Happy New Year!

It's the last day on 2013 and I wanted to write a lenghty entry about my wish and whatnot, but kinda busy today. Will write it later. But for now, can't wait for tomorrow because it's public holiday and I miss my kiddos real bad! Been browsing their pics in my phone and goshhhh... they grow up real fast *sniffles*

So happy new year everyone!!! What's ur wish?

In the mean time, here's the video my kids goofing around when we went to visit nai-nai, few months ago.

No-Sew Tutu

This is a very longggggg due post! And it's not that exciting to write about it anymore but I promised myself that I HAVE to write about this, about everything that I made, so one day when I flip my blog I will sniffles in proud like, woaaaaa I made this! Or maybe I'll chuckle at my silliness "elehhh macam ni pun nak tayang kat blog". LOL. Whatever it is, it's just a small promise that I made and I remember, so I have to write this ;-) 

*and I have loads of pending entries, that also go into my promise entry..sigh*

It's a no-sew tutu I made for Zahra looooonnnngg time ago. The pictures dated 15th Nov 2012. Ehem..it's more than a year ago. How fast time flies haha.. ok not funny. Just laughing at my 'procrastination'.

Ok back to the no-sew tutu, it's a very very very easy stuff to make and if your kids love it, go ahead make one or two because two main thing:

1) It's freaking cheap than the store bought

2) Your daughter will go woahhhhh my mom can make this?! I thought it grows on tree! 

Haha!

What you need, any color of tulle fabric you like. I picked turquoise and sea green because that's the best color combo that I found that day. Bought it at Kamdar Midvalley. 

Make some loop and knot it. For details explanation, try to google "no sew tutu tutorial". I couldn't take a proper picture that day because as you can see, my hensem boy is busy helping me.

And after couple of hours and bucket of sweat (and mainly is because I'm doing it with a very helpful assistant) ta-daaaah!!! She's loving it!

So much that she refused to take it off

And wear it while having lunch and watching the iPad

And while helping me in the kitchen. She was at this "I want to whisk egg" stage. 

One of best hand-made stuff I've made! I wanted to make more in another colors, like pink and purple but couldn't find the time to find the fabric and let alone to do the time consuming knot. Now I understand why people just succumbed to storebought tutus...because I've turned into one! Hahaha. Bought a few tutu's dress and they cost me triple the price, but oh well..I'm paying for my time I guess.

But seriously, if you have some spare time, make this! It'll be worth it when you see your daughter twirling around, feeling all princessy ;-)

Say NO to strawberry-flavor!

Just to share something interesting that I just learnt.

A couple of weeks ago, Zahra had another allergy attack. Quite bad since it stirred up her breathing that she had to do the nebulizer thingy. 

still manage to pose a smile for me. she looks absolutely healthy minus the wheezing sound.

It happened on Saturday when I noticed she has this wheezing sound which is so not her. But she looks normal though, running here and there, and chatty as usual. So I just brushed it off but night came by and the wheezing didn't go away. I felt a little uneasy about it, so I bought her to a clinic. 

Turn out that she IS having a wheezing which means her airways is tighten and she needs to take the Ventolin inhaler *thank God for mother's instinct*. So she had a neb and a few meds, went back, closely monitor her condition and by morning, the wheezing slightly still there, so we went to second clinic for another opinion and another round of nebulizer.

Alhamdulillah she's all better after that with no further medication.

Ok, so lets talk about what causing this allergy. According to the doctor, it could not be not an allergy at all. It could be that her body is stress out (due to trying to adjust to new environment at the new school) and she is exposed to new kind of germs that she's not used to like at the babysitters. Well, it does make sense, with new school and what not, stress is the word.

At the same time, I asked her did she take anything strawberry flavored at school and she said, YES! She had strawberry buns! I texted the teacher and asked about it and yes it's true. My bad that I didn't remind her about Zahra's allergy.

Anyway, this is her third allergy attack linked with strawberry flavor, I've blogged about it before here and here. And yes now we came to a conclusion that she is allergic to strawberry flavored, not the yogurt. She can take any kind of yogurt as long as nothing to do with strawberry. 

The thing is, Zahra doesn't has any problem with strawberry, which look like this.

She can has a whole pack of strawberries if she wants to, and has no problem at all. Problem came when she had anything strawberry flavored. Which is mind-boggling, but funny thing is I NEVER googled about it, because.. I don't know, it just slipped from my mind I guess.

