Happy Birthday to G

Today, 31st October 2006, is G’s sixteenth birthday. Sixteen years ago today, a baby was born into our extended family where for quite some time there had not been any new babies. My youngest cousin living in Alor Star at that time was already 12 years old. You can imagine what our world was like having a new baby in the family. One of my uncles would go over to granddad’s house to “borrow” G for a few hours. Another aunt would go long past his bedtime and woke him up to play with him. And G, being the nicest baby that he was, wouldn’t complain a tiny bit.


Then one fine day in the month of Ramadhan, Granddad passed away leaving G, who was then only 5 months old, and his mom. My mom had promised Granddad that she would take care of them if he were to leave us forever. So begin our new family life. G became the little brother that I never had. He was more like a son to my dad than a brother in-law (or rather more like a grandson). Dad decided that G should call him Baba instead of Bapak like all of us do. And G calls my mom Koko, which is his baby word for Kakak but it stuck, even until now.

Bro#1 taking G around in a sack

I remember when I was in high school, G would come and fetch me with our then resident driver, Pak Eei (short for Ismail). I would take him out of the car and show him off to my friends (like a newly acquired toy.. ehhehee). At that time only Bro#3 and myself were living at home. So our friends all know about G and they became his friends too. Once when Bro#3 went off to ITM in Perlis, one of his friends would come over with his motorcycle to take G for rides around the neighbourhood just because my brother used to do that. One of my aunts who was the Director of Kedah Library would sometimes come and pick him up to take him to the library and would introduce him to all her staff. They know him not just as G, but also as Poji or Ketoi (because he was so chubby and “berketul-ketul” when he was a baby). So when I worked at the library while waiting for my SPM results, and would take him with me, everyone would come over to say hello to G; even Pak Mat, the security guard!!

One of the guys - w Bro#3 and friends

Mom and Dad would take him everywhere with them. Trips to KL are on the First Class seats, okay!!! Even us the children would seat in the Economy Class even if our parents are in front in the First. Dad lavished G with anything he wants, within reason of course. When his tonsils were swollen and the doctors warned not to have him drinking or eating cold stuff, it was Dad who would secretly take him out for an ice-cream.


Even when I was studying in the UK, every summer before coming back for the holidays, shopping trips would not be complete without a visit to Hamleys (only THE biggest toy store in the world!!!) I once bought him a Batman costume. That was the time when everything was Batman this and Batman that to him.

Batboy to the rescue....



But when he was 4, Bro#1 had gotten married and had a son. So there goes G’s status of “baby in the family”. At first we could see that he was jealous but after a while he got used to Daniel. And up till now, they are each other’s best friend.

Above: Daniel was born - see the possesive hand on Dad's thigh

Right: still the best of friends

G is now sixteen; a little stubborn and hardheaded at times, as all teenagers are, but deep down lies a soft heart full of sentimentality. He hates changes, especially when it involves a person that he knows well. When Pak Eei, whose been working with us for as long as he could remember, decided to retire, G couldn’t accept it. I think he cried, although he would kill me if he knows I’m telling this to everyone!!!

Music is G’s life now. He plays the guitar and drums, all of it self-taught and with some guidance from Bro#3.

Nobody realised it at this time that he was actually going to be a guitarist




So here’s to G. Happy Birthday and may your life be Blessed for may years to come (and Happy Halloween!!!!!! ehheheh)

Mohamad Fauzi - The Journey Through The Years

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Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2006

It was the night before Hari Raya and I was still labouring away with my kuih makmur. This year everything was a last minute occasion. Two days before Raya and Mom realized that she’d forgotten to order the ketupat. All through my growing up years, the ketupats were wrapped by our maid, Kak Yam, who has been living with us for more years than how old I am. But since the past 3-4 years KY has not been very well so Mom had to order from someone else. But two days to Raya no one wants to take on the job anymore, so super-maid volunteered to wrap them. And since Chik left for her kampung to visit a sick relative, Mom was in charge of the cooking for berbuka. That left me, a one woman show, to bake the remaining cookies and cakes. I could have gone out and buy cookies at the shops but these are the "tak ada tak sah" sort of cookies. So by hook or by crook, they had to be done. And Nadiah was left with Baba to babysit for two whole days. But that’s a story for another day.

