R asked me for info about our Japan trip and that sent me back to this blog.
Haiyaaaaaaaa... I know I should blog more often but our Internet time is so limited. I mean, if Candy Crush is taking up all my leisure time, where got time for blogging? Hur hur. I don't know when I'll get Candy Crush out of my system. I'm not so addicted to it now as I was when I started playing the game. Now, I can go without the game for days and won't miss it much. I know I can just delete the game from my phone and that would be the end of Candy Crush. But, I've already reached level 346. Like soooo sayang to delete it, right?
Let's talk about me first before I start writing about the kids.
That scab/scar/disgusting thing at the corner of my lips? That's angular cheilitis. Went to NSC to get it checked. It's all gone now, alhamdulillah. Except for the scar. But the doctor says that it may come back again. Talking about skin - now I'm breaking out in pimples with amazing frequency. And not little dots anymore. Big pus-filled ones. It's so mighty painful! There was one on my nose since yesterday. And today, when I touched it, it broke. I have no idea how to squeeze pimple juice out cleanly and completely so now I have this red bloody bump on my nose. Looks like I'm developing a snout or something.
My voice is hoarse. It's a challenging group of people I'm handling this year. And my vocal prowess is tried again and again. I hate that I'm not able to spend more time with the good ones because the ones-who-are-lacking-attention-at-home are taking so much of my time. It's a struggle. The whole lot will be taking the all-important assessment in two months or so. I hope that I've done enough to see them through not just this major hurdle but all the hurdles they will be facing in future. And there better not be requests for me to write probation reports for any of them a couple of years down the road.
This year's Ramadhan has been a good one so far. But the challenge to improve oneself is a constant battle not fought only in Ramadhan. So many areas to improve in and procrastination is only one of them. Predictably, one of the reasons why I'm writing this is because I had to switch on the computer because I have some unfinished work to complete. Of course that work is on the back burner for now. So, you see? If I'm so guai, I will be working on that piece of work right this moment. But, a bit difficult to make myself work on weekends sometimes given that I work til about 12-1am most weeknights. :(
Dunno why I'm writing so much about work. Must flush the thought out of my system on weekends. May next year be a less challenging year.
On to the kids before this degenerates into work-talk.
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H
Dear Allah, I'm so thankful to You for making my daughter's schooling life easy.
The PTC (which TheHusband attended without me because I was having my own session with about 30+ sets of parents) was good. Her teachers said good things about her. All I can hope for is for H to continue being respectful to everyone, paying attention in class and doing her homework diligently. She has been having homework almost daily and the good thing is, she will remember to do her work the moment she's had her dinner. (She's in the afternoon session.)
There are things that she needs extra help in, like subtraction within 20. That requires a bit of drilling. For now, all we need is to support her when she's lagging behind. I'm not sure if I'm going to start covering the syllabus before her teacher does it in school. If I were to do that, it might be in Primary 5 because the syllabus is pretty heavy then. But now, she just needs to enjoy going to school. And recess is still the favourite part of the school day.
Her wushu classes have shifted to Sunday nights and that simply is a no-go. Sundays mornings were perfect but the instructors had timing issue with Sunday mornings so it's temporarily changed to Sunday nights. Until it goes back to Sunday mornings, H is out of the wushu classes. Which is a pity, really. Though she's not really the most athletic person (she's very much like me in that department), I like that she gets some form of exercise and gets to build her coordination there.
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F
F is beginning to read now! Hooray! I no longer have to spend all my time reading book after book to her! But, must remind myself to continue reading to the children even after the younger one can read fluently. I was reading a storybook by Katherine Paterson about an 11-yo boy. He says he misses his mom reading to him but if he were to ask his mom, she will definitely tease him. So, I shall not make my children feel awkward; I will read to them for as long as I can.
F, like I've said at least 4000 times here, is one feisty girl. She does not go down without a fight. I know that she can always hold her own. Her Achilles heel, however, seems to be her oldest cousin. The boy used to annoy her to no ends when she was a lot younger. So now she gets all shy and coy around that boy. Aiyoh. This girl ah. For all the spunk that she has, it's completely lost when dealing with this one boy.
F's teachers also have been telling us things which are pleasant to our ears during her PTC. This kind of thing, must continue praying to Allah to ensure that it goes on and on and on.
