Washing instructions (for those Stubborn ones)

Step 1
Collect stubborn ones. The timing is entirely up to you, but it is suggested that the following times are most ideal:

• After they have been playing non-stop for 2 hours
• After they have 'going to the toilet', but not at the toilet
• After your domicile acquires a 'comforting' smell and you can deduce that such smells come from the stubborn ones

Be careful; they may be strewn about in the house, or in corners where you would least likely to find them. Also, they may bite.

Step 2
For more stubborn ones, you must firstly give them a good soak. To do so, place a stubborn one into a pail half filled with water (for optimal results, please use warm water. cold water may cause shriveling). Clothing is optional.

Then, proceed to squeeze some soap into the pail and stubborn ones. Not too much as they have a side effect - they make the stubborn ones smell nice. See Illus. 1

Illus. 1 . The stubborn one must be carefully placed, in order to avoid yourself being splashed when soaking them. Please note the aforementioned biting (teeth)

Step 3
You may then proceed with the hand washing. Start at the top and work yourself downwards to the bottom. Otherwise, just start anywhere convenient to you as the stubborn ones are not known to stay dormant during this critical phase. You may find yourself occasionally losing the stubborn ones, as they have a habit of sliding everywhere and hiding. Please refer to step 1 on how to re-locate them in such circumstances.

Step 4
If you are satisfied with the hand wash results, you can then rinse the stubborn ones. Be sure to check all areas for leftover soap or suds. Also, it is best to make sure that there is no more 'leaking' from the stubborn ones, lest you find yourself feeling warm from said leaking when you carry them back from the washing.

Step 5
If you are NOT satisfied with the hand wash, you may then proceed to bring the stubborn ones into your top-loading washing machine. Top loaders are better, compared to front loaders, as they are easy to operate and the stubborn ones can be easily fit in it with the minimum of fuss. Washing instructions are the same as before, except for Step 3 as all the washing up is done by machine.

Just be sure to set the machine to 'super wash', 'hyper rinse' and 'spin to dry' functions to complete the wash. See Illus. 2

Illus. 2. This illustration shows the stubborn ones in the top-loader. Please ensure that the cover is completely closed, or risk losing the stubborn one. Again, please note the biting teeth.

Step 6
Repeat. Please note : YOUR RESULTS WILL VARY

My first words (or I just scrambled my dad's blog)

in February we took advantage XRFXRX vc
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post bvszbv b vsvn b bver4effffffffffahbhbh805rer498ugygv4 .;?L,.;4e,4.4eeayt hepo;k

This, by the way, is Erica Reeda's first ever blog post. My comment is that it's still a work in progress; needs a bit of polishing too.. Overall 3 over 5 for content. I'm so proud of my 1 y.o. daughter..

Baba - look ... Star Star!!

Found this Japanese website that turns your pics into really cool turn-of 19th century pics!

The morning started normally. I left the room when Ehsan pointed excitedly to the back of my Nike T-Shirt, and shouted ' Star Star!!' . I knew my T-Shirt had a shoe print motif on the back and as I was still half asleep, I just shrugged and smiled at him and said 'yes, baju baba ada Star!!'. Ehsan gave me an 'okaayyy' look and moved on.

I prepared banana pancakes for breakfast, and then sat down with Ckn to tuck in. Meanwhile, our lil pear saw us sitting down, and ambled towards us. Erica is now in the habit of playing peek-a-boo behind my chair when I'm at the dining table, but this time it was a little different.

She snuck round me and proceeded to pick off something from my T-shirt - lo and behold, it was Ehsan's 'Star' - in fact, it was a honey Star cereal piece stuck to my T-Shirt. Erica, being the darling that she is, non-chalantly picked up the Star and proceeded to munch on it, much to our disgust! ... well we didn't stop her anyway...!

Ahh, what a story to jump start my blogging episode once more!!

Our Pear turns One!

