Are you sleeping, Brother Lah?

Funny how a person who was chairing a meeting discussing about toll hikes did not realise that the toll rates were going to be increased. Maybe it was beauty nap time when the decision about it was made. Sleeping over the matter definitely will make me be able to clearly imagine what transpired in the meeting.

He is finally here

I don't know if I can still proclaim myself to be a blogger or not, seeing how I have been away from this blogland for quite some time. I have been reading some of your blogs without leaving any trails, if any of you are still going to read this.

Well, like the title says, my son has finally arrived (but not my maid). He was born at 9.05pm on Thursday 29 January 2007. And like all things last minute, the name has not been finalised yet due to one interesting late entry. Of course, Arman has not been received mutually so we had to find another name and it was almost certain to be Aryth though yours truly is not really in full agreement with it. And the last minute entry that was adored by both is currently Shaqeef but I have googled, wikied, answered and tried many other avenues but could not find a meaning to it. Can somebody more enlightened than me or speak Arabic, Latin, Turkish or whatever language that is tell me it does not mean anything bad or even better means something really well? Thanks in advance.

A little story on the delivery day itself. We went for a regular check-up at around 10am that day when the O&G informed us that wifey was already 4cm dilated and advised us to admit her ASAP. Which we did not because we had to go to the immigration office to get the approval letter for our maid to be sent to the agency. Which we did and when wifey was finally admitted at around 3pm, she was already about 5cm dilated. Settled all the administrative stuff and I had to leave her alone in the delivery suite to mail the documents (and had cendol while I was at it), pick up the other 2 from their daycare and inform Athyra's babysitter if she could stay overnight (well, she had not much choice then). By the time I got back to the hospital at around 6pm, wifey was already 7cm dilated. By 7.30, the midwife told me that she was already 9cm dilated even though the baby was way up the passage and took down my mobile number and told me that I could go for dinner and she expected the delivery would take place at around 8.30pm and I could go out for dinner first. Which I did, with the 2 children when she called me at around 8.20pm saying that the O&G was there to deliver the baby already when I was on the way back to the hospital.

By the time I got into the delivery suite, they were already packing up saying that they have exhausted all avenues (including vacuuming) to deliver the baby normally and wifey will be moved to the operating theatre. At least I was glad to be informed that I could go into the OT.

There I was, suited up and video camera in hand, only to be told by the paediatrician who happened to be the medical director of the hospital that no photos/ videos were allowed in the OT. But at least I got to witness first hand how they actually cut open wifey's womb (not very gently occassionally) to see the elongated vaccumed head of Shaqeef popping out of the incision at around 9pm while maintaining my composure. Well, out of 9 people in the OT, only the paed, one medical auditor who sat in the corner without doing anything and I were the males around and it would be so not cool to be fainting at the first sight of blood and I survived watching closely all the butchery in progress. And the anaesthesiologist where quite a looker too. Digressed too much there.

Only after the paed left, assuring me that the baby is fine, everybody in the room said now I could take some limited videos/ photos of the baby and the mother but not how they stitched her up. Which I did but not quite the ER, Nip/Tuck or GA kind of videos because they did not allow those too.

So, to cut a long story short, while Athyra is such an angel during the day, she is not quite so at night and I ended up sleeping with 3 girls at home during the night. And Alyssa was not even late for school the day after while keeping the breakfast and bekal tradition intact.

Wifey would stay at her sister's place until Thursday when hopefully we can borrow her sister's maid and tonight, I'll be sleeping with 2 schoolgoing children alone and hopefully I can wake up myself upon hearing the alarm clock at 6am tomorrow morning.

Some useless trivia for you:

1. The first C-section delivery for wifey. Some grand entrance he's putting up there.


2. While Alyssa's and Amelya's age gap is 23 months, they were born on consecutive years (2002 and 2003) whereas the 15 months separating Athyra and Shaqeef are 2 years apart (2007 and 2009).


3. On wifey's side, 3 of her sisters has only 1 boy in their family while on 1 had none (with 4 girls) and 1 had 4 boys and 3 girls.


4. On my side, Shaqeef is only the second boy by Arwah Matsah's 3 sons (and 8 girls to go with it). Plenty of boys coming from my sisters though.


5. At the rate of RM120/ month, my salary would possibly deducted until the boy goes to school by the KompeniKedekutElektrik that now limits the maximum claims for C-section deliveries to slightly more than 3k only.


6. Quite unrelated to the post but my last entry was posted on 22 December 2008 so this must've been the longest break I took for submitting an entry.

Yearly Planner

We finally received our annual offerings from the kompenikedekutletrik, the diary/notebook and large wall calendar that will adorn my empty office wall. I have to admit I really like the ring-bound layout of this year's diary cum notebook. It is the "cum" part that I like most because our previous diaries has always been pure diary where there have been days where those tiny daily space was either too little to squeeze in all those notes and useless scribbles you furiously write in the meetings and or too big to write anything at all. So this year, they reduced the overall size to a more friendly size, slightly larger than those generic off-the-shelf flip up notebook and with the other half of the diary/ organiser filled up with blank pages where you can write to you imaginations' content in it instead of bound by the small daily partitions in diary style entries.

