Quality time

The Saturday started with the usual Speech & Drama class for the kids which started on a new term after a break last weekend. Fatini and Emir look forward to come to the class, I could say I also look forward to send them every Saturday. Because I could see how they liked the class and how it benefited them. I will let them continue with this class as long as they want to. The class started early so I had to leave home before 9 am, so it was a hectic morning for me trying to finish the cooking, packing and getting the children shower and ready in the car.

As Fatini class started first I brought Emir to the book shop again because I was looking for a book. The book was not there. However Emir picked a Mickey Mouse book before we left. We then returned to the S&D center.

When Fatini finished her class, and she saw the Mickey Mouse book. She asked me where did Emir get the book from? I know what’s on her mind. Did mommy buy the book for Emir and didn’t buy any for her. So I said hesitantly, maybe from the bookroom at home. And she said, I never saw it before. So to avoid from answering her further I asked her to ask Emir directly hoping Emir would save me. And Emir said innocently, from the shop. And came the expected question from Fatini, why mommy didn’t get a Mickey mouse book for me? And I said, because the Mickey Mouse book was for baby only. And Emir interrupted, I’m not a baby. So Fatini was slightly upset but I managed to deviate her mind to something else by asking her to spend her time in the book room with her friends.

I like the center there. The pay was more expensive than other places that offer the same class. However the center has spacious lounge for parents to sit around and wait for the children and also places where other waiting children can play or spend time in the book room. Normally I would just sit on the floor with my packed lunch, milk and porridge brought from home. You can say it’s like a picnic where I sat with the packed food around me.

Back at home in the afternoon, we just spent lounging upstairs in the family area. I didn’t want to go anywhere since last week we already spent the weekend away from home. I like to spend time with the kids at home and spare time to help them with the reading and writing which they interspersed with watching TV and playing toys. I could spend hours and hours with them like that. Weeknights doesn’t allow me to spend enough quality time as I would be normally busy with washing and cooking and on other weekends we would be either balik kampong or spend weekend elsewhere. So a weekend spent at home is a luxury quality time for me and the kids.

Anyway I also had the children clothes to iron and managed to finish that too.

At night my husband took us to Victoria Station in Damansara. Fatini had broccoli soup and fish & chips. Emir ate the rice porridge I packed from home (I packed it because before we went out he was asking for the porridge). Emir also had mushroom soup and bread and veges. He loves bread and ate lots of it. This time we didn’t seem to waste too much food.

On Sunday morning, we went to the Sunday market for brunch and had our favourite meehoon soup. Then the rest of the afternoon, I spent it at home with the kids again basking in the luxury of time spent together. In the evening we brought the kids to the swimming pool.

The kids retired to bed early last night before 9 pm and therefore I had the chance to watch my favourite CSI from start to finish at last!

Happy Birthday !!!!

Today is my husband’s birthday. To my dearest loving husband Happy Birthday to you and I love you forever. I look forward to have many-many great, enjoyable years together. May God bless you with the best in life.

Kau bertanya padaku
Mengapa aku sangat mengasihimu
Dan sentiasa inginkan
Agar kau selalu ada di sini

Bagaimana harus kuhulurkan
Dengan kata misteri cinta
Kerna tuhan saja
Yang tahu jawabannya

Andainya aku mampu gambarkan pada mu
Andainya aku mampu bercerita
Akan kulukis sebuah lukisan
Dan aku tulis novel cinta kau dan aku

Kau bisikkan padaku
Bahawa engkau juga rasa begitu
Dan berharap agar
Ku fahami cinta sucimu

(Sohaimi Mior Hassan)

When I say sorry

Fatini was crying all day long at school yesterday. It was my fault. At the beginning of the school holiday the teacher gave me all the school books to carry home for me to see. Fatini had reminded me to bring back the books to school on Sunday. I remembered that, I made sure I put the books in the car first thing in the morning. But at school when I dropped them off I forgot to take the school books out from the car. I only realized it when I arrived at the office and opened the boot and saw that the books were there. I hated myself for forgetting something that’s important for Fatini and thought of sending the books maybe a bit later. But in the midst of my business at work, I forgot and thought later it should be okay.

