I have quite recently did a small event in school that requires parental involvement. I introduced a dish to the parents and asked them to allow their kids to be actively involved in preparing as well.  

The dish was a hit. We got 3 year olds to prepare the dish with their parents.

In line with the theme that we were learning; vegetables,  we made Vegetable Quesadillas.


A lot of parents enjoy the idea of cooking and getting their children involved in it as well. What they do not like is the fact that the children get impatient along the way, and when they get bored they will tend to do silly things that might upset you.


I told the participating parents a little detail that they might want to look into; attention span for that particular age group. For 3 year olds it is short, you are lucky if they can sit through a lesson for an entire 15 minutes.


Therefore we have to make our cookery session short and easy which is achievable for their age.


Here is the recipe for Vegetable Quesadillas :

Ingredients :
Shredded Cheddar/Mozarella
Tortilla Bread
Cherry Tomatoes*
Button Mushrooms*
Iceberg Lettuce
Olive Oil

Steps:
1. Allow children to cut (using a butter knife) the ingredients marked with a * into smaller pieces.

2. Heat up the pan with olive oil.

3. Get children to insert the sliced ingredients, cheese and iceberg lettuce into the tortilla bread.

4.  Get children to fold the tortilla bread into two (it will look like a crescent), place it onto the heated pan.

5. Once cooked, cut the middle part of the folded tortilla and voila! Quesadilla is served!

The children (even the ones who hated vegetables amazingly loved it!)

Try it out with your kids over the weekend. I am sure they will love it too.

PS : For adults, you may be creative and add in canned seafood or even spicy tuna and cook it up. Makes great lunch accompanied with a side of salad.

back to basic

I have 8 years of experience in educating young children.

And I am still learning thus making silly mistakes and learning from them.

No one is perfect when it comes to parenting or anything for that matter.

I have attained a few diplomas relating to early childhood. I have read various books books pertaining to child rearing.

I can handle more than 10 kids without any signs of difficulty in school.

But yet, when it comes to bringing up your own child, despite the years of experience and knowledge gained, you might also face a dead end at times. 

Reena has been shouting continuously and unnecessarily.  It drives us (my husband especially) up the wall.

She screams for attention, food, play and the list goes on.

I get a couple of stares from the public when she screams. I even had feedbacks saying that I should spank her to keep her quiet. Some even extended their personal opinions across that I have been pampering her too much hence,  her behaviour.

All these overwhelming responses plunged me into questioning my very own self; "Am I a bad mother? Have I been too soft on Reena? Are my parenting skills insufficient?"

The answer to all these questions lie within those thick books that I have been reading but have been forgotten.

1. Understanding the situation.

Reading back again helps to understand the situation better.

According to Nina Louie, your toddler's volume is turned way up not because she means to annoy you, but because she's full of that wonderful toddler joie de vivre. She's exploring the power of her voice, and experimenting with what she can do with it.

2. Find a solution to the situation.
I have been playing whispering games with Reena (I have been doing this all along with my students) and it seems to be working. Reena is lowering her voice to match mine.

Another rule of early childhood is to ignore undesired behaviour. When she starts whining and screaming for something, you either provide her with an item before she starts or ignore when she starts. I only listened when Reena whispered along with me.

3. Self-Control

Perhaps by far, the hardest to achieve. Imagine a screaming toddler and a crying baby. At the same time.

Any normal human being would lose their cool and snap. We would give up at the first cry and just give them whatever they want as long as they hush.

However, I need to put this flat across my mind that I am a parent. And this is what a parent MUST do. To in still good behaviour is never easy.


4. Ignore nasty comments.

I welcome feedbacks. I really do. Some people can provide me with really cool advices,  such as ways to take care of their oral hygiene at such a young age or things to not consume to avoid phlegm.

But what to not heed are comments that you as a parent know, does not benefit your child in any way. Such as spanking, inserting chillies inside their mouths when they shout. (For god's sake she is an infant!)

5. Stay positive

Words really put me down. Especially when I am blamed for not "bringing up my child properly"

The only person who can cheer yourself up is you. By how you look at things.

Try not to think of the things that she needs work at but rather at the things she has achieved.

I like to rewind memories of Reena's cheeky smiles and laughter when she does something.  She recently tried to jump. (At this developmental milestone, they can't really coordinate that well to jump)

Let this be a chant to ease your mind off things.


Personally,  I believe a perfect parent does not exist but a parent who learns and tries their best to educate their children well is close to perfect.

compare

Now that I have another child, I tend to take things slower. One step at a time.

I used to rely on the existence of checklists. Developmental milestone checklists to see which developmental area Reena needs to work on.

I used to rush Reena to learn and unknowingly,  might have forced her to grow up sooner than she is supposed to.

