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.
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.
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.
After several times (intentionally) missed all kind of previous playdates with school friends, finally agreed to join a birthday girls-only playdate for the little girl.
We went through long rides of buses returns but, it was quite enjoyable because we faced close to no traffic jam for 20km back and forth.
For me to say yes to such event and put myself in less comfortable situations (like being around with strangers for hours), to somewhere unfamiliar and quite far from home, on a school day, on a fasting day, when I needed to reschedule the afternoon class, that was not a small feat and took a lot of efforts to make this happen.
Guess social skill is just like fingers which could play piano well, both take a lot of practice. Especially when you’re far from talented.
Well, I was pretty happy saying yes to this. Especially when I saw how happy the girls were along the playdates. But hopefully, the next one won’t come soon.
Surviving ny first rendezvous with the few of school moms after three years.
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Another change takes place this month.
Signed up to her first evening class today. After bed time is slowly postponed to 8.30 and sometimes close to 9 pm for the past few months. Been thinking to try an evening class with few requirements : non academic, relax and easy, and must be in group, and it should be a small group.
Why small group? As her language therapist suggested, she needs to practice her social skill more in a group setting where she could learn to take turn, hold herself to not keep talking all the time, reading the room, etc.
Done my research and found that fits into my requirements, except the schedule. The schedule should be discussed with other participants first. The best schedule for me is on Friday night when there will be no school on the following day.
After several times voting, the schedule result met my expectation. Alhamdulillah.
Let’s see how it goes.
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Post YPM trip on Saturday, we went to the local public library, which ended with massive disappointment because two books that the little girl wanted to bring home were categorised as non-borrowable ones.
It’s a head-scratching policy, but, I am not complaining here. It’s a good enough library but maybe they need to improve some of their policies. It‘s such a pity when a child’s reading appetite is that high, the policy won’t allow them to feed her with the food they have in the library.
I also hope in the future we can borrow more than two books so one visit could be more beneficial and efficient.
But, here was what happened few hours later :
One that we couldn’t borrow in the morning, arrived on the same day in the afternoon, thanks to the dad who couldn’t stand the disappointment on his girl’s face. Yes, the little girl is quite obsesssed about dinosaurs and history. For this year, her choice of future job is to be a paleontologist.
Another period when I really want to rant about many things yet couldn’t find the time (lame excuse I know), but suddenly, an idea to combine all the short writings came. Maybe, I could use this format if it works to make writing more consistent.
The I don’t know if others experience this or not, but I’ve been recognizing that life has patterns. Talking about mine, the seasons and the problems might be different, but, the pattern is quite clear.
In raising a child, the pattern appears clearly too. Just like anything, life has never been letting me (or us) stay still and chill in raising this girl. Always give something new to learn, always on a research mode to find the best solution, letting us to be exposed to something that we have never encountered. It is not necessarily something new, but, it is certainly something rarely heard of.
(Like finding the term DLD and dyspraxia for the first time).
Previously, the dentist appointment was at 11 am and I asked for whoever was available since it was only a regular check up. Suddenly, I had a meeting that couldn’t be cancelled at that time so I asked to reschedule the appointment. It was moved to 2 pm.
Been visiting this dental regular and we got different dentist for each visit. Here is another clear pattern. For almost every problem we encounter, meeting the right people is included with the solution. Since I change the appointment schedule, they switch the doctor too.
The dentist asked why we came. I explained that this was a long overdue meeting to have her teeth checked. The dentist said it was all clear, only certain parts needed better brushing. That was it.
Then, I came up with a question about her teeth which previously were nice and grow evenly, but when the adult teeth coming, it starts growing unevenly which changes her facial features. I asked why, since she never bottle-fed, no thumb sucking, so what happened? I asked whether it was true that we should wait until she is 12 to start wearing braces (an insight we got from another dentist).
We happened to meet a pediatric dentist who clearly knows what she does. Instead of, answering my question in a simple short answer, she explained about how the teeth happened to be that way systematically.
She said we came at the right time when it is still early and to fix the teeth, what we should do first is fixing the breathing habit.
Instead of waiting until 12, we could start right now. She said, it won’t be easy because it needs commitment and consistency, from both parents and child. Fixing the teeth is the easy part, but she wants us to fix the foundation first, which is the breathing habit, that’s the hard work.
I rarely sold to something, but her explanation was beyond make sense. I decided to sign up right away (usually I would say I would discuss it with the father too).
Last night, we spent time watching youtube videos about MYOBRACE therapy together.
More homeworks are coming and I am surely not complaining, because it means, life pattern goes to the right direction.
I wrote on the previous post about how anxious I have been dealing with longer leisure time with the new schedule since the beginning of little girl’s new academic year.