Until one of MrComot's friends googled it and let me tell you that....

........ It's NOTHING strawberry about strawberry-flavored. 

In fact, it contains 50 different chemicals to make it "strawberry" which include: 

Amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

And it is listed as No #1 as fake food that you wish you won't have it in the kitchen.

click for details

Ok, now that answers what has been going on and don't you thing this stuff is shit-scary?

So strawberry flavored is definitely a no-no in the pantry after this. No matter how delicious they might be.

You want a strawberry milkshake? Just dump a handful of fresh strawberries in milk and blend it. You love strawberry cake? Bake it yourselves if you can, but stay away from the obvious flavored one if store-bought. Other than that, maybe you can eat something-else rather than this 50-chemicals mix.

Kiddos and School

Salam everyone! I guess most of us dah start cuti, but not for me! I still have a lot of of unfinished business, work lah apa lagi. Haishh.. work is an never ending affair.

As I wrote before, we decided to send the kids to playschool and wish that all the stresses begone, like *poof* but apparently NOT! Haishhh what was I thinking lah! Not everything is rosy like I wished for, like:

1) The kids are NOT HAPPY, yet! Well, they are happy when they are at school. But they are not happy when we have to wake them up early, getting ready, yada yada. And things become worsen when it's Monday, because of the weekend break.

It's not TTH's fault. It's that they still don't overcome their anxiety. To be fair, we will have this anxiety as well if we change our job right? New place, new face..no friends, etc. But I was wishing the anxiety will be gone in a week.. well, it's almost a month now, the kids been adapting and better at it, but still not up to 100%.

The first week was the hardest. I woke the kiddos up around 7AM and tried to persuade them to bathe and whatnot..and they will be all grumpy and Zahra being the cleverest will say "Tanak pegi school!". Then I'll ask her few simple question (trying to dig what is inside her head) "Zahra nak pegi rumah mak (the babysitter) ke?" and she will said, no, she just wants to be at our own home - "Zahra nak duduk rumah sendiri!"  

Then of course la I will tell her nicely that mommy has to go to work, petang mommy ambil etc etc..then drama air mata pun start lah. Ishhhh stress ok! Then she improvised a few days after that when I asked the same thing again, she will said "Zahra nak pegi rumah mak!" Ahhh sudah. So I had to change the story that the babysitter is on holiday and no one at home. The key point is, she just doesn't want to wake up early. My kids mmg not early person la.

So we change the tactic on second week, we send them in pyjama, the TTH aunties will bathe them there. Well, we can do that, provided we sent them before 815AM. So they will sleep in the car until we carry them up and our house to TTH is just about 10mins, and the 10mins pun my kids bantai tidur. So can you imagine how much they love their sleep? Sampai TTH je they refused to sleep (they let the kids sleep if they want to) and Zahra starts to cry and refused to stay at school. The funny thing is, I was expecting Emir to become like this, but it turns out Zahra yg berdrama, Emir ok je pegi school.

But to say they are not happy with TTH environment...NOT! When we  picked them, ok je happy lompat sana sini and siap cakap esok nak pegi school again. It's just, they hate the morning good bye. Sigh..kids.

2) We have to rush back home. Well this is kinda good and bad stuff together. We have to rush out because to avoid being late. They still can take care of the kids kalau kitaorg lambat, but tak best la..kesian the kids kat school lama-lama so we try our best to be there. Kalau dulu the babysitter's place is in KL kan, so we pick them first and stuck in jam together. Now dalam pukul 7 baru jumpa the kids. So the bad thing is, if MrComot has meeting outside of KL ke, susah sikit nak cepat since we are sharing one car. Ada few days ago, we used two cars (borrowed from MIL) because he had meetings in KLJ and CBJ. The good thing is, we reach home around 7PM since we don't have to detour to babysitter's house.

Hmm what else? Only that kot yg tak best. Well, it has been a month and we are still adjusting. All in all, there have been positive changes with the kids behavior. Zahra talks more and her pronunciation is getting better. Not that I train her to talk or what, but macam bila dia nyanyi simple song like twinkle-twinkle, she has more confidence and the words slip out clearly, not mumbling like before. 

