Germs Died

"Zaky, have you brushed your teeth today?"
"I don't have to! The germs already died!"
"Huh? How did the germs died?"
"I 'tui-tui' (spit) them!"
(our 2nd boy who just turned 3 1/2 yrs old)
Happy New Year 2010!
(it's 01012010 but the post said 31122009 as in San Diego. missing it )

11 years

as man & wife. 6 years as mom & dad for Umar, Zaky & Aqil. 12-12-2009 it's the 11th year anniversary. Alhamdulillah. Praise to Allah for everything.

Zaky @ 3yrs 4mths

I've been wanting to write about Zaky from months ago. Seemed like he's been going on through lots of changes, or rather development of his own, positive and negative! While writing this, he's bullying Aqil on the bed while Aqil thought it's fun play! Gosh! :P "don't push him!" "Zaky! Don't push him!" Zaky,"he thinks it's funny!" i'll stop first then... ................................
Continue now. Everyday Zaky always say sentences that's funny and sometimes amaze us. eg few days back, "Mummy, praying mantis says "AllohuAkkebarr" LOL and good that he relates 'praying' with AllahuAkbar. One day at the swimming pool, "Mummy! there's a mosquito at the swimming pool." where is it? Then I saw a huge grass hopper at the place :-) LOL Lately after sending Umar to board his school van, we (Mummy,Zaky,Aqil) will spend time at the park/playground (this is why we opted to stay at condo) for breakfast and play (and Mummy had foot reflexology walking, hehehe) and Zaky will always bring his craft butterfly he named 'Sally' (he thought Sally is not a girl's name! :P) whatever Zaky. Arguing with him, you'll never win! So he always look around for Sally's friends, other butterflies. On good days we may find a few of different type of butterflies. Mummy's feeling good again living in Malaysia when my children can learn from nature, like the time we were in UK and States. How much nature, everyday life can teach our children. For free!
And everyday, Zaky & Umar (after he came back from school) will always like to play with bristle blocks and typical lego blocks. And their favourite thing to create is, the transformers! We parents are so amazed on how both of them can create such a transformer that can transform and with many things, like wings, propellers, shooters (yeah, boys! :P), changable arms/feet, and all of these will be described by themselves, on each parts. Language, explanation, imagination, creativity and all sorts that's been learned in this Transformers play. Sometimes it can be as big as their small chair ;-) Umar said, "We don't have to buy the Transformers toys Mummy. We can do it ourselves and i think it's better." (that's Umar, which Mummy has to always remind him of being boasting...may be kids age hopefully). And I think this interesting play between the brothers has made Zaky & Umar does not like it at the nursery. Everytime coming back from nursery at late afternoon, once they enter the house, they both will rush to their toys! and play, play, play as if they haven't seen it for a long time! :P Sometimes I feel so blessed that my kids really love staying home with their mum.
About Zaky, he could count to 20 and only from a week ago we started to get him to 30, nearly there. But he always said, "I can count to 100!" Ok, Can you say it? "1,2,3,... ,18,19, 100!" Hahahhaha.. he wished he can count to 100 like his big brother which he always follow suit whatever Umar does. Sometimes too much, "Can you help me with this Umar, can you help, can you help" bothering his big brother while trying to do the same as what Umar does :-)
In reading, Zaky now managed to recognise simple/common words that he sees in book. We are still trying to get him to be able to read :-) With 3 super heroes in the house now..hhmmm.. wherever, whenever there's opportunity. May Allah give us strength to teach our 3 kids to their best potentials. Amin. (got to stop, appointment for Umar's report book at his school, can't wait to meet his 6 teachers of each subjects. tarra.
* Alhamdulillah at Umar's report day, discussing things out with teachers of each subject and the principal (I was the last parent so time was all on me, hehehe), the school conclude that Umar has huge potential academically and hopefully will improve to his mischief. We know already that we are dealing with a kid that will test things surrounding him, including people! and would like to see what's the reactions we shall take to tackle the problems he created. Talk about school I'm happy with the way they handled my son, Umar, academically and in islamic adab&akhlak. Although Umar started this islamic montessori preschool only from last July, he had learnt so much about Islam, our religion, about why Allah created us, how to be a good khalifah to the world and all other aspects of daily life that Islam has set the guidelines for the right path. Will we be able to direct our children to the right path, with the so many duniawi things parents need to do to survive the family life nowadays, the surrounding environment that always make us forget our creator. And now I'm talking about living in the country that majorities are Muslims, with athans heard at 5 prayer times a day. But as individual, how much have we done for Allah swt, the way we live, the things we do everyday, the human relationship, the inner self cleansing in trying to lead a blessing life from Allah swt and others. I've been living in non Muslim countries for nearly 12yrs, and those experience had made me learnt so much, and it's so strange that life in the country that majorities are muslims is filled with lots of things that can astray you and sadly the muslims behaviour around does not reflect muslims at all, in public or secretly. Ya Allah, show us the right path. Amin. (ops.unintentionally)

