Over Cendol.....

Am I back with a vengeance blogging? I really don't know...I have been putting off blogging as I need to do some housekeeping for this blog of mine...Currently it is really misleading and tweaking it is so time-consuming. Let's see whether I can keep the momentum going, time-permitting.

I have 3 hours to kill while waiting for Khadijah sit for her MARA entrance exam at a quaint little place in Seremban...Haji Sharif Cendol. This could be the cendol near Sembilan Supermarket which we frequented almost every Saturday during school term sold from a mobile stall with the ice manually shaven. I'm devouring my second bowl now! The cocunut milk is not too creamy and the coconut palm sugar syrup is sweet enough and no after taste for the cendol bits. This place is running on a full house even though it is only half three in the afternoon. I'm sharing the table with a couple from Hongkong! Everybody seems to be having a version of Haji Sharif's cendol and mee rojak! My bb is acting up hence no pics can be uploaded now.

I have just been told that Haji Sharif used to operate from a mobile stall near A&W/Telekom...and not near Sembilan Supermarket.

Three paragraphs is good after a three-month-hiatus? I think so too.

Sweet 15

Khadijah turned 15 today. We had a small celebration last night after her iftar. We ordered pizzas and wifey baked her a carrot cake...

My only advice to you dearest sweetie.....always remember Allah in whatever you do and insya Allah everything will be just fine and taken care of for you!

And...don't grow too fast, dear baby!

More art...

I like this; so whimsical. Is it the naive style? Not sure myself.

Got Khadijah an easel, acrylic paints and three sets of mounted canvas last Saturday. Lucky for me there are a few art supplies shops in Taman Melawati which are barely five minutes' away. There is an art institute there hence the many art supplies shops.

She hardly wasted her time to start a piece - of wifey and Hajar but still unfinished. Now I understand why good art pieces cost a bomb! Artistic people just do not bow down to pressure. They take their time to be in sync with their creative juices, don't they?

Charcoal on paper

I turned 41 less than a minute ago...It was just a not-so-quiet dinner at Thaba with my family, my parents, sister and hubby and nephews and niece - cake with candles included. Looking forward to lunch with wifey later today...

In the mean time enjoy Khadijah's pieces!

Khadijah's art adventure

Khadijah was running an art-marathon a few days ago finishing her school art folio. This girl has got talent but refuses to admit it. Saw her charcoal landscape sketch last night and I thought it was good. She had annotated colour schemes on the sketch. I think she's going to transfer the idea somewhere else. True enough, she's asked me to buy readily-mounted-canvas and acrylic paint this weekend. But still she's not disclosing what the big "project" is. I have thought about sending her for serious art lessons but don't know where lah (NJ - any idea?).

Khadijah's piece

Only Ibraheem and Umar have finished their mid year exam. Yusof will finish on Monday and Khadijah on Wednesday. As usual, no pre-exam study is needed for them save for Khadijah who knows of her responsibility.

Ne concrete plans for school hols. Khadijah does not want to follow us if we decide to go on a trip. She'll be with my sister, I suppose! What they have asked is if they can go back to Ayer Baloi. Mmm...how considerate - that will not hurt my pocket!

Kids Updates

The Opening Ceremony

Yusof and Ibraheem were super excited the weekend before last...It was their school's annual sports day. I certainly wish that they are super-keen in other areas, in particular their studies, as they are in sports....(..sigh...)

Anyway, they were supposed to be in Kompleks Sukan MSN Bukit Jalil by 7am and were making arrangement with us the afternoon before! Super-organised, don't you think? Too bad it was fated that Khadijah had to be in her school by 7 a.m. the same morning which meant that we had to push our departure to Bukit Jalil much later as we did not want to just leave Khadijah too early....

And the pandemonium erupted!

Yusof and Ibraheem were making a big fuss all the way to Bukit Jalil complaining that they were late and that they would be disqualified if they were tardy! The din became unbearable the minute we stopped at a petrol kiosk to make our food purchase ("This is a not a picnic, dad... it's a sports day"; "You can always buy food at the sports complex"; la di da di da di da). I wished that I had brought my ear plugs along, then....Anyway, they were a bit relieved when throngs of cars were arriving at the same time as we did! It was 7.30 am...and the march past was scheduled to start at 8 but in the end it started 15 mins later.

