Living with Sarah

Ever since I started working from home, I've been catching up with watching Oprah Winfrey Show. As I said before, I have never been a fan. But I have this huge admiration for this beautiful woman. While I'm not hooked on to the show, I'll watch it when there's interesting topics of discussion. I'm starting an Oprah sections for this blog. So, this morning was a show on reflections. Oprah invited her key production team to the show - her producers - and each of them talked about their most memorable episodes that each of them produced. It was such an amazing show - the producers talked about their work behind the scenes, about the people whom they invited, their experience... As usual there were footages of the previous episodes. The show featured people from all backgrounds - from celebrities (the famous jumping on the couch by Tom Cruise) to world leaders such as Nelson Mandela to ordinary people like you and me whose stories become so much amazing on TV, and most ...

We have always dressed Sarah in practical clothes - which translates into cotton pants and shirts. She can walk a bit clumsily at times and wearing pants mean that she will not get scars on her kness if she ever fall down. Anyway, she commented that her cousin Wani wears nice dresses and once she even borrowed one. There's one nice dress that she particularly fancy and Azah said that she bought it at Pasar Isnin. Very cheap. So, yesterday after sending her off to school, I dropped by the morning market and bought her similar dress, only it's in green. I also bought her a Mr Bean pyjamas. Those 2 cost me a mere RM22. Good buy. So, when Sarah reached home yesterday, I surprised her with the 2 sets of clothes. She was so happy! She immediately changed into the dress complete with it's little cloth handbag. It's "Thank You" mummy like hundreds of times. She would swirl and pretend that she's dancing, she would curtsy to me. She just loved the dress. Oh, how a ...

I went to pay for the school fees yesterday. Gunesh was not around so I met up with "Teacher Mala". She teaches one of the subjects to Sarah's class. Before going back she told me how good Sarah is - she listens to the teachers, she does her work, she's not naughty unlike other kids. The teacher had this really sincere expression - so, she's not trying to make me feel good. Well, what can I say, Sarah is a well-mannered little girl. I always tribute that to my sufferings of carrying her for 9 whole months and the agonizing 12-hour labor. I had suffered long enough and me having an obedient child is the compensation. How to illustrate what a nice girl Sarah is? Here's the scenario: picture this - time 12.20pm every day. It's the time when Sarah and Wani come back from school by their respective school vans. Some days both of them reach my mother's place at the same time. Sarah: school bag properly zipped up, wearing white shoes (no more socks as she...

We went back to Melaka during the weekend for my sister-in-law's engagement. Sarah played with her cousins (more like her niece and nephews actually!) and seeing how she ran non-stop all day long, I knew she would be in trouble soon. So on Monday morning, I decided to let her take the day off from school as she looked so tired and couldn't even open her eyes. And good thing she didn't go to school because by 10am she was already burning with fever. Took her to Dr Wong's clinic and she clocked a 39.7 temperature. Tuesday - still burning with fever. Wednesday - let's give her another day off just to make sure. This morning, she vomitted after breakfast. I wanted her to stay home but she insisted to go to school. She's OK now. It's been a long time since she fell ill I almost forget how it felt. And that is just a minor fever. I've been reading on the papers lately of bizzare incidents involving toddlers and children that made my heart bleed. A few days ago...