The last night of berbuka, brother #1 and #2 and their families joined us. So it was a case of squeezing oneself at the dinner table. The kids were shooed away to eat at the kitchen island so that mommies and daddies can all squeezed together to have a decent meal. After isyak, it was time for firecrackers. I took Nadiah outside to join her boy cousins for the sessi mercun. But the sound was so loud that she ran away in fright. So I went back to my cookie making and left Baba to entertain her.

Mom wasn’t feeling well after all the cooking she had been doing all day and it didn’t take us much guessing to know that her blood pressure must have gone up again. So told her to go up and have a real goodnight’s sleep and leave it to KY, Chik and me to get everything ready for the next day. By the time I finished topping the chocolate cake it has gone past midnight, and there wes still so much to be done: lay out the table, line all the dishes with doilies all set for the cookies and cakes, get the plates and glasses out, get the cutleries out and make sure they were polished, rearrange the tables around the main dining table so there will be places for the buffet stuff, change all the table cloths and some other dozens little stuff that needs to be ready for tomorrow morning. It has gone 2.30 in the morning by the time I climbed up the stairs to my room.

6.30am woke up for subuh and woke Shukri up for him to get ready for the Raya prayers at the mosque. The prayers are scheduled to start at 8.30am and knowing my Dad, I knew he would want to go at least a half and hour earlier. Since Baba is the kind who spends hours and hours in the bathroom doing God knows what, so it’s 6.30am it is!!! After laying out his baju melayu, samping and songkok, I went back to sleep until it was time to help him with the samping. Only then did I took a shower and put on my new bead-less baju kurung.

After the men came home, it was time for salam-salam and minta maaf. Then me, the "cina gambaq", went to work clicking everyone’s pictures except my own. This year Mom broke the laksa tradition and made mee curry instead. So it’s eat, drink and be merry.

Around 11-ish Nadiah finally woke up and gave her a quick shower and put on her new dress that my Mom had made for her. It’s a cute pink creation that she laboured away for three days. As soon as I buttoned Nadiah up, she started to cry insisting I took the dress off. I refused and the crying went on and on. Tried distracting her and for a little while she forgot about the dress. But as soon as she saw her reflection in the mirror, the crying started agai. In the end I changed her in to her jeans and t-shirt. There goes her girlie-girlie dress for Raya.

Went to MIL’s next and had the sessi makan-makan again. This time it’s MIL’s nasi tomato although it’s actually SIL who cooked. After an hour or so BIL #3’s fiancé came over with her family. Future bride was the ayu-ayu and malu-malu, helping out in the kitchen, typical of all brides-to-be in front of future MIL. Me, the IL #1 sat at the lounge chatting with guess and goyang kaki saja. That’s the privilege of being SIL #1 and producing the first grandchild *wink*. Just kidding, actually I have 2 SILs plus BIL#2’s wife and the future bride, all crammed up in the kitchen so there’s really no need for me to menyibuk.

By the time we went home around 4pm, it has been raining really heavily and we found out that water had risen along the driveway almost to the porch area. Kids who were going from house to house asking for duit raya were splashing each other away. I noticed Nadiah had this longing look on her face and sure enough, as soon as Shukri opened the car door for her, she speeded down the driveway towards the water. There goes her new shoes all soggy and wet.

At night we went to my aunt Mak Teh’s house for nasi beriani. Again sessi melantak!!! Came home and everyone was very tired and went to bed early.


Second day of Hari Raya, all the aunts and uncles and cousins on both Mom and Dad’s side came over one after another. So it was a busy day for me, most of the time with washing and drying the dishes as Kak Yam and Chik had gone back to their respective kampungs.

