Early Development for Your Child

I was among the first of the lot to get married at 26 years old. God has delivered an awesome gift to me when I was 27. The greatest moment of my life to date was undeniably the day that I become a father to my beloved son Muhammad Fahyim Syakir.

I have mentioned before why I decided to send my kid to a proper kindergarten at such a young age. It was not because I know how beneficial it can be for my kid, but it was merely because my maid ran away.

After putting the kid for almost a year now, I have noticed  mass improvements in his brain development. He has become so clever until my level of intelligence looks awful.

Two nights ago, my wife and I was shocked after hearing him reciting Al-Fatihah although he is still mumbling in between the phrases. But for a two year old who can already recite Al-Fatihah is quite an achievement I must say.

A lot has changed since the last article. He is able to demand, instruct or even protest verbally . He will say " Tanak " with a slight english accent which I never failed to laugh to or he might say " Amacious" which is a mixture of the word Delicious and Amazing . The boys' memory is so good he can effortlessly chant the numbers in tens to hundred. I don't know whether its the kids nowadays or was the kids from my time was underachieving or was it only me? Muehehehhehe.

Usually when we go for a grocery shopping, we will have a list so that we won't end up buying unnecessary things. Everything will be tailored according to the budget thanks to the high inflation rate in our beloved country but everytime we reach the till, there will be numerous amount of unnecessary items picked up by the little lad along the way. Whenever he does this., the mother does this face. Hahaha..

One must not mess with Le mother.

Last month was my sons graduation day. It was held at his Kindergarten. My parents and in laws was there too. It shows how much attention that kid gets from the grandparents. He was supposed to perform a couple of songs during that day. Weeks before the event, he kept on practicing our National Anthem at home so I thought he's going to perform that song but unfortunately on the day itself, only the older group of kids sang . The teachers thought the toddlers might run to their parents when they see them in the crowd. But I managed to record some of his rehearsals in the car. Take a listen.

I was so excited seeing my son performing. He's so enthusiastic and hard working. I can sense his stage fright came creeping by the looks on his face. At one point he was stagnant while the other big kids dancing and singing. A few seconds after that, the performer in him blossomed and unfolds into some crazy dances and hops.

This whole experience of the kids growing so fast has made me believe that early development of child is essential and beneficial. I was surprised by my sons potential and I think it was possible because of the support that he gets from the people around him.

This is our camouflage. Sweet innit?

And I thought this was a playground. 

I'm so gonna get you dude, just watch it dude.

Anyway, this is him now at 26 months. I love you dude. Soon you'll become Abang already.

Feels like farting.

Fast recap!

My last post was on 27 of August 2014. It has been more or less 2 months since I last wrote. My once a month update has now become once every two months kinda thing. This basically describes laziness, forgetfulness, busy-ness and some procrastination of a typical man who thinks he's sound on owning  a blog.

Anyway, here I am scribbling again. This past  2 months had me experienced a lot of major events in my career and also personal life. I had a team of Fantastic Four in my dealing room here in our office. Just recently, one of them got his pink slips delivered to him by the CEO due to confidential reasons.

That fundamentally leaves me with a  team of three including me. We call ourselves the "Miserable Three" .. Hahaha..more work, higher target and same pay. Although what I'm writing now basically describes my inconsistent writing for this past few months, the ultimate factor was in fact .......

"LE WIFE GOT PREGNANT!" 

She is almost 6 months now. If it's a 10K marathon run, she's at kilometre 4.5. This time around, the genre was different to the likes of Fahyim, she was a heavy window shopper during her first pregnancy. This second one is totally the opposite. Every food was "busuk" to her during her first trimester whereas in her second trimester, the motto was "anything sweet, I'll swallow"..hahahaha

Fahyim coped out quite well, he started learning to play with his toys and started showing responsibilities thanks to the kindergarten. His discipline improves tremendously. He sings nursery rhymes I don't know. He has grown into a tall lad. Very handsome and gentle.