Yusof won a few medals (5 if I'm not mistaken....). We were excited to see him as one of the key persons in the "war-cry"! My...he really has grown! Ib was busy stalking his favourite Ustaz...And kept asking whether it was Zuhr already (his favourite question all the time!). We enjoyed every minute of it despite having to bask in the hot sun - well it was the morning sun after all and we had enough Vitamin D supply the whole year!

Khadijah was ecstatic last week...She had made it to her school english debate team. She has been selected to be the main speaker despite being the youngest in the team..I felt a bit nostalgic....re-living 1985!! And I'm supposed to send her for a brain-storming session the day after...

Hajar has been quite a handful. She can climb, play with her abang-abang, etc....She's quite an eater....She just cannot hear any sound from the kitchen.....be it the cling of a pot or the sound of water.She'd grab her melamine plate or mug and put on a puppy face asking for food or drink! Making a mental note to video-record this!

Umar has been so whiny....and clingy.....(you'll know why soon). He's making good progress in school and is in to drawing all sorts!

Khandak House (Yusof)

Uhud House(Ib)

Yusof, the final leg (200m)

Yusof towards finishing line (4 by 100m)

Ib getting ready to make the dash

Ib in his telematch

Yusof with his 2nd placing in 200m

And....a minion hath spoken....

Owh man..Indeed I was surprised that Khadijah has spoken her mind. Well she has been an Al-Gore and Caprio's advocate/supporter all this while (Umar, dont open the fridge tool long - CFC! CFC! CFC!; Turn of the lights, mind you.....we can't afford to waste energy; etc etc....)but to finally have written something about it (read here) has truly left me reeling with pride.

Ever since her English teacher commented that she has a knack for writing, she started another blog attempting to write in Bahasa....A worthy attempt- I can't write like that (so he says enviously)!

Blogging mid-week is something new to me....aaah...freedom!

Photographer in the making?

(one of her self-portraits)

Readers of my blog from day one would already know that my daughter Khadijah aspires to be a professional photographer.

Well, she received an email from an established publisher based in the tiny red dot country down south yesterday exploring the possibility for them to use one of her images from her flickr account (not for gratis by the way - they wanted to know her editorial rates bla bla bla) for next month's edition of an in-flight magazine of an airline based in that country who made the first Airbus A380 commercial flight last year! She was jumping up and down, naturally (dad wanted to join in but had to retain his composure....But joined in eventually!).

The downside of it was, they wanted a reply on the day they sent her the email which was the 7th! Dad and Mom has this policy of no internet access for the kids during weekdays and limited access during weekends of school term and public holidays! She actually missed the boat of what was supposed to be an embellishment to her curriculum vitae! Well.....I was visibly more disappointed than she was....But hey....there will be loads of other opportunities for whom who seek!

Well done Ib

School : Assalamu'alaikum.

DoF: Wa'alaikumsalam

School: Is this Ibraheem's Dad?

DoF : Yes ...

School : Just to inform you that Ibraheem is eligible to be admitted to Primary One. In fact he did extremely well considering that he didn't go to our kindie.

DoF : (stumped but smiled from ear to ear...). Owh...

School : Don't forget to come to the book-sale from 10th to 13th December!

That's the teleconversation before lunch today. Mmm..I was stumped as I really thought that admission to Primary One is a matter of right and that the entrance exam the other day was for streaming purposes. Don't tell me that kids who are not up to the mark would be sent to K1? Anyway, I once used to be the super kiasu dad - but only with Khadijah....Even for her entrance exam to Ib's school's predecessor, I bought tonnes of work books (this school uses Singapore syllabus for Maths Science and English) and drilled her for almost two weeks... I got to a point where my blood pressure would shoot up weeks before exams...! She would cry everytime I drilled her for her exams and of course the results came out with briliant colours. I then came to realise that it's all a process and that forceing and drilling are creativity-inhibitors.

Came Yusof's turn, I had to learn to be more relaxed and let the joy of learning to come naturally..Ib didn't have to go through worksheets with me before the exam and I just threw him into the deep end! Some parents may disagree..but that's us.

Well done Ib....We are so proud of you.

