Living In The World Today

Have you ever just woken up one day and felt really worried about your future? I do, most of the time these days. Just watch the news and read the papers. The increasing rate of inflation with prices going up, up, UP! The declining state of our society with the escalating crime rate. Rapes, murders, muggings, robberies, kidnappings, tainted food, pollution, crooked politicians.. What kind of world are we creating for our kids? I wonder.

Once in a while I do tend to get morbid and a tad depressed, so bear with me, please.

Do you live in KL? Do you have kids? Do you own your house? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you'd understand how hard it is to actually survive in KL nowadays. Even with both my husband and I working full-time, we're barely managing to stay afloat. That's the sad sad truth. I read somewhere that even if you earn RM3k in KL, you're considered poor. Seriously? It definitely feels like it. Honestly, I don't know where it all goes sometimes. House payment - RM1,xxx. Car payments - RM1,xxx. Broadband. Phone bills. Utility bills. Growing up formula. Diapers. Clothes. Credit cards (gakkkkk!). I don't know how my parents managed to raise 5 kids on their civil servant's salaries. But then again, things didn't cost as much as they did today.

I always dreamed that once I had kids, I'd stop working and look after them full-time. You know, be a housewife. Or a SAHM, as it's trendier to say now. The way things are going now, looks like I'll have to put that dream on hold for... a few years, if not forever. Sure, my husband does earn a decent sum, but it's clearly not enough to support our growing family in KL. We can't rely on our parents too much for help.. segan lah. I know some lucky lucky people who are fortunate enough to be SAHMs. I envy the hell outta them. They get to raise their kids themselves, be present at each stage of their development, go for school-runs and be totally involved in every aspect of their kid's lives. They have spare cash to shop, buy fabulous things, go on exotic holidays... Maybe their husbands are loaded, maybe their parents supplement their income, I don't know. It's still an unbelievable life to lead for someone the same age as me.

Sometimes I blog surf and read about some of these fortunate moms griping about their "imperfect" lives. One complains her husband spends too much time at work (gotta earn that cash for u to spend, baby). Another laments the fact that her children are taking over her life and she has no time for herself (err.. hello? SAHM?). Another mom hints that her husband will be buying her yet another high-end brand handbag but she wants a different brand (important for the school-runs and mommy brunches). The winner is definitely the super shopaholic mom whom we all love to hate. It's exactly like all those chick-lit books we love to read so much. Sometimes I have to refrain myself to tell them to stop whining, take a look at the real world and get a life. Or maybe I should just stop surfing the Internet altogether.

In the world of have and have nots, the grass is always greener on the other side.

** Please note that these are just my thoughts and I do not intend to offend anyone, SAHM or otherwise. It's probably my PMS talking. Some of my best friends are SAHMs and the most wonderful people on Earth. **

They're My Babies and I'll Spoil Them If I Want To

A friend of mine once asked me if I'm fair to my kids. Before I could get offended, she quickly explained. She has a beautiful baby whom she loves to bits. Her family simply dotes on this cutie as this baby was the long-awaited cucu due to a past personal family tragedy. She has all the pretty dresses a girl could want, toys galore and all the in and up-to-date baby paraphernalia. My friend does want more children, but at the moment she can't imagine dividing her love and lavishing it on another person, not even a second offspring.

"Are you going to have a big party for #2's first birthday like you did for #1?", she asked.

"No," I said. "Can't have a party 'cos his birthday falls during Ramadhan. We'll just cut a cake or something."

"Won't he feel offended?" she went on to ask. "Like when he's older?"

Hmmm. "I hope not, once we explain the situation to him." I replied. "He's still special. We'll have parties for other birthdays. It's not like his birthday will fall in Ramadhan forever."

My friend presses on. She asks if #2 gets the same toys and clothes as #1 did. It would be uneconomical to buy everything new for #2 since #1's stuff are perfectly fine and usable, I tell her. They only have 2 years between them and they're both boys, after all. I do buy #2 his own toys, though. It's just that I try not to be wasteful. I grew up wearing hand me downs and I turned out alright. In my family of four girls and one boy, my parents had to be prudent and economical on their civil servant's salaries. So we used each garment to the fullest and shared whatever we could. My dad did get us our own teddies and B*rbies, though.

It doesn't mean that once you have your second child, you love the first one any less. Or you love the first child more than the second child just because he was there first. To me, a mother's love is boundless like the ocean. There's plenty to go around and it's automatic. Once the doctor places that warm bundle in your arms, automatically the love just blossoms. The toys, clothes and accessories are just material possessions. Your kid could be decked out like Little Lord Fauntleroy but it wouldn't mean a thing if you didn't spend time with them.

For #2's birthday tomorrow I'll be baking a cake. After iftar, we'll sing him the birthday song, hug and kiss him and take lots of pictures. So that when he's older, he'll see that he did have fun on his birthday.

Apa Nak Jadi?

The state of our nation's politics are a big joke. I can hardly bear to read the newspapers or watch the news anymore without laughing. Or gagging. When is it all going to end? Next week? In 2 years? We've got enough things to worry about and now this is happening right on our door-steps.

.

.

At the risk of being blocked, or worse, that's all I'm going to say.

Stuff = Junk?

It's amazing the amount of junk one can accumulate in the space of 3 years. In this case, the first three years of my marriage, that is. After we moved out of our rented apartment last year and back to KJ when hubs had to work in Singapore, our mounds of stuff prompted my mom to build a whole new store room for us. Even then, some of belongings spilled over into the dining room, discreetly packed in boxes and shoved up against the wall. And this was after we actually sedekah most of our big stuff (e.g. fridge, sofa set, book case, vacuum cleaner, gas tank) to various people.

So we called in some movers, cleared out the store room and dining room and sent it all to our new house. My mom was so happy to finally get her dining room back that she immediately asked some friends over for lunch. Twice. And we just moved our stuff this past weekend.

I'm taking leave for 3 days this week. Earlier today I went round to the house with my mom, her maid and my two kids to unpack some of the stuff. Eez promptly discovered a box of some of his toys (how does he do that?) and set about cluttering up the living room floor. We unpacked the kitchen stuff and stowed away the rest like books and such to unpack later once we get the storage sorted out. At the end of our unpacking session we ended up with a mini-mountain of used packing paraphernalia whose sheer size amazed us. Now I've got a thing for boxes and have a small collection of them in various sizes which I really sayang to throw away (with the excuse they might come in handy next time), but even I couldn't see any reason to keep old crockery and C*rningware boxes so we tore them up and stuffed them into the garbage compartment to be picked up by the local garbage men. I did feel a twinge of guilt and realised that I should have recycled but by then the kids were tired and cranky and my mom wanted to go grocery shopping, so I made a mental promise to do better next tome.

Tomorrow I've got to make the trek to MPSJ to change the ownership of our house for cukai pintu purposes. Also, I've got painters coming in to paint the downstairs area and front gate. I'm ignoring my mother's suggestion to paint everything white (sorry, Mak) and instead I've picked out colours that I like from the catalogs. I hope that they turn out okay... after all I might end up with migraine-inducing walls which I detest and make everyone hate me and wont match with anything, right? We're doing the lower floor first. Later, when cash-flow permits, we'll do the upstairs.

I'll let you know how it goes.