The Good, The Ugly & The Stress

Try juggling a marriage, a job, a maid & 3 kids?

I think almost everyday I drive to work, my heart pump so fast and I would sweat so much I shoudn't even bother applying any makeup in the 1st place! This is not because I am so excited to go to work, but more so having to deal with either one of my older children's atttude, at the same time making sure they have enough money to bring to their school, the helper have the menu to prepare for the kids...they are having their breakfast, homework done, school books are updated according to schedule, anything to buy on my way from work later that afternoon, anything else that I missed....By the time I get to work, I am so exhausted!!! Oh, I'm late for meeting..have to stay focus but my mind is still at home!

The good thing about having kids:
-They are the love of your life
-They bring so much joy
-They make your life complete
-They are the evidence of true love
-They are the reason you strive so much for money, you want the best for them
-They motivate you to become a better person, to become an example, an idol
-They are part of you

The Ugly:
-When they can't take NO for an answer
-When you old fragile possesion broke, lost, wasted or God knows what else
-When u realized you are loosing your sanity when dealing with their homeworks & excuses
-When silence is a strange word
-When the remote is in their hands
-When your weekend is full of driving the kids around for their swimming lesson, tae kwan do,music class...
-When they favour instant noodles more than any healthy food that you are willing to provide

The Stress:
-Your maid owning a mobile phone (urgh! that endless phone calls!!)
-Your maid start to have Uncles, male cousins around..when you know he's the boyfriend
-Your 6 years old memorize your mobile phone number and would call you 7 times a day just to whine!
-You constantly need to check your 8 years old's homework
-Your husband don't look at you the same way he used to..eh wait, he stop looking actually...
-Measuring your weights and realized it doesn't shift much...!! Damn!
-The passion to do work is lesser each day!

What a life this is!!

Lepak lagi...

Picture taken few months back, similar sentiments then; was having a lazy afternoon with the kids.

It's Thursday night, Jik & Mai just got back from their KUMON. Had dinner with Hakeem & Ayah Hakeem outside. The sup daging was dissappointing, why la susah sangat nak dapat sup yang sedap.

Work show very little progress. I have not been very proactive and early week I am still in my lazy mood - even the 2nd round of black coffee in the office didn't help. Taking it one day at a time, but I think I prolong this long enough. Need to pick up the pace. Just when I am about to start the engine, just realized tomorrow is Friday; THANK GOD! then maybe I jump start my mood next week..hehhehe buleh??

Macam-macamlah Hakeem nie...

Semalam Hakeem moody. Serba tak kena, dan dah pandai tunjuk marah. Kalau dulu dia lepaskan geram, dia melalak tapi mudah di pujuk kalau kita beralah dan ikut kehendak dia. Tapi kali nie dia dah pandai menghentak-hentak kaki di lantai, tak makan pujuk. Tak sudah takat tu…dia akan campak apa-apa aje yang dapat dia pegang (nasib baik la ibunya tak letak pasu bunga merata-rata dan tak punya mangkok kristal!) Payah pula nak pujuk buntat ibu kali nie. Penat kita menahan sabar dan cuba menenangkan dia. Umur belum pun cecah 2 tahun, tapi dah pandai menduga kesabaran kita. Kadang-kadang tu, tergelak juga kita melihat karenah dia mengajuk kita pabila dia memarahi abang & kakaknya; dengan jari menunjuk-nunjuk ke muka mereka sambile menjerit ”iam! Arah ni!) (diam! Tengah marah ni!) Cute le sangat! Tapi tak boleh dibiarkan, kalau kita gelakkan nanti dia ingat kita OK kan aje perlakuannya. Tapi bila kita menegur ”keem…tak baik marah abang jik. Kenapa garang sangat ni?”…habis kita pulak yang disuruhnya diam! Lak gitu?

