My goodness… what people has been saying is soooo true!!! One day your child can’t speak much, and the next she suddenly has 300 words in her vocabulary! She’s speaking soooo much and knows loads of words and can really say them proper now! What used to be “eh-fant” is now proper “elephant”, from calling Aleeza and Aresya “Ah-za” and “Ah-sha” she can now say “Aleesya” though yeah she calls them both the same. Allia is proper “Aliiyya” instead of “Ai-yah”. She can’t say J though, so Uncle John is “Ung-ker Ton” hahaha. (Oh don’t ask me why the uncle asks her to call him that. Takkan la nama dia betul2 John kan hahaha)

2 days ago we were at the Pasar Ramadhan and she was demanding to be carried all the time. Daddy was carrying her and holding on to a pack of Nasi Ayam at the same time and suddenly she pointed down to where the pack touches her leg and exclaimed “Panas!! Panas!!” and we were so amazed coz we didn’t teach her that. Must be the maid. And then when we put her down she quickly put her hands back up and said “Panatttt!! Panatt!!!” hahaha signalling ‘penat’. Sheesh. She’s learning in both languages. We teach English and the maids teach Malay. So far, so good. She knows ‘flower’ and ‘bunga’ is the same thing and a few other things. At the same time, she is also teaching the maids English hahaha. But the funny part is, she actually speaks Indonesian lah. Coz her ‘bunga’ is not how we say it in ‘bahasa pasar’ but it’s ‘bahasa baku’ hahaha go figure.

She’s also a big big fan of music and songs lah. Just like her parents, though Daddy is more musically-inclined. Ayra speaks in sing-song manner, really!! If she doesn’t want something she’ll go “tanaaaaakkkkkk” with the voice going up and down. Eh how to describe in words lah? Hahaha. But yeah, almost everything she says is in sing-song. And so far she can sing ABC, Twinkle twinkle little star and Baa baa black sheep from start to end. Of course, not in proper words but she got the tunes perfect!

Anyways, finally, I’ve got this video clip of Ayra in Perhentian uploaded in youtube. Yeah yeah I know, took damn long haha. She couldn’t speak much then, just Ayranese with words like “cat”, “oops sowey”, and such included in it. I loveee this video coz it’s toooo cute for words hahaha

Ok, an update on the boobie situation. She’s not off completely, but so far the longest is 4 days without. Yippee yeay!!! Of course there are relapses and I am not cruel as to not give in at all. She still takes a looonnggg time to fall asleep, but not as bad as before I think. She sort of gets it that she won’t be getting milk from me and save for some days, she actually doesn’t ask anymore. But on days she does, she really knows which buttons to push lah hahaha. Imagine this. She’s lying down under my arm, body against mine, hand and leg over me as well. She strokes the Bs gently, while looking up at me with big big wide eyes and pleads softly “nak susu piss???” Oh mannnnnnnn that girl is really tough to refuse!!!

Most days she’s ok to sleep with Daddy, but not before torturing him with countless books and specific songs she wants to hear. Hahaha. Sometimes, she just wants Mommy. Mommy will try to lie down on the other side of Daddy, sing to her and stroke her softly to sleep. Times like these, she won’t even let Daddy pat her down. You know.. the ‘tepuk’ part. She will say “Tanak Daddy tiipuk, nak Mommy tiipuk”. This is damn funny, really. She’ll be half asleep, and Mommy will have really tired arms from having to ‘tepuk’ her from across Daddy’s body (nasib baik Daddy kurus kecik ahahaha) and then will signal Daddy to take over. Suddenly her eyes will fly open, she’ll hold the hand patting her bum, pick it up, examine it, then actually trace it back to the shoulder to see whose body it’s attached to!!! Hahahahahaha!!!! If she found out it’s Daddy’s hand, she’ll actually pick it up and literally throw it far far away from her, and pick up Mommy’s hand and put it at her bum. Oh my goodnesssssss… it is funny to a certain extent but when everyone’s tired from the day and it’s late and the girl just won’t sleep…. I don’t know what to say. The first time it happened we laughed our asses off but now it’s kinda normal already. Macam game tag pulak dah.

