Bits from the last blur of a week (Alhamdulillah for tillfällig föräldrepenning)

Have had some pretty bad nights with Hafsah, waking too often plus H also waking before crack of dawn, so DH able to take day off (one benefit of Swedish social security system) so I could sleep, as I also still have a bad cold. If the normal carer of the child is ill then the other parent can get 75% pay if they take the day off to care for him/ her. It was so strange to wake up at lunchtime, like the whole day had gone past.
The sun was out and Hafsah enjoyed sitting on the balcony (for a little while).
H taking away anything Hafsah may have in her hand and be interested in. A shame as her attention span for these things is so short any way. As Libby Purves wrote, she discards toys like a newspaper editor discarding lost cat stories. That is apart from bank statement envelopes which she loves, its that crackly plastic window I think. She does like to attempt to destroy any form of paperwork to hand, a new excuse for S if he forgets his homework maybe?! Everything is now going into the mouth, and also she’s in the habit of poking her tongue out a lot nowadays. H is getting used to his 3 min punishments on his bed, (Supernanny style). I mean get used to, as in he stays on the bed, and he does actually change his behaviour if threatened (oh ! should I have said ‘warned’)with this (sometimes).

Voices can’t be breaking surely?

8 Sep 2006

The boys and Hafsah are all still ill, although H is pretty much over his cough. S and M have funny squeaky voices which sound as if they’re going through puberty, but of course they just have an infection of some kind. I still have this general feeling of malaise, and probably the same thing as them overcast by tiredness. However Alhamdulillah she’s slept better these last two days. The older two both had v high temperatures for about 24 hours, but now they’re back in form, cajoling each other, just with strange voices. Hafsah has a slight cough, but otherwise OK.
She now enjoys ‘peek-a boo’ type games and her legs move rapidly back and forth when she’s excited about something. I was also pleased to see she’s a bit ahead according to the *what to expect in the first 12 months’ book. She turns to a voice very readily, when I’m replaying the video clips on my phone (sometimes breastfeeding gets a bit tedious) she pulls away when she hears DH’s voice come out of the phone. She’s normal motor wise, as one of the boys (I can’t remember which) wanted to see if she could sit up alone, and of course, no, she just flopped to the side. (I did catch her, don’t worry).
Yes, it’s just as well their voices are a little quieter than usual as DH had a chat with the Housing Association rep last night, and got out of him that there have been more moans about the noise eminating from our house. Well my ears' nerve cells have certainly been exposed to above- the safety- limit levels of noise on numerous occasions. I tell the boys, don’t be surprised if I’m saying ‘What?’ all the time when I’m old and they’ve grown up. They should use my sons screaming ability as a form of weaponry in the army, or as a torture device. No, a less aggressive use could be to crack all the glass in the recycling plant. I am exaggerating but my ears feel v strange after their screams, similar to having been on the mobile phone too long.
S had his first ‘hemspråk’ lesson. When I went to drop him off I expected to hear the familiar tones of English being spoken by the people waiting, but all I could hear was Swedish. Afterwards S said it was v v easy, just doing the alphabet, including ‘zee’ and seeing if they know the days of the week (?!). All the children seem to speak American English,as does the teacher. I doubt if all are fluent, as S said some didn’t know the days. S was one of the youngest as well. Well it remains to be seen if this will be of any use to him.

Back to school, then back to home..

Nope, I haven’t started home educating, as much as I would like to, if I had the Swedish linguistic ability and enough patience. H has been home the last few days with cold/ croup and now S has been home with a high temperature and headache. M, the immune system king remains fine but it is difficult to persuade him to go to school if his brothers aren’t. Alhamdulillah it isn’t compulsory for his age (6) so I didn’t even bother to debate it with him, and just told the teachers he’s not coming.
So these past few days continue to be a blur due to Hafsah’s twice a night wakings, with a late 11 pm bedtime and early morning (6- 7 am) I make that waking less than every 4 hours which is just not on ! However tend to give in and feed her as her weight needs to go up a bit, but the words rod and back spring to mind.
H continues with his difficult phase, reminding me of the phrase from the children's book‘If you love a bear’ ‘ it’s not easy loving bears when they’re like that’ (when feeling cross). When I say to DH, if only he’d learn Swedish, I would take him out of nursery, he replies, probably correctly, ‘I don’t think you cope with that’ I think it’s the whole jealously, attention seeking business. Learning the concept of ‘no’ or ‘wait’ is just taking too long for me. He showed his true feelings the other day saying ‘I want Hafsah to died’ Then he and M went on to have a counter argument ‘I want YOU to die’, it was all a bit negative, with the strange thing that probably both of them esp. H have no real concept of death.

Other sort of educational stuff, M was very happy to write out the alphabet and then wanted to do the numbers. We had done undercase and caps in letters and then he wanted to know if there were big and little numbers too ! I said no, but I suppose you do have to write them a bit smaller in fractions, but not really relevant at this age.
Otherwise have been trying to sort out our wills, and learning how to get a bargain on eBay. (Always check Amazon first, it can be cheaper and much less hassle (shopping, not wills, although it wouldn't surprise me if you could get one done from there too!)

