All Things Anakin

"Mummy, when you and Daddy got married, did you kiss?" Umar asked.

"Yess" I answered somewhat hesitantly somewhat dreading the next question this was going to lead up to.

"Did you and Daddy kiss on the lips?" Umar continued with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes.

"Nooo" I answered in hope that the questions would stop there and knowing in truth I would not be able to answer further questions had I told him yes, I did kiss his daddy on the lips.

"But Anakin Skywalker kissed on the lips when he got married!" He went on astonished at the fact that his parents were not like Anakin.

"But that's just in the movies..." I poorly attempted to pacify him.

Umar's disappointment was obvious, followed by his scrunched up face.

"Why did you not invite me?" Umar asked in a serious manner.

"Invite you to what?" I asked genuinely surprised...then it hit me "Invite you to our wedding??"

"YES! Why did you not invite me to your wedding??!!" Umar was exasparated.

He had witnessed Anakin's wedding on TV but did not get invited to witness ours. I highly suspected it was because he wanted to witness our kiss or to actually prove that our kiss had actually been on the lips!

"Because you were just a little dot in heaven then..." which of course, Umar was not too happy about.

Since this interrogation, there have been numerous instances where he had highly likely wished he was not just a little dot in heaven, but physically there with us, wanting to actually participate and be part of our history in the making....

Beauty in the eyes of my little boy

The first time I started wearing a head scarf was on Monday, 4th October 2004.

That morning, I got ready as usual, with the only difference at the end my routine being me putting on a head scarf, instead of styling and fluffing up my hair to give it some "body". Then I showed Amil and told him that I was going to start wearing the scarf today. He was surprised and said that maybe I would want to consider wearing it when Ramadhan, which was around the corner, starts. I replied that I was already fasting, to repay the days missed, so I may as well start now. Amil smiled, gave me a kiss and wished me the best, since he knew how nervous I was feeling.

Days before, I had asked Amil what he thought if I started to wear the scarf now (as in in the near future and not when I am older, say around 40 years and passed my "hey" days). Though I know my decision would be independently made, the support from him would make it easier. "It's always a good time to do good things" he replied. Short, sweet and straight to the point, but that was all that I needed.

Other than Islamic reasons for my wearing a scarf, sheepishly I have to admit that on bad hair days I am glad I wear a scarf so I do not have to make any painful and elaborate attempts to resuscitate my flat and lifeless hair, nor do I have to explain to my work colleagues the "oh, my wet look is actually just me trying out a new hair care product", which is really a result of my hair dryer failing to function.

On the other hand, also sheepishly, I have to admit that during some of the times when I have had good hair days, even sometimes wonderfully sexy hair days, I feel like wearing nothing over my head and just walking out the door, do a few of those hair ad moves for all the world to see. I want to experience that feeling I had pre scarf wearing days, the pride I felt when heads turned and people looked at me, even if those feelings were not spiritually right for me.

But this want more or less grinded to a halt just a couple of days ago on Monday, 20th November 2006.

I was having one of those good, wonderfully sexy hair days and after dressing up in a black top and jeans, felt like embarking on one of those hair ads head turning outing. In reality however, I was about to take Umar and Musa out to The Curve to meet Amil for dinner.

Anyway, deciding to play a joke on Umar, I turned to look at him, struck a pose, with my body-filled hair loose around my shoulders, and asked him whether he was ready to go out. He looked up at me, his cute impish face smiling away and said "But Mummy, you forgot to wear your scarf!". I told him that no, I didn't forget and I was going to go out dressed the way I was. "But Mummy, your scarf makes you look pretty!".

That was the moment. I felt a rush of emotion that I could not fully comprehend. I was ashamed of myself, but at the same time I was so proud of my son. And now I am thankful that he unknowingly taught me a valuable lesson.

This wonderful innocent child, my little boy, made me realise that it does not matter what the whole world thinks of me. What matters is that when I make a decision, and feel that it is made for the right reasons, then I must stand by that decision through thick and thin, not only through flat hair days but good hair days too, and in body, mind and soul.

I then put on my scarf, took a good look at myself and smiled. Not so much because my little boy thought I looked pretty but more so because my little boy had humbled me. Thank you Umar.

This photo of me was taken at my workplace in Shah Alam on 16th June 2006.

The Daily Marathon

Some days they can go the distance....

But some days they just can't....