The teacher told me Fatini cried all day long. Especially when each subject was started, she cried. Actually when I picked her up after work her eyes were still red from crying. That means she just cried again. In the car she cried some more. I said sorry to her. I could imagine how she felt. She couldn’t do what others do. Maybe she felt lost. She had been studying and revising her school work during the holiday. I never asked her to do that but she’s the kind who likes to do her works. It’s not difficult for me at all to ask her to read or do some work. Sometimes she kept on bothering me to teach her spelling or maths and I had other things to do like my housework. I think she’s a little bit like me when I was small. Sometimes when I looked at her sitting straight up in her chair writing something earnestly at her study table at home in front of the tele without really watching the tele, I felt pride. She’s doing what she loves to do and she thinks it’s just part of her life, not really ‘work’. I don’t think I should worry about her getting bored sooner. In this world learning is never ending , there’s always something new to learn as she grows. And we as parents just have to provide the opportunities and materials and make it easy for them. I hope she will continue with this good attitude.

As a lesson, I told Fatini that next time she must carry the books to school herself and cannot rely on mommy or other people because other people would forget.

In wonderland

I think this was one of the happiest weekends for Fatini and Emir. Last Friday night, we brought them to the Stadium Putra to watch the Disney on Ice. The kids were awed seeing the Disney cartoon characters came to life. Emir was frozen during the show and Fatini was transferred to her princess dreamland for a couple of hours. They bought a few souvenirs to bring home and on Monday they planned to bring to school for the show and tell session. Fatini clutched her Cinderella replica she bought for the next two days. Emir continued fighting the dragon at home with his sword.

On Saturday we went to Bukit Tinggi Colmar Tropicale for the weekend get away. The kids were shouting castle, castle at the building which looked like castles. We were expecting cold temperature and brought sweaters and jackets which bulked up the suitcase but it was not cold. The weather was just cool and nice. At noon, it was quite hot actually.

The kids occupied themselves for the two days doing the sand art papers while we had our coffee and scones at the cafes. They also blowed bubbles with other kids and watched the gymnastic show. It was nice to see the kids who didn’t know each other played together blowing and catching the bubbles. Emir did the hand wax sculpture to bring home. I like the place because I think it’s kids friendly and allow the kids to roam and running around without having to worry about cars, vehicles or other incidents. There were quite some visitors however it was not that crowded and I loved it. At night we had a nice dinner at one of the restaurants. On Sunday before we went home, we brought the kids to the rabbit park where they had really great time feeding and stroking the rabbits.

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interpreter

Recently Emir didn’t do his mengaji properly. He played during the Muqaddam class. Ustaz said he could read very well but recently has been playful. Fatini always complain that there is less and less hair left on her head now because Emir has been pulling her hair a lot. Last weekend he cried like I never saw him cry before with tears and complete with hiccups because papa had scolded him for hitting Fatini. Emir my son is still in his terrible 3 stage. What didn’t he do??? He throws food, books and toys. He made a mess everywhere. He pushed and pulled. He climbed and jumped on you and every where. He tumbled and crawled into anything. He did whatever you said don’t do. Now I’m like do whatever you like as long as you don’t hurt yourself or others.

But he surprised me so often. This morning one of his teachers had a chat with me on Emir. She seemed to speak so fondly of him. And she told me what? According to her Emir is so intelligent and he loves reading and always asked the teachers to do some activities with him. Weekly report from school has always been good about him. Very attentive, participates well in activities. Even the Saturday S&D teachers like him.

For me, I think what Emir want to do exceed his physical capabilities at his age and that sometimes drives him frustrated and make him a bit naughty. For example he loves looking at books but couldn’t read. He asked me to read for him and then memorize the story. He speaks a lot but people cannot understand him because of the pelat. I found that he feels so frustrated about this a lot. Sometimes Fatini becomes my interpreter for him. But sometimes even Fatini couldn’t get what he said. Like when he said to me he wanted “taya-an-byed” this morning and I asked Fatini what did emir want and Fatini said “TA YA and BE YED” pronouncing it exactly like Emir only clearer and louder and I said to Fatini, what does it mean? And Fatini said “KAYA and BREAD!!” Oh, ok… this interpreter interprets twice once in native language and another one in English.  