Seronok hidup nie bila ada Hakeem (bukannya kami kurang seronok sebelum dia). Cuma memang tak expect dengan adanya tambahan yang tak diduga, hidup kami sekeluarga bertambah ceria.
Ayah Hakeem memula tu terkejut beruk bila kita sedar ada kemungkinan yang kita nie mungkin mengandung lagi. Masa tu period dah lewat seminggu. Walaupun rasa tak percaya, jauh di sudut hati memang excited teramat kerana tak sangka nak tambah zuriat lagi…Nie gara-gara kerap tengok rancagan ASTRO family & health tu la. Everytime kisah orang bersalin, dapat baby…hati berdetik ”what if…we try again” Since Maira dah nak masuk 4 tahun. Ayah Hakeem geleng kepala…”alah..kita kan OK..anak sepasang, one boy one girl. Nak travel senang, nak pegi holiday dah ringkas. No more pampers, no more sleepless nights (macam la ayah Hakeem bangun lewat malam buat susu anak & tukar diapers?)” So setiap kali kita bergurau pasal baby, dia buat tak layan. Alamat malam tu dia tak tido sebelah..hehehe takut kena kacau! Bila sah dapat tahu memang kita expecting, 2 minggu ayah Hakeem jadi moody (mungkin kebetulan banyak kijer masa tuuuuu kot) tapi dia macam gitu-gitu aje dengan kita. Tak macam time Hazrik dulu, dapat tahu kami berpeluk sambil melompat-lompat macam budak sekolah dapat pensil color baru. Time Maira kami siap jemaah sujud syukur kerana masa tu memang kami mencuba nak dapat baby. Bila nie pulak, ayah Hakeem suruh kita test lagi untuk pastikan. Memula tu rasa tak seronok kerana dia macam kurang seronok. Tapi lelama kita diamkan aje, pasal dalam hati masa tu Tuhan saje yang tahu betapa gembiranya hati rasa macam nak meletup…so lantaklah dia nak happy ke tidak. Kita call ibu malam tu jugak…alhamdulillah kata ibu, bertambah cucu dia. Ayah Hakeem? Dia finally buat announcement dalam email kepada adik-beradik dia..tu pun nak masuk 2 minggu lepas confirm kita pregnant.
Jadi nak taknak bila dah confirm pregnant ayah Hakeem tunjuk jugak le support walaupun tak beriya macam yang pertama sekali, tapi sekurang-kurangnya dia masih urut belakang kita malam-malam bila kita complain sakit pinggang. Kadang kala, perhatian dia agak kurang pada kita, jadi time tu la…meluap-luap rasa sedey; sensitip le gamaknyeee…Tapi takpe…
Pengalaman berbeza-beza. Time mengandungkan Hakeem kita complain memanjang pasal sakit pinggang la, tak dapat tido la…selera kureng, stretch mark menjadi-jadi..macam-macam. Pemutusnya bila sampai waktu cukup tempoh, kita tak tunggu sampai sakit. Cukup aje waktu, kita tentukan bila nak bersalin. Bersalin secara normal di sebuah klinik Shah Alam, ayah Hakeem ada masa tu. Tapi kami dah bincang awal, bila betul-betul baby nak keluar dia pun nak keluar bilik bersalin tu pasal dia kata dia tak tahan tengok kita sakit. Dia kata macam nak pitam..hehehee…macho sungguh :P. Tapi ntah macam mana ntah, pasal bilik tu sempit sikit dia tak dapat laluan nak keluar (yang doktor tu pulak dok hadang jalan dia). Bila dia cuba nak excuse kan diri, doktor tu siap tanya ”You nak ke mana???” heheheh terus tak jadi..might as well dongak atas siling pegang tangan kita, tahan ajelah..
Sakit tak lama, kurang 5 jam Hakeem selamat keluar. Macam nak mati rasanya, dengan tak guna drug or even epidural…kita menahan sakit. Kalau dok piki2-pikirkan lah…boleh masih terasa lagi perasaan masa tu.
Hakeem nampak bulat (Ya Allah! Macam mana lah baby sebesar tu boleh keluar dari tempat yang sekecil nie?? Hehehhehe) Alhamdulillah sihat & sempurna. Macam tak percaya bila masa time tu jugak doktor letak dia atas dada, dengan berdarah-darah & ada benda-benda putih melekat-lekat kat muka dia eeee…..kita terus cium dia. Sakit tu terus rasa hilang…macam tak pernah wujud. Ayah Hakeem tergamam, sampai doktor kena teriak kat dia minta dia guntingkan pusat. Senyap-senyap dia sapu air mata dia…dok cium baby Hakeem yang masih terpinga-pinga lepas puas melalak tadi. Diam tak diam, kita tahu, dia dah jatuh cinta kat baby Hakeem.
Sekarang, Hakeem la pengarang jantung kami sekeluarga, buat kami gelak dengan keletahnya yang ntah apa-apa! Ayah Hakeem terlebihlah over dia dengan Hakeem nie..mungkin dah ada experience, Hakeem lebih dipegang & dibelai. Kalau masa Hazrik & Maira, dia tunggu sampai dah lebih 6 bulan baru berani..katanya terlalu kecil dan halus..laaaa....
Siapa sangka kan sesuatu yang tak dijangka boleh jadi pelengkap yang kami perlukan selama nie…

Lepas ni, apa lagi Hakeem?

