Mok, My Hometown

Happy Val's Day! hehehehehe... jangan marah... No, i do not celebrate Val's Day. It's not a significant day in my calender year.

This year February however, started great. We went back to Kelantan for the whole stretch of CNY holidays.

I was delighted to be able to buy and eat the famous Nasi Berlauk Mok Wok.. yummy!

Tour the area that I grew up...

..... once ground of our Pale Green Home

This is the grocery shop I used to frequent in my childhood years. The Chinese owner - Along had a superstitious belief that he's not supposed to sell salt and anything sharp after dawn. He was very strict with his belief, somehow or rather... he surrendered to me! Well, What he could do when there was a pin size girl never gave up knocking on his door begging that she need to buy the needle so her mami could finish customer's order!

Kelantan is unique in my eyes... I love..

like - where else can you find a signboard that still display 5 digits phone number ?

or

this fantastic CPT - cendol pulut tapai.

and not forgetting a pull over by the airport fencing to watch aircraft lands and takes off !... he he..

she's cool, huh?

I told Harris I do not know why I am so happy everytime we went back, where as above all listed, all i got is my mami and my mok 'bickering' with each other.

Well, one talk chicken while the other talk duck, but they can't live with out each other. Hmmmm, isn't that just the normal mother-daughter complicated relationship?

May be the bickering is the thing I miss to hear that makes me keep wanting to go back home.

I did sleep a-lot during the break. Nada has her favorite partners in crime - my nephew, Danial and my cousin - Zarif to keep her entertained. Strange... they are quite in the age gap - 15, 9 & 3 but compliment one another well. So, I was not much 'bothered' by her. Harris never dares to disturb my sleep. The one that does is Mok! She woke me up to ask me to EAT.

That made my activities were SLEEP-EAT-SLEEP-EAT!... Heaven!

Mami makes the world's best bake macaroni, trust me.

I like listening to Mok also.. but this time around I realize, her tales circles about her children that had passed away.

The most was arwah Ayah Long. She recalled Ayah Long as most loveliest baby boy, she carried him all the time. Apparently, the eldest son of her's.. never crawl because by the time she put him down.. he's about 2 and started walking. How 'true' the story is.. I do not know.

Mok told me Ayah Long went to school at age 5. He was the cleanest boy in school. He wore spanking white shoes to school in the morning and came back with the same condition. Ayah Long once almost drowned in Kelantan River near Kampung Sireh where he grew up. It was in his teenage. Mok said that was one day she can't never forget unless she'll go senile.

When pop-yeh-yeh evaded, Ayah Long never wanted to follow the trend though everybody else couldn't get enough of Joe Jambul hairstyle. He insisted in keeping his own style, Mok described he combed his hair almost Roger Moore.

I sensed Mok is missing her children that had left her...

I pray for Mok's health that she'll live many more years in this humble home I long dream to have for those I love. She's not one grandmother that would hug and kiss but she's one that is so willing not to eat her favorite dish just to make way for others. It's the way she is.

Mami's beautiful Japanese roses ...............

SHE’LL BE THREE

Did these two Mommy made dresses ever make their appearance in the blog? no.. don't think so

The Shirring Dress

The Butterfly Wings Dress.. inspired by Made by Maya. (She learnt to pose by watching America's Next Top Model)

Nada’s pre-birthday present.

The Ruffle Shoulder Dress

and

The Green Rose Dress. (Anywhere u can find a green rose? My daughter has it !)

A lady will never have too many dresses. I have the feeling, ,she’ll have more of Mommy’s handmade…

I was telling my friend whom has one son age nine and currently trying for second that if she would be pregnant, it would be like having it for the first time again.

I myself is gradually loosing the precious memorable experience of carrying a human being inside me though it was only approximately four years ago that I gotten pregnant. Of cause I do remember.. but if you ask me to detail it… I would need to pull out my pregnant diary notes and recall real hard. It also sadden me.. at times I almost forgot of how it actually felt holding Nada when she was 12 months and below. Did I carry my daughter too little that this is happening to me ? I have to admit I was not a baby wearer and Nada’s daddy is one kindhearted hubby that he always pity me if I would need to carry Nada around. He would want to do the carrying job. Even now when his daughter is almost 14kg in weight … he still carries her as much as he wants and I think this will prolong for a much longer period. Nada is lucky.

Photos of our recent trip to Bangkok

Not only about carrying.. I am missing too the things people do when their baby is an infant. The simplest thing of putting mittens and booties on.

My baby girl will be three tomorrow and as usual I am melancholic about it. Way too fast for me.

She now attends playgroup at Kindicare till noon and back to her Nanny’s house after. I just want her to have fun, enjoying her childhood in a more conducive environment, hopefully she will.

