Malaysian Food

Ayam Masak Merah: I'm never able to reproduce this dish in perfect replica each time. This is the best I've made so far, the one I made for MSA. I hate frying, because the smell lingers for a long time in apartments in the United States. Strangely, it doesn't seem to be a problem in Malaysia, where we have wet kitchens outside. So what I do whenever chickens need to be fried prior to making the dish is to bake/broil them in the oven. It's healthier and keeps the apartment from smelling like you've been cooking for weeks non stop.



My favorite seafood: shrimp. Actually my favorite seafood is crab but they're expensive here. I remember the crab soup my stepmother used to make everytime I came back from boarding school. The fragrance of it just drives my salivary glands nuts.



Vegetables: I have to have green in my food. My grandmother was always nagging me on eating my greens, and the incentive she kept feeding me was: "You want to look young, eat your greens." I didn't really care about looking young back then, but somehow it was ingrained in my family and I grew up needing greens in my food.

I really am pregnant. Can't think about food without feeling sick, yet can't stop thinking about them either. I don't care much for desserts except when I'm in the mood, but I have to say I'm more of a savory person. Unfortunately, my son takes after me, and I really pity his future wife. I have to make sure I apologize to her for producing a son who likes savory food, even for breakfast.

Pee Wee Bee

He thinks it's ridiculous, waiting for a group of kids to spell words. Just sitting there and waiting for the whole thing to be over appears to him as a waste of time. That's what my husband's opinion on spelling bee is.

As for me, it's not about the spelling bee per se, it's about the experience and exposure to different kind of socialization for home-schooled kids. We had good humoredly argued about the importance of knowing how to spell when I told him I was going to enter our daughter in an upcoming spelling bee. Me and my 'you can't rely on the spell checker because you can totally spell a word correctly but it wouldn't make cents in your sentence at all' and him with his 'so what is you know how to spell, and oh yeah, there's the spell checker, why not use it?'.

Nevertheless, I completely ignored his 'protests' over the spelling bee and enrolled S and N anyway. He was not 100% serious anyway, though he might be, but it doesn't really matter since I'm the one in charge anyway.

So Feb 27, 2006, Tuesday, yesterday, we all (Hubby, Jidda, Ummi, S, N , H) drove to Linworth Baptist Church for the Spelling Bee. Unfortunately it was in a church, and I have to say it's my first time. I told the kids when we were going in.

The pews were very well padded and underneath every pew were bibles, to which the kids kept asking,

"What's that?"

"The bible," I said.

"If it were the Quran, we won't be putting it way down there near our feet. What does that show?" I asked.

"That it's special," said S.

Critical thinking there.

"N, don't just keep quiet okay. Just spell the word," I told them before the bee started.

My children are naturally diffident, since I am not that outgoing either by nature. Neither is my husband, at least relatively. People were always commenting on how shy our children are, and they're right. It's the one thing that bothers me, especially since I'm homeschooling, but whenever I rehashed my priorities and the reason why I homeschool, their shyness always takes a back seat. There was someone who gave me unsolicited advice pertaining to their shyness, which hackled me for quite a while, due to the implication that extrovertism is the only 'in thing' right now. I guess if we're all extroverts, there would be no listeners. Harrrumph!

The bee started for the 1-3rd graders and they all stood in line on the stage. Only Allah knows how my heart beat with anxiety as my two girls ascended the stage. S was extremely shy, even when I sent her to preschool. The school even held a meeting to which I was hailed, because they wanted to determine if she has a speech problem. However, she seems to have gotten over the shyness. I can still remember the sessions we had, just the two of us, talking about how she can battle her shyness. She was reduced to crying even in trying to figure out a way to overcome it. Again, only Allah knows how it worried me to no end. I don't want my girl to grow up to be a wanton, no-shame kind of woman, but I don't want her to be such a hermit either.

As for N, she is not naturally shy, but I think she's going through that stage where the shyness kicks in more times than I want to see. That's why it's so important for me to keep exposing them to different kinds of settings so as to give them the experiences that would eventually train them to overcome their diffidence.