Anyways, most days she can fall asleep on her own already without the B. We’re sometimes happier when she didn’t nap during the day coz that would usually mean she’ll fall asleep while drinking her milk at night heheheeee but it’s not good for a toddler to not have her day nap ok? And if she doesn’t wake up during the night, we’re ay-ok. Only during nights when she has nightmares and crawls into our bed and plead with me in the middle of the night do I give in. Is there still milk?? Surprisingly, yes. Though it won’t get engorged anymore no matter how long she hasn’t sucked :)

Last note, another video. We actually pain-stakingly (well actually hubbs did, not me hehehe) cropped this portion out from Ayra’s Sesame Street video and converted it to a format youtube-friendly. This is Ayra’s favorite lullaby and the one she will ask for each n every night, countless times. “Nak Natasha!!”. Daddy actually had to memorize it (I didn’t :P) to sing it to her. You can’t miss ANY part of it, coz she herself remembers everything. Right up to the very end, the ‘my baby’ part :)

Ok Natasha, it’s time to go beddy-by

Daddy will sing you a lullaby so you can go to sleep

so all of you can go to sleep

Good night Natasha, so dear to our hearts

Good night to your body, and each of its parts

Good night to your knuckles, and your fingers and toes

Good night to your neck, and your cute little nose

And my nose too

Good night to your voice, it’s the sweetest I’ve heard

Good night to your beak, oops you’re not a bird

Good night to your tummy, gee I really love it

Good night to your mouth, and your moustache above it

Oh you do not have a moustache do you. Well I’d love it even if you did

Good night Natasha, so cute in your bed

Look your feet have dozed off now, and so has your head

Not to mention your arms, hands and legs, left and right

Your whole body’s asleep, so Natasha good night

Yes good night, Natasha

Natasha, good night

Look at that. She’s sleeping just like a baby.

Oh she is a baby. My baby.

Frankly speaking, I kinda like that song too. It’s sooo cute and it’s so fatherly :) Besides, I just love everything about Sesame Street lah, and I’m happy Ayra likes them too. Her fav is “Urnie”. So just to share it with you guys… maybe you can learn the lullaby too :)

(though I do secretly wish Ayra would fall asleep just like Natasha, halfway through the song hehehe)

Till next update peeps

I have no idea why I haven’t been updating this blog :(

I have been busy, yes, but not so much on work. I have resigned, by the way, and moving on to greener-er-er-er pastures; yet again. As luck would have it, the current company offered VSS, which of course I am not eligible for since I have already resigned, and I just missed out on 4 months’ pay. I am sad, of course (there goes the free downpayment for my dream car sob sob) but as many people put it, takde rezeki la tu, nak buat macam mana.

We have signed all agreements and stuff for the purchase of the house. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to move in somewhere in October, IF everything goes well.

We have left and we came back a long long time ago that it seemed quite redundant to mention it now. I have yet to update my travelog, and I promise to do it soon, I hope. I have to, before the details disappear from my mind. But I have uploaded the pics in FB and those in my list can go view it.

How was Ayra? Let’s just say, that having the trip was the best decision we’ve made. It was good, for all of us. We had tremendous fun, the 2 of us and it was good to so-call ‘rekindle’ lost moments. I also had ‘me’ time, on which I spent walking about, lazing for hoursssss on the bed watching tv (the hotel had 92 channels!!!) and I also had a grrrrreat 3 hours spa and massage session. Beat that!!! How many mommies out there crave for those exact activities?? Ok, not to rub salt into the wound, of course I was also battling the demon inside me missing my daughter like crazy hahaha. And it’s not much fun going to sleep on an empty big bed all by yourself.

I spent a lot of time sms-ing the maid and the kids, and calling them up every night to talk to Ayra. And what response did I get? She’s either out with the family, or when she’s really home, all I could hear in the background when the maid tried to pass the phone to her was “Tanak Mommy!!!!”. Sheeeeeshhh that girl. While we were busy thinking of her (and I have to admit we keep imagining how it would have been if Ayra was with us, and what she would have said, complete with imaginary dialogs, what she would have done, etc etc etc), she was busy galavanting around town with her “mimi tok” (that’s Mummy Tok for those who don’t understand Ayranese) and the rest of the family. She went EVERYWHERE with them. And she was such a happy happy cat. You know how grandparents are.. she gets everything she wants with them. Tsk tsk. Only problem is, when she wants to sleep. Hoo yeah definitely. The first night, she finally fell asleep at 2am! Second night, she fell asleep on her own in front of the idiot box at 12am. Third night, Daddy’s home but she still slept at 1am. The dependency on the boobies has GOT to stop!!!