Umar & Musa's photo was taken on Sunday, 3rd September 06, awake when leaving Tok Nik & Tok Ayah's house and asleep when arriving home at Nena & Tok Ba's house 25 minutes later...

This Baby Can Read!

Yes! Believe or not but our little Musa can read at 16.5 months old! He may have possibly been able to read earlier but unfortunately because of my unattentiveness, I unwrapped this wonderful gift only last week!

It was a rainy, lightning & thunderstorm filled night, last Friday night, 10th November 2006, and I was much relieved to be home from work before the clouds decided to split, which in doing so released a forceful downpour of not only cats and dogs, but chicken and ducks, and what I felt was also cows and buffalos, accompanied by their own personal sound and lighting effects courtesy of nature.

Anyway, back to the excitement at hand. After giving the kids a bath, around 6.50pm, I stayed with them in their bedroom playing hide 'n seek, transformers, blocks, boing-boing bouncy ball and all other games and activities that we could come up with until it was their bed time, which on a god blessed night would be around 9.30pm.

At around 8.30pm, Umar was happily building his Decepticon army, thereafter equally happily pulverising them to pieces (though how much pulverising can you do to lego blocks?). Musa was sitting on my lap whilst I read to him. Little did I know that he could have been reading to me!

Musa soon became restless and I had to quickly get his attention before he decided to destroy Umar's Decepticon army. I reached down for the Magna Doodle board and wrote the word "ear" on it and showed it to Musa. What he did next almost blew me away. He touched his right ear. Did I see right?? I wasn't sure so erased the word and re-wrote it. And he touched his right ear again! I did it a third and fourth time; and he subsequently pointed to his ear the third and fourth time as well!

I was so excited at my new discovery, a gift from Musa, I call it, that he was equally excited by my facial expression and the praises I was heaping onto him. At that time Tok Nik, Tok Ayah, Uncle Dani & Aunty Izue just arrived for a visit. I shared with them this newly found talent of Musa, and soon found out that he could also read the word "mouth", by touching his own cute little one and "eye", by touching his gorgeous doey ones.

When Amil got back from work, he thought I was pulling his leg when I told him Musa could read. Okay, firstly Musa can't even speak, accept for a few incomplete attempts at vocalising some words. He can however say "Da-da" as in Daddy (yes, a total point of pride for Amil), which is the only complete word he can speak (and no.. he has not attempted to say Mummy or Mama either). So for him to be able to read? How can he right? Well wrong. He can and he does this by pointing to the corresponding body part or doing the corresponding actions to the words shown to him. Of course Amil was equally excited and overwhelmed at the replay of Musa's "reading" sessions.

Over the weekend, Amil and I continued to write various words on the Magna Doodle board and pieces of paper, which Musa would read and subsequently point to or enact out correctly 85 - 90% of the time. The other 10-15% he would not get right was probably due to the confusion he felt when looking at all the monkey like antics and displays of excitement shown by Amil and I when he did get it right!

Todate, he can read the following words: ear, mouth, eyes, hair, point, finger, laugh, arms up, clap, clapping, though we are yet to try some more new ones. We have kept in mind that since he can't really talk now, it may be difficult for him to express words such as animals, things, and the like.

However, what has been more compelling for us to realise, other than the wonders of him being able to read, is the fact that he has opened up our eyes and hearts even more to getting to know what he is all about and what his personality is like. Not to just take for granted that he's only a baby. Although we know that he's one smart, funny and very cheeky baby, it has made us realise how important it is to cherish every little moment and every little thing he does. We may have seen most of it before, with our first born Umar, but this serves as a reminder that it's only Musa's first time and that we need to go through it all with him and with the same feelings or at least effort we had put in the first time around. Each child is different and to think otherwise, to think that their milestones are similar or just the same... is to risk missing out on a lot of good things and their unique, individual achievements...

Note: Musa learnt to read via watching the "Your Baby Can Read" VCD series, which I had actually purchased for Umar more than 2 years ago. Since Umar was not interested in it, possibly because he had other activity classes (The Shichida Method), I kept it aside and only resurrected them when Musa was about 6 months old. Musa would watch the 20 minute VCDs once to twice a day, whilst drinking his bottled milk. And now at 16.5 months old, he still happily participates whilst watching the VCDs. In case you'd like to know more about the VCDs, you can check out this website http://www.infantlearning.com/

Musa's photo was taken on Thursday, 31 August 06 at Tok Ba's kampung house compound in Ulu Sepri, Rembau, Negeri Sembilan.