiah:


Ahh... so cute!!


P/s: Selamat Berpuasa to all the Muslims

On Being Autistic

Yesterday I watched a documentary, I Want My Little Boy Back, on Astro TVIQ, about Jordan, a 5 year old boy who is autistic and how his family cope with it and what measures they took to overcome autism. I have been waiting for this documentary for a month now, since they started showing the preview in August. Some of you may already know that Nadiah is mildly autistic and I have written about this. It is heartwrenching to see the boy struggling with everyday activities and sounds and sights, and connect that with Nadiah. And yet I feel comforted that these people went through what I have, or is still going through. Although I am ever thankful that Nadiah's case is not so severe. On the scale of 1 - 10 of how bad his autism is, Jordan is a 6. He is not too severely autistic but there were a lot of things that he could not cope with. Nadiah I would say she was a 4 or a 5. Now after a lot of therapy, I would say she has improved to a 3 even on her worst days.

Jodan's parents took him to the US to treat him with one of the many styles of treatment s which they thought was most suited to him. I learned something important then. They believe that if you cannot get the autistic child to live in your 'world', then you should join them in their's. An autistic child finds it hard to understand everything that goes around them and it scares them and so they tend to seclude themselves into their own world where everything make sense and stays the same. Often you find them giggling about something or just staring into space. When you "force" them to join you, they would start to retaliate. They get scared and frustrated and would lash out and cry and basically push you even further afar. So when Jordan starts running around or bite his hand or squishing himself under the table, the therapist did the same . They just do whatever Jordan did to show him that it's ok to do stuff like that. And soon enough they were able to get his trust and slowly teach him the correct way of doing everything and pretty much have a communication where he would actually listen to them. If you try to reason with a child who is kicking and screaming at you, you can be sure nothing is taken in. Anyway, that have me thinking that Nadiah responds to the same thing. Once upon a time when Nadiah was younger she would carry with her all her favourite things everywhere she went. It was ok if it's just 2 or 3 things like her stuffed cat and a book. But when she decided to carry 5 hardcover books, a box of crayons, a box of colored pencils, some building blocks, 4 - 5 cats and teddy bears in all different shapes and sizes, all into this one big basket that even she could hardly carry them, that's just ridiculous. She would lugged around this basket everywhere and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE!! To her bed, to the bathroom, in the car and out shopping. I would tell her "No, you can't take that with you" and try to take it away from her and she would start to cry and scream at me. It used to get me really frustrated. After a long while I just let her be. If she wants to take the whole play room with her, so be it. Pretty soon she would start to leave her things behind in the room or in the car. And now whenever she brought something with her and I would nicely tell her to please leave them in the room, she would just drop everything without a blink and walk out. As easy as that.


Here's Nadiah with 2 teddy bears, 1 baby lamb and 2 pianos











Nadiah's 4th birthday... don't forget the cat!!









This time carrying a big cat, a baby lamb and a piano







Another with a cat, a VCD, a book and a container full of domino bricks


I guess from now on I'll be doing a lot of jumping on the bed, throwing toys around everywhere in the room and spilling water on the carpet. All in the hope that she would stop doing them. Yeah, right!!! That'll be the day when Mama starts jumping on the bed with Nadiah. The bed will break!!

Bicycle Ride

I am soooo happy today because Nadiah managed to paddle her bicycle on her own. Yes!! I have been trying to get her to paddle for the last year or so withour much success. Whenever I tried to explain to her how to do it, she would start to ignore me or lose interest altogether. It was so frustrating.!

She loves riding but I would always have to push her everywhere and when I told her to paddle, she would paddle backwards. Oh the backaches I would get those nights!!

We've talked to her doctor, Uncle A, about it and apparently the muscles around her ankles are not firm enough. We had to do some exercise routines with her to firm up the muscles. She also has problems with the muscles around her wrists. They make it hard for her to control her pencils. When she writes (read scribbles), she usually uses her whole arm rather than control the pencil with her wrist. Anyway, the exercises worked and today proved that.

