Typical Housewife

I've been reading some people's opinions about a typical housewife. Most implied that a typical housewife is a woman who fails to take care of her appearance, watches TV all day, doesn't have many friends, isn't able to hold a decent conversation other than topics regarding their kids and household chores. They've also expressed that housewives tend to be uneducated and lacks intelligence. As a housewife, I find their opinions rather offensive.
However, these people have also written that rather than be a typical housewife, its better to become a stay at home mom instead. What??? Duh. Some people are such idiots. Don't they get it? It's the same bloody thing! Well, that goes to show the power of rebranding.
Well, I must admit that as a stay at home mom, I sometimes do let myself go. Trying to look like a million bucks every single day is hard work. Lounging at home in a pair of old T-shirt and sweat pants is pure bliss and I'd recommend it to everyone. However, I doubt that my favourite uniform will cause anyone to scream and run away in fright by the sight of me. Well, at least my hubby doesn't complain. :P
Anyway, the one thing I would agree with those people that just because you're a housewife and you are stuck at home, it isn't an excuse for you to live in seclusion and not mingle with the outside world. I'm lucky that I have my friends and neighbours from various walks of life to fill me in on whats going out there and enrich my life. Although most of my conversation does revolve around kids and my daily chores, I do talk about other things as well such as religion, society, education and politics although I try to shy away from the latter as much as possible. Politics is just too dirty for this typical housewife's own liking.
Bottom line is, yes, I do tend to talk about my kids and chores a lot, but only because its a topic that I'm passionate about and only to people who enjoy listening about it. People who are in the workforce talk about their work all the time too but I don't hear anyone complaining. I am also interested about various subjects and am also able to talk about other things whenever I choose to. Like I said, my main interests are kids and the home life. I may not be dressed as if I'm going to the Oscars or have a red carpet function everyday, but I think I'm rather presentable enough (well, at least presentable enough to open the front door if someone comes knocking lol) although I may sometimes look a tad disarray. But can you blame me? I'm a mom with 3 kids and a husband who is constantly away plus, I've no domestic help to ease my burden. I do watch TV but I'm limited to watching Barney, Kipper, Hannah Montana and whatever kiddies show there is on TV. Not so much because it is entertaining to me, but because I'd like to be able to keep up with my kids. And although I don't have a gazillion friends, I have a handful of really good friends who truly understands me and and whom are all near and dear to me. So if you want to call me a typical housewife, then so be it. I may not be out there with the rest of the population trying to save the world or whatever, but I'm doing my share for the community by trying to educate and shape my children into responsible and caring individuals. That's a hard job of its own.

Just to share, a poem I keep close to my heart.

If I had my child to raise over again
I'd fingerpaint more and point the finger less
I'd do less correcting and more connecting
I'd take my eyes off the watch, and watch with my eyes
I would care to know less and know to care more
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites
I'd stop playing serious and seriously play
I'd run through more fields and gaze at more stars
I'd do more hugging and less tugging
I would be firm less often and affirm much more
I'd build self esteem first and the house later
I'd teach less about the love of power and more about the power of love
~Diane Loomans

Picking Favourites

I've always known at the back of my mind that I am not my mother's favourite child. Maybe when I was younger, I had felt a bit disgruntled over it and became quite rebellious but overtime as I get older, I'm more accepting and understand that just because I'm not her favourite doesn't mean she loves me less.
My mother has always been more affectionate with my little sister. I've always wondered why. I've been told that I wasn't an easy baby nor was I an easy child. My mother was depressed due to some unfortunate circumstance while she was pregnant with me and I came out into the world underweight and angry which would naturally make my mother feel anxious and exhausted taking care of me.
As a middle child, it wasn't easy to compete for my mother's attention against an older brother who is the only boy, and a younger sister who is the baby of the house. However, I had never felt the need to compete for my father's attention because with him, I had always felt equal. I guess my father had that special natural ability to make everyone feel special and inspire to be able to be like him.
While I was in KL, I brought up this topic with my girlfriends. Most of them admitted that although they love their kids to death, they can't help but to show preference to one child over the other. That got me thinking. Do I have a favourite? I am after all only human.
I have three kids and honestly, I'm not sure if there is any particular one that I prefer over the others. I fell heads over heels in love with each one the moment I first laid eyes on them. All three are special and dear to me but in very different and distinctive way.
My eldest Sarah will be 6 years old in less then a month. I have such high hopes for her and am delighted with every little achievement and progress that she has made. Everything about her just fills me with pride and joy. My second is Mika. So far he is the only boy. He is such a cheeky little fellow and never fails to entertain me and lifts me up with his little antics and adorable charm. The youngest is darling little Hana and although she is still a little to young for me to judge, my darling little baby is very easy to care and she delights me with her tenderness. She just takes my breath away with her little smile and coos.
All three of them are very special and dear to me. It amazes me how I feel so much love for them yet my love for each one is absolutely unique.
I can't wait to see them all grown up and become wonderful individuals. Although I adore children, I think the dinamic of my three kids are already perfect. Sarah will always be my favourite because she is my firstborn. Mika will always be my favourite because he is the only boy and hana will always be my favourite because she is the baby. I just hope that they'll grow up knowing just that.

