Author: arlanadya

Pas special, J'ai seulement besoin de beaucoup de privee
Posted in Favorite things, Places, Thoughts, Travel

The Accomplishments of The Year

Posted on by arlanadya

We went to a place with winter weather without any heater for this holiday. 

Dieng was chosen thanks to countless reels that promote this place and it successfully brainwashed me to arrange a trip here.

Other reason is to to balance the city trips throughout this year and last one is to let both spoiled girls (me and my daughter) experience less comfortable situations and see different things out there.

In spite of lack of facilities here and there, maybe due to its geographical location, but, the hospitality we received from the locals we met here was pleasing.

Few that make a trip called acceptable : clean bathroom, good food is easily accessible, feel safe to go around, and proper internet connection.

I can tolerate washing dishes with freezing water, no refrigerator is available, less comfortable ride and bumpy road, cold piercing weather that makes us stay inside with three layers of clothes and socks to stay warm, last day in freezing weather without water, all the attractions that require us to pay no matter how ‘nothing to see’ they are, but, it’s okay. The tickets were totally affordable.

We only had two main itineraries during the stay. Sunrise in Sikunir and Mount Prau Hiking. 

We climbed Sikunir on the second day and left our cabin house as early as 4am. It was freezing cold and quite tough when you traveled with a 9 year old.

But, the view up there was totally worth it.

On the third day, we climbed Mount Prau. I didn’t expect anything at first. But, along the way, we reached the first stop, then continued to the second one, then the third one till we finally reached the summit.

Mount Prau is considered as one of the beginner choices and I think it fits someone who has never experienced mountain climbing before. We departed from Dieng basecamp which is considered as the easiest route.

For someone who lived most of the childhood to adolesence dealing with genetically severe asthma, I climbed leisurely and happily, back and forth. We spent six hours climbing up and back down. 

One thing about nature trip, if it’s done with the right group (actually, whatever trip is only good when you go with the right companions), it’s the most mindful trip one could have. We can’t rush, especially when we travel with a kid, we couldn’t be disappointed much, the focus is only to get to the next stop, and whatever view we get along the way, it’s nothing but beautiful.

I love the silence during the 8km of walk.
The view of blue sky, white clouds, and fog out there. The each step taken in the quiet forest.

Kind of trip that makes you really tired but happy and realize how tiny we are in this enormous world.

Doing daily exercise, no zero day, wherever I have been, regular morning walk, for the last four years, show its benefits during this climb.

This is such a personal huge milestone in this decade.

But, that wasn’t only about me. There is a 9yo who also reached the summit with her own two legs for the first time. We did several hiking too before when we visited Bajo and camping, but, she received a lot of help back then.

Several comments we heard a long the way : 

“Wow, she’s so cool”.
“How old is she?”
“She went up to the summit? Amazing!”

Two climbs in two days for a nine year old is not a small feat indeed. She whined a lot, which is normal. She complained so much, which is more normal. She said she was exhausted and being grumpy, which is nothing but normal.

The parents who brought her to such trip and ‘enjoyed’ six hours of intense motivational coaching and mood lifting? Maybe that was the only one which was not normal.

But, enjoying such thing and left her behind is not an option. We’re suffering together is the only way to go.

Raising her, we never choose easy, and hopefully will never be, as much as we could.

She might not be impressed a lot about today, but I believe, her mind and body will keep score.

Life won’t get any easier, not always about fancy hotel and pool or beautiful city, but, we have to push through. We always finish what we have started, no matter how hard it is. I hope this trip teach her that.

Easier said and written than done.

Overall, Dieng is beautiful, cold, and worth the long road trip by train, car, and jeep, long hikes to enjoy the beautiful scenery in the highest village in Central Java.

In Dieng, we stayed in a modest cabin house without any heater in 10-15 degree. No proper hotel chain available in Dieng. Some good policy from the local government. So all the accommodation, restaurants here are owned and run by locals. No fancy coffee shops is seen here. No English speaking people heard except some few snobs from Menteng Dalem.

The scenery here is one of the places in Java Island that suits our tourism tagline : Wonderful Indonesia.

