Questions, questions, and more questions…

It all began during Mika’s PTM (Parent-Teacher Meet) sometime towards the end of last year. His teacher (from his nursery class) gave good, constructive feedback about how he had progressed in school - from the boy who likes to throw tantrums and screams when he doesn’t get his way, to one who now speaks in clear sentences and able to wait for his turn.

His teacher had highlighted his strengths that at 3+ years old he was able to identify alphabets independently, know his numbers from 1-30, recognize shapes and colors well, and conquered a good command of vocab for his age (he knows what an escalator is, uses the term elevator instead of lift, and can differentiate a pickle from cucumber from pictures).

She also highlighted the areas where she felt he had done much better compared to his peers. She described one particular day when his school had a special lady guest – she was blind – come over to speak to the children. During the outdoor session with the special guest, he had, at one time, offered his hand to help the blind lady walk. He even stayed behind to walk together when the rest of his class has dashed off to the nearby playground. His teacher was impressed with his emotional behavior and gave him a commendation. (Well done, Mika!)

Then, there were areas that can be improved.

1) Sentence construction – his speech consists of one-two word sentences (“I waaaant!”, “Noooooo”, “This cannotttttt!”, “Give meeeeee!”), but he has shown improvement since he turned 4 in October 2011 and now able to communicate in full sentences (at times even in British accent (hurhur!), thanks to Thomas the Train engine narrator :p).

2) Not able to hold a pencil in a proper manner, and still struggle to trace lines. His teacher mentioned of a particular occasion when the class was asked to trace some dotted lines (it was a loop-de-loop shape) on a piece of paper, and while others immediately start to trace, he stared at the paper for some time before asking his teacher “…from the left, or from the right?” His teacher was amazed at how he had actually gave much thought by asking such a question. Nevertheless, he still uses 5 fingers to hold the pencil, alternating the use of his left and right hand (I still haven’t fully figured out if he’s left or right-handed), and yet manage to draw nice little drawings….like this one:

3) Lack of social interaction and communication. This one is a key area of concern. His teacher (from his nursery class) had suggested that my husband and I should get him assessed by a professional to see he requires any kind of “special need/attention” in terms of pre-school education and character development. I was a bit hesitant because at home I feel that he is interacting just fine. He plays with his siblings and even with some of our friends’ children when we meet up. A couple of times I feel such assessment is unnecessary. Even his nyai (grandma) says “Alah, dia takde apa-apa lah. Budak kecik semua gitu, nanti dah besar dia okay. Tengok macam Musli (my younger brother) tu, kecik-kecik tak campur orang, dah besar dia okay pon” (translate: “There is nothing wrong with him. All children tend to be like that, and will outgrow it when they are older. Look at Musli (my younger brother), he used to always be on his own, yet now he is doing ok).

So each time when I visited his school, his teacher would asked me if I had arranged for the assessment. And my excuse each time was, “I have been busy” – which is true, ok! And then 2012 commences, and Mika has a new kindergarten teacher in charge. Even *she* has the same concern and feels the same way as what his nursery teacher felt. During this year’s PTM, the discussion with his teacher was such that this concern may have reached to a more serious level.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

So at the clinic in KK Hospital today, the doctor (Dr Swathi) did an initial assessment on him, and said that she SUSPECTS Mika may be having Autism (see also definition on HPB site: Autism Spectrum Disorder in pre-school children. This line, especially,caught my attention: “Social and motor skills are very poorly developed whilst general knowledge, reading or vocabulary skills are well above what is normal for his or her age”). The doctor cannot confirm it yet until he undergoes further assessment at the Autism Clinic, which is scheduled on 17th April. Let’s see how it goes then.

Back at home, I tried to recollect his early years and taken a look back at my blog entries from 3 years ago, when he started walking and began arranging objects in a straight line.

Then I look back at the time when it was his first day in playgroup, showing signs of wanting to be on his own and not getting involved in class activities.

Now I wonder…..”Am I too late?”, “Have I not seen all these signs earlier when they were right in front of my eyes?”, “Why had I been procrastinating to send him for assessment?”, “Am I in self-denial?”, “What if I *am* too late?”

Questions, questions, and more questions…and yet I do not have the answers.

edited to recommend a link (thanks Sumah!)

http://www.singaporeautism.com/2008/09/table-of-contents.html?m=1

Here in Singapore, when one celebrates, one eats!

When one eats, one eats in huge proportion! (Who needs birthday cakes?)

And what’s a family gathering without Grandma, Mom and Dad?

Peace, Abah!

And my curious kids (Eeeeeee, the crab is crawling!)

We have nice serving of cereal prawns. A MUST-HAVE!

Happy birthday Aqeil, Ana (Menot) and Musli (Maman)! Have a feb-ulous year ahead!!

2011 has been an amazing journey for us, filled with ups and downs. We’re so thankful the year ends on a happy note for us, alhamdulillah.

Here’s to summarize some awesome moments of 2011 during my blogging hiatus.

• November Babies birthday celebration. Hi-Tea, scones and great company! Thank you Liza, Farah & Syidah for making this day a memorable one!

• Cousin Ridhwan & Nadia weds. It was unfortunate we couldn’t be there with them on their joyous occasion, but we’re extremely happy for them!

• Cousin Lilin & Hafiz ties the knot. Congratulations to the newly-weds!

