Monday, November 14, 2011

Parenting dilemma

Dear Internet,

Today I scolded my 10-month old baby. She was playing near the TV and tried to pull out the Astro card. I called her name several times but she was preoccupied in the way a 10-month old usually is. In the end, I said loudly and in a sharp tone, 'HEPP!!'

Khayla was startled. A moment later, she started to wail in fear - she has recognised when Mommy gets angry Mommy's voice will be scary and loud. It's so disheartening to see my little baby has started to fear me. It took her Daddy to pujuk and calm her down.

This was not the first time I showed anger to her. Yesterday when she refused to eat her meal and threw her spoon down, I scolded her. I pretended to hit her food tray, setting her in tears. I put Khayla on the floor and when she crawled to me, I refused to pick her up. She sobbed and then reached out to my hand - as if begging me to forgive her and also make everything fine again for her. I let her cry for half a minute before I took her tiny hand in mine. When I think about the way I punished my baby for being exactly who she is - a baby, I feel terrible and awful.

Not enough with that, I threatened her emotionally by saying bye-bye when she refused to listen to me calling her name. She knows bye-bye means I'm going away, which she hates. So she immediately looked up to me to make sure I wasn't. I knew then even when it seems harmless to trick her, it means for a second her heart was stricken at the thought of Mommy leaving her like Mommy always does in the morning on weekdays.

Dear Khayla,

Mommy wants you to know how deeply sorry I am for being a terrible mother who instead of showing you the right behaviour, punishes you through scoldings and emotional conflicts. I'm sorry baby. You're just a 10-month old baby who is still discovering your surrounding and has little understanding of the concept of rights and wrongs. All you understand is how much Mommy and Daddy love you and anything that contradicts with that knowledge of yours are surely frightening to you.

I love you to bits, my daughter.

Full of regrets Mom,
Me

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Jenjalan di Sasana Kijang

Weekend lepas entah kenapa aku tetiba rajin. Rajin pergi kelas (itu terpaksa, sebab kelas ganti!). Rajin basuh baju, memasak, mop lantai, jaga anak, blablabla. Wah, isteri sapa la ni kan? *mata bersinar-sinar penuh bersemangat waja*

Untuk menambahkan tahap kerajinan minggu ni, aku rajin juga mengajak Kak Ret pergi berfoya-foya. Ecey. Takde la berfoya-foya tapi berjalan-jalan je. Ekceli, nak ajak shopping di Sogo sebab nak sambar cadar dan tuala mandi baru sempena kedatangan family aku minggu ni dan juga ada clearance sales.

Tapi alang-alang menyeluk pekasam, Kak Ret terus la mengajak pulak ke Sasana Kijang lepak-lepak di situ. So apa lagi, tak penah lagi jejak kaki ke situ walaupun sebelah dengan UM City Campus tempat menuntut ilmu. Lagipun En Suami Terchenta ada kuiz keesokannya, maka aku pun merasakan beliau perlu bersendirian supaya dapat konsentret belajar untuk kuiz itu. Wasey, bertuah tak En Junaidix dapat isteri cam aku? Hehehe *jeling En Suami Terchenta*

So melepak la kami berempat di Sasana Kijang. Eh, berempat? Siapakah dua orang lagi tu? Aku, Kak Ret dan...

Shai dan Khayla

Jeng3x! Tu dia... bakal pengantin yang diimport khas untuk menjaga anak aku, Khayla. Tengok la betapa suker nya Khayla duduk bersandar di pangkuan Uncle Shai yang empuk. AHAHAHAHAHA! Shai, aku gurau je ye. Ko jangan marah pulak. Aku pun spesies empuk gak *nangis ke-sejuta kali terkenangkan zaman anak dara yang fewittt*

Ahem. Aku harap tiada sesiapa yang terluka melihat gambar ni. Saja nak tunjuk pemandangan di belakang je. Dua orang dewasa dan seorang bayi ini tiada sebarang pertalian darah mahupun ikatan ye. Model hiasan gambar semata-mata.

Camtu la suasana di Kafe Sasana Kijang. Best sebab moden. Makanan pun murah. Terbelalak mata sebab spaghetti bolognese cuma RM5.50. Kat KLCC ada??? Jangan harap.

Anyway dah puas mengalas perut, kami pun beransur ke muzium di Tingkat 2. Muzium duit kekdahnya.

Shai tengah usha mesin interaktif tentang sistem pertukaran barter sebelum orang terfikir nak buat mata wang

Cengginilah muzium zaman sekarang. Interaktif. Barulah ada orang nak datang. Tapi sebab Sasana ni baru bukak, jadi tak ramai orang tau pasal muzium ni. Rasa kesian pun ada sebab muzium yang begitu canggih tapi lengang. Tak buat promotion ke?