I also stated that this wasn’t the first time and the more anxious I was, the more intense the searching. In the end, it has been always something new to do.
Funnily, not long after I published the post, an offer came.
I have been volunteering with an English bootcamp since more than a year ago. My initial intention was just to be more useful and maybe I could learn a thing or two. So when I saw the opening on the internet, I signed up right away.
My role is basically facilitating a discussion on a small break out room in Zoom around 2×30 minutes with 3-4 people. The camp provides a booklet contained different kind of articles in English and two sets of questions to be discussed on the break out room.
For someone who doesn’t like talking, close to never turn on my camera during a meeting, signing up for this camp is another way to push myself to do something that I am not comfortable with. For the first few months, it had been exceed my expectations.
I have been receiving a lot of positive feedbacks as a moderator. All those kind words in Secreto filled me with joy and somehow it becomes the fuel to make me stay in spite of postponing my sleeping time a little bit. I really enjoy the class and listening to all the story of the strangers I meet here. Close to never skipping any classes.
Another reason why this is enjoyable because it only runs for 6 days a month within two weeks. So, there’s space for me to have a break and miss this class.
After few months, the founder offered me a teaching position. While being a moderator is a voluntary work, the teaching is a paid one. I accepted it for two meetings.
Teaching in front of large audience is not my strength at all, so from my personal opinion, I still have a lot to learn to make myself comfortable and confident enough to deliver an interesting session.
They offered me another one or two months later and I accepted it as long as I felt confident enough with the materials.
Right after I published the second last previous post, I received a text on my messenger from the founder asked me whether I would interested in joining their internal team.
I enjoy being a moderator there, but working for them is another story. I gave them my conditions and I asked in details what kind of job that I would do and the expectation. After several discussions, I finally agreed and decided to take offer. I have been wanting a fully remote part time work with tolerable work load, and this is the exactly what I have been looking for.
So, insya Allah, starting next Monday, a new experience begins. After four years since resigning from the last workplace and moved to another continent, this will be the first time I resume working for others. Hopefully everything will be okay and I can survive this well. Amin.
Another struggle solved and updated with a new one.
I read once that someone asked this man about what marriage advice he could give.
I loved how this man responded to such a question,
“After 25 years of marriage, the best advice I could give is no advice. The longer I am married, the shorter my advice. I feel like I have no competency in giving any marriage advice”.
It hit me hard reading that.
Usually, older adults will give you lots of advice when asked such questions. They will provide tips and tricks about what to do or shouldn’t do.
Being married myself, I realized that the man above was correct. There are no specific bits of advice like one size fits all. One don’t or do might work for some couples but might not work for others. Whatever principles you hold firmly before marriage might be the ones you throw to the deepest place inside because, after a long battle, it is not the right thing to do; it is not the best option once you zoom out and consider all the consequences in the future if you choose that.
This is just not me. I recently finished a book that confirmed such a thing.
This book told about one of the research with the most significant samples out there about how to predict whether people would be happy in their relationship or not.
These are a few of their findings :
“No algorithm in the world can predict with enourmous accuracy, whether two people will end up happy together”.An enjoyable reading with great insight
It also actually reminded me of another relationship book; this one is quite famous and largely quoted everywhere. Written by two relationship researchers couple that said, based on long years that happened in their lab, they could predict whether the couple will survive their marriage or not with 95% accuracy. They were able to do this by analyzing thousands of couples from the way they interact with each other.
The BookThe excerpt
Well, in the end, no matter how many relationship books I have read, I always remembered what the man above said whenever some younger people in my current volunteer asked some questions about this.
Kind of responses I gave only the short ones because they were the only things I considered doable: “Don’t rush. Enjoy yourself a lot. Ask with the utmost details about what kind of person you want to deal with life with, and let God do the rest”.
If Forest Gump said that life is just like a box of chocolate, you’ll never know what you will get. For me, that is exactly what marriage is.
It’s the third week since the beginning of the new school year, so we kinda have a new schedule daily at home. It’s actually just a slight change in the little girl’s school hours but, for me, for the past three weeks, it’s been quite a struggle.
I remembered one of my readings that said having no free time is stressful, but do you know what is the most stressful? It’s having too much free time.
I am currently struggling to deal with longer leisure hours daily. It feels like I keep looking for something yet, I haven’t found what. I have to rebuild my routine from the scratch once again until I could feel comfortable with it.
It is actually not the first time. Since 2019, when I finally left the job I had for 15 years, that was exactly the first time I faced such struggle. Not only that, moving across continents added to the pressure.
But, the more uncomfortable I had been, the more intense the searching. So far, I always find what I am looking for in the end. But, you know, the process of starting all over again, it is such a pain in the mind.
