We had new additional of family members. Lovely funny couple of Yan and Hazeem just received their newly offspring. Tamam Fastaqeem nama di beri. So we pay a visit to baby Tamam at their home, twice. Our 1st visit was not counted as we didn't have a chance to meet Yan or the handsome boy himself as Tamam was having slight jaundice so he was admitted back for 2 days. Kalau kat Mesia, it's became behavior for newly mom to "jemur" their baby if any symptom of jaundice appear, but here in Q8, in the middle of summer, ley jadik keropok kalau jemur. Hahahaha.. By 10 am, temperature dah 40 degree or higher, so given no other option, memang kena admit lah.


{ Depan pintu building pun nak bergamba, macamlah jauh sangat dr rumah, macam 1st time sampai hahah }

Yesterday, I cooked nasik ayam for dinner.





{ Sayur campur }

Today, we got birthday invitation from Lim's family around 7 pm. Alis and Erin insisted of having Texas Chicken for lunch so texas Chicken it is. After lunch, I did my bloghopping as usual when Alis asked me :

Alis : Mummy, tak masak ek ?

Mummy : Tak lah dah kakak nak mkn ayam goreng.

Alis : Takpe.. kakak dah masak utk mummy.

Mummy : owhh !! Kakak masak ape?

Alis : Tomyam tembikai jek... Nahh, makan lah...



















{ Tomyam tembikai made by Alis}

Ummmmmmm... nak kecik hati ke nak nangis ekk ???

Parts of fun having big girls was they're now able to participate in most of my favourite childhood games. Be it main masak masak, main mekap2, main kawen-kawen and so on.

However, among many, Hide n Seek remained one of most requested game by popular demand in my home.

There's benefit playing hide n seek with kids though coz U see, they're pretty naive and I can always manipulate their fear. Sufficed to say, mummy always win specially when playing at nite, coz I dun even have to try hard. Just hide in the room dark enough, they won't get any further than the door hahahha...Bad mummy ! Bad mummy...

Alis was considered as a good player. She always find good spot and managed to stay still till I found her. Erin otherwise, can't even hold her ground in hiding place of her choice, not even 10 second. She always gigging, laughing or revealed her hiding spot. She's always goes like :

Mummy : 1,2,3...... 10.. Dah ke belom ?

Alis : Dahhhh...

Erin : Dahhh.. Adik nyorok bawah meje nyihh..

Kah kah kah. Cute !

It really made Alis gone mad so as a solutions, Erin are to be paired with either Alis or Mummy, whomever turn to hide.

One fine afternoon, as usual, we were playing hide n seek again. It's my turn to seek and Alis and Erin to hide. After counting to 10, I started searching and seeking. I found Alis underneath my dresser, her favorite place to hid, this time, she covered herself with pillow hahhaa.. Not to blame her though, coz my house so small, there's not much option of place to hide.

I found Alis but not Erin. Erin was no way in sight. I called out her name, just silence. I kept searching every normal spot but to no avail. I got really worried so I checked the main door, it is indeed locked so there's no way she let herself out without me noticing it. We launched searching mission for Erin and it lasted about 2-3 minutes or so. I looked everywhere. I even looked inside my washing machine. You can never expect what 2 years old way of thinking huh. Still no sound and sign of her anywhere.

This is wayyyyyy not Erin. I kept calling out her name but no reply though. So I sit on my sofa, thinking hard where she could be possibly hiding. My mind wandering around and so did my eyes when suddenly I noticed something weird with En Muddy's jacket. U see, En Muddy always hang his jacket on our dining chair. It's plain normal view to us but not that day. That day I saw this...

There's saying goes like :

" Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper "

It is some kind of proper-healthy daily meal intake for one whereby breakfast remain the most important meal of all, and supposedly be the grandest. Mana ade king makan roti cicah milo for breakfast kan? However, I just realized I had it all wrong all this while.


