When the tiny mouth speaks, I feel like 'lempang' hehehe

Haris was playing doughs at the living, all I could say was, the dough cutters were everywhere. I tried to tidy up some of the cutters and put them in the basket, suddenly he came behind me and said,

Haris-Mama, what u doing ?( mama what are you doing?)
Mama-Doing nothing.
Haris-Mama tidy up (mama is tidying up)
Mama-yes, mama is tidying up your toys..Can you help me please?
Haris-Okay! What a mess!

Seriously, I have no idea when he learnt about the last sentence. Though, it was funny when it came out from his tiny mouth.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Haris and I were watching tv and suddenly I blocked his view by sitting before the telly.

Haris-Mama, yook out! (look out)
Mama-err, what did u say Haris?
Haris-Yook out, while pushing my head aside.
Me? I was confused hahaha and I asked Am, Was he using the right words 'look out'? The answered I got from Am was, 'you better check the dictionary'. Hahahahaa..

Kids are innocent

Lately, I have a very little patient in me. I have been ignoring haris question when I feel like 'malas nak layan' of answering him.

Haris- mama, mama..mamaaaaaaaaa..
Mama- Hmm..(my eyes are glued on the screen)
Haris-mama, mama where's the coin?more coin? (and he kept on asking non stop.)
Mama-( silent and pretending not hearing what he's been saying.)
Haris-mama, mama, say yes Haris..
Mama-omg! I have been teaching him to answer, 'yes, mama' if I called him and now he teaches me to do the same thing..hahaha..serve me right!
Mama-yes, sorry Haris..

_________________________________________________________________________________

haris-mama, kiss me please..
mama--kiss u?ok, come here.

(Haris is approaching me to get a kiss on the forehead.)

mama-muahh..ok?
haris-yes, that's better..

Haris, haris..sometimes you make me angry and sometimes I could not help laughing from your pot pet pot pet

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Wifey- Ling, bangunla..dah nak masuk asar ni.
son (haris)-Ying, ying wake up
Wifey-Haris, you must say papa not ling.
Son-Hey, ying wake up..and ke kept banging on and on and on hahaha

Life means...

Life is about making a decision. Life is about making choices. Life is NOT about 'me, me , me'...

What lies ahead remain mystery, until it did happen!

Many things happened yet so little time to share with in this blog. To make it short, I wrote an entry about 'cripple' a few days back. Actually the reason behind my 'cripple entry was, our apartment was breaking in. The incident happened around 3.30pm  when we were out and about in the city center. When we returned home at 6 pm there was no sign of breaking in at the main entrance (we live in a second floor out of 3rd), but our main apartment door was left opened by the burglar. The loss was quite bearable,  well sort of! My compaq mini netbook, Am's laptop, my Canon dslr, my compact camera panasonic lumix, and money worth Eur 260 were robbed. The icing of the incident was, we had to pay 240 Euro for changing the broken door.

We called the police to report about the incident but I was pretty sure there was nothing the police could do especially without the witness. It was quite tricky. Alhamdulillah, Allah nak uji :-))..

Though, bad things happened for a reason. The  wisdom behind the tragedy was, Am got a better laptop and it was free because the sv bought it for him. He is now, a proud owner of 15inc Mac book pro, and as for me, Sony Vaio is more than good because I was expected to get a mini netbook only.

Ok, enough about the burglary.

Today tragedy was far unforeseen.

I have been living in this peace and serene city called Liege for almost four years. I have not experienced something out of league that could be a drawback of living in this city. Language? Yes, it quite a barrier but what to expect you live in people's territory so you must follow their cultures not otherwise. There are few things that I can say as a scarcity but they are still tolerable. Though, today at 12.35pm there was an attacked right in the city center on the busiest roads and christmas market. I did not know about it until my husband ring me to tell about the hand grenades attack at the bus stop just a few meters away from our apartment,   across the street of the main shopping gallery.

Initially, I was thinking to bring Haris out today for buying cookies and muffins but fortunately, I got held up by chatting with my old friend. I could not imagine if I was out as per planned. From the latest news, the death toll is 6 and 123 people wounded.

The attacker, died at the scene. What I could tell was, blood spattered on the roads, people were screaming and crying out loud seeking for help, the arms policemen and policewomen were everyehere, the roads to the center were sealed off, the helicopter was whizzing around the sky to monitor the condition and it reminded me the incident in CSI.

The saddest thing was, the baby as young as 18 months died due to the grenades attacked. Poor soul, sigh!

