Burung Kakak Tua?

One of my bedtime rituals with my girls is to have them 'Baca Bismillah'. They know when mummy says 'Baca Bismillah' means to recite surah Al-Ikhlas. Depending on how tired they are they will happily recite it without much fuss and of course lots of praise from mummy helps. They know it rather well and very the sejuk perut when I hear them recite the surah as they don't really get a lot of Islamic exposure living in a non-muslim country. They are still little but I try my best to teach them the basics. I'm not an expert and I can just about teach them the basics and I'll worry about the heavier, technical stuff when they are older. (read : private lessons during our trips back to Malaysia)

Anyway, seeing that they are rather good at Al-Ikhlas I thought it was time to progress to Al-fatihah. It's a bit longer so we haven't mastered it yet but Aiesha knows about 50% of it now and again very the sejuk perut. She's keen to recite it all but gets a bit frustrated when she falters halfway through. But I'm sure she'll get it all soon enough as we didn't master the Al-ikhlas overnight. 

Sophia is not yet 2 so when recites the Al-Ikhlas I can make out what she is saying but not others. You would have to concentrate very hard to make out what she's saying but she does know it. She mimics everything Aiesha does so now she too is listening very intently to Al-Fatihah when I recite it. By my estimation she gets about 25% of it which is again a sejuk perut moment for me.

After Al-Ikhlas and Al-Fatihah it is time to sleep but not before Sophia does her rendition of Burung Kakak Tua. My little darling has somehow got it in her head that Burung Kakak Tua is also a surah that needs to be learnt for bedtime. I guess she hasn't yet realised that the surahs are in Arabic and Burung Kakak Tua is in Malay. She must lump them all together as not English so by her logic must all be the same.

Children truly are little sponges and given proper guidance they can learn anything. Case in point, my girls speak better Malay than their father who is now learning from them.

Beddy Byes

On most days Sophia has one daytime nap and Aiesha doesn't. I say most days because sometimes Aiesha will nap and on those days if she naps too late in the day it spells trouble later on. So a couple of days ago Aiesha had a late nap and of course she had trouble sleeping later on. 

Being a full time SAHM I'm pretty relaxed about bedtime. I normally stay with my girls until they are asleep and as long as they're asleep by a certain then I'm cool with it all. Usually Sophia will fall asleep first and within 10 to 20 minutes later Aiesha will follow. But a couple of nights ago Aiesha was still wide awake half an hour later. So I figured I'd have my shower and by the time I'm finished she'd be asleep. I took an extra long shower to be on the safe side but was she asleep after mummy's long shower? Nope still awake. I knew if I opened the stairgate to go downstairs she would call out for me. 

On that night I had to climb over the stairgate and went downstairs without her noticing. About 10 minutes later we hear little footsteps and a cry. I went upstairs and found Sophia standing on Aiesha's side of the bed crying 'I want my mummy, where's my mummy'. Aiesha was lying on Sophia's side. I then asked Aiesha what happened to which she replied 'I don't know'. I then proceeded to ask if she woke her sister up. To which she replied 'I don't know'. My cheeky little girl says 'I don't know' whenever she has done something wrong. She knows that she if she were to call out for me or her daddy she would get a telling off for still being up. So what does she do.....wakes her sister up, mummy or daddy will come up and then deny any knowledge of her actions. She knew that once mummy is upstairs mummy isn't likely to leave until she's asleep. Mummy's soft like that. Mummy will be a little bit cross but not for long. Luckily she fell asleep soon after even though she kept saying 'I'm not tired mummy' in the hopes of getting a free pass to go downstairs.

I seriously need to get Aiesha back into her room again. Oh yes, my girls now sleep on our super king bed and we sleep in the guest bedroom. We got Aiesha sleeping in her own room on her first birthday as I needed space in our bed being 6 or so months pregnant at the time. Once Sophia arrived she would mostly sleep in her own bed but join us around 6am. We then had both girls in bed with us after a bout of throwing up last November. However, we decided a couple of months ago it was too crowded and we left our bed. Now we play musical beds. 

Yes, we are a bit crunchy with our child rearing.

Off To School

This September, Aiesha, will be attending Nursery at the local school which is about 5 minutes away....maybe 10 minutes if we take our time. There are only 3 schools where we live and we picked the nearest one. It's a good school with a good Ofsted report.

Well today was the new parents meeting at her school where we met the headteacher and various other people. Not sure who they were as there wasn't a microphone and they didn't really speak up plus they waffled on about god knows what at which point I zoned them out. :) The headteacher was nice enough and went through what the children will go through at school....curriculum and the skills they expect the parents to teach the children before they start school eg. dressing/undressing themselves (for PE I suppose), recognising their name and going to the loo. We didn't get to meet her actual class teacher as she was ill but from what the other mums who have older kids at the school are saying, she doesn't sound all that bad. Let's hope it's true.

The meeting was also an opportunity to have a look at the uniform. I actually ordered the bits of uniform I thought we needed from the school a few weeks ago when we sent in our acceptance form. Initially I only ordered the school sweatshirt and the book bag as that were the only items I thought would have the school logo on. I figured we could then buy the polo shirts externally as it would be cheaper than buying from the school. Turns out even the polo shirts have logos on them so we ended up ordering a couple of them too. She's only 3, will only go for 3 hours a day and we've spent almost £50 on her uniform! It wouldn't be so bad if the uniform pieces would fit Sophia when she starts nursery but I highly doubt it will. Aiesha, will be among the youngest in her class so I got her 3-4 age pieces. Sophia, on the other hand is an October baby so will only start school in September 2012 and be among the oldest in class. So I really doubt she'll be able to fit 3-4 age clothes as she'll be almost 4 by then. She's already into 2-3 year old clothes now and she's not even 2 yet.

Aiesha is very excited about school and I really hope the excitement lasts. She has many, many more years of school to get through.

Aiesha is 3!

My Aiesha is now 3 years old!!! Where did the years go?? Happy Birthday Sayang! Mummy is oh so proud of you and loves you more than life itself.

Minutes old.

A year old.

2 years old.

3 today!!!