{ Beef burger for the girls = breakfast}



{ Raw kurma = for kudap kudapan}


{ Ikan Kerapu bakar berempah sambal..tu diaaa..berempah nak, sambal pun nak = lunch and dinner }


{ Ayam masak merah tiru resipi Ayu, rupa takde, rasa mmg marveles = lunch, dinner}

{ Cekodok pisang= breakfast, teatime}
Alis bertanye : Mummy, kenapa cekodok nenek bulat, cekodok mummy oval ( de guna oval tu, bukan lonjong, kemainnnnn)

Mummy menjawap : Fineeeeee.. satu lg soklan, mummy fedex-ed ko blk Setiawangsa .. haha


{ Fresh tempe.. Ayah ! lihatlahhhh..Q8 ade tempe. Meh la dtg sini, sebakul angah belikan }


{ Chicken soup = lunch, dinner}


{ Meehun goreng = dinner}



{ Sambal Ikan bilis kering, my one and only comfort food = breakfast cicah roti, lunch n dinner dgn nasik}



So..back to the saying :

" Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper "

Which part of my day actually that I dined like a pauper ek??? Ooopppsssssss....

Being so far away from family, it doesn't really matter u're Malaysian, or Egyptian or Indonesian, as long as you're Muslim, u're practically family. Saudara sesama agama. After all, semua merantau mencarik rezeki so those guys in below picture are basicaly my closest knits apart from other Malaysian families. They're all En Muddy's shift mate. The two guys in white robes are Egyptian, En Muddy's un-official Arabic teacher and the rest were Indonesian. All comes with single packages. Single package doesn't necessarily meant they're single. It means that their families are not inside the expat-package, unlike Malaysian whom all were offered family package.

For those who doesn't have the opportunity to experience being far away, having to sacrifice the comfort of living under same roof with your family and loved one, just for the sake to earn a living, you wouldn't have the slightest idea how tough it is especially for men to live on their own, specially when it comes to food. En Muddy have pretty hefty experiences in this field, hence he understood. Occasionally he will asked me to packed extra food when he's working nite shift, meant to be shared with other shift mate coz there's no meal subsidized after office hours and Public Holiday.

He also planned to make it monthly event for us, to organize makan makan for his shift-mate. So as a started, last Friday, we invited them to our humble home for lunch. At first it's only intended to be a close affair involving all three Indonesian friends coz I'll be cooking Malay food, but one of the guy accidentally invited the other 2 Egyptian friends which I dun even mind at all.

My only worries are, would they be able to accept Malay food? My food? When I cook Malay food, I'll cook it my way. When talking about my way, the spicier the better, athough I will still downgrade few notches on the spicy level simply coz my husband can't stand spicy food. Same like my husband, Arabian was also well known for their non-spicy food. Their spiciest, doesn't even equivalent to my level 1 of spicy-ness.. Hmmmmm...One more thing, Egyptian's staple food are Qubs ( Arab bread) and I'm serving rice to my guests that day.. Double triple hmmmmmm. Well, just hoping that my nawaitu utk menjamu tetamu was counted by Allah s.w.t and he made it easy for us and our guests.







This thing about gado gado, traditionally, it is supposed to have fried tofu and fried tempe but somehow, I can't find any. Actually tofu are pretty easy to find here, it is just that it was nowhere to be found that day. Did it ever happened to you " kalau tak cari, melambak2, tapi kalau carik, mmg tak jumpa" ?? It happened to me that day. 3 supermarket pegi, no signs of tofu. I had kirim tempe from one of my friend, Ema but she will be going to buy it only on Saturday, a day after my majlis. I guess I had to live with tofu-less and tempe-less gado gado it seems. Gotta settled down with whatever substitute I can find. As creative as I can be, I replaced tempe with kentang rebus, and tauhu with steamed brocolli. Dah macam rojak Singapore lak ekk.. Aci ke tak? Aci la ekk...Effort that count! Well, it turned out that with or without tempe, it looks like my guests doesn't seem to mind, coz balik modal makcik meniaga gado gado that day.