After Komodo-Labuan Bajo trip four years ago, this trip is another quite impressive domestic travel on the list.

Posted in Langit Senja, Life happens, Maternité, Thoughts

Rants on 9

Posted on by arlanadya

Things have been going in between bumpy and smoothly for the the ninth year.

We’re still in the early pre-teen phase but for those who has been dealing with non typical child development problems since early years, we start noticing some issues that need to be addressed more seriously with the help of expert. Unless it’s something which the consequences is irreversible (like getting married or having kids), early is always better. Things that we work on are still around her difficulties.

One of the best presents we received this year : we finally meet a local child psychologist who understands us, the parents. A psychologist who is in the same frequency, who understands what we know and read, who validates our thoughts and feeling. We finally meet one who is willing to find out what she doesn’t understand in order to help the little girl, and make a decision and tailored therapy based on that.

We rarely meet this kind of psychologist here. Someone with different insights and experiences than the typical one. More, one that builds good rapport with the kid. We’ve been having more than five sessions in few months and so far, I am quite pleased with everything.

Even better, it is located just 10 mins drive from home.

I observe a pattern, apart from any kind of diagnosis she has, she is blessed with one important thing : she happens to always meet the right people at the right time to help her with whatever she needs. A true Godsend. Hopefully, it will stay that way. Amiinn.

We still have a lot of homeworks to be done.
I hope we could finish them all ‘on time’.

……..

As an only child, school is the village to cover what we couldn’t provide at home : meeting other kids regularly. For someone who rarely survive and not really into playdates, school is the only option. That’s the main reason why I send to school.

School delivery and pick up has been one of the most interesting parts during the last few years.

School during autumn term was one of the best core memories in motherhood. Every single morning during autumn never failed to make me want to capture everything that I saw. Be it the view to the school or the little girl herself.

When walked through the little forest, she made so many stops to see things, be it mushroom, plants, worms, just anything. I really loved all the morning walk sessions to the school during the -ber months in spite of the cold weather.

One of the best periods in life

Unlike one in London, school trip here is far from scenic. But, the car conversation has always been more interesting and intriguing that they givesome aches in my heart and brain sometimes.

“Do you know?” That is her signature silence breaking once the car engine was starting and she started talking and facts throwing about everything.
Or,
“I have a question”.
Usually, I take a deep breath first after this because it was mostly a-how and why question that requires more thinking before answering.

For someone who always prefers driving in silence, I keep telling myself to enjoy this as much as I can. This might be tiring to deal with sometimes, but, I am gonna miss this so much later. It will pass like so many things that I thought would last forever have passed. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Every time she closes the car/taxi door in the morning, then said our usual “have fun and have a nice day”, couldn’t help spelling my specific prayer,
every single day while unconsciously taking a deep breath.

Time indeed slips through my finger
Moments where I remember
She’s only five year old little girl
In a blink of an eye she turns into a niner

May Allah protects her through all the way.
Guard her in every of her actions and decisions.
Keep her safe wherever she is.
Strengthen her faith and keep her in a straight path.
Amin. Amin. Amin.

Happiest birthday, ❤️.

Posted in Langit Senja, Life happens, Past learning, Thoughts

On DLD 2023 Day

Posted on by arlanadya

On today’s Developmental Language Disorder day, instead of talking about the old story about how DLD diagnosis changed everything,, I want to talk about this one.

Love these two so much!

This Young Sheldon show is one with many great parenting insights.

One thing that makes it so relatable is because I am raising one whose first diagnosis was DLD which just happened to be as a door opener for many things to come.

I couldn’t helping laughing all through season 1 since they described well how it looked living with my own daughter, while I have been weeping a lot all through season 2 with so many punches given on the heart in every eps.

My daughter is nothing compared to Sheldon in term of brain intelligence, but, I could feel the parent’s frustration of how to deal with this kind of kid when you know nothing about them, when it doesn’t fit the parenting knowledge that you know, when you have to beat your ego in so many situations because it won’t work with this kind of kid. They know much more than you in many things. Their brain doesn’t work like ordinary people do.

But, on the other hand, they also know so little about how human works in general. Understanding human is difficult. Kids like them are having hard time to understand the grey area,for them it’s always black and white.

