So Kind!!

Yesterday, I went to the library and borrowed 3 books.

I've been going to the library very frequently, about 3-4 times a week. I'll borrow 2-3 books each time.

In the past I would know exactly what I want to read because my reading time and library visits are extremely limited. So, before I went to the library, I would have a list of books/authors that I want to read.

Now, with more free time in my hands (because I don't have to spend my nights doing lesson plans, marking blood-curdling compositions, writing work review etc), I don't need a list. I just pick and choose any book whose cover I fancy, read the first few paragraphs and if engaging enough, I'll borrow the book.

If the book turns out crappy after the first few chapters, I'll just skip the entire middle part and head straight towards the last few chapters (because I need to know how it ends).

So that's me digressing, as always.

Anyway, I borrowed 3 books from the library yesterday.

Then, I boarded the bus, picked up Huda, talked to her teacher (it was Parent-Teacher's Conference; that's another story), then took a cab back because it was going to rain and I didn't have an umbrella (why on earth am I justifying my cab ride to everyone; in any case, most of the time, my cab rides are never justifiable).

I went home, attended to the kids, cooked the vege dish for dinner, bathed the kids, fed the kids, played with the kids, welcomed TheHusband, had dinner, played some more with the kids, changed diapers, brushed the older kids' teeth, breastfed the little kid and then, it was ME-time.

I took my books from my bag and, horrors, there were only 2! Checked the receipt and I did borrow 3 books. Gaaaaaaah!

Just now, I checked my library account and am extremely relieved to see that there were only 2 books in my account. Which means that an extremely good and kind-hearted samaritan had returned one of my books which must have fallen out of my bag somewhere along the way yesterday.

Oh you kind, kind person who returned my book, I wish you all the goodness that life may bring. Thank you, oh nice person!

(My digressing is getting worse. I intended this to be a super short entry with only the first and last 3 paragraphs in it. This is what staying at home does to you, I suppose..)

9 + 44

I wrote this almost a month ago and hopefully I'll finish it today.

 

Farah & Huda

1. Farah. Farah is now 9 months old. She's a crawler and has begun to pull herself to a standing position. I don't think she's gonna start walking anytime soon because her sister was about 14/15 months when she started walking. I suppose she will start walking when she's about that age but then again, siblings can be very different.

She has also had her fall-off-the-bed-rite-of-passage. Boohooohoooooo.. I know that practically all children fall off beds at one time or another but I thought I could protect her from it. But, of course, I thought wrong.

It happened one evening when I was in the toilet and TheHusband was attending to Huda. Farah was supposed to be sleeping in her cot which was pushed against my bed. (She was sleeping in our room instead of her own room because she was sick and whiny and we didn't want Huda to wake up.)

She climbed out of her cot, crawled all over our bed and just when I peeked out of the toilet, she was at the edge of the bed, looking down, about to take one more step forward. I raced to her and of course, even though it was a distance of about 2-3 metres, I failed miserably to catch her in mid-fall. She landed on the floor. :( 

(Therefore, must exercise more and work on the sprint.)

2. Weight. Farah isnow about 6.5kg. Definitely petite but it's okay lah. I am coming to terms with the fact that my children are all in the featherweight category. They are pretty much like what TheHusband and I were decades ago when we were kids. Yes. TheHusband used to be a scrawny little kid. There *are* photos of him as a scrawny little kid. And I used to be thin too. Stick-thin. But, those are days which will never come back. I am now the poster girl for Michelin tyres.

3. Food. It is fun cooking for Farah. I like knowing that I'm giving her healthy food with absolutely no salt added. Someone asked me why I bothered because they would all be sodium junkies when they grow up. And that's exactly why I bother now. When I still have full control of their diet, let me give them the best and healthiest of food. At least, I make sure that they will not cause harm to their insides so early in their lives. And, hopefully, they will have a low tolerance for salt and additives as they grow up. (They will most likely be chocoholics like me.)

But feeding her is another story. While she is eating a lot more than Huda used to, she is still not an easy baby to feed. Sometimes, she enjoys making those sputtering buh buh noises (bilabial trills, if you are into phonetics) and she especially likes doing this during mealtimes so mealtime is a messy messy affair.