We celebrated his 2nd birthday a month ago at his Tokwe's place ( the only free of charge venue ) at first there was no theme for the party until his Nenek bought a fancy inflatable pool and the kiddie slide.

Look at me fancy poolie and me fancy gurlie.!

I hope that this son of mine will grow to be an awesome man just like me. Muahahahahahahaha..

This part of him still exist by the way.

Sir Fahyim Shitalot Progress Report 1 year and 11 months

Syawal is almost over. Open houses begin to close. Expanding waistlines beginning to stagnate. I am back to work and the kid is going back to school.

He has been there for nearly 2 and a half months at Peterana Kindergarten. It comes to my surprise that the school did really well in nurturing Fahyim considering their budding experience in this industry.

Fahyim cried on each and every morning for 2 months since he enrolled with the school until recently he managed to blend in. His learning process at school was not an easy one for the teachers though. According to what was stated in his "Report Card" , he constantly cried and whined the whole time. Refuses to participate in the class activity but was reported for being very observant on the projects. 

Me and wife were so used to his whining. He just loves to do that although he is not hurt, hungry or sleepy. It was just an infants way to attract attention i presume. The teachers were very kind to update my wife on his behaviors and activities during the day. And there's this cute little troopers!

When my ex-mate took care of him. He was so clingy and dependent. We have to accompany him all the time. Doing house chores was a challenge last time. After this tenure at the kindergarten. From a shy boy, he became independent, he transform to a cheerful fella and a cheeky one too. He learned to jump without support which he once scared to perform. He became tremendously obedient too. Throwing tantrums that once upon a time a normal practice in the house is being replaced with laughters and nursery rhymes. 

Nothing excites me the most when my 2 year old kid are able to adapt to a steep learning curve at school. Now he can sing the ABC song until the "now I know my ABC" part which is fairly impressive although he always mix the "M" with the "N". 

One day he came back home and anxiously performed to us a head and shoulder knees and toes gestures. Everytime my wife sing that particular rhyme, he will automatically perform those movements and made us smile all night. 

Sleeping at the midst of 10pm after Pororo has become a routine to him. There's no trouble putting him to sleep nowadays although we might have to listen to him revising his ABC's and 123's together with a few nursery rhymes glued to the back of his astounding brain.

All in all, he progressed a lot since he started schooling. Behaved like a champion as though he knows that his baby brother/sister is on the way. Hehe :)

The Backup Plan

The "old and wise" used to say to the "young and stupids" repeatedly to always have a backup plan in whatever you do but seldom this immature nitwits do take notice.

To make it more interesting, last month right before Ramadhan, my maid ran away. It's the usual case with Indonesian maid here in Malaysia, after a certain period of time working with an employer, the tendency to run away is quite high.

I am not a person who thinks negatively about people. I tend to trust and respect people whenever I can. This includes our maid. She takes good care of Fahyim and displays motherly affection towards him also when one fine day she requested us to send her to her sisters and later on disappear for reasons I can't state.

We was caught of guard. We needed to think of a way to sort Fahyim out. My wife took 1 week leave to take care of the little guy. At first we can't believe that finally the time has come for us to send our only boy to the kindergarten and he is not yet 2 years old. We scouted for the nearest, most affordable and safest place there is in Bangsar and managed to filter them into two choices.

The first one was Kinderland which is situated in Jalan Terasek. It's near, it has vast experience (established in 1978) and the teacher to children ratio was quite good. There are a few negatives that I saw through my visit there was the maid. She looks fierce and gloomy. The fact that there is no Malay there, so there was no basic Islamic practice which is very essential to us. Plus, the kid screamed and hooked his legs on to my waist when I wanted to put him down.