They might look like any other kids outside, but, it takes a lot of deep breath to deal with them in daily basis, just like what Mary and George experienced.

We’re keeping therapy sessions up until now, even double it, (if not plan to triple it),not to make her as normal as possible, but to help us teach her many things that we couldn’t.

Another thing that is so relatable about this show is both are beyond privilege. L&S are having a family which accepts them just the way they are and get all the support needed to be themselves. Have encountered many kids whose parents give up on them once they received the diagnosis. As much I understand how hard it is to accept the reality, but, giving up on our kid should’ve never been an option.

With or without diagnosis, every kid comes with their own intelligence. Like Missy, my most favorite character, whose intelligence I wish my daughter to possess and keep training her for that.

Happy DLD DAY!

Posted in Langit Senja, Life happens, Thoughts

Back to Distinction in ABRSM

Posted on by arlanadya

(A draft saved on September 15th)

No long words could do the justice to describe what it took to finally secured a proper recording to be submitted for the exam.

From eyeing distinction as a target to finally settle, “let’s just aim for pass” then.

Started practicing the very first song on August 2022. Fast forward a year later, no single recording was decent enough to be submitted.

The list of recordings captured were only small part of hundreds that we did since last April.

Finally got the one we had been waiting for the past five months(!!). Alhamdulillah.

We haven’t even submitted the video, but this is the closure for all the efforts done in grade 3 ABRSM.

When I think we deserve certain result for our hardwork, the reality snapped back harshly by showing countless messy and bad recordings we got along the way. The harder we tried, the more frustrating we were.

We finally got it when we finally on the ‘Que Sera Sera’ mode.

For someone who has so little patience, this is my daily training.

Not just about piano practice/anything, but to take whatever it takes during the process of doing everything in life and be patient to accept any results which is outside my control.

Still far from mastering it, my face showed it all when things don’t go according to what I expect.

The result we received today.

Distinction for Grade 3 ABRSM.

It took a lot of Astaghfirullah to achieve this and a simple silent Alhamdulillah when we received it.

It was leisure four months to achieve a high level of distinction 147/150 for grade 1.

It was tragically twisted seven months to achieve (only) merit 124/150 for grade 2 exam.

Spent more than frustrating twelve months to return to distinction bracket of 133/150 for grade 3 exam.

Proof that life is not getting easier,
Your efforts matter,
but there will be time to surrender and let it go to The Decider, because the end result is never ours.

After more than a year of practice, four songs from the scratch, countless frustrated moments, more than grateful this is the result we deserve for all the sweat and tears.
Posted in Langit Senja, Maternité, Thoughts

Thirty Days of Screen Ban

Posted on by arlanadya

I had been quite loose with many things regarding the little girls’s activities since at least two months back. I took another responsibility, which moved my attention and energy to the new something than the regular activities that had been around before.

I’ve been sensing that something was off for weeks. I asked the same question every day, checking whether she had done all the compulsory daily training, and got a short yes as an answer all the time, and I took it for granted. It might be because the routines have been around for almost three years without zero days. So, I thought she knew what to do already.

It was a Tuesday three weeks ago when I suddenly checked the iPad and found out that she had been neglecting the four daily routines together, not only for days but weeks, for the past two months.

It was pretty disappointing and made me throw a tantrum here and there. Half of it, I was angry because I ignored the off feeling for too long. I was being lazy.

It turned out the child could also understand that. When the parents were lazy, so she was. She started learning mommy was busy, and the training was getting more complicated; one day off wouldn’t hurt. I did it for the second, and the rest were more straightforward.

Consequences were decided right away and accepted without any arguments. At least she knew she was at fault this time. Screen time for pleasure is banned for 30 days. I rarely take her pleasures as a consequence, but this time, she neglected her primary responsibilities and made another huge mistake that wasn’t tolerable here. So, I did it without any doubts, not only for a few days, but for a whole month.

Well, there’s always a silver lining behind everything.
It’s been a while since I saw nap time view after school, a long-kept writing book that had been left untouched, the second session for Quran after Maghrib. The Amazon book package Daddy had ordered weeks before arrived at the right time, so more reading materials were available to kill time.