4.  TV. I still have control over their TV intake for now. The TV is hardly switched on when they are awake. When I first started my maternity leave, I was bored beyond belief so I did watch quite a bit of TV. Farah was sleeping most of the time then anyway. But, slowly I got back to the no-TV groove and hardly switched on the TV in the daytime. (And I guess that's also because of the ridiculous facebook games; the computer is switched on instead.)

5. Me & FB. Sidetrack a bit about myself and facebook games: I've got rid of Barn Buddy and Mafia Wars out of my system. Now I'm hooked on Cafe World and Scrabble. I think Scrabble is something I would play again and again and again but Cafe World is not something I'll play for long. Give it a few more weeks and I'll delete it from my facebook account. Really, facebook is a time-waster. :p

I know I'm hopelessly addicted to Scrabble because when I'm on the throne, picking up a call from Nature, I'll suddenly think of EIOPMNS. Then I'll shuffle the letters about in my head and I'll get words like POEMS, MOPES, MONIES etc. Of course, the target is to get a 7-letter word so I'll shuffle the letters in my head some more. I'll think of the ending -ISM. Then I shuffle the rest of the letters about and then I think of NEPOISM (no such word but if there's a T somewhere on the board, I can get NEPOTISM), NEOPISM (rubbish word), PEONISM (sounds like a nonsense word but I just checked against the scrabble dictionary and found that it exists). Such is my life now. :p

Back to Huda & Farah...

6. Huda's formal education. Huda is still in a childcare centre and will still be goin there next year although I'm still on unpaid leave then. I'm very pleased with the school she goes to. Perhaps my expectations are low or perhaps other people's expectations are too high but I'm happy with her school. One of my neighbours whose grandson goes to a $1000plus-a-month childcare centre talked about how everybody there spoke good English with no hor meh lah.

Well, my daughter barely speaks English herself so this is no issue to me. Hur hur. She does pick up crappy English from her friends like, 'I don't friend you' but that's why she has parents who know how to string a few words together in a grammatically coherent sentence. We correct the nonsense she picks up. Well, we try to lah. And when we fail, we'll tell her teacher so that she may find it in her to forgive us if our daughter were to use foul words in class. ;p

Talking about teachers - one of the main reasons I chose this childcare centre is because of the teachers. I hate to use the word 'passion' because it's been terribly misused when it comes to teaching but you can tell that the teachers and principal there are passionate about what they are doing. They should be the poster girls (err, women) for early childhood education.

I've actually digressed quite far from what I wanted to say. Initially, when I started going on my leave, I wanted to send Huda to school only 4 times a week and on Fridays we'll do something together. A trip to the Science Centre, Botanical Gardens etc. That has yet to happen because other than taking both girls around Woodlands, I can't imagine going out on my own with the both of them to the far ends of Singapore. What I fear most is, what do I do should I need to go to the toilet?

7. What my neighbour said. Two weeks ago, I bumped into the neighbour who lives one floor below me.

I was with Farah and she said that she hardly hears Farah's voice. I thought she was deaf because my neighbour 2 doors away often hears Farah's cries. Then she added, "But I hear you very stress with your older girl."

Ah.

She's not deaf. She so politely phrased her words, this woman. What she meant to say was, I always hear you screaming like a wild banshee at your older girl after which I hear her cry so miserably.

There are times when my patience really runs thin with my Huda. She's still afflicted by the Terrible Twos (doesn't matter that she turned 3 more than half a year ago - I heard this Terrible Twos stage only goes away when they are 25 years old).

Being Miss Contrarian, she tries to do everything differently. If I tell her to put my phone back where she found it, she will then put my phone in 17 different places before reluctantly returning the phone back where she found it. Of course, by then, I would be a mad raving lunatic. 

Her bath time also gives rise to the loony in me. I'll tell her not to run in the bathroom and she'll be hopping and jumping all over the slippery floor. When I mop the floor and tell her to stay in one room, I'll soon find her in the kitchen or somewhere else.

And the result is - my neighbour hearing that I "very stress with my older girl". *insert nervous laughter*

As a result of that chance meeting, I did a bit of reflection and I might have been a little hysterical with Huda at times *insert more nervous laughter here*. And so, I've decided to try my mighty best to rein it in. I hope for the past two weeks, my neighbour hasn't noticed my stress levels. I've been trying to not raise my voice and to take short breaks should I notice that I'm going bonkers. (Short break = going to the toilet to sit on the throne and breathe deeply - and after breathing in the foul air in there, I'll start scrubbing the toilet from top to bottom.) 