Nadiah was so happy that she insisted that we ride outside the house compound. Since she was doing so well, I said yes and so she rode till the end of the street and I walked alongside.

It must have been one heck of a ride because she was out like a light by 10pm. She usually doesn't go to bed until around midnight. Maybe I should let her ride her bike everday. That way Mama can have early nights, every night. Bliss!!

Shoes

I hate buying shoes for Nadiah because I never get it right. Ever since she was a baby I always get the wrong size. It didn't help that we used to have to buy new shoes for her every few months because her feet grew so fast!

When I was in KL last week I had bought two shoes for her. The first one was too tight and I could not change the size since it was the last two pairs and the other one was a smaller size.

Shoes no. 1

So went out and bought another which was perfect. But this I'm saving for Hari Raya.

Shoes no. 2

In the mean time, her everyday shoes are also getting smaller by the day so went out a few days ago to buy another new shoes. I took her with me and tried the shoes on her. It seemed just right but when we came home and tried it on again, it was too big. Even with socks the shoes would come off. Argh!!! Luckily the shoes was on sale so it wasn't very expensive. I can save them until she can wear them someday. It's better to be too big than too small, I always say.

Shoes no. 3

So again I went out to the shops this morning to get her yet another pair. This time I got the right size which is 31 and they look real pretty and all. So tried it on her just now... and they were very TIGHT. Gah!!!

Shoes no. 4

Why can't shoe manufacturers make the same size for all models, all types of shoes!!! Even Nadiah liked this one and was almost close to tears when she couldn't put her feet in. Poor dear. So I guess it's back to the shop again to exchange the size. I made sure to ask if they have in bigger sizes before I bought them and that I can exchange them anytime. Well, wish me luck!!

I'm Done

Yeah.. I've finished the beadwork just in time. It was a bit of a rush and two sleepless nights too. Want to see the end result? So here goes:





So what do you think? Cantik tak? Actually I only did the bottom half of the dress. The beadwork around the neck was done by another beader. Since the owner decided to don the tudung (headscarf), she agonised that people would not be able to see the pretty beadwork around the collar. So she decided to add more on the bottom half. That's where I come in. I reproduce the same pattern on the bottom edge. See? So you can see the connection. All in all, I think I did a pretty good job and very happy about it. Worth the lack of sleep.

If you want to see more of my creations, you can visit http://beadsnsequins.tripod.com Check it out!!

Beading Skills

Been really busy this past few days. I'm working on a beadwork that the customer sent in on Sunday and wants it back on Wednesday. Argh!! So just a quick update on Nadiah's beading skills that I thought to share.

Ok, I was busy with the beadwork when she suddenly found one of the thousands of play bead that I've bought for her, laying around on the floor. I noticed from the tail of my eye that she was running around the room looking for something. She ran out of the room and went to my mom's room. I realised that she was looking for the celophane tape. Good old sticky tape to tape the one bead to her hat. Remember I told you about Nadiah and the Cellophane Tape? Well, it sure came in handy alright.

I snapped this picture to share:



Hehe... clever huh??

Blackout

We had a blackout last night. Mr TNB guys were repairing somewhere near the junction of our house. They started working at 7pm. PM I tell you. They could have done it a lot sooner, can't they? And without notice too!! Sheesh!!! Sometimes these people really like to make your life difficult.

At first it was half a blackout coz my house gets electricity from two different post (because of the extension my dad did some years ago). Anyway, that wasn't so bad. I had been fasting yesterday so didn't really mind the half blackout situation since the dinning area was still nice and bright *grin*

But after an hour or so, the whole house was totally dark. I was praying and so was Shukri and Nadiah was watching Elmo on the PC when it happened. I could hear Nadiah trying out the light switch to try and on the lights but without any success obviously. Luckily she didn't cry. But I could hear her making some weird noises. So express la sembahyang ku!! The shortest verses I could think of at full speed.

