Cherries

We have been to

Italy -Rome, Venice, Milan, Como Lake, Bellagio, Florence, Bologna. United Kingdom -The whole Kingdom including scottish land. Belgium France -Paris, Lille, Calais, Metz, Nancy. The Netherland -Amsterdam, Utretcht, Roermond, Mastricht, Rotterdam, Zaans schans, Velondam, keukenhof etc. Chez Republic -Prague. Slovakia -Bratislava. Hungary -Budapest. Austria -Vienna, Salzburg. Switzerland -Basel, Zurich, Interlaken Lake, jungfraujich, geneva, brig, lausanne, Lugano Germany -West and East Germany except Munich. Luxembourg United States of America -San Francisco, Hawaii. Poland -Warsaw and Lodz Spain -Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Barcelona Turkey -Istanbul Singapore Russia -st.petersburg and counting...

Adds

Monday 20 June 2011

Snobbish, cocky, arrogant? As if I care!


Being rich, having great power and knowledgeable do not mean you have a privilege to despise other people. Double standard in entertaining people is not right in my humble life dictionary.

Working with the Embassy in the overseas does not mean you are the best and people must respect you more. No! no! no! It does not apply in that way unless you are no brain-er.

Holding a title of the spouse of the diplomat does not give you a chance to act like you are better than the spouse of the student. What is the different between us are, the way we behave and the way we create a good image with people. If you have degree, so do I and in fact I have a degree in Engineering. But, this degree thingy is not something you should be proud of because nowadays, so many people have masters and Phd(s). So what is the new then? Nothing!

For these past years of being abroad, I met various people from the Embassy (London and Belgium). Some of them are too modest, too friendly and very easy to mingle around but there is a very little number in a statistic of them are snobbish, cocky and arrogant.

Being stubborn me, I am so not going to entertain these arrogant people. You are upper class people, bosses, spouses to the bosses or otherwise-all ticks the boxes of top ranking people right?But, hear me out folks, I do not care. I will behave whatever appropriate of my mankind behavior. For me, I will approach them twice, for the first time by making ice breaking conversation, getting to know each other better or offering a handshake towards them, if the respond is so-so and plain thus I will back off and trying again some other time for twice, but this time if they keep bragging about how great and powerful they are, so with the wholeheartedly ignorance is my way. People can cocky twice with me but I do not do thrice because I have dignity in me.

The best way to treat these people are by taking no notice to them, just sit and laid back, karma will pay. Honestly, if they think they can get going by boasting around, I guess they are wrong. It is a human nature to being respect and loved but to gain a respect from people, we have to show respect to others too. Respect is something you cannot buy with money and power. So, if you are happy for being cocky, I have no problem with it because that is your call.

By the way, I might be not having a time to update my blog for a week or more because I am heading to Paris this coming Sunday and will be staying in one of the hotel in Paris for a week. This is my second visit to Paris and I am going to blog about it if I had a free time, InsyaAllah.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Mastering the skills..



Talking about skills of my kid is really stimulating my feeling. The excitement of watching my baby development pace is like unstopping adrenaline flowing through my soul.

One morning, out of the blue, when he woke up from sleeping in the last two days he said, 'teddy bear' loudly. I thought I was hallucination when I heard those words, but it was completely wrong! He really said 'the teddy bear' while pointing at his teddy.

That is one of the new skills of Haris which is combining two or sometimes three words to create a sentence.

Today he amazed me again when suddenly in the midst of playing with the trucks and such, he said 'nak'. I popped a question and asked what did he want and 'nak' for. He kept saying 'nak' on and on. So, I told him gently to show me what the thing that he really wanted. He stood up and ran over the main door whilst saying 'nak' followed by 'dog', 'bus', 'baby'.

Do you know what is that means? Let me translate those baby code for you. It means, he wanted to go out to see the dog, the bus , the baby etc. He does not know how to say 'go out' so he said the things that he really wanted to see instead. As we know, to acquire or gain skill, knowledge or comprehension for a baby does take time. So, as a parent myself, I am happy to teach and guide him to sail through this phase.

Frankly, it is really hard sometimes to assimilate what is Haris trying to say to us, but we learn it by heart or in other word, we learn it through time. Though, I enjoy this phase of his development pace because I know it will last before I know it.

Perhaps, it is about the time for me to realize that my baby has grown up...

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Do the reality check, well sometimes...


