Our Joy.

Time out!!

2008-02-29T16:32:00.002-06:00

Today was totally crazy. I had to go to the drs office and so i made breakfast for Farah and made her sit in the sofa and gave it to her. I asked her to eat without disturbing her daddy @work. Then i went to the dr office.it was 8.15 am then.

when I came back at 12noon, she was still in the sofa eating her bread. my BP just shooted up..what in the earth??Breakfast for 4 hours....?? i did give her some nice dose of advice and gave her a time out. I asked her to remain in the family room and that i wouldn't talk to her, nor could she talk to me. but of course she kept on talking to me, but she did remain in the room. This is one of the biggest timeouts ever.

Then I gave in and went on with the day...but now she is little aware of the concept of being grounded and that is definitely good. At least she understands that there will consequences to her actions.

Kumon.

2008-02-24T22:10:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we went to Kumon for a seminar.We have decided to enroll Farah in Kumon. Kumon is more or less like a tutoring center except that they put you in a level in which you are currently a master. you progress at your own pace unlike schools. We have been thinking abt making this decision for quite sometime and it took us so long to do it.
She will be starting in level 7A which is like the first level. She was given a series of test both in Math and Reading. She did very well in both. The instructors were pleased.so were we.
I hope and pray that this is a good start for her.

silly

2008-02-07T22:46:00.000-06:00

Okay This is really funny...I caught Farah picking some paper bits from the floor and eating it ;)

I asked her immediately," Why are u doing that?? Don't do that!! Are u a donkey?? Only Donkeys eat paper!!" Her reply was so spontaneous..."Yes mummy, I am donkey :) see" and kept on eating more papers....!! Show me a place where I can bang my head!! [:)]

Latest Accomplishments!!

2007-12-29T20:14:00.000-06:00

Farah is doing great at school. she even got her quarterly evaluation report. she had good remarks from her teacher.

One complaint from her teacher was that she finishes her job quickly and interrupts with other kids while they are working on their activity and bosses them around. but her teacher said that this quality will help her leadership qualities when she grows older...keeping my fingers crossed.

she has mastered writing A-Z and number 1-10. I sometimes think the school system here is not adequate enough for her. special schools cost more. I have decided to keep encouraging her at home until we find something to improve her abilities and bring it out in a positive way.

A new year has begun. and Insha Allah Farah will be turning 3 this month..hope all is well this year as it was last year..

Farah is off to school!

2007-10-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

Farah's school started on September 4th, which just reminds me that my first day of college was exactly 10 years earlier on September 3rd. How time flies by is so surprising!!

There are 12 kids in her class and 3 teachers. I had to put her in school even though she was 2 and half only cause, i just knew that she was so ready for it..and waiting for the 3 year old cut off did not seem right.

She didn't shed a tear, she hugged me, kissed and said "i will see u later mommy" and then waved good bye and just went inside. I thought it was going to be much more dramatic than that, but it was not. It was so simple.I am grateful to Allah for that.

There were a few kids who just cried and cried the entire school time.On one hand i was thanking God, on the other i was thinking that Farah just didn't mind missing me and she was not as attached to me as i thought she was..which was so sad for me.

I waited the whole 90 minutes waiting for her outside the class room. I guess, i was the one who was too attached to her. she came running towards me and hugged me and said those golden words,"I am so glad to see u mommy". I was just taken away by her love. I had no doubt that she loved me and that "unconditional love" was just so pure and the most sought after thing in this whole world. There is no comparison to it.I have it. what more do I need?

It was really a good start, Masha Allah, and hope it stays that way, the rest of her life.I just pray that she embraces each new thing that happens to her with such confidence and enthusiasm that she showed on her first day of school.

Farah Sleeps in her own room!!

2007-09-14T20:48:00.001-05:00

Finally Farah has started sleeping alone in her room. it has been quite a journey with Farah since she was born. People here say that we have to let the baby sleep separately right from the start. But I totally disagree. we were not brought up like that. we turned out good. our confidence level is much higher that most people here.

Of course it made us dependent on our parents to a certain extent, but it is not wrong. they are our parents. i believe if the kids are dependent on the parents to a certain extent( not too much), then there is no way they will choose the wrong path in life. If there is a problem, the first person they should turn to should be parents. They must believe their parents are there for them no matter what.

so coming back to what i was saying, these past 30 months was a slow step by step process in moving farah to her own room. we both felt comfortable and that too for me specially, i wanted to avoid any guilt feeling of leaving her alone in her own room. But now time has come and she is very much ready to sleep in her own room. this past month has been wonderful. there were frequent night time visits to her room, even without her knowledge but i don't mind it.

Hurray my girl is potty trained!!

2007-08-17T22:58:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting for 3 weeks to post this.my girl is potty trained at last.no more diapers, no more messes :)
I started her to train last november when in India. That is the best place to at least start the training. She responded well for the idea of going potty. But there were accidents now and then. some embarrassing situations here and there, but finally our persistence paid off.
now she is more independent and free.
every time i think i should post about she becoming diaper free there would be an accident. let's see what happens today night, crossing my fingers :)

Started Cycling!

2007-07-10T00:20:00.000-05:00

Today Farah started cycling by herself. i had to help her stay in the walkway but she did it!!

