One of the many reasons is the keyboard of my laptop. It's a chiclet keyboard which means that each key has a space all around. So when I type, my fingers have to move further away to reach the keys. I want the old type of keyboard! (My fault, really. I gave TheHusband zero input when he was looking for a laptop for me. So, I shouldn't complain.)
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School
Farah started school on the first of December. It was pretty uneventful at first. She barely cried. She did not make a fuss. There were some tears when she had to sleep and when she woke up from her nap. Otherwise, everything was okay.
Until about a week after school started.
She started some regressive behaviour with baby talk taking a prime position. It made me so mad! She refused to call herself Farah. She insisted that she was Fawah - or Pawah - on especially bad days. She mispronounces all her words and made it impossible for me to have any decent conversation with her.
Initially, I was somewhat amused, but two weeks into baby talk, I was losing my patience. I scolded her, refused to understand her baby words, refused to give in and when the frustration got too much, just sent her to bed. (The good thing is, when she wakes up in the morning, she would be the good 'ol Farah that everyone knows.) She also refused to give up.
So, like all issues I face, I sought the help of Dr. Google. Apparently, she's stressed. Regressive behaviour was her way of dealing with the stress.
It made a lot of sense. She didn't wail and cry so there was no outlet for her to express her dislike towards the feeling of abandonment that going to school gave her. So this was her only outlet.
After that, I praised her each time she spoke properly. Now, six weeks since school started, the baby talk is hopefully a thing of the past. It helps that the latest baby in the family (my almost 2-month-old niece) is doing a good job showing Farah what a baby does - sleep all day. (Both my kids detest sleeping.)
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Sick
One of the most epic thing which happened in December (besides Farah starting school), was all of us falling ill. It all started one Boxing Day when my friends and I met up at our place. During the gathering, Farah developed a slight fever.
By the next day, almost every single person who attended the gathering fell very ill. TheHusband was among the first to fall ill. But he still went to work. The moment he came home that Tuesday, he just collapsed on the bed and remained there til Wednesday afternoon getting up only to do essentials like toilet visits and prayers.
The next day, although I could feel the beginning of a fever, I was gung-ho enough to go to work for the first day of the end-of-year meetings. One hour into the meeting, I was shivering uncontrollably and at the earliest break, I left and went to see a doctor. My temperature was quite high for an adult and I got myself a 3-day leave from work.
Thankfully, TheHusband could stand up and get around by that afternoon so he took care of the kids while I was dead to the world.
It turned out that every single member of the party was down with some variation of the same thing. We all agreed on one thing - that that was the sickest we've ever been for as long as we could remember. One of us even got bronchitis. (The guilt we felt is another story.)
That would be one gathering we'll remember for life.
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Quran
Huda has finished the Iqra' series and has moved on to the Quran. Alhamdulillah. However, it does not seem likely for her to finish reading at least one round of the Quran within this year. At this beginning stage, she's doing 3-5 lines per day. With 6000+ lines to cover, very very unlikely. But I hope for her to be more fluent in her reading in the months to come so that she can cover more lines per session effortlessly.
I also told myself that I will start teaching Farah the Iqra' series once Huda has graduated from it. For now, I'm going very slow with Farah. Just teaching her a/ba/ta and getting her to recognise what a/ba/ta look like. She's able to identify what they are but sometimes she will just decide to pull some stunt like what she did to Huda recently.
Huda: ah ba ta
Farah: ah ba ta
Huda: What's this? (points to ah)
Farah: ah
Huda: Very good. What's this? (points to ta)
Farah: ta
Huda: Good. What's this? (points to ba)
Farah: Teacher Inah.
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Toilet Training
Farah can now pee and poo in the toilet. Hoooray! But she's still in diapers when we go out and at night. I'm soooooooo not ready to deal with visits to public toilets just yet. As it is, TheHusband deals with Huda's public toilet visits unless there is a guarantee that the toilet is very, very clean. Besides there is always a loooooong queue at the ladies' so it makes sense for TheHusband to take the kids to the loo.
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I will now upload this post. As always, I don't proofread. So, I'm terribly sorry if you have to go through ungrammatical sentences and typos. Or maybe I'm not. Til next time. Which will be soon. I hope.