Thus, by the time I write this, everything is back to normal.Alhamdulillah!

This makes me think, kalau dah ajal sedetik pun tak boleh dilambatkan, hidup dan  mati di tangan Allah...mati itu pasti cuma cara kematian yg berbeza..

Nevertheless, I still love this country ,Malaysia ?Of course lerrrrrr

cripple

I am feeling cripple without my DSLR and the netbook. Fortunately, the new viao is mine now but Am will be using it for a while before his supervisor replace another laptop for him. Now, we have to start surveying a new dslr for me and I have four months duration before my next travel.

What a month!

Farewell

A friend of mine, Natrah has finished her PHD and went back to Malaysia for good yesterday morning. Her flight departed from Brussels International Airport at 8am. As a good friend of mine, I could not help watching her back for good without bidding farewell for the very last time. Thus, Ina , Haris and I made an effort to meet her and we left the house as early as 4.30am to catch a train to the airport. Alhamdulillah, everything went very well.

Natrah,
I met you as a stranger,
I took you as a friend,
I hope we will meet again,
Where our friendship is never ends..amin, InsyaAllah.

The soul...

A picture speaks a thousand words, thank Allah for giving me the son..

Tuhan berikanlah aku cinta..

Ku bertemu sang adam di simpang hidupku.... Mungkin akan ada cerita cinta Namun ada saja cobaan hidup..... Tuhan berikanlah aku cinta Untuk temaniku dalam sepi....

When HE said ....

Kun fa ya kun...who is us, to deny the fate...

Fruity tears..

After being four years apart, today marked the day we reunited, Alhamdulillah syukur..My patience has paid. I could taste the fruity days ahead..

'Soft spot' does not so soft anymore..

Any words which came out from my lips did not reflect my heart. The mouth said okay but the heart was otherwise. Caught in the middle is pathetic sometimes, and I realized pretty soon my heart will no longer the only thing is getting heavier....

Saddo

Blood is thicker than water, Unfortunately I am 'the water'. Now, I am really really sad.

Heart wrenching

Feeling left out is not a good things. Trust me, it is really heart wrenching...

Alhamdulillah

After 45 days of performing Hajj, my parents have safely arrived at Terengganu International Airport today ar 7am, Malaysia time. Alhamdulillah...

I think..

Absurd, Well not everything is about logical sense. So, nothing is new. Sincerity, I have a huge respect for people who sincere in their jobs because I could not do so in almost everything. Death, I kept thinking about what , when will my turn. What is going to do if tomorrow is my day! Ya Allah, please forgive my sin. Blessing me with your rahmah..amin .. Secured, I used to think, if my husband or I , or perhaps both of us work with the government, our future will secure, but not anymore because whatever will be will be, the future is not ours to see. Government or private, both are about the same. There are pros and cons and it just like a coin. The truth is, you cannot choose one side of the coin! Happiness, I get everything that I always want thus it looks like everything is rosy but do not forget, everything in the garden is not rosy. After all, I just a human. Never fully thankful for what I have and always think the grass is always greener on the other side.

Eid ul adha everyone

The cold and windy air are here as the sign of winter is approaching. The icy weather makes our skin dried and scaly. For my son, he always has a sign of an eczema on his legs so before the itchiness is unbearable, I keep applying emollient to moist his skin, though for this morning I have forgotten to do so. He came to me while scratching his body and said, 'mama itchy'. Thus, I took a tube of lotion and applied onto his skin. Suddenly, out of the blue, he said, ' thank you, it fells better'. I was like when on earth did he learn about feeling etc. I guess the programmed from tv has taught him so much. Maybe it seems cliche for some parents, but for me it something to be proud of plus, the development of each kid is not at the same pace. ;-) Anyway, salam aidiladha to all muslims out there. 10 zulhijjah = 6th November 2011. Maaf zahir and batin.

Little bandage for the little man

X-ray film showed no strained, no fractured , no broken arm..but he still hurts. So this is the temporary bandage the doc in the emergency room put on him to make him feels comfortable. The next step is, making an appointment to see the orthopedic ..If I were in Malaysia, aku p berurut je sng cite ;-)

It sucks

It sucks when I have to..

1.Online with the lousy notebook because my netbook has a problem with the internet connection.

2. I need a huge effort to make the alphabetical popped on the screen due to the problem on the old keypad.

3. Just if I lost my sanity in the mean time, the smart phone will be mine..Let's see if the hubby can repair my netbook or not, if not will think about this seriously.


I hate to online with this condition.

Chiow!

