BIRTHDAY CAKES

I have MUCH to update, but I DON'T have MUCH TIME.

we had a small aqiqah do (for my lil bub) with 2 birthday parties inserted. hehehe... so much for cost saving!

so here are 2 photos of my sons' yummy and beautiful birthday cakes.

two siblings with totally different interest at this time. :)

anyway, i ordered these cakes from a friend of mine. her blog is here.

WE COULDN'T EAT WALLACE AND GROMIT FACES

IRON MAN CRAZE IS INEVITABLE

 

 

the unexplained

at times i wonder what is it that triggerred the human psychosis to feel that sensation of missing someone.

i am sure there are a number of researches which have been done to unearth the mysterious ways in which a human mind works.

i remember missing my other half when he went away overseas for work and the mere sniff of his worn t-shirt made me bawl like a baby.

there are other times, when certain random, mundane events made us go back to the times that has passed and we long for it once more.

we human beings are hardwired to be sentimental - even if some would say they are not tied to the hogwash of yesteryears - because face it, we have many men and women striving to get back to their youth or their youthful days when all things are carefree and (relatively) easy. they either try very hard to maintain their looks by exercising and eating healthily and then, taking the even extreme steps to consume or indulge in endeavours involving chemical assistance or knife intervention to look young.

not to mention the middle age or mid life crisis. 

when men buy the fastest cars that money can buy, or that top of the line gadget just to stay hip. i shall not go into that part on chasing younger women, because to be fair, there is a growing trend of older women dating much younger men. and we do not need to go abroad to find such examples.

so i shan't spare the women. but we rather like to indulge in a more beautifying aspect of feeling young such as those oh-satisfying and sensory stimulating slimming and spa treatments. anything that makes us feel good, in turn makes us feel young.

so i do not believe anyone who say they are not sentimental at all. believe me, even if it does not manifest in their outward behaviour, it will surely be inherent in the things they hoard or accumulate. it will be in the way they dress or the company they keep. the sentimentalism will definitely appear in a myriad of colourful ways.

but here i am digressing again.

i am actually wondering about the scientific reasons for missing someone.

"here i go about in my daily routine, telling myself that by not contacting him anymore, i will be better... and i was... except then, all of a sudden, without notice, when i was just going about doing something totally routine, the pangs came. i feel these painful spasms in my heart... literally. well it felt that way. it felt debilitating."

"my grandma's sister in law, which means, she's my grand aunt, was so heart broken, grieving badly and  missing her other half who passed away recently, later was struck by stroke within days after the funeral - the similar ailment that caused her husband to pass on. she loves him too much and the thought of going through life without him just made her feel... totally numb."

so how do we explain all these?

i went on a bit of a research on the net. type "missing someone scientific explanation" on the Google page and press enter.

Voila!

a few thousand hits. i haven't really found the reasons yet in this one but this particular site below is a good groundbreaking find.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/ten-mysteries-of-you

(not exactly answering the questions, but it delves into the other things or aspects in life which you often wonder and yet there are still no definite answers to them)

i also found this.

http://www.science20.com/variety_tap/science_behind_heartbreak_progress

When a person feels secluded or feels loss, changes in the brain's blood flow occur. The anterior cingulate cortex (responsible for regulating physical pain distress) becomes more active during these times. This is seen in victims of depression who also register physical pain due to the detection of nociception, which triggers a variety of responses, one which results in the experience of pain. People who are depressed or who are under extreme stress are more at risk to develop heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases based on research that found depression to help in thickening artery walls . 

while it does not actually answer the question about why we miss someone, it does elaborate about the feeling of loss, which is akin to that 'missing feeling'.

but i think the most relevant to my burning query could be found here:

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-brain-chemicals-involved-when-I-miss-someone-Im-in-love-with

In short, depending on the length of your relationship, you either miss the things you did with your partner because of testosterone/estrogen, serotonin, and dopamine or your addiction has evolved beyond the activities and also includes targeted feelings for that specific individual (and possibly feelings related to share responsibilities) in which case you have nerve growth factor, and possibly norepinephrine and oxytocin to blame.

