Some lessons I learned

I have been so stressed out lately because of some pressing matters at work and also other issues. As a result, I was attacked by lethargy symptom and was like so tired and sleepy the whole time this week until yesterday. In fact I went to the clinic and found that my blood pressure is way above the normal reading. I was beginning to think what’s wrong with me? Why do I develop this hypertension? I repeated the check the next day and luckily for me the blood pressure seemed to get back to normal.  But still I was feeling sleepy and heavy the whole time. Was I thinking or doing so much? What’s wrong with me?  All of a sudden it strike on me to leave some matters to God and asked for Him to guide me. I said I can’t cope alone by myself without his help. Then believe it without really realizing exactly when, I began to feel some burden being lifted off my shoulders.  I felt some degree of calmness returning as well as clearer frame of mind. What a relief that was! And I also began to restrict my coffee intake to once a day in the morning instead of 2 -3 cups a day. I drank juice instead and some herbal tea to get me going. I started again taking some vitamins which I have been slack about lately.

So last night, when normally by 10 pm I couldn’t open my eyes and dozed off before the children, yesterday I felt okay. I had the usual reading lesson with Fatini (she can read simple sentences already, amazing progress from a good teacher (me J ) and I talked and entertained the children before they slept. I coped with the children’s behaviour better. I didn’t feel sleepy and just okay.  In fact I got out of bed after the children sleep to settle some matters and then went back to sleep. I woke up before the alarm clock and felt good instead of drowsy.

Today I made sure I had only a cup of coffee and juices. Too much caffeine was probably contributing to my restlessness.

You know some times when you think something has gone wrong or hay wired in some aspects of your life, take a step backward and do the right thing. Leave some matters in God’s hand. We have to admit we have limitations and can’t do everything right. But the most amazing thing of all is that when we leave the matters to God, it all turned out to be what we wanted. I couldn’t wait for the weekend and especially I can’t wait for my long holiday off work which is coming in two weeks time. Have a good weekend!

the road to IT

I have been wanting to buy a new notebook or desk top to put in the little library at home. I have been waiting and lately was determined to get one soon. After visiting a few shops and read and compared brochures, I am more keen to buy the Toshiba Satellite model. This model has all the basic requirement that I need like bluetooth, wireless configuration, the RAM, DVD RW and the various card readers. And most of all it’s affordable at around RM3000 plus. Sony has amazing notebooks and the graphic is fantastic but the price is beyond my budget. At least for cheaper price if the notebook fails me, I won’t feel so regretful buying it. I have looked at other brands too like Fujitsu and Asus where the price range is quite competitive but Toshiba seems to be the one with most value for money. The brand is quite well known too and that makes spare parts more easily available, I hope. I will give myself another day to think about it.

comradeship

Today is one of my lady friends’ birthday so we went to California Kitchen Pizza at KLCC for a food spree. This is the same group of lady friends for years, all career moms at work and we celebrated each other’s birthday when the time comes. The figures are adding up each year but who cares. We thought we should stop telling people our age now. We are all still slim, slender and not so bad considering the years gone by. None of us had gone to any corrective surgery or hormone injection yet. Not that I will ever consider it. Growing old gracefully is my way. Nevertheless lying about the age seems more and more appealing…

Well, my friends and I, we enjoyed food tremendously and we really went into it but whatever extra we ate today we have to balance out on other days. No choice about that except if we want to beat ourselves sweating it out. Metabolic rate is not that much help anymore J.

We normally meet once a week anyway during lunch for meals. More often the lunch is at one of the Japanese restaurants. There was common love for Japanese food amongst us. What did we talk about..? Nothing significant. Just about children, families, relatives and local hot gossips if any. We made jokes of everything and laughed a lot. Most importantly we poured our hearts in the conversation, complaints and released whatever. Get advice and give some away. Nobody argued but just supported each other. When we have functions at our home we made a point to visit each other and when there was outside function we ensured to have a good time together. And because of this support the relationship is healthy and nourishing. It makes me feel good at the end. And that’s what we need in friendship.

Kids' wonders

“Mommy I want to go to Faith’s birthday party at her house! Faith’s house is in PJ”  Fatini is an expert in telling me where her friends live and whose house to go during weekend. As if she knew what PJ is!  Fatini and Emir have been overwhelmed with birthday parties invitation lately. There seem to be many end of the year children. Only a couple of weeks ago we had gone to one in the Kidz at Bangsar for her friend too. I have also been busy buying presents after presents and  busy studying maps and addresses of Selangor and KL.

Well, this is the time lah. When the kids are small, they have birthday parties and their friends have birthday parties. I guess when they are grown up, this thing will come to a stop. This made me think about Emir’s coming birthday in two weeks time. It’s just going to be at the school. I have ordered a 2 kg Spiderman’s cake but I have not prepared party packs yet and I think he’s too small to have a dedicated party for him somewhere else. Well, maybe next year for him to have a real party. For Fatini, I can’t escape. She already told me that she wants two birthday parties, one at the school and one at the shopping complex (meaning professionally organized birthday party lah). Haha all must follow her friends….