IKEA madness

27 th August 2006


It was one of the rare times we have all 6 of us gone out to a shop, and IKEA should have been ideal with its crèche. However due to its size and the fact they put the restaurant right at the back so we have to trudge through the whole shop to satisfy the young hunger pangs, we had an escapee (again). M. decided jogging to the restaurant was a good idea but we could not keep up and hence got lost. DH had to get them to announce his disappearance over the tannoy, and eventually he was brought back by a Swedish couple to the information desk. I wasn’t in quite such a panic as in earlier years when this has happened (London, went for a stroll up the road aged 2 by himself – major worry, police called, and Bauhaus, age 3 (slightly less worries as in Sweden and a little older). Anyhow the crèche time is never enough to decide what you want, find the shelf its located and stand in the lengthy queues to pay. This is esp relevant when you are called on the tannoy to pick your child up early due to excessive ballpool ball-throwing (as has happened on previous occasions).
As Ikea did not have exactly what we wanted, the day after we tried Bauhaus, with a much smaller play area with no staffing, so fairly pointless as you have to stay with the kids. After approx 5-10 minutes we gave up, as at least 2 children at a time were crying and this is not conducive tio decision-making, made harder by the fact the stuff they had was useless. In the end our builder could not keep his appointment so it was of no matter we didn’t have everything he needed to do the work, it’s just put off until a lter date, hopefully when all young bodies are being supervised elsewhere. Moral of story, only fo shopping with kids when you know what you want and where in the stor eits located, and get in and out as quick as possible. This had to be ignored when we had to do shoes shopping which requires said children’s feet to be present for fitting. I shall not go into this as pulse will probably start to race, sweaty palms etc.
On a more positive note, M is enjoying his Quran and Arabic classes, and is happily reciting surahs to himself which I must say is better than the usual cartoon dialogues he manges to memorise. Driving back and forth to Rosengård (the muslim/ immigrant area) for school, and classes makes the children a captive audience where they are happy to listen to quran cds etc. At home its more difficult as there are other activities which raise the noise level and nothing would really go in.
Hafsah’s now enjoying playing with her feet. Weight gain again is not quite up to scratch so was recommended to start solids. I thought I’d got away with this till 6 months due to new guidelines, but no ,Skåne (the region we live in) still recommends 4 months. I hate all this pureeeing and mashing etc, all to be regurgitated and spat out, and it doesn’t even make them sleep better. In fact the honeymoon is well and truly over. I love the first couple of months where there is no choice but to feed them, and no silly meals to prepare. You also still have a small reserve of stamina for sleepless nights left. Now is the time when ‘sleeping through’ and ‘controlled crying’ is looming, when you are so tired you have to go to bed before your 3 year old. You know you don’t have the stamina to let your child ‘cry it out’. Anyhow was woken this morning by M tickling my feet, and hence a v grumpy mummy ensued.

back to school

22 Aug 06
First day of school yesterday, and I really don’t feel happy about M’s new class. The kids seem ok,’There will be no playing , we will be doing WORK’ Allah y’alam if M will actually take to it or hate it. He does love to do workbooks etc, so may be he will, so I will give it a couple of weeks and see. Alhamdulillah there is another class that he could maybe change to, the one with the less academic kids (the ones who are probably more of a handful and want to play, they are only 6 years old for pete’s sake).
S’s new class where the teacher is very nice and only has 13 kids in. , so I am quitehopeful for this year.

Be grateful

Hafsah’s developing fast, sucking her fists and any other thing she can grab. Still likes to grab people’s hair. I thought it might be reflex action but actually does only happen when she’s awake, I tried it when she was sleeping. She can bring both hands together in the midline, and looks at any object she’s holding intently. Woe to anyone who tries to take away what she’s studying . As she has since very young, v happy to stare at ht eTV when on or will try to turn to its noise if you turn away from it, not auguring well eh?

M has started Quran and Arabic lessons. Probably could teach him this level myself, but some sort of routine is needed to keep us going with it. I am panicking quite a bit about S’s English and Arabic/ Quran.. He’s not seeming v self-motivated with academic stuff at the moment and I really hate teaching when the there’s no interest from the child’s part, seems to defeat the point of education. I suppose I still am in the habit of comparing him to other’s children, or to expected targets of certain age groups.
There’s probably much more I could write at the moment but I’ve managed to develop an intense backache and my first cold of the season over the last few days, so I feel to be frank, rough, Alhamdulillah. It’s always easy to take good health for granted. Someone told me a person who’s ill sees a healthy person it’s like as if the well one is wearing a crown..

