It's been such a long time since my last post that I swear I momentarily forgot how to sign in. It was only about a second though. LOL
It's been a crazy 2 weeks. Busy at work and busy at home. Please note that stories are not in chronological order, but in the order I remember them.
The sleep deprived mom and the homework trauma
That's what I am for the past week since Inez started school. In order for her to finish her work, we have to sit with her. Last Friday and Saturday, I had to work (yes, even on Ma'al Hijrah), so I totally forgot abt her h/w. Only on Sunday night, she conveniently remembered that she had h/w and her books were at my Mom's. Luckily for her, my hubby was going there for some reason I forget now, he brought home her books for her.
Needless to say, she fell asleep halfway through her work but woke up at 5:30 on Monday morning to do her homework! I applaud her for her sense of responsibility but guess who got to be awake to accompany her to do her work? Cest moi! And how much can moi accomplish if moi too got to get ready for work? Not much laa!
It takes her forever especially when it comes to writing Mandarin characters. So you can imagine how much progress she had from 5:30 to 7:30. I prepared her for school so that she could continue doing her work at her Nana's before going for her Fardhu Ain classes and her daddy sent the kids to my Mom's. I told him to help his daughter pack her bag but poor guy got his own things to put in the car besides his kids and so, Inez only took with her the book she was working on and the other 101 homework was on the carpet. When she arrived at my Mom's she was crying that she didn't have all her books! I was in the midst of getting ready for work, already later than I wanted to be, had to make a detour to my Mom's. All's well ends well? Hah!
I received a call from my Mom telling me Inez hadn't finished her homework and had been crying inconsolably until my mom promised her that she'd personally explain to the teacher. Suddenly, that promise sort of freed her from the pressure of doing her homework coz suddenly she stopped. Such a sneaky child, that one.
Mika on the other hand went into hiding when it was time to go to school, and only decided to go to school when my dad threatened to lock him in the toilet. When it's time to leave school, it wasn't easy either to get him to leave coz he had friends to play with. According to Mom, when she sent them to school, Jungle Boy rushed out from the inside to greet Mika. Isn't that nice? :)
Anyway, when Inez came back from school that day, of course she had new homework on top of the ones she didn't finish. The reward for finishing all her homework would be a cup of ice-cream. Understandably, being tired, she was sleeping halfway through doing her homework again. Poor child, by 9:30, she was out like a light.
As I was getting ready for sleep, Inez woke up, she wanted ice-cream. I checked the clock, it was 12:44 in the morning. Crazy girl wanted to eat ice-cream at 12:44 in the morning! I said, "NO!" because she had to do her homework first. My hubby had already kaput-ed. So guess who had to stay up at 12:44 in the morning to sit with the child who had to finish her homework so that she could eat ice-cream? Moi!
At 2 something a.m., Inez ate ice-cream because a promise is a promise and she had finished her work. I dunno what time she slept but I knew she brushed her teeth first coz she woke me up to tell me. "Good girl," I said, "now go to sleep." And then by 6:00 a.m. the next morning it was time to wake up and face a new day.
Sigh! I am so sleep deprived. :) My classes are at 8 a.m. which means I have to get up by 6 and leave the house my 7 a.m. Usually the kids would be up by 6 and be ready by the time we are ready.
Last night, she only had Maths homework which she finished in record time and was rewarded with her Mat Kool rainbow coloured ice-cream. Mika helped her colour some of the objects. At least today Inez can go to school happy.
Cookies for my friend
Some time last week, Inez came home and said, "Can we make cookies tonight? Inez got a friend. Inez told her Inez will bring cookies for her tomorrow."
"You got a friend? What's her name?"
"Inez don't remember."
"Okay, we can make cookies but Mommy only has ingredients for cornflake cookies (the recipe is from the back of the Nestle cornflake box). Remember you have to finish your homework first."
For the first time, I didn't have to sit with her while she did her homework. While I cooked dinner, she came into the kitchen occassionally to ask me what needed to be done. By the time I was having dinner, she was done. I told her while waiting, she could clean up the house of her toys, which she proceeded to do dutifully.
By the time I was nearly done, she came to me and said, "Mommy, Inez already remember that Inez's friend's name is."
Me: What is it?
Inez: Her name is Cikgujahan.
I nearly choked on my food. Did I hear right?
Me: Did you say 'Cikgu', Inez? Is your new friend the teacher?
Inez: Ah...
Me: What's her name again?
Inez: Cikgujahan
Me: How tall exactly is your friend?
Inez: Um...
Imagine, I was sitting down at the dining table and Inez was on tiptoes to show how tall her friend was. It's confirmed, Inez has made friends with her teacher. It was so funny.
Me: Inez, you don't have to lie to Mommy if you wanted Mommy to make cookies for you. So you have a new friend or not?
Inez: Sorry, Mommy. Inez was just tricking you. Inez just wanted to make cookies together.
And so we made cookies together but Inez didn't like the cookies because of the raisins and the next day, Inez took some cookies to school and reported that her friend didn't like raisins either.
7 comments:
Funny entry. I LOL reading it. :D Kesian Inez sampai pagi buta buat homework. The school tiap2x hari ada homework ke Ju?