{ Gado gado tak aci, there's one more ingredient missing in the picture which is taugeh,added soon after the pic was snapped }

There's silver line anyway behind series of incident that day ( un-planned guests and also tofu & tempe less). My Egyptian guest have no choice but to eat rice and tried Malay food for once and I think they kinda like it coz I saw they helped themselves with second and third helping of sambal udang, with gallon of ice water of course ! kah kah kah... sambal makcik pedas meletup jubo u all...After I received my tempe from Ema a day after that, I made it into sambal ikan bilis with kentang and have my hubby tapau-ed it for dinner during one of night shift, and guess what, Jalal the Egyptian was the one who finished all the tempe till it's last piece :)

They stayed after lunch till around 4 pm, having a chat, few Arabic lesson, keeping my girls busy and then they bid farewell.

All in all.. I pray that my deed was counted as good deed since I am considered committed sin if any of my guests went back with diarrhea am I ?? May I be spare from committing un-intentional sin.

Hungry man is an angry man, so my only wish was that all my guests went back happy dude. I am pretty positive they all are.

I had 4 people in the house and 3 of them speaks different language.

First and foremost, The Papa speaks God of War language. He says Poseidon when he sees water. Athena, Pandora, Olympus, Labyrinth, Kratos ( to name a few) was very familiar to me they've been practically a family . Known them since before Alis was born. Even my calcium pill he bought had a slightest resemblance to God Of War. Tak caya ?


Then there is Alis in Wonderland. Her most favorite line lately was " I can slay the Jabberwocky". I've grown tired listening her uttering those lines. From a girl that demands everything to be pinkish if not princess-like theme, be it tooth brush, pillow, pencils, pencil case and bla bla bla.. now she's a girl with liking for sword. Errr pink sword to be accurate.



Finally, The NeytiErin that speaks Navi. Avatar this..avatar that ! Way too many dose of Avatar, I started seeing people on the road turning blue and grow tails for all I know. Even Arabic sounded like Navi to them.






So.... how now brown cow ?

While watching arabic version of Ben 10 last nite, there's an Arabic word caught Alis attention. The word sounded something like sahelu ( am pretty sure about the pronounciation but not the spelling). She quickly asked me :

Alis : Mummy, sahelu tu ape ek?

Mummy with rusty mind : Umm, ntah ek alis, Mummy belom pandai bahasa Arab lagi laaaaa.. Nanti papa balik kite tanye papa..

Alis : Alaaaaa... kakak tau ni.. dalam Avatar pun ade cakap Arab jugak...

Mummy with rusty mind : Haaaaaa ????????

Alis : Sahelu tuu kan yang Avatar masukkan rambut de ade cacing tu kat dlm rambut kuda ker.. burung besar ker...

Then I remember the scene... Tsahelu = bonding.... I swear I never teach her that nor explained to her during the scene. She must have picked it up when Neytiri taught Jack Sully how to bond with the animals.

Mummy : Iskkk pandaii lah kamu ni Alis..


Sooo... Is it I had rusty mind or I just had clever girl ?

I find it funny when I am still accidentally use reason "Cepat tido ! Esok Mummy nak keje" when tucked girls to bed.


I find it funny when in Malaysia, I never had tempe in my fridge, ever... yet in Q8, we had to drive 45 minutes to get a pack of tempe and we just wouldn't mind.


I find it funny when at times, cekodok pisang aku masak kat Mesia back then selalu tak jadik dari jadik, tapi kat Q8 ni masak ape pun Insya allah jadik kah kah kah .. (I'm allowed to gloat in my own blog am I ? )



I find it funny when almost all un-intelligence, stupid and shallow comments about people's body shape, or people's phsyical aspect came from far-fetched perfecto shape and ain't Cindy Crawford to begin with. Bak kata orang dulu-dulu.. Ngata dulang paku serpih, ngata perut orang, perut awak tak gelebeh??


I find it funny because I thought facebook supposed to connect people. Apparently, lately, mostly all it did was drifting people away. Not enough with stupid, un-sensitive comments..now latest trend, we have hater's group and You-add-him/her-and-I'll-delete-you-off-from-my-friend-list childish antic. Remind me again why I joined facebook in the first place!


I find it funny when I had thousands idea for this post when my internet is down, yet when I had full connectivity, my mind goes blank.

Okay, I dun find it funny anymore..

This story happened long time ago and been kept in my draft for so long I forgot. Since I've wrote half part of it, better off I'll finish it and published ehh...