Hodgepodge

Ib was hilarious this morning - I was flummoxed and lost for words!

Whilst bathing Hajar this morning, Ib hugged me from behind and the ensuing conversation went on something like this:-

Ib : Dad, why do you have grey hairs?

Dad : Mmm...I suppose I'm old already.

Ib : Old people can have babies? (in a perplexed and naive tone)

Dad : (laughed......). Of course!

We attended Ib's school concert last wednesday night. He was one of the main characters, Atuk (Grandpa) throughout the show with the theme "Our Heritage" which touched, inter alia, the issues of global warming, 3Rs (recycling, reuse and reduce), etc. Scheduled to be held last Sunday, it had to be postponed because the venue was affected with closure of roads in Kuala Lumpur by the police.

During the second scene he forgot some of his lines and had to be prompted by his teacher. In the third scene, he had us all laughing - yes he forgot his lines again but he took off his songkok
and out came his script. Yes he read his lines from the script!

And he graduated from his kindie that evening too receiving a scroll...Primary One next year and he's looking forward to it!

I love this pic taken by Khadijah. It's a self portrait and she definitely has improved in her style of taking pics. And now to enrol her in a proper photography class......

Khadijah surprised us yesterday...She actually made a bag from scratch (see pic above). Her sewing is not bad at all for a first timer. And....she got two orders from her flickr friends. She was inspired by RANtAI Art event which is taking place between 12 to 16th December (read here for details) that she has planned with her friend Aisha to create the brand name "Aku-Streka" for hand-painted t-shirts and has expressed her wish to participate in next year's RANtAI art event...Now she has expanded her merchandise by creating the bags...Keep it up girl!

Dilemma

Hi All....I've been busy...."maidless", "tonnes of workload in my practice (certainly good news)", "b-i-l's wedding", "Khadijah's DELF A2 exam" etc etc....

Just a quick one now...!

The email:-

"Can I please please PLEASEEE go with my friends only?sigh. Please say yes. anything, go here

Oh and do spread word to everyone :)

And HAJAR is fineee..."

The sender :-

Khadijah, my daughter the budding photo-journalist.

The event:-





Well I think I should tag along or at least send a chaperone....OR get her electronically tagged and trace here using GPRS service. Yes it's an extremely dangerous and uncertain world out there! And Hujan (the band) who sings one of my current fave songs, "Pagi Yang Gelap" (please listen here) will be there..!!!


Hmm....sorry you have to find out from here Khadijah...

Went shopping

Day 8 piccie

Took the day off today to buy Eid clothes for my older ones, Khadijah & Yusof. We've learnt our lesson really well. We don't normally bring our kids for clothes-shopping.....The hassle of making sure that everyone doesn't go astray is the main reason! But this year I decided to let the two older ones choose their garbs since half of the lot we bought last year for them never got to see the sunlight! Luckily Khadijah has no school today since PMR is on. Yusof skipped school....Hush hush!

Went to One Utama, The Curve and Ikano. We started at 11.30am and finished close to 3pm. I would have love to be done with earlier but Yusof was the fickle one! Surprise surprise!

I'm so glad that Eid shopping is almost over.......

You mean there's more to come?

My daughter turns 13 today......"Happy Birthday my not-so-little baby!". But look at her birthday wish list here.... Wifey and I decided to let her organize a small do with her close friends at *bucks (her fave coffee joint - she takes after wifey when it comes to coffee! LOL!)today as her birthday gift...(dad & mum will be watching and supervising nearby though!).

I kind of miss those days when our conversations went on like:-

"Dad can I have the barbie which twirls and sings?"
"Can you piggy-back me please?"
"I want to hold your hands so that I won't get lost"
"What do you think? xyz or abc?
"Yes, dad"
"I promise dad"
"Will you read for me?"
"Don't tickle me"

Get the idea?

Raising a teenage girl can be a bit daunting but manageable (we are still hanging on and toughing it out AND the best thing is that there is so much to learn! Enjoying every minute of it!).

This is the age when the opposite sex just surfaced in her life out of the blue and peer pressure sets in. We had a very scary roller coaster ride a couple of months ago but thanks to Allah, it's all pink and rosy now. But that's not the end of it is it?

