Saturday Outing At The Wharf

When Mr S has to work during weekends, he doesn't leave the children and I at home and doom us all to a boring weekend - he brings us all along to his office to make it a family outing!

Of course, this is only when he doesn't really have A LOT to do, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Canary Wharf is a nice place to visit after all - one can have a stroll along the river with the wind in one's face and then have a 'stroll' in the shopping malls before taking a break in one of the cafes there for some tea and cake. And it's really nice to walk along tall buildings too...it just reminds me so much of back home.

As usual, here are some pics to help me share with you our experience there...

Big H and Little H with the UK's three tallest buildings in the background (1 Canada Square, 8 Canada Square and The Citigroup Centre).

The boys with their 'typical' poses..


Nice view...but it was a little dark standing in the shadows of the buildings.


Whilst walking towards the Jubilee Place Mall.


A coin for the fountain?


In front of Mr S's office building..


Snack time: A muffin for Little H and a Victorian Sandwich for Big H.


Mr S and I shared a large tub of itsu noodles. Highly recommended, especially for cold days - hearty and filling, with lots of veges!


Back home, Mr S belanja Chinese food to save me from cooking after the outing and because it was Mother's Day on Sunday (Mother's Day treat, he called it)...food was surprisingly quite good and well worth it.

More Birthday Pics...

Just some more pics taken on Little H's birthday...

I'm bored...when is everyone coming.....???

The guests had to wait a while before getting at the food - Mr S wanted to take a quick pic first! The pic was so 'quick' that it turned out a little blurry! he he he...You can see the cake container - it's the one covered with a tea cloth so to not spoil the surprise...;-)


Some of the guests sitting in the living room...


...and in the kitchen too.

The children seen here entertaining themselves...


But not before they made sure that there will be plenty for the adults to do later...


Time to blow the candles..


YEAY!!!!


And finally...presents!!
Big H is seen in the pic above lending a 'helping hand' in opening the presents....:-)

Little H's Bithday Cake

It was Little H's 4th birthday yesterday. Stayed up until 3 am the night before to make his cake...

The beginning..

The "paints".

The "palette".

The blank canvass - Little H wanted a yellow cake...

...with a spider on it.

Then the wordings, with black icing (Mr S chose ALL the colours besides the yellow btw)...

The edges or "skirt" as Mr S calls it...

"Show time!"

The cake...after the fact..

The leftover icing used on some leftover cupcakes...

Arghh...penat!!!

Foggy Days

The last few days have been quite warm - spring is here! - but started with really foggy mornings. Below are some pics I took on my way to school with the boys...

At the junction on the way to school - visibility was only about 100m.

The one in middle of the pic - very small and wearing a black and light blue jacket is Big H. He had to run to chase after his classmates because their teacher had already instructed them to go inside because it was too cold to line up and wait outside for too long.

By the time it was 9am though, visibility has improved a bit as you can see from the pic above, although the fog lingered until about noon.

Means To A Positive End

"Come on then Little H..it's time to pick up Hxxxx and go for your swimming lessons."

Little H is going for swimming lessons together with Big H nowadays. They go to different classes although their classes are on the same day and same time - Big H goes to Beginners 2 (after passing Beginners 1) and Little H goes to 'Aquatots 2' which is a class for 3 and half to 4 and a half year olds.

The Aquatots 2 lessons are not really swimming lessons, obviously. They are just to help the young children with their confidence in the water and with using the floats. And of course, other types of learning will come naturally too, like 'listening to instructions' and 'making friends' in a non school environment.

Little H in his newly acquired swimsuit that covers his chest
and supposedly makes him feel warmer..ye ke??

Little H always used to find it a bore to wait for Big H to finish his swimming lessons - he would bother me non stop or just lie down half on the seat and half on my lap and fall asleep while waiting for his brother's lesson to end. So Mr S and I decided to enrol him into a class as well. Although he has been a little apprehensive about doing the many activities in the water, Little H seemed to be enjoying his classes and looks to be coping in his lessons.