Since it was so hot in the house, we decided to go out. Drove around town for half and hour or so and stopped over at 7-11 to get a slurpee to share all three of us. But Nadiah did most of the slurping, of course.

By 9.30pm when we came back, we could see the TNB guys were still at it. Suggested going to my brother's house but Shukri was too lazy to turn back since we were already in front of the house. So there we were, all sweaty and warm, fighting over the little battery operated fan that I had bought sometime ago. Luckily I had just recharge the battery on my dad's laptop so Nadiah could watch an hour of Elmo. Me and Shukri were busy playing games on our handphones. (Gosh! This is the time when I'm ever so thankful the phone guy installed loads of games in my phone!!)

Then it was time to sleep. Shukri decided to sleep on the floor where it's cooler. I had the fan going directly towards Nadiah so she can go to sleep and stop moving about. And me? I have my chinese fan to keep myself cool. Well, barely. By midnight I think everyone managed to go to sleep.

At around 2.30am I woke up with a start when the lights finally came on again. Thank God!!! Nadiah woke up as well and by 3am she was jumping up and down on the bed and wanting to watch Elmo again. Hmmm... the delayed effects of the Slurpee I'm sure. It's almost 6am now and I can hear her still moving about on her bed while Baba is snoring away. I'm going stop now and join them and enjoy the cool air of the air condition. Ahh... what would we do without electricity.

Pancake Day

Today Nadiah and I decided to make pancakes. Nadiah did most of the work. I did most of the cleaning up. Here are some pictures:

Pour in some milk

Stir, stir, stir

Cook it


Voila!!



Ermmmm delicious....

After pancakes, it was playing in the rain time. Rain comes down courtesy of the garden hose..

Who... me?

Yesterday while I was browsing for new entries in my friends’ blogs, I came across a friend’s new entry which read: A Tribute to a Very Special Mother. The first thing that came to my mind was why is she writing about her mother. Mother’s Day is long gone. But as I read more and more, I realize that it was about me. ME! A tribute to me. Moi! Aww…. shucks *blushing red* I was so touched. No one has ever “tribute” anything to me before. Thanks a lot.

All through my school years in Malaysia, I was lucky enough to have 3 best friends whom I’ve know since we were 10 years old. We’re all still the best of friends now but there was a time right after SPM when all four of us went our separate ways to further our studies: one to the US, another to Penang, another to Sabah and me to the UK. That’s where I met Iza. We were both studying in the UK; in Berkhamsted to be precise. That was in August ’93. We hit it off soon after we met. We have so many things in common. We share the same taste in music, read the same books, love the same TV series, have the same kind of sense of humour. Those days it was always about Bon Jovi (ahh.. Abang Jon!!), Judith MacNaught books, Friends and ER. But at the same time, we were into different things too. I was more of an outdoor kinda girl and she’s not. We were comfortable with each other’s likes and dislikes and we were both not fussy about money. We could talk and talk for hours just about anything. I guess being so far away from our families kind of bonded us more.

During our two years of A-Levels in Berkhamsted, we were the only two Malaysians in our year who got along well with the English or other foreign students for that matter. The school we attended was an all girl school but we were the only two in our year who took up Economics which was taught at the boys’ school. That was fun. All those talks about the boys. But too bad they were younger than we were. The may be big and tall but oh… so young!!

Me and Iza at a Bon Jovi concert in London. That was a blast!


