Tuesday, April 24, 2007
I had good weekend. On Saturday, it was with new friends I made over the 'virtual' world. I always read about this everywhere, about how people would meet up, make friends and some even ended up being life partners together. I can't deny initially I was a wee bit apprehensive about being too personal and 'opening-up' too much of our private life online and of course putting a reality yardstick by meeting up with the virtual contacts. Also its been quite sometime since I made new friends and go through the whole motion of introducing yourself and taking time to get to know another person - its like going back to school, or starting work at a new place. But I was pleasantly surprise that it was so easy & natural when we met up that there was no awkwardness, and we talked & laughed like we've known each other for ages. It was strange in a nice sense. It's certainly great that we also shared the same interests & are passionate about things that are close & dear to our hearts like family & kids. I feel that this could be a start of something good, I hope...
Last week I got an email from a stranger. I was not really surprised as I said earlier, when u put yourself 'out-there' in the virtual world, you would get responses from strangers.(some good & some bad, I heard & learned)So I replied simply and didn't expect to get any kind of response and reaction. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the person behind that email is actually another nice working mother who has a 5yr old boy and we started to chat. Coincidentally, I was surprised to learn that we shared the same NAME! not my short name but my FULL NAME - how weird is that? So while I am not gunning in a hurry, I'm certainly looking forward to making more new friends, those that are simple, those that are more mature & enduring and those that just want to share their anecdotes and accept me for all my quirkiness...
Sunday, April 22, 2007
It was almost 6 months ago when Amirul came home with a letter from school referring him to an eye-specialist for further observation. So this 'kancheong-spider' parents thought it was very serious problem. We first brought him to an eye-dr at the polyclinic before being referred to a specialist at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. My son was diagnosed as having Amblyopia. The first thought that came to my mind was, "Alamak, my son cannot jadi pilot!"So this mummy did some research so that we will be more informed and aware about what the problem is & if it is treatable.
What is Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)?
Amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye, is the eye condition noted by reduced vision and is not due to any eye disease. The brain, for some reason, does not fully acknowledge the images seen by the amblyopic eye. This almost always affects only one eye but may manifest with reduction of vision in both eyes. It is estimated that three percent of children under six have some form of amblyopia.
Causes of Lazy Eye
Anything that interferes with clear vision in either eye during the critical period (birth to 6 years of age) can cause amblyopia. The most common causes of amblyopia are constant strabismus (constant turn of one eye), anisometropia (different vision/prescriptions in each eye), and/or blockage of an eye due to cataract, trauma, lid droop, etc.
Amblyopia is a neurologically active process. In other words, the loss of vision takes place in the brain. If one eye sees clearly and the other sees a blur, the brain can inhibit (block, ignore, suppress) the eye with the blur. The brain can also suppress one eye to avoid double vision. The inhibition process (suppression) can result in a permanent decrease in the vision in the blurry eye.
Treatment of Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
Treatment involves glasses, drops, vision therapy and/or patching. Recent medical research has proven that amblyopia is successfully treated up to the age of 17.
We also deduced that the biggest cause for Amirul would be his almost-addicted hobby of sitting in front of the computer, either playing games or trying out the softwares that I was trying to teach him. So yes, we were partly to blame, given the nature of our jobs, its only natural, I guess, for Amirul to be drawn to the computer.
But the good news is since detected at a young age, it is almost treatable. But alas he inherited his abah's trait of specs-wearing (hai, rabun anak !..) funnily enough he was happy about the whole idea- "macam ShahRukh Khan dlm cerita Mohabatein" he said - a-ah, iyalah tu...
After 6 mths, the dr said that his condition has improved considerably, the 'lazy eye' is working slowly, but surely. His initial degree of 400 has dropped down to 300 and hopefully in another 6 mths, it would improve further. Of course the father is so eager that he immediately thought of Lasik surgey - jump the gun gitu. Luckily the dr said that its out of the question as Amirul is way too young for such a procedure.