I didn't really expect them to be bold and speak in the mic like the other kids, so when the practice round started, I left it all to Allah. Worst case would be me bringing them back home without ever participating in the bee at all. Though I hoped I wouldn't have to.

To my ULTIMATE surprise, S and N both performed rather amazingly in the pee wee spelling bee. Alhamdulillah, before they started, a kid cried out,

"Nervous!"

"You're nervous?" said the the teacher in charge, and laughter erupted from the audience.

"Who's nervous, raise your hand," she said, and I saw S's hand shoot up, and followed by a hesitant N.

"Okay, let's loosen up then."

I'm so glad that brilliant kid mentioned nerves, because I saw S loosen up a bit with a smile.

Well, I never thought the outcome would be what did happen. S remained among the last three, then the last two and finally, the only one. She was the CHAMPION! N, remained in the last 6 before she spelled 'calf' instead of 'cough'.

While the bee was going on I had asked H, who was sitting beside me, watching his sisters,

"H, do you think S and N can win this?"

He nodded, but then added,

"But I think N will get out."

After it was all over, he said to me,

"See, I told you N would get out."

I made sure N didn't hear that. She on the other hand, was elated, and whispered to me,

"I did it."

I knew what it about. I had told her to abandon her shyness and just speak lest she attracts more attention by making people wait for her to speak. By overcoming that hurdle, and I must say she did more than overcome it, she flew over it with brilliant blinding colors!

Yes, N. You did it. You're a champion too. Masyaallah.

Insyaallah, up numerous rungs of the ladder of self esteem. Alhamdulillah.

The Builder

I was haranguing the kids about organizing their room this morning.

There's a place for everything. Everything has its own place. I always go by that saying. This is one area where I'm at a total loss with the kids. Despite having Flylady as a guide, I chose the temporary easy way out and ditched the program. If only I had stuck to it. Well, we'll see.

With the pregnancy, I'm bound to be pressed to clean the house real good before I'm reduced to a retching, waddling preggo. So we should be cleaning out bit by bit insyaallah. The only time our bathroom harbored mold to the point where they turn from orange to black, was when I was pregnant with J. Obviously, no one took care of the bathroom. Usually, it wouldn't even get to the orange point. What with me laid out in bed snacking and trying to rid myself of the morning sickness(such a misnomer, who's the genius who thought of this anyway?), everything in the house fell apart. Who said there is ever a vacation for a mother? You take a vacation, the house falls apart, and when you come back, you have to pick up the fallen pieces. What a come back huh? And by the way, WHAT vacation? Dream on.

Well, there I was sitting on the floor while the kids roam about trying to sort out their stuff which I had threaten to throw away if not taken care of. Suddenly I saw this framework of what seemed to be a mini building, complete with a roof and pillars sitting on the shelf, at my eye level. Next to it was another structure. It looked like a windmill but the desgin was very unique.

I asked S, "Who made that?"

"H," she replied.

Oh, and H at the time was exercising his lung capacity in my room, since I told him to not let me hear his cries lest all our ear drums explode.

"Really? What did he make them with?" I asked again. it looked like he made them with plain paper, and there I was trying to figure out how in the world did he create those with paper??

"With the thing we got from Meijer yesterday," S said.

"Oh..." I said, and was taken back to an image of H holding on to whole bunch of twist ties at Meijer last night. I didn't even ask him what he was up to, but apparently, that boy had something on his mind when he grabbed a whole bunch from the store.

"Call him," I said to S.

Obviously he was done with his workout, and he came into the room with a fake sullen look.

"H, did you make these?" I asked him. He nodded.

"Do you like making stuff with legos or just anything?" I asked again.

"Anything," he replied.

I was really awed, well, still am. I guess we have a future architect, engineer in the house? Well, I won't tell him, yet. He can do that after he secures knowledge from Madinah University insyaallah. As Ummi said, "Selamat sepuluh keturunan." What a way to word that.

I had noticed his fascination with buildings I suppose. I will never forget the Twin Tower he built using corn cobs when we were in Malaysia in 2002. He was only two then. We obviously had corn and were sitting at the table, when suddenly, he picked up two corn cobs devoid of kernels, and stood them so that they were side by side, tapered end pointing up, and said, "Twin tower!"