CikguJahan part pun kelakar! ;D
Oh trauma, trauma! Anak ada homework, tapi Mummy tumpang trauma! LOL
Yeah, she has homework every day. Some are really easy to do, but Inez is a great procrastinator unless she wants something...like cookies; then she's very energetic, and very motivated to get them done. I can tell you, last week alone, there were kuaci moments, cookie moments, baking moments, watercolour moments, anything to get her to do her homework. There was once I was so upset with her, and putting her in the corner didn't work. Rather, I was too angry to wait for it to work that I am most ashamed to admit that I was a bad Mommy;I smacked her on her butt a few times for dilly dallying and sibok her brother and made her redo every ugly letter she wrote.
Kesian laa. I seriously never expected Std 1 to ask so much from a child. I purposely didn't send Inez to kindy so early because I figured she'd be bored later. Turns out you already need to know so much before entering Std 1. What about kids in completely rural areas? How are they keeping up? Anyway, that's why Mika is already going to school. That's another battle my mom fights every day. My mom also has to make sure Mika naps before going to school or he will sleep in school. This morning he was resisting nap time, and Mom said, "What if you fall asleep in school?"
Mika blithely answered that it's okay coz there are pillows for him to sleep on. Hahaha not the answer my mom was expecting. But you see, the last time he slept there, they put him on pillows. Macam2 jaga budak2 zaman sekarang nie. Is it our fault? Did we give them too much allowance to be seen and heard? Tapi, if seen and not heard, tak 'too cute' ler pulak, right?
Yea it's scaring me just reading abt ur experience with Inez. The first mth of the year pun tak habis lagi dah bnyk keje Inez kene buat. I guess betul la cikgu kindy Airis told me abt std1, mmg advance. Good that u've started sending Mika to pre school. But dont worry so much about him napping away, give him time. Let him get used to it in his own way. Takut if too rigid budak tu will see 'school' as something stressful and not fun. :) I try to be a bit laid back with Airis in pre school. Even now she's already starting to build the 'hatred' for homeworks. Tak tau la nanti kat primary school cemana. She'd say, "WHY do we have to do homework, when we already did work in school???". ;) And she too gets real scared and starts to cry if she forgets to finish her homework.Sigh...nowadays kids get stressed out at such a young age kan...kesian them.
hah, bukan kids je get stressed! parents pun stressed sekali! our local primary school system really needs to re-evaluated!
am having the same prob here with mimi though not as bad u, ju coz mimi's homework is less than inez. but she behaves equally horrible. mimi wants me to sit with while she does her homework, which i don't mind but the way she does her homework .... arrrggghhh ... tak tahan sometimes ... but am working at being more patient. now if she says she's sleepy, then i'll just say keep your books and go to sleep, to which she'll answer that she wants to finish it. i don't bother to erase the ugly alphabets anymore (not unless it's really horrible) but at the end, i'll put a tiny heart on those beautifully written words.
Hah! done that ja! If I tell Inez to rest, my daughter will. Reverse psychology doesn't work.
Maybe I can try that, putting haerts on the beautifully written words but I don't know if the teacher will appreciate it. I noticed the teacher gives stars for nicely written characters. So I just point out to Inez the ones I think will receive stars from her teacher.
I think she's getting the hang of it, I mean, writing Mandarin characters. There are dotted lines which she must trace; so the reason I think why she finds her homework daunting is because she traces everything. I corrected the errors of her ways recently and got her to see that she didn't need to trace everything. because in the first box, only a line of the character was traced by the teacher. In the next box (it goes from left to right horizontally and she needs to follow the steps in about 2 - 5 lines), it's the first line of tht same character and a new line until all the lines in that word is done. Inez used to trace everything (i.e., all the lines) from beginning till end. Memang banyak laa if she's supposed to do that, but the reason they do it that way is so that she knows which line to start first with that word. Poor girl, so unclear of the concept and I don't think the teacher sat down with her to tell her what she must do. Lousy nyer, padan laa she doesn't like the teacher. Anyway, she's doing it correctly now and I'm proud to announce that her writing for mandarin does look so much nicer now from when she started.
Rin, I think the same way but I figure my mom thinks it's a waste of money to have Mika sleeping since the school is only from 2-5 p.m. Hahahaha, so she's the one having a hell of a battle trying to get Mika to sleep in mid morning. I only tell my mom, "good luck to you" coz Mika slept at 8:30 last night and woke up at 5:45 this morning. Inez slept at 10:30 last night and woke up at 6:20. Hahahaha he's already had so much sleep. I dunno if he'll go back to sleep again so early.
And Rin, yeah hafta agree that they do get stressed out earlier these days, no wonder they are biting their nails!
i jus found out that you're multilingual. You can speak Mandarin, Arabic and English real well so I heard. Wow! Impressive. How can that be? Is your sister multilingual too?
Oh your source is such a flatterer! LOL No way I can speak fluently Arabic and Mandarin. I learnt Arabic in school but due to lack of practice, I now have forgotten the bulk of it. I can speak a smattering of Cantonese, no Mandarin. Ja can speak. She went to Mandarin school. Me, it's just basically Malay and English.
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