Zaky is 3!

Our 2nd boy turned 3 on June 29th. 3 years ago at a different time zone, in Poway, California, Mummy still remember in the best labor room that I have ever been, with jacuzzi (aka for water birth:P) etc, baby Zaky came out on the 3rd attempt of vacuum, minute to be pushed to OT for C sect. Alhamdulillah you came out eventually with yr umbilical cord 3 times around your neck, which explained the hard hours of pushing ;-)
On his 3rd birthday, Mummy realised that this boy has not started on potty training yet! Unlike his brother that a week before his 3rd birthday, he's off diaper, but with lotsa accidents for the next year! year! :P hehehhe.. So for our 2nd, Mummy decided to wait until he's ready, but he did not show any sign of that except for demanding to use nappy whenever we asked him to use pull ups!, let alone underpants :P So a week after his 3rd birthday, on one fine day, Mummy got the chance to help him to change his nappy, and I got the idea and told him,
"Zaky, we are running out of nappy. We forgot to buy nappy, they are all at the shop. I only have this underpants. Hey I got two that u can choose, one is the star and the other one is the car. You can choose which one you want to wear."
Then he answered with his grumpy face, "No! I want my nappy! Nappy is good. No underpants!" Yea, Zaky, with his strong opinions, always! Then I thought for a second. Well, I will leave him to think and put the 2 underpants on the floor in front of him, then I left the spot with a prayer to Allah for this potty training attempt. While I was walking down the stairs, I heard Zaky saying, " I want my nappy! I want my nappy!" I ignored and hoping for the better. After half an hour I went again upstairs but not to attend to him. I went straight to the room and in a minute I heard him, "Mummy. Can you help me with this please" while holding the star underpants. So I just said, "O.Ok. Good boy Zaky. You are a small boy! Small boy use underpants, only little boy like Aqil use nappy.(he never liked to be called a big boy. For him Umar is big boy, he's a small boy and Aqil is a little boy)"
Ops, then he said, "Can you go to Giant and buy my nappy?" LOL
"Ok Zaky, we'll see ok" Then he went away continue watching tele. I went near him and tell him, "Zaky, if you want to wee2, tell Mummy or Aunty Precy (our helper) ok?" "Don't make your underpants wet ok?" After that, with a bit wetty underpants, to full wet underpants, to wet the floor for a few times, and poo2 in underpants, on and off with on time and accidents for few days, so we decided to give him pull ups but with intention to keep it dry.
It has been about 3 weeks today and he's getting better at it. Sometimes he wanted to go potty for wee2 almost every hour! With praise and encouragement, he understood now to go to the loo for wee2, but poo2, only few times now :P
One night we went out for dinner and he drank like a full 1 1/2 glass of water. When we came back, he wanted to go to the loo every 10 minutes, but hey! he got it right..he wanted to wee2 too many times because he felt it, with too much drink! hehehehe... :-)
InsyaAllah we hope that our Zaky will be diaper free soon.