Third day Raya, brother #2 called up to invite everyone over to his house. Mom wasn’t feeling very well and Shukri had gone out to a friend’s house so it was just Dad, G, Nadiah and myself. Upon arriving, we found brother’s son, Amir, crying his eyes out because his father won’t let him follow his cousins back to their house. Asked Amir if he wanted to play firecrackers with me and Nadiah. That got his eyes dry fast enough. Went out and borrowed Amir’s bicycle for Nadiah so she can ride around while we light up Amir’s firecrackers. This time there were no loud sounds from the firecrackers as Amir’s collection consists of sparklers. That got Nadiah really curious. She just sat on the bike ten feet away looking at us. After a while she got down from the bike and came closer and closer. Before long she was happily lighting away the sparkles and having a jolly good time.

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All in all, Hari Raya 2006 has been a little quite. We didn’t go out and visit that much. But Raya isn’t over. It’s a month’s celebration, right!!! Come this Saturday, 4th November, we’ll be having an open house for Shukri’s colleagues. But if any of you were to be in Alor Star on that day, you’re welcome to drop by……

Raya, Raya, Raya...

Tonight is the 27th night of Ramadhan. My dad has turned on the raya lights outside. Hari Raya is just around the corner. I've yet to finish one more baju for a friend who's coming to collect this Saturday. Then there's my baju kurung to finish. Hmmm.. I think laziness has crept into my bones and I'll probably go bead-less this time!! I've made two types of cookies so far and there's still three more to go, and there is my traditional chocolate cakes for our hourse and mom-in-law's.

Pulled an all nighter last night to bake almond london and chocolate cookies. Sadly to say the almond london didn't come out as good as I anticipated. I made the mistake of not roasting the almonds till it's crunchy enough. So when you bite into the cookie, it'll be a bit tough and sticks to your teeth. Argh!!! What a waste of time... and precious sleep time!!! Can't be bothered to make them again. But the choccolate cookies came out delicious. They were more for Nadiah than for Raya. I cut them out into teddy bear shapes and there were also star, moon and heart shapes. Had Nadiah sprinkle hundreds and thousands on them today, but she ate them more than she did the sprinkling *sigh*

Raya this year will be the usual routine. Early in the morning the men will be going to the mosque for the Raya prayers. The woman folk will be at home laying out all the food stuff on the table for the guests. Once the men comes home, my mom and dad will be sitting in their special chairs while my dad would call out to the grandchildren to come and get the duit raya. That's the signal for all of us to queue up and take turns to salam and minta maaf with our parents and each other. Only the kids will get money though.

Usually my eldest brother and his wife and son comes back a day before hari Raya. The second one lives just a few minutes away so he will come back the morning itself with his wife and son in tow, after prayers. Brother no. 3 is in KL with his wife but will come back alternately every year depending whose side of the family they are celebrating raya first that year. But this year his wife is expecting a baby that's due on the 5th of November so they will be staying in KL. When the baby pops out, we'll be going to KL to see the new baby. Yeay!!

Luckily MIL's house is only 20 mins away from ours. So there's no fighting over whose house we should go back first every year. We'll probably go around noon and back again after a few hours.

Every year my mom will cook laksa for the main dish during raya. There are also the usual ketupat and rendang and also nasi himpit (that's ketupat nasi for you guys in the South) and kuah kacang. My favourite is the nasi himpit with kuah kacang. Every house we go to will see me eat only this. Most of the time I'll be too full to eat anything but out of politeness I will try to eat the nasi himpit. Mom's laksa is well known amongst our relatives and every year they'll come back to devour the dish. Funily enough all of mom's children don't particularly like laksa. We'll probably try once and that's about it. But all her son and daughters IL are really hantu laksa. They will eat laksa repeatedly the whole day and the day after. Me? I think I only really eat laksa when I was pregnant. Most times not at all.

