One for 2017

Seriously, I can't let the year go by without any blog update, can I? 

Every end of the year I would look back and think the same thing - where did the year go? I'd look at the list of blog posts and how in the beginning of my blogging years and especially with my first born, how many postings they were compared to the more recent years and I am kicking myself for not doing more updates, especially on my other child. I don't even have any birthday posts of him, his name is Eli by the way, in case anyone's wondering, and he is already 5!

2017 has been a big year for us actually, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

It started off pretty dramatically with the four of us making a sudden trip back to Malaysia after a health scare news of my father. It started off with just a simple toothache that was becoming worse and worse and turned into a mouth ulcer that was just getting bigger and nastier. And we were not getting any fast answers from the doctors back home. At the time, I was just recovering from having my wisdom tooth extracted and decided to show my father's ulcer photos to my surgeon for his opinion. When he told me his opinion of what it could be, I just couldn't sit around and do nothing. We left just after christmas last year and once in Malaysia, we did our very best to find out what was actually wrong with him. Our fears were confirmed, he was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer and had to go through chemotherapy straightaway.

Having a sister who had been battling lymphoma the year before and having a relapse, it was just so disheartening and very hard to take. I was just very glad that I was able to be there for him throughout those early nerve-wrecking hospital visits up to the first chemotherapy. 

It was extremely hard for me to see my father, who has always been strong and mighty, looking and feeling so helpless and frail and there's really nothing much I can do. He was losing weight, could barely walk and just looking very very sick.

We had to leave Malaysia right after his first chemo and it was one of the hardest things I had to do. We were still unsure of how he'd handle the side effects and saying goodbyes on his hospital bed did not make any of it any easier. The months after that was just full of agony and uncertainties. It is in times like this that I do wish we were not so far away from family. My siblings were taking turns looking after him and Alhamdulillah he got through it. I am happy to report that he has now completed his 6 chemo cycles and is doing pretty good. 

It was also this year that my sister, Pina had her stem cell transplant in hope to cure her lymphoma cancer for good. All of us siblings went through the blood testing process and Alhamdulillah, my 2nd sister is a 100% match. I was again beside myself worrying and wishing I was closer to them but they were both very brave and super strong and went through this risky procedure successfully. My sister is now recovering and I truly hope she will be 100% good again and better. 

On a happier note, I turned the big 4-0 this year and my husband pulled off one of his best birthday present surprises ever - getting my family members here in Kiama for my birthday :) My aunty, 2 sisters (including Pina!), one cousin and one niece came and we had one of the best weeks of our lives. Having Pina, who just went through her 2nd round of chemo at the time, was definitely an added surprise bonus.  Michael put us all in one bedroom and we stayed up late and talked and laughed, shopped for lots of chocolates (all of my family young and old are choc addicts), went sightseeing and even did the flying fox treetop adventure  It is surely one of my best birthdays ever, thank you Michael :))

This year also saw us starting the build of our dream home in Kiama. After going through a financial roller coaster last year with the whole process of demolishing, rebuilding and selling our first home together in Sydney, we managed to secure what we could afford at the time, a piece of land in Kiama. With very limited budget but a strong determination by my wonderful husband who beautifully designed the house, we decided to build it ourselves. Michael, who has been 'retired' from full time work since August the year before, has completely dedicated his time to this project and has been doing a truly fantastic job. 

On the 1st November this year, we've finally moved into our little studio that was built next to the main part of the house. It is a very cosy place with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen area, with a queen bed, a bunk bed and a lounge area. We see each other all the time and I spend less time cleaning as well. It is quite nice. We also have a nice back yard now where the kids love to play and hopefully where I will grow my plants flourishingly. I am known to kill even the hardest plant to kill so wish me luck! As for the main house, InsyaAllah we would love to have it done by the first quarter of the new year. We will have plenty of room so we are expecting a lot of visits from family & friends!

Kids are doing well and growing up more than I wanted them to. Ayisha had a great year at school finishing year 3. She was involved in the school choir, representing her school for a Musical Performance and had her 1st school camping trip ever. I didn't deal with it very well at all. She's only ever been apart from us a handful of times and even then it was only for sleepovers at grandma's or her cousin. But she did it. She came back all happy and excited about her camping trip and just seemed that little bit older and grown up. 

This year, for the first time, we started having one of those girly grown ups talk where she asked me about our little friend that comes to visit every month, Little miss Red P. I was trying to explain it as simple but as honest as I can but I still get disgusted looks from her which ended up with her having a little bit of a tanty and screaming "why does Eli doesn't have to worry about having blood on his undies"! erk...So I left it at that and it was never mentioned again.