She starts to ask about Allah, such as why Allah kuat, where is Him, why can't we see Him, what He looks like, etc.. Well, I find that are VERY HARD questions. I don't really know how to answer that because..hmm I never ask that when I was small I guess. Anyway, I just answered it as general as it can be, nothing really complicated, like He is the creator, He is everywhere, you can't see Him because he is powerful, but He's watching you. I don't know if it's enough for her. Hmmm writing this reminds me that I need to google up on the tips how to answer such questions.

The kids bedtime also changed. Bila pukul 8PM je, mata Zahra dah kelip-kelip, mengantuk lah tu. They sleep early nowadays, I think because of the activities at school, using up all the energy. Kalau dulu, pukul 1AM pun susah nak tido ok. Now pukul 10PM dah out. Which is very gooood as kids need to sleep early, but mommy and daddy pun out jugak! I was thinking if they sleep at 10, maybe I can have some extra hours to watch TV or do some craft, but macam tak je...haha.

Anyway, below are few pics of them on their first and second day of schooling. The aunties snap the pictures for me. Oh ya, they don't use the word "teacher", they use aunties instead. Lagi mesra kot?

Being independent. Kids are trained to take the bowl, fork and spoon, cup, place-mate and eat by themselves 

Emir's first time makan sendiri. Selalunya bersuap by babysitter. Such a big boy! *sniffles*

Ok, next pictures no caption because I don't really know what are they doing, well obviously playing around ;)

Craft of the day!

Looks like they are having so so so much fun!!!

Other than a couple of glitches, they are fine with the new school. We hope that they will overcome the anxiety as soon as possible. And hope that we can reach home as fast as we can. I miss those two munchkins!!

Oh ya, last not least the best part is, I don't have to struggle with both of them strangling each other when we stuck for 2 hours anymore! Phewwww!! That will be so much relief, even though I kinda miss them on our journey back home! Haha. Such indecisive mommy! I hope we made a good decision in sending them to school. It wont be as homey and motherly love like at the babysitter's but hope it will help to mold them into a strong little caliphs, insyaAllah! ;)

Butterflies

When did you last has this fluttering sensation in your stomach? Mine was like ages ago, that I can't even remember when was it. And today, the sensation kicks in.. because I'm going to send the kiddos to playschool tomorrow!

I know I know...just sending them to school, what is the big deal?

Currently, both of them is on full-time babysitter environment which is a total homey and laid-back and the babysitter cares for them. So this is a big decision for us, and the kids. I wonder how they going to take it, but I hope they will be fine.

It all started when I had the breakdown moment and we decided to change our routine, by taking maids of course! We've been seeking high and low, online and offline, getting contacts of the maids, but somehow.. we didn't dare to make that commitment. All of us know that having maid is not all rainbows and butterflies so I am a bit scaredy cat there.

After a while, the idea of having maid cool off and I was thinking, why don't we send Zahra and Emir to school! The key is to find the right one for us. That will make the kids happy and maybe we can cut some KL traffic as we don't have to detour to the babysitter's anymore.

So that's how it started. We took a couple days of leave..visited each schools in KD and KL that suit our route, observed their environment, talked to the teachers and that narrow us to two places. One is Brainy Bunch KD and another one is The Treehouse Playschool.

Honestly..I will choose BB anytime, because it is so so so convenient. Very near with our house, and don't have to go through the traffic at all. And I like their place, it's a bungalow lot with land and spacious space for the kids. Not to mention they are trained teachers and run Islamic Montessari Syllabus.

As for TTH, the drawback is that it's a shop-lot place. But, after I talked to the teachers, I fell in love immediately, MasyaAllah.. From my first impression, they are committed and very passionate with children. So that matters. To be fair, I didn't talk to BB's teachers personally (because we couldn't find the right time to meet them), so I can't judge them. But I was in rush as well. I want to send Zahra to playschool in December because she will be 4 next year. It's like junior playschool and I don't want extreme change for her, so if I start this year (she's considered as 3yo this year) she will be in baby playschool (TTH calls it baby caliph). And with time constraint and whatnot, I decided to choose TTH.

I'm not very worried with Zahra as she kinda understands when I said she's going to school, but as for Emir, he is very very very fond and manja with her babysitter. I hope both of them can adapt the new change and pray that this will be a good decision that we made.

Opss...sorry for this drastic ending, gotta go pick my kids up! Write later!