Two days back to work and I already need to take another childcare leave 🙁 Will perhaps write a separate post on the topic, but for now, please enjoy some pictures of Z and M from last month!
05/02/17
Isn’t this cute or isn’t this cute?!
And coincidentally, Husband wore the same exact pants, haha. In case you haven’t noticed, Z is the left one and M is the right one.
06/02/17
One fine morning, Z just climbed onto the bed I shared with M and just… continued to sleep. Gah, moments like this is totally worth having less sleep. I love both my boys so much!
08/02/17
Was playing with my phone and the kids looked camera ready.
14/02/17
Another not so fine morning, lol. The barrier was necessary cause Z is a kicker!
22/02/17
Z may have not noticed it yet, but M looks up to him so much. M adores Z so much as long as he’s not making noises :p
Asked Z to ‘sayang’ M and this is what I got <3
23/02/17
And while they still have no say on what clothes they are wearing, I bought them matching jackets! Hah.
28/02/17
Z has been so crazy about his story book lately. He always asks me/Husband to read the story for him that I think he knows the story by heart now. Again, M looks up to him so much that whatever Z was doing, M looks so interested!
This year’s CNY holiday is a long weekend, so we had plenty of time to do a lot of stuffs including visiting a friend and playing at the beach! Although the weather was not that friendly, but the windy days were really appreciated, alhamdulillah.
And just like that – in the blink of an eye – January passed by. February is finally here and only few weeks until I am back to work.
As much as I love my boys, going back to work is somehow exciting for me. I would be the first one to vouch that stay-at-home mom is not for everyone.
Anyway, onto January edition!
03/01/17
One day, we were just lying around and I had the idea of calling their Papa via Hangout. Haha. The picture is blur cause my phone’s front camera sucks.
09/01/17
If only every morning could be like this.. but I am never that lucky with them lol. Both love to sleep like a starfish though!
12/01/17
Can you guess?! Haha. Some people got it right I was quite amazed. If you haven’t figured by now, Zal is on the left while Malta is on the right :p. Zal is definitely more hairy than Malta haha.
24/01/17
Sometimes, if we ask politely, Zal is more than willing to kiss and ‘sayang’ his brother. This is one of the rare moments I could capture with my crappy camera!
26/01/17
Zal loves to join us whenever I am nursing Malta – which can be annoying when Malta is actually sleepy. Their faces started to look different somehow.
27/01/17
Another side by side comparison! Malta is definitely rounder and has softer facial feature than Zal. Zal was already looking like a big boss here hahahaha.
29/01/17
This was taken when we reached home after a long journey to the west lol. Malta was originally asleep though but when I put him on the mattress, he just opened his eyes. Again, their favorite sleeping pose : Starfish!
I have been thinking to write something like this because I am such a sucker when it comes to nostalgia.
Being a 90s kid, I am part of big changes. Kids these days won’t know some of the struggles we faced 10 years ago. Hmm actually they were not struggles lol- they were ordinary stuffs in my time. I am going to jot down things I remember from my childhood and teenager era for memory sake 😉
Ah, feeling so Blue right now (geddit?)
Back in 2003, I listened to this album on repeat every single day. I played this during our road trip back to Dad’s hometown till the whole family got sick of listening lol.
This album is precious to me cause this is Blue’s last album before they disbanded for few years. And because the year this album came out marked the same year of the start of my relationship with Husband.
I was such a drama queen and hopelessly in love that listening to this album made me even more mellow back then LOL.
Which somehow brings me back to this…
….CASETTE.
Do kids these days even know about this thing?? 😂😂😂
The struggle of finding the start of the particular song that we wanted to listen. The pain of rewinding the tape. The cover that comes with it that usually contains the lyrics to the whole album.
Heyyyy, old friend.
Anyone still remembers the times we rely on this machine to talk to our crush? No? Just me? 😳😳
I still remember when my Dad brought me to telco office one day and when it’s done, he showed me a slip and pointed at some numbers, “That’s our home phone number”
I was soooo excited! Omg we are really going to have a phone line at home! I finally can give a phone number to my friends! I can finally start calling my friends after school!
Haha. Sorry for the over excitements.
Our family was not so well off back then and having a phone was a luxury!
But Dad firmly told us that the phone is going to be locked all the time and we can only receive a call when Dad/Mum was not at home. There goes my dream of having a chat with friends over the phone. Well, to be fair, I didn’t know that phone call is costly 😁
Anyway, this kind of phone brings so many memories!
Calling your crush be like…
You: Hello, can I speak to A please?
Someone who’s not A : Let me check.
Someone who’s not A : Sorry, he’s not at home. You want to leave a message?
You: Oh ok, no thank you.
*both lines are closed*
Actually, I remember one time when a boy called our home and asked for my sister, my sister quietly told me to tell the boy that she’s not home 😂
She managed to dodge the boy several times using this technique lol. You can’t do this with a mobile phone!
On the other hand, there’s no privacy when it comes to the fixed line. So it’s a trade-off.
Ok ending the blast from the past post abruptly lol. I will add more if I remember more. 😁
Ever since M has been having trouble sleeping (i.e jerk motion), it’s getting very hard to get them photographed being sleeping together. I think this is one of the very few that is presentable (and Instagrammable lol) I managed to capture.
14/12/16
I was doing something on my laptop while accompanying sleeping M when suddenly Z came to the room. He just came back from playing outside.
