Sleeping

i'm thankful that i seldom have nap problems with the boys. sleeping at night, yes...i have faced difficulties with that. asyraf's ability to stay awake and cry most nights back in 2007 was scary. the boys' tantrum, dips in health and mood swings when they were not well were moments i'd rather not remember.

but aside from those 'everyone have them' sleepless nights, they are pretty alright when it comes to naps. i credit this to sending them to daycare. they had scheduled naps at 1-3pm everyday and we follow suit when they're at home during on weekends but change it to 2-4pm or 3-5pm. we make plans around their sleeping time and if we were to go out, we would make sure we come back in time.

nowadays, amir & asyraf seldom take afternoon naps. we don't force them anymore because they don't seem to need them. plus, if they don't take naps during the day, they would fall asleep easier at night. so on weekends, they usually have quiet time while ariff & akmal take their naps.

on weekdays, however, this young man who stays with me after his school ends, is a joy to take care of because he hardly misses his afternoon naps. he's usually out by 2 and would wake up by 430, sometimes sleeping all the way to 5. he's a scheduled boy every since he was a baby (4-hourly milk time on the dot!). he would usually fall asleep in the car on the way back from sending his brothers to school. he can be talking or eating or playing the PSPs in the car but once we hit a certain place, i will look at him in the rearview mirror and, he never disappoints me, he'll be fast asleep. every single day without fail.

of course, this discourages me from going out during the afternoon but there's no way i can go out anyway, not with the elder two going to school by 130pm and ariff needs to be picked up a couple of hours after that. i usually spend the time folding the clothes, going through the boys' SRA bags, preparing dinner, clearing the kitchen, there's always something to do.

akmal napping with his baby jaguar every afternoon...

the boys on weekends...

Amir Turns Eight

we celebrated the first birthday of 2013 last week when amir turned 8 years old last week. he's getting to be so big, can't believe in a couple of years his age will be in the double digits.

amir is...well, let me start with the positive things first...he's responsible. he loves things that he gets and he would always take care of them. fine, there's some accidents with his PSP and lost stationeries in school, but that's normal i guess. he still brings his alarm clock that we bought 3 years ago around the house, even though its no longer working properly. we gave him a watch for his birthday, something he's been asking for the longest time, and he wears it day and night. when we ask him to take it off to sleep, he would put it next to his pillow. he appreciates what he receives and tries, as much as an eight year old boy can, to take care of them.

amir is a loving elder brother. he loves the fact that asyraf is in the same school with him. he brings him around, tells everyone who his younger brother is, waits for asyraf when the school ends, looks for him during recess time. i bet he would be nervous as heck when akmal starts primary school, especially as they won't be in the same session.

amir likes schedules. he likes to be kept occupied. he likes seeing his timetable to see what he has in school, he likes looking at the calendar to see what is going on in the month. when he's not occupied (like he was during the school holidays) he gets restless and starts disturbing everyone. while asyraf and ariff can find things to do on their own, amir likes a more structured plan so that he knows what he has done and what he will be doing.

on the creative side, he likes writing notes, about what happened in school, what happened with his friends, what he wants to do. he likes to draw and scribbles notes to accompany them. he's very neat and would erase his scribbles again and again to get them perfect.

on his birthday, we had a small cake-cutting & candle-blowing for amir. we surprised him after dinner with a few slices of cake and his gift.

amir also requested to have a birthday dinner 'dekat chilis macam hari tu' and wanted to invite the family. he was the best host, thanking everyone for coming and for the presents he got.