Amir's "fashion" show

School is almost out here. Four more weeks to go. And only today, for the first time since I got here, I went to Amir's school to give him the much needed moral support a child needs from his/her parents. Finally! I had missed his sports day, international costume day, and his swimming gala and I am so ashamed to admit this really. Especially, when I had never missed any of my children's school activities back in KL,came rain or shine. Even when their sports day was held on a working day, I applied for leave. I NEVER missed any event. But since I came here, I became very calculative that  I had chosen not to attend any activities in their schools just because I can't stand the crazy, unreasonable taxi fares.

Like today, I spent 100 riyal on taxi!! Gila you! That's like a third of our weekly grocery spending. I knew it would cost me but I had enough of "hurting" my children's feelings. My excuse for not attending Amir's other  school event before this - what I told him lah - was because of Imran. He would be running around here and there out of boredom and in the end, I would not be able to focus on his big brother's main event. And most of the times, Amir and Nina would say they understand.

But for Amir's school assembly where his class is doing some songs and dances on fashion and Amir being given some lines to recite out loud (listening to him practising the lines this past week and sounding very British at it!), I promised him I would not miss it for the world.

And I am glad I did. As the kids appeared on stage I could see how their eyes and faces lit up when each of them spotted their parents at the back of the hall. I got teary-eyed a bit actually as I was overwhelmed with guilt for missing his previous performances/participation. And at the end of the show, when all the kids ran down the stage to hug their parents, I am HAPPY that I did not let Amir down.

A few of the pupils did not have their parents there and they looked so heartbroken, I felt sorry for them. One Malay girl, upon noticing that I am Amir's mom, came to me shyly and I felt like hugging her! She told me her mom can't come because "adik demam." I hope it's true because from what I heard, her parents hardly never turned up to other events too. Well, they missed quite a show because her performance was better than Amir's!

Next week is Nina's swimming gala. She said she wants me to come and I said, see first lah. I have to fair what? I had missed Amir's swimming gala but have attended Nina's choir show and Alice the Musical play (both were held at night and the ride was FOC of course courtesy of Papa).

But I told them, next year I will try not to miss anything more. Because Imran will start his school next year and I will ride the FREE school bus at 7am even if the show/event starts at 10am or 12pm, I would not mind the long wait because I am a caring and cheap mom!

My kids

Amir woke up this morning and immediately told me of this "dream" (err, no, no, it's a nightmare, he quickly said) last night. Being a long-winded person that boy is - he tells stories from L to W, before going back to A to K, then jumped to almost Z before he realised he missed X and Y! - so you must really have great patience and a lot of time to listen to his stories. And in the morning, when I am busy in the kitchen, rushing to make breakfast, I ain't really the best listener but I gave my best.

His dream or nightmare as he said : (after mummy edited to make it coherent)

Amir mimpi Amir dengan papa and mummy kat Jeddah airport nak balik Malaysia. And then bila sampai Malaysia, Amir nampak Azri kat airport (Azri is his most closest cousin). Ok lagi tu. Tapi Azri tak de kereta, so we walked lah to rumah kita. Masa walking tu, Amir nampak Burj Dubai! (Of all the things! he spends too much time on google earth that boy). After that, we reached home but it was Jeddah, not KL. Tapi bila Amir tengok kat luar, ada pulak KLCC. (at this point, I was like, mana nightmare ni??) And then mummy and papa hilang, and I searched everywhere tapi tak de. Amir takut. Amir cari-cari lagi sampai Amir reached KLCC tapi mummy papa tak de. Lastly, I went home and bila masuk rumah tu, it looked exactly macam rumah kat Jeddah. Suddenly, nampak mummy and papa, keluar from that! - (he pointed to the washer in the kitchen!) It was so scary... "(itu rupanya nightmare dia. Ha.. ha...) Like that Japanese movie where the ghost comes out from the tv set, except we probably came out all twisted or mutilated from all the spinning and rinsing in the washer! I can't help but laughed when he finished his story. For the first time, I did not mind his incoherence in telling his story because this time around, he did leave the climax bit until the end.