As a start, anyone whom close enough to my lil family should know that Alis can't live without her bantal busuk and puting. Somehow Erin inherited the habit from her. Sangat susah I tell you nak putuskan puting dgn bantal busuk der.

Sufficed to say that bantal busuk Alis have seen, survived and evolved in many phases. It's a long process for it to become what she is now. Macam caterpillar nak jadik rama rama.

From what we called normal baby bolster to what my baby sis called buah pinggang look-alike. My mum called it "candu" based on effects it does to her. Dapat cium bantal busuk der, cam high jek hahaha. Exactly like people smoking candu. Siap terpejam2 mata nih. Kekabu kat dalam tu somehow shrinking 3 times it original size due to repeatedly been washed and soaked. After good 4 happy years, kekabu tu terbahagi dua.



From bersarung, Alis decided that it is rather more syiokkkk to sniffed her bantal busuk without sarung so it has been sarung-less ever since.

From only to be used sebagai pemangkin tido, eventually became her twin I never gave birth to. She refused to go anywhere without bantal busuk and puting. She refused to sleep without one. Exceptional case if she was too tired to even ask for it, but very rare occasion I must say. Even if we go shopping, the bantal busuk comes with her, always on her hand. I think her bantal busuk somehow gave her sense of completeness. You know, like men can't live without hand phones or ladies without lipstick. Something like that.

When I gave birth to Erin, most of my confinement period spent at my mum's house @ Setiawangsa. We only go back to Puchong during En Muddy's rotational off day for 4 days. As normal,during his last off day, he'll sent us to Setiawangsa and then took bus to Pontian from KL. Caught off guard, we left Alis's bantal busuk behind and only noticed it when we reached Setiawangsa already. Realizing that there's no way she will survived bantal busuk-less for 4 days till En Muddy's next off day without making me gone bonkers, En Muddy made another trip back to Puchong just to take her bantal busuk. If I'm the one who left my suitcase behind and even if my life depends on the suitcase, I truly believed that he'll make me wear my mum's baju or buy new baju that last 4 days till he's back. Anything but 45 minutes trip back to Puchong. For Alis, of course, anything also can. That's what daddy's girl power had on him. Sighhhhhh...

Say anything if you must but we've tried so many ways to separate her from bantal busuk. Same story goes to puting ( pacifier). For puting case, we've tried putting garlic on it which turned out she enjoyed it and chew the garlic till it's last piece. This is how I discovered she likes garlic, just like me.. Kah kah kah. Then we tried coffee, same cases whereby she just nyonyot the coffee powder. Aduyaiiii....

I still remembered there's one time my mom in law asking my aunt whom believed to have ability to heal people traditionally or shall I put as medicine woman ( bomoh) to help us resolved this problem. I'm not so much of a person who believe all this stuff but if it can't help to solve Alis problem, I'll might as well shut up my mouth and just go by it. Like other "bomoh" always do, they'll read some ayat and blow it in plain water and ask us to give Alis to drink it and according to her, she'll grow hate for pacifier in no time. Well, long story cut short, it doesn't work ! AT ALL !! I think more or less, it's works other way around cause she's getting more attached to her pacifier more than before. Wrong spell maybe? Not ?

It got me really worried cause her likes for pacifier started gave her physical side effect. Her teeth started coming out upfront. In short, jongang ! Although we bought her puting that said to be safe for so-called orthodontic. Thank to Allah, her puting got lost during our trip to Cherating and it puts and end to it. As simple as that. En Muddy refused to buy her new one anymore and I can't agree more, although my heart urged me to secretly buy new one for her. Kesian sesangat wehh..

Settled one, one more to go.

With her bantal busuk, it wasn't as easy as solving her addiction to puting. Apparently, her bantal busuk has been to many places including Q8. Alis won't even let the custom officer to scan her pillow for cry out loud. She's giving those U-dun-even-try-to-touch-my-pillow-or-I'll-bite -your-head-off look and miraculously, it work wonders. They let her and her bantal busuk off un-scan and I just gave up trying to separate her from bantal busuk then.

After say about a month we're here in Q8, something happened.

U see, Alis was taught that there's 3 major things she can't play with or even touch it. Knife, needles and scissors. En Muddy made her memorized it everyday of this 3 rules thingy.