Us in Stradford-Upon-Avon

One of the funniest things that happened to us was when were sharing a room with Rachel, a Hongkie, and Jenny, an English. One weekend, Rachel and I decided to have a concert in our room. Iza was reading a book by her bed and Jenny had gone home for the weekend. This is an old house we were in with wooden floor and we had forgotten that directly below our room is the Housemistress’ sitting room. Rachel and I were really into our “concert”; bouncing up and down like crazy people so you can imagine the racket we were making. After a while, I was tired so went to lie down on the bed and Rachel came over to talk to me while Iza was still reading. The music was still blaring away and this is when the housemistress, Mrs Putt, opened the door to our room, shouting over the music that she was having a hard time entertaining Miss Shephard, the headmistress, with all the noise we were creating and how people from across the road can hear us and could we please turn down the volume of our… hhmm what did she call it? Music system.. music something.. ah yes! To turn down the volume of our music centre. The thing is, our “music centre” was my discman connected to these tiny speakers. When Mrs Putt actually had a good look around the room, she finally noticed that Iza was reading in one corner and Rachel and me were quietly talking in another and I don’t think she realize where the music was coming from. Also there was absolutely no signs of any “monkeys” making so much noise that she heard through the floor earlier. She had this confused look on her face as if not believing what she was seeing. And all of us were looking back at her as if to ask “What are you talking about?” As soon as she left the room, we all just burst out laughing. And I still laugh out loud whenever I remember that incident.

After Berkhamsted, we both went to Coventry for our degree. Since we have been in UK for a couple of years now, we didn’t act like typical ‘freshies’ that out seniors expected. We were loud and we hang out with the guys all the time. I don’t think a lot of the girls liked us very much. They all think that we were “gatal and gedik”. That’s why we hang out with the guys all the time; because the girls won’t hang out with us. We really couldn’t care less. But somehow towards the end of our year in Coventry, we sort of drifted apart. I don’t like that time very much and I hate talking about it coz I still don’t really understand what exactly happened and why.

After UK we both got married and had our own families and were busy with our lives. But whenever we get in touch either via phone or email, we could just pick up where we left off. Luckily she married a guy from Kedah so we get to meet up whenever she comes back to her in laws’.

Actually, my trip to KL last week was partly to see her to pass over her dress that I was working some beadwork on. It was such a relief that she liked my work because truthfully she is my first non-relative customer.

It was nice to get to spend time with her on Friday. It was the first time we met up just the two of us (plus Nadiah) after UK. I was kinda nervous and excited upon meeting her but like I said; we just picked up where we left off. It was a fun day and thank God Nadiah was a good girl that day!

She had mentioned in her blog entry that she admired with how I handle Nadiah. Funny.. coz I always thought that she’s been doing such a great job with her kids. I mean, I am a stay at home mom so I have no excuse but to devote my time for Nadiah. And there is only Nadiah for me to look after even if she is a special kid. But Iza, she has three kids, a career and no maid to help out. And from all the stories that I’ve heard, she and her husband has managed to raise three very happy kids. I think that is the best thing you can do for any children – to make them happy.

So Iza, thanks for being such a great friend. Thanks for all movies we’ve watched together, for the times spent at Zul’s, for the “kelentong” we came up with to go watch David Copperfield, for all those hot chocolates at McD with Mamat, for Morten and Ian, for “berebut-rebut” with the others to get the best spot of the beat-up sofa to watch Top Of The Pops, for fu**k and for all the great memories we had together.

Tabit springggg!!!!!

Quick Recap

Ok, I'm on dangerous ground here. It's been almost a week since my last entry and I'm starting to feel lazy. But I have to say that my latest "Dear Diary" has been the longest so far. So that's an improvement.

First thing's first.. Good luck to my nephew, Daniel, who is sitting for his UPSR exams starting Monday till Wednesday. Sent him an SMS to wish luck the night before his exams. He's pretty cool about it all, but I know his mom would be the one to go frantic and all and would not stop badgering him to revise; especially his Bahasa Melayu. Daniel is more fluent in english than malay. I still remember when he was in kindergatten he came home complaining to his parents that the teachers were asking silly questions. He had to match words to pictures and one of the words was "Kancil". Daniel being a boy's boy was very into cars at that age. He said he couldn't figure out why there wasn't a picture of the Kancil car.... oopps!!