Second day at Kindicare

.Celebrating the coming birthday with friends.

In the midst of me failing trying to be pregnant again… I am grateful to Allah s.w.t that I have Nada. If He plans for only this one beautiful child for me.. I am glad it was none other than her....

.

in Mommy's ferragamo and Mommy made The Lotsa Love Dress. (yeah.. I made her 10 dresses for Raya the other day and buy another 8 pairs... :)...

p.s – oh dear hubby.. if you are reading, I have a short wish list in regards to my crafting works.

NAK :

1. Measurement tape in imperial… tak feel ukur-ukur dalam metric ni.

2. Gunting kain yang mata dia gerigi-gerigi / zig-zag

Please buy for me...

ANTICS OF A TWO-ABOUT-TO-BE-THREE YEAR OLD

Meet my latest craftwork :

My handmade sewing kit - the hanger yet altered.

Better looking with altered hanger, help from greatest hubby.

Close-up of elastic pockets for small items

complete with wrap band and button

for on-the-go sewing. KELASSSS gitu.... :)

Now the story :

1. She was playing wrestling with me and by purpose smacked her face onto mine. Ya, I play wrestle with my girl, so she would become strong enough to fight bullies (if any) at the Nanny’s, hopefully she is not the one.. hehehehe.

I told her – " Nada, avoid Mommy’s face.. Mommy kan baru cabut gigi. Gusi Mommy sakit."

Nada – "Gigi toilet?" ( I brought back my last molar which was extracted and placed it at the wash basin in the toilet)

Mommy – "Yes, the tooth is in toilet.. you saw, right. Sebab tu gusi Mommy sakit."

Nada – "Sapa buat?"

Mommy – "The doctor (read : Dentist)"

Nada – "Doctor !!! Issshhh... No-ne-no-ne-no-ne (start blabbering with fierce face as if cursing) . buatMommy! Rotan doctor.."

She’s imitating Mommy scolding the doctor just like Mommy does to console her when she complaint that the floor makes her fell down.

2. She was in her car seat at the rear passenger when Harris stopped for a red traffic light next to a BMW-Z4.

Nada – "Waaaaa.. Daddy, car banyak! Hahaha, car kecik! Daddy car besar." (Sambil-sambil buat muka berlagak, laughing to the ‘small’ Z4)

Mommy was relieved that the Z4 driver couldn’t hear her!

3. She recognizes Jalur Gemilang and it’s components as Tatu-leyse (Satu Malaysia). The first time I heard her saying was during Aidilfitri this year.

Whenever, wherever she sees the such, she’ll shout Tatu-leyse, Tatu-leyse. Be it the Giant logo, on coins or actual flag.

One day, she wore the t-shirt that I bought for her in Saigon… and she shouted “Tatu-leyse, Tatu-leyse. Nada, Tatu-leyse.. Daddy, Tatu-leyse..”

She met a kwailo sitting in Hotel Lobby in HK wearing the same t-shirt in blue color and went straight to the guy pointing to his t-shirt saying “Tatu-Leyse, same Nada” while showing hers. I think the kwailo also blur-blur..

I hope Najib Razak would not be ‘sour’ with my daughter for including Vietnam flag into the community of Satu Malaysia.

4. She sees or hears ambulance siren, she'll say.. MATIIIIIII.. She plays with McD toy of a girl riding scooter and acts as if accident occurred. She said... MATIIIII. I wonder if she really understand the concept of death. I don't remember ever teach her about death!

5. She says HUJAN as BUJAN. I tried to teach her - "HUUUUUUU - JAN". She repeats after me - "HUUUUUU-Bujan". I give up!

6. She likes soup… any kind and she calls it SOS. She likes soup with rice or mee or rice vermicelli. Upon having ……….., she will bring the soup bowl close to her mouth and slurp till finish. As parents to the toddler, we think it is still cute to do that for the age. So, we always try to capture photos.

Nada enjoying vegetable soup.

One night for a dinner, she did the same. Only thing, even before we picked up the camera… she told us… “ok, boleh ambik gambar”.. and brought the soup bowl to her mouth.

7. She’s excited watching advertisements on TV. It was LG Optimus that show a pair of parents shouting in bathroom if you could figure. She watched with big interest and shouted – HAH! SPANDER!...

O… Dear! I corrected her, “It’s spider…”

8. She is one baby with high awareness with surroundings. When she was about 13 months old or so, she made big noise when we were about one km away from our cousin's house Cik Byie. I couldn't figure out why in the first place.. but later understood that she was excited going to her second cousin's place, and she managed to figure out even a km away.