Ayisha also started going to Quran lessons at the mosque  learning with an excellent teacher from Egypt.  She learns how to read and write Arabic and memorising the Quran together with the meanings and the stories that come with it. Out of all that she's done this year, this is the one that I am most proud of. I remembered it took her a month just to learn the first ayat, Bismillah.. It was a very thorough learning process but this is probably the best class that she's in and how I wish I was learning the same things that she is when I was her age.

She's still doing her Physie dance, gymnastics and this year, together with Eli, they tried playing AFL. It was all new and exciting and they had loads of fun. They also both did tennis for a few terms and that was pretty good too. I think they enjoyed it more doing things together. So since Eli doesn't wanna do rugby anymore and Ayisha doesn't wanna do tennis, I guess they're both not doing any of them next year! 

This year, Eli completed his Pre-schooling years and I still can't believe that he's going to big school next year. He will go to the same school as Ayisha where he will start Kindergarten and Ayisha will be in Year 4. Unbelievable.

Like Ayisha, Eli has also grown tremendously this year. He started playing chess and enjoys a lot of the different board games that we play and recently we tried Pictionary and he nailed it. Drawing is not my thing (I'm really bad) so this one they definitely get from Michael. 

This year, Eli also started his swimming lessons, yeay! We've been trying to get him to do lessons ever since he was 3 but he refused to do anything with the teacher. He loves water and enjoys the pool with us but obviously not with anyone else. So we stopped and waited for the right time and this year, after he was able to swim with no floaties, we really think he's ready for lessons. As expected, there were a lot of resistance where he even refused to get in the pool and crying and carrying on. Thankfully it only took about 3 weeks into the lesson (phew!) and he's now swimming and loving the lessons and I think he's probably in love with the teacher too :p

He's also started reading some simple words, likes doing simple math and enjoys doing activity books, colouring and drawing. I think he'll have lots of fun with school but he assured me many times that school is not his thing. We had two orientations for his new school and he didn't seem to enjoy any of them. He told me that the only reason he's probably excited about school is the fact that he'll get to see Ayisha all the time *awwwwwwww* I thought that was sweet. :)

Eli is an absolute sweetheart. He calls me sweetie, my darling, beautiful lady. I don't know where he learned this from (definitely not daddy)  But he also calls me dude and bro (yes, these from daddy) Every day he will tell me how I am the most beautiful woman in the world and how much he loves me. He looks after me really well, giving me massages and even made me breakfast in bed when I am not well. 

He is still a very funny little man! He makes me laugh constantly. He tells excellent jokes and makes little comments that are pretty hilarious like he thinks his 'poopoo melts' when doing a runny poop. Then one day, after learning about body parts at pre-school, he asked  "why tentacles (it's testicles, btw) are the same shape as your brain?" He also still gets some words mixed up like saying 'opposed to' instead of 'supposed to' and adding unnecessary past tense like 'it hurted'. But one of my favorites is "construction" instead of "instruction" and whenever we try to correct him when he's doing his Lego steps he would caution us beforehand "when I say constructions, u know that it's instructions ok". Ok lah...

We sometimes have pretty interesting conversations and he'd ask some challenging questions. But the harder ones he normally asked Michael about.  Like the other day he asked him about a court house and a jail so Michael did some explaining on that and at times he asked something that was quite a bit of a shock like the other day, also to Michael;

"This is probably not a good question but when do you think you wanna die, daddy?"

...and they had a pretty heartfelt conversation after that.

One of my favourites was when we talked about Ayisha's achievement at school where she received a Gold award for consistently following the school values. Then he started telling me that he wish that he will get it too when he's at school next year. Then he said he thinks he will get it! When I asked him what makes him think that, he came closer to me and whispered;

"because I'm muslim..and muslim is good" with a giggle after.

I was quite surprised and told him that non-muslims can be good people too and not all muslims are good etc. But then he told me;

"Well Allah is good mummy. So muslims should be good."

I couldn't agree more.

He still loves to dance and sing and this year, he actually participated and performed in his end of year pre-school concert unlike the previous year where he just sat there and did nothing (stage fright I think!). He loves Michael Jackson, and went through stages of obsession with the Ninja Turtles (yes, I know Leo is the blue one) and now he's very much into Lego, especially  Ninjago & Nexo Knights (and yes, I do know the difference between Nya and Macy).

2017 is really coming to an end now and overall, I have had a truly wonderful and blessed year. There were lots of tears but also lots of laughter. In everything that has happened, I am absolutely thankful and grateful to Allah for all of it, especially the endless blessings of health, wealth, joy, happiness and love of my loved ones and myself.

My hope for 2018 is just to be and do a little bit more than 2017. More learning, more growing, more loving, more giving and hopefully more writing ;)

Happy 2018! Blessed always.