One morning, I was in the kitchen cooking and kind-off absorbed with what I was doing when suddenly Alis came to me and called me for attention. When my eyes laid on her, I noticed her face had this guilty-scared to death look. She almost wanted to cry so I asked her slowly of what had happened. I also can't help but noticing that she was trying really hard to hide something behind her back. My 1st guess was she accidentally cut her hair off, just like before but I didn't see anything funny with her hair so must be something else. When she showed me what's the big secret she's trying to hide, I was stunned ! I was in awe and shocked for about a minute then I laughed out loud. So loud it puzzled Alis coz I think she was expecting me giving her ultimatum, or a spank or hanger or as minimal as cubit.

I was laughing coz she was holding her bantal busuk with both hands. One part in each hands. Her one bantal busuk now became 2 coz apparently she was playing with my kitchen scissor and out of curiosity, she cut the middle part of her bantal busuk.

I just tell her off, this is what happen when U dun listen to Papa and this is what happen when u did nasty things behind my back. Secretly I am so glad she cut her bantal instead of her hand or Erin. I told her to throw away her pillow then before Papa comes home but she refused to. I also told her, I won't sew it back for her coz firstly, I dun have jarum and benang here, and secondly, I dun sew. Mummy cook, mummy clean but mummy just dun sew. If she still wanted to keep her pillow then, she had to live with it's latest condition lah. She had to bare the consequences of her action for she claimed she's big girl already. Akan tetapi, mummy will always be mummy la kan. Tak sampai hati sungguh so by end of the day, I tight her pillow using rubberband hahahaha..


However, out of boredom of having had to keep kutip kekabu yang asik berterabur terkeluar, she let us throw, sorry I rephrased- not us but En Muddy. She finally let En Muddy throw her 4 years old bantal busuk. I have no heart to do it for it has practically been a family member for so long. It feels like throwing your family member out. En Muddy didn't throw it at first but kept it safe and sound in high hidden place, incase she had troubled adjusting new life without bantal busuk. We even get her new bantal busuk as a replacement which she had the privilege to pick which one she like herself. Of course it look more decent, big enough it can't even fit in mummy's handbag so she will think twice to bring it out during outing, pinkish of course and princess-theme duuhhhhhh.. After few weeks, she seems to be okay and adjusting well, so we finally bid farewell to her old bantal busuk.

Bye bye " candu".

You've had served great service to my baby daughter. You've been there for her every day and nite without complaining. You even bare the embarrassment when she decided to publicly carry you around "naked" all over Malaysia domestically, Bandung and Kuwait internationally. You've survived all weather and all shape she molded you into. You did not failed her but she's all grown up now. You've done your time and you did great but now it's time for you to go. She's better off without you and you better off without her. We thank you for your loyalty and we will guaranteed that you will be deeply missed and hold special place in our heart. Good luck wherever your next destination, errrr or next garbage bin shall be. Do not worry a bit. You will not be alone for long. We will send your "baby sis" to follow you and keep you accompany once we had the chance to do it. Please pray hard that ur sister's owner called Erin didn't gave us hard time though.

Sayonara.



{ Hiii, My name Alis. I'm officially 48 days free from bantal busuk and 4 months free from puting }

Since summer is in town and going out sometimes can lead to very unpleasant experiences, so we stick to indoor activities to fill our time. One of it was swimming. Fast become one of the girls most seek activity to do during free time. Furthermore, they had 2 friends living at 7th floor who shared the same passion for water sports and more than willing to accompany Alis and Erin everytime they want to had some splash provided I was doing something else, like cooking for an instant.

We bought floaties for both, which have been very very helpful but unfortunately, when using it for long period of hours, the floaties will tend to gave blister to their below arm. We then replaced the floaties with junior life jacket which also produce almost the same effects. So basically we're still hunting for best floating device for the kids to be used in long hours without giving them blister whatsoever.


