PART OF YOUR WORLD

Phew, the amazing girl is four. Can you believe it? I swear at times you're much older than that, what with that smarty-pants mouth of hers that could've fooled anyone who'd think she's five or more. Plus she's on the 'bulat & montel' side now and wearing sizes for five year olds.

But smarty pants or not, and no matter how advanced her vocabulary is (someone remarked that my daughter is very 'sastera' - haha, whatever that means!) she never fails to entertain us with her slips of the tongue. I can't recall them all, but if you can guess what londod, dangluk, pasbot, see-whirl and stop-chick are, then welcome to Nunu-lish!

Other developments? Not much, she's off the baby bottle. Cold turkey, must I mention. One day I told a little white bluff that I've thrown her bottles away because I see baby lizards licking them coz she left them lying around, and since then she's never mentioned about her bottles.

On a separate note, I'm contemplating Kumon for her next year. Just wanna give it a try. Also, I want her to love or at least enjoy math, and not become like her mother who has a fear of math and is terrified by Sudoku. I've read testimonials that the system helps nurture self-learning and is perfect for playful kids like Nunu. Any thoughts on this?

As far as school's concerned, she's doing pretty well. Not amazing either, she's not really the attentive student coz she gets bored so fast. She's spelling and reading in a slow but steady pace, which is fine since she's just four lah. Thankfully the principal 'gets' my girl and it's quite clear that the people at the school took more than just a liking to Nunu. I can see she is very much loved by the principal's parents (they always come by to help out with her newborn baby) and Nunu's particularly manja with her adopted 'Wan'. It's very heartwarming to see that with your own eyes.

But then again, she's so manja with almost every hot-blooded young man she sees. Pantang hensem sikit, mesti nak salam/layan/climb all over. Tsk, kes teruk ni. Sometimes, atuk-atuk yang tua bangka pun dia layan jugak and she doesn't treat the ladies the same way (well, she's awfully polite to old neneks). We went to this bowling tournament the other day, and my, not only that she brought the whole place down with her delirious rampage, she went and salam/shook hands with almost everyone in the bowling alley. Seriously, I'm not kidding. She really was Miss Popularity that night, no shame at all. Someone remarked "mengalahkan wakil rakyat"!

However, I'm sure she's just being very friendly. Sure she goes all gaga if the abang or uncle is quite a looker. At four, she's very hyperactive (which drives me crazeeeeeey!) but sometimes stops at what she's doing and she goes around 'salam'ing with people. She loves the surprised look people give her when they suddenly felt a tug at their hands/shirts and this little girl with big brown puyu eyes is extending her hand for a salam. I go around apologizing sometimes, depending on people's reaction. It's quite humiliating, but deep in my heart, really, I'm proud of my girl who's blessed with this gung-ho personality.

Yeah, I'm tired of following her around. I missed out on a lot of things wherever we go. I have, have, HAVE to keep an eye on her like a hawk coz you can never imagine what mischief she'll get into once she gets out of your sight. Like on our trip to Brunei, I barely had the chance to really mingle with other people coz she slipped through the crowd so easily. Yeah, she played with other children, but only for a minute and she'd be off somewhere else looking for adventure. I don't know how the other kids are roaming and playing about without their parents worrying, but my child - needs constant monitoring. The only time I get a break was when I took out my lappie and let her and her cousins watch the Disney vids I downloaded from youtube, and I'll be flat-out tired to the bone, on the floor, not really in the mood to talk to anyone.

But don't get me wrong, I'm whining here of course. This is my blog, I can say whatever I want. But at the end of the day, I don't blame anyone, especially not Nunu, for whatever I went through for her. I'm more than eternally thankful that Nunu turns out the type of little person she is. A true diamond in the rough.  It hurts me very much when I get comments that implies Nunu acts the way she does because she's an only child now, hints dropping all over me like bombs "Get Nunu a baby sibling lah cepat", well you better back off when I give this dagger look. You better phrase up your words nicely or don't bother making small talk to me at all.

Excuse me for that little outburst up there, but seriously I have to stop right here lest the floodgates will burtst forth once again, and booooy, we sure don't want that to happen, do we? But here's the gist of it, life's hasn't been all purty and there's been a few incidences that almost resulted in a major meltdown on my part, but listen up kid coz I want you to know that you are a very VERY special girl. Anyone who has met you would agree.

You leave a trail of sunshine happiness everywhere you go. Your warmth and friendly gestures evens out your boisterous like an anak raksasa nature. I lost my temper with your more often than I should have because I often forget how much you enjoy life, how those little gears in your brains ticktocks like clockwork, endlessly & tirelessly. So, on my good days when I do realize that, I just let you roam free for fear of being the stumbling block in your progress. I don't want you to lose that sparkle, so when I try to pull you back for a bit, you do understand I'm just doing my job as a mommy, don't you?

Conversations with you have taken a whole new level. I dreaded talking to you sometimes because your questions are very hard to answer! And you demand your answers until the last why?why?why that will leave me speechless, and I'm sorry dear, coz you're clearly much much smarter than poor old momma who runs out of creative juice in her brain to accommodate you. When I teach you new things, you seem to take off and leave me way behind.

Going through motherhood with you is a helluva ride, girl, but a great adventure indeed. I am so, ever so thankful to the Maker than I'm a part of your world. Enjoy your fourth year to the fullest. Don't let anyone stop you, yup, not even me.
























"Momma, does my hair look like Ariel?"