Leap pad by Leap frog

I never bought an expensive toys or gadgets for Haris before,  considering that I am not a gadget freak. Apart from that, Me, myself never owned something so hi-end or hi-techno for my hand phone either. Frankly, Am did offer me once for the 'iphone', but I chose the designer handbag instead, though I never regretted my decision because the handbags are long lasting especially the classic design. ;-p

Nevertheless,  after seeing this Leap pad by the Leap frog, I changed my mind. This toy is one of the cannot-resist-items for me.  It is really eye catching especially with the applications thingy.  Initially, I was contemplating between the Vtech brand and this Leap frog. The price is about the same. There are pros and cons of these two brands.

At the end I chose this one because, I wanted the camera, video cam and some other functions that the Vtech does not offer on their products. Some of the apps are not free but it is ok because he learns so many things from this small tab.

Perhaps, it is about the time for me, to go technology myself ;-)))

Enduring the pain

Ulser does hurt so much especially to the little one. Haris easily gets ulser since a few months back due to the weather. When it summer, it is scorching hot and when the fall comes, the weather is getting colder and these two types of weather makes my boy suffers from this little tiny white dot in his mouth.

Bonjela is one of the cream which is good to treat ulser but it does take almost a few days to sooth the pang of the soreness, and for my boy, he cannot wait for that longer. He has had enough, I can tell !

The pain  is really annoying, at least in his 'diary' especially when he could not eat his meal properly.  He will scream at the top of his healthy lungs every time the food hits the ulser while saying 'ulser is hurt' repeatedly.

As a mum I could not stand watching him making the agony sound.  I know my way of preventing this ulser seems quite mean but I have no other way.

I had this tips from my dad since, when I was a little girl, I always have ulser in my mouth. Almost every month and it really sucks!

What I do is, making some salty water and drop the water by using the syringe onto his ulser. He does scream too much but I have to. Believe it or not, it only takes maximum four times drop in a day before the pain is easing out. Day two after the salty drop treatment resulting in Haris can eat well without a hitch. To compare a little stinging pain during the treatment with the results after the process is making me stick for the salty water instead of the bonjela.

Sometimes we have to endure the little ache to get better. That is life, baby..InsyaAllah everything is going to be all right.

Kasih suci

Perjalanan masih jauh harus kau tempuh
Ku di sini memerhati tanpa rasa sangsi
Jangan gentar ada sabar semai di jiwa
Ku di sini mendampingi agar kau mengerti

Berlarilah kau berlari
Terbanglah dikau terbang tinggi
Bumi yang engkau jejaki
Janganlah dikau lupai

Andai kucapai si pelangi
Akan kuserah kepadamu
Agar dapat kau mewarnai
Seluruh hidup nanti

Yang hitam harus dijauhi
Jangan disimpan dalam hati
Putihkan jiwamu dengan
Kasih suci

Kuterima dirimu dengan seadanya
Dalam suka dalam duka
Kau tetap cahaya

Ku bersyukur pada Yang Esa
Punya segala-galanya
Sederhana tapi oh sempurna
Oh oh oh...

Yang hitam harus dijauhi
Jangan disimpan dalam hati
Agar dapat kau mewarnai
Seluruh hidup nanti

Putihkan jiwamu dengan
Kasih suci

Self reflect

Many thing happened, well .. lately.
I realized how lucky I am even though ...


 I did complaint.


 I  sighed. 


I cried.


 I asked for forgiveness. 


I tried to change.


But, it has never been easier. Sometimes I made the same and stupid mistakes. Though, from the top of that,  I learnt these...

1. blood is thicker than water.Love u my siblings!

2.Parents are everything. Love, respect, call and visit them as frequent as we can because, if they departed from this world, nothing we can do to replace them. If we want to seek forgiveness, to help them, to say how much we love them, say it now before it is too late to do so. Remember, people who disrespect their parents will not have respect from others. I love you mak n ayah.

3.If we love our kids, do not allowed them to be disrespectful us as the parents, if not they will not have true respect for anyone.

4. Parents, please respect your kids or otherwise they will disrespect you in the future...


Love,
Nurul

My first learn to spell puzzle

I realized, this blog is slightly changing to 'parenting and toddler activities' , but seriously I am too fond of any activities which related to the toddlers since I have a little explorer at home. He is too into any activities and he seems never tired of doing so.

Thus, when I was in Primark yesterday evening, I bought this puzzle cards for Haris. The cards are designed to develop the kids' spelling skills. There are 12 pcs of puzzles with the very basic pictures and spelling.

