Alysha with her magic wand

Was putting Alysha and Inarah to nap on Saturday afternoon. Nap times are getting more and more challenging with both of them napping together.

Anyway, Alysha was upset as I kept getting her to be quiet and lie down even if she did not want to nap.

She had her little magic wand with her.

Alysha : "If you get me to sleep I will change you into a leopard."
Me : I could eat you up if I was a leopard"
Alsyha : I will change you into a cat.
Me : "Meeaaww"
Alysha : I will give you so many kittens so you have sooooo much work.

Totally cracked me up.

I guess she does realise how challenging and tiring it can be to raise children like her.

Blogging is therapeutic

I really feel better, a little refresed after all that posting. Umm, it may be true. blogging may truely be therapeutic.

Have a great weekend, everyone

The little entertainer, Inarah

I am on the roll here, so bear with me. I just could not end the week without writing about the latest and greatest of my darling Inarah.

1. She has learnt how to pretend cry. She goes around with this sad look on her face trying to imitate herself crying. it sounds somewhat like an owl hooting, really "hooooo..."

2. She goes around shaking her head saying, "na, na, na, na" for no when she does not want something or does not want to give you something back, like the remote control.

3. She points at hubby's nipples and goes, "mik, mik" for milk, cracke me up :)

4. She points the remote to the air cond or Tv and goes, tit, tit. No idea where she got that sound from.

5. She nods her head and says, "k" for okay, when we are explaining something to her or telling her to do something.

6. She loves the book, babybug, where Julie puts teddy in the suitcase and yells "surprise, its teddy" in the next page. She goes "pri" with her hands up in the air.

7. She walks around the house and suddenly squarts. We run to her coz we think she wants to go potty ( trying to toilet train her). She gets up the minute she sees us and gives us this look like she was shitting us. Cheeky little baby.

8. She end mostly all the sentences in her favorite books

"baby's boat is a silver": she says "moo"
"sailing in the" : she says "ky"

"And the quite old lady wispering" : she says "hush" with her finger on her lips.

9. She says "moo" for cow, "quack" for duck, "pak" for chicken, "on" for pig, "aaa" for lion.

10. Like a robot goes into the batnroom after her meals to wash up (with us running behind her) and then to Suryani's room for a change. Without us telling her to.

10a. You really have to see her dancing. She bends down jutting out her butt and truely moves it, her hips moving too. It's just a sight you wouldn't want to miss.

Where did she learn all this. I really dont know. I really have to give credit to Suryani for this. She is puttting into practice what she has learnt in the past three years with Alysha.

I am truly going to miss her. What am I going to do when she leaves. That's another story all together

This age just amazes me. Love this stage compared to the bratty toddler I have. just kidding!

Connecting with Alysha

And so Alysha is disconnected to me? What ? you ask.

This is how it goes with me. I have the need to connect with ALysha from time to time when I feel she is disconnected to me. I don’t know if other moms feel this and can relate to this or it’s just something that I feel. My personal need.

After I had Inarah, due to the juggling and my inability to slow down and enjoy little precious moments with them, I feel torn between Alysha and Inarah. Inarah needs me most of the time when I am home, coz she is one. Alysha used to need me a lot until I had Inarah and I couldn’t give her the kind of attention I used to. So she has gotten used to it.

I use to come home, have Alysha run to the door to greet me, give me a hug, sit on my lap and tell me about her day or anything that she wants to talk about. Now I come home, Alysha yells Hi! form wherever she is, although I make it a point to go to her and give her a hug. Most of the time she is too busy doing whatever she is doing.She does not even look at me in the eye until I insist sometimes because I want to get a point across and I need her to really listen

Inarah on the other hand wants to nurse as soon as she sees me, so she is in my arms for a good 10-15 min (this is when I feel connected to her) before she goes off to play. .

Maybe its because she is growing up, she is 4 after all. Do 4 year olds still need hugs and kisses as much as 2 year olds? maybe not.

And for me, I need to connect to effectively discipline her. Otherwise I just end up yelling at her and end up with her getting all violent and saying hurtful things. Or maybe she would do that anyway, whether or not I feel connected when I am disciplining her.

Its so much easier having just one kid, where you can focus on her and not feel torn between the two and so many other things.

