The day my heart stopped

2 weeks ago, at about 1.20pm, I had the worst experience of my life. In fact, I almost died.

It all started with a phonecall from my Dad, asking if anyone’s at home. They were outside the gate, to send Imran home from school. No one answered the doorbell, they rang and call a hundred times. Something wasn’t right so I called Iskandar. He confirmed that MIL didn’t take my daughter and the maid out, they should be at home. My mum called after that, saying that my Dad spotted a bunch of keys near the plants and suspected something wrong so he climbed over. Tried to open the door with the keys but couldn’t. Our house was dead quiet.

I tried to keep calm but inside, my heart just stopped. My daughter was left with the maid at home that morning and usually she will come running to the door to welcome her brother home. Something was terribly wrong here. I quickly jumped on the train and headed home. That’s when Iskandar called to tell me that my Dad had managed to open the grill and found the maid gone. Mia was apparently still sleeping in her room, safe and sound. When I heard my phone ring and it was Iskandar I almost didn’t want to pick up coz I was expecting the worse, i.e. the maid took my daughter with her and that I would never see her again but thankfully I found the courage to answer the phone and with such relief, knowing my baby girl is safe and oblivious to what was going on.

For some reason, Iskandar and I both found ourselves not discussing as much on this sudden escape of the maid. In fact, we moved on almost immediately. Got ourselves together, cleared up her room, threw away all her stuff and went about doing the household cleaning as usual. We did not bring the topic up at all, except when family members called upon finding out. That too, we only gave out straight answers, non-speculative. No what-ifs, whys.

On my part, the reason why I chose not to talk about this was because of the feeling of HUGE, ENORMOUS fear that I could have lost my child forever that day. I do not want to recall that day as it would bring back how horrible the feeling was and especially how terrible I felt for failing as a mother to protect my child. It was the most stupid mistake anyone can make, leaving her child with a non-family member, a stranger. No doubt the maid’s been with us for almost 2 yrs and had told us that she intended to stay and work with us for another year. She was, almost family to us. ALMOST. STILL A STRANGER.

Another reason was that I was so shocked at her betrayal of trust. It brought out this deep hatred, and raging anger I’ve never felt against a person, in my lifetime. And I know that talking about it will make the rage and bitterness surface again, and I do not want to waste a single second of my life with such negative emotions. What more on someone as worthless as a maid.

I swear I will never let such things happen again. Never again.

Another milestone for Imran!

One of the reasons I dread coming home from work lately is doing the piles of homework with Imran. I know, it’s for his own good bla, bla, to practice his reading, writing, mathematics skills but sometimes after a long day at work, the last thing I need is the added stress in guiding Imran to write properly, count correctly and color within the lines (biggest challenge!).

I expected the teachers to be understanding to us working parents and leave homework for weekends only, but NOO... So every night, I sit patiently with him, helping him through his homework, which usually turns into shouting screaming sessions when Imran gets frustrated for having to re-do it over and over again, not getting it right, or there’s just simply too much to do, too close to his bedtime. My poor son.

And then last night, I checked his homework to find three pages of reading and writing homework to do..ugh :P..so I set up the table and Imran took out his color pencils and pencils and started right away. And to my surprise, he was doing it on his own!!! My baby boy is READING on his own!! I was so so thrilled but tried to suppress it so as not to distract him with my tears of joy :P but inside, I am bursting with pride. He easily finished the reading assignment and matched the words to the correct pictures within seconds, like a pro. And thanks to that, we finished homework within less than 5 minutes, record time! But most importantly, scream/shout/tear-free :D So clever, my Imran!

So I guess all that stressful hard work did pay off finally. I’m gonna start buying more simple storybooks for him to practice. Thanks to Aunty Dorrine for making us do all that homework :D

Lat

Last Thursday I took my parents out to watch Lat – Kampung Boy the Musical at Istana Budaya. It was my mum’s birthday the day before so I thought of doing something different with her other than the standard birthday card and cake (which I still gave her anyway! From Bisou, no less). Iskandar also took Papa out to watch it coz we both feel that he needs some time out from the chaos of the house renovation and erm..Mummy hehe.

Anyway, it was such an awesome show!!! I was so so impressed, especially with the boy who played the young Lat. What a talented bunch of actors and good singers the cast were. And not forgetting Douglas Lim, whose dancing got me laughing till my sides hurt. And I must say, this is the first time in my life that I’d say this, but that Awie sure is funny, and is such the perfect person to play the adult Lat. My only complain, which is nothing really, is that I wish the show was shorter coz I had a bit of a struggle to keep my eyes open – it had been a long day at work for me and I was exhausted by the time I reached IB, no thanks to the traffic jam. And I wished they elaborated a bit on how Lat “lured” Pa’e to return to his kampong with the kids, after the huge fight with Pa’e at the hospital when Lat missed the birth of his 4th child. She just turned up at the kampong with all the kids, which is totally strange given how angry she was with Lat.

Most of all, I’m glad that my parents and Papa all enjoyed the show, it was so hard to get the tickets as they were sold out to the last show next week!