Zzzzz for Zoo

Fatini wanted to go to the zoo. So on Saturday we went to have a jolly good time at the Zoo Negara. No matter how often we have brought them to the zoo, the zoo never failed to excite the kids with the animals and the train ride. We also managed to catch the animal show which was the bird and the seals show.  There were some crowd because of the school holiday but the it was not so bad. The afternoon weather was also not too bad and at the end of the visit it began to rain. As usual the kids wanted to buy something from the gift’s shop. In fact, hehe bought something that had nothing to do with the zoo, like Fatini got her kitty-kat handbag and Emri got a BenTen item from the shop. Once in the car, Emir’s upon gotten his milk and soothed by the air-cond in the car dozed off immediately in my lap. I guessed he was so tired. Fatini chattered all the way home.

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me and the kids

1. Last night Emir surprised me by saying “Mommy, I don’t want to friend you”. I heard it clearly. I smiled when I heard it. Normally this sentence was uttered by Fatini when she was upset with me. Now coming from Emir for the first time, it melted my heart. Emir is outpouring sentences after sentences out of his mouth nowadays. New vocabulary popped out everyday. Words and talks that he had obviously been absorbing all these times but was not able to express it clearly.  He’s in between being a baby and a boy now. He’s growing up fast, getting taller everyday and getting more and more cheekier. Nowadays he’s been a little active and defiant of me. Everyday, when I put him in the car seat, belted and safely seated, five minutes after I drive he would be taking off the seat belt and doing flip flop in my moving car. It always drove me crazy especially when I drove in the traffic jam and in the rain. But recently I surrendered myself from scolding him. Instead I am planning something to make it harder for the seat belt to come off. I really have to outsmart this little smart boy.

2. Last night while I was downstairs washing the dishes and cooking spaghetti for the kids, Emir called me from upstairs repeatedly. I heard Fatini encouraged him “ call mommy louder Emir, louder! louder!” She used to scream for me and I have reprimanded her a couple of times I didn’t like her screaming for me from upstairs when I am downstairs. So knowing she couldn’t do it, she asked Emir to do it.  So when I got upstairs, Fatini confronted me emotionally, “ Mommy, when Emir called you, why didn’t you answer? You should answer when Emir called you, you made Emir sad and he will cry….” and by this time she was crying already and so I hugged to comfort her. I looked at Emir who was actually happily watching TV totally ignoring me and unaffected by the screaming he made a minute ago while it was Fatini who was crying. She said I made Emir sad/cry when actually she was the one who’s sad and was crying now. This is how she communicates to me her feelings.

3. This morning Fatini woke up as early as me at 5.30 am. She slept early last night. So I let her watched TV while I got myself ready with the school bags and myself. She asked to wear the school uniform from home and tie her hair. Normally I sent her still sleeping in her pajamas because it was too early for her to get ready in her school uniform. Most of her friends will arrive school already dressed in uniform as their parents sent them a bit later. So this morning she was proud that she arrive school in her school uniform. I am glad that this cheered her this morning. As she was not sleeping in the car, my journey to send her to school was filled with talks on why I love her which is her favourite subject in her conversation with me. I like to have this talk with her as a way of complimenting her good behaviour.

CONCERT

I couldn’t wait to write about this actually. Last Sunday we attended Fatini and Emir’s school concert with the theme “Save the Earth”. The concert was held at the MTC mini auditorium. We started from home early and arrived at the MTC just after 8 am and left the children there to get ready with the teachers while my husband and I went to have our breakfast at the canteen nearby.

The concert started at 9 am. The performance by the kids was excellent. I could not express my pride for Fatini and Emir who showed tremendous confidence and poise in front of I think maybe more than 100 adults. The auditorium had a large adult size stage. Fatini did excellently and I am particularly proud when she took the stage solo to read Mandarin pages on the microphone so clear and confidence (no stage fright) to the audience. Emir not reaching 3 years old yet but also performed with no sign of apprehension and did not cry even when he saw us in the audience. It’s like looking at us from afar and “hi mommy” and continued through their performance. Each of my kids was involved with 6 to 7 performances. I had a tremendous 3 hours show by these children with their peers. I have taken video clips and pictures using my camcorder and have not been able to process the pictures yet. I will for sure post them to this site once I am done with them. Above some pictures I took at the end of the day with my handphone as ran out of battery on the camcorder.

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A Break

Fatini and Emir completed 2 terms at the Speech&Drama class. They have made a tremendous progress and I am pleased that they have enjoyed the class. It will be holiday now until the first week of next year. Next year they will be on the next level where they will learn more and enjoy more. I have already told Fatini so that she will understand why we will not be going there for the next 7 weeks. She’ll be asking again for sure. With the school holiday is also starting mid of December, the kids will be out of activities. So we are planning to take them away for a week or so vacation during the school holiday. Since the daddy cannot take a long holiday we have planned for an expensive domestic holiday just to pamper ourselves despite earlier plan to go somewhere different. I may also have to come out with weekly program for the kids until the school break is over. A trip to the zoo, swimming, animal farm, butterflies park and the likes. It’s likely that I will take a lengthy time off work to spend time with the kids.