So many things could happen and be done without distraction, not only about the phone, but more about our attention.

Honestly, I love this period. She seems more relaxed without screen time for pleasure doing other things rather than staring at the screen. I have been thinking the way to keep a massive part of this after the ban is lifted.

This circumstance reminded me that no matter how close you (think you) are and how well you (think you) know your children, there are still so many things that you need to learn about them, and there are more things that you don’t even know about.

Like love is never enough for a marriage to survive, raising a child takes more than money. It’s the time and energy spent with and on them when we want to do it properly.

Posted in Life happens, Past learning, Places, Thoughts, Travel

20 Years Later and 357 Kilometers

Posted on by arlanadya

It was quite loud last weekend.

On Saturday, I attended my high school reunion. Although I only stayed for a few hours, I was pretty happy I decided to come. Unlike some people who consider high school the best time of our lives, for me, it was just okay and full of pressure here and there. It is not about social anxiety but more about the academic one.

The best year was the last year of high school when I finally met a tribe with whom I could form lifelong friendships until now. One of these guys called us ‘a bunch of social misfits,’ I have been the organiser of almost every rendezvous we had for the past 20 years and the admin of our chat group. I am passionate about this misfit group, or am I just the most misfit among the misfits?😄

I have a small circle and a few close friends. I never feel comfortable being around a massive group of people. People always make me nervous. But, with these misfits, it has been 20 years of enjoyable ride. I write about them often and the latest one was here.

Back to the reunion, the most comment given that day to me was, “you don’t change at all!”, I have been thinking until I decided to write this here, is it meant to be an insult or a compliment?😂

It is almost impossible not to change at all in twenty years. Too many circumstances happen in one’s life within that long period. But of course, they didn’t know anything about what happened inside, so I guess to have some comments about how your outer appearance is unchanged after 20 years, I’ll take such a compliment gratefully.

On Sunday, we had a road trip to the doctor’s home town to visit his family.

Sixteen hours of road trip to the long lost hometown.

I came up with this idea on a Friday morning when my mother in law told the news of the passing of her sister-in-law in my late father-in-law’s hometown.

I knew she might want to visit the family there, but she obviously couldn’t go there alone, and since it was sudden, it was pretty hard for everyone to make time, including us.

But it was too disturbing to let this slide without doing anything. I calculated the rough estimation costs to go there before I proposed the idea, first to his son then his mother.

When I calculated the costs, it turned out more extensive than I expected for a day trip. But, when travelling, I always zoom out whenever the numbers speak.

Is it worth the hassle to make this happen?
Which one will you regret more later? Spending such an amount of money or losing the chance that might not come twice.
Who will benefit from this trip other than the main character?
Usually, when the answer include the little girl, that is one huge determining factor.

For this trip, all those questions answered with clear answers.

Taking my mother-in-law to give her condolence in person matters.
Taking the little girl for the first time to one of her roots matters, and it has been a while since the last time her father set foot there.

Me? I am never a fan of road trips, and so glad Mudik wasn’t part of my childhood. Trapped in the car for hours, the anxiety and insecurity watching the speedy driving throughout the trip (or the frustration of dealing with traffic), the countless drinks shown with all the tumblrs were out on duty yesterday, and many more.

It was a huge help when the road trip wasn’t loud and packed. It reduced a lot of tension.

Alhamdulillah, we got it ‘easy’ for this trip and all the good intentions were well delivered.

Visiting both her father hometown to Solo and Pekalongan checked.

The next ones should be visiting both her mother which obviously couldn’t be done with a road trip.

Senja in a rest areaw
Posted in Thoughts

Slip Away

Posted on by arlanadya
Supervising the swimming lesson

The view among dealing with a basket of laundry, a pot of oxtail soup and lines of customer chats.

After few episodes of a time traveler show, it reminded me that what you really wanted to return to the most was not the grand things in life. But, the daily life of certain period that when you lived those days it just felt like ordinary days that keep repeating, mundane, and nothing really special about that. But, suddenly, those days were gone.

One thing that is certain about time : it slips away.