Sweet Potato

Gahhh…it’s the end of December again. I heard some rumors about London getting snowy on 25th December, but it didn’t. So we have to wait and see if the snow going to wash London’s earth again on this coming February, like usual.

Did I tell you that we have moved to another house. It has been 3 months. So anybody who requested my address and still keeping it intending to use it later, hope you can contact me again to change the address.

This is Aqeef and Aminah last week.

Aminah is a very friendly baby. And Aqeef is a very good brother that always sits and talks to his sister. They both make best friend. Now I am the most careful mum on earth. You know having a 22 months old son that love to bounce and jump everywhere. I know he tries his best to avoid her but many times, he fell within an inch of Aminah. Sometimes when he runs on the bed, it thrills me enough to see him jumping over her, right on Aminah’s tummy. The thing is when I put Aminah into her crib, Aqeef will jump inside too and lie down beside her.I don’t know whether it’s “mommy I need attention too” act or it’s because he really loves his sister.

I am into sewing again. Will update later about it.

It’s been quite a long time since my last post, approximately a month back.What happen since the last day I posted? You know, Aqeef-Aminah-Aminah-Aqeef-daddy-study-hospital thingy-living oversea-cooking-house cleaning and some other things revolved around.What a chores!

I used to doubt when people called me a wonder woman, but now I’m admitting, perhaps they’re right. I really am.I am a student with two babies, one is 21 months old and the latest, Aminah is 5 weeks old.I am a wife, I do cooking, I do laundry, I went out for class when my newborn baby was only 6 days old, and I endure my ‘pantang’ thingy all alone without my mum or mum in law, with the only person can be referred to is my husband (who has lesser experience in hands than me haha). I live oversea with so much things, weird things I mean, come around. But no less, I made it, alhamdulillah.

Another things, around my hiatus was the publishing of my book, SAKINAH MAWADDAH. A thin 208 pages-life with some crisis novel, published by Telaga Biru. Already in market since early September, just couldn’t make it to be shared here. You can buy it (if you want to) from any book store that selling books from Telaga Biru. The link is here, SAKINAH MAWADDAH.I haven’t see it yet, still waiting for my sister’s parcel to reach London.

Both my kids are doing really good.Aminah is such a good and understanding baby. Aqeef has grow up so much.With so many genius ability, inherit from daddy. Aminah is now 4.2kg, Aqeef is 10 something and me, still 40kg.I wont burden my mind thinking about my loss so much post pregnancy weight so I end up eating so much food to see if it can help me putting up some weight but unfortunately it doesn’t. Nonetheless I’ve tried.

It’now the beginning of winter. Days become very gloomy, and shorter. Life is more comfortable staying in the house rather than to go out, especially with a small baby like Aminah. But Aqeef is a toddler that need to be brought out to see the world and learn. Sometimes i just can decide which baby’s needs is to be fulfilled huhu.Lucky me that abang is very helpful. Sometimes he goes out, just alone with Aqeef to bring Aqeef for a walk while mommy stay home to take care of Aminah.

I miss my family at Malaysia so much, but with all the bustle here, I still don’t meet any best time to go home. I pray may Allah make it easier for me to manage mine and my family’s life. Aamiin.

How fast time flies I feel it was just yesterday when I was so lazy to pack our luggage and now it’s already a week and 1 day since we left Malaysia. Definitely it is a hard thing for me. Aqeef is like usual, but has improves more in kegedikan dan kemanjaan. He learnt too much when we were home at Malaysia. He learnt how to have a big family when everyone gave huge attention to him served him like a prince, things that I had tried so hard to do before we went back to Malaysia but might be lack with so much aspect. Aqeef is Aqeef. He loves attention, he loves to play. He is not scare of anybody. Anybody can take him up, play with him and even pamper him to sleep. When we arrive this quiet home of London, Aqeef feels a lot missing but he slowly learns. The only one person that take too hard to learn is ME. I cry every single day want to go back to Malaysia. As if I never stay away from family before.Huhuhu. But day fades away. Sometimes I am just too busy that I can forget all my homesickness. But then once I remember it again, I blame myself. I feel as if I am forgetting my family. Is it a psychiatry problem by the way? Nauzubillah. I hope not.

