Fatimah : My everyday trip to school

When I think about it over and over, I wonder, how can time run so fast. My Fatimah is in kindergarten now. And I feel like there are a lot of things I miss about her being my little baby.

My mostly feeling about her is guilt. I always feel guilty to her. She is 2 years old when Farisha is born, and I always feel like I don't give her enough love and care she deserves. I must help myself to be calming down.

But. Thankfully. She is a happy girl. And mostly having the attitude of 'nothing even matter'. Hahaha. She is in kindergarten now, and having more friends make her even happier everyday.

Everyday, me and Farisha walk her to school. After breakfast, morning bath, put on her uniform and pack her lunch, the three of us will walk together to her school. The trip is not too far, it is reachable on foot. But still, walking with 2 little girls is quite a sport. I must keep my eyes on them all the time because we walk in the side of a busy street especially in the morning when people are rushing to school or work etc.

Sometimes, we take another way to reach her school. This path got more bushes and not in the side of busy streets. It is shadier, so I love to go this way when the day is hot, but on rainy days, it has paddles and muddy so we seldom take this way. Another thing about this path is it is in the side of a railway, so when the train is passing by, the trip is more enjoyable by my children. 

Fatimah : I Love My Father

My husband loves to play with our daughters and that makes them love him a lot, mostly for his patience to listen to their stories. Although it is me who spend more time with them daily at home, my husband tends to know everything about Fahira's school, Fatimah's wound or the funny thing Farisha did at home, because he loves to listen to them, and gain trust from them to tell him everything.

The Father and baby Fatimah

Specially for the strong-minded Fatimah. Arguing in a high-pitch voice with her will not resulting anything good. But with her father's calm tone, sometimes the voice that showed a controlled anger, will usually do better result. I really hope the good relationship among my husband and children will last until forever.

Fatimah : Understanding Numbers

My Fatimah is more than 4 years and a half now. She will be five on May. How time flies..

What a 4,5 year old girl should accompish in her milestone? Alhamdulillah, I think she passes all well ; she can dress herself, brushes her own teeth, and sometimes bathes herself when I am busy. She loves coloring and playing with pen and book eventhough what she wrote is unknown. Her older sister goes to school daily at midday and comes back at 5 pm so she used to see her sister preparing her schools things. She loves seeing her sister's coloring pencils, and sometimes, insists to have the same utilities as her sister's. I did buy it, but it keeps on vanishing and she keeps on wanting her sister's thing and it will start the quarrel and fight; That's the art of having more than one child.

Fatimah can speak the numbers from 1 to 20 but will perform mess if she is told to speak further. She will say 20, 32, 17 and anynumber she would like to say. But she cannot write anynumber perfectly.
Though it is not essential to really capable to do that as she is not even in the kindergarden yet, I think as a start, I will step in.

Fatimah : Playing is my activities

Writing post about a 4 years old child would mostly be about playing, because that is what she does to spend her time daily. The only thing you can get by reading this probably is inspiration about what to play if you have a niece, or child her age. These are what my Fatimah does everyday :

Playing with cardboard


Messing the house


Watching tv


Water the plants


Cleaning the yard

Fatimah : My straightforward girl

It's as impressing as it is challenging.

Sometimes, I feel I don't give as much attention to Fatimah as much as I did to Fahira when she's her age. It's a guilty feeling to me because Fatimah was 2 years and 1 month when Farisha was born while Fahira was 4 years and 2 months when Fatimah was born. My husband keeps telling me to not feel that way, because we all love and treat them the same. Yeah, I think I shouldn't.

The obvious acts we demonstrate to show them that we love them the same : Buying the same amount of clothes, feeding the same meal, kiss them all before sleep, take them all when we want to go out, etc.

I'll do a lot of things to make them understand that I balance my love for them, I do not want to cause anyenvy that might lead to hate the sibling. But, off course, there are some different reactions to their actions because of their different characters. Fahira is a very helpful girl when she is alone and doesn't play with friends, Farisha loves freedom and doesn't really like to stay still, while Fatimah just want to do what she wants to do. Fatimah is a straightforward person, she says what she wants and what she doesn't. The impressing side? Well, she never lie and I don't have to dig for what she feels inside. The challenging part? Hhhhh, It tests my patience to the limit when she doesn't want to take a bath, or eat or wear proper clothes when we want to go out. Things like that does make me lose temper sometimes.

One day, she didn't want to eat the whole day, she just had some coconut biscuits and sweet tea for breakfast. I tried to persuade her, asked what she liked to eat, offerrred her to eat while playing until I forced her, but she kept saying she didn't want to. I gave up. And at 3 am she woke up to say she was hungry and asked for food. And to my surprise, I was not angry. I was happy that finally my daughter would fill her stomach with food. The thought of she might have stomach ache if she didn't eat beated my sleepless night. It must be because I love her so much.

We never knew our patience limit until we become a parent
-- Hijriatul Laila --

Fatimah : Help in the kitchen

Fatimah is already 3 years old now, and could perform help sometimes, not all the times.
Like when I am about to cook, she helps me take the spinach off the root.

Fatimah

Fatimah Maysarah. Our second daughter. Almost 3 years old. She is the most active of my three daughters. The fearless one. She is the one who is brave enough not to say sorry to us, her parents, when she made mistakes and doesn't feel like saying sorry. It's not that she's naughty, she is just being frank with her feeling. I know, I must figure up better way to treat her with her unique character.

One thing about Fatimah that tests me as parent. She always wakes up at night, crying loudly. It has been since she was a baby. I've checked everything, whether she is hungry, too tired, not comfortable clothes or bed, or if there's an insect bites her. I'ved checked it all. And then I found out that she has itchs all over her body mostly legs. We went to doctors to get medicines to cure it. They said it's alergy, but we must find out, what thing is alergetic to her.

I started finding out from food. I took some food that I thought migh be alergetic, out of her daily meals per week. But, the itch was still there, even when she was already vegetarians.
We went to the doctor again, he said then probably it was not froom food, might be the air or water then he gave us a kind of cream to reduce it.
Well, the air is probably right, I thought. We live in Indonesia, a tropical country, where the average temperature is 18-32°c all year long. It's the heat.

Then I tried to make the room cooler by swithing the fan all night long, but didn't place it right towards her and applied the cream given by the doctor after bath and before sleep. The cream did make the watery little bumps dry, but it didn't make the itchs gone.

Until just a few weeks ago, when I had a chat with my neighboors, fellow homemakers, one evening. We talked about children, food etc. Long story short, they suggested me using 'Karo oil' for Fatimah. Karo is a name of one of the ehnic groups in my country. My country Indonesia has a lot of ethnic groups with their own languages, cultures, traditions and alternative medicines.

I tried to apply the oil on her when she is asleep. And, it really works like magic. She doesn't wake up and cry that very night. I don't know the ingredients of the oil, but I can smell the mix of pandanese leaf, clove and ginger in it. Now, I apply it on her after bath and before sleep, it dry the watery little bumps on fatimah's skin but mosturize the skin in the same time.

Now, I'll try to eliminate the scars left on her skin.