But on that day, Little H said, "Swimming lessons? But I have hingus and cough, mama."

Cough cough..sniffle sniffle.

I looked him over and made a quick decision. "Sikit je...you're well enough to swim...the pool is very warm, right?" He was not feeling very well the whole of the previous week but he seemed to have recovered and has been well the last 3-4 days although I admit that he had a little hingus still, but it's not like his nose is runny or anything like that...

He just nodded.

And so we went for the lesson and he made some progress - at the end of the lesson, when the children were asked to line up by the side of the shallow pool and jump (not dive) into it, (I suppose it's just for the fun of the splash and also to help them overcome any fear of the water) Little H always requested his teacher to hold his hand when his turn came to jump but on that day, he jumped bravely and made a splash without his teacher's help!

Well done, Little H!

After all, he did keep going on about 'sinking' ("Noooo!! I'm going to sink! I'm going to sink!") everytime we asked him to lower his face into the water in the shallow pool during our holiday back in Malaysia. And he was wearing arm floats and I was holding him at the time too!

It was indeed a good progress.

But the moment we reached home, I saw that he looked tired and could only finish so much of his dinner and while I was praying upstairs, he fell asleep on the carpet. I checked his forehead and sure enough, he had a temperature.

That was when I felt soooooooo guilty about my decision that he should go for the swimming lesson that I had to sit myself down for a while and convince myself that I am not a bad mother and that it was one of those decisions that you make that didn't exactly turned out right, but still, sometimes we need to make a quick decision in life and well, life's never perfect.

But Little H made me feel worse when he said as I put him to bed upstairs, "Mama, I TOLD YOU that I wasn't feeling well.....I TOLD YOU.."

**Sigh**

Of course, I apologised profusely and hugged him tight and told him that he should have told me that he wasn't feeling very well - which he didn't.

Of course I could not let him blame me for it 100%!

And as a errr..'creative' parent, I took the opportunity to turn the tables around and used the situation to my advantage and told him that he should know the reason why he keeps getting sick, not like Big H who seldom falls sick. I told him that it was because unlike his brother, I have to force Little H to eat his fruits and as for his veg, well, forget it!

"Look at Big H!" I said to Little H. "He will always finish his vegetables during dinner and even request fruits for snacks before meal times. He always eat his fruit at school as well! That's why he doesn't fall sick as often as you do..."

Kesian..demam-demam pun kena lecture...

Mr S came back from work and I told him to give say the same to Little H as well and to tell him straight that from now on, he MUST eat his veges. Little H just kept quiet but I know we had convinced him.

Sure enough, the next day, when I tried to feed him some vegetables with his lunch, he just opened his mouth without the usual protests and chewed and swallowed without any problems. A big progress since he used to run to the nearest bin the moment he starts to realise that there's a piece of vege in his mouth...

Alhamdulillah until today (it has been a week now), he still eats his veges without any problems.

Thank Allah something good after all came out of that quick decision to take him to his swimming lesson, albeit looking back, it certainly wasn't the right decision, I think.

Otherwise, knowing myself, I would still be feeling guilty about the whole incident...

A Belated Birthday Cake

I turned 32 a few days ago.

"Dah besar dah anak mak.." said my mum on the phone.

"Dah TUA..." I said.

Baked a butter cake today and did some icing work on it just for fun. Thought the colour of the flowers was too strong - accidentally poured too much red food colouring and didn't have any more icing to dilute the colour. At any rate, Mr S and the boys thought it looked good.

Well, good enough to eat at least :)

My boys sang the birthday song even though it was a belated birthday cake.

Thanks to all those who remembered to wish me on the day.

Many happy returns, huh?

Amin.

Madrasah Misfortune

Did I tell you that Mr S and I decided to stop sending Big H to the madrasah?