We celebrated Erica's 1st birthday last weekend on the 29th of March - for me and Ckn it was our very first kid's birthday party, that I can proudly say we planned and executed! by ourselves (well, Erica helped by turning 1, and Ehsan helped blow out Erica's candles...). We never had the chance to celebrate as a family as Ehsan was away in Malaysia on both his birthdays. InsyaAllah, we'll have one for Ehsan when he turns 3 in June!

Anyway, I created this video and put it into a VCD and gave it to the parents. We also had goody bags for the kids; I know Ckn is working on some updates on her blog so keep an eye out for her next posting on Erica's birthday bash!

StudioLine Photography

Just a quick note - after much pestering(!) from me and Ckn (but I don't think it was just us...), our wedding photog, Zainul Firdaus and wife, Ema, finally 'opened shop' on the Internet.. woohoo!

He did a good job for our wedding, and as a gift for my sis Farah, I also commissioned him to cover her wedding last year.

(no, Zainul didn't take this pic - I did!)

Erica is 10!

...10 months old that is! It's fitting that she has learned how to stand up and wiggle her booty to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Lil' Star, but still can't walk. So far we have 2 tiny teeth peeking out of her lower jaw, and she can kick... I know coz she takes turns every night climbing over me or her mama. On several occasions she even managed to crawl away from us! Her fingers are strong as well; they like to dig into my lips and pull them hard till tears appear in my eyes. Don't even start on the scratching!

I can see that Erica is so much alike and at the same time, so much different than her brother. We love the fact that she can eat - and eat a lot! She doesn't complain - but we expect that to change once she understands what Ehsan has been trying to teach her all this while! Thank God for Erica - I'm really looking forward to celebrate her birthday in March, insyaAllah. Hopefully it'll be the first birthday that we celebrate together in a long time (I've missed Ehsan's birthday these past 2 years...)

Blood Sucking Technician

We have had quite a few experiences with the medical facilities here in Sudan; it's been a year since Ehsan was admitted to hospital (...in an unblogged part of our story!), and we've paid a few visits to Dr Amanda Tadross, our paed, who has a clinic next door to the US Embassy in Khartoum.

What everyone experiences (most, if not, all the time) is that if you are sick and walk into a medical establishment in the city, the very first thing they will subject you to is a blood test. They love to look for 'parasites'; namely for Malaria and other mosquito borne diseases, in addition to the regular bacterial and viral infections. A Tip : I do not like me or members of my family to be pricked, so we do our best _not_ to get tested!

Well, the technician at Dr Amanda's clinic still uses his tried and tested (!) method of blood extraction. He uses a special glass and plastic tool (straw?) to _suck_ the blood. No disposable syringes here, friends - just a prick on a finger, a squeeze and controlled sucking (child crying optional). You can see the tech-dude with the apparatus in his mouth, in the pic above.

You can simulate this at home; use a straw to suck some juice then place your tongue over the straw opening (the juice will be suspended in the straw by the vacuum), then move the straw into another glass, move your tongue away, and let gravity take its course. Finally, celebrate how cool that would have been with OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOOD...

But don't fret as the hospitals I have been to uses disposable syringes - but then there's the problem of finding a vein - I'll leave that story for another day!

Erica Crawling

Yay, lil Erica can crawl...a bit. She just turned 7 months, and we've noticed that she's been really working on her leg squatting prowess. She can self propel forward well now! She really makes an effort in reaching objects beyond her reach (mama and baba's phones are her favourites!). She has been practicing on her hand-eye coordination for some time now, so when she reaches the foreign objects, the only natural thing to do is to put them in her mouth... yes, it is possible to spoil your handphone by 'water damage'!

4Es Cup Cake Ventures (un)Ltd.

Cup cakes to die for!

There have been several things that I have aways longed to do with my life; for example, I wanted to go to outer space, but the Malaysian Astronaut program came 25 years too late... and I don't think Malaysians would have approved of an overweight, short sighted paper pusher representing them as the first Malaysian in space! So that dream of mine was confined to watching Star Wars and Battlefield : Earth (ask my brother - it's the worst movie we've seen!)