She would pedal only if i sang the Caillou Title song.if I stopped she stopped too. it was kind of funny.

This week!

2007-07-07T23:58:00.000-05:00

Now that i have said everything that i wanted in Farah's journal, well not everything, but almost everything, i am going to write about this week.

The most prominent thing that happened this week was Farah learning to identify the cars.This whole week she wanted to know what each car was and started asking her favorite question "WHATS THAT?"

It started with our car Toyota and then her friend Sanju's van, Honda.. The way she says those name are the most funniest. Now she identifies a lot of the cars. everytime we walk by a parking lot this week, it is like waking up a car monster in her. she starts pointing at all the cars and calling their names out load. we had a few people smile at her in the mall parking lot.

Farah's cars Real Names
Toyotaai Toyota
Hondaan Honda
Aaoudi Audi
Acuda Acura
Benz Benz(This she got right and she says she is going to drive a benz :) )
Lexus Lexus
Vol Wagon Volkswagon
Ponti yuck Pontiac(this is the funniest)

to be continued....:)

Doctors--her nightmare!

2007-07-07T23:42:00.000-05:00

Farah's worst nightmare was her doctors. she saw too many doctors as a baby and she just hated them. The moment we park our car in front of the doctor's building, she would start crying. Last week she had a throat infection and fever went up to 103. we went to doctors' office and that was the first ever visit in her lifetime when she didn't cry. otherwise, i would always be ready with an extra pair of dress for me and her, since she would throw up the moment she sees the doctor. I was so relieved that she is slowly getting over it.

Farah is good in identifying landmarks. i knew that for quite a while, but she really took me back by surprise yesterday. we went to sears and she is getting potty trained,so had to make a quick stop at the restroom. it was the first time we ever used that restroom and as soon as we came out, i took a wrong turn. farah just wouldn't come with me and stopped me and said,"mummy, it is the wrong way. this is the way" pointing to the turn which i was supposed to take. I was just taken back by surprise. I did not expect that from her. Masha Allah Alhamdulillah.

Farah's favorite food is vegetables as such. she finishes veggies before rice. when every mom hides veggies behind the food, i do just the opposite. But she is a very SLOW eater. Feeding her easily takes 3 hours/day for me. After feeding her i just lose my appetite.

Farah is also a very light sleeper. she never sleeps easily and always gets awakened by the slightest noise or light. That remind me, my father in law used to run out of our house to sneeze, since Farah would burst to a loud cry whenever she hears a sneeze. :) even when she is awake.

We have started to make her sleep in her own bed and I sleep on the floor. The past week she didn't wet her diapers at all.She has to get potty trained by September when Insha Allah she would start school.

Farah's mazhalai.

2007-07-07T23:27:00.000-05:00

Farah's first words was "daddy". she used to call me daddy and her father also as daddy. i would beg her to call me amma or mummy whichever is easier for her. We always spoke Tamil around her and repeat each sentence in English, just to make her aware that there are two different way of sounding any thing. she always grasped English better.

Her second word was "spoo" pointing to spoon. Then it was raining words all day. Now she speaks non stop for hours. Not everyone can understand her, except me and her dad. Her favorite phrase as a baby was "NO". Then it became "I CAN DO IT MYSELF" which was also the first book that she memorised. Now it is "WHAT'S THAT?"

Farah Loves reading books. Her favorite book was a Cookie monster book.she has read it a thousand times literally. Farah could identify all the alphabets, lower case and upper case by the time she was 15 months. she could identify about 6 shapes and count up to 20. the one thing i struggled with her was the colors. I almost thought she was color blind. :) When i finally thought that i would leave the color lessons out for a while, she started telling them right.

When she was less than a year old, her favourite toy was just books. it was books books books all the time. she never used to repeat anything we said, but suddenly one fine day she woke up and started to tell about 100 words in a book.We were so amazed.Masha Allah!

FARAH ABDUL RAHMAN-Our Little Princess.

2007-07-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

The other day my husband and i were speaking about blogs and how everyone has a blog for themselves or their passions. I have not been good in keeping a journal for our daughter and decided this was the best way.we didn't want to forget her milestones, her first words, her reactions to new things, her "first everything".

so here i am typing my very first official journal for our girl. I can never forget the day she was born or the 14 days prior to her birth. She came almost 5 weeks prior to her Estimated date of arrival. She was so tiny. She had these Gorgeous, Beautiful Large brown eyes.My husband was glowing with pride.

Me and Abdul had shortlisted Ayesha and Farah for girl names and he said i could chose any name for boy.This was because he knew that it was going to be a girl and I didn't. I chose Zuhayr or Suhail for Boy names. Then one day we suddenly realised that Farah was a combination of his name and my name and we really felt, almost childish happiness. We named her Farah Abdul Rahman.

First few months were a bad roller coaster ride for us. My health issues and hers weren't good. Abdul was caught between the two of us. And we were also moving into our new home, our first dream home that we were building.

Farah was always slow in her physical activity. it was 6 months before she finally flipped and when she started doing the military crawl, she went backwards.she was so frustrated whenever she tried reaching for an object, she would go away from it. Then Abdul and I had to coach her to crawl forward. it didn't stop there, we had to coach her to walk when she finally started standing up when she was 11 months old. she took her first steps when she was 13 months and started walking. There is no stopping her since then.