The middle

Our sweetheart.

Being parent of three, this is important for us to watch out. The following useful extract is from here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/14335112

“Yes, the “Middle Child Syndrome” is very real. Middle kids bemoan their fate as being ignored and often grow resentful of all the parental attention given to the oldest and the baby of the family, and feel short-shifted. Three kids triangulate sibling relationships, with one child at any given point feeling like the odd man out from the chumminess of the other two. .."

"The middle child usually has to fight harder for the attention of their parents and therefore crave the family spotlight. They may feel that they do not get as much praise as the older children for simple firsts like tying a shoe or riding a bike. Those things just become expected.”

"Having a third child also means a changed parenting style. Here you must move from one-on-one to a zone defense. You no longer have one parent per child and everyone gets less individual time and attention. You have to double-up and the logistics get more complex."

"With three kids comes three times the chaos! Older children have to become more independent, which often involves being more adventuresome and more destructive. Suddenly you are feeding the baby and have sofa divers on your hands! Older siblings grow closer and develop as collaborators and co-conspirators."

She's learning to walk

She will reach one year old by next week. Started to have confident walking. Spends all days walking around the house, exploring and starting to climb too.

Australian Federal Election

While waiting for my peanut sauce on the stove to cook, let me upload these photos. The father has marinated some meats for his satay that he talked about since last several days. So I am preparing the nasi himpit (following my mother's traditional style) and the peanut sauce, while updating this page.

Today is the federal election day for the country. We went out this morning for a while to see their election process. Farhan's school is made the polling centre. There are many differences can be seen comparing to our home country. There is no posters war around the street. Only one or two can be seen from some private houses. Some people were seen distributing posters days before the election at the train stations. No busy road on the day. No crowd around the polling centre. Just like the day that they changed their Prime Minister couple of months ago, everything went just relax on the day which is said as the closest run race in years for the two candidates for the PM seat.

Unlike ours, voting is compulsory for the citizens. The election for the House of Representative is held apart of maximum of 3 years. The media are very open giving opinion for or against the candidates even to the current PM.

Iftar Jamaie with members of Madrasah al-Muhajirin

Last week the father brought the boys to attend an iftar (breaking fast) program held by Farhan's Sunday school. It's for all the pupils and the families. Ainaa and I not attending for the day was so windy. The lil' sweetie always suffers stomach upset and wind lately at night. Maybe because of the cold and wind these days.

Farhan and his friends perform nasyid "wudhu"

Ramadhan

It’s Ramadhan - starting by tomorrow, Thursday 12 August 2010 - the fasting month for Muslims here (http://www.icv.org.au/). Fasting in Malaysia starts today. May we all have the blessing by Allah. A month in a year - always serves as a reminder to our discipline, as a refresher to our soul, as means to strengthen our faith, as an aides-mémoire for thanking for all that we have in life granted to all of us. To all who are so dear to our hearts in our home country, it is also a month that we wish we are closer …

We wish you all a blessed and a holy month. Ramadhan al-Mubarak.

Our school

The golden leaves from the window of our office.

Our school in autumn.

Look more classic in winter.

A note of frustration

Since last March, the fee for Ainaa's child care increased twice. Our application for certain scheme to assist with the fees refused. We were not elligible even - just trying luck for provision of special consideration since there are foreign students approved. And my inquiry to certain officers for certain payment undertaken to be paid, left unanswered.