Sleeping Arrangement - The Supernanny Technique

Remember my previous post about my twins' sleeping arrangement?

Well, one of the comments I've received from a friend, is to refer to the Supernanny series so I searched in Youtube. And there it is, an episode that really mimics my situation, a family having twins girls and also having sleeping issue. Here is the video:

So we've been trying the technique for the past 4 days. The first 3 days, there was no problem at all putting them to sleep at bedtime. Since they hardly take nap during daytime, they get sleepy around 7-8 pm so when I put them to sleep at 8, they doze off quite fast. Sometime they even fall asleep while I was still reading to them. The first night, Nabilah still woke up in the middle of night and searched for me. This time around, it was cik HB taking in charge (because he stays up late at nights) and I was summoned to stay in my bed. It was difficult to refrain myself going to her because she cried so hard but I had to. She fell asleep after sometime.

The next morning, we praised them for their achievement sleeping on their own. But when we told them that it is going to be permanent thing, they started crying and objected. We had to explain in the best way possible.

2nd night: No trouble putting them to sleep at bedtime. According to cik HB, Nabilah again woke up in the middle of the night, without crying! But she tried many things to make cik HB send me to her like asking for various things and finally when everything didn't work with her father, she said she just wanted to see me. So cik HB let her in to our bedroom and after she checked on me she went back to her room and slept. Oh! Poor thing.....

3rd night: We had some friends coming for dinner so the twins went to bed later than usual. But they were fast asleep the moment I put them to bed. Nabilah still woke up at night but just for a short while. No whining what so ever. She only asked for water.

4th night: Well, well....as I'm writing this post, it's the 4th night and the worst ever so far. Nabilah had been crying for an hour now because she refuses to sleep and she insists that I sleep with her. I guess because she had taken nap today for almost 2 hours (she slept with me in the afternoon as I had headache), so she's not that sleepy. I've lost count how many times for the past one hour that I keep sending her back to her room. Nabihah has been sleeping so soundly and I hope her sleep will not be interrupted by her crying twin. I'm on the verge to give up now but I must remember the keyword: CONSISTENCY.

Hopefully the following nights would be smooth and I am strong to do this....

Homeschooling

Since I mentioned about me homeschooling the twins, many friends have asked about its progress. Actually I'm a bit embarrassed to talk about it because the homeschooling things that I'm doing are not carrying out that aggressively. But I'm catching up with things and hoping that my homeschool project is improved.

I have this daily schedule I made to organize the time in between doing my housechores and the kids homeschooling activities. The activities include learning iqra', ABC, math, art projects, cooking projects and interactive games. But honestly speaking, I still haven't actually comply to the schedule exactly as it is. Terrible...

I'm actually not that ambitious about this homeschooling things. Basically, since we don't know when they are going to get a place at the kindergarten, I just want them to have some activities at home, otherwise they would be bored and start being cranky. So I won't force them to really study cause they are not even 4 years old (well, they will be in 2 months time). So if the schedule is suppose to be 30 minutes per session, and they start being restless after 15 minutes, I would stop. Anyway, as the one that teaching, I'm always searching the methods of fun learning.

So here some of the things the kids have been doing in my so-called homeschooling activities:

Cooking projects:

the so-called helping umi making karipap....sampai lunyai doh karipap tu!

and making cookies...

The Interactive Games

jigsaw puzzles....3 pictures everyday and I think I'll have to search more for another games because eventually they would be bored with this

the construction bricks....

The art projects:

free-style drawings....up to their imagination....

the sticker stuffs

colouring....hmm...guess they need a lot of practices on this...hehehe

There a lot of activities I have to plan to make them happy learning. I want to try make it similar to the activities run at kindergarten but I don't really have the idea. And furthermore I can't really spend money on the expensive fun learning stuffs (like the Play-Doh set) but I'm sure there are other less expensive alternatives.

And now I have another program to include in our daily routine...learning to read based on the book I have recently bought "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". I haven't finished studying this book but it appears a simple method to teach reading. And just 20 minutes a day. It is completely different from the conventional way of learning how to read I've gone through before. I don't know whether it will work with my kids or not, but no harm trying, huh?

Let's see what I can do....

Pagi Yg Bersalji

Aku baru aje bercita2 nak gi jogging pagi ni. Since cik HB ada kat rumah dan x berapa bz sbb his next exam 8/4, so boleh la aku keluar berjogging (bukan keluar berpoya2 ye...). Si Nabihah nangis2 nak ikut tapi aku ignore kan aje. Kalau bawa dia, cik Nabilah pon sure nak ikut jugak. Sudahnya kang x jogging pulak aku.

Tgh bersiap2, sekali Nabihah dok jerit "umi, salji turun!". Aku yg tgh pakai tudung kat toilet, x percaya. Aku baru je jenguk tingkap tadi, cerah aje. Lagipon skrg kan dah spring, mana salji turun lg. Tapi Nabihah dok ckp benda yg sama. Bila aku keluar toilet aje...eh, betul la! Salji turun! Lebat pulak tu. Patut la smlm sejuk sgt, drop sampai 0C. Cuaca pon x menentu...sekejap panas, sekejap hujan.

Dengan salji yg turun, terpaksa la aku batalkan niat murni aku nak jogging. Sudahnya ini yg aku buat pagi ni...blogging, surfing....hmmm.

First Purchased from Amazon.com

I never bought any book online before. But living in Germany where English reading materials are scarce and expensive, made me trying to buy books online. So I tried Amazon.com.

I'm trying to teach my twins to read and been searching the right guideline on how to do it. Many websites and blogs I visited about homeschooling sugggest this book, so I guess it must be good. Besides, it's not that expensive. So why not give it a try.