To my delight, I also discovered the holidays that we are going to have being in the former national capital would only fall on the days that matters most. I thought we had it good this year with the holidays mostly extending our weekends to some extended weekends throughout the year. However, for the year 2009, it is going to be even better! All 11 days of public holidays for next year (First Raya and First CNY) and the 2 "state" holidays that we would have would only fall on 4 days; Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays so we are looking forward to at least 11 weeks of 4 working days out of the 52 weeks. A nice thought for the new year it will be then. And for those in adjoining state with a Sultan, they would be enjoying a 4-day week for a continuous 4 weeks in December. Lagi la sungguh tak aci...

Lame Update

Lama tak update blog ni. Hey! At least the blog can still be updated from the office where the proxy has been upgraded lately that it has blocked practically all the interesting access that I have been enjoying so far. After this, no more google talk, no more skype chats and most definitely, my mukabuku account would only be visited once in a while at home when I think about it. Forget about downloading songs or listening the songs that you all share in your blogs and don't even think about watching any videos online anytime soon.

Same old things are happening around my life. Practically no more annual leave left so I'll be camping at the office until the new year comes, enjoying the serenity within and en route to the office while other people are finishing off their annual leave in droves. I did take a day off last Friday to go to Bandung with my family on a trip that was not meant to be initially, the first time I set foot on our neighbouring country. Came back at 2.30pm on Aidhiladha. The original flight on 26th. December was booked some six months ago, before we knew that wifey was pregnant. We had made up our mind to forgo the flight because wifey would be almost 35 weeks pregnant by then and even if we were willing to assume the risk flying, I don't think the airline is willing to do the same for us anyway. However, due to some advanced planning on the airline side saying that our upcoming 26th. December would be delayed by three hours and we had the liberty to change our flight at will without penalty, we brought the flight forward to 5th. December and there we were.

I was not really in the mood for practically anything including shopping so all I got for myself was a cross-trainer, to be used in the office while playing table tennis because at the rate that I'm going, my working shoes were lucky enough to survive even one year of daily use. No photos were practically taken as well and I did not even bother bringing the videocam for this trip. Did I not tell you that I haven't been very enthusiastic lately. Could be another explanation for the lack of updates in here as well.

And to the last few remaining readers of this blog, if any, I would like to wish you all Selamat Hari Raya AidhilAdha.

Alyssa's (and Amelya's) Weekends

Back to regular programming I guess after those unintelligible entries.

On Saturday 8 Nov, while I spent the whole day cursing and trying to clean up the mess left by those bachelors living in that rented house for 3 years, the girls went for some photography session for those princessy contest (I had no idea what it was all about. Had to google and found some link there) Actually the contest was only for Alyssa only 6 years and above were eligible to enter but of course, we couldn't let Amelya watched while her big sister was being all princessy and photographed so wifey just played along. And yesterday, we received a text message saying that Alyssa had been shortlisted so I have to find my way to that place on Nov 22nd. I am not really a big fan of asking little girls to dress up and being made up trying to imitate stuff adults would have to do such as dancing and singing but I guess I'll just play along as well for now.

The next day, we had to be around my office even earlier than I would normally be on weekdays for Alyssa's kindy graduation day. Amelya had also taken part in one of the performances by 5 year-olds. Alyssa started off by giving a speech as the wakil pelajar that she had been rehearsing at home (at which I found it hard to correct her pronunciation of everybody who was present that day as a present as in gifts rather than presenting your report when she insisted that her teacher taught her the other way but I was gleaming with smiles when she pronounced it correctly (yes!). No photos of that because I used the videocam to tape the whole three and a half minutes.

Then she narrated a story while either 2 or 3 students acted on what she was narrating and I missed the whole thing completely in answering unfinished nature's business call which I thought had been completely taken care of at home.

Amelya participated in a sing-along choir in which unfortunately the best photo that could be captured above those proud parents' head swarming the stage did not really convey her true emotions while singing.

Fast forward towards the certificate conferment(? can't think of the proper term right now), those are the photos that show how those 6 year olds being lined up to receive their certificates, Alyssa being the final recipient of hers. And Alhamdulillah, she was also selected as one of the best students of her graduation year (one from each gender) and that was her proudly receiving her empty tube with no scrolls inside and continuing the tradition of Lollies' and MsKLSentral's firstborns being selected as the best students of the Kompeni's kindy in their time (Phew! Pressure! Pressure!)

And if you were wondering what Athyra was doing during those 3 hours, she was happily roaming around prying into other people bags and stuff and walking incessantly in and around the open space in the big hall. That was an attempt to get her to fall asleep which wifey had finally succeeded just in time to get us to have the refreshments provided in relative peace.

Some Craps

Hope leads to Disappointment
Disappointment leads to Resentment
Resentment leads to Anger
Anger leads to Wrath
Wrath leads to Insanity

Does it mean that we should give up hoping? I think not. Hope is what drives us human. Without hope there would be no vision, passion, excitement and triumphs. Conversely, without hope, there would be no sadness, pain, suffering and humility. Life would then would be such a dull, infinite void like a ship sailing in a middle of water with no land, no gigantic waves, no violent wind, no captain and no objective. Life would be so stagnant, boring and content.

Eight Is a Generous Number

Happy Anniversary Sayang!

Though it could've started better, but time waits for no one. Still trying to figure out a way to be absolutely sure it's NOVEMBER and not DECEMBER. Thank God we got married in 2000 or I would have problem remembering it's eight years also. And I can still fit into that Nikah Ceremony baju melayu though :)