Aqeef is now 1 year 2 months and half. He can do many things now. Not enough to be write here. He is an active boy. Sometimes he sleeps with shoes on because he really wants me to bring him for a walk. I just can’t stand to see how cute he is especially when he tries so many things that sometimes make me wonder where does he learn them all? Sometimes he does things that we never show him. Like every morning he tries hard to prepare daddy’s shoes when daddy is going to work. He does cute things that cheer up my day, every day. Every time. Even when he is sleeping I laugh by myself because he looks funny but at the same time beautiful. He is love of my life.

It’s now May, and suppose to be early summer. But it still a bit wintery. I mean really like winter. I don’t know where is wrong but after all it’s Allah’s plan. That we’ve to obey. Not much we can do in this kinda weather. We just went to the park, the same park 3 days consecutively. Hyde Park. Beside to rest, it was actually to bring Aqeef to walk. He is now an active walker. He walks much and he loves it. Alhamdulillah that Allah send him the ability to walk in this age. We couldn’t be grateful more.

He loves pigeons. He loves to feed the pigeons around the park. He is not interested much in swans and ducks but pigeons yes. We’ve to wait an hour for him to finish a suppose to be 10 minutes walk because he kept chasing pigeons and squirrels. And he stopped many times checking the road. Daddy said he is ‘Jabatan Kerja Raya’. haha.

One thing I realised is Aqeef doesn’t keen with the idea he walks with daddy while mommy pushing his pushchair forward.Or vice versa, he walks with mommy and daddy pushes his pushchair. He wants everybody to walk along with him. In a line. Nobody in front and nobody walks at the back. According to daddy he actually wants a happy family. A happy family walks together. Hehe. How brilliant this little kid of mine.

Let’s see some pictures.

I thought London would not get any snow this year, but alhamdulillah last Saturday night after a freezing all day, a thick snow than poured down. I was at the lounge when abang suddenly asked me look at the window. I peeked through the window directly to the street light and said “Uhh it’s just rain”. But then abang said “Oh yeah, it’s rain? Look on the road”. And woahhh the road had slightly been covered at the time. Since then I kept returning to window to look at the snow, and kept praying “May it doesn’t last for too short”, and kept looking at the border of the pedestrian and the road to make sure the thickness because abang said if it’s too shallow there was a possibility for it to melt quickly. And the next morning (Sunday) when we woke up….wow it was white everywhere, covered by a quite thick snow. Subhan Allah. So there was Aqeef’s very first snow at the age of 11 months and 1 week. But he seemed to not really like snow, he even refused to be put on the snow as if the snow is too weird for him. He was not in a very good mood btw.

We didn’t go far, all the pics were taken in front of our house. Ok now I can say that I am ready enough for springs.

I read so many review about this place, it is a big three floors gallery cum shop of M&M’s chocolate near Leicester Square, within a walking distance to Trafalgar Square. Due to daddy’s hectic schedule, we were hold in a promise to go there since last few weeks and finally went there today. It was weekend so there were too many people. The place was so crowded and to add my diziness was Aqeef that wanted to touch everything because they are so colourful and seducing. At some sections we just couldn’t wait in the long lines anymore that we skipped few interesting photography points. As said, they are photography points so they are made really for photography purpose, that’s why so many people were in queue. We just managed to take picture at few places that were not too crowd.

The reason of bringing Aqeef there is too stimulate Aqeef’s mind with some interactive colourful game but we forgot to bring Aqeef’s shoes, so we couldn’t let him play on the floor (poor him) but it was very lucky that we forgot actually. I am dead sure that if we brought his shoes and let him walk and play on floor, he might do something extraordinary e.g: wipe the floor using his hands or help to polish people’s shoes. So to make our visit stay safe, we better not too let him walk by himself. Furthermore there are too many M&M souvenir sold there. Most of them made of glass. I dare not to let Aqeef makes my husband pay some amends to the store.So I won’t write any longer, we should see some pics.

Aqeef and daddy studying the M&M periodic table. I hope one day Aqeef can be a muslim alchemist or muslim scientist and win nobel prize in Chemistry because in the history there are not so many muslim nobel prize laureate ever yet. Insya Allah.

Periodic table. Siapa hafal ni mesti dapat M+ for chemistry paper.

Family of three going to be five soon, insya Allah. Four? Ehem we might accidentally skipped that.

M&M’s picnic. Look at Aqeef, excitedly trying to join the picnic.

I tried to carry Aqeef daddy’s style, but it just stand for 2-3 minutes. Aqeef is way too big and heavy now. I can’t carry him longer that 5 minutes.

Fancy joining my friends behind picnic?

Daddy tried hard to persuade me to buy Aqeef green rompers behind but I really didn’t fall into it. Rompers suit small baby nicely, but perhaps not for a going to be one year old toddler like Aqeef.