An update on Imran :
He turned four a few weeks back and since then he hates it when we say things like "Imran kecik lagi. Tunggu Imran besar ya?" He would loudly say that he is a BIG boy and to stop calling him budak kecik.
Last night I told him, being budak besar, it's time he sleeps in his own bed. (As it is now, he sleeps in our bed and once I am sure he is deep in his slumber, we move him to his bed, which is just next to ours. Occasionally, he will wake up and climb back into ours, much to my annoyance.)
Anyway, back to me telling him that big boys don't sleep with their mummies, he just smiled sheepishly and said : But why? Papa dah besar, why papa sleep with mummy?
:)

An update on Nina :

I never liked helping her out with her homework unless it's really necessary. Last week, when she came home from school and said rather dramatically that she could not believe that her geography teacher gave them only six days to do a news writing on the 2004 flood in Bangladesh and create a newspaper to fit that story in, I could not believe myself when I practically jumped from my seat and said, "hey, I can help you!"
Ha.. ha.. If I had my way, I would have written the entire thing myself but fearing that the teacher might suspect something (ce... I perasan I am a good journalist lah ni!), I asked her to give me her own sentences and I help edit them.And the amount of time I spent editing it felt like I was back at work doing my centrespead for Business Times (coming in to office before 7am etc!). Doing that homework of hers, I was transported back to my life as a reporter and for that few hours, I felt alive. :)

Significant or Famous

Last week Amir told me that one of his classmates have a very significant grandfather. So their teacher googled the said grandpa's name and Amir was so amazed/impressed to see his friend's grandpa's name on the Internet. "There were many but too bad it was all in Bahasa Indonesia, so my teacher did not understand," he said.

So I told him to google my full name. He had a shock! He... He...:) So he asked if I am significant or famous or I am both. Mmmm... I said I could not be famous because I am not in Wikipedia but I could be a bit significant, maybe not me per se but what I had written in the paper could have been considered by others as significant enough to befit some mention in the Internet. I'd like to think lah...

I remember when I was working dulu2. Whenever I felt bored sitting at my tiny desk and when no one (read BOSSES) is looking, I would start googling. Not just my name but anyone's name, from my old classmates, former teachers, lecturers, colleagues, my husband to even my parents' names. When Facebook was non-existent, my siblings' names were non-existent too while my dad's name, thanks to me, was of course in the Net. But to see Google does its search and came out within .35 seconds of over 6,000 of my name is not impressive. What impressed me is when I googled someone's name and I see he/she is in Wikipedia.... NOW that's something else!

A guy in my office, he sat just about 10m away from me and he's in Wiki! And for a while there, I was in awe. Not of him but more of the fact that I was working with someone who is in that free encylopedia! So I was in awe of myself?? Ha..ha..

Then a week later, Daphne Iking walked into the newsroom and again out of boredom, I googled her and found out she's in Wiki too! And I was like : WTH?? What has she done to deserve a mention??? My colleague tu I can so understand why... he wrote a book and can be considered "Malaysia's prominent writer" (and it was him who taught me that it is "nerve RACKING" and not "nerve WRECKING"). But Ms Iking?? Mmmm...

Back during the pre-Internet age, an Encylopedia was, in my opinion a very reliable and valuable source of information to me. Then came Wikipedia and for a while there, I thought, this maybe not the best thing ever, but it is the quickest site for fast information to find out about something/someone significant. Not anymore.... not after Ms Iking is in it too (By the way, I have nothing against this lovely lady). Now you just need to be famous, and you're in!

I just found out that my former colleague/prominent writer is divorced, for the second time! Was that info really necessary??? So tak class this Wikipedia!

Ada Bakat ke?

In Amir's last report card, his Art teacher wrote that Amir has quite a talent for drawing. "A budding artist in the making," he wrote. I don't know about that. But I do know he is very good at copying other's people drawings and he is very detailed. He said he did a Van Gogh painting in school last month and since I never saw it, I have to take his word when he said, it was SOOO NICE.
The picture below is an example of his copy-cat work of art. I have to say they are very good. For a second I thought he'd traced those pictures from a book but he said he didn't and his sister vouched for him.

This talent, I am certain he didn't get it from me because I suck at anything that requires creativity. Back in school, Art is never a favorite subject but always a favourite class period because it was when I did nothing when others were intently drawing. My excuse : I focused better at home. The teacher knew I lied because I always ended up with a C or D anyways! So Amir must have gotten it from his dad? Maybe because when it comes to the art of precision and detailing, HE is the man!