Z looked tired and he climbed onto the bed. I stroke his hair few times and within minutes, he fell asleep.
Best view I had all day ❤️
16/12/16
Z is always a very kind hearted boy – it’s just that he hasn’t found a gentle way to show that personality of him. But this one..
There’s a heartwarming story behind this picture.
Due to his blocked tear duct condition, M was prescribed with wipes to clean the discharge from his eyes. Z watched several times when we used the wipes.
That night, Z asked if I wanted some tissue. I said no, but he still went out to take some (I thought). And when he came back, he had M’s wipes with him. “Baby. Tissue.”
He really cares about his brother :’)
17/12/16
Because I have a brother, I’ll always have a friend.
– Unknown
I asked Z to hold his brother’s hand and although he did it while watching TV, my heart was warm.
21/12/16
This was taken a bit forced haha. They were both just finished with their bath and I put Z besides M so I could take a picture where they both are clean and smell good.
23/12/16
Z can be so fascinated with his brother sometimes. He likes to touch his brother’s face whenever Z makes some weird sounds.
29/12/16
One no-so-quiet night. Surrounded by my boys. I have a blessed life.
31/12/16
My dates on New Year’s Eve. None were paying attention to me somehow haha.
I like this tradition of jotting down some of notes and next achievements (pppf) for the upcoming year – perhaps this is something that I will do quite often just to check how far I have come at some points of the year.
Without further ado, here is for 2016 – the year of uncertainty and turbulence.
Two weeks of holiday in Jakarta
…and learn how inefficient Indonesia’s system once again. Ok, to be fair, it wasn’t all that bad. The system has improved a lot although it’s still far away from what I imagined Indonesia would have after a decade. I am not sure whom I should give credit to.. Foke? Ahok? Jokowi?
I ate A LOT during my two weeks in Jakarta and gained about 3 kgs (gasp!) lol. I think M gained most of his birth weigh from all of those fattening food.
Sadly, we only had one meet up when we were there 🙁 And it only happened for about 10 minutes! I was so sad but I knew that we had too many things going on.
Anyway, seems like we’re not going to have such holiday again in the near future. At least not after one of the kids is old enough *glares at Z*
Malta was born
Yay to second child in 2016! Haha. M was born so much faster than Z. Only 4 hours after I arrived in the hospital and I popped out just like that. And even though I gave birth without epidural, surprisingly I recovered faster than my time with Z. My adrenaline level must have been quite high that I didn’t feel tired at all until the next day. Unlike Z, I got an hour of skin-to-skin with M and he was a champ in suckling!
Back at home.. I must say having second child is.. draining. I thought the age gap would be just nice – just like me and my sister. But apparently I forgot to factor-in the fact that my first born still needs a lot of attentions. And he’s one hell of an attention seeker. Most of my nights are not spent trying to lull M to sleep – instead it’s to get Z to sleep first because if Z is still awake there’s no point having M asleep.
But it has been fun. I keep reminding myself that this is just a phase and not going to stay long.
The real challenge will start when I am back to work. And as much as I dread pumping, I am actually kinda looking forward to go back to work!
[Sidenote: M may be our last child – hence I was feeling bittersweet when I was discharged from the hospital and having my last postnatal check up with my wonderful gynae.]
Zal passed two years of breastfeeding
Alhamdulillah, it’s been a blessing. And I managed to extend it to another 9 months – which I think helps me having contraction a lot faster. Weaning him was surprisingly quite easy. I just told him that he’s already a big boy and no more nursing. He only needed to nurse when he wants to sleep so I just snuggled him and whispered into his ear that I love him so much :’)
Politics is nasty so stay away from it
If I ever thought of joining ANY kind of politics (including office one), I will take a look at this post and remind myself to STAY THE HELL AWAY from it.
One, it against everything that I believe in. Two, I am never a talker anyway.
[Sidenote 2: and this sounds so ironic considering that my father is a member of regional parliament back in his hometown]
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And here it comes the one for 2017!
Fix my prayer (badly needed)
This is so long overdue and dragging from last year. I am ashamed at myself. I am looking for a way to be more productive and on time for my prayer. NEED TO IMPROVE. PRONTO.
SQL refresher
This is more like professional goal to me. Husband mentioned about several interviewees he encountered that don’t even know basic SQL skill at all – which is really weird considering all of them are experienced software engineers. I feel like my SQL skill has been rusty and I need a refresher. This skill will definitely be handy in the future.
Pass Java 8 certification
Company sponsored so must pass no matter what. Haha.
Kidding. This has been my personal goal since last year as well. I have to pass!
Pass JLPT N5
This is a downgrade from last year 🙁 I was aiming for at least passing N4 by the end of 2016. But with two kids, the best I could do is aiming for N5 this year. I don’t think I can take July’s JLPT – so my bet will be on December’s JLPT.
One year of breastfeeding Malta
Bismillah. Insya Allah. I hope my breastfeeding journey with M will be smooth sailing just like Z’s. I can still endure the weird sleeping schedule – just not with breastfeeding issue. Hope M will adapt well with bottle feeding and can take either EBM or FBM.
Finish 12 books at least (one book per month)
Cause I used to be a book worm and I love the book worm version of myself. I was less needy and less emotional. Book is my source of comfort. Book is where I take shelter whenever I am lonely.
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As usual, I am putting more to-do stuffs on my list. Haha. Oh well. Let’s check back in few months and see how I have fared then.