So overall, she did wonderful without us. Quite timely, the trip, to put it mildly. Her grandma was especially happy coz Ayra behaved beautifully and would finally go out with her. Our daughter is growing up!! Sob sob haha. Before this, she was soooo clingy that at 2++ years of age, she has NEVER gone out with anyone other than us (well except maybe a quick trip to Giant or 7E with the maid when we’re at work), and even when we’re in the same vehicle with everyone else, she won’t even sit on anyone else’s lap but Mommy’s. Imagine that. It is high time we ’separate’ her a bit from our hips, don’t you think? The grandma is already actually requesting us to leave her more often so they can have quality time together hehehehe. So.. maybe it’s time to go for midnight movies and double dates and maybe some jazz nights and such. Any takers?? :D

But all that said and done, I know she missed us. She just doesn’t know how to put it in words yet. But you can sure tell from her gestures. Maybe it IS a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but the moment we came back, it’s a different story. When I first saw her, she came to me, gave me a kiss and a hug then went back to her activities, as though I just left for the day to go to work everyday. But after 5 minutes or so, it kinda hit her. And she WOULD NOT let me out of her sight!!! The rest of that day (and next, I took an extra day’s leave to be with her) she was following me around like a lil lost puppy hahaha. I can’t even go to the bathroom without her tailing me. Mandi pun kena bukak pintu k. Poor lil girl, that’s her way of showing me she missed me :) and she did the exact same thing to Daddy when he came back the day before.

Ok, some updates on her (but no pics la, we’ve been slacking on taking pictures of Ayra). I have also obviously stopped doing monthly updates on her. Tsk tsk. But…. here’s some I remember.

1. She has graduated from 2 words sentences to 3 words sentences. Like, finally!! Hahahaha.
2. Picked up lotsssss of words already. English, Malay and Javanese!!! She says things I can’t understand myself! Thanks to the maids I guess hahaha. Can name most animals, words like naik, tulon (turun), udaaannn (hujan), baboong (bubble), bah-woon (balloon), etc etc. Too many to list lah. Though yeah she is a long way from proper pronounciation hahaha.
3. Every night before bed now she asks for “sing” (for us to sing songs to her, and she will actually specify which song she wants and will whine if we sing something she doesn’t like hahaha) and “book”, to be read a book, also her pick. Either the one with pop-up and felt animals or “peepee sun” (a book titled Peepo Sun) most of the time.
4. She can say “Good night” better now, no more “kiki”. But now she says “Natasha” when we say good night to her. It’s a song in one of her Sesame Street’s cd, Good Night Natasha hahaha. Cute.
5. Loves ABC. Graduated the ABC puzzles I got her the same day. And always asks for me to sing the ABC song to her hahaha. She can finish each sentence of the song, but when she sings on her own of course everything’s jumbled up :P
6. The booby situation work is still under way. The bedtime fix is sooooo hard to let go!!!!! We’re trying our level best here, to make it as painless as possible. I don’t want her traumatized, but she just needs to let go as I feel the time is right. Some days she’s ok and will go to sleep on her own without it and not make a huge fuss, some days she will just cry her lungs out till she gets it. How long can you actually let your child cry huh? It is, after all no one’s fault but ours. This post says it all, together with the comments I got then. Then, we chose to take the easy way out to get her to sleep. And as per my fear (on which Anne commented on), it came true. 2 years on, we’re still there. Sigh. So, padan muka diri sendiri lah. She just does not know HOW to go to sleep on her own. On days she can sleep without boobies also, she’ll be staring alone in the dark and blinking away. She cannot lie down and close her eyes, which obviously will expedite the process. So it takes hoursssssssss for her to sleep. Which again is why, she sleeps past 12 am most days. Shove the boobies in her mouth and she’s in lala-land by 10 minutes. But we HAVE to do this now. So yeah, we’re all sleeping late nowadays haha. Sometimes she criesssssssss and I time her. After about 15 minutes, I give in, but again, I time her. 10 minutes and I let go and she’ll cry again. And it repeats, again and again. God please give me the strength to do this hahahaha.