See above pictures were Emir sitting in front of the class talking about his toy in the S&D class, something that he looked forward to doing every week and Fatini in her class having the pre Christmast party.

Meanwhile Emir birthday is coming on the 5^th December. I just plan to celebrate it at his school where all his friends are. So my next task is to order a nice birthday cake for Emir and prepare party packs for all the kids.

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Relationship as interpreted by Zodiac

While going through my old 2003 personal digital files, I found this …By the way I am a Taurus and my husband is an Aries. What’s yours?

Taurus and Aries

When Aries and Taurus come together in a love affair, the partnership is a natural union of Love, represented by Taurus, and Passion, represented by Aries. This relationship is all about balance. Aries wants to jump right in and get into it, while Taurus prefers to go much more slowly. This can create a problem; Taurus loves to be wooed and romanced -- two concepts that are basically foreign to straightforward, brash, totally unsubtle Aries. An Aries-Taurus partnership can be a great learning experience for both Signs. Taurus can help Aries rein in some of the more foolish, impractical impulses, and Aries can help Taurus be more spontaneous and adventurous.

Taurus is sensual, patient and gentle. Aries is attracted to these qualities; Aries sees Taurus as their rock, totally stable and loyal forever. Taurus sees Aries as possessing that quality they want more of -- knowing when and how to grab on to life's opportunities. These Signs are a good balance for each other. Aries might sometimes play games with Taurus, playing off that Bullish laziness, or try to push Taurus into making hasty decisions, but the Bull can usually convince the Ram to slow down a bit. Aries brings excitement to the relationship, while Taurus brings security and romance. When Aries wants instant gratification, Taurus can show just how sexy and sensual slow, deliberate movement can be.

Aries is ruled by the Planet Mars (passion), and Taurus is ruled by the Planet Venus (love). Venus and Mars go well together; they represent the two necessary halves of the same relationship coin. The symbols are universally recognized as masculine and feminine, so this relationship is a good balance of these energies.

Aries is a Fire Sign and Taurus is an Earth Sign. Aries wants to take charge of their own destiny, while Taurus needs to be assured of security and stability. Sometimes Taurus can be possessive, which independent Aries won't tolerate. If Aries can assure Taurus that the relationship is strong and that Aries isn't going anywhere, Taurus can be as flexible and tolerant of independence as Aries needs them to be.

Aries is a Cardinal Sign, and Taurus is a Fixed Sign. In this relationship, Aries is not going to get their own way no matter how hard they try -- so it's a much better idea not to try at all. Taurus is a Fixed Sign that won't budge; Aries will get much further with finesse and charm (Taurus is a real sucker for both) than with argument, since Taurus never loses a debate. Both Signs want to be the leader in the relationship, so compromise is essential.

What's the best aspect of the Aries-Taurus relationship? The passionate nature of the partnership. This is an excellent balance of energy between masculine and feminine, impulsive and deliberate. Their contrasting personalities and ability to learn from one another make theirs a mutually giving and satisfying relationship.

Self revamp

Sometimes I feel that I have too much to do and today was one of those times. I was busy with meetings at work today from morning to afternoon and I still have errands to do which I had not gotten done. I have a to-do list which is not so long but it would be if nothing much is being done. In the evening I have some chores that I would like to do at home too. It used to be that all these list of chores and thoughts of outstanding tasks are so overwhelming to me but now my attitude has gone into a slight revamp. I guess I self readjust to save myself from persistent frustration.

Actually I am beginning to get more organized at the office and particularly at home with regard to duties and things that need to be done on daily basis. At home, earlier I was at the initial stage of a new routine since having no live-in maid to order about. In the beginning it was quite hectic and overwhelming for me but mainly more out of confusion than anything else. But now since the new routine has begun to settle in I am more relax. The morning routine just requires my wakeup time to be reset to 15 minute earlier which is not bad at all and I can be out of the door to work before 7 am. I have also tuned in to my nightly routine and I still can cook simple dinner, spend some time reading to Fatini and playing with the kids and still can make it to bed by 11.30 pm. Off course the TV-watching hours is reduced significantly but that is not much of a loss to me. I have weekends where I spend the time more leisurely by watching TV, napping and outing.

I was a perfectionist, I was running around trying to do things to perfection but all it got me was more and more frustration. But now I am beginning to lower my expectations on my capability to do things within the restricted time. I have to be more tolerant that the house is not as shiny or as orderly as I would like it to be. I learn that it’s okay to procrastinate a little bit but not too much though. I am also more tolerant towards my toddler spilling juice into drawers or the floor now. And I am not too worried seeing my garden has strewn leaves from the neighbour’s plants. I also prioritize what’s more important to me, so that I don’t feel overpowered by the amount of work that I feel need to be done to perfection.

Yet don’t get me wrong, I am still aiming for excellence in all that I do at home since home condition is so important to me. But I let go of my perfectionist attitude. I am learning to value my time and to enjoy my duties and role as the woman of the house.