Thursday, September 27, 2007

***Daanya @ 6 months***

How fast time flies...It has been now 6 months since my little Daanya was born. We embrace and welcome her new development everyday....though taking care of her now requires mommy to swallow a dozen of red bull and 100+ just to gain energy, just being with her makes me proud, happy and contented. Funnily enough, when it comes to Daanya, I never complaint or even grouch about taking care of her or the works....just doing things for her is such a pleasure. Maybe I see it as my responsibility and I should not complaint but instead do my all to make her happy even if it means dark circles under my eyes....:P

Ok, what development this 6 months? Let see mmmmm... She now weighs at 8.8kg with 68cm in length....she still drinks 8 oz of milk 4 times a day and now have started a bit of SOLIDS!!!hehehhehe mommy just couldn't help it. Walking at the supermarket everyday during lunch hour passing the baby foods section is so tempting.For months they were calling out to me "Buy me...buy me"..Now that the time is here finally mommy get to splurge!!! So there I was carrying a whole plastic bag of gerbers and heinzs ooh don't forget the rice cereals...man, you just get confused there in that aisle...I actually stood there for I think 30 minutes just to figure out which rice cereal comes with milk and which does not....hahhahahahah in the end belasah one of each...hehhehehe...but Daanya is taking it in quite well...she loves the Gerber banana and Gerber prune and apple juice.....yummy yummy....

She is now crawling...crawl crawl everywhere....sometimes I feel like she's the Queen Bee and I am her "dayang" (what do you call this in English??)We would follow her everywhere just so that she can satisfy her curiosity...which also automatically means that we have to double up on the area of cleaning and sanitizing the house....

Just two weeks into her crawling, I was flabbergasted by a new development....One morning, she woke up early and had put her in the baby cot while I got ready for work...put on all the creams and what not on my face, put on my watch and combed my hair and when I turned to get her...She had her head up in a kneeling position and looked at me smiling as though she had achieved a long awaited success. I was so proud of her....yet so worried cause now it only means that we have to guard her even more....and daddy will have to lower her bed level so that she won't topple over...just after a while she tried the position again and then "Wham!!!" she STOOD UP!!!! she actually successfully from a kneeling position picked her own weight and stood up....Oh my!!!It was soooo twilight zone...ok...i said to myself..now didn't she just learned to crawl????huwaaaaaa mommy was just starting to adapt to the crawling and now the standing....**sigh**

Now she would crawl to a place when she can actually latch on and pick her self to stand...the coffee table, a stool, mommy and daddy....hahhahahah anything....

Other than that her vocab has also expanded from "mamamamama" to "dadada" hehhe so cute...she can also now amuse her ownself without having mummy and daddy to crack funny faces just to make her laugh...

She loves bringing her big toe into her mouth and suck away...."Nak adik" they say....I say "Are you Nuts!!!"

Will upload photos when I remember to charge camera's battery.....absent minded as always!!

***Al-Fatihah***

How could such a repulsive thing happen to you? Why did it happen to you? How can we let it happen to you? Such pain such torture. You were so innocent and so pure. I cannot imagine what you went through...having to go through such an atrocious episode, being played like a rag doll by some BEAST!How could any being get enjoyment and willingly get satisfaction from the pain you endured? How could anyone just let you die without feeling guilty and remorse? What sort of a being are you? She was only a little girl, a little darling...so much waiting for her in the future, a human being just like any of us. So many potential just waiting to be discovered? Why do you have to play GOD and write her fate for her?

I cannot help but cry when Hazmy gave me an IM with the link to "The Star" online with the latest update that day saying that the DNA results proved 99.99% that the body was that of Nurin Jazlin. Tears streamed down my face instantaneously. As if on cue.I wanted so bad for it not to be her....especially after what her parents had to go through the first time when they claimed that it was not her body.But as her body was laid to rest, we just have to accept qada n qadar. That first 15 minutes, when TV3's buletin utama showcased the whole "pengkebumian" and recited the Fatihah, we, the whole family was sombre...we remained silent the whole time...

