The 2nd year of life

Dear Aaron Houdd,

You are now 2 years old. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given you the opportunity to breath, to wander and learn more about life with joy. Alhamdulillah, Allah has given us the opportunity to enjoy our moments together as one happy family...

For the past two years, you've learnt a lot! Your physical has grown healthily, and your brain has stimulated more and more nerves each day! You're so expert in making us giggles and gone frenzied all at once. Yet you often be the main topic in our everyday conversation especially during dinner time, when you're not around.

My dearest boy,

You'd started your own steps when you're 15 months old, and you began running a month or two later.

You'd started to have a pocket of vocabulary much earlier....

You got your second hair cut when you're 15 months old. The third one was just last month, during our visit to Tok Teh's house in Batu Pahat. You know boy, personally, I love your long-messy hair and nobody can ever instruct me, you or daddy to do whatever they think is cool to your hair (Oh I think I'm still very obsess with your hair. Hehe)

You've become a little helper since you were as young as 16 months old. You've understood simple orders and could also give order to anybody else around :)

And you started to have serious teeth decay when you were around 19 months old. It wasn't caused by your eating habit because you don't take excess sugar and you don't have the 'empty-bottle' habit. I believe it's due to your breastfeeding habit (a prolong BF especially during sleep time at night, which cause little amount of saliva being secreted, therefore less protection to your teeth - saliva contains enzyme which is antibacterial). PLUS, YOU HATE to brush your teeth up till now! sighhhhh......

You had your first flight at your 20 month old...

And the greatest milestone achievements I could witness were during the last 4 months of your life.

When you're 20 months old, you began to make short and simple sentences. You can combine up to 3 words for a sentence.

We'd introduced reading as your daily routine since you were a baby, but you began your interest in reading much later, especially when you started to memorize words, pictures, and even by pages. When you were 18 months old, you'd started picking up your books of interest during each reading time. And when you were 20 months old, you could imitate my reading, and sometimes read back to me (in your style)! Yet you were clever enough to sometimes refuse reading sessions and wanted to substitute them with playing sessions.

And you began to memorize ABC, numbers, and Jawi at your 20 months old.  But this time, you're more to memorizing than recognizing. But you improve your skills so fast. You started to know and recognize number 1 to 10, 60% of ABC and 50% of Jawi a month later. Sometimes you made small mistakes, but it's OK honey, I make mistakes too. Sometimes I still have to sing ABC song to know which alphabet comes first :)

At your 22 months old, you're able to make animal sounds. It was so funny and cute too. We never bore to hear that! haha. 

You were also managed to memorize Surah Al-Ikhlas at your 22 months old. Although the pronunciations were a bit obscure, but it's good enough you could make an effort to memorize the chapter in the Quran that defines Allah the Almighty in the best way. And somehow, you knew that Allah is the creator of you, apple, moon, flowers, cats, and a lot more!

And when you were 23 months old, you started to create longer sentences for a conversation. Brilliant enough, the sentences that you're able to create were almost perfect most of the time. For instance, you could say "Daddy look, what happen Lola's car?" or "Daddy, move fast!" or "Ummiyo, sit at the back" or "Oh no, what happen? Car broken!". And your favorite sentence is always "Don't want Daddiyo, want Ummiyo!" Hahaha....

And now, at your 24 months old, you've mastered many skills and understand both Malay and English quite well (and al-arqam from wahid until 'asyra).

And you know to say "Hug me" to ask for a hug, or instead "Hug Ummi" to give me a very warm hug!

Yet, you still haven't start your potty training... and still benefit the breastfeeding. Big boy already, how come?! :)

Lovely boy, 

I hope you could read this 10 or 20 years later, especially during your hard time or when you are upset/down. So that when you read this, you could realize how brilliant you are, and that you are so special, especially to us, your parents.

And hope I will always remember these for the rest of my life. 

You are my baby no matter how big you are, and you are always important to me.

*Let's enjoy some photos taken yesterday (26/2/2012), during the celebration of Aaron Houdd's 2nd birthday at Tasik Raja Lumu, Shah Alam.

Mr. & Mrs. Anuar with Anuar Junior :)

The ladies from both families

Lots of love <3

Behind the name Aaron Houdd

-Aaron Houdd: first week of his life-

Tomorrow, 22nd of February 2012, Aaron Houdd is turning 2! Nothing much can I say than Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah...