Now my other offspring, who a week ago turned 12, claimed she is a musician whose talent is ready to be unleashed and wanted nothing else but a guitar for her birthday. She got a Sony MP4 from his dad and a "Fendi" look-alike watch from me. Well, we know, they were not guitar. His dad promised she'll get one this coming summer when we are in KL, a remark that almost "killed her" apparently! (Her facebook status right after being told that was : I AM SO HAPPY I COULD DIE.)

But does she really have a talent? If she does, where did she get it from? I am not musically-inclined although I do love listening to music. At her age, I was happy listening to English songs from Barbara Streisand and Roberta Flack, then writing the lyrics down and checking the dictionary to make sure my spellings were right. That was as good as I got. No desire for a guitar ke, a piano ke or an organ. Her dad meanwhile claimed he can strum an electric guitar like a pro. Yeah, I'd believe it when I see it!

I personally believe, Nina's current craving for a guitar is a result of "peer" pressure ...... from Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift!

As for their mom, who is not creative nor pandai main muzik, she "scored" another D for this following incident:
(Look carefully at the picture and ignore the very careless "painting" I drew over the other kids' eyes.)


Got it? No? Then take a look at this:


LOL! this was taken the week Amir told me that his socks were not matching and I told him that they are not THAT obvious what! I was wrong....

Amir's biggest sceptic - his mom

Yesterday, had a meeting with Amir's class teacher. Since Amir has only been in the school for a month and a half, I came to the meeting with no high expectation. So imagine my surprise when I was "presented" with wonderful news about my playful and very manja 9-year-old son. Amir is apparently clever, bright, outspoken and very popular too! "Quite an achievement for someone so new in class," she said. Oh boy oh boy! This is despite his limited fluency in the English language. His teacher said, even his English has improved a lot. That bit I had noticed at home when I hear him reading his books. His only weakness, said the teacher, is his inability to "write on the lines." ??? I really see nothing wrong in that as long as he is writing in straight line. But obviously, it is important to this school. Whatever....

But coming back to Amir. He is quite unique. Everytime I attended a parent-teacher meeting regarding him, I always came out a bit surprised. He never failed to kind of impress me. Even in his exams. (Ask him what he learned in school today? His classic answer is : "Mmmm... entahlah tapi adalah belajar." )

This is my boy who only knew his ABCs (only A to G, mind you) and numbers 1-10 when he was 3.5 years old. Never interested to speak in English. Not interested in books, no matter how colourful they were. When he was almost four, he attended a playschool in England for 3 months and again surprisingly, the teachers told me how participative he was in class. Again, despite his very limited English, he somehow thrived.

Then when we returned to KL, we decided to send him to a newly set-up kindergarten, just behind our house, ran by a Malay lady as we thought we did not want to burden him with too much stress (read:homework) if he was to attend schools like Q-dees, CEC or Smart Reader. We wanted things to be easy for him. But the Malay lady turned out to be a thief. After collecting the fees for the second half of the year, she decided to close the school and ran away with the money! So, Amir never did learn anything from that short 5-month period. He never liked the school in the first place and dreaded to be sent to another school. So we let it be and he was free of school for the next 6 months.

The next year, he attended Smart Reader and again being a playful boy he is, he "graduated" from the school with little knowledge but a lot of friends. He entered Standard 1, still "crawling" in his reading, both BM and English. He was put in the last class after the school assessed him. We were not surprised. For the first six months, he was struggling with his reading and writing but he was good with numbers. Shockingly, came July 2007, just out of the blue, he began to read so well, I was like SHOCKED! By the end of the year, he was number 2 in class and got "promoted" to the second top class for Standard 2. And he continued to do well, always in the top 6 and got promoted again to the top class in Standard 3.

I really don't know how to explain him. When doing his revision at home, he ALWAYS asks for help, as if he knew NOTHING. He hardly had homework. He read Doraemon books, period. But his teachers would comment: Amir seorang yang cerdik.....

When we came here, enrolling him in a Brit international school was a bit worrying. So when the school suggested that he takes ESL program, we were all for it. And amazingly, he is doing good and settling well in school.

I might always be sceptical of him and not easily pleased, despite what others said of him, but let it be known I am always so proud of him.