We went to the next kindergarten near the place where we normally do grocery shopping called Peterana Kindergarten. Situated in Lucky Garden beside TMC. They just started business for not more than a year. A bit off on the experience side but it is Malay-owned and teaches basic Islamic. Not many kids there, they got 14 in total including the 4 years old and above. If Fahyim joins, he will be the fifth kid in the toddlers class. We were mesmerized by the interior design of this place. They make it child friendly similar of that Gymboree. The staircases was fully guarded with baby gates and the house is semi-full carpeted. When we are in the midst of touring the house, the principal asked another teacher to take Fahyim upstairs to play. Surprisingly, that little lad willingly and whole-heartedly surrenders himself to the teacher.  I then looked at Diyanah and saw her eyes sparkle, she suddenly shoots a lot of questions to the principal enthusiastically.I know there and then that this particular kindergarten struck my wife's heart . We had a discussion with our parents and enrolled Fahyim the very next week.

Amukan di pagi hari malas pegi skolah

He is definitely not a morning person

Behold! The messmaker has arrived fellas!

First artwork. Got 2 stars only due to short span of concentration.

A Sniff of Fresh Air

Finally we manage to squeeze a wee bit of our time to spend with the kid. After a spontaneous planning, I decided to bring our little familia to Langkawi Island for a short beachy break. The kid has grown up a bit and man he likes to play with sands and of course the all time favorite..the swimming pool!

At first, we wanted to drive there. Other than minimizing the trip cost, we thought we might as well enjoy the scenery. What I didn't know was if I were to bring my car to the island, I would have to send it via forwarding company which uses cargo ferry and will also consume time. So we book flight tickets and rent a car there, more expensive but less tiring and hassle free.

The three of us took the  LRT from Kerinchi Station to KL Sentral and took the KLIA express . It was Fahyim's first train ride but unfortunately he is too young to give a damn about it.. Haha..

We reached Resorts World Hotel Langkawi quite early. The checkout time was at 2-3 pm so there was no vacant room. So we had our early lunch at the cafe while waiting for the room.

Hi! Nama saya Fahyim. Hari ini saya buat record tak mandi sambil naik kapal terbang lagi.

The last time we went to Medan, Fahyim did not take his bath. This time he did it again with style " The Unbathed Traveller". Kah kah kah!

Fahyim jumped into the pool that evening and pulling him out of it was a big ask. I don't favor him staying in the pool for too long during that particular time because he didn't wear any swimming diapers. I went to search for the diapers which I read are sold in Cold Storage nationwide. It is called Huggies Little Swimmers, but my attempt at Cold Storage KLCC failed due to restocking complications. I manage to find one at a sundry shop along Pantai Cenang though.

Kuala Lumpur =MYR 29.50
Langkawi = MYR 40.00!
Frickin lavish Islanders!

He went the first day without the diapers. The fear of him "making cake" inside the pool was looming inside my apprehended mind. Luckily Fahyim was in full control of his stools because he was too occupied with the water smashing . This time around, the wading pool is shallow enough for him to stand and move . I presume this impulse of achievement in him knowing that he can maneuver himself without being held stops him from discharging unwanted particles in the pool. 

Don't worry mang! I ain't gonna shite mang!

Wait for me pool. Here I come pool. Gotta bring milk!

Our little happy family spent 2 nights in Langkawi. We went duty free shopping, seafood eating , "underwaterworld" ing, and "cable car" ing. Action packed holiday I recalled. I remember during my bachelor times, I used to travel light. 3 shirts, 1 shorts, a pair of shoe, a few boxers and i'm ready to roll. Nowadays is a a whole different ball game .., 1 super huge luggage, 1 semi huge luggage, 1 back pack filled with formula milk and flask , 1 stroller and sometimes 1 grumpy little lad. I'd just take it as a holiday workout. Haha!

Mommy's tired of Fahyim's flying saucer night.

Cody the surfer

That's not sweat. That's just fahyim being greedy while drinking.

Apple of my Eye

The Pride of Us

Ahhhh...Its been a while since I last updated this column. It's been so busy around here that I haven't been able to call my time my own. Off to work at 10a.m, back home at 10p.m. There's lesser time to be with the kid nowadays. The purpose why I created this blog is mainly to track the improvements of Muhammad Fahyim Syakir, the kid who is slowly turning into a joker without neglecting his intelligence.