Monday, April 16, 2007
I rarely blog about my work as most of the time I really do not have any complaints whatsoever - hey, I can't complain with the working hours or the nature of the job that I love so isn't it? But today was extraordinarily weird & really 'sian'. I've completed a series of restaurant menus for a 5-star hotel in Malaysia and all that was left is for me to print & mount it for presentation. But lo & behold as it was a chinese restaurant, chinese characters are something that I have to live with although I loathe dealing with them (design-wise). After printing all 17 A3 pages, I realised that all the chinese text were dutifully replaced by garbage text! how can? all my hard work since last week..:( so I meddle with fonts & printers & pathworks but still no good came out of it. I literally have to convert all 100 over characters into graphic and place & align them back all again in the layout. Its ok if you do not understand what I'm talking about, just know that its a work no designer would want to end up doing- especially not after devoting over 5-days working on perfecting the Chinese characters on the layout...*sigh* But hey, tomorrow's a new day...I believe in all my might that today is just ONE OF THOSE RARE DAYS for me...
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
"Abah, Ummi, who will be my wife?""Huh??"
"Who is my wife?"
"Why do you need a wife now?"
"I don't need one now, I just need to know who..."
This conversation came about simply because the daddy had a conversation with Amirul about how he should be taking responsibility of taking care of his siblings & family should anything happen to us. So he got worried. He got worried if his abah were to grow old, who would drive him to school. The next day he asked when he can start driving.He is actually trying to plan ahead about who will be taking care of his sister should anything happen to us. His future, as according to him, is not to far away. The routine for him is that as of now, he got his abah & ummi to take care of things. Should anything happen to either of us, someone has to take care of things & them at home.SO he is thinking in 3 yrs time, should Amira be in school who should be taking care of her while he is still in school.Yes...he thinks THAT far in the future....so he decides to plan ahead and get a wife so SHE can take care of things & them at home like ummi does.How could you not shed a tear when you hear that? His teachers told us that Amirul is mature beyond his years. Its quite worrying how he starts to to think of solutions for the 'adult' problems that we face. But at the same time, we are very proud of him.
His exams are mere weeks away. While the dad has 'upped' his stress levels, I have to play the duty of the calm & relaxing mum.The one he looks to for a reassuring smile to tell him that everything will be okay...
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
I am one of those who go berserk to find cheap & useful bargains anywhere. so once a week we try to pay a visit to the 2 2nd Hand Thrift Stores which is conveniently situated near our house. It has become a weekly ritual as it is always very exciting to see what new different items we can find there. It works both ways as we now also have another place to donate all our non-usable stuff like toys & clothes. The kids would happily rummage through the many toy box to get a few of those 2 for 50c little toys to keep them happy and at the same time, keep our wallets warm & intact.:) Last week I got myself VHS tapes of 'Friends' series for 50c. Ancient I know, but it is such a classic, I could not NOT buy it.I also love to look out for cheap books like past issues of Reader's Digest to stash in one-of-those-days-where-I-carry-a-small-tote day. I hope the stores are here to stay as you never know what new treasure we could uncover every week...always very exciting as it could 'quench' the shopoholic in me without burning a hole in the pocket.what more could you ask for...
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Barely 2 weeks after our last game and with me still nursing a slightly swollen fingers, we participated in yet another netball tournament. This time the Captain's Ball was organised by the Mosque West Cluster down at Woodlands Stadium in conjunction with the 'Maulidur Rasul 1428' We went with an open heart not expecting anything more than having fun (more so when we heard that the previous champion is also participating). So it was a sweet surprising feeling when we made it through the first round, then second and final emerged Champions beating 8 other more younger, vibrant teams. After 8 hours & 6 matches, a good cloudy weather on our side, all the toils and sweat we felt was all good & worth every minute.
On Saturday night, the whole family trooped down Hilton hotel in all our fineries to celebrate the wedding of a cousin. I hope she will finally achieve her eternal bliss of happiness this time round.