Daddy said the giant M&M behind was trying to ‘sepuk’ Aqeef’s head.

Aqeef tried to jump into the toy basket. But daddy stopped him. You can see how unsatisfied his face was.

Again, family of three ♥

Yummy yellow knight, fierce on the outside but rich with chocolate inside.

Green princess. Actually her skirt has a big opening in front, showing her leap.Daddy initially didn’t allow us to take picture with this princess because daddy said she is too sexy but you see, I was good at hiding it. You can’t see it, don’t you?

At the back door, after we went out. The front door was too crowded, so we ran to the back door to have a proof picture of our visit.Erk Aqeef was having his milk. Too thirsty of greeting people inside the shop.

Sideshow> London Chinatown. There was a lion dance for Chinese New Year at the back, under the tanglungs but there were too many people there, we had to go without glancing it because we obviously had no chance to slip into the crowd of big english people there.And yes there were not too many Chinese there, the audience mostly were english.

Alhamdulillah still given the chance by Allah to live as a family and to have a good time together.May we all be blessed with Allah’s love and guidance.

Last week, Friday was my birthday. Nothing special for me, birthday means an addition to the number of my age, and to act carefully as a maturer person. So everything went as usual, also, to fulfill my gedikness, I did restricted my birthday showed in my fb profile, so only those who remembered did come dropped a wish. Actually I just forgot to unrestricted it back a day before my birthday. On my birthday, I realised, tapi dah malu nak buat correction huhu, so there went my un-fb-birthday.

But I did received few wishes, from my family, my husband, and some friends. Thank you very much.

As my birthday fell on winter, so there was no outing, it’s too cold, I prefer to stay at home after school.

So that night, abang came home quite late. I already knew that this thing would happened, it just waited for the right time, because abang had several times ‘terlepas cakap’ to celebrate my birthday his way. So he came home brought all he did said. Everything suppose a birthday girl receives, a small chocolate cake (enough for 3), a birthday card, and an Ipad 2 (ok this is not every birthday girl’s)

Abang chose pink for everything, the card, the Ipad 2 cover, as if I am really a pink addict. I am not so actually.

Except for the word worship, everything was perfect!

Suamiku yang gigih mengambil cop tangan bayinya. I know how hard it took, because knowing Aqeef to get his palm stamp is harder than to get Maher Zain’s autograph. His hand never sleep!

The Ipad 2, inclusive Aqeef’s camwhore as wallpaper.Thank you abang.

Time ni baby ni merajuk dah sebab lama duduk atas booster seat tapi mommy belum bagi kek lagi.

Dapat kek terus senyap. He knows that before eating he has to recite prayer, but he has no idea that we should not eat using both left and right hands.

So thank you abang for celebrating my birthday, thank you Aqeef for coming into mommy’s life and make it wonderful, thank you to my family and friends for the warm wish, thank you mama for giving birth to me, sacrifice every thing for her stubborn daughter, thank you ayah for rising me up, until I become who I am today and next, and most of all thank you Allah for this bounty of sweet life.Alhamdulillah masih diberi nikmat bernafas di atas dunia.

Hari ini genap usia Aqeef Afwan 10 bulan. Alhamdulillah. Bayi kecil seberat 2.37kg yang saya lahirkan 10 bulan lalu kini menjalani hidup sebagai seorang khalifah kecil di muka bumi Allah dengan sihat dan bijak. Terasa sangat sekejap masa berlalu, namun banyak perkara yang berlaku di sekeliling kami. Yang kalau dikira dengan air mata dan rasa syukur, sudah tidak terungkap dengan kata-kata betapa bertuahnya kami, untuk hidup dan masih bernafas di dunia ini.

Aqeef Afwan sangat memahami dengan kesibukan kerja daddy dan pelajaran mommy. Kadang saya menangis melihat betapa berdikarinya Aqeef Afwan dan betapa dia sangat memahami. Dia sudah boleh diberitahu, “darling, mommy is very busy, you sit down here, and play this and read this (he doesn’t know to read yet, but he loves to pretend that he is reading and looking at the pictures in his books). Minggu lepas saya menitiskan air mata tatkala saya berikan sekeping roti dan tiba-tiba dia angkat tangan seperti berdoa, dan mula berbisik sesuatu. Sekurang-kurangnya saya tahu dia dengar dan dia faham apa yang dia belajar walaupun lambat sikit untuk diamalkan (setelah 3-4 bulan kami ajar angkat tangan berdoa). Apapun dia baru 10 bulan dan masih banyak yang perlu kami ajarkan, banyak yang perlu dia belajar dan banyak contoh baik yang perlu kami amalkan untuk dia belajar meniru perbuatan kami. Daddy selalu pesan jangan tinngi suara depan Aqeef, jangan cakap bukan-bukan depan Aqeef kerana pada peringkat usia ini, bayi akan meniru perilaku orang di sekelilingnya. Segala yang dilihat, disimpan, dan dicuba-cuba untuk diulang semula. Semoga Allah melindungi dan merahmati bayi kami, Aqeef Afwan.

