Teach me Tai-Fu

I just got a call from Nuha our eldest, asking me to teach her Kung-Fu, Tae Kwan Do and also Tai-Fu. I’ve heard of kung-fu and tae kwan do before but tai-fu was definitely not in my vocabulary. The other thing that I have not a freaking idea where it came from is that Nuha thought her Abah was some kind of a master of martial arts. I dont think I have ever done any kung-fu or tae kwan do move in front of her. The closest I’ve gotten to, was when I tried to shoo a ‘musang’ away from our fence with some fierce-looking karate chops and noisy barks. Even then I had to quickly run back inside when the musang seemed to move forward towards me instead of disappearing into the wild as it should be doing.

Anyways, being a good father, how do you react when your kid started to call you ‘master’ and asked you to teach her kungfu or tae kwan do or tai-fu? So, being a good father, what else could you do? Masters never say no. Master always say: “Yes Nuha, Abah will teach you Kungfu, Tae Kwan Do and Oh, I have to look the other one up on wikipedia before I can say yes or no”. You could hear the happiness in her voice and almost saw that sparkle in her eyes when she heard I said yes. That was priceless and worth a thousand yesses.

So now, where do I download those “Kungfu for Dummy” books from? And I wonder if I can have Tai-Fu for lunch..

This is Abah being kung-fued by his disciple

Half of it gone

So there we were somewhere inside Tesco just about done with our grocery shopping. Just Nuha and Abah doing the bonding thing while the boisterous duo are at home with Supermama doing hmm doing what they always do. boisterousing.

Anyways, Tesco was getting more crowded as more people started to arrive. And Nuha has loudly upgraded herself from “Abah I’m hungry” to “Abah I’m starviiing!”. This coming from the same girl who gulped a bowl of honeystars not two hours ago at home for breakfast while Abah had none yet. So the Daddy asked his lovely Daughter if she wanted donuts or roti canai for her second breakfast. And the Daughter happily said “donuts please”. On the way to the mamak, the Daughter bought 1 donuts on a stick and 1 big ring donut.

So there we were sitting in the mamak restaurant. The Daddy ordered a roti telur bawang for himself while the Daughter was eagerly munching on the donuts. Teh tarik for the Daddy and Milo tarik for the Daughter. Later came the roti telur bawang for the Daddy who was quite hungry by then. The Daughter was still happily munching on her donuts. The Daddy cut the roti and ate a piece..hmm nice and warm. The dal was not bad too. The Daddy cut another piece and was about to put it in his mouth when a little voice appeared from somewhere to his left. “Abah can I have some roti telur?” It was the Daughter. Maybe she liked the aroma coming from the roti and wanted to have a little taste, the Daddy thought. The Daddy cut a big piece of the roti, put some dal on it and spoon it to the Daughter who was holding donuts in her hands. “hmm nice” said the Daughter. “Nak lagi Abah” requested the Daughter.

So here we are, inside the van, ready to go back. The Daughter is still munching on her donuts. The Daddy is still hungry. Had only half of the warm nice roti telur bawang while the other half of it was gone to the Daughter. The same Daughter who had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then had donuts on a stick at the mamak’s and is now happily munching on her ring donut on our way back from Tesco.

The Daughter proudly making and baking her own donuts.

Confession of a lazy bum

Forgive me O’ World Wide Web, for I have sinned. It has been two months since I last updated my blog. I know that I used to say I was gonna be a good blogger. I was gonna update the blog regularly, with at least one entry every week. I know that I have promised a lot of things. But at the end of the day I know that I’m just a big weak lazy bum with lazy fingers, lazier than a sloth on a summer vacation.

It’s not that nothing much was going on in the lives of our three princesses. In fact, many many things are happening with the three girls that contributed to the growing number of white hairs on Zombiedaddy’s head.

If only Zombiedaddy is not too lazy then this blog will be full with writings on the joys and pains (well mostly pains) of fatherhood.

Well, maybe it’s time to make another promise. Maybe it can be part of the birthday presents for Supermama that took place yesterday. Zombiedaddy is going to write and update this blog again, more regularly this time, with lots of stories, funny stories, horror stories, mostly smelly stories about donut monster, sandbox gangster and legend of the cry-baby.

There you go. I promise.

It was a dreamy new year celebration

2010 is here. Nuha is going to be 6 this year so I thought she's big enough to be taken to see some fireworks on new year's eve. Before this we always thought that she's still our little baby girl, too young to stay up late and wait for the fireworks, too small to appreciate the fun of seeing and hearing bright striking lights blazing up the night sky. Well maybe this year it's different especially now that she's a big sister to two loud and boisterous toddlers.