Hana's First Milestone

Hana is 4 months old and has reached her first milestone. She can now roll over on her own. She's done it 4 times so far and I had missed it all. It seems like she'll only roll over whenever I'm not around. After the second roll, I kept my eyes on her for a whole hour but nothing. She only kept rolling from side to side. Then I had to take Mika to the loo and when I came back, there she was on her tummy again. Hmph. I've equip myself with my trusty camera just waiting and waiting to take that photo of her rolling over but little baby seems shy to show this mommy her newfound skill. The waiting is getting a bit ridiculous and at this rate, I've almost given up. I can't just sit here and stare at her the whole day waiting to see her roll over. I've got two other kids to attend to so I'll just settle for a picture of her on her Bumbo seat instead. :)

Coming Home

It has been 2 days since I left Malaysia. It was great to be able to go home and see familiar places and faces again. I satisfied all my cravings for the local food there and I've manage to gain 5 kilos in less than 2 weeks! What I didn't miss was the weather. It was so humid there it bordered on torture. I guess I've gotten so used to the weather here that the Malaysian humidity was a shock to my systems.
It was great to be able to catch up with my friends and family and it was really exciting to meet my brand new nephew Imran. He is truly precious. Had to teach my lil sis a thing or two on taking care of a baby and by the looks of it, she's going to be fine on her own. I found it hilarious that her baby and her shared one particular trait-both of them aren't too keen on bathing!lol
If I had to summarize my trip, I'd probably describe it as an eating frenzy. I ate and ate and ate some more. Who could imagine that the chance to buy banana fritters by the roadside could be such an exciting task. I only ate at home once and that was because I was craving for my mom's specialty fish dish. It was magnificent. I feasted on char koay teow (which is my favourite #1 dish) almost everyday together with either iced milo or iced milk tea. ( gosh no wonder I've piled up the pounds..)
I was like some crazy tourist snapping up pictures of all the food that I was about to devour. Unfortunately, either Mika or Sarah had accidently deleted some of it much to my dismay. We ate out everyday but the prices of food is malaysia is so low in comparison to Abu Dhabi that in all, I think we had spent only about RM500 or less on eating out throughout the entire duration of our stay. That would be the amount that we would normally pay for eating out twice or thrice in Abu Dhabi.
I felt so reluctant to go back to Abu Dhabi as the time drew nearer but I didn't have much of a choice. My kids enjoyed their trip back as well but Sarah was also looking forward to returning to Abu Dhabi because she was starting to miss her friends.
So on the day of my departure I bid tearful farewells to those near and dear to me and said my goodbyes.
Once we stepped into Abu Dhabi, my first thought was, "Gosh it's good to be finally home" and felt comfortable and at ease almost at once. I guess I had made the transition after all and although I've really enjoyed myself in malaysia, Abu Dhabi is now my home away from home. Its good to be home. :)

Hanging out with my hommies~BFF minus one

Yummy Cuppies!

Es Teller...yummm...

Sweet Imran

Mika enjoying iced milo

Char Koay Teow...my favourite...mmmm

Butter prawn..

Sweet & Sour crab

I love durian!

Belachan Fried Rice

Curry Mee

Nana's grandkids

I'm off..

I'm going off in 3 hours and if it wasn't because I'm excited with whats to come, I'll be bitching here about a particular incident but thats for later. For the time being...KL here I come :))

Nightmares, Bad Dreams and a pair of Scissors.

Sarah has been bunking in our bed for several nights now. Every night she'll beg and plead to sleep with me. Sometimes I would relent but other times I'd give her an adamant "No" and send her sniffling off to bed only to find her snuggled in between my legs in the middle of the night. Although I sleep in a king size bed; 2 adults, a toddler, an infant and one small child all together on the same bed is absolutely ridiculous! Every morning I seem to wake up feeling sore from the cramp space and this situation makes this aspiring supermom a super grumpy mom instead.
I've recently found out that Sarah and some friends have been swapping ghost stories that they've heard from the adults or movies they have seen and scaring the bejeebers out of each other. Apparently, without my knowledge, the Indonesian helper that I had hired during my first few months after birth was showing these children mini clips of 'The Exorcist' on her phone. If that Indon lady was still with me and had I known, I'd make sure to scare the bejeebers out of her!
I persistently told Sarah that there are no ghosts in Abu Dhabi because it is full of mosques. That sort of work for a little while until she started pleading to get into my bed again, this time it wasn't due to the fear of ghost but of bad, scary dreams instead.
I explained to Sarah that dreams are never real and it is only make believe. Sarah said she understands but the bad dreams keeps coming back.
So how do I keep the bad dreams away? Suddenly I remembered a malay old wives tale about putting a scissor or a piece a blade underneath the pillow to prevent bad dreams. I took hubby's nose scissors which was blunt, rounded and pretty safe due to its inability to poke through pillow case or any type of cloths for that matter. I told Sarah that this will keep her safe from bad dreams and if she puts this underneath her pillow every night and recite "Bismillahirahmanirahim" 21 times, Allah will keep her safe at night from ghosts or bad dreams. Miraciously, it worked!
Now, Sarah can't sleep without her scissors and reciting "Bismillah". When she came back from school the other day, she told me that one of her classmates was telling her that she had had a bad dream and Sarah suggested this little English girl to put a scissor underneath her pillow and recite "Bismillah". Sarah said her friend just looked at her oddly and said, "How wierd".
I guess I've to be ready with an explanation from now on in case little English, Swedish or Australian girl starts sleeping with scissors underneath their pillows. lol In the mean time, I think I'll let that little girl of mine climb into bed with me tonight...a bonus because this mommy is starting to miss her. :)