He is fast approaching 2 years old now. (1.9 years to be exact). For us,every Saturday is the day for little Fahyim to go to Gymboree and visit his grandparents. When he wakes up on Saturday morning, he will run to the front door and grab his shoes while mumbling the word "shhssst" (shoes) for numerous time. He knows it is and outing day for him after spending most of the time at home during weekdays. It reminds me on how Diyanah used to go out a lot during her pregnancy days. So that basically justifies my inference on this behavior.

Last week I sat in front of the TV with my son watching the never ever changed channel ( Disney Junior 613 which was airing Let's Go Pocoyo as usual), suddenly the boy got up and started moving in circles. It was these guys who thought him that.

The Martian Brothers!

What happens in this show is, an object such as keys or scissors will appear in the middle of this group of aliens. A background voice will pronounce the name of the object and out of the sudden this aliens will move around it in circles like the Red Indians while pronouncing the name of the object continuously. Amazingly, the kid learns from it and it stays in his head.

At home, we normally speak Malay to him but he is more influenced with the English speaking TV shows and starts picking up words from these shows instead of the Malay words conversed by us. It is quite an intriguing method  I must say. I hope by learning English from the TV and Malay from us, it will somehow create a fine balance in his comprehension of the two languages.

He grows so fast and remarkably got some valuable skills under his belt. He can count 1 to 10 while going up and down the stairs. He can differentiate between up and down by literally lifting his hand up and down respectively while pronouncing the gestures cheekily. For a 2 year kid, to be able to memorize alphabets up to the letter H is by far an outstanding achievement thanks to playschool and Youtube. 

I hate to admit that the media nowadays plays a paramount advantage to the kids education. The only challenge is to control the number of hours spent by the lad infront of the TV. 

Contractor in progress?

The Ultimate Power of Pocoyo!

I have never experienced this much cartoon since Aladdin and the Lion King. Everyday my TV set at home was fixed to the 613 channel which is the Disney Channel. It was one after the other, I went through various types of cartoons from Jake and the Neverland Pirates to Timmy Time and from Higglytown Heroes (it should be called Higglytown Hideous..hahaha ) to Elmo's World. But  I have never once in my life came across a cartoon series that has this much superpower to effect and influence the mind of young Fahyim. It is ultimately "The" frickin show and it is distinctly pronounced as " LET'S GO POCOYO"!!

There's another red squid called Fred and he is not in the picture

This blue dude wearing a blue suit with an ear flapping cap really really is something different. I must call its creator a sheer genius because he managed to design the show in a funny way for the purpose of education to these toddlers. 

Fahyim picked up a few words from the show including the names of the characters in it.  Pato the yellow duck is his favorite. He will pronounce Pato's name whenever that duck appears on screen. He can now say umbrella in his baby accent which is so cute which he picked up from the show. 

The only drawbacks of this show to me is the impishness of Pocoyo, his power of influencing the kid is shocking. The kid tends to imitate any and every move Pocoyo does. Be it facial expression, gestures and even its laughing style. 

Last two days, there's an episode where Pocoyo carries a red ball and started hopping around. My son ran across the living hall to pick up my Manchester United football and started hopping around imitating that stubborn Pocoyo. 

Because of the love and affection that my son has for this blue dude and his friends, I decided to find him some Pocoyo stuffs and I came to the knowledge that there's not much baby outlets that sells its products. There is one in Robinsons@Gardens and another one at Manjaku in Bandar Baru Bangi. 

Surprisingly, a t-shirt cost me MYR70 bucks and a sweat pants costs around MYR50. That's hell of a price tag for a kid's attire. Cekik darah punya Pocoyo. When we saw the price tag, I looked at my wife and she stares back at me. A mutual understanding was formed without any verbal interactions. We glanced at little Fahyim to seek alibi for spending our hard earned money. 

That lad was already on the floor hugging a Pato shirt and overjoyingly smiling at the shirt. At that point, another mutual understanding between a husband and wife was formed and finally we bought our boy his first Pocoyo merchandise. 

As long as you're happy me boy.