8. Farah's health. Just now, we had a follow-up appointment at KK for Farah. After she recovered from her bout of bronchialitis in the first week of Hari Raya, she got another round of cough and phlegm and mucus just 3 weeks later. It's still going on now. Obviously, I do not like that she's falling ill so frequently. But, what medication can be given to a child who's only 9 month old?

The doctor suspected that she is allergic to something, most likely common allergens like dust mites and pollens. So, she's given a dose of medicine. The side effect? Possible increased appetite! Hooray! She's gonna be cured (hopefully) and she'll become a chubby baby in the process. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

9. Conclusion and AOBs. Yesterday I did ten little sit-ups and today, my stomach is still screaming out in agony. I am getting sleepy. I know this entry feels disjointed but that's what happens when you write one entry over a period of a month. I shall just post this one, warts and all, so thank you so much if you have actually reached this final full stop. :)

S Education

From one of her friends (or so Huda claims), she has learnt this vile Malay word for vagina - p/e/p/e/k. It sounds so vulgar that I can't even say it out loud. When she first picked up this word, she would just say it out of the blue. She would be playing with utensils in the kitchen, humming to herself and suddenly she'd say it. Initially, I tried to distract her hoping that she would forget the word soon enough. Then the word appears more and more frequently and I simply told her not to say it again and that it means vagina. Now, vagina is a word I use because it sounds a lot less crass.

(Sidetrack some more: Sex education begins with the correct naming of body parts. So, we tell her (in English - because I can't do this in Malay with all the crass-sounding words for the male and female privates) that boys have penis and girls have vagina. And of course, we also told her that no one should see or touch hers and neither should she go round looking and touching other people's.)

So, one day, she was sitting down, and talking to herself and suddenly she said p*p*k. See? I can't even write the word down the second time because it does sound very crass, doesn't it? Sigh. I had to tell her off. I said in my no-nonsense tone which is essentially nagging: 'Why did you say that word? Didn't I tell you what that word means? What does it mean? Right. It means vagina. Why must you say vagina? Do you see vaginas flying around?"

And at this point, I simply could not keep a straight face anymore. But I can't laugh while scolding, can I?

So I stopped and hid behind a laptop and laughed.

How do other parents do this?

---

Normally, my blog posts are for everyone but because of some words used here, I'm afraid that unsavoury characters might do a google for such words and find those words here and somehow associate my blog and pictures in my blog with such vile stuff. I know I'm being overly cautious bordering on paranoia but the world is a scary place and I'm not taking any chances. By the way, this was supposed to appear in a super-long (read: rambling) blog entry that I'm still in the middle of but because of my strict censorship rules, this short prose found itself here, all by its lonely self.

Hawt

1. The weather is unbearably hot. The birds living in the tree just outside my window are complaining non-stop.

2. A few blog entries ago, I was extremely gung-ho about what I want to do now that I'm not working (til 2011, that is). But of course, me being me, all those are just talk only. I have yet to go for my second driving lesson. :p

3. But, I have a very good reason for not going for that lesson. Farah was hospitalised. Again. This time round, it was for bronchialitis. She was breathing rapidly at night and was whiny and barely slept and and it didn't improve the next day so I took her to the doctor who sent us to the hospital. And there we were. One night at Hotel KK.

The annoying thing about this stay is, her insurance was approved (which means we won't have to pay for the stay) BUT, there were no single-bedded rooms that day. Other than that, she was okay. Her breathing stabilised after a few rounds of the adrenaline thing. She had a box-like thing over her head and the gas was pumped in through a tube from an opening on top of the box.

4. And that's our trusty laptop that kept me company.

 

5. I suppose Farah falls ill a lot more frequently than Huda did because:

i. Farah has a lovely older sister who insists on lying down beside her even when she (the older sister) is sick.

ii. She's secretly envious of her sister's long hospital stay so she wants to feel the joy of being hospitalised (and having all the attention to herself).

 

But as long as the reason for the hospital stay is minor and not life-threatening and can be fixed during the hospital stay itself, I don't mind her being hospitalised.