Hari raya usually sees the kids having a blast. I remember getting up in the morning excited to don new clothes and getting all those duit raya. Not to mention the joys of bunga api (firecrackers). It saddens me to think that hari Raya is just like any other day for Nadiah. To her it makes no difference that everyone is dressed in baju melayu or baju kurung/kebaya. When people give her money she would slap their hands away. When all the kids would be running aound with bunga api in their hands, she would rather be inside painting or watching tv. When all the relatives meet up and cousins gang up together to play, she'll be on her own doing her own stuff, in her own world.

I would love for her to enjoy Raya like I did. To relish the times spend doing nothing but play with her cousins on a day that only comes once a year. To sit at one corner secretly counting all the money she's got so far.

Hmph! I don't know why all of a sudden I'm feeling a little meloncholic. Must be all the stress and the lack of sleep. I shouldn't be complaning really. Nadiah is a happy child, hari Raya or no hari Raya. Just be glad that she's happy, right???

Okay, I need to go. SELAMAT HARI RAYA and MAAF ZAHIR BATIN and HAPPY DEEPAVALI to all. And have a wonderful holiday y'all!!!

Old Wives' Tales

Do you believe in old wives' tales? Especially those concerning pregnancy and confinement and such. What is deemed acceptable and what is considered ridiculuos?

I was having sahur with my parents not a few minutes ago and my mom asked me

Mom : Have you been drinking ayaq nyok )(that's coconut drink for my non-malaysian reader)?
me : Err.. yes
Mom : You know you can't drink that. People in your condition cannot drink ayaq nyok forever.
me : What condition?
Mom : You know... it will make you kembang urat (hmmm have no idea what this is equivalent to in english.. expansion of the vein???)

What she meant by "my condition" was that: should I have more children it will result in premature births. Before having Nadiah, I was pregnant for the first time with a baby boy. Upon reaching my sixth month, my water broke and I was experiencing, what I did not know then, some normal signs of pre-birth. Except for the contraction pain. I was spotting and by the time I went to see the OBGYN, and upon checking down there, he pronounced that the baby was coming and he could already feel the feet and if I had kept on walking about, the baby would just slid out of me!! How scary was that? Everything was a blur to me after that but within an hour or so I was in the delivery room and was duely induced and was pushing for the baby to come out. It only took a few minutes and a tiny baby boy appeared. I could hear him crying for a little while and saw the doctor putting him in the kidney shaped dish thingy. He was so tiny. Unfortunately due to his smallness and underdeveloped organs, he did not survive the night. My husband took him home for the funeral preparation and was safely buried the next morning. We named him Alif Imran. My OBGYN imformed me that the premature birth was due to cervix incompetence.

Just a few months after that, I was deliriously happy with the news that I was pregnant again. I took extra precaution and had my cervix stitch at four months gestation so that the baby would stay put this time. I also stopped working right after the stitching surgery and would just laze around the house. By this time people (and by people I mean well-intentioned relatives) were telling me I all sorts of dos and don'ts.

• no drinking tea as it is "cooling"
  
• no pineapple as it is very "tajam"
• no carbonated drinks as it is also "tajam"
• put my feet up against a wall so there is less pressure upon the cervix
• don't walk too much as this would also put pressure upon the cervix
• no eating all sorts of beans for I don't know what reason
• do not let anyone walk pass behind you or your baby would take after that person (not sure how this is possible if you're walking out in public)
• do not "tegur" other people's children's shortcomings or your baby would end up like that or worse
• do not look at weird pictures if your don't want your baby looking like the picture instead look at cute baby pictures and your baby may come out very cute and cuddly (but aren't all babies cute and cuddly??)
  
• etc etc etc

Ok, there are more don'ts than dos. I think I followed through all of the above for fear of the outcome if I don't . Some are more absurd that others and I have no idea if they are scientifically proven, but I didn't want to take any chances.