Wifey and I have this attitude now...."take one day at a time" and "smell the roses along the way". After all, parenting is a life long journey!

Bakin' muffins....

House elves with their reward

Bought stuff for Khadijah's blueberry muffins....After performing maghrib prayers...Khadijah was pestering to start the baking session...At least she took the initiative to kick-off the session...Ib the house elf was more enthusiastic. Took out the eggs from the fridge and ladle from the drawer etc etc....Frankly, I was a bit claustrophobic with all of them in our small kitchen...But it was fun nonetheless.

The muffin pre-mix did not come with step by step instructions. We had to guess what to put in first...My idea was to put the pre-mix in the mixing bowl and gradually stir the eggs, vegetable oil and water after making sure the pre-mix wasn't lumpy..Since we were too lazy to sieve. Much to our surprise, wifey thought otherwise and of course being our kitchen guardian, we followed her method..i.e. mix the egg with the oil and water later and pour the pre-mix slowly.

Mm....like I guessed, the muffin batter became all lumpy...and extra work for Khadijah.....Luckily we have hand held electric mixer...It was done in a jiffy!

Erk...we only managed to bake 25 muffins rather than 40 as told by the shop assistant! The house-elves had fun...

Read Khadijah's entry on Canteen Day here.

Canteen Day

Khadijah reminded me since last week that tomorrow is her canteen day. Is canteen day a new phenomenon? I cannot remember ever having canteen day during my primary and secondary school days. I think Canteen Day is only peculiar to Malaysia just like school fetes in England.

Well, Khadijah dropped the bomb yesterday ---- she has to bring something to school tomorrow to sell...So have to knock off early from work today and buy stuff for her muffins (this was decided this morning whilst driving her to her tuition class). It's the easiest to do. To buy ready made ones will be cheating, ain't it?

Aaah...the joy of being parents!

Name tag

So you thought that it's the "name tags" that civil servants are made to adorn on their tops every day! Nah.....

I have been tagged by a blogger whom I had recently added to my blogroll, D re my children's names!!!

Here's the detail of the TAG:-

PROPOSITION : What is the meaning of your kid'(s) name(s)?

REQUIREMENTS : Write about what or how or why you gave the name(s) to your kid(s).

QUANTITY: 5 people

TAG MODE: Firstly you leave their blog and post link and add to the list below and secondly you let the blogger you want to tag know that he/she has been tagged by commenting in his/her blog or etc

To tell you the truth, wifey and I never had any problems nor arguments in choosing our kids' names...We never toiled the night flipping through baby names books or discussing various names etc. The names we chose were the names which came across our minds and that's it! Call it telepathy....but that's basically it!

Here goes D!!!

Child No 1- Siti Khadijah

Named after Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) first wife

Child No. 2 - Muhammad Yusof

Named after one of the Prophets.

Child No 3 - Siti Kauthar (allahyarhamah/deceased)

Meaning - "abundance of bliss"

It is a name of one of the wells in heaven. This is the reason why we chose this name. It was a short one month that God "lent" us Siti Kauthar.... (born 9.8.99 and departed 9.9.99 Al fatihah!)It's all fated and we accept it! God knows best!!! Well she's there now in heaven waiting for us! :)

Child No. 4 - Muhammad Ibraheem

Named after one of the Prophets who rebuilt Kaa'bah

Child No. 5 - Muhammad Umar

Meaning - "prospering, thriving"

Named after one of the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who was the second Caliph.

Child No. 6 - S*** ****r (if a girl)/**k****r (if a boy)

***wait and see lor!!!***

msau the meaning of SQ and Kiki

shopping mum the meaning of Justin and Isabelle

Judy Chow Terry

Shannon Rachel

Samm Gordon and Malcolm

Sasha lil J

Mott 2 Monkeys

Fatty Poh's Fatty Boy

Kd NAMI & MIMI

D Abg Z Abg H Princess & Litle D

DadofFour Siti Khadijah, Muhammad Yusof, Siti Kauthar, Muhammad Ibraheem and Muhammad Umar

Now, who shall I tag? Her goes...

