At Home …. Finally

RaRa is a gift from heaven. Being with her is a blast feeling. We adore her so much. Baby can make your day even by doing nothing.

Pekerjaanku di Admission office Kennedy School dan menjadi asisten Prof. Joseph Stern selama di Cambridge, MA antara tahun 2005-06 adalah pengalaman yang menyenangkan. Pekerjaan yang tidak bikin stres, tidak ada deadline yang ketat, tidak ada bos yang marah-marah, waktu yang sangat fleksibel dan honor yang oke. Bahkan pekerjaanku yang ‘ringan’ ini dihargai dengan pesta perpisahan kecil-kecilan dan dihujani hadiah perpisahan.

Juli 2006 kami kembali ke Jakarta. Aku belum tahu apa yang ingin aku kerjakan. Beruntung sekali aku mendapatkan pekerjaan dalam waktu cepat. Bulan Agustus aku sudah bekerja di AIPMC. Pekerjaan yang menuntut inisiatif dan kreatifitas. Sebenarnya aku keteteran juga. Selain tidak terlalu memiliki pengalaman yang cukup di bidang advokasi, selama di Cambridge aku terbiasa dengan pekerjaan yang ‘enak’ tadi. Masa bulan madu kembali ke kota asal selesai sudah. Frustrasi, stres, bangga, lega campur baur di pekerjaan ini. Anyway, it makes me keep in shape!

RaRa hadir di penghujung Oktober 2006. Pada hari-hari Idul Fitri. What a busy holiday! Lalu aku harus mulai menjalankan dua hal bersamaan, bekerja dan belajar mengurus RaRa. Aku memang beruntung memiliki atasan yang bisa mengerti dan memberi kelonggaran. Aku diberi kesempatan untuk bekerja di kantor dan di rumah. Untuk sementara dalam beberapa hari kami harus terpisah dari RaRa karena kalau aku bekerja RaRa diurus niniknya di Bintaro. Awalnya bisa dijalani, lama-lama terasa berat karena bagaimanapun juga pekerjaan membutuhkan konsentrasi dan tanggung jawab. Sementara RaRa makin dirindukan.

Januari 2007, aku akhirnya berada di rumah bersama RaRa untuk seterusnya.

Juli
Jan 07

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

It’s Christmas again. But there’s something different this year. Because now it’s three of us celebrating the Christmas, for the first time. Rara joined the Perdanas in October this year, so she’s two months and a week at now. Rara has been an angel who brought the warmth and light to our family. She’s started bubbling (and waa-waa-ing), and is very talkative. Except when she’s too sleepy (or gets too bored), she always try making conversation.

She also likes to sing; in her way, of course. Whenever we sing a song, she gets excited and responds as if she’s joining the chorus. Lately – to welcome the Christmas day, we’ve been singing her Christmas Carols like Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nose, Santa Claus is Coming to Town or Joy to the World. Sometimes we also sing her some traditional Indonesian folk songs. At this time, her father likes to ‘hijack’ the moment by singing some Sundanese songs like Bubuy Bulan (at her mom’s complain).

Mainly due to her parents’ taste of music, Rara’s lullaby list is dominated by the songs from the seventies and eighties. Vina Panduwinata tops the list, followed by Koes Plus. Some hits from Broadway plays, especially Andrew Lloyd Webber’s are also on her favorite lists Recently Rara’s been listening to classical compositions of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Not that her parents are classic-freak. But, as ‘parents-by-the-book,’ we read that classical music stimulates baby’s brain and develops intellectuality, so we thought “Hey, why not…?”


Christmas was a quite hectic day for us. On the 24th evening, Rara stayed at home with daddy while mom went to church. In the 25th morning we celebrated the Christmas on Juli's dad's house. Then in the afternoon we went to Bintaro to celebrate Ari's grandmother's (Rara's great grandma) birthday.

Juli has now officially (and finally) resigned, so Rara is now fully moved to Benhil. Her grandparents, uncles and aunties in Bintaro have been very nice and helpful. But commuting week-in week-out from Jakarta to Bintaro (located in Tangerang, Banten), plus a regular weekly trip to Depok is such an exhausting experience. So now Rara is a full time Jakarta residence. By the way, her permanent move to Benhil has created a big shock to her grandparents, who seem to be very reluctant to let her go.

As Juli’s resigned, the family loses its fifty percent of income source. That’s why Ari will have to work harder in the coming year. Actually he has – in addition to his research job, this semester he teaches four classes (three of them are co-teaching, thankfully). He also channels his old hobby – football – into something productive. He now regularly appears in a local TV station, as a commentator for the English Premier League games. And he is trying to make Rara a football freak too…

That’s some updates from us. May peace be upon us. Hope the coming year will be a better one...!