This is, I suppose, a somewhat important distinction. You may feel like you love a person now, but if the relationship hasn’t lasted longer than at least a year, then you were probably did not love them so much as you loved being with them. In which case, “jumping back on the horse” really can make you feel better. If you did love them, then you will probably just have to “suffer through the pain” for a couple of years while your HGF levels go down.

don't you think these sound totally hokey and farfetched?

made me wish i did not ask for an answer in the first place. teeheehee...

to end this hopefully dissecting discursive on missing someone, here is a short poem or saying on the subject:

"As contratries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence." - Alcibiades

twenty-twelve

it has been about a month since my last post. 

i had some drafts in between, but i was too downtrodden to finish them. 

i would like to say i was just too tired, but to tell you the truth, i don't feel like writing.

some say the pained, the heartbroken, or just those who are generally facing a bad time in their lives, would write better. it is something akin to release. writing is a release of all their pent up emotions, and these are translated into a poetry, or a sad love song or a best-selling collection of wizard boy adventures.

for me, i don't think i'd write when i'm feeling down. i would just look at the paper/ screen and wonder what is it that would make me feel so good about writing.

nevertheless, writing is also a purification of soul. crying cleanses you, but writing purifies you.

so anyways, i wouldn't write anything more, other than yes, i have been busy since the last time i have written. the things which i was up to and going through in no particular order whatsoever.

1. went to Singapore from the 16 to 18 December weekened for a short holiday. my boys' first holiday during the long school break. we were there for me to watch the musical Wicked (which is still playing at the Marina Bay Sands Grand theatre until this February 2012), and for the boys to swim in the big swimming pool.

2. my parents finally moved out their house in Kota Damansara - our house - which we have been staying since 2002. thats like 10 years. i got married there. two of my other sisters and my brother also got married there. i called it the 'transition house'. the house in which all of the married sisters and brother stayed in, for that short while, before we moved on to our own houses (save for one sister whose husband already have a pad in Ampang at the time of their marriage). it's the house where my first son grew up before moving to our own just before my second son was born. the transition house of all sorts. where we learned to adjust to be a good wife/ husband/mother/father. 

hubby helped a lot with the moving. he even fell twice during cleaning up the house. he was mopping and carrying a bucket of water when he fell once. i was shocked by the loud thud. concerned and alarmed that he might he seriously hurt. actually, it is during these kind of events, that you know how much you care for someone. until he does something stupid like being inconsiderate or insensitive. hohum. 

3. my twin sister came back from Dubai for about 2 weeks of break. although we didnt get to hang out much due to family commitments, but it's good to know that she was back in our Malaysian soil. i did call for a family pot luck dinner on second day of 2012, but she couldnt make it in the end as her daughter contracted chicken pox. as i am expecting, i dont think it's wise for her to bring her daughter to the dinner.

4. our birthday fell on 21st December - we didnt get to spend it together, regardless, due to scheduling conflict, but we hung out a few days later. hubby said my birthday gift was the Singapore and Wicked trip. oh yes, there was a belated birthday treat on the following Sunday. or was it Monday 26th? we went to Ben's Pavilion KL.... again.

5. my 9th year wedding anniversary. i got a card and nothing else, but i know he was saving for the change of maid. so i was kinda okay with it (took me awhile to unpout). i treated him to dinner this time around at a local hotel. suffice to say, we need to go out on our own more.

6. my second son started kindergarten. oh my baby has grown up! *sob* i had (well, am still having) some problem letting go. seeing how good he was at the kindy without me. i did accompany him for the first 2 days of school, in which he was so clingy to me that i was afraid he would not be able to be independent. although, he's the more independent one as compared to my first son, he doesnt want to participate much when i was with him. but he fared much better when his father took him for the 3rd and 4th day. he started taking the transportation on the 5th day and my heart wrenched thinking how a little boy like him could go on to and fro without someone to accompany him. then i realsied that my first son had undergone the same thing. although, the duration was slightly longer, with the maid accompanying him for about two weeks!

7. the agent for Indonesian maids whom i have been in contact for about a month passed away suddenly the day i was supposed to meet her to pass my deposit. what bad luck! it was more eerrie than surreal. apparently it was due to natural causes. i am now without an agent (there is one potential but she charges high). and my current problematic maid's contract/ visa will expire this upcoming Chinese New Year.

8. a dinner with friends on Christmas night. it made me laugh. i realised i am happiest when i get to converse without any prejudice. these are mostly the people whom i am comfortable with. and ironically, they are my hubby's friends.

