May 2012

Another late update. Lots to say but not much time to say it.

Summary:

1. Farah getting more feisty. 

2. Huda needs to learn to fend for herself. 

3. Farah should stop bullying her sister. 

4. Life is never quiet. 

Will write more. Soon. I hope. 

March 13

I want to start writing regularly again. Years and years ago, waaaaaaaay before blogging was even popular, I (along with millions of other people) kept a diary. I wrote multiple entries on some days and sometimes after a long stretch of silence, I'll return to my faithful diary and continue writing again like we're old pals.

Then, before emailing became the standard mode of conversation and even some time after that, I wrote letters to my friends. Even to those who live on this tiny island together with me. I had my regular writing kakis - Yati/Maureen, Shujiun, Sharifah, Murni (when she started living in Australia). I would spend hours writing my letter and wait patiently for the 2 weeks or a month it takes for the reply to come back. 

Then the demands of work and family set in. I was still writing letters after I got married but it became a lot less regular when I had kids. Suddenly, there was an onslaught of technology that helped us to communicate and out went the letter. Even to Murni who still lives far, far away. 

Now, writing blog entries is the only thing I do that fits into the writing-for-leisure category. 

I started thinking about this because I had just attended a workshop which made me think of writing. Actually, writing wasn't even the focus of the workshop. I just happened to think of writing during the break-the-ice segment. It made me think of writing, especially on paper. (I still hate the keyboard I'm using so it somewhat impedes my speed and I don't like how it makes me feel a lot less fluent.)

But, as much as I do want to write more, the harsh reality is, time is something I don't have much of. There are things I'm supposed to do and tomorrow being the first day of my March school hols, I don't feel the pressure to start doing the work now. I'll regret this tomorrow night, I'm sure. Let me procrastinate this once while I ramble on and on. 

Besides writing, what else do I want to do more of?

1. Reading

a. I want to read all the children's book in the library. 

b. I want to read random non-fiction books. (How to Solve It by George Polya. This is not a random choice. This one, I've wanted to read for some time but haven't bought it yet so I'll start randomly picking books from the non-fiction section after I'm through with this.)

c. I want to read all the fiction books that have won awards, or shortlisted for awards or are on bestseller's lists. 

d. I want to read a good uplifting chic-lits after a particularly heavy book. 

2. Doing fun activities with the two small but important people in my life. Climbing the hill in front of our block. Going on nature walks (climbing that hill is in this category). Doing finger painting - only after I've bought Crayola's washable paint. Cooking together. And most importantly, make them curious about their world. Actually, that's not something I can make. It's something which I must make sure I don't try to quell. 

Hmmm.. This is beginning to sound like a bucket list. I'm gonna do just that. I'm gonna write more later (when, I don't know but it will be written someday) all the things I wanna do before I die. Now, gotta stop because at 11.50pm at night, my laundry is done and I gotta hand them up. 

Tataaa!

The Things They Say...

Episode 1

Huda made a real sweet card for Farah yesterday.

Episode 2

This morning, they were at my mother's house when they discovered the Toys R Us catalogue which came with the day's papers. Both of them were studying the contents of the catalogue intently when Farah tried to grab it from Huda.

Huda got upset and wanted to hit Farah. TheHusband told Huda not to do it and reminded her of the card that she made for her sister.

"No!" she replied. "That was only for yesterday."

Episode 3. 

Huda discovered one hives-like thing on her face. 

I told her that that's most likely the beginning of a hives outbreak and that she had better wash her face and brush her teeth with toothpaste, otherwise "more would come out."

(By the way, brushing her teeth is a standard response to all her ailments because she is so averse to brushing teeth with toothpaste.)

Upon hearing that "more will come out", she got extremely frightened and said, "More bees will come out?"

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March 2012

Farah turned 3 last month.

She is also up to a lot of antics.

1.One day, we were talking about the differences between boys and girls. We were at a coffee shop. After stating the main difference between boys and girls, she pointed at every man at the coffee shop and said, That man has a p/e/n/is. That man has a p/e/n/is.That man has a p/e/n/i/s.

2. Another day, she was angry with her sister. She wanted to insult her sister and she went, Kakak, you have orange and pink p/e/n/i/s!