The struggle is combination of feeling guilty because the brain keeps telling that I should have been more useful than this, feeling confused to decide what such leisure time worth doing, and last but not least, the tiredness of thinking of weekly plan. The thinking part is the hardest job of all.
But, does it mean I want to return to the regular day when everything is fixed and I just have to run day by day doing the same thing?
Hoho, that would be the scariest feeling of all.
I keep telling my self that whatever struggle you deal with, it’s many times better option than returning to phase of life that was finished. No advantage of repeating the cycle once again.
The hardship of navigating new directions is totally normal and it’s more reasons to keep looking, but turning back is never an option.
This is kind of spontaneously written post when I face Monday without a solid plan.
I had been dreaming of setting my feet in Paris for more than 20 years and finally checked the list in my 30s.
All the road to make it happen, all the price paid for just a single dream.
The little girl is not even ten and has been to this lovely city twice. Without really knowing and understanding what it took to get here (and many other places she has been to).
There were times when I asked myself, “What would she become of being raised in a situation where such a hard-earned thing like going abroad feels like a regular thing to do?”
Something that both of her parents ever had growing up. Maybe once every ten years or more, but not as often as we have been (by my personal standard, this is way too often).
Raising a human being is a tricky business indeed. Less is more, I agree, especially for the material things. Children care and need more of our presence or attention than the literal money we earn.
But, the short period spent with them is another thing that should be considered. When one thinks 18 years are long, this is wrong. We even have less than that to teach and transmit everything we want to. There’s an expiration date for parents to have significant influence in their children’s life.
Traveling is about maximizing such a ‘short’ period together, giving the most important education outside the classrooms and Zoom meetings, to transmit as many values as possible I wish her to have and hold. This period is like preparing her for the upcoming trips she would have later, hoping she has enough resources before she finally takes off with her life journey insya Allah.
I don’t have the slightest regret of every single trip we took her to. No matter how difficult they were. No matter how much we spent for them. Money (always) returns, the time won’t.
(This sounds like I am trying to convince myself).
She might not really ‘care’ about all those trips as much as I do. She might appreciate less fascinating things than all the places we’ve been to (like more time playing toca boca than walking around the city alleys under the sun with me). She might not remember all these things as much as I did, but hopefully, there would be something beneficial later from all those journeys we had, which I don’t know what. Yet.
Perhaps, a bit of good-to great-memories that made her smile when life gets tough is more than enough.
Shadow wefie in Paris within seven years of difference.
Such an intense trip deserves more rants. Guess this is the last one.
Last trip was another hard lessons for myself about the importance of tawakkul, which also much correlated with Tauhid.
From myislam.org :
Tawakkul is having complete trust or reliance in Allah. For all affairs, Allah Almighty is capable, sufficient, and knowing so we should rely on him alone.
Tawḥīd or al-tawḥīd (also spelled touḥīd or tawḥeed) is an Arabic word, which literally means “unification” or “asserting oneness.”
Faith and religion are something personal, and I rarely want to talk about this. But, last trip was too intense, too chaos, too much of anything I felt until it was too impossible for us to return safely, unless it was the mercy of Allah. I really wanted to remember what really happened, what was on my mind during those periods.
The trip was such a strong reminder that you might be overly meticulous planning everything as much as you can, but nothing would prevent you from having everything goes against your plans.
Fully understand that life rarely goes according to the plan. That is one reason to not only rely on ourself in everything. More, in the place when we barely knew anyone, didn’t speak a single word of their language, when no one was having advantage to help us, the urgency to rely on something greater than ourself was even bigger.
The moment when we’re denied check in for Porto-Paris flight was one of worst moments in traveling.
After a long queue to check in the counter, when the officer said we couldn’t use this ticket because we didn’t take the first flight without any notifications, so the airline cancelled the whole flight, my heart was shattered.
My mind was racing here and there.
The officer handed me an email address which I skeptically received, knowing it wouldn’t do much to help us. Who in the world would reply an email on Saturday morning?
We went to a corner trying every single way possible to contact the airline from any platforms. The airline doesn’t have any office in Porto. We couldn’t make a call because we didn’t use any sim card that allowed us to make a call.
An airline whatsapp seemed work for a moment, but it wasn’t really. I already offered the only solution I knew at that time, buying a new ticket for afternoon flight. It was far from the best solution, because it means we missed the whole day and should pay another amount. The doctor still tried to find a way to talk to the airline call center.
At that time, I looked around and saw the long queue in the check in counter was clear. No single passenger was seen. I moved my feet to return to the counter.
I mustered my courage and faced that lady once again. Tried hard to keep my calm and talked without trembling, while kept looking at my watch. The flight would depart in an hour. I kept talking to myself along the way.
