Ode to a special man - Wan Halim

Born 65 years ago this day, this man holds a special place in my heart. My father, my hero. Also my landscape director (cum gardener), my kids chauffeur and companion, my handyman and everything else a father could possibly be!

He worked tirelessly over the years to make sure we have everything we need. As I remembered, he never fell sick and missed work. His attitude and working ethics was an exemplary that I could only emulate by maybe 50% (talk about those MCs!...but I was sick, really).

In a nutshell, Ayah as I dearly call him, has painted such beautiful colour in my life. His positive attitude, diplomatic and kind nature, down to earth sensibility spilt onto me and in a way shaped my life perspective.

On this day, I wished nothing more but for Allah SWT to bless him with many many more years of good health, happiness with us and most importantly, the very special tidings of place of exceptional nearness to Allah in the Hereafter. Amin.

Just A Prayer

That's the best gift I can give to you, my baby on this special day of yours. A mother's prayer. Praise to Allah the Almighty, you came to us exactly a year ago as a gift from Him. Kaiden Ikliluddyin which former gives the meaning of companion (in Arab) and warrior (in English) whilst the latter is "Mahkota Agama". True to your name, you are my companion day and night, my warrior (especially when it comes to crying your heart out!) and I hope you will uplift your religion and live your days as the humble and diligent servant of Allah (SWT).

The past year with you my love have been nothing short of miracle. I tought I lost you when I was bleeding, even worst than my miscarriage I had before you. But here you are, in my arms healthy and strong. You amazed me with antics and smiles that just blew away all my blues. You are every bit mine (and daddy's) and I love you nuts! What nuts I love about you? Here's some of it:

• You have the loudest scream and cry compared to your big sis and bro (which drove me up the wall at times!)


• Your monstrous bites - yes, the time you bit me while you fed on me and I bled... and those times you went around biting people.. you scare the pants out of me with your no mercy bites! Come to think of it, you had your vampire teeth first rather than the middle ones. Guess Mama watched too much of twilight and dreamt of Edward (shh ..don't tell Papa)


• You called out mamama when you're about 8-9 months. A sweet song to my heart. You make big sis jumped when you clearly uttered "kaakak!"


• Your development is amazing, turning on your tummy at about 2-3 months, first tooth at 4th month and by the time 8th month- you have full grown 8 teeth! Though you were doing you commando crawl till about 7th month, you're took tottering steps few weeks back and on this day, you're walking on your on own two cutie feet! Soon, you'll be running... but not too soon my darling :-)


• You're the champion of shortest napper and lightest sleeper in the whole wide world. Oh boy... sleepless nights, I was baby brain for many months. Still now, you hardly sleep like a baby.


• Our snuggly moments. You're such a big snuggler, you would snuggle and snuggle till you fall asleep. How I love that!


• You love azan. You would stop whatever you do to listen to azan till finish. It must be the miraculous connection there with Allah (SWT), your Creator

Mama can go on and on how you colour our life this past year. You, your big sister and brother are my jewels. You all make me a better person and I'm so privileged to be your mother. And I thank Allah (SWT) for every minute of it.

Be well my love. Be a good Muslim. Be kind to all, no matter background, race or religion. Be kind to animals. Give back to the society as much as you can.

Happy first birthday Kaiden Ikliluddyn.

Its Big and really really Bad!

The wolf is laughing all the way to the bank by now. Another book sale. The Big Bad Wolf Sale. It's the best sale I've been to. What's not to like, great books at 70-90% discount. I went nuts!

We (mommy and kiddos) were anxiously anticipating this day since we knew about it about a month ago. So the minute... no, the second Kya returned from school today, we jumped into the car and wooshhhh to South City Plaza (I seriously wished we had a magic carpet).

Arrived circa 2p.m. Parking madness. People were coming out with boxes and boxes of books. Some taking own sweet time to load in the books. Some even browsing their books by their car boot, blindly ignoring those awaiting for parking (note to kids:be sensitive to others!). Alas, a parking near the lift. Alhamdulillah.

With kids , I must head to the children's section first. And there we were for an hour plus. With a box full of books and kiddos excited to go back and rummage their loot for the day, there's no way for me to cover the adult section then (note to self:I need to come back for my own... alone!)

Now the queue to the cashier. Another hour. But we didn't mind. With books in the box, we killed time reading. That's the wonder with books. Have book, will travel. And we travelled through time without realising it, we reached the cashier. Our damage? 40 over books at RM250. In my world of books, that's hardly any damage, not even a dent! (note to self again: must come back).

Here's our collection for the day. Can't wait for our read aloud sessions. And shoot, I think we need another billy bookcase!