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F & H
1. They fight way too much. The home is a battleground one moment and the next thing you know, it's like the battle never took place. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard "I don't like (insert either child's name here)."
One day, H had her nose buried in a book and ignored F's request to play with her. Then after hitting her sister, she declared, "I don't like Kakak Huda. I want to throw her away."
Without batting an eyelid, I commented, "I'm not sure if there's a rubbish bin big enough to put her in."
Exchanges like this are getting so common in the household.
On another occasion, H will go, "F is so annoying!"
But in the next breath, she'll say, "The house is so quiet without F."
One mission that they both see eye to eye about is delaying their bedtime. After all the standard drink milk, brush your teeth, say your prayers routine, it's time for bed. And that's when you have collaboration at its max. If I don't lie down between them to physically separate them, the chatter can go on til 11pm at night. Imagine trying to wake two exhausted children the next day.
2. Another thing I'm grateful about is the number of cousins they have and the close bond they have. Presently, they have 14 (and counting) on the maternal side. They like the company of their paternal cousins too but there's a big age gap between them.
Just for the sake of documentation, the maternal cousins (plus H & F) came in this order:
The Big Boys: aged 12, 10 & 10
The Girls: aged 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6, 4, 4
The Small Boys: aged 5, 5, 3, 3
The Baby: aged 2 (and two more on the way, one of whom will be really really soon!)
The Girls group will have sleepovers every school holiday and what a riot each one is! For the most recent one, at 1am, my brother and sister-in-law opened the bedroom door and were horrified to see four little girls (2 of whom are mine) climbing up and down the double decker bed with their bags. Apparently they were pretending that they were going on a holiday. At 1am. In the morning.
(The Big Boys also have their sleepovers but I've never hosted any of theirs although it is their dream to come to my place for a sleepover because they are convinced that there's some ghostbusting to do in the 'forest' - actually it's a park but to these city kids, a few trees clumped together is a forest - in front of my block.)
3. People are forever stunned when they realise that my kids don't watch that much TV. Really, it's no biggie. But it's only so because it's what we have been doing since they were born. So what do they do instead? In no particular order: annoy me or TheHusband or both (and I start questioning why I have this no-TV rule in the first place), read, being read to, play with their Fifi, Fafa and Falisha (names of their stuffed toys whom they baby and put in a stroller and push around and take all my best face towels to be used as diapers and blankets), play masak-masak (and force us to eat their food), play Lego, role play (mostly classroom and restaurant scenes), play along the corridor with the next-door neighbours, draw and colour. These are their unstructured activities. When I'm preparing meals, I expect them to help me with small tasks around the kitchen like slicing carrots (for H), pounding onions/garlic/ginger etc using the molar and pestle (for F - she even has a song for it), prepare vegetables (involving the use of scissors). Occasionally we indulge in some activities like painting, craft work and some Science project thing that I bought so many of (look for 1stoys on facebook).
We do watch TV on occasions. Every Ramadan, H will watch her favourite cooking show, Ketuk-Ketuk Ramadan, for 30 minutes daily. Once a month or so, we have a family TV night when we'll watch either a carefully chosen documentary on National Geographic or a movie suited for their age group. Fantastic Mr Fox is really something! When Masterchef is in season, we'll watch it together too. Then, when they go to their grandparents', they get a frightening dose of TV there. So, got TV what.
4. But F. She seems to think that there's not enough TV time for her. This Ramadhan, she's fasting for only half a day. She wakes up with us at 5am in the morning for a heavy meal of rice + dishes. Then, her next meal is at lunchtime.
So, she was at her childcare centre on the first day of the fasting month. She walked past the TV room after she had her lunch and she saw her friend who was fasting for a full day in the TV room. When she went home that day, she talked about how Amirah, her friend, could watch TV during lunchtime. Then she whispered to herself, "I want to fast also."
The next day, when I picked her up from school at about 5pm, I noticed that her water bottle was still full. I didn't think much of it. I started asking her all the usual questions - what did you have for lunch, who did you play with, what did you talk about in school etc.. But the first question drew a blank. "I don't know what my friends ate."
"How could you not know?" I asked.
"I was in the TV room."
Everything clicked.
My sister-in-law, whose 5-yo son does the same, calls it puasa TV.
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