One Year

Imran turned one year old this week!

Our second hero started walking at ten months and has been making us chase after him around the house round the clock ever since. One moment he’ll be rearranging the shoes at the our rack by the front door, and the next he’ll dash to climb up the staircase or inspect the kitchen rubbish bin, while dropping by along the way to mess with whatever his big brother is doing. As long as he is awake Imran is always on the move.

At ten months he also grew his mandibular central incisors (or his two lower front teeth). He now has his maxillary central incisors coming out too. In comparison, Omar only started to walk and grew his teeth at about 13 months. Imran has not started talking yet—nothing intelligible that is—but we hope that he’ll grow to be as chatty as his big brother. He is definitely more adventurous, though and perhaps more contemplative as well. Nenek J calls him Mat Bubur, as he will only eat rice porridge for his meals. Afi used to make all sorts of purées for Omar, but Imran wants none of them. It’s always rice porridge for him.

We are very happy and proud of our two boys.

This week also marked the first anniversary of us receiving delivery of our car, our Freed. The car arrived just two days before Imran was born.

We survived without a car for one year after we returned from the UK. When we finally decided to buy a car, we talked over our requirements and considered our options. It has to be a car that both of us can drive safely and comfortably. Basically, we were looking for the the “smallest” car with the “largest” amount of space to serve and protect our family of four for the next ten years. Consequently, our shortlist consisted of compact and mini MPVs. The Honda Freed lied towards the higher end of the price range, but after we had a chance to have a look at it up close, we didn’t want any other car.

We like most its flat floor with walk-through cabin and automatic sliding doors. The second row captain seats provide Omar and Imran with their own personal spaces, and for now, convenient fitting of child safety seats. Only recently has Afi come to fully appreciate the virtues of leather seat covers when having young children. Since we have never turned it on yet, the boys have not realized that there is a DVD player on the roof. Most of the time, we keep the third row seats folded down for the storage space.

We have only driven the car 16,000km over the past year. After all, we live just about 5km from work and all our parents and relatives live in the Klang Valley. We are very happy with the Freed, and can imagine buying the same car again ten years down the line. The car is neither too big nor too small; just the right size for us. Too bad it doesn’t seem to be selling well in the country, though.