{ Ini budak daredevil. She will just jump into the pool and dive. I believed the signage outside the pool NOT ALLOWED WITHOUT PARENTAL GUIDANCE was meant for her }

I am still in my searching for fun activities to do in Q8. Been bloghopping and webhopping for that matters. En Muddy had found 1 activity he wanted to try which is shooting. There's a shooting range in affordable travel distant and affordable rate. I was searching for maybe something like horse riding for Alis but the Equestrian Club here opened for Kuwaitis only. How sad!!!. Another sport that I would really love to try here was ATV but for that, I have had to wait up till Winter to come as most outdoor activites was put on hold during Summer here due to extreme temperature lately. You can get caught by policemen if they found you camping during this season. So for now I guess swimming it is.

Owhh they made tremendous progress though in swimming. Lina ( Lim's wife) who turn out to be their fulltime un-paid swimming instructor always commented that in no time Alis and Erin will start swimming without floaties. They embraced the concept of swimming naturally without being taught to, like body posture and kicking style. All they need was gut to take off the floaties and jump, which Erin had no problem to do it hahahahaha.








{ Tgk lah, macam macam style lak makcik ni. Lebeh2 tau ! Macam pro seyhhh.. }

On another topic, I secretly ( there's nothing secret about it anymore since I'm sharing it with you here) wished or shall I put as, I secretly set a deranged challenge to myself to learn Arabic. In 3 years here, I would want to be able to converse in Arabic, or at least I understand them and they understand me. Most importantly is, I want to be able to understand what I utter in my prayer, not just uttering them without understand what's the story behind.

I've been reading "The Ideal Muslimah" by Muhammad Ali Al-Hashimi lately and I must say it's a very good book. And Yes ! I don't just read Harper Bazaar and Ikea catalogue only hehehehe. Anyway, in Chapter One : The Muslim Woman and Her Lord said, among many ways to reach ultimate concentration in prayer was by understanding your reading words by words. Something which I would really like to be able to do it. I think it will makes me a better person and better muslimah.

I was doing my not-so-favourite task one fine day which is siang ikan, ketam, udang dan yang sewaktu dengannyer. U see, I would prefer to do it sitting down rather than standing upon the sink coz I work in very slow phase. Hahahaha it could actually take almost half day to finish "grooming" my 1 week stock. I will trimmed the ekor, the sirip nicely and for ketam, I will cut every possible sharp pointing torn I could find. When doing this, biasa nye I will alas the plastic bags with old newspaper kan, to avoid air air ikan to stained my floor, which I find it handy. While doing my work, I can catched up some reading too :). Normally between singing and reading and siang-ing, I will share with my husband whom normally in the living hall should I stumbled upon any interesting information from the old newspaper I've been practically sitting on and reading on. Most of the time, he already knew about it hahahhaha, dah kata old newspaper kan.

Anyway, as usual I was reading during siang ikan when small advertisement caugh my attention.

" Arabic teacher for ladies only. Fastest way to learn real Arabic, fun Arabic. Call 665XXXX "

It was tempting alright but I didn't call anyway cause in my judgement, my situation not permitted me to do it just yet as Alis haven't start schooling so most of my time is occupied by them. Furthermore, I am still not familiar with Q8, so for me to travel to the school myself with 2 kids is not a good idea. I wanted to do it right way, even if it means I had to wait a little while.

So for now, I'm using my own way of learning Arabic, using anything I could find domestically. Bread plastic wrap, baked bean can, sweetened condensed milk can, toothpaste tube, juice bottle , practically anything I could find. Normally this product will comes with it's own tagline U see, and it has Arabic version so basically I'm learning from my groceries. En Muddy had his own benefits coz his working with Arabian and Egyptian so he learn from them during daily conversation. Sometimes when I heard song in TV or any wordings that caught my attention or Alis's attention, I will memorised it and ask him to ask his Arabian friend for what it means.

Infact, during jalan jalan session, there's a lot to learn from your surrounding. I've learnt that P in Arab was spelled in Arabic not using Pa but Ba. Intead of using Pa, the proper way to spell P in Arab was using letter Fa. To name a few example, Pizza here was spelled Bizza, Papa John was spelled Baba John in arabic word, Pepsi became Bebsi, Popeye spelled Bobeye. Got it ?

Till my next progress on my Arabic lesson, stay on the safe side BeoBle :) :) :) :)