Sleeping in Class
When my mom went to pick the kids up on the second day of school, she was greeted by the teacher who laughingly informed her that Mika fell asleep in school. He was the only one who went to sleep!
"What time did he sleep?" my mom asked.
"Around 3 p.m.," the teacher replied.
"What time did he wake up?" my mom asked this time.
"Around 3:35."
My mom figured that somebody must have woken him up. No way Mika would sleep for a little after half an hour. Normally, he'd sleep for at least an hour or two. Since school ended at 3:45p.m., they must have woken him up to go home. Hahaha now that's funny.
It wasn't surprising at all knowing that he was the last to sleep the night before. He had taken an evening nap and so, couldn't sleep at his normal time at 9 or 10 p.m. But the next day, his sleeping pattern went back to normal. Thank God!
Jungle Boy
Yesterday I collected the kids from school. I was early but Mika was already out. Inez was still in Mandarin class. She was due out in another 5 minutes.
"Mommy!" Mika called as he ran towards me and started tugging at me to bring him to the car across the road. I told him we had to wait for Inez.
In the meantime, I asked his teacher how he was in class. She wasn't exactly informative. Just said that he was okay, he did colouring and was able to follow when she taught the class Mandarin. I was carrying Mika at that time, so I asked him, "Did you do colouring, Mika?"
"Yes," he said, nodding at the same time.
"Is this your teacher?"
Again his answer was, "Yes."
"What do you call your teacher?" I asked.
Mika shrugged and said, "I dunno."
The teacher said her name was Miss Tan.
"Did he made any friends?" I asked his teacher.
"Yes, there are only 5 of them," she answered.
"Is that your friend?" I indicated at a tall Chinese boy standing at the gate.
"Yeah, that's Jungle Boy."
"You call him Jungle Boy?"
"Yea."
The boy was appropriately dressed in camouflage designed T-shirt and pants.
In my mind, I was relieved that Jungle Boy was a real person.
Inez's Fardhu Ain classes.
Inez's Fardhu Ain's classes actually started this week and not last week. Poor parents of mine took Inez for the F.Ain class and were confused when the school asked for more money. They thought that Inez was attending pre-school there. They didn't have Mandarin; that's why I only enrolled her for F.Ain there. Her existing kindy has F.Ain classes but they coincide with Mandarin. That's why Inez has to go to 2 schools in a day.
On the first day, we were early and Inez was in time to see a teacher and her students singing some children's songs in Malay that even I do not know existed: lagu gajah la (i.e., Elephant song), kambing la (goat song), macam-macam (etc) and mostly about animals. Poor Inez didn't really understand but it seemed fun.
After class, when my dad asked her what she had learned, she said she couldn't remember and that she played with toys. I guess that's the highlight of her morning. Anyway, Inez seems to have made 2 friends in her F.Ain classes but not in school. Isn't that strange?
8 comments:
Nice post - enjoyed reading it, esp the part when you felt relieved at seeing Jungle Boy in the flesh :D
My son Hasan also sleeps quite late - I tell him to go to bed at 9 - he goes to his room and lies down for a while but then starts to sing loudly or read his book using the night lamp or shout and talk to himself....normally sleeps at half past 10 but sometimes he stays awake until 11 or half past...and wakes up around 8am. Macam mana nak grow tall mcm tu...
Thank you. But yeah, I was most certainly relieved; after knowing that Inez's Mexican friend Cilia was totally a figment of her imagination, I don't know what to believe anymore now they come and tell me there's a Jungle Boy in school!
Actually when it comes to bedtime, I'm a little relaxed. I guess I don't worry about how late or early they go to sleep because (1) when we were younger, we were not made to sleep at certain hours and (2) they've somehow developed their own routines.
They go to bed early and they wake up with the sun. And there's no persuading them to go back to sleep once they are awake. This although, depends also on whether they napped or not during the day and the duration of the naps. Mika would usually nap but Inez rarely. I dunno how this affects their height but Mika is 91 cm and Inez is 102 cm. I guess that's the average height for Malaysian 3 yos and 5 yos. My friend's dughter though is younger than Mika but as tall as Inez. Her dad is over 6 feet. So I'd say it's in the genes. That's why I used to aim 'higher' coz I didn't want my kids to be 'small' like me. My hubby is nearly 5'7", so that's good enough for me.
My mom used to brew traditional herbal soup for my younger brother and I am not sure if it worked or not but he IS the tallest of the lot of us.
jungle boy is real?! so it's confirmed that he's not a jin friend ;)
well, ju not to worry. like inez, mimi also always says she can't remember what she had learnt when asked. but later in the day or days, she would remember bits and pieces of it.
mimi and inez are quite alike in some way, last visit, when i supervised their bathtime, I noticed inez likes to blow bubbles with her toothpaste just like mimi, when I wondered aloud why both of them brush teeth the same way, mimi simply answered "because we are cousins!"
halwafy, mimi is like hasan a late sleeper, mimi will just dream away if i asked her to go to sleep early. wah! tido lewat takleh tinggi ye? no wonder mimi's so short! her friend who is half a year younger is taller than her.
