Itsy Bitsy Spider

1. I now am beginning to appreciate having documented (not THAT religiously, but well, whatever little I captured here) Huda's major milestones here. At this age, she's beginning to ask what she was like when she was Farah's age, the things she said and did. With what little I have written down, it managed to jog my memory about what she was like.

2. Farah is now one feisty little girl. If Huda disturbs her or takes something that she was holding on to or refuses to give her something that she wants, she will fight back. She bites, pinches and scratches. Poor Huda has some battle scars to show for it. When Farah is scolded, she'll look at me with big round eyes and then start rolling all over the floor crying. (And I'll just leave her there)

3. Farah is always horsing around. When I read the papers in the morning, I will sit on the floor and spread the papers on it. I'll sit cross-legged on the floor, bend forward a little bit and start reading. Up to about 2 weeks ago, whenever I lay the papers on the floor, Farah will lie down on top of the papers. What I did to counter this problem was to lay out two sections at the same time so when she lay down on one section, I'd just turn around and read the other section. Now, she has found something more enjoyable to do. When I'm seated in my newspaper-reading position, she'll climb up my back as high as possible, then slide down. Then climb up again, and slide down. And up again and down again. Sometimes, she even has the audacity to ask me to stand up and walk all over the house with her on my back.

4. Farah has suddenly started talking a bit more. Pretty basic stuff (but not limited to):
"Nak zuzu" (Want milk, but instead of susu, she says zuzu) when she wants milk.
"Biyak!" she'll shout out when she passes motion and at the same time, she'll clutch her diapers.
"Nak loll ler" when she wants the stroller.

And, strangely too, she has a special name for my youngest brother. He is otherwise known as Pak Usu to all his nieces and nephews. Huda used to call him Tutu which later evolved into Tutumat. Farah calls him Bubu. I don't know what is it with these girls that they can't just be like all their cousins and call him what everyone else calls him.

5. Farah's also beginning to develop an obsession with cats. She will pull out all the books from the bookshelf and flip through them in search of pictures of cats. She managed to find quite a few cat pictures this way and I am always stuffing books back into the bookshelf.

6. Farah is now on partial formula. She drinks milk from a bottle once or twice at night. It's really ridiculous how she's still waking up at night. Now I know she's not waking up because of hunger. Before she sleeps, I give her about 5-6 ounces of formula milk. Then I nurse her to sleep. You would think that that should be enough to last her through the night. But noooooo. She''ll wake up around 11pm/12midnight. If I refuse to wake up, TheHusband will wake up and feed her another 4-5 ounces of formula milk. Around 3-4am, she'll wake up another time. And I'll nurse her because it's just madness to feed her another round of formula milk. Around 7-8am, she'll wake up, all bright and cheerful because she has a very full tummy and her diaper, if it hasn't already leaked (which is almost always the case), will be at the point of bursting.

7. A bit more about Huda's fasting attempt - It's not quite justifiable anymore to use the word 'attempt' because she has shown that she can fast for a full day for many days in a row. Generally, she has no problems fasting when she goes to school.

At her school, before food is served, all the children who are fasting are brought to another room. However, she doesn't like that because she ends up with the bigger boys and girls from K1 and K2. Most of her classmates are not fasting and even if they do, they break their fast by lunchtime. So, I asked the teacher if it was possible for her to stay with her class while her friends were eating and that's been the arrangement for her. According to her teacher, she seems completely unperturbed that her friends are eating and she's not. She plays with blocks and puzzles while waiting for them to finish eating. I'm super proud of that because it shows that she can resist temptations in school.

However, as I want to make fasting enjoyable for her and not something that she die-die must do, if she can't wake up in the morning for her pre-dawn meal (which was what happened yesterday), I'll tweak her fasting schedule. She'll eat her breakfast and lunch. Then, she'll start fasting from around noon to the time we break our fast. It seems like today, Sunday, will be the same. She slept really late today (past midnight) because we (irresponsible) parents that we are, brought the kids to Geylang Serai at 9pm. :p  I doubt that she'll be able to wake up at 5am to eat. So, modified fasting schedule it'll be.

8. This year's Hari Raya will not see me rushing all over Geylang in search of a baju kurung. Whew! Unfortunately, I'll have to pay another visit to Geylang because the seamstress to whom I sent my baju kurung closes shop at 5pm daily. I didn't manage to collect my baju kurung from her just now. Grrrr. I really do not enjoy having to make another trip there.

9. More on Geylang - I am so impressed by how clean the Geylang Serai hawker centre is!

10. Is anyone watching BBC Life (on Okto, Wednesdays, 10pm)? It's an amazing documentary! And I absolutely adore David Attenborough's narration. I am in awe of nature and the creatures that live in it. I learnt about the capuchin monkeys and how they use tools (!!!!!) to help them crack a nut. And the grebes - something like a duck but a very very distant relative, if they are even related at all - are such amazing birds. Their courting ritual (and they mate for life, mind you) will make you weep with joy. Then there's the six-plumed bird of paradise - where do I even begin talking about the wonder that it is.

Octopus - we've come to know Paul the psychic one. But do you know that a mother octopus makes the biggest sacrifice of all mothers? Once the mother octopus lays her eggs, she hides under some rocks and she takes care of the eggs, never leaving her den, not even for food. She caresses her eggs from time to time and when the eggs start to hatch (is that what you call it 'cos it seems like eggs hatching is such a bird-like description?), she'll blow the little octopus out of the den and then she dies. So sad, right?

So if you've missed BBC Life all this while, now is a good time to start watching. I think there are only 2 episodes left. Episode 9 next week is about plants. I'm not sure how exciting an episode about plants can be. I hope it won't disappoint anyone who's watching it for the first time.

So there. Another snapshot of our lives. :D