9. an expected wedding of a pseudo friend. yes, i am not sure that i am even a friend to this person. i know it's coming but it's still a shock. there are things i want to say, but i guess the truth or reality will unveil itself in its own time. well, as Elphaba has famously sung "i hope you're happy now that you're choosing this..." :)

10. i am now almost 20 weeks pregnant, insyaAllah. halfway there little one. i cant wait to meet you. i hope i'm ready for your cries and hunger. and i hope we have patience for one another. :)

that's the gist of what had happened during the past month.

i do hope i will write more often. it's just a matter of willpower. 

after all, one of my favourite authors, Stephen King, has written :

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others : READ a lot and WRITE a lot.... reading is the creative center of a writer's life... you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you."

one of those days....

else, i just eat EVERYTHING... and i don't know what i had eaten and why i ate it in the first place.

(well, actually, i do know WHY, but the joy of eating is no longer there)

i just hope the bloating feeling will dissipate soon.

i would very much like to LIKE my food. 

another thankful post

i had drafted a post last Monday while waiting for my turn to see the doctor at the hospital cafeteria.

but something happened at home - something ghastly revolting between my maid and a stranger whom she let in - that the post had to be scrapped.

i then lost my appetite to write. 

i would not want to elaborate much in this portal, but suffice to say the maid hasn't confessed despite being caught red-handed by my neighbour and being confirmed by my (although incoherent) four-year-old son.

i don't want to rant more here. it would just start me on it again - when i am already starting to calm down. 

of course i've had sleepless nights, trying to find a solution, but now i am just thankful that my kids are at my sister's for the time being (with the maid in tow, regardless).

this is for temporary measure. i hate imposing on other people. i rather not depend on my in-laws but they seem to be the only ones available (from next week onwards) to oversee the ungrateful maid until we find another.

i would have kicked her out, but rationally, i couldn't. besides, my kids got on well with her. guess the false charms win them over.

so i was a sorry sight when i came to work today - after two days of medical leave - as i was obsessing over the fate of my kids. 

then after lunch, i bumped into a colleague, who always look fresh and cheery in the office pantry and i flat out asked her " how do you handle stress? " she was heavily pregnant and has been working late. 

she said she would not let stress get to her. she even wakes up at 4am to do work at home and continues to work at the office. i said " doesn't the fatigue gets to you? " she said it did, but she still would not let it get to her. she would take short naps when she could.

her positive attitude warmed me up all over. we're not the best of buddies but she cheered me up today. even with her physical constraints, her mental reserves were aplenty. 

she is in-charge of her life. i love that spirit. i want to inhale it and let it consume me. make me aglow with optimism.... and life. i thus decree that i secretly aspire to be the ever effervescent Anne of Green Gables. :P

scratch that. but the point is, when life gets you down, you need to remember that you still have the resilience within you to come back up.

you dont always have to be thankful by looking at what the others do not have, or those who have less than you; neverthless, you could be thankful by looking at other people who still have the courage and strength to take the bull by its horn, despite it steadily and surely charges towards you. 

MM 2, albeit belated

I promised to post about my MM on er, last Monday.

but alas, the tug 'o war of the small lappie was not mine to win.

(although i didnt even try to wrestle it from my beloved cutie pies... i'd only use it when the boys have had enough of it, which is rather rare because after one has his turn, the other would want his... the obvious solution is to get another laptop/netbook but that could wait)

anyways, i have had this draft for the last two days. i was thinking of something interesting to add in MM 2, but there was nothing much that caught my eye.

and then i received a mailer from Zara in my inbox (starring two cute kids, made up of a boy and a girl) and i was gob-smacked in love with those two pictures. then it struck me that i'd always love advertisements that feature kids in them.

yes i know it's not much of a Marvel to you but to have kids modelling is something of a marvel to me. to look effortlessly happy and oh-that-cute demeanour, after spending long adult working hours on the set, one has to wonder if it's inherent - as kids are still innocent and could easily be moulded to be awed with all things new - therefore, when we, prospective patrons, who look at their smiling, cheeky faces, we could not help but smile back.

and isn't that pretty much MARVELLOUS?

anyway, the mentioned Zara ads are the first two below.