The plan was for me to take Nuha out to somewhere with an excellent view of KLCC and watch the fireworks from there. Going into the city and joining the mad new year's crowd was definitely a big hell no! I'd prefer viewing the havoc from a safe and comfortable distance. The plan was also for Supermama to stay home with the twins while Zombiedaddy and Nuha go oooh and aaahhh watching the fireworks outside. I had more or less picked a nice spot somewhere not too far from our place that had a good vista of KLCC. I didnt think many people knew of the spot so I was pretty sure we would get a nice unobstructed view. Oh, by the way, Nuha didnt know anything about the plan. We didn't tell her cos we didnt want to get her hopes dashed if the plan failed. You know it might rain or something else might come up, so better make it a surprise. We forced her to take a nap in the afternoon so that she would feel fresh and not sleepy later in the night which is way beyond her routine bedtime. So all in all it was a good plan. So good in fact that we thought it was going to be a blazing good night.

But as a seasoned father of 3 girls should know, what you meticulously planned for and what really transpired at the end of the day may not always go hand in hand. And that was exactly what happened that new year's eve night, reality had a different idea and it wasn't as we planned. And it wasn't Nuha's fault at all.

The night started like most other nights. At 8 o'clock Zombiedaddy put Raina and Raisa to bed. Bedtime doa, goodnight kisses and some offkey lullabies and off to slumberland they go. Only, on that particular night, it was not just Raina and Raisa who went to slumberland at around 8.12pm. Zombiedaddy too, closed his eyes a few seconds too long and off to la-la land also he accidently went. Woke up at 12.15am, everyone was sleeping including Nuha and Supermama. Everything was eeriely quiet. No fireworks, no bang, no boom, no lights blazing up the night sky. Not even the 'hey lets watch the fireworks live on tv'. Even the tv was switched off. I dozed off and ruined my carefully laid out plan. Good thing I didnt tell Nuha about it or she would be mighty pissed with her abah for dozing off.

So that's how new year was celebrated in the Zombiedaddy's household this year. We definitely did not join the mad new years eve crowd. We saw everything from a safe dreamy distance. In fact, we were so dreamily far away from the crowd, everything was too vague to recall.. Thanks to me.. Zzzzzz.

Kakak Nuha giving Raisa a New Year's smooch


Raisa and Raina 'We're going to be 2 this year' pose

Woodward’s Baby Infrared Thermometer Dies at Age 4

In the news today..

Hulu Kelang Friday 20 November 2009; The Woodward’s baby infrared thermometer, the thermometer which was reputedly one of the most important members in the ZombieDaddy household, died on the dressing table of a noisy little house in Lembah Keramat on Thursday. The cause of death has yet to be determined, but sources close to the family suspect it was exhaustion with a high probability of physical abuse. The Woodward’s thermometer was less than four years old.

The Woodward’s thermometer spent much of its life trying to convey the truth to everyone that asked of it. It not only gave honest accurate temperature readings from the ear, it also can be used on the forehead and other parts of the body. "It never complained," said ZombieDaddy. "Supermama, Nuha, the Twins, it took the temperature of them all. It even took the temperature of the table, the floor and whatever else Nuha and the Twins pointed it at."

The Woodward’s thermometer was welcomed into the home when the family’s firstborn was about a year old. As a result, the thermometer was also made to double up as a toy for the toddler. A few months after being unpacked, the signs of tension began to show: The stand that came with the packaging was misplaced and never found. Looking back on it now, said a source close to the family, it was clearly a sign that the thermometer won’t survive for long.

The beginning of the end for the thermometer came when the Twins were born about a year ago. It was used almost on a daily basis. When the parents detected a warmer than usual feel on the Twins, the thermometer was employed and made to work every half an hour. As a result, the Twins grew fond of the thermometer and identified it as their favourite toy. They played with it, hugged it, kissed it and maybe gave it little bites with their newfound teeth. 

You can’t see much here but the thermo is practically covered with bite marks and drool

Despite its often drool coated condition, the thermometer never failed to keep on churning one accurate reading after another. Day in and day out the thermometer took the temperatures of the family, the wall, the floor and all the furniture in the house. "It was a hard life, and a thankless one," recalls a grandparent. "But without that little guy taking accurate temperatures everytime it was needed, I’m sure the parents would have had several panic attacks and won’t be alive today." The grandparent then offered to show this reporter the 359 pictures of the twins and their big sister that she keeps in her purse. There were no pictures of the Woodward’s thermometer though.

The end for the thermometer came last week when the Twins feeling much healthier, played a game of “I can knock it on the wall harder than you can” with it. While being made into an imaginary hammer, the thermometer gave out and unusually long beep. ZombieDaddy, in the room at the time immediately knew something was wrong. “There was an eerily long beep then it went blank. The poor thing just blacked out”. When asked about the last days of the thermometer, ZombieDaddy replied, “Towards the end, the thermometer took forever to read temperatures and most of the times it would give out ridiculous readings. But it was a good thermometer, a brave thermometer that survived years of abuse by the hands of three happy young girls”.

