My Kids' Holiday

Today is the first day of school.
Finally, some time for myself .. :)
Now I have time to tell you about how our holiday went, and don't have to wrestle the computer away from people who wants to play runescape.
Let's start with how my children's holiday went, shall we?

10 out of 14 cucu-cucu kustamang

They were really happy to go back this year coz mokciknab's kids were around. I almost didn't recognize Adam coz he looked so different from the last time I saw him. He's taller and leaner now.
We picked up our nieces and nephews whenever we can and had sleepovers as often as we could. You should have seen the ruckus we made every time we took the whole bunch of kids out for a meal at a restaurant. Everyone would take a second look at us and I am sure they were wondering whether all of them were Taufik's and mine coz they do look almost alike.
There was only one air conditioned room in my house so when they were sleeping over there, everyone crammed into that one room. Macam duduk setinggan.
My kids enjoyed themselves very much, though :)



Ilham is really curious about the dynamics of relationships nowadays, especially that of my parents. He had a lot of questions about why my parents are together but not together, why he has a step-grandmother. He absolutely adores his Ki and Wan Shereen, but he's just curious as to how it all happened. Sometimes when I get tired of fielding his questions and am scared that I would accidently let my guard down and he could see my residual bitterness, I would just tell him to ask Ki himself. The last night we were in Malaysia, he did. According to Taufik, he sounded a little rude and got told off for it (by Taufik). I hope Ki knows that he's just asking out of curiosity and not malice.
I wonder if he's old enough to understand the complexities of human relationships.



Ihsan just wants to have fun. And what fun he had. Both he and Ilham got to snorkel for the first time in their lives. We were actually worried how he would do since we had only been swimming in concrete pools before, and not in the open ocean. I buddied up with him while Taufik was with Ilham when we went to our first snorkelling spot, which was near a lighthouse and the water was relatively deep. He struggled a bit at first, trying to get used to his flippers and life jacket, but after a while he was okay and enjoyed himself immensely. He counted how many Nemos he saw. We also got to swim with turles! Ihsan would patiently watch the turles eat sea grass and the moment it showed signs of surfacing for air he would be the first one to chase after it. For his efforts, he got to touch a turtle's flipper. (Actually, you're not allowed to touch the turtles.. *sheepish grin*). The next day we went snorkeling without life jackets (in shallower waters of course) and he was doing quite well. Maybe next year we could try scuba diving ;)



Anis had been complaining about not finding things in her room and she sits really close to the TV when watching it, so we suspected that something was wrong with her eyesight. So one of the first few things we did when we got back home was getting her eyes checked. Turns out that her right eye needed 1.25 lenses and her left 0.5, so we ordered glasses on the spot. She got her glasses a day before we drove back to Alor Setar.
She had wanted pink plastic frames but her brothers said she looked like Betty Suarez so she decided on something that was similar to Taufik's glasses. That didnt stop her brothers from calling her Ugly Betty for a few days, often reducing her to tears. I told her that I think she looked really cute and smart in glasses. Don't you think so?
Taufik taught her how she should always have her glasses on so that her eyesight doesn't deteriorate and how to take care of her glasses. She's quite good at it too, she always finds a table or some kinda ledge to put her glasses on when she goes to sleep or shower.



Izani just wants to try and do everything his older siblings do.
When we got Anis glasses, he wanted one too, so we had to buy him a cheap pair of sunglasses (which he eventually broke). When his brothers climbed trees he tried that too. He even tried to snorkel, but gave up when he discovered his head would get wet (Somehow he has this fear of getting his head wet, which makes bath time a scream fest).
One of the other first few things we did when we got home was go see the dentist. Ilham had a tooth extracted and the doctor gave him a gauze to bite on to control the bleeding. After Izani got his own teeth checked out, he didnt want to get off the chair and pointed to his brother and said "I want I want". We finally figured out that he wanted a gauze to bite on, just like his brother, and the friendly dentist obliged.

More stories later :)