And her parents??? What is it that they felt must be difficult and shattering. What are you supposed to feel when you lose a child and on top of that to have seen her "like that" and to be done "like that"????like a piece of meat...I do not want to comment on her parents actions that led to such an awry end. But I do want to say this, how many times have our parents let us out even to the nearest of destinations like the playground just in front of the house, or a friends' house just blocks away??Of course they never thought that anything bad would happen but that is besides the point...the fact is they sometimes allowed us because they love us....they see us being cooped up at home and sometimes need a breath of fresh air, sometimes need to mingle and make friends and not be left out but most of all...sometimes need to be independent. Probably we were just lucky that nothing bad happened to us?? But who are we to say? Who knows what is written for us? Were Nurins's parents just unlucky?To charge them with negligence??? Are you nuts????Why??? Is it because you have absolutely no leads to the BEAST? Is it because you HAVE to make an arrest that just any arrest will do? If what they did was negligence, were our parents negligent too? Where is the boundary to being negligent?How about those child that were left alone in their apartment and one of them plunged out of the balcony? They were purposely left alone...at that age????Come on lar people!! Don't blind us....there is still a MANIAC predator at large.....sometimes I cannot help but totally surrender with the way we handle things? Why is it that our system is so reactive when we hunger so much to be proactive? Why isn't our streets safe anymore? Why is murder, robbery, rape and what other social predicament taking place so explicitly here in our country? What will the future hold for our children and their children's children?

Honestly I get scared now just by being home alone. Let alone for my Daanya. Just a simple mistake by saying "yes" does not guarantee anything anymore. Do I have to make her stay at home all the time under my protective wings? I am so afraid to let her know what a bad bad world it is out there...

Nurin, it was such a wretched way to leave the world, I know...You don't know any better.Your existence and departure has made such an impact to the nation. My heart feels for you and your family especially your parents. I cannot imagine being in their shoes...Nurin, semoga Allah cucuri rahmat ke atas roh mu....Amin. And to Nurin's parents, I hope you carry with you alot of patience...it is tough I know, but who am I to say? because I simply don't know. Take it all in stride and believe the hikmah underlying all these. You have my support.


Thursday, September 13, 2007

***Emotional Check***

"Henry David Thoreau once wrote: 'Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influences of each.''

I was lost...I went to a deep and dark place and almost drowned in my own sorrows. I stayed in that state for a while always hoping for a breath of hope, faith and change. Felt the need to voice it in the open but was too afraid to hurt hearts of those affected. It was a very dark place...I have been blinded by its darkness and suffocating from its limited source of air...I was so worried that I could not find myself the way out. I went through my days heavily feeling like the world was against me. My self-esteem dropped probably to level -100 (if there existed levels for it lah). Everything was not working in my favor.

Alhamdulillah with GOD's will...I was able to let things out. May not be much but at least it was out in the open and involved parties now knows that this is what is boiling inside of me causing me to withdraw from my surroundings. Things looked up hopefully for the better. I see him trying now. Most of all I now feel once again the chemistry and connection that I thought was lost. Or at least almost gone. I figured that maybe if I bend a little then maybe I don't have to take things to heart. At the same time he makes his presence now more felt. His commitment, his understanding, is slowly returning.
He listens better and he is more attentive now - we communicate more and better. Yes, we do have our constraints and obstacles but at the end of the day, we have to always remember what matters most - our little family with little baby D starving for so much attention, love and how crucial it is to not deprive her away from that now. At the end of the day, whatever problems, we still definitely have to hurdle them bit by bit but it boils down to Daanya and the little tykes soon to come, our relationship and our household.

Other than that, most of everything is a little bit brighter now. I am smiling and laughing a lot more. More contented with life and marriage. Things are looking up at work....if all goes well I should expect a salary adjustment + last year's due increment (I did not get last years' increment as I was away on study leave so somehow that does not apply). Hopefully all goes well, insyaallah.