The hands & the legs

Middle child syndrome

Middle child syndrome is a coomon symptom felt by a child that is born in between two or more siblings. Common feelings such as feeling neglected, unloved, left out, easily forgotten and unfair treatment are some common sentiment felt by this child. I am a middle child in my family; born in between an elder sister by a year and a younger brother of 5 years. So you can see, I've always felt neglected by the fact that I wasn'st special enough as compared to my eldest smart sister (now a proud MD in a local hospital) and a younger brother which happened to be the only son that my father long to have. So through out my teenage life, I was deviant, most of the time against my parents' approval and mostly got my dad's attention for being the difficult one!

This is not about me, but I started to identify the same reactions & response I get from my only 6 years old daughter. She constantly envy her elder brother if I pay slightly more attention to him and certainly become agitated if I occupied my time with her little brother. She constantly repeat the same thing over & over again..of how much I don't care about her, I love the brothers more than I love her...I spend more time with her baby brother...I am nice to the elder brother..the whinning never stops when ever she felt...neglected.

Recognizing these symptoms, I have tried my very best to overcome this. I constantly give her the assurance that the feelings she has, was merely an outburst of bias feelings and it is a way of her to "get even" to me by saying things that would hurt me. I told her I love her and how special she is to me, since she's the ONLY girl I have. That we would be the best of friend when she's all grown up since by then we could share a lot of things and do a lot of things together. I told her this all the time. Sometime I get frustrated with the constant accusation and I cannot help feeling annoyed by her silly tantrum. Few times I lost my composure and I end up walking away feeling defeated. I know my behaviour would not make her feelings any better...to the very least I do recognize her insecurity and I realized that I need to acknowledge it.
So after a while, after I have cooled off, I would walk to her again...while she whimpering at a corner feeling all drain with sadness and unloved. I would sat across her, and put my hands onto hers; look into her eyes.."I am sorry you feel this way. I am truly sorry that what ever I say or do, I couldn't make you feel otherwise. I know you are feeling left out. But there is no way I feel less love for you despite of me spending my time with your brothers. I never in any way ever said I dont' love you or I never care about you at all..and you know that." By then she starts to nod and say how sorry she was for being difficult. She knows by then that what ever the feelings she had was not true...By then I realized that perhaps it's not the reassurance that she need but simply a feeling that I did not give up on her.

We hug and we kiss and we hold hands while walking to the kitchen to get ourselves a bowl of ice-cream. So today, I won the battle...and I know that it will not be our last fight. There will be more to come..sigh. But at least for now after a bowl of ice-cream, I'm just glad she is smiling again. Well at least for now..

Blogging away

It's been a while since I last blog..Now, since I miss it so much, I start to think "heck, why not!" It would be a superb thing to get connected with my friends again. At least now they would be able to know what's my latest update & what's going on with me (if they're interested).



My blogging journey started as in 1997 when back then when I was working in a research unit in a telco company. Looking back as some of my old post, some made me smile, some are utter rubbish, few reminded me of my sad moment...It was safe yet it validate how I feel then.



Recently I viewed some of the blogs of strangers, some are pretty interesting. I realized the pattern. People blog about things that they know best or they love best. Most woman (not all)tend to blog about their kids & how much they love their "hubbies". Most men, I reckon blog about their passion - gadgets, cars, hobbies, travel...movies blah blah blah...didn't come across on those who blog about their woman; hemm...I wonder why? Is it because I didn't come across on one? Or it is a very rare concept for man?? Other than that, blog is for them to advertise their business, that's a good start!



One blog intrigue me. She blog just about anything under the sun that revolves around her. Which is fine not until the blog started to used extremely harsh words...cursing a certain individual that she obviously despise so much. Obviously, we can easily see this person used to have history with her and now they don't but she ramained bitter even though she now claimed to be extremely happy with her life. Well, I don't intend to talk about her here (wouldn't want her to start cursing me openly in my space, is she realized that she's the topic in my post). But I realized that sometime, we can get carried away with our writing. She's not the only case here. One blogger, that I don't personally know complain about her daily mishap, fight with the husband, his shortfall, his laziness blah blah blah...Then a different blogger complain about her idiotic co-worker; apparently they are not as smart as he/she is (OK won't identify gender here)...True enough, blogging is a platform to express you inner thoughts & feelings. But I don't know about this man; especially when you use this format to document those feelings and announce it to the world. Even worst, the word you choose in you post don't quite reflect the kind of person you are publicly..errr....for example you appear to be this shy, humble, soft spoken person but cursed and openly condemn a person you know in your blog. Hemm...that doesn't jive does it?

Am I being true to my thoughts and do I believe in my writing? Hell yeah! But I do hope I don't offend anyone, it's just me blogging away...