FROM BOYZ TO MEN

BOY OH BOY

Let me count the injuries......

When you have two active and soccer crazy sons, be prepared for many heart stopping moments. You'd receive calls from their teachers asking you to fetch your sons home because of some injuries at school or when the boys come knocking at the door after a day's outing and roughing out with a limping gait or twisted ankles.

My elder son is Muhammad Thaqif and Muhammad Naqib Nizar is the younger son. Both are outdoor lovers. That's where the similarity ends. Nizar takes pains (and hours) in dressing up while Thaqif is very casual in his appearance. The younger one is loud and vocal while the elder brother is more subdued and an introvert.

Like what I've said earlier....both are football crazy and will wake up at the gravediggers' hours to watch their favourite football team play and run around a rectangular field trying to take possession over a ball with an equally mad man in black trying to whistle for the 22 fully-grown adult not to squabble over that single ball.

We are blessed to have Thaqif and Nizar in our lives. The brothers click so well between them - like a pair of gloves fitting in your hands perfectly. They take care of each other and even while young, they never quarelled over toys or had any sibling rivalry. The only times they scared me out of my wits would be when they tried out those wrestling stunts and throws and the bending of the bones and parts of the body after watching Jake and the Snakeman, Machoman and Hulk Hogan acting and bluffing their way on Wrestlemania.

Just last month, NIzar came home and shouted, "Look Ma, I can't straighten my finger."

'What? Sure this isn't another joke from you?" I almost tore mayself away from the laptop I was working on when he shoved his bent finger right under my nose.

He had been playing football with his brother and their team. Being the macho man he is, he had tried to stop the ball at the goal mouth in some stylo-milo stunts, I believe. The impact of the ball had bent his middle finger at an akward angle that it stretched too much of its tendon. I knew immediately that another trip to the hospital was inevitable and the uncertaintiy of the fate of that middle finger lurked at the back of my mind.

So what heart stopping moments have they given me, my hubby and granny since their childhood and youth days? Let me list with Thaqif first, because Thank Allah, he has a shorter record than Nizar, whose name happens to be longer than his abang.

Thaqif

- prone to high fever during his kindergarten days, fever reaching 40 degrees C most of the times and leaving his nails blue

- hospitalised at Mt Elizabeth and TTSH for tonsillitis three times and high fever (after foot reflexology, his condition improved tremendously)

- had his third toe of left leg operated when a nurse opened his room door and hit his foot

- bitten by red ants on his left leg and leaving the whole foot swollen.

- woken up with swollen eyes and cheeks (he looked like the battered face of Mike Tyson) because of an allergic to Voltron. Can't take panadol too.

- twisted right and left ankle playing soccer - went for physiotherapy and traditional Malay massage

- removed four wisdom teeth at one go recently during NS days

Nizar

- last finger of left hand almost severed after being slammed by a door. Stitched up at TTSH

- back of head given four stitches after falling from his kick scooter

- front incisor chipped off while cycling and colliding with another cyclist

- small pox the size of five-cent coins covered his face and body while in primary four

- blurred vision and scarred pupils because of long contact lens usage - sent to I&E of TTSH

- left ankle swollen like a huge football after a bad tackling during his JC days - received treatment at Mt Alvernia Hospital

- stung by bees sixteen times at Sembawang Beach while cycling aroung the park - warded for day observation at TTSH

- collapsed middle finger first joint after trying to stop a ball at the net - he's a goalie. Sent to Alexandra Hospital for check-up and follow-up. Had to put on finger guard for 10 weeks. From now on he will remember not to show his middle finger!

Sonny 1 and Sonny 2, please no more heart stopping moments for Mama and Abah......It's so stressful. Sometimes cannot angkatlah...