• Great short getaway to Krabi (Thailand) with family and close friends! We had a fabulous time there!

• Holes in heart no more. My thirdborn, Anaqi, has both holes in his heart closed, as we found out during his recent heart scan. All praises to Allah!

While we cherish these happy times, 2011 has also given us moments of grief. We lost a cousin very near and dear to us, due to pneumonia :’(. Her demise has truly shaken our families.

Raihaniah, may Allah bless your soul and place you among the believers.

Hopefully 2012 will bring us more joy, prosperity, wealth, great health, and Barakkah from the Almighty - insyallah. Looking forward to a wonderful 2012 ahead!

‘Action tai-tai’ two years ago when Anaqi was just a little baby.

So what happened during my absence from blogville?

Friends came to visit.

05th and 6th Mar 2011 – I was still putting up at my parents’ when a couple of my old friends and BFFs came to visit, and showered baby Aqeil with gifts. Thank you lovely aunties and uncles for your generosity.

(More photos are up on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprima/sets/72157626584375615/)

New ‘toys’ to play with.

10th Mar 2011 - It was the first day of IT Show 2011, P and I headed down to Suntec Convention Centre where we had plans to recce camera lenses, but were saddened when told that Canon lenses were not available for sale during the show. We then made a quick pitstop to Nubox to check on a few Apple products and in less than an hour, we were proud owners of this – an iMac! (Buh-bye Windows XP!). It comes with a 27″ LED-backlit display, 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB memory and 1TB of disk space! (yes, very tech stuff, I know)

Our purchase from the IT Show 2011.

12th Mar 2011 – After my disappointment of not getting the-badly-most-wanted-camera-lens at the IT Show, P and I decided to make a trip down to Cathay Photo at Peninsula Plaza to check out a few. I heard this place sells a huge range of camera lenses at reasonable prices and they’ve got excellent sales staff. Anyway, I tried out a couple of lenses on my own Canon EOS 40D and finally decided to get…

Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM

… and on top of that, I added an external flash to my checkout basket.

Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash

Guess what (or who) are the first subjects to model their first tryout?

Chak!

Such are the things that excite me! (Dresses, bags and shoes, you say? Not quite as much.)

Sister’s Engagement & Birthday!

26th Mar 2011 – Yes, my little sister Dhiah is all so grown up now. On this day, she turned 25 years of age and got engaged! (Hey, wasn’t it only yesterday she woke up for kindergarten?). Anyway, she’s engaged to a Mohd Sadiq, who seems like a nice guy. I’ve seen him twice or thrice, but I haven’t spoken to him before. But I’m so happy for them both. Insyallah, semoga pertunangan mereka kekal hingga ke jinjang pelamin. Amin.

More photos on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprima/sets/72157626585172549/

Stay tune for April happenings and Housewarming entries in my upcoming posts soon.

My bro, Musli, was one of the many who had waited anxiously for the ‘A’ level results to be out yesterday afternoon (04.03.2011). According to my mom, he had received a call from his school sometime around mid-day informing him that Radio Warna 94.2FM would like to conduct an interview with him at 3pm. Mom was super excited and badly wanted me to record his interview when it gets aired.

I wasn’t sure if they were going to air him live so I tuned in and waited from 3pm (having quickly fixed my laptop speakers) but NOTHING! So I sms’ed him asking what the interview was about, and he said to tune in much later that day to Berita (news) at 5pm and 7.30pm.

HAHA!!

To those who missed Berita on Radio Warna 94.2FM at 5pm and 7.30pm yesterday, here’s a recording I took at the latter time, thanks to a last-minute installation of FreeCorder4.

Click on Audio file link here: http://chirb.it/m4JsFN

To Musli: Despite the fact that your penjodoh bilangan CMI* :p, we are still very proud of you! <3 Love, Your family.

(*CMI = Cannot Make It)

These photos were taken on Day 1 & 2 by the peeps from Peter Pan photography.

Edited: Poll will be closed end of this week (26th Feb) and results will be announced.

Re-edited (26th Feb): Poll is now closed. Majority of you guessed it correctly. The correct answer is: A) Aqeil B) Mika’il C) Misha D) Anaqi. Thank you to those who voted.

Yesterday, we had a mini celebration. It didn’t matter that the celebration was small, but we had good food and great company, and above all, everyone was happy!

It’s a little unfortunate the cake got smashed partially (thanks to Anaqi’s quick hands), but we managed to save it. LOL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE THREE OF YOU!!

Much love!! ♥♥♥

Flickr photoset here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprima/sets/72157626093070598/

I recall him saying this the week before at the labour ward, just before I gave birth: “Bagus jugak kau beranak minggu ni eh, tak rugi tiket Cat A aku.” (Luckily you give birth this week, my Cat A tix won’t go to waste.)

HAHA. (Kongasam!)

The tickets

Here are some pics taken from the iphone. They were this close to the stage.

Then slowly managed their way through the crowd to almost the third row from the stage.

(Images resized & cropped for better resolution)

Also thanks to Sharil for the Intro video.

Flickr photoset: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprima/sets/72157625960173199/

On 12th February (Day 7), we shaved it all off.

Now he has none!

See, he’s so “shy” that he covers his face!

Also, many thanks to Cik Idah and Paman Lan for arranging his aqiqah in Perth xoxo.