 

 

6. Back to my gung-ho plans. Hur hur hur. (That's me laughing at myself.) I think I've fallen into a very comfortable (lazy) routine. The one thing which I can say I'm doing is *drumrolls* cooking. I am cooking at least 4 meals a week. And nowadays, the dishes I come up with is actually mildly edible!! It's a miracle! I try to cook from scratch, which means - I try not resort to the instant packs of just-add-water curry or asam pedas or ayam masak merah etc. I will use those things when I start working again and have no time to pound the chillies and onions. But, for now, I will try to do everything from scratch (but it doesn't mean I'm going to plant my own wheat to get flour). Anyway, with me cooking, TheHusband finally has a chance to lose weight. Hohohohoooo!! So, expect to see a scrawny, emaciated TheHusband in months to come.

 

 

 

7. Huda and Farah - They like to wrestle. *rolls eyes*

 

7.1 In the morning, they wake each other up.

 

 

7.2 One smile before the wrestling begins

 

 

7.3 That's a typical wrestling session. Normally, no one is injured and I pray it remains that way. But that look of terror on Farah's face in the third picture...Sigh... I should stop these wrestling matches.

8. I have pictures of Huda and Farah and other kids (mostly their cousins) but I have to put that up later cos Farah has just woken upp from her 30-minute morning nap. But before I go, I just have to share this picture of Hazim. He's a handsome boy!

Cute, huh?

Budak Sekolah Berhariraya

This morning, at Huda's school...

Raya 2009 v.1

You can generally figure out who belongs to which family based on the colours of their outfits. But, occasionally, that may not be the case as Adib has shown. And the little boy in maroon in front of me is not my son, hor?

Pictures from Day 1 and Day 2. We took loads but I don't have the patience to upload all the pictures.
This is only the beginning of the Raya season. It will be a loooooooooooooong month filled with visiting and returning visits. It's great meeting up with friends and family.
(But I do not look forward to the ironing of bajukurungs and tudungs and the special delicate washes they require..)

Raya Ready?

1. Hari Raya is a few days away. Unlike previous years, I am almost ready with my Hari Raya preparations. There are still a few things to be done. Like putting up curtains and cleaning the windows and grilles and window sills.

I cleaned one window + grilles & sills just now and the main culprit who goes around dirtying the area is, of course, the lizard. I sprayed the entire area liberally with lizard repellant. Hopefully, it will keep away the lizards and their excrement for a few weeks, at least.

I also intend to move all of Huda's toys from the living room to her bedroom. I'm not too sure if this is a brilliant move because her toys will then be accessible when she's supposed to sleep. Hmm..

2. Hari Raya cooking - I've always thought of the massive cooking session on Hari Raya eve a bit wasteful if I were to do it. The Husband and I will be out visiting the elders and feasting at their houses on the first day so what's the point of cooking all those food for Hari Raya, right? The fact that my culinary skills is desperately wanting doesn't help either. All this while, I would just help out my mother on the eve of Hari Raya.

But this year, I have this great desire to prepare something. Only one dish, though. Not a banquet, hor. Anyway, we'll see. ;p

3. I still have no bajukurung to wear on the first day of Hari Raya. I dunno when I'm going to Geylang to hunt for bajukurung.

4. Now, I'm waiting for Farah to take her afternoon nap so that I can iron and put up the curtains.

/end of boring stuff

Added on September 18 2009: Getting baju kurung at the last last minute is a bad idea. The ones I like are not available in my size. Never will I do this again.

Everything..

Wah leow eh. After I posted this, I just realised that this entry is very long. I write as a way to get a snapshot of my life (and that of my children) at this point in time. In a few months, things change and I would have forgotten. So, I write. I write for me. (So you shouldn't feel obliged to read. Really.) And I also write because if I don't, I wont know how to speak write in English anymore. Staying at home for so long and not having to speak in proper English, I oredi dunno how to speak English liao. When I try, everything sounds strange. So, I write lor. At least, if cannot speak, can write, good oredi.

 

Farah

1. Farah is such a good eater! She's really unlike *someone we know* who absolutely detests food (other than her mummy's milk) for the first two years of her life. Farah has porridge for lunch and dinner. It is a simple porridge of rice + vegetable + fish. I'm glad I don't have to pore through baby recipe books to figure out what to serve her. It's such a joy to have a child who readily eats what you prepare!

I'm not giving her breakfast yet because she normally does not wake up for milk at night and so I'm terribly engorged in the morning and I want her to finish up the supplies first. But honestly, the other reason is, morning is a rush hour for the household and by the time I'm ready for breakfast with her, it's too close to lunchtime.

