the walking makes me cry

Dear Ilhan,

Today, I realized something. You no longer crawl. At 1 year and 3 months, you have found your feet and you seem to be very fond of them too. Finally, after your first cold winter, your legs woke up from their sleep and started to pitter patter from point a to point b and sometimes straight to point z. Your whole body moves with your feet, your hands swing and your head bobbles and your eyes laugh and your smile makes my whole world spin round and round.

Sometimes, during your incredibly long journey from the bedroom to the playroom, you stop and stoop to check out a piece of paper on the floor, and you say 'OOOH!' and suddenly it's a piece of the moon or a piece of the sky. And then you continue to toddle toddle toddle with the man in the moon clutched safely in your hands and your smiling mouth singing a song only the both of you understand.

Sometimes, with your new habit of carrying a bag 'datin-style' hooked in the crook of your elbow, you go swish swish swish in your fancy imaginary ballgown to a fancy imaginary ball. I worry when you seem to be so taken with baubles and fancies, striking poses and making appreciative noises when we let you play pretend with a necklace, but it cracks me up to see you so happy to be wearing a too-long strand of plastic stones around your little neck. That smile and that giggle and that glee... I can't make myself say no when I should. I know I will regret it sooner or later, but to see you that happy, I tell myself it will be worth it.

Sometimes, you walk so fast your body leans in front like it wants to go faster than your legs, like you're skiing and the G-force has claimed you. Sometimes you don't walk as much as you dance, your arms stretched out to your sides or up in the air, your body going left right left right, your feet going left left right, your shoulder rolling in a bhangra rhythm and your head bobbing to hip hop. Sometimes, when you're upset because I suddenly selfishly needed to pee, you'll be walking so fast you'll land thud bump! on your tush and then with a wail you'll get up again and so it goes till you've either reached me or I've finished my business and have returned to you whereby you promptly forget me again to play with your singing block.

But my favourite favourite one of all is when you are standing somewhere, thinking a thought, taking everything in, singing a song, in a world all your own and then you see me or your baba and you just stop and walk-toddle-run into our open arms with the biggest most beautiful gap-toothed smile and you say 'HI!!!' like we really truly deserve it.The heart, brain, liver, gall bladder, eyes, bones, cartilage, arteries all melt into a gloopy mass of mommy/daddy and baby. Oh baby... That feeling is nothing I have ever had.

Baby, you are growing so fast. It's been more than a year and I'm still trying to believe that I was ever pregnant in the first place! Your first smile, your first yawn, your first fart, your first crawl... I remember them but I don't remember them because now you are really and truly walking. I can no longer hold you captive in my arms, citing your lack of independent mobility as an excuse to bury my face in your sweet smelling hair every 5 seconds.  Congratulations on finally deciding it was time to break out the legs but no thanks for putting me in this paradox of happiness for you growing up and sadness that you are growing up.

You are my sunshine but you are also my hail and thunder and my Alaskan winter. You are my frenemy forever. I love you so very very much sayang, but more than anything I am so very very very thankful.

Mama

aidilfitri 2013

Selamat hari raya maaf zahir batin.

We didn't feel so lonely this raya because ariff's half of the family were here. And it was wonderful.

I owe myself so many stories about life here in delhi. It's been more than 2 months but i have yet to post even 1 story for posterity. Not sure if i should blame the amount of time and energy that ilhan demands from me or just my own pure laziness :)

Till later.

remembering

I remember:

-          Squatting on a blue linoleum floor, watching an ant parade with Zubair

-          Watching yachts blown about in a lake with Ayah

-          Pushing my toy pram in a field of daffodils

-          Hearing Abbas get a tongue-lashing for making Maryam cry

-          Carrying a sleeping Maryam from my parents room and putting her in a cot in my room

-          Sleeping in my kelambu in my room with Mak after watching Stephen King’s IT

-          Dressing Umar up and taking him to the playground in the afternoons

-          Playing masak-masak under the big durian tree in front of Nenek’s house using REAL fire and ‘cooking’ plastic bag soup with rambutan leaves

-          Mandi kolam, mandi parit kong, climbing the mangosteen tree, kait rambutan, catching tiny fish with my siblings and cousins and uncles and aunties

-          Throwing stones into the canal in front of Embah’s house

-          Getting a tongue-lashing from Embah for throwing stones in the canal

-          Paman Aee ‘s ‘telur geseng’ and firework shows

-          Going to the Saturday morning market and buying 30 sen candy

-          Eating keropok lekor and jambu batu and laksa during recess

-          Playing getah, batu seremban and congkak with friends at school

-          Not having problems beyond unfinished homework

dreaming of home

since ilhan and i have been staying in PB and Penang these past few months, shuttling between them every few weeks, i've been keeping myself busy with little 'projects', including reorganizing my parents' house. i've been cleaning rooms, organizing the accumulated stuff generally associated with little birdies having flown  the coop, and throwing away a looooooooooooooot of throw-away-ables that neither of my parents have had the heart or energy to throw away. its been satisfying to be able to help declutter my parents' lives, and it has also made me feel extremely nostalgic about our little home in putrajaya.