Well well well, I suppose this entry should have been written a long time ago. But here I am, sharing you the meaning of our son's name, and where we got the idea of such a name :)

::History::

The name Aaron Houdd has appeared long before he existed. I used to create an email using this name particularly for one da'wah yahoo group that I joined. Apparently majority of the group members had thought that this person was a non muslim, especially through the questions 'he' used to ask, (perhaps) supported by this non typical muslim name. Nobody knew about this, even my best friends who were also in that group. (Opss... now they know. Haha). The name facilitated my da'wah strategies, Alhamdulillah.

I got pregnant about a year later. I still love this name, and when my hubby and I discussed about the name of our baby, this name appeared first. Alhamdulillah, my hubby also loved it and so we gave our first son this name...

:: Why Aaron Houdd?::

The name Aaron Houdd is taken after the name of our beloved Prophets, Nabi Haruun (Aaron) and Nabi Hudd (Houdd). This is the meaning of Aaron Houdd = Prophets Haruun + Hudd.

Prophet Harun was the brother of Prophet Musa (Moses). He was a very wise man and had been bestowed with a great talent in speech. Therefore, Allah has appointed him to follow his brother (Prophet Moses) to do da'wah. (Please refer to Surah Al-A'raf, Ta ha and a few other chapters in Quran regarding the stories of these Prophets).

Prophet Hudd was sent by Allah to one civilization named 'Aad. 'Aad could be described as a wealthy community, but very proud and arrogant with what they had until they became kufur and ungrateful. (Doesn't this seems very similar with today's lifestyle? Na'uzubillah) - Also, please refer to Surah Al-A'raf, As-Syu'araa and Hudd.

However, there are other meaning of Aaron Houdd that make us really admire this name:

Aaron is originated from Hebrew language, which means High mountain. It also means exalted, on high or noble.

There was no other meaning found for Hudd, except for just 'The name of a Prophet' and 'One of the chapter in Al-Quran'. 

We've also purposely chosen Aaron instead of Harun and not starting the name with Muhammad for da'wah reasons. 1) To show that Islam doesn't prohibit the use of any name, as long as it doesn't reflect bad meaning. The name doesn't necessarily has to be in Arabic. 2) Some people were a bit unhappy when they know that our son's name doesn't start with Muhammad. Well, Harun and Hudd were also the Prophets of Allah and we should love them too. 3) I love the meaning of Aaron, i.e exalted and noble :)

 Prophet Muhammad has said:

 Mafhumnya: “Sesungguhnya kamu semua akan dipanggil pada hari kiamat dengan nama-nama kamu dan nama bapa-bapa kamu, oleh kerana itu perelokkanlah nama-nama kamu semua.” (HR Abu Daud, al-Darimi, Ibn Hibban dan Ahmad. Sanad hadith ini dinilai baik oleh al-Imam al-Nawawi di dalam al-Majmu’, demikian juga al-Sakhawi di dalam al-Maqasid al-Hasanah)

* We hope and pray to Allah that by giving this beautiful name to our beloved son, he'll be a good servant of Allah, with the quality that the prophets had shown to us, and also an anak soleh.

The name is considered short. We want him to be called in full name with meaning. People can call him Aaron, Houdd, or Aaron Houdd. And I personally prefer to call him Aaron Houdd :)

:: Disclaimer::

Some of our friends made jokes that this name is 'glamor' and 'sophisticated' like what most parents love to do nowadays - giving sophisticated name to their kids, without considering the meaning.

Truth is, I first love this name long before I got pregnant to my son, and once we decided to shortlist this name, we both read a lot of stories about these prophets and the other prophets as well. Alhamdulillah, to our surprise, apart from looking for names, we were indirectly refreshing our knowledge about our great prophets :)

My husband was a bit blur when many people relate his son's name with an actor Aaron Aziz. Seriously he didn't know Aaron Aziz until he once asked "Who is Aaron Aziz? Why do people mention this name when they know our son's name?" Hahaha...