Happy 10th (months) birthday darling Aqeef.

Daddy Long Legs is a book. The book I’ve been waiting for almost 2 weeks had finally arrived. It is my winter book. Yes, I buy books due to a system. I name it season system. Every season 3-4 books, not including books for my study (textbook, notebook etc).

The package

The book

This book is about Jerusha Abbot (who prefer to be called Judy Abbot) a high spirited orphan who wrote unforgettable letter to “Daddy Long Legs” her anonymous benefactor.

I began to grow my interest towards this book long time ago when I was about 5-6, watching the adaptation of it into animation with mama, and my sisters. Since that I never forget about it until my husband helped me out to find this book via ebay after he saw me watching the cartoon back in youtube.

It’s a very cold wintery day outside, and I am cladding under a fleece, trying hard to digest every little word. With one finger inside Aqeef’s mouth, spooning nutella paste to him.

So I guess Nutella and book make a good combination.

Many times since I first fell in love with knitting, daddy requests to have my handmade scarf. So I made two for him. Well another reason for that instead of protecting his neck from chill air, I just want to empty my knitting yarns stack. That’s it. So once it is empty or quite empty, new yarn can be bought. Uh uh.

The first one is wide 50 stitches half black and half grey. The grey yarn is the remnant of Aqeef’s knitted elephant, Elle that I made sometimes ago.I used stockinette stitch on both colours.

The second one is, ok I think I named it PLKN scarf. Because the blue part looks like PLKN’s camouflage uniform. I bought the camouflage yarn from Tiger, which this lately has been unofficially banned by daddy when he realised that’s where I spent so much money on small things that keep growing in our house. I used stockinette stitch on the camouflage part, and knit stitch on the black part. 25 stitches garter in each line.

Because the person that suppose to use the scarves is at work on daytime, when the room has the best natural lighting for photography, and this small model seemed to be interested with his daddy’s scarves, so he is chose as model.

Model wore daddy’s half grey half black scarf, mommy’s glasses.
Location setting: Model’s personal walker.

Winter doesn’t allow us to go out very often. So we opt to craft and of course I wouldn’t be in the mood to do so if Aqeef doesn’t show his interest in crafting on the first place.

Initially I had to provide everyone with suitable apron. And my husband suggested why don’t I sew one for Aqeef instead of going around the mall to search for this rare thing (apron on his size). So using the scrap of my remnant fabric from the previous sewed thing, here it is, along with mine and my husband’s.

Wearing his apron (sorry for the stuffy mouth)

Daddy’s and mommy’s

Crafty baby on work.

Mommy and daddy have to share a narrow space because Aqeef chose to stamp his palm quite in the middle. Daddy said, when we have more kids, we should buy another canvas so that everybody can have their palm stamped. He started to count and finally came out with unreasonable conclusion “Hmm may be we need to buy another 12 canvas after this”. That of course drew out few words from me then.

That’s my so so left handwriting.

I bought two plain canvas to be written with some verses from Al Quran, but then I found one is enough. So the extra one become our family’s first craft project ever. And that’s it eventually after considering that being a happy family is also one of the so many common errands in Islam (I had a huge battle inside myself, feeling guilty for changing my first intention to do two verses from Al Quran on each plain canvas to one).

Aqeef’s apron is reversible, so that he can use any surface he likes. But of course he seems to like the red polka dot better.

Sewing the apron is not too difficult, I mean it is really not difficult, in an easy word it’s easy peasy. I took around less than an hour to finish.

The strings I used are knitted strings that I knitted myself. I could fancy some ribbons but just to make it become more significant (the more you work, the more appreciable things can be).

So I guess that’s for our gloomy beginning of winter. I had some work to deal with this lately. Insya Allah I will be less busy by this week and Aqeef can have his fun outing back before night everyday. A walk to park or ice skating perhaps.