It really looked like the Twin Towers, the dekerneled holes looking like windows.

Thurber Writing Program

Last summer I applied for the scholarship for S, but she wasn't accepted. This year, I made sure to keep my eyes peeled for any upcoming writing programs for youth. Alhamdulillah, one came tumbling down my path way back in January. Of course, we couldn't afford it, so the only option would be to apply for scholarship for the kids. So i set to work and applied for the scholarship for all of them.

The result was to be announced Feb 10. I looked at the website, but saw nothing. I was pretty sad, and mulled over the 24 dollar non refundable fees we had sent when applying for the scholarships. I even cancelled out the six week program in my calendar.

suddenly, someone got the mail, and in between the stacked mail were three envelopes addressed to S and H from Thurber. I was overjoyed, as if the scholarship was for me. Turned out, all three of them were accepted. I put back the event in my calendar.

However, feb 18 was the first day of the program, and I had registered for the leadership conference. Alhamdulillah my MIL is here and she accompanied Nura in the class. S was in a separate class for 2nd and 3rd graders. N and H are in a class for K and 1st graders, but they have each to be accompanied by an adult. That Saturday, I went to campus by 10 am and got back home at close to 1 am because Syeikh Kamal el-Makki gave us his Dawah workshop, which was by the way, REALLY FUN!

By the time I got home, everybody was asleep except for hubby, and only on the next day did I get to ask them about the class. S didn't enjoy it much because she claimed it's 'too hard' and 'the teacher didn't give us enough time to write', while N and H glowed and said that they actually love the class.

Well, at least, they have this exposure now. While MIL is encouraging S to take up engineering when she grows up, I made sure to counter her by telling S that it doesn't really matter what she becomes as long as she's fully equipped with Islamic knowledge to sustain her through whatever life is going to give her. Because it's not life in this world that will matter, it's life in there hereafter that will truly matter. however, I just learned that teaching and medicine are the most noble vocation, so should I encourage them to pursue medicine? Especially the girls, so as to solve the problem of women seeing male doctors? Maybe, whatever Allah wills.

Reorganization

Reorganize and renewal. That's what needs to be done, at least in my home. I follow the K12 curriculum. However, since I'm under OHVA, I can't choose which to take and which to leave, though I still do that anyway. I asked for exemption from music, which we did get alhamdulillah. I didn't do their art, for lack of time. I esepcially don't like their history because it's terribly biased towards the hebrews and nasraniyeen. Nevertheless, at this moment in time, I find sticking with this system is my best choice, due to many other reasons.

I tried doing seerah using Iqra' but since we're trying to save on photocopying, what I used to do was do the worksheets myself on Microsoft Word. Of course after a while, I gave up because it took too much of my time. We still have a lot of those worksheets we photocopied in Malaysian anyway, and i need to finish those first before my house becomes a paper mill. We already have too much paper as it is.

So after trying out what I can think of and seeing what works and what doesn't, I figured I'd better focus a lot on the Quran. In the conference I attended last weekend, Dr. Mamdouh Muhammad said that the sahabah used to spend as much time on seerah as they did on the Quran. I suppose, if you think about it, that covers the Quran and the ahadeeth. Perfect. The islamic studies, I can do daily as we do stuff. At least for now, that makes it more doable in my line of work and loads I have heaped upon my ever filling platter.

So, since S is already praying fajr regularly, after fajr, we betook to reciting the Quran, one by one. I still have problems with this because as i read with one, I tell the others to eat breakfast and then shower. So far, we've been spending an hour to recite the Quran for all three of them. It's still a hassle getting them to eat breakfast on time, shower and get ready for school. This seems to be my ongoing problem, which drives me crazy every day, no money return guarantee.

Usually I start with S, and I let her recite one full page of the Quran, and then we talk about it, pick up what words seems familiar to her so she would gain arabic/Quran vocabulary that way. For H, we work on his Iqra book 6, and just this morning, he cried because he couldn't prevent his tongue from touching the roof of his mouth in reading tanween or noon saakinah meeting the ikhfa' letters.