As much as I want to continue this, I can’t remember anything else, and it’s already 6 pm. Orang dah tender mana ada balik lambat kan :P. Later peeps. I’ll post about Cambodia too.

We will be, on our 4th ‘honeymoon’ trip. Just the 2 of us. We had Langkawi for our real honeymoon, Bali on our first anniversary and PD when I was heavily pregnant just before Ayra was born. So this is our first trip alone since Ayra came to the world. And we’ll be travelling to the land of Siem Reap, to see Angkor Wat. Why Siem Reap?? I don’t really know hahaha. Just wanted something different than islands and beaches and sorts. So let’s go see ruins for a change :P

Ayra has NEVER spent the night with anyone else. Mostly it’s both of us, other times it’s either one of us if the other’s away. So this will be her first time. I am hoping she will handle it well, but I am mostly afraid for myself hahaha. To trust another to be able to take care of her at night is a bit hard for me. Yeah, emo lebih. I am guessing it’s about time to leave her with others so she won’t be overly dependant on us. We’ll see how it goes.

The trip was planned since last year, bookings for flight and hotel made at the same time. 4 days and 3 nights, Friday to Monday. Leaves were approved, but as luck would have it, hubbs has a last minute important training he needs to attend on Monday morning. Initially he was willing to skip the training or go in late, but I adviced him not to as it’s important for his job. So our solution is, hubbs needs to buy an extra ticket home one day early (AA kan, cannot change any details whatsoever. Some more I booked the holiday package). Everything has been paid for and it would be a waste to forego one night’s hotel stay and to buy 2 additional tickets back early. So I’m gonna stay in Siem Reap for an extra day, all by myself :) So it’s a honeymoon and also a ‘me’ time for myself. For 24 hours hahaha. I don’t really mind… if it’s not safe to wander around, there’s a spa right at the hotel sooo.. yeahhhhhh… I’m gonna have fun :)

Will update the travelog when we get back with piccies and all. Pray for our safety yeah, and pray my heart will be ok with leaving the lil girl behind :)

.. oh me oh my…. I have been neglecting this blog now haven’t I. Bad bad me. Sooooo much has happened during the 1 month I’ve been quiet. Easiest thing to say would be that LIFE happened. Things has been moving at a whirlwind pace.. some for the good, some for the worse. Though no bad things will be updated here hahaha bad omen. A summary…

I went for (yet another) job interview.. fingers crossed for the result.

We went house-hunting.. this itself deserves a post by itself. But to cut a long story short, decision was made, 10% deposit paid, and the agreement was signed. Hopefully the keys will be in our hands +/- 3 months from now..

The 3 kids overseas came back and 1 went back again :( 2 from UK and another from the land down under. We all received wonderful thoughtful gifts (God bless u kids heheh), and now we’re hooked on Guitar Hero hahahahaha.

We went back to JB for the usual family obligations..

The brady bunch went to Perhentian and had a swellllll time! Though oh-so-short. Pics will come later, mostly on FB hahaha.

Now, what has the lil missy been up to???