Oh I dont know, this thing is so difficult. Anyway bottom line, I need to connect. And we will be spending some quality time together , just her and me, tomorrow. And hopefully , it gets easier after that.

Of course I have to keep doing it. Its a continuous process. I just wonder how do people with 3 or 4 kids do it.

Chocolate or a spa experience ?

I need either now, right now! but the chocolate has to be the real expensive bitter ones, like the Belgian ones they have at Mid valley for RM7 each. which is like oooh lala, you just want to savor every bite.

I make this awesome crunchies, coconut and oatmeal ones. I brought some at work as we were supposed to be in a working meeting all day and in 3 min, it was all gone. This one was good as it had the right amount of sugar. Sri, always complains that anything from my kitchen is usually low sugar which takes away the uummph! so I was generous on the sugar when I made this batch.

But it does not do to me what chocolates does. Of course not ! you would say, if you knew chocolates the way I do.

Anyway, its been a heavy week. With sick kids and work not showing signs of slowing down. Good news though, the forum that we were working towards, for which we were suppose to work over the weekend got postponed to sometime in April.

Yay! Yay !. I have my weekend with kids and Sunday afternoon with hubby. I still have work to do over the weekend but I can do it from home.

My eyes are hot and truly feels like they are on fire. What does that mean, it means I probably need sleep more than the chocolate or the spa. Maybe I need a holiday.

All by myself by the beach, no kids, no hubby, no one. Just me, chocolates, a book ( a few maybe) and the sky and the sea and the breeze and me lying down on the beach on my belly reading my book, while this masseur is oiling and kneading my back for the longest time.

Oh, I want, I want. I want. No. I need, I need, I need.

Ah! Just have to make do with some chocolates, I guess.

My partner in parenting, Part II

I really have to give credit to hubby for being a wonderful partner to me in caring for my children. Of course, I wont be able to do this without Suryani and my mom.

But hubby has been consistently giving me the support I need to make it through. He has driven up and down dropping things off to Alysha; visiting her; looking after Inarah when I had Suryani over at my mom's to keep Alysha entertained; giving me that occasional, quick back rub after a lousy night (with Inarah up , more than 8 times); and many more thoughtful things.

Of course, there were times, he switched off the lights and blasted the tv so loud that I had to take Inarah to the room until his movie was over. But I guess he needs that to unwind.

And today after seeing the symptoms on Inarah he said "Don't worry, I'll look after her", I was just so touched.

Thank you, jannu. Love you.

Hand Foot & Mouth

Alysha was diagnosed with HFM last Friday. We were supposed to go off for our Holiday to pangkor on Saturday morning.

I didnt sleep all night, worried and tired. Did all my research and found out all about Coxsackie A16 and and enterovirus 71, totally impressed my pead. I also re-scehduled my trip to may (next school holidays) as I had fully paid for the package.

Saturday onwards I sent Alysha to my moms and Inarah was at home with Suryani, my maid. I travelled up and down every 3 hourly during the day, taking 3-4 showers in between, coz I am so afraid to spread this to Inarah. Thank God Alysha is okay to sleep with my mom. Actually she really likes it coz she gets all pampered.

Thanksfully, she had it quite mild. I would say its probably due to all that fruits and veg she has been eating. She didnt have any fever, has been active as usual and did not complain of any pain, except some discomfort on the first day. But I think that was just to get some ice cream from me as she heard the pead mentioning that its recomended during this time. The sores in the mouth started going off after 3 days and she is now back to normal.

This morning Suryani spotted a spot on Inarah's finger and some redness at the roof of her mouth. So far, no fever. I hugged her so hard and just feel like crying. Inarah is finally at a good weight. You can see it on her. She is even developing a little belly like her sister. And now this!. This will surely bring her down a few kilos.

I am so afraid and worried for her. The last time she was sick she had completely stopped eating. I just cant imagine her in pain with all that sores. We are just praying hard that she has a mild one as well. Hopefully all that immunity that breastmilk is suppose to provide comes handy this time around.

Meanwhile I thought my schedule was already too full for a stressful crisis like this. Work has been ultra busy, with the possibility of having to work over this weekend.

But of course, all I want is to be by my childrens side in times like this.

I also deal with stress pretty badly, so really, any survival tools will be helpful.