Tiny Soles

Mushy ahead.

One of the favorite things I'd like to do now is look at him and try to spot a faint smile or grin on his face. And so, on many occasion then, when my time permits, I'd standby my handphone to catch that priceless moment. Apparently I'm not fast enough because before I knew it, there it was, yet again, a fleeting smile. Each encounter has brought both M and I much fuzziness in our hearts and we'd always concur that he had either dreamt of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or was teased by an angel.

Last night I took a pic of his feet. And as I held his tender feet against the lines and creases of experience of my palm a sense of wonderment crept up in me. I felt his tender vulnerability of it all and my desire to protect and shelter him at that moment was rather strong. I thought it was silly of me to be feeling that way when mothers all over the world would experience similar if not much more intense and complex feelings when breastfeeding their infants.

And so this is how fathers connect to their infant at this stage. We're sometimes if not all the times, relegated to 'other' tasks and I'm not surprise some fathers may have breastfeed envy. Haha...

Tiny sole shall walk the Right path. Insya'Allah.

Your Own Terms

Our baby is 25 days old and I’ve come to the conclusion that I still know little about babies despite all that heavy reading on motherhood, parenting and forum traipsing I’ve done prior and after his entrance. It’s a complete thing gathering all that information and trying to make sense of advice and anecdotes from parents who’ve been there to let’s say changing a diaper and burping him after feed. Doing it actually involves a certain fortitude and awareness that you are after all trying to raise a child on YOUR OWN TERMS and not relate or get stressed so much about what you’ve just read or heard from friends or relatives.

I told M that this experience is ours completely and there is only so much opinion and advice out there we can follow through or even consider. The last thing we need is parenting out of anxiety because so and so thought it would be best to do this and that for the baby. My response to this is to take these extraneous advice/opinions with a pinch of salt and decide on our own terms. And when we do decide on our own terms, let’s go for it wholeheartedly, luv. Too many clichéd incidences that happened since Raed was born I shan’t write about those. Even when M was pregnant with Raed her colleagues had a million things to say. Most were opinions poorly veiled as advice.

Raed Zikry says, ‘Leave my parents alone!’

Hello World!

My little boy is finally here. Alhamdulillah. After so much anxiety and trepidation in the delivery room I've come to the moment when M's labour pain was simply too much for me to empathise. It was heart wrenching but M went through it like all mothers had done in order to bring their children to this world. At times I was feeling a bit helpless as I stayed beside her during the heightened contractions. And that moment too I knew how brave and resolute M was. I am deeply indebted to her for carrying the child from conception to birth and making me a proud father.

It all began when M started to experience a series of contractions the day before. The intensity rose at nightime about 11pm and when she bled. After much discussion about whether it was indeed a show we decided to that it was time to head to the hospital. We reached the hospital at about midnight and was soon warded to the delivery suite. The next few hours soon reached its apex. We were about to become parents and when our gynae and the midwife coached us in the delivery room; that had got to be one of the most intense moments in our life.

Raed Zikry Bin Redzuan was born on the 1st July 2008 @ 8.14am