2. Farah is getting ready for the crawling stage of her life. She's beginning to lift her body up and she will be on all fours but not covering any distance yet.

3. Unlike in the past when I would read up everything on baby's milestones and when they should achieve what, I am now only vaguely aware of the milestones. I'm only a bit concerned about Farah's weight because she is small-ish. But, she seems healthy (other than the frequent bouts of coughs which doctors have ruled out as just that - coughs) so no cause for concern there. As a mother the second time round, I think I've read up a bit too much during Huda's time and there should be some residual information lying around in me somewhere to carry me through Farah's progress.

 

Huda

4. To be fair, if I talk about Farah, I must talk about Huda also. Even though I've talked about her a lot in the past.  ;p  

The thing about older siblings is, they love their new sibling.

If they have been in the centre of attention for (far) too long, I think, the love they have for their new sibling is like loving a toy: they want the toy; no one else can have the toy. But, if the parents happen to spend too much time with the new toy, they'll do something (not necessarily positive) to divert the attention back at them.

Well, at least that's what I observe about Huda. Heh.

5. Huda is getting extremely creative in getting us (me, mostly) to sleep with her. She is a prime example of what-not-to-do-when-putting-your child-to-sleep. Worry not. We have learnt. And we're not repeating what we did with her with Farah.

For far too long, we have developed a bedtime routine which is unhealthy. To make her sleep, one of us must lie down with her until she falls asleep. By the time we realise that this was no good, more than 3 years have passed. Heh. So, now we are trying to make her fall asleep on her own. But, she keeps on coming up with better excuses.

The most recent one is, 'I'm afraid of helicopters and aeroplanes.' (She's not afraid of ghosts because the only ghosts she knows of is either her uncle or aunty covered in sheets in a dark room - something they do to frighten the kids on Sundays at my mom's.) Anyway, up to 9-ish at night, there are still helicopters flying overhead. Must complain to Mindef liao. Why on earth are there so many helicopters flying over Woodlands? And so, she keeps on coming out of her room to complain about the helicopters. *rolls eyes*

Some of her other interesting stories are - there are lions in the bedroom. To that, her father would just command in an authoritative voice, 'Go away, Lion.' Then the lions were replaced by an assortment of zoo animals - tigers, hippopotamus, elephants.. Her father sent all the animals away. Then, she became a hypochondriac. She complains of aches and pains everywhere. Stomach, foot, arm, head, hair. Yes, hair. How fake an illness can you conjure?

Well, I'm sure she won't run out of ideas anytime soon when it comes to avoiding sleep. I really don't know why she hates sleep so much.

6. Having said all those, I must also add that she's so lovely. She's so helpful when it comes to picking out clothes for Farah. I just have to ask her and she'll start to rummage through the neatly-folded clothes ;p for something for Farah to wear.

She enjoys playing with her friends in school and it's so funny the things she picks up from them. Two weeks ago, she started making shapes with her Lego blocks and then, she'd pick up a sword-like shape and point it at you and she'd go, 'Ben Ten Ali Fork!' I had no idea what she was talking about. I could only guess it had something to do with Ben Ten. When I met my Ben-Ten-loving nephew on Sunday, I asked him whether there's such a command in Ben Ten. He was just as perplexed as I was. Then, I explained to him what Huda did, and enlightenment dawned on him. It's supposed to be, 'Ben Ten, Alien Force!'

 

Weather and Everything Else

6. Don't you think the weather has been extremely cool of late? So cold that my toes are almost frozen. Soon, my ears will get frostbitten if I don't start wearing earmuffs.

Because I'm so free, I checked out the normal weather pattern in Singapore and August is supposed to be similar to June and July - which means hot hot hot.

But, really, I'm not complaining. I hardly need to switch on the fan these days. Saving electricity there means I can spend more time on the computer without leaving a bigger carbon footprint. (Oh sure.)

7. Talking about computer, the games on facebook are really vile. They are always developing new things to pull you deeper and deeper into facebook. I think I'm going to be addicted to Scrabble for a long, long time. When I first played it, I didn't really enjoy it because I prefer having the tiles in my hands to move around so I can see what words I can form. But the electronic version grows on you, I guess.