My self talk wasn’t about the positive affirmation to myself, but, sincere pleading to The One Who Takes Care all affairs, One who owns the heart of every human being, to help me to go through what I should go through at that moment.
“We couldn’t reach anyone who could help us with this, can you help me, please?”
“Have you make a call?”
“No I haven’t, I can’t. We have tried all the platforms to talk to the airline, but it didn’t work,”
“Ok, I try to call it for you, not sure there will be someone right now”.
Judging from her face and her tone, she was obviously didn’t do it happily, which I totally understood.
At that time, the doctor was already on the phone with someone but they said they didn’t understand what was the problem. The ticket was still there and we could use it. But, I believed, during that critical moment, one who really could help us was the one who had the authority to hand us the boarding pass, not someone who wasn’t there.
She was finally able to talk to someone who kept asking her questions which she relayed to me. Why we didn’t board on the plane, why we didn’t send any notifications, why we went to Amsterdam instead. All the questions I imagined would be asked on Paris border during our arrival were all asked here.
I answered truthfully.
Until she said,
“You can use the tickets but you have to pay a fine because of this. XXX euro,”.
“We’ll pay,”
“How will you pay it?”
“By card”.
“Do you have the card with you now?”
“Yes, I have,”.
I called the doctor from a far asked him to bring all of the luggages.
Few minutes later, three boarding passes issued.
We thanked her so many times. I thanked the One who softened her heart endlessly.
In that moment, it wasn’t my pleading, it wasn’t because of we had the money, it was because He allowed it to happen.
Later we knew, the fine was charged per person. Not for the whole bunch.
The price of tiny mistake could be this expensive.
Sigh.
When I thought we had been through the worst, another came.
It was when we arrived in Abu Dhabi. We had safely landed and got out of the plane. Just few meters after that, the little girl said she wanted to go to restroom.
When I wanted to leave my backpack with the doctor, I realized something was missing.
My handbag where all the passports, boarding passes, money, handphones were inside, wasn’t there.
I ran back to the plane as fast as I could because almost all passengers was out. I told the cabin crews I left my bag on my seat.
One might wondered how could I leave such important bag.
I put it under the arm rest. Both were in brown colors. When I got the bag, the officer almost turned off all the light and ready to close the door so I had to scream, “wait for me!”.
“Ah yes, you’re still here. No worries,”.
He turned on the light again.
I walked out of the the plane and the bridge safely.
My dear heart.
I thought two nerve-wrecking moments were enough to humble me.
But, it seemed that the lesson hadn’t finished yet.
Since we had 8 hours of layovers with another hour of delay, we decided to book an airport hotel so we could sleep properly.
We slept well and checked out an hour before it was boarding time.
During the queue for boarding, the doctor asked me where the other plastic bag I brought from Paris.
I really couldn’t believe myself at that time. For leaving another thing at the hotel room.
The hotel was in terminal one.
Our flight was in terminal three.
Once again, my legs were pushed to do the sprint.
The hotel receptionist was startled, when I arrived,
“Mam, your flight is boarding already!”
“Yes, that’s why, please be quick,”
Another man who helped to open the room asked,
“Where is your gate?”
“32”
“It was on terminal three!” He acclaimed.
“Yes I know, thank you so much,”
I reached the gate on time.
During the sprint, my lips were on constant istighfar and thought I might do harm on someone for having all these chaos.
Three huge mistakes in a row.
How much I failed and felt so off during this trip, yet how near the help had been.
It wasn’t luck, it wasn’t my sudden realization, it wasn’t because we had the money, it was purely because He helped us with any ways possible until we made it.
Without His helps all through the journeys, I didn’t know what my mistakes would do to us.
Couldn’t help crying when the plane was finally landed at the home airport.
This writing was started yesterday and I still had no idea how to finish this. But, this morning, a post from Yasmin Mogahed came to me and it talked about those two titles which hit me hard.
I remembered one of my writings when we returned from London during Covid time, where we had to leave all the safety net we had in London and would walk into the unknown battle we had in Jakarta.
This trip wasn’t about all the experience that taught me lessons in traveling. More importantly, it was one which strengthened the belief inside. . The belief that after doing my best in everything, He did, He does, and He will take care of the rest.
As always.
I just have to put my utmost trust on Him and nothing else.
My big next homework is about how to transmit this important belief and value to the little girl. To have such belief at heart, that all the things that happen to her, no matter how big or small, whatever it is, wherever she is, whoever she becomes of, it is not because of her, not because of her parents, not because of anything, but Allah.
Above any skills and values in life I want her to possess, this one alone is the most valuable I hope her to master and stay with her for the rest of her life.
A Penny for My Pensieve 