Ramadhan is the most holy month for Muslims and is the month where Muslims all around the world try their best to be better Muslims. Ramadhan is sweet and it’s special. However, it can also pose many challenges of different kinds to most people. One of it is maintaining patience in amidst of hunger. For me, the real test of patience is with the kids.

One of the struggle is meal time. Meal time can be a battle zone with kids, no joke. All the negotiations, and the cleaning up, IT’S HELL. And you know, during fasting month the negotiations are harder because you can’t eat to prove to them that the food is delicious.  and of course, that whole monkey-see-monkey-do situation as well.

What’s the worst thing, though? The wastage, because I can’t eat their leftover! Oh, the heartache to throw away good food.

Sara is a really picky eater. A lot of negotiations come into play just to make her eat. Sometimes, I don’t have the energy to negotiate, and let her starve until she cries for food. Although, that’s not actually helpful because it can happen at very inconvenient time. Also, I need to feed Amira too, so it’s just easier to feed them both, in terms of cleaning work.

Oh, speaking of Amira.

She likes to eat. Sort of. But here’s the thing, she’s one year and a half, and ever since she was like 11months old, she only wanted to feed herself. Yeah, sounds good right? It helps with her motor skills whatever, but you know, I am soooo tired of cleaning up the mess! But she won’t have it any other way. It’s either she won’t eat or she feeds herself. Clever little b-.

So yeah, don’t even get started with just how embarrassed I feel every time we leave a restaurant. The table and the floor is always a mess! Oh god.

Do you see what I’m dealing with?

There you go, the unglamorous life of a mom. It’s so easy to see on instagram and think that people’s life is perfect, but behind those cute pictures, there is this that people never really see. But you know what, my motto is, “pick your battle”.  On days where I don’t feel like negotiating, I just leave some biscuits accessible to them, and let them fend for themselves whenever. Let them starve until they are crying for food. Even if it means lunch is at 3pm.

And when they are sooo hungry, they would eat more with little negotiations. That, my friends, is victory.

Amira fell asleep on the baby chair right before lunch was served

Living in the crowded city of Kuala Lumpur, we sometimes find it difficult to set some time to go on a vacation. The reality is, we can’t a afford to set aside 1-2 weeks of vacation every 2-3 months HAHA. So, what do we do?

Staycation.

1-2 (or 3) nights anywhere in Malaysia. In fact, we have even simply stayed within Kuala Lumpur and simply enjoyed the nearby attractions. Last December we went to Avani Resort Sepang.

Recently however, we went to Lost World of Tambun, Ipoh, Perak. It was my previous company’s event, and a great opportunity to bring the kids out for some fun. We stalked the website, and our initial expectation was that there were many different parks there.

Ipoh is the capital city of Perak. It’s not as big and as busy as KL but it’s still vibrant with activities and culture. This would be our first time having these kind of staycation as opposed to our usual beach destinations. It’s always either beach or big cities for us.

They had several parks such as water park, petting zoo, amusement park, adventure park and few others.

However, once we got there, it turns out that all of these parks are integrated into one, including the hot springs and spa. I thought it’s such a wonderful idea, because that means, there’s always something for everyone!

Sara riding a donkey at the Petting Zoo.

Last few weekends, we had been taking Sara to BeeBop circus class, and it was such a great class! At first, I thought it was just physical play, but it’s much more than that.

The class is about 45 minutes long and has story-telling, singing and encourage interactions between the children and the instructor. It also has physical play that encourages balance, and ability to follow instructions. It’s great, because it’s a learning through play and Sara really loved it. Sara is almost (exactly 3 years), so she’s in accompanied class which involves parents. BeeBop has many other classes to suit different age groups.

On Sara’s first day, she was a bit shy to speak up, and a bit resistant to try to follow through the activities. However, with a bit of encouragement, she just go ahead and participate.

On her second class, we had already see improvement, she was speaking up more, and more excited to participate. She would be one of the first to run to be the first to start the activity play! I’m so proud of her. Sara has soooo much energy, even by the end of the class, she would still have so much energy left, although I could see she was beginning to feel tired, but she won’t give up. Some kids do slow down, which is fine, but not Sara. I’m not surprised, but it’s amazing for her.

Surprisingly for me, her balance has also improved. Previously she stumbled a lot and bumping into things, LOL but now not so much. In fact, I think the class is also great for parents, because it gave us ideas on how to play with our daughter at home. Back home, we repeat some of the games we played in the class.

On her last day of class, we felt a bit sad about not being able to continue as it’s mostly logistic issue. Beebop circus is located at The School, Jaya One, Petaling Jaya, while we are staying in KL. On weekends, we go to our mum’s house in Shah Alam, so you can see how hectic our weekend can get as it could take 4 hours total just to bring her there and come back home.

However, if you do live nearby or time is not a concern (as if I’m not mistaken they also have weekday classes) I would definitely recommened Beebop Circus. It is so beneficial for Sara and we can see it.

My husband made a little video so you can get some ideas..

UPDATE 29-March 2017 – Until today Sara still talked about Beebop circus and even sang to some of the songs that she learned. It goes to say during that short 4 classes, it really made an impact on her.

Assalamualaikum Sara,