8. I was sick yesterday with a terrible migraine. Haven't had one in years and it was the only time in a long time when I actually wanted medicated oil. I blame it on a lack of sleep. The lack of sleep was due to my mind being too active even though the body desperately wants to shut down. I had the same problem when I was on my first round of unpaid leave in 2007. And now I'm facing the same problem again. Sigh. The solution is really not that difficult. Find something which I'm just so lousy at and then study that topic like crazy. Chemistry comes to mind. Then, sign up to take Chemistry at O Level. I'm about to break into crazy laughter. Chemistry? Oh, stop joking! (Wait til I tell my story of cation and anion..)

The point of this point is, because I was terribly sick, I didn't use the computer for the entire day yesterday. My Mafia Wars energy bar was up to almost 400. Not that anyone but Dianah would know what I'm talking about. :p

9. Hari Raya is coming and this time round, I'm actually getting the major cleaning done slowly but surely!! The thing which I'm extremely lazy about is the windows. I hate hate hate cleaning windows. More than I hate ironing.

I plan to bake only one type of cookie - chocolate chip, of course. And in all likeliness, I'll eat everything myself. Way before the first guests come.

10. Talking about eating - I knew that the fasting month will do something to my tummy. Reducing the waistline is not a problem for me. Simply cutting out the rubbish food is enough. And it's not all that difficult for me because I crave for junk food mostly in the day. At night, I hardly get chocolate cravings.

But, the problem is the bottoms and thighs. Big big sigh. No matter how much junk food I cut out, once they have expanded, they don't shrink. Never. They just remain that way. Forever. Despite all the thigh-slimming pants I wear. Maybe liposuction is what I need. Kidding lah. Well, for now, at least.

Okay. Sleepy oredi.

If you've read up to here and you are still awake, congratulations. You are an insomniac. Nothing will make you fall asleep. Not even long, rambling entries about nothing.

Quick and Short

Huda found a pair of scissors in her aunt's room and decided to give herself a new hairstyle. The damage has not been inspected yet as she's taking her nap now. But, clumps of hair, measuring about 3 inches each, were found at the scene of the crime. Sigh.

Huda, when you grow up and read this, I want you to know that I am not responsible for what seems like a helicopter landing patch on the right side of your head. And if your hair chooses to grow slowly, dear God, please help her find a way to go through Hari Raya looking like her two uncles. 

Farah is 6 Months Young

Farah is 6 months old now. She's laughing and smiling a lot. She's such a sweety-pie. She's still small. You won't go 'Oooooooh, what chubby cheeks!' when you see her but she's still cute. (And I will continue doing all these self-praises so get used to it. Ha!)

She's still on breastmilk. Hooray! She's had at least 6 months of something truly organic. Hopefully there's some magic in the milk which will enhance her immunity which hasn't been all that great.

She had her first taste of cereal last week. Heinz Organic Rice Cereal + breastmilk. The first time, I prepared half a bowl of it and she had all of half a teaspoon worth of the mixture. She pushed the rest out of her mouth with her tongue. I'm going organic with her cereal because she's had enough chemicals in her already. She's had lots of paracetamol, tamiflu (yes, that hallucination-inducing stuff), salbutamol and a variety of nose drops.

Her sleeping pattern is impressive! Being the darling that she is, she falls asleep by 8pm and does not wake up til 7am. This is an angel, I tell you. Lest you think I'm boasting, I'd like to remind you that my beloved firstborn woke up for her night feeds up to 6 times a night. Now, that same person is still waking up at least once a night. Not for milk but, I suppose, just out of (really bad) habit.

Back to Farah. She can soothe herself - because she's a thumbsucker. Well, more like fingers-sucker. She sucks her index and middle fingers at the same time. The older one was never a thumbsucker but I'm beginning to see the beauty in this. Thumbsucking allows her to soothe herself while waiting for the milk-provider to be ready. I was worried that the practice makes her not want milk but such thoughts show that I have underestimated babies. If they are hungry, they will cry for milk.

She's moving about a lot now. She's never at the same spot for a long time. I always put her on a small mattress which is placed on top of a mat in the living room but she always wiggles her way to the floor. If I'm not careful and leave the main door open, I'll most probably find her along the corridor cos she's small enough to wiggle her way through the grille.

I think that is all I have to say about Farah for now. I am sure I'll think of eight more things to say about her moments after I've switched off the computer later.

Just added:  This is a scary picture of Farah. She's trying to impersonate me. Sigh. That's how I look when I try to dance (all in the name of entertaining them). The nerve of that girl...