monthly letter : month twenty five

Dear Arwen,



I'm sorry i'm late writing you your monthly letter again. i'm gonna be honest with you, it just sortta slipped my mind. your mom is nyanyuk, you'll learn about this as you grow up. i planned to write you last weekend but i had to nurse a terrible migraine on saturday and food poisoning and fever all through monday. sorry again.



anyway, last month has been rather eventful for us. a few days after we've celebrated your second birthday, we took you to your very first concert. which is awesome for you coz the first concert i ever went to, i was 24. we learnt that Elmo and gang were coming to town and we just had to go, for you. we got you prepared a week prior to the day of the show, telling you that "from monday to friday, mamma and daddy will be working and on Saturday, we'll go see Elmo". you were so excited that you literally count the days leading up to Elmo. a phase that i didn't expect to last till this day. but at least. you learn about and know the days of the week that we're working and which days we're not. so far, you know only Monday and "Atter-day" (saturday, which will always be Elmo day to you).



you epitomized the meaning of the term pure joy the moment you saw Elmo on stage. You screamed his name like a fanboy and you jumped on your seat and yelling "Oh my goddd!! Arwen nak Elmo!!!". like i said, a fanboy. but it only lasted about 15 minutes before you get all bored and antsy in your seat and we had to guide you where and who to look at on that stage. the best part of it all when you told me you're "happiness". indeed you are, baby.



you remember quite a bit from the concert even though you didn't see much of it because you were busy watching other kids than the extraordinary flexible and overtly dramatic muppets. now, every time we ask you what you saw, you'd reminisce that you went to "Acemi-Cheet" (sesame street) and you saw Elmo, Otti-otter (cookie monster), Rosita, Grover as a police, Big Bird, Baby Bear, Zoe, Ernie, Bert, Telly and more. you recognized and remembered them all.



you also remember the parts you didnt watch, like when they were on a break and you asked me where Elmo went to, i had to make up a story that Elmo had to go drink and then the toilet to pee. yup, you recall even that. sorry i lied but you weren't taking "a break" as a realistic reason. i had to come up with something that made sense to you. for all we know, Elmo really did have to go take a pee. at least my reasons were not as bullshit as what your dad cooks up sometimes - like "put on your slippers on the cicak will climb up your leg and bite you" when you're walking around outside with no slippers on. i was going for "there's a lot of ants and you'll get bitten" which was true as there were a lot of fire ants. i was being realistic, but your dad was going for bedo'oh. (that's a Pekan word for bullshit in case anybody's wondering, which you and i both will learn more as we grow in this family. Pekan words i mean, not the bullshit. the bullshit we leave it up to daddy)



a week after the concert, you fell into a fever again and it was just a day or two before Raya. this year was your third raya since your birth and our second in Pekan with daddy's family. almost everyone was there and the place was packed. but you were sick so you were a bit cranky and clingy and you dont want anyone else but me or daddy with you, but since daddy was busy most of the time, you just wanted me. We left for Pekan at 3.30 am and reached there around 7. we slept in the car until 8 when you heard the crow of the rooster which immediately makes you hungry for chicken with rice and kicap. that's my girl. we johanabases only regard chicken as food, not animal.



you were so sick this raya that you were talking, and even crawling in your sleep. your aunts have even heard you commenting on how yummy the 'odang' is while you were sleeping. and you even crawled two comforter lots down because you were looking for Ti-Ya's blanket one night. i heard you crying for a blanket (because you were fighting with Ti-ya with hers) and i tried to fumble around, feeling for you and sat up when i couldn't find you. i immediately woke daddy up telling him i lost you only to find you wedged in between of Ti-Ya and Kak Hani's feet. i have no idea how you got so far, funny girl.




you were getting better the second day of raya, asking for frog with kicap and rice after you hear a choir of croaks. on the fourth day of raya, we went to Kuantan to visit daddy's aunts and to take you to the beach. It's starting to become a thing for us everytime we go to Kuantan. We're really blessed kid, because before you, the only times i get to go to a beach was when we plan for a beach or island holiday. we were back in pekan for a whole week and you were started to warm up to people towards the end of our trip. but even when you didn't mix around with people much during Raya, you've left an impact to a lot of them. some of them are even using your words in their conversations like "bolaball" and "i-lo-chi" and "nak mama!"



you're really talented too. some people would call you 'noisy' but i'm your mom and therefore i have to be positively bias and call it 'talent'. if you're not talking, you'll be crying. if you're not singing, you'll be screaming. if you're not running around, you'll be dancing. a day with you is like living in a full season of Glee. speaking of Glee, i think it's your favourite grownup show. your favourite song from it, which you sing ALL THE TIME is Empire State of Mind. You'd go "Newww Yooooorrrkkkkkk. Yeahh yeah yeahhh" .



i know i shouldn't be procrastinating on writing your letter this long because i've forgotten some of the cool stuff you've done in the past month. oh, but one thing that has really tugged my heartstrings was the time i asked you whose house we were going home to, and you said it was mine but i told you that it's not, i do not have my own house, that this house is Oma's. And then i asked if you could make me a house and you said, "boleh!". so you went upstairs, ran into the room, unloaded your 'Bego' (Lego) (no, it's actually megablocks) blocks across the room and built me a house. and you keep building me houses after houses ever since.



you'll grow up to be a really amazing person, Arwen.

I lo chi
Mamma.