What these children made of

Yesterday I was spending some time reading newspaper. I was attracted to the news on students’ individual performance in SPM last year. What touched me the most was that they excelled despite their family’s undesirable conditions. Or maybe their family’s condition was the factor contributing towards their determination to excel in their studies. For example there is this Chinese girl whose father was made bedridden and brain damaged due to a road accident when she was only six year old. I cried when I read her story . I mean I can really relate to her feelings when she cried on her father’s bed showing the results, I am not sure whether the father understood or not his daughter’s achievement. And there’s another Malay girl who went to school hungry everyday and had nothing to eat but a little bread. I mean what kind of life a child had to go through while they are growing up. I know their parents must have cried in their hearts for their children and to know they prioritize to buy books for their children over life sustenance is heart wrenching.

When all these stories of achievement came out, all kind of establishment began to donate and provide money/facilities to aid them and families. Good, but I wish these establishments should have started earlier to relief the burden when the children were still schooling and growing up.

I have been reading these kinds of student stories from year to year particularly on achievements by students from poor background. Admiration of their life and to understand what drove their excellence despite of lack of books, no tuitions, no computers and going to just normal school in the village. Most of them did not study to tackle exams like most rich kids do in tuition classes.

These students love reading and they read from when they were small. These students spent their free time in activities they love which is reading and studying. It’s like part of their normal routine life and they don’t find it boring. They don’t really hang out at the malls or go out here and there with friends day and night or weekends. They don’t have Astro to watch. Over the years reading and studying become second nature to them as a routine. As they excel more and more in school they began to feel good about themselves and they began to do more of study to enjoy the results. It’s become a cycle except it’s not a vicious one. The magnitude of the product and result is a function of the effort, time spent, interest and determination.

I am not really stressing on the number of As one should score in exams. I believe in overall development in all aspects of life for children to develop awareness and maturity. But I salute these students for their achievement despite of hardships they endured.

Week gone by

My week had gone by quite fast and also maybe because of the 4 day week. On Wednesday, something happened. On the way to pick up my kids, I decided to stop at the gas station for a fill up before I get the kids. I’m quite wary of filling up petrol with the kids in the car, especially after hearing so many horror stories about robberies at gas stations. As I left the station, all of a sudden I heard loud noises following me. I suspected my tire was flat because this happened to me before and I recognized the sound. I kept on driving to the daycare which was about a km away and there upon checking confirmed I had a flat tire. Luckily it happened quite closed to the daycare. I suspected that somebody left something sharp at the gas station there because before that I saw somebody was checking a bonnet of a bus there. How irresponsible! All my tires were just changed a few months back. I called AAM and waited for the guy to come change the tire. And luckily this time the AAM guy came quite on time despite the rain.

Yesterday afternoon my husband called me whether I was coming to a dinner arranged for his company management team. Well I didn’t plan to go because of the kids and so I didn’t prepare or arrange for any baby-sit. From the way hubby talked, seemed like he’d liked me to go, so not wanting to disappoint or reflect any bad image on him, I called the daycare and asked the principal whether she can extend her child care service until night on a very short notice. Being flexible she agreed, no problem (she did this before when I was caught in the massive traffic jam a couple of weeks ago due to flash flood and only manage to pick up my kids at 10 pm!). So I went home and got ready for the little function. At home, it was so quiet without the kids around. I have about an hour so to kill and when usually I was rushing mad with things to do, I was left with basically nothing to do because the kids were not around. I began to miss their presence.

As for the dinner, we arrive at 8 pm and I thought luckily I came as other wives attended too. They were mostly European expatriates so it’s like dine and wine and for me dine and coke (didn’t quite rhyme). We left the function early at after 10pm and I saw a message on my handphone that the kids were already asleep. We went to pick up the kids. Fatini continued sleeping undisturbed and Emir woke up to see us and went back to sleep.

This morning in the car I asked Fatini what she did last night and she told me. Then she said next time she wanted to spend the night at her auntie’s (principal) place. Wah…won’t you miss mommy, Fatini?