Raisa taking the temperature of her cheek

Raina wondering why there’s no beeping sound coming from the ‘hammer’ anymore

A memorial service will be held for the thermometer sometime next week to bid final farewell to the loyal and obedient worker. The family informs that, in lieu of flowers, they are accepting donations for a replacement infrared thermometer.

ZombieDaddy was heard saying "Life must go on”. There was also some garbled noise in the background that after being digitally analysed in the computer can be interpreted to be “Abah, are we getting a new hammer that beeps?”

Life Behind (Hospital) Bars

I’m not talking about jails or correctional facilities or anything of that kind. I’m talking about hospital stays that to me seemed similar to a jail sentence or life behind bars. One that involves having to care for sick kids, actually more like having to care for two sick infants at any one time at the hospital. With constant crying, whining, coughing, purging and vomiting from two infants coupled with endless nurse visits, nebulizer treatments and medication time, make your life a living hell. You have to rush through your showers and meals when both babies are sleeping, but they never sleep for long at the hospital. And when they don’t sleep, you definitely can’t sleep too.

One thing about these hospital stays is that your mood tends to change for the worse just after one night. Take Supermama for instance. Normally if i’m going out or if i have to go somewhere, she would say “Drive safely Sayang”. But at the hospital whenever I had to go out to run some errands, the last words i heard before i closed the room door was more or less “You’d better be back here as soon as you can in 20 minutes!” and she meant every word she said.

Life in the hospital was also not easy. The room was cramped particularly when all five of us were in it. Sometimes you have to make do with whatever space you have left. Even the twins noticed this and tried to adapt to it. When Raisa was being fussy and wanted most of the cot bed to herself, Raina did not complain. She adapted to it and made use of the space left to her. Just look at the pic below.

But there were also moments of peace. These moments are like diamonds, very much sought after but very seldom you can afford them. When both Raina and Raisa were sleeping, Supermama and me danced our dance of joy albeit quietly because that means we can have our meals, take showers and do some reading. But like all good things, they are always short-lived. You can’t even get through page one of the newspaper before the nurse would come in with the big noisy nebulizer machine and ruined everything.

The best moments were of course when the sick ones you were looking after, got healthier and started to be themselves again. It made the week of hell appeared like a forgotten past and you cant wait for tomorrow to come. Moments like these made your days cooped up in the hospital seemed worthwhile.

Kids, Exam Week and Underwear

It was exam week at Nuha's kindie last week. If i heard correctly, she had english paper, bahasa melayu paper, math, science, arabic, and iqra'. I would have pooped in my shorts if i had to go through all that when I was 5. But I suppose time has changed, kids don’t poop in their shorts anymore nowadays. Before Nuha started playschool last year, i never thought kindie and exam can be mentioned in the same sentence. My own kindie years were a blurry blob that i can't seem to recall. And i dont think we had exams back then like what Nuha and her friends had last week. When I was 5, it was considered a big achievement if I could put on my underwear correctly, not inside out.

Anyways, i'm not here to argue about the existing education system or how every kindie is trying very hard to extract the einstein out of every 5 and 6 year old kid out there.

I'm here to tell you how our Nuha is coping with preschool life. It happened, i asked her the other day what she thought about the exam. She said it was very easy and she could complete all the given tasks without any problem. I asked if she's sure because she missed a week of school right before the exam (she was staying at the hospital with us and the twins). I asked her if she could understand all the questions. She answered with a straight "yes".

Nuha: "Nuha just right right right. Very easy".

Abah: "Eh! What do you mean right right?".

Nuha: "Mama said read three times. Nuha read three times. Nuha know it is right answer."

Abah: “Oh Teacher June showed you the answer ye?”

Nuha: “No Abah. Nuha tau sendiri”

I admire my daughter’s confidence. I don’t know yet if right means right or right means “I’m sorry Encik Zombiedaddy, we cant let your daughter go into the next class because she drew apples instead of writing the correct answers for all of the questions”. I’m not too worried though. I’m happy enough that she’s enjoying her time at the kindie. She can almost read by herself already. She can draw beautiful giraffes and horses, and cats that look like they had some nasty dinner the night before and needs to go to the toilet very very urgently. I’m also very sure that she’s much cleverer than her father was when he was 5. But just in case..

Abah: “Nuha come here please”

Abah: “I want to see your underwear”

Nuha: “Why Abah?”

Abah: “I want to see if you put it on terbalik or not”