Aku terkagum-kagum dengan mata wang pitis ni. Cuba imagine bawak duit cenggini ke pasar, mesti ada alasan beli beg oversize nak taruk serumpun duit syiling ni. Setiap kali nak guna, patahkan sekeping syiling bagi kat makcik jual kuih. Dah abis syiling, buang ranting. Cenggitu ye?

Ada penerangan tentang setiap versi duit syiling dari setiap negeri. Rasa bangga pulak sebab duit syiling Sarawak zaman Brooke dulu yang paling banyak variasi - ada yang bentuk segi empat, bulat, bulat ada lubang kat tengah, heksagon dan macam-macam ada!

Masih ingatkan anda masa kita gunakan duit kertas cenggini? Bila letak sebelah-menyebelah, kiteorang sedar yang bukan setakat nilai duit yang makin mengecik, saiz duit kertas pun makin kecik. Dulu duit RM50 25% lebih besar dari duit RM50 sekarang. Mungkin in the future tak pakai duit kertas lagi, tapi pakai virtual currency je? Hmm... Renung-renungkan.

Oh, cenggini rupa duit syiling siri ketiga yang akan diperkenalkan Januari tahun depan. Canggih. I loike! :) Cuma, sebelum bagi duit tukar 20 sen tu, kene double triple check tak terbagi 50 sen sebab saiz dekat2 syiling 20 sen sekarang je. Kan ke dah cakap duit sekarang makin kecik??

Lastly, ni ialah gambar Kak Ret di muzium. Wah, ada gambar korang terpampang di muzium? Tak de kan?Dahsyat ye Kak Ret. Tapi kan, bukan ke yang kat muzium tu cuma ada spesies yang dah pupus, expired dan tinggal kenangan je? Kak Ret, jangan sentaps! Gurau je ye! Hehehehe... *tetau esok jugak Kak Ret datang balik ke Sasana dan cabot semua gambar dia*

Anyway, best jugak sekali-sekala spend weekend gi muzium. Banyak benda baru yang diperolehi. Khayla siap tertido-tido dalam baby sling sebab aircond yang dingin. Hehe. Apapun, thanks Kak Ret sebab belanja makan dan ajak kiteorang ke sini :) A different experience, tapi still tetap fun!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Letter to My Child: Khayla (10 months)

Dear Khayla,

Today you turned 10 months old. Altogether now - yeaayy!! For that, I bought you this walker as a changing month gift or more due to the fact that you are officially over with your baby-ish walker. You know, the one that you used to spend delightful hours zooming around the house before you can actually stand up on your own. Girl, you need to learn to show some gratitude, OK?

All grin at the newly-bought toy

My dearest daughter,

As you grow up, there are a few life lessons that I want you to remember - lesson #1: when you decide to descend from the bed to the floor, please go down LEGS first. That way you'll have less risk of knocking your head on the cold, tiled floor.

Yes, hang on like that and then go down on your feet

Lesson #2: I'm always with you even though you can't see me. I know you don't believe me. Every time I put you down so I can attend to chores you start to cry. It's not just 'I don't like to be on the floor' cry, it's 'where are you going? Why are you leaving me?? Are you abandoning me? Don't go, I'll miss you!!!' kinda cry. Your little body just froze on the spot but your cry goes an octave higher with each second that I'm leaving you. By the time I was ready to get you (a minute later), there's a puddle of tears, saliva and snot on the floor, and the front of your shirt was drenched wet with all of them. Of course, if I was gone for more than 2 minutes, you will then creep to wherever I was and then grabbed my pants and never let go. Sweetie, it may be endearing to see you so attached to me, but it gets frustrating when I have to do prepare meals or do laundry or maybe just to get your drink. Khayla, for a 10-month old baby, you are certainly a drama queen. A cute drama queen.

See, Mommy always with you Khayla!

Ok, I think I'll just stop at two. See, too many info, it'll be information overload to you. Like for instance, the day I was trying to read a picture book to you. You look dispassionately at the black and white picture of a cat, and then you turned to another page without even hearing the story of the cat. Just looking at the cat is enough. So it is with food to you nowadays. You used to LOVE eating, darling! Now, you ate a few tiny spoonfuls of porridge and then you turned your face away or made irritating noises if I tried to make you finish your meal.

Speaking about irritating noises, this month I learnt that the meaning to the phrase 'like taking candy from a baby' is a hoax. An outright lie! Ask your Daddy who has faced shrieks, screams and tantrums every time he tried to take away the TV remote control from you. It's not easy at all! Just simply handing a substitute is not enough - we need to persuade how the substitute is wayyy better than what you are currently holding. If you are not convinced, then forget it. You are never surrendering anything that we want.