But despite all my cautious conducts, Nadiah was still premature. But this time it wasn't due to my cervix being incompetent (remember I had them stictched earlier on), it was due to hypertension. This resulted in the tearing of the placenta from the uterine wall and causing a substantial amount of bleeding. By the time they opened me up, the baby was laying in a pool of blood. Alhamdulillah everything went well and Nadiah was born healthy despite being small. She weighed at 1.9kg.

So the quetion is, what about all those dos and don'ts? Do they really work? I mean, yes we can be the most prudent person in the world but there is no going against fate. Que sera sera - whatever will be, will be.

The funny thing is, I have never liked ayaq nyok. Not until just this past few days. Will my drinking it effect my chances at having more children in the future? I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?

My Precious

I've found it! I've found it! I've found my ring!! Actually Chik found it.. under the dinner table. How did it get there? Beats me! The important thing is I've got my precious wedding ring back. Am soooo relieved!!!

Puasa Updates

Well I've been remiss in updating this blog for a while. Most of the time I'm busy either with Nadiah or beading and other times I was just plain lazy. A few stories to tell so I thought I'll try to cover everything in this entry:

Where's my ring??
I've lost my wedding ring!!! Argh!!! How could I be so careless!! It's wasn't that I had put it somewhere and couldn't find it. I am not THAT forgetful especially about something so precious. I usually keep it in the jewellery box when I'm at home and would slip it together with my engagement ring on my finger were I to go out even for a short while. I remember precisely that I had slipped both on my finger just before we went to the pasar Ramadhan. Then it was off to my in laws and back home again to break our fast. But when I went up to our room and took off my wrist watch and rings, I realised that there was only one ring. I had slipped both together earlier and I remember that well but how come there was only one left? I didn't go to the toilet or put on any hand lotion that would usually require me to take them off for a little while. Did it just slipped out without me noticing? Had I lost so much weight that it didn't stay put on my finger?? Nah!!! Can't be that!! Or maybe my finger lost weight where everywhere else stayed the same? Is there such a thing??

I dreaded telling Shukri about it but braved it out so that he can be on the look out as well. This is actually the second wedding ring that he had bought me. No, I did not lose the first one as well. It shrank and is now too tight to slip on my finger.

Well alright... it didn't shrink, just that my finger expended so decided to keep it in the safe and Shukri was lovely enough to buy another so that I would always have two rings on my finger.

But now I only have one!!! *sob sob*

Nadiah
Nadiah had a fashion show a few days ago. Not of herself but of her cat. The stuffed one, of course. She decided to don a t-shirt on her cat and started out with her Art Attack tee. Then proceeded with all types and colour that she could find in her clothes drawer but they were all too big. In the end I decided to dig out her baby tees and put that on. Along with underwear. Can't have the cat's bottom sticking out, can I?? She would be embarassed (the cat that is, not Nadiah.. she couldn't care less!!) So here are some pics




Oh notice Nadiah had a haircut? The second picture was actually taken the day after, after she had the haircut. We took her to the "sitting-in-front-of-the-pc-watching-Elmo" saloon. I actually cut the front of her hair but had trouble with the back when she started wringling everywhere. I accidently chopped a wee bit too much of her hair (whoopsie!!). Fortunately Mak Tok (my mom) came to the rescue so she did the back.

My baby can draw!!! Nadiah had always loves crayons, or any types of colouring; be they paint or coloured pencils or magic pens (gosh! I hate those pens... always manage to "write" on her clothes rather than paper!!) Countless times we would take her to Toys 'R' Us and she would only get some sort of colouring. I think it's the multi colours that's attractive to her. But that means I've got a cupboard full of crayons and pencils and paints... whole, broken, chipped, plastered with cellophane tape, glued together, torned wrappers... you name it, I've got it!! Not only does she loves buying them, she loves using them.... on just about everywhere. We don't have to waste money decorating the walls because Nadiah has done it for us. No matter how many times I've told her not to write on the wall, she just keeps doing it. But at least now the habbit has lessen considerably. But I'm going to wait until she has stopped completely before re-painting the walls. Or it would be just a waste of time and energy.