Journey up north

Last Friday, when I picked the kids from the day care, Fatini told me, “ Mommy, Monday is a holiday, so we have to go somewhere”. I smiled to myself when I heard this. Fatini has now learned to associate holiday with going somewhere. Only days before she had been asking us to take her to Hong Kong Disneyland. I mean Hong Kong!!! Kids are so clever nowadays and so much more daring than we used to be. I couldn’t imagine telling my parents that when I was small. Anyway, lucky for Fatini we had already planned to go back to Kedah my husband home town taking advantage of the long 3 day weekend. The kids were excited when I told them we were going to see Tok and TokWan.

We started Saturday afternoon after the kids S&D classes. It was raining the whole journey up north. So it was a longer journey than usual and a colder one too. Luckily the kids occupied themselves well, watching the VCD in the car which my hubby had installed in his new car specifically for the kids. Apart from that they would read the story books I brought or they would play amongst themselves. Emir when bored alternated between sitting in his car seat at the back and my lap and warm embrace at the front. Fatini being more disciplined sat strapped in her car seat the whole journey. She was and is always a good passenger. She would be remained seated until asked to unbuckle. Good for you, sayang!

When we arrived Sg Petani we stopped there first for nasi kandar at the Sg Petani Pelita. This was like a routine stop. Every time we go back to North we will stop at this restaurant Nasi Kandar. I am not sure whether it tasted any different from one in KL but this is UTARA nasi kandar so it should taste accordingly I guess.

Over at the home town we did nothing unusual. We came to visit my parents in law so basically just chit chatting and spent time with them. They were happy to see the kids and amazed at how tall Emir has grown to at his age. Fatini and Emir were always so excited to be there. They played with the swings and the bicycle. Emir was amazed with the sound of the roosters cuckooing and the hens cluckling. On Monday we returned to KL.

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I am Mom of the Year ?

I have been honored with The Mom of the Year award by Ibu from Dalam Dakapan Ibu. Thank you, thank you. I mean, wow, I am teary eyed. What to say… to receive this award mean something real big to me. I mean I have only two children. Ibu has six!!

I guess I have to repeat the rules which are

1. Admit one thing you feel awful about (involving being a mom).

2. List 7 things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you.

3. Send this to 5 other moms of the year that deserve a reminder that they too are the best moms that they can be. Remember to send them a note letting them know you have selected them, and also add a link to your post that directs people back to the person who nominated you.

Okay, here I go….

1. I want to be a good mom but I failed more often than not. One thing that I really feel awful about is when I raised my voice to my children. I mean really2 raise my voice. I always made a mental note not to do that, but somehow, in between the sound of children wailing and the pot boiling its content on the stove, it really drives me nuts. And afterwards when I look into their eyes, I feel something painful digging deep into my heart. I could only wish they would forget the incidences.

2.

i) I love the smell of my children. The smell of their face, their hair, hands and body parts. Even their worn shirts.

ii) They love to snuggle with me, lie close to me in front of the TV, golek2 with me, on the couch, in bed and also in the car when I’m not driving.

iii) I love my children chit chatting to me, Fatini with her impressive ever growing vocabulary and experience and Emir with his “pelat”ness but yet ever so eager to tell me everything. And they fight to get my response too when they are talking at the same time to me!

iv) I love to go vacation with my kids (who doesn’t?) and the kids love to get away as well. Somehow the word “hotel” is so becoming to them. We try to make a regular weekend vacation now, at least once in two months, just a night away.

v) They love swimming, riding bicycle, playing kites, even badminton (toy badminton). Imagine us trying to aim the shuttle to their rackets so that they can hit it.

vI) I love it when my children always asking for “Mommy, Mommy” and I am the first they will look for after woken up. I have never been wanted so much in my life and all of a sudden these two angels come along and become my admirers. I hope to keep the bond strong throughout their life.

vii) Lastly but the least, I love being loved and kissed by my kids. I mean they always told me I love you Mommy, and sometimes Emir kiss me all over my face, and every time he kiss me he would whisper the endearment “I kiss your lips…, I kiss your head…, I kissed your cheeks…, which really melt my heart.

3. So that’s it, maybe I didn’t cover all. Anyway I dedicate this award to other moms I knew via real life and virtual. Three only can ha…?

1. Voguemom

2. Sweet&Simple

3. Wanni