As usual, my boy loves them! Can you spot the crescent? My boy called it, 'moon honey'. Do you want to know why he said so? The answer is because, he was influenced by one of the cartoon in the kids programmed channel ,Cbeebies.

There was a fox in Tinga-Tinga Tales, craving for the honey from the moon and that fox kept saying 'moon honey' repeatedly ;-p.

I am older yet wiser?

I am getting older I guess. After giving birth to Haris I can easily get back pain especially if I did any hard works.  People said, that was because of the epidural. Frankly, I think it makes sense but not 100% certainty because a friend of mine who did not take the epidural while giving birth is still having a back pain like me and to be honest it worsen than mine.

Ageing is the answer! Yes, I always know it...

Ok, all I need is now, forcing en hubby to give me a great massage or sometimes Haris will do too. His weight is just right when he stepping on my back every time I say , 'Haris , massage mama please',hehehe. Unfortunately, sometimes he wants me to become a horse instead. He will say, 'mama horse pls, then when I positioned myself like crawling, he will climb up to my back and said,'that way ,mama' and when I did follow his instructions, he will thank me by saying, 'kuku mama'. the words bring the meaning of the 'thank you' version of Haris.

The pics are not related to the post, I just want to share my current obsession which are cooking nasi dagang, keropok lekor and all Kelantannese  style of foods.

Nasi Dagang

Keropok lekor

Created by Allah from his oven, Haris at 2 years and 2 months old. And, for the reason of that, I thank you Allah more..alhamdulillah.

That is why the customer service is important ...

I am in the midst of planning my weekend getaway to one of the countryside in Holland.What I am so pissed of is the way the owner of one of the Bed and Breakfast replied my queries.

Here is the email between me and the owner. Basically, I asked the owner about the reservation. I wrote something like this,

Hi, 

There is slightly changing the programmed. It is two nights instead of one night.

Do you have a vacant room for two night on 14 october until 16 october 2011? And is your B&B is easy access by bus from Steenwijk train station?

If the answers are yes for all the queries above then I would like to confirm my reservation.

Thank you

nurul

And he replied in Dutch something like this,

goede morgen de prijs 80 euro voor 1 nacht  voor 3 pers voor bed and braekfrast vr gr hoeve montigny

In the web, they said they speak Dutch, German , Italiano and English. When I asked them in English..

1. They replied in Dutch. So, what is the point of saying they speak English if they did not use the right language to reply my email!

2. They did not answer my queries about the vacant room, how to get there etc. If I received an email like that, I guessed they have a vacant room for us. But , unfortunately when I replied that email to confirm my reservation, the owner replied back by saying something like this.

we have not a room for you

That is exactly the replied which I got from the owner. Can you see how unmannered they were? No, greeting at least 'Hello or Hi' will do in this email. Besides that, There is no 'sorry' or 'thank you' in this conversation. 

I do not expect the customer service in this B&B to be this poor. I tell you what, I am glad they have not got a vacant room because I can see myself cursing them if I stayed in their accommodation with the bad service. With Eur 80 per night, I can find much better quality hotel with a good customer service.

So, people out there, if you want to visit Giethoorn, do not book this B&B, Hoeve Montigny Giethoorn. Personally, I have deleted this B&B in my list, forever! As simple as that.

Playing with the dough

Dough is one of the favourite things that Haris loves to play with. Playing with the dough teaches him to understand better about the colors, rolling, pressing etc.

Rolling pin-he knew how to say this!

The red and the blue dough-He was asking to make a dinosaurs and the stars.

The stars that he made

The car by using the mould

Was making the car

I guess that was something that he imagined of in his mind

The colorful doughs in the air tight containers

Kept rolling

This activity was lasted for about an hour ;-p

Puffy paint

I learnt about making the puffy paint from here. The recipe for this paint are the equal amount of flour, salt and water. Then added a small amount of the food colouring. Keep stirring until all of the ingredients look smooth and puffy.

After that, scoop the puffy paint into the squeezing bottle and you are done!



Unfortunately, Haris did not enjoy squeezing that much. He was amused and kept saying 'bobo' when the colors hit his hands. Thus, I changed the style of painting. Instead of squeezing , I put the colors in the baking tray for the cupcakes and stood the board on the 'easel'. He used the brushes to apply the puffy colors on the paper.

Guess what? He enjoyed it!

p.s-The finishing product of this type of colors are, lumpy, silky and shiny...

Links

Dear friends,

could you please drop your blog links in my comments. I have changed the templates yet I lost some of my precious links in my previous templates. After received the comments, I will link it back to my blog. Thank you.

