Lessons a 9 year old gave me

9 years ago today, I thought the sambal belacan tempoyak gave me a stomach ache it left me sitting on the toilet bowl for 1 hour.

I was home alone. No husband around or expected to be around since we werent in speaking terms after I found out that happiness to him meant someone else outside of our house.

I had signs on Wednesday...I think the stomach ache happend on Thursday or Friday...I cant remember.

So I called a taxi to take me to Tung Shin Hospital in Jalan Pudu. The pain was begining to intensify. I can still remember the look on the taxi driver's face at every traffic light stop there was along the way. We lived in Salak Selatan then so it was quite a drive.

In all the mad frenzy I had forgoten to call my parents in Ipoh. Nor was I bothered to call my husband. He had left in the morning for an outstationed trip. It was 12.30pm when I reached Tung Shin.

I remember one of the nurses saying "she came alone" when they wheeled me in and prepared me.

I remember one of the nurses saying "you're so fast coming along, I'm sure all is well by 4pm".

...and I also remember saying to her "but my mother said 16 hours the least!"

Aliya's arrival was that as I mentioned. Mad frenzy. My Gynae was doing rounds when they told me to hold it for him.

I could feel her head crowning and when I couldn't take it no more, she came with a huge swush down the canal in time for my gynae to receive her.

I remembered the high pitched cry outside. The rest was history.

Her birth was small scaled. No big celebration. In fact the years she had spent with my mother sometimes made her the total opposite of me.

As usual this year, I wanted a big birthday bash. She only wanted me to invite her second cousins next door and another one 1/2hours drive. We did this a day earlier as it was Sunday (her birthday's today).



I guess being a kampung kid, she knows she is privileged and hates to show it off.

I made what I thought would be nice for my cousins. A huge batch of my homemade pizza which was gone in seconds. Mom had pitched in by making Chicken Soto.




The cake was marvelous. Blueberry. Her great grandmother also gave a batch of Pengat Durian for desserts.



We ate, chatted and watched Monsters Vs Aliens.

Even on her birthday, my daughter teaches me the value of simplicity and family. As my dad recited a few doas before we ate, I secretly cried inside because my first baby is 9 and she’s grown to be such a modest young lady.