3. She woke up and pooped in her diaper. She was smelly and so I said, "Farah busuk lah!" (Farah is smelly.)

She replied, "No. I'm a girl. I'm not smelly. Ayah is a boy. Ayah is smelly."

February 2012

Doing monthly updates now. Hopefully I can sustain this for a while.

I am soooo inundated with work. My honeymoon period is over and I now barely have time to even check my facebook. I am now involved in areas which I previously have no interest in. But I should learn and expose myself to things which are completely new so as to rejuvenate my brain cells so that I (hopefully) do not get a severe case of dementia a few years down the road. 

Farah's School Life

It was pretty uneventful, the first few days. She barely cried so I thought all was going to be okay. But, like Huda, the tears fell much, much later. After she overcame the baby talk (see previous entry), she started waking up in the middle of the night. (Both kids have been sleeping through the night, up to that point.) Sometimes, she would come to my room, wake me up, and tell me in a sad little voice, "Mak, besok Farah tanak pergi sekolah tau?" (Mak, tomorrow I don't want to go to school.") 

Then, she started telling me nonsense like, "I don't want to go to school because my teacher's eyes are too round."

Sigh. I'm sure one day, she'll start enjoying school as much as Huda does. Til that day comes, I have to tolerate all these sob stories coming from her.

Farah the Theatre Practitioner

She can turn her tears on like a seasoned performer. As of now, it's still amusing although I don't really humour her much when she starts her tear-y sessions. She'll just bury her face in her eyes and sob quietly. It's seriously amusing when that happens. You'll see her shoulders moving up and down and you'll hear those gentle sobs coming from her. 

She does this whenever anything displeases her, even something so small and insignificant. The other day, Huda decided to sit in the front seat when my father sent them to school. Farah, feeling lonely at the back, started sobbing. One day, I ended a phonecall with TheHusband without passing the phone to her first, she started sobbing. My brother and sister teased her about taking her bag, she started sobbing. 

But, it's not that she's some weepy little girl. When my nephews tease her (and this can be particularly annoying), she'll turn into some feisty little thing and will disturb my nephew back. So, there's really no pattern in sight for now. It really totally depends on her propensity for theatrics at that point in time. 

Huda's Quran Reading

Aiyoooh. Ever since the new school term started, it has been very, very erratic. I'm trying to keep it to at least 4 times a week instead of daily recitation as planned earlier. 

Huda's School 

I don't know!!!

Gaaah!

School A produces very good results but Huda will have no life for the next 6 years as homework will keep her very occupied . It helps that her cousins are in the same school too so it'll be more convenient when school is closed for Marking Day or whatever reasons. Only one adult needs to take the day off to take care of the kids and we can save on our childcare leave. 

School B is very, very near our house and TheHusband can send the kids to school in the morning. Its results are okay; I think.

Should I put School A as first choice or School B? Both schools will still be double session next year so I doubt either school will be popular among parents. Hopefully, there won't be any balloting needed. I think I will wait til the last day of P1 registration before I make up my mind where to register Huda. 

Argh!

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All right. That's all for now. Hopefully I'll put up another entry soon enough. More about the kids and the antics they get up to (plenty). 

January 2012

I sooooooooooooooo malas to blog!

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.

Language and Everything Else

The kids are doing some work at the dining table while I'm on the ipad. Heh. (I have a love-hate relationship with the ipad. But that's another story.)

Huda

Huda can now read quite well. There are huge areas for improvement, of course. Like rhythm and intonation. But, for now, I'm satisfied with her progress.

However, there's the issue with Singlish. I'm not from the I-detest-Singlish camp. I see value in it but only after the kid is competent in English. So, my ears hurt terribly when she goes, 'Inside have a spoon.'

Gaaaah! I am now in the process of forcing her to use 'There is...' and 'There are...' in her speech. It's not an easy task because I'm sure that she has friends who use 'have' to start their sentences.

Then there's the wrong structure for questions. She goes 'You go where?' when asking people where they are going. I must have corrected this at least 3000 times so far but I still hear this too often!

I'm hoping that by the middle of next year, I would be able to weed out all these problems and that she would speak in grammatical English. Hopefully, she would develop an ear for correct English and would know the correct contexts for English and Singlish.

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Farah.

Farah sometimes likes to call people by anything except by their actual names. One night, while saying goodnight to her father:

Farah: Bye bye Momok. (ghost)

Ayah: Ayah bukan momok. (I'm not a ghost)

Farah: Ok. Bye bye Bukan-Momok.