For the past two weeks, your health was a little bit on the off side. It started with a really high fever (reaching 40 degrees Celsius!) and wham! Two days later you had small, red, angry rashes all over your little body:

Sick little baby

You had measles! To make it worse, I was really busy that week, going on outstation but luckily I could bring you with me because Grandma came all the way from Bintulu to babysit you. I know I should be grateful that the nasty contagious measles had you at this small age but still, it pained me to see you so uncomfortable. Despite being sick, you stayed cheerful most of the time I was around because hey, Mommy's around :)

You also grew more teeth this month. Teeth that you found amazing to grind and it made me grimaced each time you did that. Hopefully you'll outgrow that habit of yours, Khayla.

Perhaps at this point you are wondering whether I have anything good to say about you. Of course there is, munchkin! Plenty that I can't list all of them here. But here are some of the stronger ones:

1. You easily warm up to people and once you like somebody, you show affection easily :)

2. You are quick to imitate my actions so it's easy to teach you by demonstrating to you. For example, you can wave bye-bye at 8 months old. But only to someone you really REALLY like.

3. You love my porridge compared to instant cereal. Yeay!

4. You can reach out to the edge of anything and then stand up by pulling your body up. You can cruise as well this month.

5. You love to babble. You love striking up conversations. I'm never bored whenever I'm with you.

6. Each time you snuggle to me, you put your head on my chest adoringly. Aww...

7. You are cute with a capital 'CUTE'. Yes, even when you are losing weight from all those active moves standing up and cruising from furniture to furniture.

8. You don't complain when you eat veggie.

9. You have loads of sense of humor. Today you pushed your bottle off your tray, which Daddy deftly caught and put it back on the tray. You sneaked a quick look at Daddy, and pushed it again and each time Daddy caught the bottle, you squirmed in giggles, which set us giggling too. You repeated this as long as we laugh because you know we find it cute and funny.

10. You love me with all your heart, it shows whenever your eyes lit up at the sight of me, at the big hug you give me and the way you throw your body just to be in my arms.

And I love you too, my sugar and honey-honey.

Love,

Mak

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Letter to my child: Khayla (9 months)

Dear Khayla,

Last week you turned 9 months old. Happy 9 months, sweetheart! I can't believe that you have spent an equal time being outside and inside my womb. How time flies!

Bath time is play time with ducky-duck

If you could asked me a gift for being 9 months old, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a pair of walking feet and free access to the kitchen area. Feet you may have, but at this stage they still disappoint you. You can't use them to run after me or get to a toy faster than on your tummy. And your beloved walker is no longer your favourite transportation. Nuh-uh. They are only for babies. As far as you are concerned, you are very much a grown-up and can exercise every rights under the Malaysian Constitution.

So what you do right now is demand for a lift, either from Daddy or Mommy. We are now officially your legs to go around the house and inspect everything. In return, you flash us your loveliest smile that mostly works on us. Sigh.

Giving us that 1000-watt smile of yours

Because you couldn't walk yet, you are denied access to the kitchen. This frustrated you greatly because when Mom & Dad participated in this activity called cooking, we don't allow you to join in due to safety reason. You'd be on standby at the kitchen entrance in your walker, complaining loudly and sometimes throwing tantrums because you are not able to come into the kitchen.

To pacify you, we often gave you a spoon and a tin to drum on, which worked - for approximately 5 minutes and then you threw the spoon and then dropped the tin out of curiosity, and after that lost interest in them and back to badgering us to allow you into the kitchen.

My baby,

Earlier this month, you celebrated your first of the many more to come Hari Raya. I was more than excited about this. This is our chance to ~~make money~~ show you off to our relatives! Of course most of them had attended your aqiqah ceremony when you were a little baby but back then you were more interested in sleep than being an adorable little person. We were pretty sure that you would turn on your charming nature this time but then, enter separation anxiety at this age.

Only happy in Mommy's or Daddy's arms

Instead of being happy from having been passed from one hand to another, you screwed up your face and leaked fountains. Clearly this nasty separation anxiety would not leave you even during this festive season. Remember that one night when Mom & Dad left you in the loving care of your grandparents? Two hours later, we received several anxious calls from your Grandpa asking when do we plan to go back as you were throwing tantrums and crying till you vomited. Reason? You wanted us and we were missing.

That night, your aunt Udak Intan had to race us back to Grandpa's house coz you wouldn't stop crying for an hour. The moment you saw us arriving, you kicked your legs in relief and almost fell off from Daddy's brother's arms because you missed us THAT much.