The online invoice I received from Amazon.com said the expected delivery would be in between early April to mid April, but the delivery came on last Saturday. 2 weeks earlier! And I'm impressed. But the postlady had nagged on me for not putting my name on the post box (we only have cik HB's name) . Luckily she had came before with a letter of my name so she knew it belongs to our house again. And there are only 3 units of apartment share the same address number, so it was not very difficult for her to identify. Sorry...I've been meaning to put my name on the post box but the bad me always delaying things....

I haven't gone through the book yet, so I can't say much about it.

Frühling

I guess it's already spring now (in Deutsch, spring is called Frühling). Though we haven't change the time yet (at the beginning of winter we changed the time to one hour late and by the end of March which I'm not very sure the date, we'll change back the time back to normal). Now, daylight comes as early as 6.00 am and the normal average daytime temperature is about 8 to 10C. Most of the days, it is shining so brightly and the sky is so blue. Trees are producing new leaves, flowers are blooming and birds chirping. And you can see everywhere people start crowding the road and the parks to enjoy the beautiful day after months of staying indoor due to the cold winter.

The kids and I are part of these people. Since recently we have found a strolling park complete with playground and lake just behind our apartment, it is just a waste not to go out. It's really good to be outside under this weather, breathing on a fresh air. It's not that cold or warm, it's just nice. Macam kat Genting Highlands gitu!

I didn't know that there are ducks at the lake, otherwise I would be bringing some breads to feed them. The twins insisted that we go home and come back with some breads for the ducks. I managed to coax them not to, because walking home and then walking back is quite a distant. But I promised them that we'll come back tomorrow to feed the ducks. So I'm thinking to bring a basket of picnic food, not just to feed the ducks but also to bring the foods and drink for the twins so that we can stay longer strolling around without them being hungry or thirsty.

And I hope tomorrow will be as beautiful as today.

Tudung Fareeda Promo

Dah lama aku nak buat promo ni tp asik terlupa. Minta maaf la ye kat sapa2 yg aku dah berjanji.

Kalau anda di UK dan kawasan2 sewaktunya, sila lawati website MALABIS.

Dan jika anda di Malaysia (kat mana2 pon xpe sebenarnya tp kos penghantaran lg mahal la kan)sila lawati website 79th Attitude.

Jika anda di Germany, hehehe...contact la sy. Sy xde la website tudung fareeda ni tp sy boleh menjadi wakil kepada 2 pupu sy itu.

Testimonial tentang tudung Fareeda : Kain cantik, rekaannya sgt senang untuk di pakai, x payah nak gosok dan sy sentiasa rasa cantik bila pakai tudung itu walaupun muka sy kembang sebenarnya.

Berminat?

A Day in Frankfurt

Last two days, our friend from Aachen, Hatta and family came here because they wanted to make birth certificate and passport for their new born daughter, Mariah. So we accompanied them to Malaysian Consulate in Frankfurt. The thing was, cik HB and I had never been to Malaysian Consulate office, we have only been to the Consulate Officer's house, so we weren't really much a guider to get to the Consulate Office.

However, Hatta had contacted the Consulate's staff and he told him that we should board S-Bahn and get down at this station called Messe. We got to the mentioned station but we couldn't see the building we wanted to go. So Hatta called the guy again, but to no avail because apparently he never use the public transportation (well, I guess he drives all the time!) so he couldn't tell exactly what sort of train system we should have taken. He only knew that there is one station right in front his office. Unfortunately, our informer didn't know whether that station belongs to S-Bahn or U-Bahn. Both are railways system, but U-Bahn is an underground rapid transit that moves within Frankfurt city, whereas S-Bahn is similar to our Malaysian KTM commuter. So we had to studied Frankfurt public transportation's map and thank God, the map is so user friendly, so it was easy to figure things out. Apparently, there are two stations bear the same name, Messe but at different location. One you go by S-Bahn and the other one by U-Bahn. So obviously we have to take the U-Bahn. So we had to get back to main station to ride the U-Bahn. And when you were lost with 3 small kids and a baby tagged along, it was quite hectic.

Then we got on U-Bahn and travelled to that other Messe Station. And when we got outside the station, we were happy to see the building. So Hatta and wife got into their business and we waited at the reception area, controlling the kids. And luckily the receptionist was kind enough, he switched on the cartoon show, so the kids were occupied and saved us from hard work.

The kids were watching TV and the mothers posing on the camera...hehehe


The twins were so hooked up with the tigers's symbol and insisted we took their photo standing there

Some community service here: Take note the operating hours if you intend to go to Malaysian Consulate

About an hour or so, the passport-making business settled and we headed back to Frankfurt Am Main for lunch. We opted for fried chicken at this place called GFC....Golden Fried Chicken. Very much sound like KFC, huh? Yeah, they have about the same concept as KFC but it's 100% halal and besides fried chicken and fries, they also have variety of menu from pizza to briyani rice. Anyway, my honest opinion, the fried chicken isn't as tasty as KFC's, but it's good enough if you crave for halal fried chicken. But Najdah's mother said the briyani tastes so good.

Then after lunch and pray, we took them to Frankfurt's famous tourists site, Romer (the only place I know so far!). Najdah's mother bought some souvenirs here, then we took a walk by the riverside and the kids enjoyed seeing the swan and the ducks. By then, everybody were tired, the baby needed diaper change and milk so we got home.

Hatta and the family are coming back to Frankfurt next month to send Najdah's mother to Frankfurt airport as she's going back to Malaysia. So Darmstadt will be their next explore!