ariff and i started our life together in a teeny-tiny apartment/flat home, government quarters in putrajaya. we didn't have much money then (not as if we have any more now haha), so we couldn't really do up the house in a way we wanted. but as time went by, we built our little home with bits and pieces we loved. soon enough, we established a sort of style or look which i like to call 'kindergarten chic', but which our parents call 'oh please grow up will you' :) since both ariff and i like brightly coloured and adorable things, we ended up buying a red sofa and lots of accent pieces in bright bright colours. we got posters and pictures of our favourite movies and sports and things that we hung together with a select few of our personal photos. we loved that our first home spoke so much of who we were, but on a budget :)

since money was such an issue, we had some rules about the procurement of household items. besides the essentials like electrical appliances, the rules were

• if we don't LOVE it, we don't buy it.
• if we LOVE LOVE LOVE it, but there's no space for it or there's no practical use for it, don't buy it.
• if we can't afford it, we don't buy it. BUT, if we can afford it in the future and its not a necessity, save then buy it in the future.
• if we don't love it, but we need it urgently, shop around, make sure there really is no other affordable choice, and only then we buy it.
• if its necessary and quality's not an issue, just get the cheapest we can find.

these rules were very useful because they helped stop us (okay, me) from buying things that we'd just regret having sometime in the future. this is especially so for knick-knacks or souvenir items; we always made sure the pictures or vases or cushions we bought would fit in the scheme of our house. as much as we didn't really 'decorate' the house, our restraint helped everything coalesce into our kindy haven. in hindsight, i think its important to think, early on, about how you want your house to look like. choose a style that fits your family's needs because it helps you edit your purchases. remember that the furniture you buy, if it doesn't break, will be with you forever. if you pay good money, make sure you get a piece that will not just stand the test of time, but also the test of your changing styles and needs.

but of course, no matter how beautiful and glamorous a house, it's always what you make of it that makes it a home. i miss our little home and the big memories...

The guy that made it home for me :)

Friends always make it better

 Nothing like food and flowers to cheer us up!

And of course, the magical balcony that this blog was named in honour of. No matter how tiny your balcony, it can take you to places you never knew you could be.

but the era is over and we move on. now ariff, ilhan, and i will be building a new home in delhi. it will probably be just a short stay of 3 or 4 years, but that is never an excuse to live in a house you don't love. i'll miss precinct 18, but ooooh, all that dreaming and planning and buying/renting and nesting! i can't wait! 

counting down and tearing up

it's 3 months and 10 days till we'll be reunited in new delhi, india. sounds like a lifetime, but i guess its a teensy bit shorter than the 5 months we were staring at when ariff left in early january. for me, time inches by when i think of ariff.

but with ilhan, my my time flies! she'll be 3 months old on sunday! she's a wonderfully content baby, happy enough as long as she has her milk, sleep, and play. she can now hold 'conversations' with people, responds to sounds, smiles and coos, and is able to raise her head when she's on her tummy. my darling precious baby girl has outgrown some of her baby clothes and that has made me tearful. oh baby... no matter what people say about how i've ended up being a housewife etc, i am glad Allah has bestowed upon me the rezeki of being able to raise my baby myself. i believe my rezeki is best for me for now. 

aren't you a lucky baby?

bliss

i know i've been talking and writing and taking pictures of ilhan too much. pre-pregnancy, i would have wanted to shoot me.

but i can't help it really.

maybe one day i'll write something that is not even remotely linked to ilhan. probably.

but now, i'm content with just staring at her all day and nibbling her tiny fingers and soaking in her smiles and just loving her.

oh baby. you have me wrapped around your little pink mittens.

That 'Special' Feeling

Being a first time father is an experience that is hard to explain to people. The past few weeks before our baby Ilhan was born have been extremely challenging. Juggling between office 

commitments, relocating to a new country, moving house, not to mention having a baby on the 

way, is not a walk in the park. It takes a toll on you both physically and mentally.

However, when you stack all this up to being in a delivery room, 'the problems of the world' that i faced earlier seem to melt away. I will forever remember ever so clearly the longest 14 hours of my life. I will always remember the conversation i had with my wife at the early hours as we entered the hospital; we talked about how the future would be like and we went through the names we had in mind in order to distract ourselves from the inevitable and in-avertable. I will always remember the moment when both my wife and i sought each other’s forgiveness just before we entered the labour room. It was a hard reality pill to swallow as what we were about to face was a real life and death situation. As the tears streamed down our faces, i could recall that it was one of the scariest moments of my life. At that moment of time, i was hit by the reality that i could lose my wife. I thank my parents and my teachers for instilling in me to trust God and his plans even at testing times like this.

It was definitely a test of character as well as teamwork when i had to see my wife go through child labour. I have never seen my wife turn so blue when the delivery team asked her to push through the immense pain. I have never seen such calm and collectiveness in the form of the nurses, midwives, and doctors whom were present. Despite never having gone through such an experience before, i was proud to be there every step of the way.

I remember when Ilhan came out, her eyes were wide open and her hands were moving frantically ,yet she was quiet. In the seconds before she screamed and introduced herself to the world, the situation around us was so quiet that you could actually hear a pin drop and cut the tension with a knife. But when we heard her for the first time, the feeling of relief swept over us like a gush of much needed fresh air.

Cutting the umbilical cord of your child is an amazing experience. It is a rite of passage and stamp of responsibility for the fathers who get the opportunity. It felt like a sense of responsibility naturally taking place on my shoulder and the problems that i had faced in office a few days earlier seemed insignificant all together at that moment of time. Now, when i hold my daughter in my arms, i feel a sense of completeness; a sense that despite all the wrongs that i have done, i actually did something right. However, i do realise that having a child is a huge responsibility. To tell you the truth, i am nervous right now but i am excited for the future, so bring on the responsibility.

Happy Family