Yea, at the moment, he seems real enough. Mika said he didn't play with Jungle Boy though, yesterday.
Hahaha that's true! Inez amazed me last night when I was going through her Iqra' book, and she could recite all the way up to "ja ha kho" fluently and confidently. I was like, "Hey, what book is this?" and Inez voluntarily started reading her "a ba ta".
Yep, they do brush their teeth the same way, foaming all around the mouth like rabid doggies. Hahaha.
Hey, Mimi is slightly taller than Inez! How on earth can she be 'so short'? That makes my Inez 'so shorter' laa LOL. It must be the genes. Mimi's friend's dad must be a 7 footer of something. :>
I read somewhere - I cant remember where, I do come up with these things but when people ask me for the source...I would never remember from where - that for kids, a nap in the evening is good for brain development. And of course, kids grow when they sleep..so the logic is: 'kalau tak cukup tidur nanti tak besar.'
I think for the late sleepers ni, we must make sure they get tired in the day time - they have a lot of energy actually but setakat duduk depan PC...how to burn? On Tues, Hasan just started his swimming lessons and had PE on the same day at school and he slept at 9pm right on time...:)
Aaah late sleepers issues discussed. Finally I thought I was alone in this. As per my reply to your comment in my blog Ju, I'm at wits end on how to get my girls to sleep early. Halwafy's right, they supposedly grow in their sleep. And enough sleep is important for young children. I read that somewhere. Not to mention it's a struggle with Airis EVERY morning. I hate the fact that her school's got the option of an afternoon session, but the school bus would not send her in the afternoon sbb tak cukup quorum. Tension betul.
Apparently it doesnt work leaving them to sleep by themselves in their room, cos they'll end up playing. But if I forbid Jasmine to 'disturb' Airis, then Airis can't sleep cos no one's there to keep her company.
And then if I stay with them until they sleep, I ended up falling asleep!!! lol Cos they take so long to fall asleep. Pastu they will 'force' me to read them bedtime stories, and one book is never enough.
I've used threats, I've tried everything short of giving them drowsy cough meds. ;) Heck I've even bought Airis an alarm clock!
My husband pun very particular about the kids sleep hours in a day. Must have enough. I don't worry too much about Jasmine cos she can sleep away the morning if she slept late. Airis susah sket cos she's got school, and she hardly ever naps in the afternoon anymore.
workingmom, 'tis true. Airis pun camtu, whenever asked about what she did in school today, the answer was always "Umm I can't remember, we just play lah". ;)
halwafy, so cute la Hasan singing out loud and talking to himself like that. Mcm2x karenah kan budak2x ni. :)
Oh Halwafy, I have to agree with your "Kalau tak cukup tidor, nanti tak besar," seriously Inez has been mistaken for the younger sibling many times coz she is so tiny (btw, in case nobody noticed, I have put in some new pix of Inez in the slide) & now that you mentioned it, my mom repeated to me some fact she read somewhere about kindy-going children needing 12 hours sleep. Hahaha I wish they sleep that much! But you know sometimes, when we get back from work, we do want to spend some Quality time with them, and they are sleeping. Very frustrating, I say!
And yes, Halwafy is again right! do TIRE THEM OUT! And I am reminded of how we usually tire them out. if we get home by 6 p.m, we usually take them across the road, to the beach so they can run their hearts out and build unidentifiable objects which they declare are sandcastles. LOL Usually we would race each other. Inez is very fast. Mika is steady but he tends to lose focus and is easily distracted and would stop here and there to play with the sand.
If time does not permit that, we play football with the kids or Monkey. Or just let them race each other.
Playing hide and seek is also one of their favourite activities. Mika tends to giggle while the search is on, so it's really easy to find him and they like hiding in the same places.
Then feed them til they're full and watch some TV with them, in no time, they'll be asleep.
If not, bundle them all to your room, turn the air cond on, read them each a story of their choice, switch off all the lights and after some time, they'll sleep too, especially if you sleep first. Hahaha
Rin, I guess I am rather lucky that my kids are morning people. I don't struggle to get them ready. Mainly, I struggle to get ME ready. :) Mika hates brushing his teeth though. I had to buy back that finger toothbrush and brush his teeth myself. That's one of my struggles. Inez is the best at teeth hygiene. :)
Ja, your kids do nap, right, if I am not mistaken; except Naqib is a bit erratic.
Best nye ada beach. And Mika is sooo cute, I can imagine how he stops here and there in the middle of a race. Kelakar! ;) Waahh Inez sounds like a future athlete. :)
Yea in fact I'm trying out the 'tiring your kids' advice. So i've rearranged my cooking time. (Masalahnye I prefer to do all my cooking. Tak suka pass kat maid unless absolutely necessary.) So usually 6pm is cooking time for me. If I tire them earlier they might just fall asleep and miss dinner (happened before). So now starting today I'm cooking my lunch cum dinner during lunchtime. :)
Hope this new arrangement works. So later at 6pm I can spend time taxing my kids out. ;)
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