Painting ..painting..and more painting...

Every morning when he wakes up from his slumber, he will show himself out from the bedroom and straight away heading to his learning space. He will rummage in the toy's basket to find something that he can play with. Though, it only lasts for about half an hour or so before he returns to the bedroom to wake me up. What I love about this is, he will say ' mama wake please'. He keeps saying that over and over again to my ears just like the buzzing bees ;-p.

Well, there is time when I feel like not entertaining himself but I could not help listening to his demands too frequently, so I will wake up and play with him.

Today, he asked for painting activity, thus I set up the board to resemble an easel. Perhaps, I am going to buy the easel for him soon, InsyaAllah.

So, those are the pictures of him when he 'engrossed' in his painting world.

Working on shape recognition and hand-eye coordination

I was thinking to continue  teaching Haris about the shapes and the colors for a couple of weeks before moving to the next activities. Learning about the shapes and colors are part of the Montessori activities and I should have introduced these activities to him before he reached one year milestones. Actually I did  but I never taught him properly due to lack of patience in me, sigh! Though,  I think it is better  late than never. Furthermore, the first child is like an experiment time for a parent, like me. Whatever is bad InsyaAllah I will improve myself if I had a chance to have another kids in the future.

Nevertheless I read somewhere ,the writer said something like this 'Toddlers start recognizing the difference in colors and shapes at around 18 months. When an interest in shapes and colors begins, it is time to start teaching and practicing with them.'  . So I guess I am not that late ;-p 

Back to the title of this notes, to gain knowledge about the shapes and colors means my boy needs to do more activities which related to the shapes and the colors.

Hesitate not, this afternoon off I went to the toys' shop to buy the wooden blocks shapes for Haris. 

                                        The adorable pieces of the shapes

These wooden blocks are not just simply 'a block', They allow the kids to create and build anything from them based on their imagination.  In other words, this activity generates the kids inner creativity. This set also helps the kids to work on shape recognition and hand-eye coordination considering that, this adorable set available in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and trust me, they attract my son to play with them ;-))

                                           The view from the top of the container

What he needed to do was choosing the right shapes and inserting them into the hole on the lid of the container. While he was playing with the blocks , I kept mentioning to him about the shapes together with the colors i.e-the orange triangle , the blue circle, the pink square and etc to make sure him understood better and if he did, I can beam widely ;-).

                                              He said 'x-engle' means rectangle.

                                                Watching the block drops

Montessori skills life basic-spooning, pouring and picking

The two years old toddler in my house is eager to explore everything. He is really fond of spooning any foods to the plate. Seeing of his interest in this life skills, ending up in me putting the beans in the container, laying a plastic mat on the floor, placing the cone on the glass vase and asking him to scoop the beans and pouring them into the cone.

From this activities, he learnt to master his skills in spooning, pouring, dropping and picking. I said spooning because he used the spoon and spooning the beans carefully before pouring them into the cone and watching the beans to drop, hitting the bottom of the vase. At the same time, he learnt how to pick the beans which scattered all over the mat even though I did not ask him to do so.  He only used the spoon for a couple of minutes and then 100% used the hands instead ;-p

Picking a big items are easier for the toddler but for the tiny miny beans are tricky ;-). I am happy seeing him occupied for about an hour or so doing this activities. Good job boy!

Earlier, he used the spoon

picking

pouring

Watching the beans hitting the bottom and perhaps he's thinking and wondering ;-)

Quotes

People love quotes, so do I. Lately, my mind keeps creating the quotes and I think it is better for me to compile all the quotes here for myself. Pardon the grammar etc because it just for my personal only.

Two faced  quotes

You can smile and you can pretend but you will never knew that people are actually know the real you. It just the matter of they keep it quite or they just watch how you  are going to play your role.~nurul~

Friendship quotes

The same wavelength is important in friendship, or otherwise we could never be closed and the friendship is not going to work~nurul~

Life quotes

Age is not just a number, age is telling how near you are with the death~nurul~

Learning about the shapes

I was inspired by one of the mums' blog about teaching our kids about the shapes. I was running out of the colors so I just used the yellow color instead. I am going to stock up the colors soon since Haris keeps asking for painting.

The yellow color, a tissue holder and a potato were used to do the art work about the shapes. After done with the painting, I showed him the shapes around us in the living room and he answered them just right. For today, he has already known the shapes of circle, star, square, crescent and triangle. Rectangle is quite tricky shape for him :-). Does not matter, I am pleased though...