Dear Teachers

hubby and i get a lot of comments about how we manage out household with no maid. just because we have no maid, doesnt mean we dont sought external assistance. a big help for us (apart from tiza who we call on a short notice) are the teachers. we rely quite a lot on them. daily, they look after the boys for 12 hours. if we need to work late, the teachers are there. if we need to be away overnight, they are there. if we have errands to run on saturdays, they are there.

we try to maintain a good relationship with the teachers as they regularly update us on the boys' developments. one teacher that stands out for hubby and i, is cikgu ummu. she was asyraf's teacher for only 3 months but she brought asyraf out of his bubble and mold him into the chatty, bubbly boy he is now. asyraf, younger, was a quiet baby who only cried his days away. when he was with ummu he changed so much, became dependable, cheerful and stopped taking his bottle in school. the first time we noticed his change was during the school's concert when asyraf took command of the stage in his ladybird costume. he was an absolutely a joy to watch and he followed everything ummu did off stage.

asyraf's first teacher (or pembimbing awal kanak-kanak "p.a.k") was wonderful too. hubby and i regret not knowing her name. she was a small-sized girl and always looked wary of us. we constantly asked about asyraf when he was a baby. we wanted to know how he was, if his threw up, if he had diarrhea, how much he drank, what he ate. those were our daily questions. she probably thought we didnt trust her but it was because asyraf was constantly sick and we just wanted to monitor him. after a while, she probably realised it was for asyraf's benefit and would gladly supply us with details of what happened in school from the moment we dropped him off to the time we picked him up.

now asyraf has another good teacher, cikgu ida. he loves her madly. he would talk about her constantly at home. i know cikgu ida calls him 'acap' but asyraf denies it vehemently, as he knows i dont like people calling him that. very protective of his teacher, isnt he? his recent exam results showed how much influence cikgu ida has on asyraf.

amir has gone through a lot of teachers. his first teacher was disappointing. it was because of her carelessness that amir came away with a hugh bite mark on his cheek. then cikgu faizah became his teacher. he was very attached to her, would always give her a hug every morning and before he left the daycare. when he turned 3 years old, he had cikgu sally. cikgu sally is the teacher everyone was scared off (asyraf and ariff are terrified of her). cikgu sally is such a commanding figure, we can see her controlling the crowd of children during sports day and concert.

amir's current teacher is cikgu huda. amir had her for a while last year and now she's in charge of the pra-tadika class. i think she's doing a pretty good job. amir knows (at least) 6 doas, can count up to 100, know roughly how to pray and he's only 4 years old. hubby and i werent even in school when we were 4 years old.

i'm not sure who ariff's teacher is. i know he had different teachers for a while and i dont know if there's finally a permanent teacher for his age group. when he was younger ariff had kak yus as a carer. kak yus absolutely adored ariff (her bujang). because of kak yus ariff became, well...fat!! he ate so much under her care and hasnt lost the weight.

akmal's carer is kak ima. she's just wow. seriously she is. even i melt whenever i see her. she's just so sweet and motherly. she's so animated whenever she updates me on akmal's developments. i love that she takes in every thing i mention about akmal and practices them immediately. when i pick up akmal i would let the kak ima know what he likes, what he doesnt like, how he likes to be held, not to get her to do it but just to share how he's grown. i get very touched when, the day after, she tells me too does the same thing to akmal and he loves it. she's so sweet.

another teacher who is practically the teacher of all four boys, is cikgu atim. she's our main contact person when it comes to the boys. she has a thing for ariff who is so attached to her. there was a time when ariff refused everyone but her. ariff would want to be dropped off at the tadika every morning because atim is there and would scream when we walk towards the daycare.

we are grateful to all of them (and every teacher at the school - ummi, kak long, cikgu dina) for taking care of the boys. our lives would be unmanageable if not because of them.