I also had dreams to become a cook - I don't know why, perhaps it was a cool way to be creative and it sounded more alluring then being an accountant! Well, I recently managed to realise that dream and another grown-up longing of becoming an entrepenuer! Don't get me wrong, I've been cooking for a long time now. I made a killer masak asam pedas when I was at Kent, and my tiramisu was legendary (i.e. its no longer being made, hence it becoming 'legend'). But I've never (knowingly) sold anything before!


The Tiny Cup Cakes being set by Ckn (not pictured - me working the hand mixer before!)

So the story goes; Last Thursday, I promised Ckn that I would help her bake some tiny cup cakes for iftar. We started with gusto after I got back from work at 4pm. Using a recipe our neighbour in Sg Buloh gave Ckn, we managed to produce a batch of the lil' scrumptious tidbits. It wasn't too difficult; but I was made to understand that cake making was not to be taken lightly, that it was a delicate process and that the wrong timing of ingredients going in or doing something too much will spoil the batter.


...now open wide for some uncooked batter!

We were fasting and someone had to be the batter tester! So Ehsan and Erica helped out; Ehsan with the cleaning (i.e. licking the mixer attachments clean! Hey that was supposed to be my job!) and Erica with the 'batter quality Assurance' test.

Erica's not into food yet, but she liked what we were putting in her mouth, I guess. She was squirming, asking for more, but we stopped at just giving her a taste as the batter had raw eggs in it. Don't want lil Erica to fall sick now do we!

We had our first taste at iftar...and we loved it! I just looked at Ckn and she did the same - we both had the same thought, that we had to share this with the world (you can say it was a Eureka! moment...)

After much soul searching (30mins or less only!) we both decided to go into business to 'bring the goods to the market'. The timing couldn't have been better as there was a Petronita ramadan bazaar the next day, on Friday. We agreed that the costs of producing a batch of 16 packs was minimal (each pack had 5 cup cakes), while the proceeds from the endeavour would be substantial! Ckn would be in charge of the coupon selling for the whole bazaar, so the cup cake marketing would be my responsibilities! yipee... Finally, an opportunity to become a businessman presents itself!


My 'muka welfare marketing gimmick' and I at the bazaar ramadan

As this was as much a business as it was a learning experience, I told Ckn that we should have a little fun; so I decided to take pictures of all the people who bought our cup cakes. I got some odd looks from the others selling their wares at the bazaar, but I was on a roll (of course I wouldn't have considered this if I had a few hundred customers la).


The lucky few who went to bed satisfied (hmmm!)

The bazaar started at 4.30pm and I had my tupperware opened and ready by 4.40pm. Nobody gave the goods a second look for the first few minutes (maybe because we didn't put signages..DUH!) so I resorted to telling (nay, shouting to!) the patrons about the cup cakes and how scrumptious and cheap they were. Once the crowd rushed in at 5.00pm, my cup cakes literally became... hot cakes!

Throughout the event, Ehsan was not really himself; we thought he would have fun running around making friends - but it was a hot evening, and he managed to have missed his afternoon nap earlier, so fatigue and grogginess was sinking in. He spent most of the time sitting beside me. Ckn bought some lin chee kang to cool him down, and when I left the bazaar later, he cried himself to sleep in the car! Such was his tiredness that he slept soundly till the morning (so it was a restful night for Ckn!). However, he did take a liking to one of the patron's cutey daughter; and Ehsan took a picture of her himself :


Cute little Nur Ain, thru the eyes of Ehsan

All in all, we made a profit of SDG 13 or about RM22; not bad huh? The only problem was that we spent more than SDG 70 (RM120) to buy food for ourselves...! (well it was for 2 days - and _it is_ Sudan!) I now know the feeling of making ones own money and can appreciate how tough it is for people to have to do this on a daily basis. We're still deciding whether we will continue selling the cakes at this week's bazaar... but I'd like to quote Mr Gooding Jr from Jerry Mcguire '...Show me the moneeey!'