Billy Bookcase

Another reason to be smiling today. I found out that the IKEA billy bookcase price is reduced to RM169 from RM185! To book lovers, this simple means - new case = lots of new shelves = lots and lots of new books! Yay!
Do you know that to date there's more than 41 million Billy Bookcases sold worldwide? Wow! A simple case.
What does your bookcase say about you? - an article from TIMES about the Billy bookcase and to my wonder, what we choose to display or have on our shelves speaks about personalities. Ye ke? I'm a bit shy to post picture of my bookcases - some are quite organized, some remained untouched for yonks of years (terselit katak mati pon tak tau), and some are just upside down (esp with the kids shelves)!

All in all, I love the sight of my bookcases in my living room, study room and kids room. In fact, the cases are the centrepiece item in my living room, far more valuable than the big tv or a 20k art painting! (errr no, I don't have one).

And here's a pic of my ultimate dream wish to have bookcases!

I'm the supermom!

My day starts as early as 6.00 a.m and ends just after midnight. In between, I juggle the tasks of being a mom, wife, teacher, cleaner and cooker. On lucky days, I get to shower more than 5 minutes! It's a bonus if I get online and check my emails.

It sure is tough being a full time mom without a maid. Still, I never felt so contented before than now when I'm able provide my lovelies the basic necessities with my own bare hands. Sure it was nice to be able to buy them anything when I was earning 5 figures income, but to hear from your son this "Mama, you're a great cook!"... priceless (tho's it was just a mini pizza using jacob crackers!).

To my mama, I truly understand now your pains raising us without maid back then. Thank you loads and no words but only prays that I can offer for all that you've done for us. Then, now and forever. Love you much, Mama.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

I'm over the moon with my latest books. Its for my little girl actually but if I had these books when I was growing up and spent time reading together with my mum, I reckon we would have a somewhat different (closer) relationship than now. Not that we're estranged but I wished we would connect better at some level. And that's what I will do differently with my girl.

I've come to love these books of late when I've taken interest in children literature. My most favorite bookstore on earth - BookXcess - are selling these two lovely book sets at unbelievable RM49.90 each (with 5 books in each set).

Set 1 (reading age 9+) contains Bridge to Terabithia, Ida B, Little Women, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Ella Enchanted.

Set 2 (reading age 10+) contains So B.It, The Luckiest Girl, Sister of the Bride, The Great Gilly Hopkins, The Secret Garden.

This set also comes with a book club kit by Dodson whom started a book club with her daughters and invited some other parents to share and discuss on the books they've read. The results were astounding - it not just any book club, its an avenue they've come to love and grow together. Brilliant! Heemm, that's an idea worth pursuing.

This is such a wonderful opportunity to have bonding moments with my gal through our love of reading together. I'm sure its a journey we both will cherish forever. What more these lovely books have impacted many successful people today and they say "everything I need to know I learned from a children book".

Bibik Oh Bibik

Can we Malaysians survive without our bibiks? Tough but possible with a bit of hair pulling, I suppose. Well, at least that's my story for the past week. And yep, that explains the M.I.A part. Our maid has gone back for good and left this mommy all the pleasures of keeping the house together. Yes, pleasures. My oh my, I can't hardly take a breather (on this note, I salute all housewives and standing ovation to those without maids - my cuz Ica for example).
As much as I appreciate having a maid, but I am relief she's gone. She was good with kids but slacking on houseworks. And to my surprise, a has been carear woman like me actually enjoyed cooking and cleaning though I wished sometimes I have ten pairs of hands! There's just not enough time and yes speaking of time, we need to be tip top on time management or your kids don't get feed nor clean clothes. So who is to say stay at home moms are not good with management skills. In fact I reckon being at home makes one good at some of the critical management skills - people (the art of negotiating, managing expectations and exerting influence to get your kids and even spouse to do what you want them to do) - time (like I said, you have hundred things to do in such a short time, so prioritize! and multi-task and constantly finding the most effective way to do things).
Now back to bibiks. Much debate on this lately. Should we continue to depend on them and should we pay them more? Because the demands of our work, we do need them and when you calculate per hour basis like say if they work effective 12 hours per day and 6 days per week with average RM500 per month = RM1.60 per hour. Wow, value for money, eh? But of course it comes with perks like food and shelter. So we Malaysians are lucky (esp those with super efficient maids) to have access to these blue collar workers. Still, we need to be tacky when to comes to handling our bibik. Can't be too nice and you can't be a slavedriver either. They are human with feelings and thoughts. And when its about raising our kids, we must shoulder that role and responsibility, not bibik's. Our values are ingrained and deep rooted in our kids or we have a society raised by maids!