Room-Emma Donoghue

Just finished reading "Room" by Emma Donoghue ( I hope I spelled her name right, I've since lent to the book to a friend and my connection is too slow for me to Google now). Parts of it had my heart racing madly and other parts made me bawl out shamelessly. Room is about a mother and her 5 year old son trapped in a small room for years and how they spend their days and what happens after, but the story is told from the perspective of the 5 year old boy which makes the book extra haunting to me. At some parts I almost couldn't continue reading because it was too painful as a parent myself to even imagine it but I couldn't stop reading either.

My mum-in-law who I dearly love and sometimes roll my eyes at too at the same time, once commented as she looked at my overflowing bookshelves, that she felt reading fiction was a waste of time, "lagi bagus baca buku-buku agama" she said.

Duly noted, but somehow after finishing "Room", I immediately felt so grateful for everything that I had, I may not have much monetarily but I have so much more than the mother in Room yet I am not as resourceful in activities with my child as she is with whatever little they save up in Room, including eggshells and other things I throw away without a moment's thought and with whatever little space they had.

And sadly, there are not many buku agama out there that can inspire the same feeling of gratefulness, they preach me to feel grateful and make me feel guilty for not being more grateful but they don't make me actually feel grateful. One of the parts in Room that shot straight through my heart was the little boy saying he was actually grateful to be in that small room with his mother and when she asked why, he said it could be worse that they could both be imprisoned in their own separate rooms. It's funny how a supposed fictional novel with no mention of religion could inspire me religiously to be a better person, to do more with what I have, to be a better mother.

Adrian Mole-Prostate Years

Literally squealed in delight when I saw Adrian Mole - The Prostate Years on the shelves in Times Bookstore. Bought it and read it in one sitting. Contradictarily, although the main character is annoying and pathetic, I love Sue Townsend's writing. The only writer who can make me laugh out loud when reading rather than just chuckle to myself on the inside. But what was in Bert Baxter's box???

Side effects of Dora/Diego

Yesterday afternoon after watching Dora the Explorer and her cousin Diego on DVD, Amani turned to me and said in a serious voice, "Call me Alisa, Mother". What????? She's like 4 going on 24.

Side effect of P.Ramlee

During the recent Raya season, apart from a lot of cerita2 hantu (why ah?) on TV, there were also many P.Ramlee movies on, including the Bujang Lapok series. I watched them with Amani to show her another side of life that was not Disney-inspired. Her first question as we watched the black and white movies was where was the colour? But after that, she got into the stories and the jokes, laughing especially during Seniman Bujang Lapuk scenes "Tapi lubang hidungmu tetap menjadi pojaan hatiku"...I didn't realise though how much she had really absorbed. Granted, we were watching comedies but the language can be a bit strong at times, "Bodoh!" "Bahlol" which is somehow more satisfyingly descriptive and insulting than the standard F-word.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when on Raya ke-4 after we checked in at a hotel in Melaka, my little 4 year old Disney princess happily greeted the bell boy in a cheerful and innocent voice, "Hello Setan!"

I have never felt so horrified and embarassed and hillarious all at the same time. There was also a lot of explaining about what setan / devil actually was and about how they looked like and where they stayed, which I was totally unprepared for during what was supposed to be an easygoing overnight holiday. Yippee motherhood! It just keeps getting better and better.