I wonder what he was asked to look at to induce that melting smile. :) and he  reminded me of my second son.

effortlessly beautiful that you wonder how she would look like smiling. :)  plus... i dig that outfit!

these are GAP Casting Call winners (US) - i read that mixed kids with exotic looks have high chances of winning. so ... do you consider Javanese plus (white) Mamak (Indian Muslim) exotic? :P

i love the boy... he seemed to be having so much fun. i like the other ad  which i've seen at the store where he was furiously 'leaning' against three other girls - causing all of them to laugh.

nevertheless, as much as i love kids in ads, i wouldn't subject my boys to it. an opportunity did crop up, but i declined because i know my son was not ready.

maybe one day i'd change my mind. for now, i just want my kids to be kids. :)

Ramadhan 1432

this is extremely long overdue.

i wanted to write this much earlier - which is just before Ramadhan. well, i planned to do it the day before fasting month started, but in the end things happened - unusually heavy workload, extreme exhaustion, ensuing influenza and the ever recurring procrastination - that i didn't manage to keep my want.

yep, story of my life.

two years ago i've written in FB that i missed the Ramadhan back in my childhood home Shah Alam. i love the fasting month because it always made me feel closer to my family. there was the terawih at the Masjid Biru, the preparation in which my family and i went through like the annual chores of hanging curtains, putting on festive chairbacks and table runners, baking goodies and even stowing away junks at the back of the drawers. the filial togetherness, the sense of belonging and the brimming happiness are my main memories of Ramadhan and Syawal.

fast forward to the current reality of having own family and own commitments, i realised that i still cling to those memories of the Ramadhan yesteryears. i feel that my present Ramadhan is not as happy or ideal as it should be back when i was younger. 

don't get me wrong. i do look forward to Ramadhan, but it usually does not work out the way i visualise. it falls short to my utopian expectations.

i want to be able to do terawih at the masjid (like i used to).

i want to have buka puasa with all my family members everyday (like i used to).

i want to bake cookies and cakes for Raya with my mother and siblings. (like i used to).

i want to spend the night before the first of Syawal, listening to 'live' takbir raya, as a throng of neighbours come around to the house to bless us (like i used to).

of course, unfortunately, these are just wishful thinkings. 

truthfully, i have yet to do terawih at the masjid this year and at this rate, i don't think i will. i do go for iftar at my parents' place every Sunday (and there is also the Saturday gathering at my nenek's in Kampung Baru) but that was never enough. i could make time during weekdays but this year's workload during Ramadhan was heavier than usual due to stretched deadlines, that i usually ended reaching home near to maghrib or even after that. i also don't think i would get to make any kuih raya with my sisters as we will be leaving for my hubby's kampung this weekend. nevertheless, i am glad that i have managed to share my apple and mini chicken pies with them during the last two iftar get-togethers. *beam* even though the congregation will not be in either my neighbourhood or my parents' (as they are no longer in Shah Alam) to recite the takbir raya,  i am thankful to have the resplendent memory.

yes, i still do have the memories, so that counts a lot. alhamdulillah.

the funny thing about clinging to the past, is that we forget to enjoy what we have presently. we could be ungrateful and are always expecting disappointments because things are not like 'back then'. when we compare what we have with what we don't have, the yearning cards would invariably trump.

i am not going to dabble in the psychological aspect of this, but my own take on this 'phenomenon' (i call it that because the origin of this behaviour was never properly explained) is that when things are temporarily bleak, we want to be able to have that option. of going back. of having the alternative.

it is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as we are rooted in our subsistence. 

now i sound like a shrink.

moving on, this Ramadhan made me pause to reflect that i could have better memories (i do?) of the future Ramadhan and Syawal (insyaAllah), by creating new joyful memories. i could naturally base these on my experience but i could also tweak them to adapt to my current situation. all i need are creativity and boundless of faith. 

of course, Raya at my side is always better, but i know that going back to his side makes my husband happy, so i wouldn't whine about it. much. my kids, like i was back then, would be happy when both parents are happy during the festive break. more often than not, it is more about them having a good time. i guess my parent taught me that. generally good times mean a happy childhood. i, for one, would not want my grown up kids to come to me later on and say  "my Raya then sucks. i did not enjoy my Raya at all back then. so i don't think i want to go home for Raya." *yipes*

for me, this Ramadhan is about purging the past, and holding on to the gritty present. the latter is scarier with open-ended possibilities, but it also means we have opportunities to create something which we could be proud of.

i need to move on. there are certain areas in my life which are holding me back. but intuitively, i know it is time. i could not live with half-baked could haves and could bes. i will need to take that monumental step (okay, it sounds dramatic but it is not of a paradigm shift proportion), and be brave enough to live with the consequences.

bubbles burst. hearts mend. wounds heal. features restore. people adapt. life goes on.

after all, it is much easier to grieve when it is something that you never even have.