And if you are a muslim and happen to meet my husband and want to say something about our son's name, never relate this name with Robin Hood, otherwise you'll get an answer as if the words could slap you on your face --> Muslims nowadays know Robin Hood better than their own prophet (Prophet Hud).... -_-

The Wrap up: Jan-Feb 2012

Bagi la Aaron Houdd interprem sorg2 plak :)

Assalamu'alaikum w.b.t :)

Alhamdulillah, dalam diam2 I tak menulis di kedua2 blog, ada jugak kawan2 yang PM cakap rindu nk baca penulisan I (Sila baca kawan2 tu amatlah sikit bukanlah berjuta2 OK). I don't want to say I don't write because I'm too busy with my life. I just don't write maybe because I don't really have the feel to write. Truth: I have a lot of things to share. 

I was thinking to story about our final week in Dubai, our journey home and our new adaptation in this beloved country, but nah, too late now. And sometimes there are a lot of other more important stuffs keep popping out of my head, begging me to transform them into sentences. Yet, I ended up doing nothing than just sometimes day-dreaming about them, and buried them back into my head. My bad :(

In the Airbus A380. Obviously, business class in the Airbus is more comfy than the Boeing's

Big boy huh:p

So, as usual, here are some updates about us:

1) Aaron had gotten his first three-times-in a row nebulization. It was so sad to see him suffers, but that was for his own benefit. I remember the time he cried aloud and we coaxed him. Then came the nurse saying that nebulization works better on a crying kid as the absorption is more effective. And so the Daddy changed his consoling direction from "Don't cry Aaron, strong boy Aaron" to "It's OK Aaron, cry more, cry more" - Oh, so weird! :)

2) Than came his IV schedule, the 3 serangkai injection. He was crying so so so loud while stepping out of the Paed's room. He'd scared some of the kids there! My sister, who was waiting outside asked me "kenapa? nangis kena cucuk ka?". Actually, it wasn't! He cried so loud not because of the IV. He was so macho he didn't really cry for the IV. But.... He cried because he wanted to bring home this one specific toy he's been aiming for since the last visit! Sampai the paed said "Takpala, amek la pinjam sat, bawak la keluar". Aiyyooo, so embarrassing, but funny too! Mujur sempat selamatkan keadaan, tak ke sampai bawak balik rumah. We went to IKEA right after to buy him that toy! 

Nebulization @ A&E SDMC

3) Celebrated my sis's 17 and my 28's birthday @ Kenny Rogers plus 2 cakes. (We finished them all.Haha) and Hung out with in laws. We played bowling. Good moment!

The birthday princesses. ahaks

Rock! Even Aaron Houdd wanted to play

4) My best friend's engagement day. 

5) We will be having quite a different life couple weeks from now. My hubby will be going to Oman for his duty, while I'll be here, with our boy, continuing our life, make it as ordinary as possible, and be happy with it. Most of our friends (from both sides) are so encouraging, Alhamdulillah. We've received a lot of encouraging words and supports from our friends. Thanks guys.

Undeniably, there are some friends a bit skeptic about the decision we have made. They normally don't express it directly but from the tone, the words and the body language, we can sense that. But Alhamdulillah, I assume that is not because they hate us. They just care about us so much, and they want us to be happy as much as they are, and just don't want us to choose the wrong path. They may have different perspective than ours. 

Honestly, we don't love to be separated away from each other. Common sense - no happily marriage couple wants that! But we have to, and it's just for temporary. Doesn't mean that my hubby prioritizes his career that he chooses career over his family. Neither that we are too materialistic until we opt for anything that benefits our financial more than the basic need of a family - to be united and together. The discussions were so long and so mature, I guess... And the plan is for the future, not only for our small family, but also for the bigger families from both sides. Oh, a lot of considerations- come with big sacrifice too... this will also be a jihaad in assisting our families, inshaAllah...

We may be away from each other for 6 months or so (but he'll come back once in a month inshaAllah), and inshaAllah I'll follow him as soon as I settle some important tasks here. Maybe for 5 years, maybe for more, Wallahua'lam. So I just hope that you pray for us, support us and give us encouraging words so that we can keep being strong and most importantly, I can always have REDHA in my heart as this is a big sacrifice for me to follow my hubby and be apart from my family and maybe delay my own dream career :)

6)...... InshaAllah, I'll update this in the next post. Hehehe.

So till then,

Wassalam...