A Poem for Erica

This is a lovely poem read by the head of the Marhaban group that presided over lil' Erica's majlis kekah last June 17th. Ckn was so touched by the kind words and advise contained in it. I was busy snapping photos to hear the full version, so it's great that she forwarded it to me.


Dengan Bismillah kami mulai
Alhamdulillahi wasalatu’alannabi
Dengan takdir ya Ilahi Rabbi
Sampailah maksud yang kami hajati

Seorang anak cinta yang lama
Sekarang sudah kami terima
Seorang puteri diberikan nama
Kami ayunkan bersama-sama

Kus semangat puterimu tuan
Jangan tergamam di dalam buaian
Dipanggil kami orang sekalian
Hajat ibu bapamu minta dibuaikan

Bismillah itu mula pertama
Zat dan sifat bersama-sama
Keadaan zat mengatakan istimewa
Qadm martabat sediakan lama-lama

Ayuhai anak muda bangsawan
Pengajaran ibumu jangan dilawan
Wahailah anak jangan dibantah
Ibumu memelihara terlalu susah
Dipeliharakan daripada ribut dan taufan
Takut terkena penyakit dan syaitan

Jikalau pandai engkau berkitab
Sertalah dengan jawi dan arab
Barulah ibumu hatinya tetap
Makan dan minum barulah sedap

Kitab al-Quran jikalau qari
Disuruh pula pergi ke Haji
Pergi menjejaki tanah yang suci
Supaya terbuang fi’il yang keji

Jikalau dapat ilmu yang setia
Sertalah engkau yakin percaya
Di dalam akhirat tanah yang mulia
Duduk di dalam Pangkuan auliya

Jikalau mendapat ilmu yang teguh
Engkau amalkan bersungguh-sungguh
Tertutuplah pintu neraka yang tujuh
Teranglah jalanmu seperti suluh

Jikalau terang jalan nanti
Ingatlah kamu bersuka hati
KepadaNya tuhan engkau terpuji
Mendapatlah engkau syurga tertinggi

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs : Messages for Pear

Just after Erica Reeda was born, I sent out about 20 text messages to friends and relatives both here in Sudan and back home in Malaysia. Some of them were kind enough to respond. While I didn't transcribe the congratulatory phone calls, I did keep the text messages. I've had these messages in my Palm for the past 4 months, with the intention of publishing them on ezalman_too. So here it goes, listed in order of them being received :


Sabri Azam (24/3 10:16 am): Congrat for the new entry in yor family. Hope ShIkeen recivering well n baby grow faster. Dah ada nama ke belum? My wife send regds to Syikeen.

• This is my ex-boss in Sudan. He has the honour of replying the fastest to my message
  

Hackean (24/3 10:58 am): Sykr & thniah 4 u & syikin 4 the birth ur baby girl. Frm us hackean & yana

• My cousin on my mom's side. He just got married a few months back, but I didn't manage to attend

Saiful Azli (24/3 12:05 pm): Congrats!smoga smua sihat.

• My friend and neighbour in Sudan. His indonesian helper helped iron my clothes (but she's gone home now and I do my own ironing - and it feels so rewarding and satisfying!)
  

Lanie (24/3 1:34 pm): Congrats! You've got a pair.

• My friend and ex-colleague from KL. The one person I always make time to have lunch with when I'm back in KL.
  

Razman (24/3 2:47 pm): Salam,alhamdulillah,congrats from both of us 2 u & syikeen.Moga erica mnjadi anak solehah.Our regards to your family&parents-razman&dila

• Nice couple, who care our close friends in Sudan
  

Paska Mia (24/3 3:07 pm): Congrats! Happy to hear the news.

• My current boss in Sudan

Nonnie (24/3 3:30 pm): Congratulations! Our warmest regards to Ckn. Luv, Nonie, Fino, Syaqil, Fariqe

• A good friend who I knew only through the phone and emails for a whole year before meeting her in Sudan!