The whole thing started about two weeks after his first day. Big H started to tell me that he didn't like his madrasah teacher. But of course, disliking one's teacher does not give one the justification to stop learning so I told him that going to the madrasah is not about liking your teacher but about learning the Quran.

And that pacified him for a few weeks.

Until he came back sobbing one day - "Mama, the madrasah teacher hit me!"

He had told me a few days before that that he didn't want to go to the madrasah anymore because the teacher was 'too fierce'. And when I asked him for details, he told me that the teacher liked to shout at the children and sometimes he would hit a child's head - if the child made mistakes while reading. Actually it was so terrifying for him that for several days, the first thing he said when he woke up in the morning (his madrasah classes are after school, in the evening) is, "Mama, I'm scared to go to the madrasah..."

For God's sake, I thought. These children are very, very young! They start at the madrasah as young as 5 or 6 years of age so they certainly don't deserve to be treated in such a way when they make mistakes! I had told Big H that if ever the teacher hits him - he must tell either his Mama or Papa and that was what he did. Mr S and I (Mr S was surprisingly vehement about it) decided that we would not tolerate such things and thus we wrote a polite letter to the madrasah's Head of Committee complaining about the teacher...

COMPLAINT REGARDING MADRASAH TEACHER

I am the father of XXX, a student of your Madrasah. I would like to voice my concern with regards to the teaching methods of my son’s Madrasah teacher.

On Friday, 23^rd Nov 2007, my son was hit on the head for reading incorrectly by his teacher and he cried because it was painful.

As a result of the teacher’s actions, my son is traumatised and frightened to go to the mosque which worries me as he is still too young to have such negative feelings in such things. This is a drastic change - he was very, very excited about joining the Madrasah and couldn’t wait to go in the beginning.

In this country and also where I come from, such an action may be considered as an assault. I am sure that the committee is aware that even teachers at school are not allowed to punish their students in such a way.

We are all Muslims and we all want our children to be good Muslims of the future. But I doubt hitting the young children when they make mistakes in their reading is any way to achieve our objective.

I would like to urge the committee to advise the teacher(s) to be more patient with the children (especially the young ones) who are there to learn, not only how to read the Quran but also how to be a good Muslim, one who is amongst other things, patient and loving towards other Muslims. Let the teachers teach by example too, rather than only by instruction.

The letter resulted in a visit to our house by the Head of the Committee at the madrasah. He apologised, of course, saying that he had already 'spoken' to the teacher and that such a thing will never happen again and that he wanted me to get Big H to come back (because it was 'our duty to do so to make sure our children will learn'..).

I thanked him and said that I would 'try'...

I did try. Because I thought, well, everyone needs a second chance - even that bully of a teacher. And I managed to persuade Big H one time. I turned the shower on for him so that he can have a quick shower to freshen up before going to the madrasah but as I came back to the bathroom to get him out - I found that he was crying softly under the shower, whilst soaping himself. When he saw me, he said, "Mama, I don't want to go because I'm gonna miss you if I go..."

I looked at him. I knew that was not really the reason. I said, "Or is it because you're scared to go, Hxxxx?"

"Yes..", he said, "..and I'm also gonna miss you."

Big H is a little complex. I was thinking - is he so scared to go that he's making other excuses with the hope that he will not be forced to attend the classes?

That was bad.

Thus, I decided to draw the line. I will not spoil his early Islamic (education) experience. It is bad that he hardly gets any here in London but we were not so desperate that we have to settle for such a terrible one..

I called Mr S to persuade him to let Big H off his madrasah for good.

Sigh.

I pity Big H.

He was very, very excited about going to learn at the madrasah but now, he dreads it and absolutely refuses to go even when I tried to coax him and explain to him all about the head of the committee's visit to the house. I even told him that he should just try one more time and see how it would go - he can quit if the teacher hits him again...

But no...

Well...there goes my intention (for now) to let Big H have some formal Islamic schooling here in London. Looks like it's back to me now to teach him his muqaddam...

Thank God I brought those Iqra' books back from Malaysia.