1. During the short period of time since her 2nd bday, she has moved on from Barney to Elmo’s World and now to Sesame Street. Knows a whole bunch of characters now, from PHDC to Elmo, his ‘fish’, Ernie (or Urnie as she calls him), ‘Berk’ (Bert), ‘Bick Berk’ (Big Bird), ‘Cookie’ (Cookie Monster, previously she kept saying Kiikoo hahaha).
2. Learnt loads of songs.. though the tune’s only in her head. She moves and dances according to beat but can’t quite sing to it yet. Knows the end of every sentence in songs, though and will gladly fill in the blanks when we sing to her.
3. Has learnt THE MOST annoying skill EVER. Hahahaha. Well, not quite lah, but to me it’s damn annoying. She has discovered the eject, pause, play and stop button on the DVD player. This is quite normal, right. Except the way she uses it. Flip through cd case, pick a cd, take it out, eject CD from player, take the cd out, throw it on the floor, put in new cd, and press the button to play it. EVERY 5 minutes or so. She’s barely through the cd’s credits before she decides “Taknak Ah-moh (Elmo)/Barney/Berk/Urnie” and then proceeds to change it again. Grrrrrrrrr. Rosak tau semua cd2 with scratches and what-nots and most importantly, headache for me!!!!
4. Learnt lots of new words/animal names/item names, etc etc damn I lost track hahaha. Though I have to admit she is still a bit slow in stringing words together into a sentence. But as long as we can understand her, it’s fine :) Loves catch phrases too, like she can go “Oh my God!” at unexpected times hahaha.
5. Imitates like no one’s business hahaha. Just yesterday, I sneezed in front of her (while closing my mouth with my hands of course). That’s it lah. She copies it and went “Ahhhh-choom!” a gazilion times, complete with head-tilting and hand-covering mouth. Cute, but not so cute after the 100th time hahaha.
6. Sleeps much much much much better now. Dear God pls don’t let me jinx this. Still goes to sleep on our bed under my arms, but will be put on her own bed beside ours after she’s asleep. Sometimes she doesn’t wake up at all till the next morning, sometimes she wakes up at dawn but doesn’t cry anymore. In fact, she’ll just quietly take her pillow, climb over to our bed (and over Daddy’s legs) and nestle herself in the middle of us, grab her ‘pacifier’ and go right back to sleep. Ohhhh blisssss hahahahaha.
7. Talking about sleep, it’s quite evident she’s starting to love sleep just like Mommy and Daddy hahah. Wakes up damn late (usually after 10am), naps damn late too (usually after 4pm only) and if she wakes up really late like almost 12pm, she won’t nap at all. That said, she goes to bed reeeaaaallllyyy late too! Without day nap, I can get her to sleep at about 10 but since she almost always wakes up from her nap at 6-ish pm, will only sleep 11-ish. Tsk tsk. This girl has absolutely NO routine or schedules that kids apparently thrives on.
8. On breastfeeding…………… can I give a long sigh here? Hahaha. Yeap, haven’t succeeded getting her off the boobs just yet. But, some progress was made lah. I do not allow daytime feedings anymore. Whenever she’s cuddling with me and starts to ask for “shoo-shoo” I will immediately get up, fix a 5 or 6 oz of formula milk and get someone else to give it to her. After some time, she seems to have accepted the fact and would even take the bottle from me. So, bottle it is throughout the day. And at night before bed too. She just needs to suckle for a few mins before sleeping. That too, I put a time limit. After some time (and the nips getting really sore) I will force her to let go and ask  (actually force) her to go to sleep on her own by repremanding her whenever she opens her eyes hahaha. (Yes I am garang like that). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Oh well it’s a learning process. I am quite convinced there is close to nothing left in there and it HURTS when she sucks. Feels just like the first time she starts sucking when she was just a baby. Maybe it’s the suction pressure, maybe because it’s empty, maybe it’s all those teeth she has hahaha. Maybe it’s just time, but I’m not forcing her. Let’s just take one day at a time till she’s ready (or I can’t stand it any longer).
9. She’s very much into puzzles now. She has this teddy bear puzzle her grandma got her from yonks ago where u can interchange the head, top and bottom. Well it’s partly my fault coz I didn’t allow her to play with it sooner (can’t stand the mess with all the lil pieces all over the place) but yeah she can pretty much get that thing done now. So, we got her some new animal puzzles (large wooden ones with pegs) and she mastered it straight away. Maybe time for some challenging ones hehe.
10. Still a challenge getting her to eat. I am accepting the fact that we are no longer raising a chubby baby. That time has passed, and she’s leaner now. She picks what she eats, one day she’ll gobble down the bowl of porridge, the next she hardly eats at all and only drinks milk. We had to obey her whims and fancies and try for a different food each day. Pasta, noodles, rice, porridge, etc etc, according to her mood that day. As long as she’s healthy huh.
11. All that said and done.. she’s just plain fun to be with. Loves playgrounds and obstacle courses, loves the outdoors, but at the same time growing into this fun-loving lil lady. Easier to communicate with, but can get very naughty at times too. Has her fair share of accidents (oh yeah she fell down 3 steps on the stairs some time back and got a HUGE bump on her head.. on OUR watch and it got me feeling all shitty haha but yeah all’s ok now, gotta learn to let her fall and learn from her own mistakes).