We tried to 'cheat' her by purposely walking towards our neighbor's house to see if she would be fooled and confused.. She was never able to be cheated even tho... you know... apartment houses, all doors look the same. She'll just stand still and that was when she's about 15 months.

The Kota Damansara tol house reminds her of Uncle Afiq, she'll shout "Ankeng Afiq- Ankeng Afiq" Whenever we are approaching it to go to our Cik Ra's house. What amazed me is.. she never mistaken with any other tol house.

Today, I was browsing the photos in my hard drive with her. Looking at this photo.. she said "Main dengan Ankeng Afiq". I asked her "Mana Uncle Afiq?" She showed me the carpet at the background of the photo and said "Nona" (what she calls Cik Ra).

As a mom.. I know exactly what she has in her mind. - The carpet reminds her of Cik Ra's house which brings her to Uncle Afiq.

I'm impressed.. that is so little carpet there, ok.

For the info : Uncle Afiq is her favorite uncle from Cik Ra's clan.

9. She’s always uneasy if Daddy’s not around. One morning she woke up looking for Daddy and asked me : "Mana Daddy". I told her – "Daddy went to JB, working."

With a complaint facial impression she uttered : "Ha… Pergi Cik Byie ? Nak ikut.. Main Abang Aqil."

Now.. when has Jay Bee turned to Cik Byie ?

little bit of that, little bit of this

the latest dress I made for my best friend's daughter I called it Zahra - the flow-ey dress

............. time sure flies.. December! it's Harris's birthday month. Soon will be January and it's Dew's birthday month. Oh.. oh.. oh.. she'll be three.. I mean THREE????

Update of my baby girl - she's now diaper-less.

We actually don't really toilet trained her. For one - Mek is lazy to make the trips for her to the loo. Top of it, Dew is still a baby with not much words. So, I kinda give reasons to myself because it rings in my ear that old timers always say - Cakap dah pandai macam-macam tapi kencing-berak tak nak cakap. I felt that we could escape ourselves from such impression and it's 'ok' if her butt is still covered with diaper since she doesn't speak much of 'understandable' language.

He he...

Her loo some four months ago.

Not wanting to be disturbed while doing no 2 but Mommy curik2 ambik gambar nie.

I was wrong though, when a baby is ready for toilets.. it will happen despite not much of coaching neither baby being so eloquent. As for Nada, it started with her.. herself, telling us she wanted to poop. Then I tried not to put diaper on and told her that if she wants to pee, she got to go to the toilet. It was Sunday afternoon that day when I dozed off on the couch while she was playing with her toys next to me. I was awaken by the too quietness of the room. (well, didn't it happen to you that you can still hear sounds even if you're sleeping?). The first thing I did was shouting - "Nada!!! where are you ?" She answered me.. Kensheng toilet mommy.

Awww.. all by herself.

She never had any wet encounter. Last nite, she slept through out with no diaper and woke me up at around 430am to go to the toilet. :)

Now, we have three packs of unopen Huggies diapers which looks like they will not to be used in near time.

Nada in Mommy's handmade Tartan Pleated Dress

Nada in Mommy's handmade The Sachs Dress.

That little shopping – HK Day 4

Having to stay and experienced Disneyland Hotel, I have to write a review about it. There are two hotels in HK Disneyland namely, Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Hollywood Hotel.

We are family...

We stayed in Disney's Hollywood Hotel for the reason of its’ cheaper rate compared to other one. There are several types of rooms of same hotel which were also rated differently. I chose a Sea View room hoping for uninterrupted view and not fronting to other rooms. Good instinct I had, we had a great view from our window!

However, the building is spread wide enough that even the fronting rooms has more than 150’ distance. So not so bad.

Braille equipped hotel plan

The architectural layout is straight forward with clean space formation that you’ll hardly get lost in it. Interior works is nice, neat and cheerful.

.

Exchanging cards?

Only downside I would say is the placement of reception counter. Bad design – with two huge column blocking. Apara… itu arkitek….

What a total blunder...having that two column

Their service is superb, which can easily be judged by the time taken for registration and other wise. Check-in only takes you 10 minutes or so and check-out merely 5 minutes!

The cream of Disneyland Hotel to me however is their detail attention to the needs of little ones. What else can I say.. It's DISNEYLAND ! Really makes me happy. During the check-in we were informed that the room is equipped with two compact queen size beds which are positioned detached from the side walls and being asked if we would want a bed fence to be fixed. I agreed. As a baby product junkie myself, I checked the brand of the bed fence. They use LINDAM….. Not bad, eh.

All toiletries and towels are provided in three for our room, and of course one is in a smaller size fit for our love, Dew.

The mickey mouse gargle glass are also in two sizes...

May be I have not stayed in many hotels enough to say, it was the only hotel thus far that I encountered such provision.