I wanted so much for Reena to challenge her cognitive skills to its limit. I suceeded in a way; Reena is quite brilliant for her age, she can recognise and name quite a few things via flashcards and concrete materials.

I did however lose out on one thing, the only chance to really enjoy Reena in that particular phase of life. I can't ever get that back.

I worried about how her hair was not thick enough, how late she decided to finally walk, how 'small' she used to be (even now).

I did not (not) worry for a minute.


Therefore with Irman, I am not as winded up as I used to be. I treasure all the little things that he has.

I have never applied any form of oil or cream on his head that "promotes" hair growth. I want his hair to grow at its own pace. I want his head to smell exactly how it is without having the faintest scent of any hair growth cream or oil. I have had people commenting on how his hair is not growing fast enough, but it didn't bother me the slightest bit.  I love the very smell of his head. Quite odd for a baby but nevertheless, a unique 'Irman' scent.


I have had feedbacks from others saying that I should allow my baby to combine breastfeeding with formula feeding to enable me to engage my daily activities  or to make babies 'full'. I used to do that with Reena. But with Irman, I let him latch as long as he wants to. That feeling that you sometimes get, that nobody needs your presence anymore; evaporates when your baby cries FOR you. I had that in the hospital, Alhamdulillah I was able to breastfeed irman, the nurse would wake me up hourly to feed him. I do not mind that at all, in fact; I enjoyed having my baby close to me.

From the mistake that I made, Reena gets frustrated very easily if she can't achieve something :( we are working on that now, asking her to try again slowly.

Irman on the other hand, is now a very happy baby, perhaps due the very fact that I am not 'expecting' too much of him. My ultimate goal is to observe and enjoy his every phase in his growing up years. Having said that, the same rule applies to his cranky sister, I must admit that her constant baby talk and screams does get onto my nerve at times, but I am learning to treasure every single memory of Reena at her current phase.

Insya - Allah I have learnt from raising up my first born. And again insya - Allah this will groom me to be a better mother to my children.

Irman Bin Muhammad Idros

I have given birth to another pumpkin. At 35 weeks old. It's true the second one tend to come out earlier than the first birth especially if the gap between them is pretty close (like mine, 15 months gap). 

I gave birth to my son on the 8th June 2013. After I have finished all my parents-teacher-conference. 

He weighed a surprising 2.7kg which evaded him from entering the ICU. He was tiny but the motherly feeling just came through as I saw  him for the first time. First thing I said to him was "hey you. So that's how you look like." 

I didn't get Dr Chan as he was on leave. He did tell me to try and wait for his arrival back. But my back hurt crazily when the contractions seeped in. From my experience,  if the pain has reached to that level, the next thing that would happen; inability to walk. It has ever reached up to that stage. 

The other gynea, who took over Dr Chan, only told me that I had excessive blood loss the next morning. 

I was overwhelmed with fear after the operation.  My bed sheet had to be changed every 5 minutes as my mences over flowed. They had to inject me with some medicine to stop the bleeding. 

The next scare was the temp gynea telling me that I had to possibly do a blood transfusion as I lost blood during and after the surgery. Praises to Allah, that did not happen after they checked that my blood count was not too drastically low. 

During my stay at the hospital, I missed my daughter very, truly, crazily much. I cried as I watched her videos and pictures over and over again. Requested my husband to video call me endlessly so that I could talk to her. I have never been away from my daughter. Neither has she, she had fever while we were separated for 3 days. The only companion I had to keep my mind off things was my son. 

Breastfeeding was a breeze after the previous year. The nurses brought my son in every time he was hungry. That really helped, seeing him in my arms reminded me why I have been separated from Reena for a while. 

It took a while for me to recover this time. Longer mences, 2 months mind you. Bleeding on the incision.  

My husband and I, were geared up for another round of sleepless nights when we brought our newborn son home just like what his elder sister put us through. But alas, he did not. In fact, he slept through the night. 

Irman Bin Muhammad Idros, is his given name. In persian his name means, "wish" or a  "potential leader". 

Irman is an easy baby as compared to his witty sister. The only problem he has is that he can't control hunger. He is capable of drinking milk every 20 minutes. Despite that,  he brought joy, laughter and happiness to our little family. 

I can't give birth for the next few years according to the temp gynea who also concluded that I will be anaemic for a few months (thanks!) due to two c-sections that have been carried out for two consecutive years. There are risks that I might stumble upon if I were to give birth the coming year. 

I have allowed my uterus to "rest" for 3 years. 

Irman had his circumcission done at 23 days. It healed really well. Within 4-5 days the plastibell device came off. 

And Reena has been a great sister to Irman. I can't thank Allah enough for the beautiful bond that they share. Reena is usually very gentle with Irman. Kissing and patting him when she sees him. This was not taught by me. She is growing up too fast :(