Melbourne, wait for us

We finally got our visa yesterday. The visa for me was released earlier. The process took about 1 week from the date we did the medical check up to get the visa released. But my husband and the dependants who are under him had to wait for almost 3 weeks for unknown reason.

So another step is done.

Next is to get the flight tickets booked.

Actually, we want to depart two weeks earlier than allowed that is one week before the registration date at the university that is 1 Dec 2009 considering various factors. But the procedure needed to be taken for it seems that plan is unlikely for us.

Iza

Green the earth

From my house window this afternoon, I saw several workers collecting rubbish from the waste bins located in front of houses in the vicinity. They must be contractors from Alam Flora. They took the plastics containing the discarded items from garbage cases, chucked out the trashes into a lorry and separate items that may have sale value such as bottles, cans, papers and boxes. I believe they must collect the items to resell them for their extra income.

I think, their works would be a lot easier if we, consumers, could separate the items into several bags so that the workers would not need to shuffle the dirty waste to find things that can be reused or recycled.

Doing good to others make you feel good too... .

Besides it helps the efforts to save the environment. Who else to do it if not us?

We make it as a practice at our house to have two baskets for the rubbish. Wet, smelly trash would be put in one closed basket and the rest would be put in another basket so that the stinky garbage does not mix with the dry unwanted items. Besides, it saves your plastic bags given that you would not need to empty the trash in the dry basket as frequent as the wet litter bin's.

We also set aside the unwanted papers including the newspapers, old books, uninvited advertisement flyers in our letter box (that are many!), paper boxes, wrapping papers, bills, envelopes etc so that we can sell it to the man collecting this kind of trash every week. Average we can get about RM2.00 weekly which we can give it to the children to wait for the ice-cream man in the afternoon. That is another saver!

If everyone can do only a little, that means a lot to our environment.

So take charge of your part!

Visit to Taiping

This may be our last silaturrahim visit to see our near relatives at Kedah before we depart to Melbourne next month. But we see them at Taiping, Perak. Almost all of them came to the open house cum house warming party last saturday held by Bang Chak and Kak Ita who have recently entered their new lovely mansion.

Admiring the baby...

During maternity leave, apart of resting and recovering, the thing I love most is to watch the baby grows. She's my third baby, yet, I am amazed to see how great Allah creature is. Admiring the baby, camera must be always at my side to record this..

Within less than 2 months on this world, the baby's cheeks have been rounder and 'chubbier'. In a month she has reached 3.9kg in weight.

She is now able to put her fingers in her mouth.

From the very first day she was bornt, she also likes to see human faces and concentrates to you when you speak to her. I guess she must be trying to understand what you want to say to her.

She is also able to give you her meaningful smile. See this.

Since last 2-3 days, she too has been able to express herself with her voice.

Breastfeeding - is that that easy?

I read with interest an article in this month's Readers Digest about breastfeeding (BF), entitled "Call this easy?".

Personally, being a breasfeeding mom myself, I agree with the author that BF can be painful and difficult, even to the stay-at-home moms. To breastfeed successfully and exclusively you need to have a very high commitment and belief in yourself that you can do it.

Just imagine in the early life of the baby, feedings can be up to 12 times in 24 hours. That is apart of other common problems. While you need time to rest after the giving birth and, if you have other children, to look after them too, you have to wake up at night several times to feed the babies. What's more if you do not have anyone else to help you with the household chores and what not.

Despite the awareness among moms of its benefits, the number of babies who are breastfed exclusively up to the age of 5 months are only 3%, according to a statistic in the UK. The number in Malaysia, I think, must be higher than the UK, but not very high too. I observe that by relative, not many, even those who stay at home, breastfeed their babies exclusively.

So, yes, breastfeeding is not easy. As the author of the article put it, it is natural thing but it is not instinctive. However, given the benefits of it to the baby and the mother as well, it's worth a sacrifice.

Medical check-up

Last week, we, the whole family, went for a medical check-up at a healthcare centre at PJ.

The medical check-up is required for visa application and for requirement of the sponsor too. To enter Australia, other than as tourist, you need to undergo stringent and long procedure. The required medical check-up can only be done at selected healthcare centres only.

How much did we pay for the charges? RM1,200! RM200+ for two adults. 155 for kid of 5-year-old and RM130 for children below 5 years old. And for the extra form for each of us provided by our sponsor to be filled in by the doctor was charged RM40.00. Huh, an amount that we didn't expect. We brought cash of RM700 only.

Sadly, we can only claim from our sponsor RM20 per person for the check-up.

So students preparing to study abroad, you need to have cash in advance. So far, the amount we have spent for the preparations is almost RM10K.

Hanan and Aiman

Raya mood is still in the air. Last sunday, Aiman and Hanan from Taiping visited us, other than for raya visit, to see their new cousin.

They look alike, don't they?

Our journey

So the post about Aina marks the birth of our blog, created especially to record our journey for our PhD in Melbourne, Australia.

May Allah bless our plan, we will depart to Melbourne, Australia, on about the third week of next month.

The thought of really going abroad, to spend life outside this lovely Malaysia (maklum, never gone beyond the boundary...), to look after the children (moreover the little baby), far away from near relatives (means everything on our own to tend for them), and ultimately to do PhD itself make us anxious, indeed. The biggest challenge in life, I think.


Iza

Welcome to the world lil' princess

Today, Aina is 46 days old, our first daughter, sister to the two brothers.

This is Aina, minutes after birth.

How amazing to see a newborn baby. Right after birth, she was looking for her food!

Aina was bornt in the early dawn of 8 Ramadhan 1430H or 29 August 2009 at Putrajaya Hospital. May Allah bless her throughout her life. Be a good daughter to emak dan bapak..

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Weight:

2.69 kg

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Length:

45 cm