Happy Second Birthday Amira

masyaAllah...time really flies. seems just like yesterday when i was all in denial, and going through the motion of the 9 months check ups, and planning around all sorts of school events, and of course, the delivery and the back to square one and the nightly feeds and the firsts. and now...she's two.

amira...my sunshine, my screaming partner, my pot-pet friend, my little coach potato, and mini me, whether i like it or not...is two. two lovely years watching this little on grow up right in front of my eyes, planning her daily activities - which is basically just eat, sleep and run around the house - watching her develop and develop further, watching her move from frozen to peppa pig to moana to dora and now to baby shark.

she is such a joy. she's the little baby sister to her abangs and she's the big kakak to amani. she runs and jumps and counts and play lego and sings and carries pinky pie and elmo and scribbles and then she screams and cries and stomps her feet and falls down for a nap before starting her run-jump-count-play lego-sing part II.

amira is so on schedule. she wakes up at the same time everyday, does the same thing when she wakes up, eats breakfast at the same time, waits for the van with abangbee at the same time, waves bye bye and makes a sad face as the van drives off everyday, plays with abang long everyday, naps at the same time everyday and ends her day falling asleep at the same time every single day.

she's now eating a whole range of food, she not a fussy eater at all. she's talking a whole lot, sings like a broken record, picks up new words and new tunes (she's even singing the lite fm jingle in the car), dances to many songs, and loves jumping up and down in soapy (muddy) puddles after her bath.

amira's stopped taking formula and bottle. she's been off milk for almost a month. but she shows a bit of jealousy when amani's takes her afternoon bottle. she's pretty ok with morning and early evening and even nighttime feeds but that afternoon naptime feed, she gets a bit moody seeing amani getting her bottle and she doesnt get any. sometimes she quietly takes amani's bottle after she is done with her feed but just hold on to the bottle, not doing anything else.

amira's talking about school. she says she wants to go to school. i would love for her to join a playgroup but at the same time i'd miss her so so much, so i guess it can wait a bit. i'd like to take my time and survey schools and choose a good one as amani will soon follow suit and i'm not one to change halfway through. now she insists on bringing her lunchbox everytime we send asyraf & ariff to school every afternoon, just to have the feel of going to school.

amira's cake this year (baked by the wonderful juzcakes baker) has a picture of moana and maui. she's very into moana at the moment, and it kinda suits the daddy & daughter birthday combo. we didnt have time to grab her a birthday present but she got a lego set from pappy and she's super happy with it.

Happy Tenth Ariff

it was ten years ago when i was admitted for probably my easiest delivery out of six. pre-delivery wasnt that easy. i actually felt contraction, as in labour contraction and not the pain-nice contraction, for the first time. at 8am, i went to the hospital all pale and in super duper pain and was not at all skipping with joy. but that only lasted over 3 hours because we welcomed ariff before midday.

over the years ariff's been triggering a lot of emotions in us. calm and cool initially, that we could still focus on our emotional asyraf but then he turned into a force to be reckon with. a talkative, tearful, screamer, hitter, whiner (and he has not stopped whining!!) boy.

ariff was a difficult student. its like a cycle with him. he refuses to learn and he's find school difficult, yet he will find school difficult if he refuses to learn. he had a difficult first three years in school, he was constantly bringing home red marks, particularly for maths and science. and not surprising, when he entered year 4, and class streaming commenced, he was in the second last class. it was sad to see but it turned out to be the best thing that happened to him in school. he suddenly brought home his first As for core subjects and alhamdulillah, he ended the school year much, much better and was able to jump up 2 classes. he's not so excited for school and is so motivated to do better.

having said that, ariff's been getting a few prizes at his agama school, particularly in the activities they have during school celebration.

at home, ariff's been super helpful. he sets the table, prepares amani's susu stuff for the night, prepares everyone's water tumbler, he would make up everyone's bed if they all slept in his room, he would bring up the laundry basket & sort everyone's clothes, he would help me get amira ready or at least bring down her pajamas every night.

the downside of ariff is his lack of interest outside of planes and cars. he doesnt like sports, he doesnt like outdoor activities, he's not showing any interest in musical instruments, he doesnt like to be on stage, so his extra curriculur does not shine at all. he tried out archery but that didnt last long but now he has mentioned that he would like to take up swimming. let's see how that turns out.

ariff's also has an interest in cooking or at least would like to know what i'm doing when i'm cooking. my dream is for him to take up a culinary course and see where that would take him. but that's a long way away yet, so we're not setting anything in stone.

happy tenth abadik, you're a big boy now :)

Akmal Turns 8

of all the boys, this one still gets overly excited about his birthday. he still does a small little countdown and bugs me for a party and spends weeks deciding on a theme and makes a list of venue for his birthday dinner. i forget he's only 8 sometimes.

akmal had an early birthday celebration in damansara with his uncle the week before his birthday. their birthdays are 4 days apart and we usually have on makan session for both of them - either in damansara or outside at a restaurant.

this year it was for akmal, my brother and syahmi (asyraf's friend and jpl teammate) who followed us to damansara. his birthday falls on the same day as akmal's.

this year, because his birthday falls on a friday, i gave in to his request for a little cake cutting in school. only because its a friday and friday is a short school day. so his countdown begins a month before - countdown to his birthday, countdown a cake with his friends, countdown to his ever-favourite birthday theme - thomas!

preparation for akmal's cake-cutting is pretty easy. for cake, i called salwa from juzcakes, who has made so many of the boys' and amira's cakes. and for favours, i called cuda who has made so many favours and printing and everything else for the boys parties.

the cake and favours were delivered on thursday, the day before the actual day, in time for asyraf to help me assemble them.

amir helped me take the thomas cake to school, after sending asyraf and ariff to agama school, on the day of akmal's birthday. we had to suffer the year 1 asking whose cake it was for 30 minutes before akmal's class finally came down to the canteen.

needless to say, his classmates were excited seeing the cake and the favours and the mini milo pack and could not wait for their teacher to come to join in the birthday-song-singing and cake-cutting.

this little girl had a little too much fun in abangbee's school, though...

the next day we had our own family birthday lunch at our favourite chili's.

akmal's really a wonderful boy. he listens, he's helpful, he's funny and bubbly, he's still a baby but is showing some maturity, he gets moody and angry and can be a handul at times, but he gets out of that quickly and gets back to his funny and bubbly baby-self in no time.