But the other day she took out a piece of paper and announced "apple" and drew this:

The fact that she told us what she wanted to draw, rather than merely scribbling on the paper and leaving us to guess what it is, was simply wonderful.


Elaborate, please!!
Reading my friend, Iza's blog about when her daughter asked her THE question: what is SEX??, reminded me of a similar encounter I had with my uncle G. I can't remember if I've told you about G, but he is my mom's brother from my grandad's marriage after my grandmom passed away. Sadly G was only 5 months old when Grandad passed away and him and his mom (everyone calls her Chik or Tok Chik in the little ones' cases) came to live with us. G is now sixteen and he is more like a brother to me than an uncle. Anyway, the story happened when he was about 7 or 8 years old. One day I was driving around with him and he asked me :

G: Yatie, what is sex?
me: um.. ah.. ehem.. ahhh
My mind was reeling thinking what to tell him. How to explain in simple terms what it is. So in the end I asked him

me: where did you get that word?
G : I saw it in the school form. It says Sex: M or F
Ohhh! Sex as in gender. Phew!! *wipes sweat off forehead* That's easy enough to answer...

Another encounter I had was with my nephew, Daniel. He was about 10 years old then

Daniel : Mak Su, what is a virgin?
me: err... umm... ahhh... (alamak!! how to explain pulak!!). Where did you get the word?
Daniel : I heard Mama said the word. It's someone who only eats veggies kan??
me : oohhh... that's a vegen not a virgin!! *ran away before he could asked what a virgin is*

Moral of the story??? ALWAYS ask them where they hear such words. It could be something simpler that you might think.

Puasa, 13 days gone, 17 more to go
This year's puasa has gone considerably faster than before. Probably because I've been busy with my beading and didn't particularly give notice to what day or date it is. Most of the raya preparations are well under way except for the cooking bit. I've reserved the last week of puasa month to do the baking. I have decided to make most of the cookies myself rather than buying them ready made like we usually do. So that means I have to stop beading just before the last week or I'll be swamped with work and not have much time for anything else.

Must remind Shukri to get his baju melayu from the tailor of he'll have to wear last year's. He decided to make a black baju melayu suit this year. So we're going with black this year. Well, just the two of us that is. Nadiah will be in her usual pink and cuteness *grins* I really hadn't planned on having another baju kurung of which I seldom wear after hari Raya except for kenduris. But what the heck!! It's Raya. What's another baju kurung eh?? My next door neighbor's son is getting married in December so I can wear it again then.

Can't wait to pass the 15th day mark. Then puasa will go by even faster!!

Puasa

Phew! I've been so busy this past week and had absolutely no time to update. Been trying to finish some beadwork on time for the customers. I didn't even dare to go online on my Y!M in case anyone of my friends wanted to chat and I would get carried away with it and spend endless hours chatting. So here's some of the of the beading that I've been working on:







Sleeves to a Baju Kedah










A girl's baju kurung. So cute!!





I especially like the gold and brown sleeves. I spent so much time on them and the end result was pretty satisfying. Mind you, there are more than 3,000 beads involved and a very, very bad backache. On well... the feeling's great when the last bead was sewed on and would labour through it again (me thinks... after some deserved sleep time!!)

On the family front, everyone is doing well puasa-wise despite the pouring rain we've been having since day 1. It really spoils the mood for the browsing activity we usually do at the Pasar Ramadhan. In fact I've only been to the one near my house once, and that was really a quick walkthrough in search for air tebu.

Since being able to paddle a bike on her own, Nadiah is really taking biking like a fish to water. On one of the rare times that the rain actually stopped for a few hours to give people a breather, Nadiah "tricked" Baba into walking with her while she paddled away. Shukri ended up doing a kilometer walk around the neighbourhood. Talk about exercise during this fasting month. Heheh!! Poor Baba!