A Belated Birthday Entry

It has to be one of the quietest birthdays that I have ever celebrated. All the kids came back home. My eldest and Number 2 who are both in University, my Number 3 (only daughter) and Number 4 who are both in boarding school also happened to have their 'monthly holiday allowance', and of course my youngest; the only one left at home.

Everyone was very cooperative yesterday - waking up early and taking their shower. And instead of the usual arguments trying to decide where to go, everybody just said "Why don't you decide where we should go today, Birthday Boy?"

I've been to The Curve a couple of times before, but because of the distance (and traffic, possibly too), none of my children have had the chance to go there along with me. Therefore, I decided to take them yesterday. Thankfully, traffic wasn't as bad as I had expected. I parked the family vehicle at Cineleisure, which was a block away from The Curve. But it didn't matter much.

My youngest was tugging me, insisting that we should all go watch the new Harry Potter movie (by the way, I must tell you that I happened to be #61 in the queue of people at Carrefour Wangsa Maju yesterday, lining up to buy the final installment of The Boy Who Lived. I was there at 6.45 am, together with Bea and Number 2, who is simply potty over Potter. Since we were one of the earlier ones to arrive, we were served with breakfast. Also, I got to buy the bookS - note the 'S' - at RM 69.90 each. Potty Number 2 insisted we buy both editions for 'collectible reasons'. I decided to comply with his wishes as I am still beaming with pride over his exceptional MUET results - he was one of the hundred plus in the country who obtained Band 6)

Anyway, back to the movie. Since there was already quite a sizeable amount of people waiting to buy tickets to the movie, we decided to go watch it another time. Afterall, Number 1 was inquiring (in his usual tiresome manner) why should we waste two hours and a half to sit in a darkened room when we could stroll around and buy things. And stroll we did around The Curve.

Eventually, we ended up at Ikea (situated across the road from The Curve). My eldest has always expressed his desire to throw out all pieces of furniture in the house and replace them with new ones bought from Ikea. Naturally, he was admiring the simple and elegant designs of chairs and tables and wardrobes and pointed at how they'd all fit in nicely in our home. However, you know me to be an old faithful and I just can't bring myself to throw out (or even give to others) those dog-eared books, limping long serving tables or even those cracked cutlery - which I think looks like patterns, what with the 'retak seribu' design. However, the youngest child didn't find the activity fun at all and began to pull a long face. In fact, after a few metres, he just sat down and would not budge at all. Never mind that people were staring and Bea was scolding him. I took that as a sign to go for lunch.

I wanted to bring them to Ikea's own dine-in spot as I've heard so much about their famous Swedish meatballs. However to my dismay, there were too many people queuing. And to find joined tables which could sit all seven of us was practically impossible. But thank goodness for the existence of small eateries scattered at the ground floor of Ikea. So to please everybody, I announced that it was a 'free-for-all' affair. That ended up with Bea, my eldest and Number 3 having mee rojak, Number 4 having a sandwich, my youngest tucking into white rice and chicken curry, and yours truly having a modest serving of kuih onde-onde and Nyonya Yam Cake. However, my will of steel soon waned, and I ended up buying 'Paus' (no, not that big mammal that lives in the sea) at Baoz.

After having refueled, we went back to the Curve via an underground tunnel joining the two buildings. Number 1 cunningly took the opportunity of buying himself a pair of non-pleated pants which in my opinion, makes him look similar to a walking ironing board due to his tall and slender frame. There also happened to be an education fair, and Bea decided to buy some workbooks for attention-deficit Elvis.

Around three plus, we drove back and along the way it rained heavily. So you can imagine our dismay when we arrived home to the sight of soaking wet laundry that was, ironically enough, left out to dry earlier on in the morning. After having said our prayers, everyone settled down for a short afternoon nap.

Later on after Maghrib, I took the family out again for some makan-makan. Again, everyone was thoughtful enough to leave the decision making to me. How I wish they are as polite and obedient on other days, and not only on my birthday! But considerate Pycno, knowing fully well that his adoloscent children like snappy meals, took them for pizza. And what kind of birthday would it be without a birthday cake? Thus, the children took me to Secret Recipe so that I could choose my (rather late) birthday cake. Funnily enough, everybody was too full to eat anymore, and the cake went into the fridge and only came out again this morning for breakfast. There's still some left. Anybody?


And here are cards from Number 3 and Number 5 respectively. I was especially touched by little Elvis' card. He was tugging the mother at The Curve to buy the card and standing in a corner after that to personally write down his birthday message. Not only that, he was also very expressive - giving me bear hugs and saying how much he loved me. How thoughtful of him!

This came from Number 3 - she made it herself from some manila card and newspaper.

This is from Elvis. Can you read what it says?