The night before Merdeka there was the annual concert at the stadium. As my house is close to the stadium, we didn't need to go and watch. We can hear them wailing just fine from the house.... even with the windows and doors closed!! The fireworks were really loud. Pretty, but REALLY loud. I can even feel my room rumble slightly. Nadiah simply CANNOT stand the fireworks sound. Everytime they have fireworks, Merdeka day or Sultan's birthday, she would start to cry and pleading with me to stop it. What can I do? There is no way to shut out the sound so we just had to grit out teeth and try to sooth her. This time she fell asleep mere minutes before the fireworks started. At the first boom she was jerked out of sleep but simply jammed in a finger in each ear and went back to sleep. Phew!!

Merdeka day. What did I do? Drove down to KL with Shukri and Nadiah. Left Alor Star around noon and arrived in KL about 5.30pm. Instead of going straight to the apartment in Bangsar, we decided to stop over at IKEA to get some stuff and have an early dinner. I love going to IKEA. Everything is so colourful and attractive. I guess the deco teams must be really good because the way they present the showrooms always makes me wish my bedroom is like that or the dining room or Nadiah's bed... well just about everything. We usually spend hours at IKEA but this time round we just grab the few things we needed and took shortcuts through the store. There were so many people that it was hard to walk around, let alone pushing the trolley with Nadiah in it. Nadiah loves IKEA too. She loves the ice-cream the have there. Mama loves it too... because it's vanilla, cheap and tastes yummy. Vanilla coz if the ice cream drips on her clothes, it won't stain. Not like chocolate!! It taste heavenly but a bitch to clean up the stain!! Cheap coz it's only RM1. Yummy coz it IS yummy!!

We were in KL for 5 days. Did my annual round of Raya shopping. Mostly stuff to get for Nadiah and her cousins and also for my in-laws. Since it was the last few days of SALES, I politely asked Shukri if I could go out shopping on my own... minus him and Nadiah. SO early Saturday morning, I prepared breakfast and lunch for Shukri and Nadiah before leaving the apartment to start my shopping experdition. Venue: Mid Valley Mega Mall. I was really early getting there. I mean, REAL early that I had to wait outside of Jusco while the man slowly open the grill to the store. When I got in and chose some handbangs for my makciks (which I had checked out the day before) and went to the cashire to pay... they were not ready! They kept sending me from one counter to another but none were ready to punch in the items. Blast!! When they say the shops are opened at 10am, they should be ready at 10am!!
Ok, so these are the items I got for Raya

• 2 pairs of shoes for Nadiah
  
• 1 pair of jeans for Nadiah (with a big red rose on the leg)
• handbags for Chik and Kak Yam
• T-shirt and shorts for nephew Amir
• T-shirt for uncle G
• 2 dresses for 2 nieces
• Blouse for mom-in-law
• 2 baju kebayas for 2 sis-in-law

Since they were having mega sales, I could not let the opportunity pass so these are the non-raya items

• t-shirts for Nadiah (these are RM10 a piece.. I love these!!)
• 2 trousers for Nadiah
• 2 batik blouses for myself and my mom
• 2 t-shirts for Shukri
• a belt for Shukri
  
• hopper balls for Nadiah and cousin Amir

Phew! What a day. These were all done in 4 hours. Nadiah ended up getting 2 shoes coz the first one was just nice size-wise and I'm sure it wouldn't last longer than two months. Since it's an old stock and they only have 2 pairs left at the shop and both of the same size, it was a gamble on my part when I bought it. So went out again later that day to buy another one. This time slightly bigger size. I always have trouble buying shoes for Nadiah. I usually never get it right. I don't know how many pairs of Mothercare shoes my mom and I have bought for her and she couldn't wear them. Plus she outgrew them really fast. We used to have to buy new shoes for her every 2-3 months. So we finally stopped buying her expensive shoes and got those from Bubblegummers. But they have really nice shoes and comfy and best of all quite cheap compared to Mothercare. So it works fine by me!