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She's not reading yet.

I used to put the Baby Can Read videos on for Huda. Although she couldn't talk til very very late in her toddlerhood, she could identify words. I remember that after a few months of Baby Can Read, she could identify the beginning sounds of words. For example, if I have a couple of word cards in front of her, she would be able to correctly pick out the cards for the words I want. When I give her a new word which she has not seen before, she would choose the word cards that begin with the same sound. I once put in the word 'butterfly' in the set of word cards she had. Up to that point, she had never seen the word 'butterfly' before. When I asked her to pick out 'butterfly' among the set, I noticed that she only picked out the words that begin with the /b/ sound. I believed completely in Baby Can Read after that.

Unfortunately, I'm not doing Baby Can Read with Farah. Tsk.

She enjoys being read to and insists that we read her countless of books. This is her father's area. Every evening when he comes back from work, he will spend at least half an hour reading to the kids. We visit the library every one to two weeks so there's a constant supply of fresh storybooks for them. This father-daughter reading time gives me some time to rush through housework: hanging the laundry, vacuuming and mopping.


TV

The kids still don't watch TV at home. Of course, they do watch TV when we are at other people's homes but not at our own place. There are three videos that they watch sometimes though - Baby Can Read, Baby Signing Times & Iqra' (that's something like Arabic phonics).

Some people are surprised when they discover my no-TV policy. The standard questions will be:

Do they ask for it?

So what do they do at home?

How do you go about doing your work?

What if your daughters don't know anything about TV shows when their friends are talking about their favourite shows?

Short answers are:

1. No. They don't ask for TV when we are at home because it's simply not switched on when they are awake. We do have cable but we don't have the kiddy channels. 

And no, it's not like we replace TV with computer games/ipad/iphone either. I am pretty much a Luddite when it comes to kids' entertainment. The more low-tech, the better. The kids are only allowed a limited use of the ipad on Sundays. About 20 minutes each. Even then, I sometimes distract them with a whole lot of other stuff that they forget about the ipad.

2. What do they do at home? They play/fight/play/draw/fight/play/colour/fight/read/play. They are used to keeping themselves entertained without the use of screens.

3. When I needed to cook or clean in the kitchen, Farah would take her toys and play at my feet. There is a kids' table in the kitchen and that's her work station when I'm there. When I'm hanging the clothes out to dry, she'll help me pass the clothes pegs. Vacuuming the floor will see her trying to chase the vacuum cleaner and sitting on it. When both are at home together at the same time, it's much easier because they will keep each other entertained. 

4. My children know plenty about Dora from the books we bought and borrowed from the library. Huda loves the Disney Princesses but she doesn't know who they are exactly. There are plenty of books we can get if we want her to know about the princesses but we hate them princesses. Life is not about spending your entire life looking for a prince charming. Ptui. 

(This fixation with the princesses may be a losing battle for us parents, though.)

Iqra'

Huda is now at Book 6 of Iqra'. That's the final book of the Iqra' series. She is a rather reluctant reader when it comes to practising this because while she can read, she does not understand what she's reading. Once she finishes book 6 (by the end of the year, I hope), she can start reading the Quran. I want her to start reading the Quran and at least cover 1/3 of it by the time she goes to Primary 1. This will make it easier because once she's comfortable and more fluent reading it, she just needs to spend 10-15 minutes reading it daily and I just need to check her recitation.


Primary School

Primary school will be a frightening time and I want to make it as smooth-sailing as possible. The only way to do that is to prepare her sufficiently for it so that she won't have to struggle. I hope that I am on the right track and that my daughters will not cause grief to their teachers!

House-Hunting

Saturday's headlines: Resale flat prices keep going up. I'm giving up. I'm not going to harbour hopes of getting another flat anytime soon. I'm just going to go ahead and get my floor to ceiling shoe cabinet.

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I started this on the ipad but finished this of on the laptop a week later. The ipad is simply not a machine for typing. 

Online Shopping!

Sometimes, my heart will race and my mouth will start to water.

Because I saw an irresistible deal online.

I am weak. I know. But, as a working mom whose daily travels are exclusively home-workplace-mom'shome-home, there's really not much time and space for a shopping trip. 

