Days of Our Lives

Wearing goggles in the kitchen. Folding paper for fractions. Math Cats. Table trees. Game show.  Reading. That’s today. I was thinking today that I should actually be deschooling them. This unschooling business, I believe in the philosophy of it, but my old schoolness hinders me from totally going the unschooling direction, and of course, I can’t really unschool them in some areas, like Quran for example. But in other areas, I would love to take the unschooling approach, and the first step should actually be deschooling. I think, hubby’s remarks also induces guilt in me, that I don’t really go for deschooling. And this going back to Malaysia business, also plays a part, though surprisingly, not so much. So I structure our homeschool, in a way, partly because of this fear and partly because it’s in my nature. But today, I didn’t worry too much about structure. I am personally curious though to see if deschooling will really trigger their natural curiosity as lifelong learners. Should I take the risk? I don’t know. If we live in the jungle and still have access to library books and internet maybe I will. Or if our circumstances change, maybe I will. Allah knows best. But for now, it’s eclectic for us. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Whatever it is, they’re still benefitting inshaallah. I just have to keep reminding myself not to worry about them not being up to par with other kids or not catching up to their grade level, which by the way is truly a challenge.

Parenting-wise, I believe, or I’d like to think so, that I have made some progress, inshallah. Right now, parenting the bigger kids is more challenging than parenting Baby Z, such that I may tend to abandon Baby Z at times. Baby Z now is a very active tot, mashaallah. He’s learning signs very quickly now. We’ve been a little lax with introducing new signs to him, until recently when he began to use them. It seems that he’s getting used to using signs to express what he wants to express that once, he moved his hands to sign something that we haven’t taught him. So we picked up where we left of with teaching him new signs. The most exciting thing: he responds and uses those signs more than before, alhamdulillah!

His most recent sign is cat, maybe made more possible by Hayaa (which is a post I still owe this blog) and the toy cats of N. Like me, I think Baby Z has a natural fear of animals. At S’s horse riding lesson, on the last day, G let S take her horse out to us so we can pet it. I did, not with trepidation though. The kids all did too. As for Baby Z, despite seeing me stroke the horse (which felt really great by the way!) jerked back when we brought him close to the horse. At another time, H bought a toy, a robotic cat, movd by remote control. When they directed it towards Baby Z, Baby Z turned hysterical and tried to run away. N’s cat, which can also meow and move, purr and stretch, also scared Baby Z in the beginning, but now, he is the one pressing the button to make the cat meow, purr and stretch. In fact, he has also taken to stroking N’s other soft toys which are cats. Thus he learned the sign for cat, and did so with a Cheshire cat grin I might add, which tickled us so much that we kept saying to him,

“Z, Z, cat. Cat. Cat!”

He also learned the sign for dog, as a result of picking up a book that had a picture of a dog. When he learned the sign, which was a pat on the thigh, he took to it so quickly mashaallah, and began patting his thigh enthusiastically, which in turn delighted all of us. His favaorite hand gesture is a twist of the palm, indicating ‘where is/ what happened to’ something. He also has a facial expression to match the gesture.

Hubby is still using the service of the Handivan, and everytime the Handivan comes to pick hubby up or drop him off, it has a beeping sound, which by now, Baby Z has associated with ‘Abi coming home’. Just today, while we were sitting in the kids’ room, we heard the beeping sound. It wasn’t hubby, but H said to Baby Z,

“Z, abi!”

Engrossed in a book, Baby Z didn’r react immediately, but after he was done flipping throug hthe book, he hurriedly got up, went to S and unintentionally smacked her face. He intended to tell her to pick him up so he could see out the window. Well, S pretended to cry and Baby Z wore his guilty face, but later as S hugged him, he somewhat franctically made the ‘Abi’ sign, which in his version is an index finger pointing to his head. Whenever hubby comes home, we would open the front door, and let Baby Z stand there welcoming Abi home.

Hubby had also taught him to raise his hands for takbir, which he does but with his palms facing his back. When we make salat, he would imitate our ruku’, which is basically an upside down V for him, and our sujud. Many a times, we would have to either move him away or make sujud over him.

Climbing up the stairs is something he is doing very well now, but it is also something that scares me. He is moving up the stairs very quickly, too quickly in fact, that he’s at the top of the stairs before you can run to stand one step behind up as he does so. One thing that keeps nagging me is I should start to make new cards for him, for the Glenn Doman program. He is showing a fascination with books, thanks to the three ever reading sibs, and especially loves touchy feely books. I don’t worry about him tearing or destroying a book, except by mistake or accident. He has really learned to turn the pages gently without tearing them mashaallah, alhamdulillah!

Today, H had his screaming session again, as a result of some bickering with S (nothing new). I have learned to ignore these, until they get bad. Today, I managed to practice what I have been reading so much about. His screams escalated and before long, I heard Baby Z beginning to cry. I ran upstairs to check it out, upon N and S’s claims of

“H is hurting Z!”

H was screaming and grunting in his room, trying to get at S who was on his bunk bed. I took him to my room, and asked,

“Did you hit S?”

He shook his head.

“I know…you sound furious. You must be so angry with her, aren’t you?”

He nodded. At first, his anger seem to escalate, but as I reflected his feelings, I noticed his anger dissipating, at being understood and heard.

“Mashaallah, you didn’t hit her even though you were so angry with her.”

I hugged him and consoled him, trying to make a big deal of how he avoided hitting his sister despite being so furious at her. He calmed down. At the time, I was fixing a slideshow for my mother’s blog and had to go abck downstairs. Knowing full well that he still needed time to recover, I told him to come with me and see what I was doing. He came. I again, commended him for controlling himself from lashing out at his sister, and even said,

“I noticed you always do that, mashaallah!”

By the time we had to pray Zuhr, about 15 minutes later, he was back to normal, alhamdulillah.

I felt great. And i hope he feels great too, well, you know what I mean. Alhamdulillah. I’ll take this as one step forward in teaching myself to parent them wisely. Alhamdulillah.

Oh Allah, please continue to give me strength and patience and wisdom in dealing with my children. Ameen.

My late afternoon landed me rush-cooking in the kitchen with S as my right hand girl. She peeled the carrots, cut the vegetables, and when I told her to peel and cut the onions, she groaned.

“I know. I hated it too. When I was small they always tell me to peel the onions. I hated it too. It was a boring job,” I said to her.

“Not because it’s boring, because it hurts my eyes,” she replied.

So I told her to do something else, and when I started cooking, I found her wearing goggles. I remember thinking to myself at that moment,

“I have to write this on the blog. This is something to remember!”

It’s not like they haven’t worn goggles before in the kitchen due to onions, but she continued to wear it as she was helping me, and it tickled and warmed me to see my firstborn helping me in the kitchen despite being somewhat sensitive (a little bit more than normal) to the onions. She has really been a big help and really, I understand why some or maybe most mothers say that they prefer to have daughters as their firstborns. Subhanallah. Even from my own children, I notice that gender does give you some variety over chore allocations. H for one hates arranging, feeding Baby Z, and decorating, but likes jobs such as scrubbing the bathroom, mopping floors, and ikcy jobs the girls turn up their noses at. On the other hand, the girls are more nurturing, and would feed Baby Z willingly even though they sometimes complain about having to do so.

I am currently reading Raising a Large Family, and I know this might elicit some gasps from people, but I suddenly feel somewhat more inclined to have more children. Ok. I hope hubby doesn’t see this or hold this over my head later on. Maybe I’m just having too good a day, alhamdulillah.