Daanya is growing so fast...I just hope I won't be left behind. I got to spend one day last off from work and took care of her all to myself....that was such a bliss! I love taking care of her....I wished I could just do so without worrying about going to work and making money. Hopefully Hazmy and I could come up with some arrangement...Alhamdulillah, murah rezeki Hazmy so far....we just jave to weigh things out...and hopefully something would present itself cause I do want to be there for Daanya...send her to school, play with her, feed her the works.....

So, to end...I am doing good so far better than the last time.


***Daanya @ 5 months***

She has grown so much ever since my last post about her. I see her everyday and I just cannot help but to adore her - my heart palpitates just looking at her sleep and then I would smother her with kisses even when she is sound asleep. I AM SO ADDICTED TO HER!!! I love her so much that I want to cry. She is such a joy, such a gift.

This post was of course post dated. She turned 5 months last 23rd of August. She has become so active these days...commando crawling all over the place. She does this usually out of frustration from the crawling position (on all fours) and couldn't get anywhere, or could not reach that toy...She would be in that all-fours position and would at the same time rock back and forth hoping to move but would yell when she found out that she was still there in that coordinate. In the end she would just drag herself literally or commando crawl to her chosen destination.

Not only that she has also learn the what mummy and daddy calls her "Cleopatra pose"
or in BM "mengiring". Her grandparental unit said that that is the position when babies want to learn to sit. OMG....Daanya is multitasking...she wants to learn so many things at once! I just love that bit about her...the only thing that I noticed is that when in those positions she just learned, and her not knowing what to do next, she gets frustrated and cry - actually puts on a blank face and cries. So kesian....I think that is part of her daddy's character she inherited - easily frustrated!But one other thing I noticed is that once we console her - she would then try again...(you can start to see the pattern here)....something she got from mummy...:p

She has also discovered that she can touch her toes and pull her legs up...she does
this so often that sometimes it give mummy the opportunity to take embarrassing baby photos to show when she's bigger.hehehe. Not because mummy's a meany but only because mummy is so proud of you! *angelic pose*

Putting things in her mouth has
been her forte these days...whatever she can grab...especially her toys and her favorite....her own fingers...maybe she is teething I thought but I have yet to see any coming out of her gums....oh and one other thing is blowing bubbles...For the life of me I do not know how she caught on to it but ever since her daddy taught her how to do the "motorbike sound", she does it non-stop now...and as a result mummy's hair drops in significant amount...to a point of worry...mummy has never lose so much hair before.

She is taking in 8 oz of formula now. So far still no signs that she is ready for solids. Maybe when she has manage to teach herself to sit, then maybe mummy and daddy can let you taste other form of food other than milk.hehhehe cannot wait for that. most of all mummy wants to get you a high-chair so that you can eat with mummy and daddy and consequently we no longer have to take turns eating (Actually, I cannot wait to do the shopping in preparation of that,hahhaha). And she weighs at 7.6kg now.

Ooh talking about shopping...mummy and daddy took her to Toys 'R' Us during the merdeka public
holiday (Happy 50th Merdeka, Malaysia!) and got her TOYSSSSSSS!!! hehehhe. I figured that she is now ready for those developmental toys...other than her rattles and her fancy teether (how do you spell this?). Mummy went overboard with the shopping and got her "Tickle-Me-Elmo" from fisher-price, and two others that literally blew a hole in mummy's pocket....and you don't know how proud mummy was when Daanya actually was curious to touch her new toys and after a while wanting to put them in her mouth except for Tickle-me-Elmo...where mummy and daddy have to put him separately from her other toys and monitor her closely as Elmo laughs his belly off because he is one big and heavy fella to operate.

We are both so proud of her achievement to date. We glow and smile just at the thought of her and what she can accomplish. A definite favorite conversation piece. She is to turn 6 months next Sunday (23/9/07), and be sure to check in to that...