Back to home country

of Mummy's :P So welcome to live in Malaysia Naz, Umar, Zaky & Aqil. After 8 mths transition of weather and culture in Singapore from California, from England. And I can't believe it that the weather, air quality has changed so much from 12 years ago! So now our body system's struggling to keep up with the hot weather and obviously 'not good' air quality. All i can think of is, it's like summer in the dessert of Las Vegas! but worse with the humidity. For the first time, Aqil got runny nose for days, Umar & Zaky with coughing. Mummy with sinusitis. Dad? Daddy cool? :P He's used to life of drastic change of weather as he's been travelling to all sorts of different weather in short notice for the past 7-8yrs. From summer, spring temperature to thick snow etc. Good for you then
;-)

As of the kids, 1,2,3. No.1 Umar-Finding his new kindy and taekwando, No.2 Zaky-Getting him to school too? we'll see. He can recite Al-fatihah on his own now, before 3yrs old. Yippee! And last night he cried in his sleeping, on and off, Mummy already thought it's due to unfinished business with us just before he slept ;-) So i asked him today, "Who cried last night?" "Me" with a smile :P "Why did you cry Zaky?" "Because I need batteries" yea..he wanted batteries as laptop switched off due to battery nil. We purposely did not plug it in so that they wouldn't play too long, as what always happened. Now Umar gotta see optometrist after initial check-up at his kindy last month.
And our No.3-Aqil..he can sing Thomas song his way! :-) And he is so keen, too keen on what he wants, be it to go out from the house, type of food etc. If he did not get what he wants, he will try to knock his head on the floor and throw his body to the floor! My goodness. I got 3 kinds of superheroes here, and my helper need to deal with all these everyday. When I'm around, I make sure I give her every single tips i can think of on how to look after my children, how to handle different arguments, battle situation, resentment at meal time etc.

We pray to Allah that our family can survive the weather, the culture and Malaysia.

Zaky..Umar..

Mummy was feeding him, Zaky, a piece of chicken and it fell before reaching his mouth, so Mummy said, "Sorry Zaky" Then he answered, "Not sorry. Sorry about that" So Mummy said again, "Sorry about that Zaky", then he answered, "That's better" "It's ok Mummy"
Macam-macamlah si Zaky! :P At 2yrs 22mths.

Umar, Mummy and Zaky were reading a book about Food Chain. Then came to the page about plant needs sunlight, water and air to grow. And I asked Umar again what did the plant need to grow. Umar, "Sunlight, air, water and patience" Mummy, "Patience?"
Umar, "Patience because they have to wait a long time to grow big"
:-) How much surprise can you get from your children's language, everyday!

Update for kids 1,2,3

Aqil just turned ONE yr old, Zaky 3 mths to 3 yrs old and Umar 3mths 40days to 6 yrs old. Aqil can say 'there' and point out what he wants, too many times in a day! clap hands when prompt, do twinkle-twinkle little star with his tiny fingers (asking us to sing it while he does the action ;-), say 'aw-wahh' for hello, C phonic 'khhe' when he sees C or cat! Can say phonic A, Aaa.. and 'papa' for apple. B, bbaa for ball; whenever he's on ABC on starfall.com. Enough 3 letters for a start ;-) Aqil loves the mouse and keyboard so much. And Aqil is one active, adventurous baby, climbing everywhere! even stand up on chair (his small chair), rocking horse and anything that he can climb and stand on, and take advantage if somebody close to something that he can step on our feet, hand, shoulder to get to his target place! Hahahha...
Other than that he basically understand simple command, ask him to take certain toys, ask him to show where is the bird! ask him to give it to you and few others.