So, I love online deals. Bring them on! My debit card has made a somewhat permanent indentation beside the laptop. :D

(just went a teeny weeny bit craaayzee at groupon, gmarket and bookdepository while the kids were napping)

Tantrums (again)

1. The tantrums are getting worse. I'm talking about the younger one, of course. It has driven me to... indifference. You want to cry? Go ahead. You want to be left alone? Go ahead. I'll just hurry back home while you choose to wail for the entire of Woodlands. The result is startling, though.

This morning, for the nth time, (oh yes. it was only morning and i've already lost count of the number of times the tantrums have been thrown) the little girl stood rooted to the spot, refused to budge and screamed and cried at the top of her voice. (And we're talking about a very high top here. Not some dainty little voice.) We were just beside our block and I was at my wits' end. Instead of taking a few steps forward and stopping some 3-4 metres ahead of her (which I normally do), I just walked briskly to the lift without turning back. And guess what, she followed me (still screaming, of course). So that's what I've been doing today.

I just feel very, very sorry for my neighbours. It was about 10-ish on a Sunday morning. Some people do enjoy sleeping in on a Sunday (not my kids, of course; they woke up at 6.45am this morning). Sigh. Parenthood gives us a thick hide. 

2. I don't remember the older girl having tantrums this bad but the older girl didn't have an older sibling from whom she could learn about the effectiveness of tantrums. 

3. I am not going to write much more today. My head is aching. I blame Scent of a Woman, that Korean drama. I still cannot understand why the lead actor of Korean dramas cannot be a dashing not-so-teenybopper-kind-of-guy actor. I really prefer my male lead to be more mature. But Scent of a Woman, despite its boyish lead actor, is a good drama! It's predictable, somewhat. But there are enough plot turns and twists to make you stay up til 4am to finish the story. Of course, I'm regretting it now but it's that good.

4. I'm not sure if I'm even coherent now but I think I should sleep. Especially because I'm beginning to imagine that the laptop is going to fall off the table. 

Woes of the Parent

1. One of my worst fears is that multiply will suddenly disappear from the surface of the internet with all the rants and raves I've recorded over the past few years. There is a niggling little voice at the back of my mind telling me to save everything somewhere but, of course, that poor voice has been ignored.

2. Farah. I'm sure I have written somewhere here that Farah has a very loud voice. So loud that one taxi driver commented, "Waaah! Your girl voice very loud ah? You let her eat what?"

"A couple of amplifiers, Uncle."

3. Her tantrums are getting worse. A few weeks ago, she saw Dora shoes at Metro. She insisted on them and of course, our answer is no, No, NO. She got upset and just plopped herself down, wailing. We ignored her and stood around waiting for her to come to her senses. Did she? She stopped crying. But she continued sitting there. Even after we've threatened her with abandonment, she remained at her spot. (Mind you, there were shoppers; it was about 8pm.) We grew tired of her so TheHusband picked her up only for her to refuse being picked up, crying for us to just leave her on that spot. She was flailing about, straightening her arms, refusing to be carried. Arrrrggggghhhhh!

4. The above-mentioned tantrums happen at least 4 times a day. 

5. Then there was the epic totally-uncalled-for wailing that happened just minutes before a marriage solemnisation ceremony - when everyone in the room was quiet and waiting for the ceremony to begin. Arrrrggggghhhhh!

6. But I'd like to think positive about things. I'd like to think that God is fair and if things are difficult/embarrassing now, it's only because later on, things will be easier. Amin! 

7. Huda. Huda is no longer taking things quietly when Farah bullies her. She fights back. So, Farah has had her share of being pinched and squeezed whenever she annoys the sister (which is 80% of the time).

8. Then, there's this problem of Huda the worrywart. Whenever we threaten to leave Farah (because she would just stay rooted at a spot during her tantrums), Huda would take it seriously. She worries for Farah so much but she's not capable of explaining her feelings clearly. So it becomes too frustrating for Huda who then takes it out on Farah by pinching her. Sigh. 

9. I think we are not dealing with Farah's tantrums appropriately. Threatening to leave her on her own does not work. Farah doesn't care and Huda gets so worked up. Aiyooh. It's time  for me to seek Dr Google's advice on this matter. 

I'll write again soon. Hopefully, by then, we would have resolved this drama OR (the better option..) Farah would have outgrown her propensity for theatrics.