"I can't make my tongue not touch my roof! it keeps going up there!" he wailed, tears streaming down his face.

Apparently his wails reached all the corners of our tiny apartment and pretty soon, his sisters peeked in the room to see what had made him wail.

For N, she is the one thay insists on me reading the translation to her when she recites a surah or part of a surah from Juz Amma. The first few times, she went downstairs, climbed on a chair to get the Quran from the shelf, and came back upstairs to my room, handed me the Quran with a smiling face. Then she sat herself down and prepared to recite. As she finished one ayat, she turned to me and waited fo r me to read the meaning. I guess sometimes, we should take cues from our children.

Amidst all this, I'm also striving to learn more of the deen. Just last weekend i attended a leadership conference. At the same time, I'm also studying like crazy for the Almaghrib exam coming up this Sunday. I also have to prepare S for her march tests. On top of that, I just might be positively pregnant. I still need to have the doctor tell me before I truly believe it.

i think, attending Islamic lectures for me, is a positive experience, because after last weekend, I found a new surge of motivation to pursue what I'm doing. As one speaker said,

"If you want to clean someone laying in the mud, you spray him with water, while he is still in the mud, it's not going to make him clean. He'll just be even dirtier."

So it makes sense to take someone out of a bad environment first as part of tarbiyyah. That in turn says to me that pulling your child out of public school is like pulling someone out of the mud he is laying in.

It made me think of my approach with the kids on protecting their hearts. Insyaallah, I have told them (so far) all they need to know regarding protecting themselves from bad influences. I think as they grow bigger, the issues of friends will crop up and even though I've gone over it with them, it will need revisiting when the time comes insyaallah.

O Allah, You are the One Who Guides, please put us in the company of those who can guide us to the straight path.

Scab

"Ummi, this seems to be saying that it needs to be peeled."

Tiny hands picked at a small scab in the folds of his foot, and I looked on with amusement. Talk about power of persuasion.

H truly is something, a boy of words, and I call his father, the man of few words. Yeah right! Well, in a way, he is a man of a lot of words, and now his son is following suit.

Even Jidda is all agape at his 'smart-mouthing'. Just last night, hubby was saying to the kids,

"Ummi's rich."

"No, my dad's rich. I'm not," I retorted.

"You're rich??? Then why don't you go to Hajj?" H immediately piped up.

Which left us all open-mouthed and laughing.

"She did actually," said hubby.

You can never tell the route his mind takes, this boy. Rich-hajj? Bunny-Bani Israel?? Palace-Palestine?? Subhanallah!

This morning i asked him what exactly it is he said so i could write it down. He attested to it and said, "Write it down." Just like that.

As for N, we were doing Quran and Tafseer, surah An-Naziat, on the story of Musa and Firaun. At the point where Firaun was not that impressed with Musa's miracles, she asked,

"Why didn't Firaun think "that's cool,"?"

I want a voice recorder. Don't have one. Need one. Before they all grow up and leave me bereft of smart mouths.

Burned Out

I am so tired. So many things to do, so little energy and time. My february calendar is full. Each square is filled with something. This is one of those days where i feel i can't take it anymore. This is one of those days when I think I must be crazy to take on such a horrendously big responsibility.

To add all the things that I do to what I already am supposed to do seems to me like I'm asking for trouble. However, just this morningi was reading in the Quran, "..wealth and children are adornments in this life..." and Ibn Kathir's tafseer went on to say that we shouldn't be too busy with them, or too obsessed with gainin material wealth just for them that we neglect out duties. It's weird. I can't think, off the top of my head where someone would actually abandon their duties in excessive love of their kids, but I guess it does happen, and maybe happens a lot, depending on how you interpret that.

Ever since H started Kindergarten and S went up to third grade, things have been very hectic for me. I actually love the hustle and bustle because i feel that it keeps me on my feet, but of course there are times when I just feel like throwing in the towel. Ok. Maybe several times in a month. Or more.

From teaching a second grader and a kindergartener, I am now teaching a kindergartener, a first grader, and a third grader about to sit for a reading and math test in March! The test preparations are what is driving me up the wall. i don't really care truth be told if she aces it or not, as long as I know she knows what she needs to know. Tests no longer accurately predict a child's abilities. They probably never do for that matter.