Zaky is 3 mths to 3 yrs old, waiting for him to be able to read :P for now he can recognised few words like 'exit' (his favourite, at car parks, malls etc), 'shapes', 'bakugan' (one of fav toy!), 'fish' and 2,3 more. So we r trying to get him to be able to read, as it's just that 'click' hasn't got into his brain yet..he knows all the phonics and all, not new for him. In numbers, he can count to 20, to our surprise. Like Umar, teaching them in daily life things..however he can recognise numbers until 11, and still not get 4 is 4 things and further, 1,2,3 things he's ok. It takes time and practise. Other than that what is interesting about Zaky is his language ability, his vocabulary, he's far ahead from his peers (he's not started school yet, hehehe :P said that because everybody here will start their kid at school at yr they r 3yrs old, but i wanna wait a bit more longer). One of the reason is because he always play with Umar and have conversations with Umar when they r playing together. We love to hear them communicate with each other. So cute and funny when Umar had to explain, describe things to him when he asked. When playing pretend, computer games etc. But this boy is really good at politics with people around him. He will create a conversation or asked you things first before he tells you what he actually wants. "Can i see what's up there Mummy?" "hmmm..i like that biscuit, can i have some please"..and he's always with please and thank you. Bless you Zaky. But with that opposite he got tantrum 2 that Umar never had before. New experience for us when he's crying, struggling in the car, lying down at our feet in the car etc, one incident just this evening when we all ready to have dinner picnic (6pm)at the beach next to playground. We told him we r going to playground and he actually thought the playground down the block. So he didn't want to get in the car :P struggling in the car, crying while saying, "I wanna go playground" repeatedly. Even we say we r going to the playground Zaky, it's near the beach. "No! Not near the beach!" "Don't drive! driving is boring" another word from him since a month or so ago, 'boring'. "Shower is boring" "Eat is boring" "Ribena is boring" "Biscuit is boring", whatever he doesn't like at that time..is boring! Hahahahhaha... but when you say to him, "Are you boring Zaky?" he will open his eyes wide while thinking and say "No I'm not! You are boring!" Sabar je lah si Zaky ni... Hahaahahahaha...

Umar..who can't wait for his birthday, wishing that his birthday falls on January because he said he'll be the 1st to celebrate birthday every year! Hahahhaha.. Now he got to wait for Mummy's, Aqil's and Zaky's b'day before his turn :-) And still like before, Umar, who is so hard to get one thing done in his daily tasks, because everything has to have reason behind it, for him! Why shower? Why eat? Why wash hands? Yea, after all the explanations done, he went, "I don't want to.." Uurrggghhhh.. After few years of struggling with him, just few days ago (after Mummy got e-mail about iblis/satan who tells their secret to Nabi Muhammad saw.) when I don't have other points for his arguments, I told him the story about satan, that they always make us do bad things like disobey parents etc. Alhamdulillah he did listen for that time ;-) And on the way to his Iqra' class, Mummy continue the story of Prophet Adam, the 1st human being and how Allah sent him to live on earth because he listen to satan and disobey Allah. He listened to the story with surprise. So now we use, "don't let satan win Umar..you have to fight, come on..satan tells you not to shower.. " At least he listens after some arguments too! :P Hhmmm to that extent that we have to explain to him to listen, to do his daily tasks..
Another one, one day he came back from madrasah showing his work. Ustazah asked to draw Allah's creation, and in his picture is television, computer and another one looks like a person but he said it's a robot! OMG!.. He thought everything is Allah's creation including the machines that is part of life today. Children nowadays..they hardly relate the difference from Allah's creation. So we have to explain to him. And the picnic by the beach this evening had given us the chance to tell him more about Allah's creation when u'r out, seeing the sky, the sea, waves, trees, grass, birds etc. And Umar asked, "Does Allah make kuey-teow?" (we brought for dinner picnic!) then another explanation, where the kuey teow originally came from. Then he said, "So it's like the food chain, and Allah is the top of the chain.." so we say, "sort of..but for sure Allah is the greatest Creator"
Mummy's no1,2,3 boys..May Allah bless you, protect you and you become a soleh person, Aminn.

Happy New Year 2009

Well.. the new year, the new beginning of kids/our life, the family in Asia. Umar started his K2 (Kindergarten 2) on Jan 7th. First 2 weeks was really a challenging time for him especially. The new school environment, new friends-to-be who he cannot understand well their English (Singlish!) and Malay and vice versa. And we did not know how is the school system here, early childhood school. Mum kinda worried when Umar seemed not happy at all at first. When asked, he's not telling what we would like to know. Luckily the communication book between parent/teacher been given few days after school started :P Management. Talking about it, on his 1st day, a parent should be with their child on the bus for the driver to know the exact place to pick up/drop off. And not to our knowledge we were on the wrong bus, following the information given on the orientation day! :P Another management issue and they really apologize to us, new comer that they thought have the same experience like the old students who are used to different buses! :P Sabar...