Bravo Disney's Hollywood Hotel.

We procured the Disneyland Stay 2 Days tickets, i.e promotion price to enter the park for two consecutive days by staying in the Hotel. Thus, Day 4 was still planned for Disneyland, but I didn’t intend to be in the park for the whole day long. What I had in mind was half day in the park and to head to Tung Chung which is just two stop away by MTR from Disneyland Resort MTR station for a cable car ride to Hon Ming 360 and a little shopping at the Citygate Outlet (CO)

So after check-out, we left our luggage at the hotel storage service and entered the park. The weather for second day in the park was so much pleasant compared to the first day. It was scorching hot earlier but second day was shadowed. Nice! By noon we had completed all the rides and some of Dew’s liking were ridden twice.

Fire extinguisher in Tarzan's tree house.

We were left with much recommended live show called the Golden Mickey which is the next schedule time was at 4.00pm. Harris and I were contemplating if we were to wait or not since we planned for the cable car ride. Errrrr, actually it was me whom contemplated… Harris abide my decision.

Giving a deepest thought, I decided to watch the show. We went all the way to HK for Disneyland, might as well get ourselves satisfied. Golden Mickey show is a live 30 minutes theatre performance casting characters from Disney productions such as Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Tarzan dan macam-macam ada. It was a splendid show.

However, since I have watched Disney on Ice live performance and other theatre shows like Sounds of Music, Cats, Saturday Night Fever, Stomp.... I would say Golden Mickey show is a friction of those.

Oooo… ya, my Ayah Ngah used to furnish me with two free VIP tickets for many of international live performances at Istana Budaya. (There is a myth told in my family that said I am my Ayah Ngah’s favorite niece…..) During that period Harris and I were ‘Bujang Senang’, so we never missed to make ourselves available for the shows.

We went to Tung Chung anyway after watching the show, though it was rather late. I thought never mind if we couldn’t make it for the cable car ride, let’s just roam around the CO.

Harris said.. I didn't jump high enough earlier. So, this one should be ok.. No? Give me a break! I'm an old 35...

Citygate Outlet is a shopping complex built across a highway linking HK city and airport with branded items factory outlets boutiques being it’s retailers. Some are Bally, Clarks, Armani, Kookai, Mango… bla bla bla… I can say they ARE factory outlets, unlike in Bandung which I couldn’t tell if a product is an imitation or factory outlets.

O.. come on! When two pairs of trousers are exactly of a same design, same material but with different brand label, can you say they are factory outlets. To me.. it looks more like a belasah-punya-immitation. Mek don’t like. I’d rather buy unknown brand.

I meant for myself a handbag, so purchased one. Among the many-many brands, we know Coach is always relevantly cheaper compared to other brands. And since it is factory outlets, the goods are offered at 10-15% lesser than the normal retail price. Mek kedekut… and chose between the ones that were offered at 50% discount. So, I just spent HKD1900. He he. Even so, I was going back and forth weather to buy or not. Punyala susah. Mek ni kampong skett..

Strange, when my cousin was going to further his tertiary study doing Medicine in Egypt recently, I dedicate him a bigger sum of money... double than what I spent for the handbag with no second thought. Not at all.. in fact I was so contend with my act. Nothing to brag about it, but that is to show spending money in different ways contend different people differently. There is no right or wrong.

Anyway, I can say the handbag was a worth buy and I always savor anything worth it. Mek berkira-berkira…. To buy one for my MIL or my Mok and my Mami. My MIL has three DILs, but whenever she needs a handbag she always ask from me. So it would be nice if this time around I get her a new handbag without she has to ask.. hmmm? And Mok… it will be so glamorous for her to carry a Bally, isn’t it? And if buy for Mok… Mami has to have too… right? though she just had one for Raya….

I also thought I should get a pair of Clarks for my one and only nephew.

Sadly, I do not have much time at CO. Trust me… I am not giving myself an excuse. I didn’t even get anything for Nada.

Harris was pressing me citing we had our bags at Disneyland Hotel storage to be claimed, though they never gave us any time limit. He kept reminding me that we still have to figure our way to next hotel we were to spend our next two nights in HK. My husband always like that one….

We left CO at around 8.30pm back to Disneyland to get our luggage. After 6 times of exchanging MTR, walk trough the long Mong Kok East station, a shopping mall (which I do not know what name it is) .. we arrived at Royal Plaza Hotel in Kowloon close to 10.30pm. Mek dah tak dapat rasa tapak kaki… perasaan nak terjun atas katil jek…

So, if I could have one more day in HK.. I want to spend that day at Citygate Outlet, Tung Chung.

Gambar pun sekeping ni je sempat ambik... This is the part where it crosses the highway...