Happy 8th Birthday, Darling Hilman...

Thank you all for the Anniversary Wishes and Do'as. Ayah and I are touched by them all. Thank you again.

A day after our 14th Anniversary was Hilman's 8th birthday - on 10th September 2008.

We threw him quite a party last year knowing that his birthday would fall during Ramadhan this year. Ayah and I had already told him since last year that we would not have any parties this year, and we explained to him why.

And he was "okay-ish" about it.

"Okay-ish" in the sense that every now and then he still would ask me - "Mommy, can I have my friends over at night after berbuka for my birthday party?" - this he asked at least 5 times in the last month or so.

Anyway, Ayah and I felt guilty pulak if we didn't plan for anything at all, so we decided to just have a small do at my MIL's last night, and all the uncles, aunties, and cousins on Ayah's side were there.

In a way, it was a hush-hush thing as we didn't tell Hilman about it.

I was pretty busy yesterday, and thank God both my SILs (Ayah's sisters) came to the rescue. Ly** had gone to get all the ingredients that I needed to make Roast Chicken (or as Hilman would call it - "Big Chicken"), and I had SMSd Ad*k on how to marinate the chickens that afternoon.

I went back to Mak's house at 4:30p.m yesterday and found that Ad*k had already marinated 3 BIG chickens. Nasib baik I asked her again on how she had done it, coz' I then realized that instead of asking her to marinade the chicken with blended ginger, I had wrongly SMSd it as "blended garlic"! No wonder there was a strong pungent smell of garlic when I went into the kitchen. So, we had to wash all the chickens again and re-marinated them.

In the mean time, Ayah had also got a cake from Secret Recipe earlier on.

At 5:30p.m, Hanna, Hasya and I went to fetch Hilman from school, and from there we went straight to their Piano class. I had put A**k in charge of the chickens while I was gone. Hilman was the last one to finish his piano lesson at 7:45p.m, and he asked me where we were going for a proper buka puasa after that, as all of us only had some kurma, bread and water waktu berbuka earlier.

And I asked him,

Me : Where do you wanna go?

Hilman : I want to go to Nasi Kandar Sedap, Mommy. I want to have their Mihun Tom Yam.

Me : Hmmmmm, what if we can go to somewhere better and have something that you like better than the Tom Yam?

Hilman : Where, Mommy?

Me : Can we just berbuka at Wan's house?

Hilman : At Wan's house? YESSS!!! I want! Can you tell Aunty Ly** that we all berbuka there? Coz' she said she would give me my birthday present tonight!

(So, it was more because of getting his present than anything else actually! Hehehe!)

Anyway, when we reached Mak's house, you should see how BIG his grin was when he saw TWO BIG CHICKENS on the table and one more roasting in the oven! All thoughts of Mihun Tom Yam gone by then!

After berbuka with his Big Chicken, he went up to have his shower (as Aunty Ly** told him that he would only get his presents after taking his shower :)), and when he came down, it was "opening-his-presents" time, and later it was the "blowing- the-candles-on-the-birthday-cake" session.

It warms my heart to see how happy he was even though it was just a small birthday do for him :)

I asked him to say thank you to Aunty A**k and Aunty Ly** for the roast chickens and also to Wan, and his uncles and aunties for the presents, and he went around hugging each one of them.

We decided to sleep at Mak's last night as everybody was pretty tired by the time the "party" was over. And Hilman decided to sleep with Ayah and myself, and before he slept, he said -

"Thank you, Mommy... Thank you, Ayah..."

And both Ayah and I hugged him and said, "You're welcome, Hilman..."

Ayah looked at me and said, "Hmmmm, dah besar anak kita..."

(Hmmmmm...time to have another one??!!) Hehehe!

HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY, DARLING HILMAN...

Mommy and Ayah do'akan semoga Hilman menjadi anak yang soleh, berbudi pekerti mulia dan berjaya dalam hidup dan semoga dilimpahkan rezqi yang halal, insya Allah. Amin.

Here are some pics!