Now time for pics…

Ok now on Perhentian…. it was a real last-minute decision.. SIL who came back from UK for 3 weeks begged us all to go to the island and the final decision was only made the day before the trip itself! So we went.. all 8 siblings plus moi plus Ayra plus a maid plus FIL but minus MIL who had work commitments. We left KL in 2 cars at 1am Friday (well, technically Saturday) and took the 8 hours drive down to Besut. Ayra was an angel in the sense that she slept the WHOLE way and had to be waken up when we reached the jetty. So she was a happy cat when we were all tired from the journey haha. But it was tiring for me as she slept on my lap the whole way and boy she is so long and takes up so much space! Reached the jetty at 9am, had our breakfast, and took the 40 minutes boat ride to the island. The boat was FAST, no joke about it and I was a bit worried Ayra would be scared. She was stiff the first 5 mins but loosened up later and enjoyed the breeze on her face. Good girl!

When we got there, everyone was super tired and konon wanted to sleep and all, but after lunch we booked a snorkelling trip instead hehehe. Now if any of you paid attention to the blog you would have read somewhere that Ayra was super-duper petrified of the water (sea ke, pond ke, pool ke, alike) but as if by magic, the moment we got to the island, she instantly LOVED the water and couldn’t get enough of it! She was technically wet the whole time we were there hahaha. Initially I wanted to leave Ayra behind with the maid as we go snorkelling but the maid wasn’t being a good sport and wanted to sleep (what?!?!?) instead. Takkan I wanna leave Ayra with a sleeping maid kan? So I decided to back out of the snorkelling to stay with Ayra on the beach, but the kids persuaded me to come along and even asked the boat man if it was ok for Ayra to come too. So come she did, on the boat with us snorkelling. She didn’t mind the wait on the boat at all and had fun feeding the fishes in the sea and dipping in the wide open sea (in Daddy’s arms of course). When she was super tired, she just went right to sleep, wet and sticky with salt water and all in the speeding boat.

After snorkelling, we went and had fun by the beach, in the pool, etc etc. Super duper fun and Ayra got tanned la, of course despite the sunblock I smeared on her. She was soooo much fun throughout the whole trip, never crying at all! Plus point that she gets tired from playing so much that she naps without us forcing her to and she falls asleep much easier at night too! Oh I can go on and on about the Perhentian trip… but I won’t lah. Bottom-line, I think islands are fine for kids. Well Ayra went with us to Phuket when she was merely 10 months old so maybe we’ve gotten her used to it. No need to manjakan kids by worrying how they’ll be on boat rides, or how they’ll get suntanned or anything lah. Sometimes you just have to let loose and let the kid explore things on their own :)

More pics..

We left Perhentian at about 12pm on Monday.. stopped at a few places and reached KL at about 11pm… Long fulfilling weekend!

Hooboy that was a mighty long post! Serves me right for abandoning the blog for so long!

So hopefully I will update more often yeah… take care peeps!

I got tagged by Crash Test Mom

So here goes….

6 (un)important things that make me happy (in random order):

1. Retail therapy i.e. buying new clothes, handbags, make-up. I’m shallow at times :) The guilt that comes after.. well… comes after so let’s not go there.
2. Having an unopened parcel waiting for me at home when I get back from work. Though most times I know exactly what’s inside, it excites me hahahaha.
3. Finding out that someone (anyone) has been asking about me. Or even better, asking for my phone number. A bit blonde-ish, but an instant ego-booster hahaha.
4. Getting all made up, dressed-up, hair in a nice do, ready to face the world. (Obviously this does not happen every day)
5. Ayra giving me random kisses and hugs, without me having to ask her.
6. Hearing a good nostalgic happy song on the radio while driving alone on my way to work in the mornings. Seriously, this can make me smile and even better, get me off on the right foot for the day.

The matter of me not blogging in quite a while has got to wait. Doing this tag IS important to some extent, having reminded me of all the small things in life that makes me happy. Now, it’s back to work :)

Thanks dear.