MinahCeloteh

Superwoman

Halwafy

Thushara

Minah Songeh

Ampang Daily Photo Blog

I'm sure by now you guys know that my daughter, Khadijah has two blogs (look at the right panel under MY HAUNTS) and one of them is a community blog which she joined after wifey and I encouraged her to do so. One of her interests is photography, so it's a natural progression and logical that she did so.

Just before her exam commenced she received a comment from a Melbourne University journalism student, who happens to be a Malaysian, doing an article on photobloggers and DailyCityPhoto community and wanted to interview her for the fact that she's the youngest photoblogger in her community. I actually read this first and, naturally, got a little bit excited over this and told her to reply, after making some checks, to say that she's interested in the interview through emails but only after she'd finished her mid-year. Ans so she replied last night and asked her to cc a copy to me....Her goes the email to Al****:-

"Hello Al****,

Heheh you should also try visting Malaysia Daily Photo [http://malaysiadailyphoto.blogspot.com]. The blogger is new to the community. ;)

Yes I'm the youngest but I'm sure there are more students younger than me who would want to try posting on their city. I feel very delighted and happy to be able to show Ampang through my eyes.

I found out the Daily City Daily Photo Blog community when my father showed me Kuala Lumpur Daily Photo. That was the first Daily Photo Blog site I saw, and from there I started browsing other Daily Photo Blogs. I started Ampang DailyPhoto this year on March the 21st, so I'm still quite a newbie in the community but the newest member is the Malaysia Daily Photo as I've mentioned before.

At first, it was rather hard to post a picture everyday. But after a few months I got used to it and now it's like a hobby after a day at school.

I started photography last year when my dad bought me my first digital camera. What attracts me about photography is that it helps me to wind down after a very tired day at school and photography als helps me to see things from a different point of view.

In my opinion it has helped me to be more responsible to post everyday to show what's going on here in Ampang. I think it has made me learn about other countries around the world and can imrove my Geography better. I sometimes feel nervous when I know that other people around the world view my pictures. I feel worried about the quality of the pictures if the picture is good enough but at the same time I feel happy because I get to share my city to everyone. I think it has changed the way I think a bit. It has made me think more mature than how I used to think.

I guess that's about it; just drop me another e-mail because I know I did this kinda badly.

Have a nice day!"

She's been asking for a dSLR to bring her to the next level.....We'll see how she performs in her exams this year. So far -has been very encouraging! There goes RM3k end of this year...LOL. But the deal is to share the dSLR with me!

Ah well....it's wifey's and my education philosophy to bring up our kids well-rounded. Well, isn't that most parents' philosophy? As schooling in Malaysia is academically-focussed...we have to really crack our head to think on how not to bring up our kids as stereotypes and not kill the right brain of our children in the process.

I used to, long ago, have this idea that my kids must live my dreams......I found out soon enough that it always backfired. It's now suggesting to them what they might be interested in and give them our fullest support once they have made the decision.....I had made a mistake a few years back asking Khadijah to take up flute....and excitedly I bought her one....A year later she dropped out - her reason was she was not comfortable with a male instructor....And trying to find a female flutist was sooo difficult. There was one lady flutist from the MPO but she was very busy and hence explains a grand worth of investment is lying somewhere in her room idly...But she'd play for me occasionally. She's picked up the piano instead now.....And that is her choice!

A "fight" most welcome

My kids "fight" all the time.....for the wrong and most trivial reasons most of the time. There are a lot of times, though, differences are encouraged in my household!

Don't you love being a mediator? OR do you put on the despotic hat and slam down your feet? As for me, it would depend on the situation. Where there is no two ways about it....it's the latter for me.

It was a different kind of "fight" this morning on the way sending Yusof to school and Khadijah for her maths tuition. It was over Surah Al Inshiqaq....Yusof is currently memorising the surah and was reciting in the car when Khadijah thought he recited one ayat wrongly and hence the fight as both thought they were right....It continued for a good 5 minutes..and I had to be a bystander because I couldn't mediate as...regrettably I don't memorise the surah..How embarassing!

Luckily I had the assistance of Sheikh Abdul Rahman Aziz As Sudays, the leading Imam of Masjidil Haram (of whom I had the opportunity of shaking hand with in the year 2000 in Mekkah), in the form of his CD.

In the end....Yusof was right! The five minutes of tongue lashing and animated debate was a welcome change for me!