Loving your play time

This month also, you delighted me tremendously coz you finally, FINALLY, can call me 'Mak'. You would babble and rant 'Bapak' at any time of the day even when you don't want Daddy, but when it's milk time you turned to me and called 'Mak'. It certainly made my day each time you correctly called me 'Mak'. Muah!

Growth-wise, everyone told me that you looked tall for your age. When it comes to height, you took after Daddy. People always thought you're one year old already. And the same people always get surprised when I said you are still exclusively breastfed. Eh, breastmilk also can give equal if not better nutrition than formula. So way to go, Khayla!

Playing swing like an older child

Last but not least, I'd like to thank you for being the best and sweetest baby in the world. You certainly showed maturity and understanding beyond your age especially when sometimes both Mommy & Daddy are not around because either one of us has to go to class now that our classes have resumed. One day when we graduate, we'll dedicate our success to you, my loveliest child.

Posing in your first baju kurung

Love,
Mommy

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Hari Saya (oleh Khayla)

Pagi tadi saya bangun awal. Saya toleh kanan. Bapak masih tidur. Saya toleh kiri, Mak pon tidur lagi. Tapi saya rasa nak kacau Mak jugak. Lalu saya buat bising di telinga Mak dan tarik rambut sampai beliau bangun dan kata, 'Kenapa Khayla tarik rambut Mak?'

Sebaik saja Mak tengok saya senyum beliau tak jadi marah. Tapi akibatnya saya akan dicium dan digomol sampai saya jerit marah. Mak suka cium pipi saya. Saya rasa perbuatan mak keterlaluan.

Mak bangun dan mandi, jadi saya kacau bapak pulak. Bila Mak dah selesai mandi, Mak mandikan saya pulak. Saya suka mandi dengan Mak sebab Mak bagi saya main dengan itik getah. Mak nyanyi2 sambil mandikan saya. Bapak biasanya nak cepat jadi saya tak boleh main bila mandi.

Hari ni Bapak bagi saya sarapan. Seperti biasa, makan bubur. Kenapa mak dan Bapak tak faham, saya ni dah besar dan tak suka makan bubur? Bubur untuk bayi je. Saya dah 8 bulan, bukan bayi lagi kan?

Jadi saya cuma makan separuh dan lepas tu saya tak pedulikan Bapak lagi. Lepas makan, Mak bermain dengan saya dan kemudian kami tengok tv sama2. Sekarang saya faham kenapa Mak suka pandang kotak bergambar tu. Ada lagu2 menarik dan kartun2 best!

Bila penat, saya baring2 dengan Mak sambil menyusu. Saya suka minum susu Mak sebab lepas tu saya rasa ngantuk lalu tidur.

Bila terjaga, saya tengok Mak dan Bapak sibuk mengemas bilik tidur. Saya tumpang menyibuk je. Oh, rupanya Mak nak alih almari dan katil. Mungkin sebab Mak jatuh kerusi pagi tadi masa tengah cari baju dalam almari. Mak jerit aduh sambil pegang punggung. Siapa suruh Mak tak berhati2?

Hasil kecoh2 Mak dan Bapak bilik tidur kami kelihatan seperti ni:

Bagi saya itu semua tak penting tapi saya tertarik dengan lampu tepi katil. Ia ada potensi untuk dipanjat saya. Tapi Bapak asyik sekat saya dari lampu tu. Bapak memang begitu. Spoilsport.

Petang. Bapak dan mak bawak saya jalan2. Ooo... Saya suka! Mak letak saya di dalam buaian bayi. Suka suka! Suka sampai ketawa mengekek2 bila Mak hayun buaian tinggi2:

Walaupun saya seorang je yang main buai, tapi Mak dan Bapak yang ketawa lebih. Mereka tu memang over. Sila maafkan perangai mereka ya.

Belum puas main buai, bapak dah keluarkan saya sambil kata saya masih bayi dan masih kecil sangat. Lepas tu mereka masukkan saya dalam kereta sorong saya dan berjalan2. Sambil2 tu, mak suapkan bubur nasi ke mulut saya. Saya yang terkagum2 melihat alam sekitar sampai lupa yang saya benci bubur. So ngap dengan berselera.

Kami tiba di kawasan lapang dan Mak bentang tikar. Saya terus mengamuk sebab saya nak jalan2 lagi! Saya taknak makan! Lalu saya mogok dan muntahkan makanan jugak!

Muka mogok taknak makan

Dengan Bapak

Last2 Mak dan Bapak cepat2 berkemas dan saya masuk dalam kereta sorong semula. Yeay!

Mak sempat belikan aiskrim dan dengan baik hati beri saya makan kon. Saya teruja sebab saya dapat makan makanan baru. Yum yum! ~

Oleh sebab hari ni sangat memenatkan so saya nak tidur awal ye. Selamat malam!