Friendly reminder from The Creator
Chapter on Aala Imran, part of verse 185:
"Kullu nafsin dhaa-e-kathul mawt..."
"Every soul will taste death..."
A simple yet hard-hitting reminder to get our act right and not mess it up in this world.
Work Out
It's been about 3 months since I started going to the gym regularly. It all began during a
staycation some weeks back, the realisation that I was putting on weight. Then came the gym membership and the fitness instructor. Then a lot of things changed...
I lost some weight. I got (some) muscle. But best of all, I feel good more often... the endorphins are doing good things to me.
More gym sessions...
Scare
Yesterday was a scary moment for the whole family. It just takes one second for something really, really bad to happen.
But everything was okay in the end, alhamdulillah. Allah's mercy, quick thinking and quick action saved the day and saved us from a terrible, terrible ending.
Energised
We were able to kick off one event and one idea recently, both that were in our minds for a few months. now.
One was to organise a talk describing the doa's and practices a Muslim usually undertakes during pregnancy and after birth of a newborn. When Zayed was born, we were quite blur on the necessary prayers to recite for a smooth delivery and for good children, amongst many other things. We invited our Al-Qur'an Ustaz, Zulkiflee Bachik, to do the talk as he was very knowledgeable of the Qur'an. It's happening on 30 June, so if you're interested, come to www.shajr.sg and register.
The other idea stemmed from my interest in teaching Zayed (and eventually Talha) Arabic and some basic knowledge of the tenets of Islam. I asked Yasmin if she could draw up a nice curriculum for him, using her pre-school/child development skills and expertise. We thought about it some more as asked ourselves why not we make it a bigger class of about 8 kids and have a small Muslim playgroup? Seemed like a fine idea and initial checks revealed a lot of interest in such a group. Looking forward to making the idea a reality...
rethink
We recently took a 3-day trip to Batam to unwind. There was no agenda - well, the agenda was to have no agenda. We got ourselves a nice 2-bedroom suite at the Holiday Inn. I had some learning points:
1. I really need to relax. Like chill. Less uptight, less quick to blow my top and whack the kids or scold someone. This uptight thing has been going on for at least 2 decades, I'm sure, but I've been feeling it's consequences on my life more than ever.
2. I need to convert a lot more local currency when I leave Singapore. This time at Batam, we were all blindsided with the amount we needed to pay for a fuss-free holiday. For example: The hotel's cab contact was safer, but a major rip-off, and we almost didn't have cash to pay for that.
3. Prayer timings. Research prayer timings in a foreign place well in advance instead of scrambling and worrying about it the whole day (see 1).
The Little Man
Muhammed Talha is the name of my second son. With a crewcut that has patches of hairlessness, and six fully-formed milk teeth (4 on top, 2 below), and no more than 1.4 metres tall, he's an adorable fellow. With his newly-found walking ability, he steadily walks, or now runs, to us in moments of extreme emotion ("I'm happy", or "I just shat"). He just hugs and kisses us with his adult-like twinkle in the eye.
He laughs at my funny faces, and at the delivery of my stupid jokes. He always wants me to carry him when I come home from work, even if for just for a few seconds. My little man.
I put him to sleep every night. I tap his back gently, as he grasps my neck and rests his chin on my left shoulder. At the point of floating off into la-la land, he will start blabbering in his low-pitched voice. It is supremely adorable.
Goodnight Talhababy, I love you.
Weekend
Therapy today - cleaned up the kitchen and much neater now, especially that the toaster oven is back in its original place at the cubicle-like cupboard.
Had a so-so day with the kids and wife at the baking session earlier. I think those who did the shaping of the dough and baking must have enjoyed it. I was hanging with Talha who was sleepinh half the time, so not much work for me.
Wanted to do some work tonite - finish some slides, but decided to sit back and enjoy some Clint Eastwood fare with he wifey. Hereafter was an awesome show. Spoke very eloquently and poetically about death and the hereafter. Fascinating if you are into life-after-death issues.
Realisation on multiple levels
Lost another one today, I think. Not sure why, but it's a loss. I feel it. Hopefully things will be okay. But I doubt it. These things are remarkably fragile.
Third consecutive day without my work laptop at home. Amazing feeling. I need to do this to pace myself, if not it's going to be a total burnout.
A shocking realisation during the staycation last weekend - I had put on weight. Lots of it. A sinking feeling came upon me, that the fabled "by about age 30 your metabolic rate will slow down and you'll put on weight" prophecy had come true. This is indeed my "sputnik" moment - I have to do something about my weight gain...
A Monday
It's the end of Monday again. Another hectic but pleasurable start to the week, especially after a very relaxing weekend. But I don't know - sometimes I feel that I'm never really fully relaxed. Maybe I'm one of those forever 'kanchiong' types.
But I need to relax more. Sometimes I skip my breakfast entirely because I just get so totally caught up with what I'm doing.
I left my work laptop at work today, in the hope of relaxing this evening and sleeping early.
Tomorrow...
Staycation
I've been quite busy at work lately. A really meaty project is keeping me up a lot these days, and every day has been an exciting, thrilling and tiring. Cooling and Polling days were also pretty bad for us - Zayed was hospitalised for gastric flu, and it was not fun at all.
So when Yasmin suggested a staycation at the Royal Plaza on the Scotts, it sounded fantastic. I plan to just eat, pray and love the next day or so.
Am just lazing around with the boys while waiting for Yasmin to come back from her teaching class. Cute fellows, truly blessed to have these boys in my life. Except when they wail for no reason...