Shanizam (25/3 12:50 am): Congrats. Selamat berpuasa

• Colleague and friend in Sudan. I wonder what he meant with the 'puasa'?? haha, of course I do! But he's getting his Karma; his wife Ira is now back in Malaysia expecting their fourth child in September. Who's doing the 'fasting' now?
  

Aman Pfordten (26/3 12:36 pm): ASW, ckin&rizal, i tried to call both ur hp but it goes straight to ur mail box. anyway, congratulation on the new born baby. tq

• My brother in law, currently residing in Jakarta. One of 2 people that Ehsan always confuses with me; guess we all look alike!

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I always know that a simple sms with a simple message are the best ones to be appreciated and cherished..

Growing Young

It's been a long day, so I thought I'd take a breather and post something on the blogg. I just love the recent photo of the kids taken at my sis' engagement do last week, so it got me wondering how well they've grown up. For example, Ehsan has a nice mop of hair now - we always thought that he won't be blessed with much of it! But, his tembam pipi is shrinking... luckily we can still torment our Pear, Erica!

Kids really do grow up fast. I'm getting daily snippets about how the kids are interacting with their environment and how everyday something new and wonderful happens. Thank God the 7 month wait is ending next month (well I cheated of course, since I've had opportunities to be with the family on several occasions since January!)

Erica Reeda

Alhamdullillah, 2 weeks ago on Saturday 24th March 2007 at 8.38am, we welcomed the arrival of our second baby - Ms Erica Reeda Ezalman Reezal. She was delivered by Caesarian section by Dr Ummul Wahiy at Apollo TTDI Hospital (haha not a lot of people know of this small establishment...).

Of course we planned to have a normal delivery. but it wasn't meant to be (again). At least it made it easier for me to plan my travel plan to go home. We walked into the hospital at 7.30am and had Erica just over an hour later! I think it was better this time around as we knew what to expect. I was allowed back in the Operating theater; alas, without my handycam - I guess I'll just show the kids Ehsan's 'introduction' video when they're big enough and explain that the process was the same (down to the 'popping' sound when their heads, well, popped out!)



Here's mama with the little princess. She had slight jaundice, but nothing to worry about according to Dr Sharifah, her Paed.



Now it's Baba's turn! In some ways Erica has benefited from her being the 2nd child; we're more comfortable handling her, changing and bathing her. But there are some minus points too; we're always comparing her with Ehsan...but I think things will improve when she gets older - we have a pair now and I'm really looking forward to seeing them interacting with each other, and the fun of raising both a boy and girl, InsyaAllah...



Here we have Dr Ummul doing a checkup on Ckn's stitches. Dr Ummul asked for our permission to have her niece (Aisya) and her friend (Max, English guy), both pre-med students, to attend the C-Section. We consented since they'll just be observing the procedure. The funny thing is that towards the end, Max fainted - right there and then in the OT! He'd already witnessed a vaginal birth (euww - that is the technical term!) but I think the sight of Ckn being cut open and a head popping out from the wound was just too much. Guess all doctors have to go thru this 'rite of passage'! We met Max a few days ago during the checkup - I'm happy to report _he_ is doing OK - I don't think you can faint from manning the patient registrations at Dr Ummul's clinic! haha

So far Ckn's healing quite well, and we even imported a tukang urut from Kelantan specially to urut and tunku and take care of Erica. I got all my family members (and mummy) helping out to take care of all three of them; thankfully, since as I'm writing this I'm on transit in Dubai back to Sudan. I don't think I can ever repay my baba, mama, fyan and karee...



...now we come to one my favourite pictures - Ehsan and Erica together. I feel so proud coz ever since Ehsan first laid his eyes on his sister, he's always wanted to kiss her, encourage her, touch her hands, and cuddle her (supervised of course!). I think that's a good sign, don't you? I pray that they will grow up loving each other. He's the Abalone now (just like me!) and one day he'll do all the Abalone stuff; and I hope I'll be there to give him advise.



p/s Erica looks like Ehsan when he was first born, with 2 differences; she has a more 'sepet' eyes, and a wider/bigger nose...but look at the pic above; they have the same hairstyles!