There's the exam coming up for moi. There're the study sessions I have to attend twice a week every week till the exam. Then there's the conference coming up. Then there's the new effort to do da'wah in our community. There's the things i signed S up for. Spelling bee, writing workshop and engineering day. And to top it off, ear hubby is sitting for his candidacy. Suddenly, everything's just going through a bottleneck. (yeah, haven't heard that term since I took Pascal 100 back in 94/95)

And then, there's the possibility that I might be with child. Yup. I was wrong that one month, which really shook me up, and I hope I'm wrong again this month, though i think I might not be. Whatever it is, I don't want to get all worked up. I'll give it about a week or more before I accept reality. However, the thought of a baby does give me floating bubbles and sweet smelling flowers. Oh well, whatever Allah gives us is fine. Alhamdulillah. if it is true, i can't recolor my hair again. that box will just have to wait for another three years before i touch it. Might have to give it to someone.

Ok. Enough 'venting'. Back to my 'loooooong' day. Alhamdulillah ala kulli hal. Won't be telling MIL though. She'll just worry after seeing my almost pulling my hair out handling the kids every day.

Palace-tine

"What's the setting for the story?" I asked H, after reading about the Twelve Dancing Princesses.

"In a palace," he answered.

"Palace-tine," he added.

Another time, he went inside my friend's car. She had a soft bunny toy in it. H had said to her,

"Bunny Israel."

This kid is just ... La haw la wa laa quwwata illaa billaah.

All this should be copyrighted. I have a tongue twister in the works.

Kids Say the Darnest Things!

H was doing his math additions, and having some problems. I told him,

"You can use the counting chips or the cubes if you want."

"Can I just use my head?" he replied.


The Dragon Tales song was playing on TV and I reminded them,

"Your heart, your heart." I had told them to protect their heart from being corrupted by muting the TV if there are songs and not watching haram stuff. At first it was a dilemma for me when I let them go to other people's houses. Do I tell the people to control the TV channels when my kids are atheir house or do I just train my kids. After some deep mulling, I came to the conclusion that I should just train my kids and at the same time disseminate dakwah through them. Dakwah coming from kids is easier to digest. So i sat the kids down and told them about the vulnerability of the heart, how it can become corrupt and covered in black when we let little 'insignificant' things cloud it. I couldn't just tell them that it's forbidden or anything like that so I opted for the 'heart' approach, since it will probably make them more aware of the effort they have to put forth rather than feel restricted.

N replied,

"When I couldn't find the remote to mute it, I just covered my heart like this," and she put her palm on her chest.


Another time, still on the matter of hearts, hubby pretended not to see N sitting on the couch and proceeded to sit on her,to which she immediately shrieked,

"Abi, you're breaking my heart!"


And S, upon a loud popping of a balloon, yelled,

"You scared my heart!"

It's Alive!

Our humble shack is basically a collection of run down furniture that's just about ready to go in the dumpsters. For school chairs we have the 5 year old metal chairs with unscrewed backs, leaving them just bare skeletons. The sponge backing of the seats had long been devoured by itchy little hands with nothing else to do but tear apart the furniture.

The fate of the dining table downstairs is such that it has to share its chairs with the school table upstairs. Since we all eat on the floor anyway, we only left two chairs at the dining table and brought the other three upstairs. However, a problem presented itself whenever dear ummi cooked a dish that requires eating on the table, such as spaghetti or a bowl of noodle with soup. Three little people need three chairs to sit on. So dear father had to bring down one chair to the dining table.

it is such a hassle to keep on transporting this sole chair up and down the stairs each time, so we left the chair in the kitchen. When time for school came, one little person is without a chair. So what to do?

"Get my chair from my room," ordered Dear Ummi.

So in rolled the big red computer swivel chair on wheels complete with armrests. As was mentioned, our house is basically a collection of run down furniture ready to be housed in the dumpster. This red chair is not different. While it may look grand and magnificent, its back is devoid of the light wooden backing, thus exposing a light brown surface bordered by crudely stapled red fabric extending from the front. Suffice it to say, those staples have snagged many a limb and sleeve of anyone unlucky to tumble into its sphere of existence.