I love blog hopping when I have an ample time to kill, it is not like a novel 'to kill a mocking bird' by Harper Lee that all the matriculation students during my time had been forced to read though ;-), I cannot find an exact word to tell how boring the storyline of the novel was, sigh!

Every time I visit from one blog to another, there must be one or two blogs which attract my heart to read the contents. Sometimes, the writers just too good in impressing their feeling and they are really touching my heart. The sincere writing from them lead my heart to an uncontrolled way like a huge wave hits a cruise ship in the sea.

Reading a reality story of them really make me realize, instead of being greedy of what other people have, I rather being grateful for what I have already had because life is too short after all.

But, just if I had a chance to go back to the previous time, there is something I wished I could make a different though which is to be more sensitive and appreciate my family especially the parents. There is a moment when I feel like not giving enough hugs and kisses to my parents in my 33 years of life.

I do not want to blame the parents for their way of bringing up myself, because that is their style of not showing 'parents-kids' precious moment like us the modern parents. Thus, I hope in changing the approaching of nurturing my kid in my own technique, for a better or maybe the best. InsyaAllah.

Until then, I pray and I hope to still having time and chance to do this to my parents before it is too late for me to do so...

Saturday 11 June 2011

If you want the truth, ask the kids...

One evening an innocent little girl is spending her evening by accompanying an old nasty lady. Below is the dialogue between them.

The little girl : 'can I read you a story?'
The old lady : 'Do I look like 3 years old?'
the little girl : with innocent look n voice, 'no, but you look like 300 years old..'

The kid's answer is served the lady's right because she looks aging than her real age. The moral of the story is, kids do not understand when you talk in a sarcastic way nor to comprehend a statement that needs to be read between the lines. Understanding the hidden meaning in something said or written is no-no for the kids. One thing for certain, they will answer as frank as they possibly can. If they said, you look ugly in your attires, you better get into the house and change the clothes before the public criticizes your appearance, that is just an example of learning the reality check by using the kids.

Here comes to the point why I write this entry. The incident was like this. I was in the kitchen in the whole afternoon, rolling my sleeves to cook something healthy and special for Haris. After finishing my cooking, I asked him to taste a spoonful of one of the dishes.

Normally, when he eats something he will say, 'sedap' and that means the food is very tasty and yummy but today, when I asked him to verdict the taste of my cooking meals, here was the verdict.

Mama- Haris, how does it taste? sedap?
Haris- silent
Mama- Haris, is it yummy?
Haris- only showed action by shaking his head like 'no, tak sedap'.hehehe

Thus, I tasted the food by my own and my taste buds was said a big NO to the food? The food was so tasteless and bland because I have forgotten to put a pinch of salt in my cooking. Well, cooking without salt is like lacking taste or flavor and tang. No wonder, Haris did not say a word. Now, I know the best way to test my cooking skills is by using Haris as a tester. hehehe.

Friday 3 June 2011

A week progress after weaning~ at 22 months old~




Every kid is different and develops in their own pace. For Haris it has meant to be a fussy baby and he refused to take formula milk since he was two months old, it was not about the formula itself, because he is totally rejecting the bottle. I have been trying various bottles and they all ended up as my unwanted collection in the cupboard.

What I really want to share in this entry is about my effort to stop supplying breast milk to my boy. I have gathered all my mix feelings before starting this and all I can say is, I am glad because it has been a week since I stopped Haris's day feeding without any fuss from him. I intend to reduce the milk supply gradually in hoping by the age of two years he will completely stop.

Breastfeeding exclusively is tough, well at least for me thus it is resulting in me feeling completely proud of myself. An unintentional effort led to the huge success because I was planning to mix in feeding my baby at the first place. Nevertheless, I admit breast is the best for the baby. As my personal experience, Haris is rarely getting sick for the two years of his life. He just ill twice, once when he was six months old when we returned to Malaysia (due to the weather) and the last time he was sick was in the last month, not sick actually but more on flu only, and it was lasted for three days before he started kicking and playing like usual.

The progress of stopping the breastfeeding is so far so good and he seems to understand when I tell him about big boy does need so much milk. Until now, I am only offering him once milk intake during night before he dozing off in his slumber. Only once per day and no more!

The next thing is, I am planning to potty training my darling boy and hoping by the age of two and half years old, he will completely diapers free. InsyaAllah..

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Through the eyes of the toddler...



I can see pure love, a big hope and curiosity through his eyes...divine!