Kids

1. Huda is now almost 5 while Farah is almost 2. When both are asleep, I'll always tell TheHusband that our children are just too cute. Sometimes we even take pictures of them when they are asleep so that when they are awake, we'll have proof that they can actually be cute.



2. Food

Farah is at a food-refusal stage. She had a terrible bout of stomach flu and barely ate anything during the episode. All she had was breastmilk and Pediasure. Prior to that, she was on a soft-food diet. That was by choice. For whatever strange reasons, she started rejecting rice and wanted to eat porridge. So, for a couple of weeks, I cooked porridge for her.

Now, she doesn't want any food at all unless we are talking keropok and chocolate. I've resorted to force-feeding and will be satisfied if I manage to stuff 4 spoonfuls of rice into her mouth.

Some mothers tell me that I shouldn't force-feed. The kids will eat when they are hungry. But no, sorry. I must force-feed because if I don't, she'll open the kitchen cabinet doors and help herself to my secret junk food collection (which must now find a new home because it's no longer a secret). And in case you are wondering why she can open the kitchen cabinet doors, that's because she has learnt to work the child-lock that we installed. Grrrrrr. Besides, I have skinny kids. They are underweight (I'm talking 3rd percentile here, not even 25th percentile) and when they fall ill, the weight just slides off so quickly, leaving them with only skin and bones. So, once they are better, I'll try my very best (ie, force-feed, at times) to make them gain back the weight they've lost.

Huda, however, has long outgrown her picky-eater stage. She now eats very well and always insists on vegetables to go with her rice. Yay! (She's still skinny, though. But at least, she's a skinny girl who eats well.)

Huda, Farah and their small cousins (Farouq [on the right] not included in the small category; I've divided all the cousins into 2 groups - the waifish ones and the normal-sized ones)
(From left to right, their age in 2011: 8, 2, 5, 5, 10, 3)

3. Sleep

Huda now prefers to wake up later in the morning. In the past, she would wake up outrageously early but she has now passed that baton to Farah. Farah wakes up very early, poos immediately after she wakes up and has a shower.

Bored to tears because her sidekick is still asleep, she'll join her sister back in bed. But, not to sleep. To disturb, to annoy and to wake her sister up.

Fresh out of the shower and off to perform her morning mission

4. Speech

i.   I don't worry about Farah's speech development the way I used to with Huda. She's doing just fine, talking and talking and talking non-stop and she makes sense most of the times. She can string a sentence involving up to 5 words.

ii.   She has one annoying quirk, though.

She sees a picture in the newspaper and asks, "Mak, apa ni, Mak?" (Mak, what's this, Mak?)

"Ini gambar banjir kat Australia." (This is a picture of a flooded area in Australia.)

"Ah?"

"Banjir." (Flood)

"Ah?"

"Banjir."

"Ah?"

"Banjir."

A thousand of the exact same exchange later, I'll be exasperated and I'll ask her, "Farah, ni apa." (Farah, what's this?)

Nonchalantly, she'll reply, "Jir."

iii.   She tends to only say the last syllable of every word. I told her to say "Tumpang lalu" (excuse me) when she needs to squeeze her way through people. What comes out of her mouth is "Pah lu." But, the gangster way she says "Pah lu", I might as well have taught her to say "Siam! Siam!"

iv.   Oh, there's another quirk of this girl. She has successfully copied my "You, ah." If you are not a Singlish speaker, there is no way I can explain how "You, ah" is used. But I shall try anyway: you must say it in a nasal way and it is used to affectionately reproach someone.

Now, this Farah is using "You, ah" for anybody and in any situation. She wakes up at 2am in the morning, cries for milk. I asked her to ask her father to make her milk. The father goes to the kitchen to heat up water. She follows. And suddenly she smiles and says, "You, ah!"

It doesn't make sense but at least she's not crying.

v.   She no longer calls herself Nunumeh Tan. She knows that her name is Lalah.


5. Clothes

Farah is beginning to make her own choices when it comes to clothes. This is a bit problematic sometimes because she makes strange choices.


For a trip to the library, she insisted on putting on swimming cap and no pants.

Completely unrelated, this is Huda and Cousin Nabilah. They performed at their school's graduation concert.



That will be all for now. I'm gonna get ready for driving lessons with my (younger) sister. Yesterday was my first day on the road and I am just sooooooooooooooooo very slow. And I'm not very sure how I'm gonna park at carparks given that the lines showing the lots are faded. Aiyoooooooohhhhhh.. But I'm going to try and try and try til I am confident of driving alone. (And my sister would have lost her patience with me for the nth time)