Poor Little H became the victim of this chair in question, as we shall see.

"Ummi! the chair scratched me!!" H yelled one day, showing his mother s long whitish scratch on his arm.

"No, the chair didn't scratch you. You ran into the chair," she replied, oh ever so wisely.

H went back, proabbly grumbling silently about the damned chair, yet forced to use it . Otherwise he would be sitting on the floor. Now that wouldn't be acceptable at all, now would it?

The day after that, while Dear Ummi went out of the room to check on something downstairs, things were brewing up in the schoolroom upstairs. When she same into the room, H was wailing on the bed, clutching his head. S was sitting on her chair mumbling something about H's mishap, while N minded her own business, oblivious to the happenings around her.

Dear Ummi looked upon the scene rather patiently, which is rather strange, as she is wont to bursts of impatience at such scenes. She went to H and sat down on the bed, asking him what had happened.

"I told you the chair was alive!!" H yelled in between his wails, still clutching his head.

Nothing sounded more ridiculous yet tickling than what he had just blurted out. Dear Ummi laughed her heart out and gathered H in her arms.

"Are you strong?" she asked H. He nodded.

"Who's stronger, you or the chair?" she continued.

"The chair," H replied sullenly.

"But how? It doesn't drink milk, or eat protein," she said. A reluctant smile tugged at H's mouth.

"Well, it eats my bomp*," H said, relenting to the smile.

"And my blood," he continued.

Dear Ummi thought, this boy really has a powerful imagination. Hence, a character is born in the house.

It's alive!! It's alive!! And all the run-down furniture yawned from their long slumber and stretched their worn limbs rather grotesquely in all unimaginable directions.

Jidda's Here!

The last time they saw their grandmother was in 2002 when we went back to Malaysia for a visit. It's almost four years now and it seems that it's high time Jidda comes here to see them.

So, after a much awaited wait, Jidda arrived yesterday with much celebration.

"Does Jidda still look the same?" I asked them.

S shook her head. From an excited bunch of kids, they had suddenly turned into diffident, head-hanging, downcast-eyes, coy-smiles wearing kids. Gathered into the embrace of their grandmother, all their excitement were subdued by the excitement of their grandmother.

While Jidda prattled on old memories of catching the bus with toddler S and baby N, they listened quietly, probably trying to remember any of the stuff. Jidda also did a little quick quiz on Malay on them. Of course, all of them understood the word 'tido' which means sleep, in Malay. That's the infamous word I use to tell them to shut their eyes and give me some peace of mind every night, so I can recover some of my sanity, if any is left at all.

The time when Jidda brought them to the mall in Ames. The time when they rushed to catch the bus. The time when they actually missed the bus or got on the wrong bus. The time when Jidda gave S and N a taste of fast food. All of those I don't remember because I was laden with a baby H, still in post partum condition.

"Oh, N! You're so beautiful now! So slim!" Jidda exclaimed.

Well, she said that to me too, except, she left the beautiful part out. ((LOL))

Which struck me into realization. N , when she was smaller, was chubby with dark skin and very little hair. Jidda had actually favored fair skinned S, much to our dismay. So from then on, hubby had always paid more attention to N to compensate for the lack of attention from her Jidda. In her own time, N had flourished as if a light has emanated from the inside out and with it, her skin had lightened in tone, and with all her uniqueness, she had grown into a 'beautiful girl' as her Jidda said. S on the other hand, had entered the ugly duckling stage when her new teeth emerged.

So it was the realization that years had passed such that the little grandchildren she had tended to with great difficulty the two times she was here, that we drove back home, where the kids finally found their voices and lung capacity.

I had been having some difficulty figuring out a way to get S to start wearing hijab, when Jidda indirectly solved the problem. Unpacking her bags, she heaped upon us hijabs, of many kinds and colors, one after the other, much to S's, N's and my delight. S practically has a different hijab for each day. No more excuses, and i just hope I remember to remind her the reason why she has to wear it when she reaches puberty. For now, she just has to get used to having it on and getting comfortable with it. Insyaallah.