So Mummy started to write to teacher about what I see in Umar and so forth (including some incidents with him and friends-to-be that is worrying). After 2-3 times Mummy wrote in the book, with concerns, comments, suggestions etc. Umar's teacher called Mummy, and we basically discussed things out when I convinced her that I just want to make sure my child can learn alongside with other children, happily without the feelings of been left out in social circle. Yea..after a week and a half, eventualy he can name out one of his friends in class! (hey! they did not use name tags at all (can be just stickers as i suggested! :P) and most of them have been friends with each other since a yr or 2yrs ago! Umar is all new to everything here, the culture of the school, the children, even teacher said that the way I brought up my children is not the same like they do it here. I totally agree, which out of the conversation/discussion with Umar's teacher, we understand that Umar is in adaptation process to the whole situation, the culture and all, even the food at school! (I never thought school can give chocolate spread for bread, jammy/choc biscuits at snack time, token sweeties from teacher (doesn't matter if it's end of school), junkies from bus driver assistant, friends giving sweeties to friends, OMG. What happen to the fruits, healthy food for the children? Even parents allow sweeties/junkies to be brought to school. Umar is surprised, so is Mummy! :P So this is one of the culture. Are we suppose to adapt to this unhealthy habits?...We gotta choose wisely here, which culture for the children, for the family etc. But it's not easy for a 5+yr old to understand this whole culture thing.

Come to the 3rd week, his 1st spelling assessment. Alhamdulillah, as teacher said (after I asked in the communication book, coz i'm not taking Umar's every words yet! :P) "he did the spelling very well both in English and Malay!" I thank to his Ayah for the spelling at home. Yea..it's the parents homework; but we are used to teach Umar at home. Then his 2nd spelling, which i knew he would have done it well too. And that Umar said, "I did well Mummy" :-) At the end of the month, he brought back the book that proves he did very well indeed, with good writing, which Mummy thought he's a bit behind in that; as here, they enhanced the writing skills from age 4!

And Zaky at 2 1/2yrs old?... still home learning in playing. Yea..whenever we got the opportunity, not everyday as we got Umar & Aqil in need of attention too. Can't help not to send him yet to 2hr daily school (Nursery 1=3yrs old) as I don't want him to be culturized (yet!) with the too systematic early childhood school programme here and the 'local English'. I've read lotsa expat forums that they agree the early childhood school here is too systematic/rigid. But the advertisement of the school tells you the opposite! Probably the context of learning through play here is a bit different from the one in UK, US. And so far, at any playground, i can't see any 8yr old can ask politely (with a simple please and thank you that is..), teenagers considerate to younger children, let alone the younger ones, going towards the same path!? So what's going to happen to my kids?..We can't be there all the time with them, mmmm.... Shouldn't it early childhood education emphasize on civics, social behaviour, imaginative thinking skills, freedom of opinions/speech. This is where the politeness of the Malay culture become useful ;-)

Back to Zaky..Hey! He started recognizing words! His dad (again ;-)) discovered when they went out from the car park and he pointed to his dad saying ,"Exit". Yippee! We always wonder (may be Mummy! :P) when can he start reading, will it be like Umar a week shy of his 3rd b'day? We were not convinced at all with Zaky, esp when most of the time he plays with Umar of 5+ age games! But they do have fun, enhance his speech, vocab and thinking skills when playing with Umar. And just yesterday when his dad asked us to get any book that he likes to read, he took this book and said, "Shapes" and dad was surprised he can read the title of the book. May be he recognized the word itself through memory, including a few more others. But that's the start of the reading stage. We are happy for you Zaky, and we still gotta work with you more on reading or reading on Starfall.com! Yea, he prefers games on other children websites :P Unlike Umar he got more reading for himself (actually the daily bedtime story reading with Dad) until the age of 4+. When Zaky became a toddler, Dad gotta put 2 boys to bed, so ended up only with Surahs and doas (it takes a while for Umar to read 8-9 surahs and his own long! duas) , which Zaky is yet to pick up. He can now say 'Bismillah' that's when we sing to him, "Before we sleep we say (Bismillah)." And he can follow us reading Al-Fatihah. May Allah give us strength to teach our children to make the best out of them. InsyaAllah.

Excerpts from a newspaper recently,
Said one of the local politician "..a vast difference in the scale and depth of efforts in improving the primary education teaching force as compared to preschool teachers. When can we do the same for early childhood education?"
A new fastrack course in kindergarten education will be launched this year to attract quality preschool teachers and raise standards in the sector.