Pillar to Post

8.8.06

Aaah! My entry under ’occupation’ on all these forms should be ’bureaucrat’s work provider’, Sweden still ceases to surprise me with its bureaucratic, rules and regulations (which they can break/ make mistakes about if they want, but oh no, you citizens must accept will be followed to the letter with NO flexibility (even if it is non-sensical to follow them).
Yes I am referring to how the first day of DH’s leave has had to be spent on the phone to the tax office (which also registers births to make sure those little babes pay their taxes). As we want Hafsah’s surname to be the same as her siblings (which is spelt differently to her parent’s surnames, which was in order to ease correct pronunciation, the number of times: ‘no my name is not Mrs ***’)
Now if you’re still following me, the Swedish tax office say they will only change if we get some form of evidence from British consulate, and British consulate say they can only issue a birth certificate with the same surname as given by the thus mentioned tax office, we are stuck in the middle, as well as in the country as cannot get passport without Swedish documents, unless we give in and call her by the original spelling. Anyway our last ditch hope is to appeal on the grounds that child number 3 was in exactly the same situation as Hafsah (i.e. born in Sweden) and then there were no problems. (One Swedish bureaucrat said they must have made a mistake last time!) The immigration department also made a mistake about my MIL’s visa fees and didn’t realise until the third time she got her visa extension.

Other stress yesterday was Hafsah’s ENT appointment. I don’t know if it was because she is a girl or what, but I just got all tearful and had to leave the room when the doctor was going to put the tube down her nose, so DH had to hold her while I ran off, seriously holding back the tears. In the end my DH said it wasn’t so bad. It was just they said she WILL cry and then I knew this was not going to pleasant for her Alhamdulillah it only seems to be that her epiglottis has some floppy tissue, but they had to check there were no tumours etc.
I had been sceptical as to whether I should let her go through the procedure and I did double check with the doctor if she really had to have this done. Afterwards I realised that it probably was a good idea as if a tumour had been missed, then it could have been v. dangerous.
Hafsah also had her Health visitor check recently with a different lady as the normal one was on holiday. It was vaccination time and she asked me at least three times if I agreed for her to have them, to the point where I was wondering if they were going to give her something controversial (like the MMR) but I knew that the other 3 had had them with no problems. I think it was down to my dodgy Swedish and she just wanted to check I had understood. She had to give the jab in her thigh and the health visitor was surprised at how strong her legs were, maybe down to the extra training she did when in the womb. She now also raises her head up quite steadily when on her tummy, as well as being stable enough to go front ways in the baby Bjorn sling now. She also has started examining her hands and often has her hand and arm in a sort of Highland fling position with little finger stretched right out. She is also getting a little extra training from M. who’s taught her the movements for prayers, and most recently how to do breastroke kick (with accompanying Swedish phrases) Finally Hafsah’s latest habit is to suck in her bottom lip, she really is a toothless wonder !
Sleeping pattern is sort of, sleeps around 10 pm wake around 3 or 4 and then again around 7 or 8 depending if another child has woken the house up. Did try to feed her before I went to bed so that she can go for longer but that means I don’t get my wake up call for Fajr so I think I’ll stick at her 10 ish pm feed and hope her maturing sleep patterns coincide with Fajr getting later and later as Autumn progresses. Anyhow I still have at least one other human alarm clock to request assistance on toilet, milk, juice supplies. ! I read today that it’s the first 4-5 hours of deep sleep which can keep you going. If they are disturbed, then you’re in trouble. I also read (I think in Penelope Leach) that its not the number of hours missed but the fact that your sleep pattern is disturbed (i.e. you are woken up when not ready for it) that makes you feel so zombified. I am starting to get sleep-obsessed again, but it is something that impacts on the rest of your day.

Picked the first 2 blackberries the other day (literally the first ones as all the rest were green or light pink) and it is a bit early for them at the nice little park nearby (lilla skogen = little wood). They were very tasty and I hope we can find more. H determined not to let me have a sit down and needed assistance on the bars which were different heights so he learnt ‘medium-sized’ today. H also has been saying recently ‘on Sunday’ = ‘another day’, not sure why he chose Sunday?
Went back to doing the dreaded clocks/telling the time. S hates it and I was trying to explain the potential usefulness of it. However when I thought about it, how necessary is it for him to know this right now, when he is still not yet independent and relies on me to get him to places on time (which he knows I’m not too good at- one thing to improve on) . So really we are just going over it because we have to as part of the curriculum before he starts class 3. The other confusing thing is the way time is described in Swedish, and I had to check my Swedish books myself. E.g. for half past 2 you say ‘halv 3’ i.e. half an hour before 3. twenty five to is equivalent of ‘5 before half past in Swedish. Most of the work we’re having to do for year 3 he finds quite boring ,either because he’s picked it up from general discussion, or because it just does not interest him. The problem is he has to learn the more specific vocabulary in Swedish. A few subjects can spark interest and I wish we had time to follow them up rather than just skim over the surface of many areas. E.g. the chapter on spring today did bring up some interesting questions about eggs hatching and how they keep warm etc, which had come up just the other day as S thought there must be a chick growing inside the eggs we get from the shop, or they could get growing if we warmed the egg up.
M is as always, can say his ‘s' quite well if reminded but difficult to generalise. H able to imitate M as in ‘yeth’ for ‘yes’ so I hope I don’t have two on my hands to ‘treat’..

Finally I’ve witnessed it !

Yes Hafsah had managed to turn herself 180 degrees twice in the last few days whilst in her cot. Today I saw how she does it, she pushes and pushes off the sides of the cot, or the mattress with her feet as she bends her neck to what looks like excruciating lengths, and eventually ends up the opposite way round to the way I left her. At first I thought it might have been down to one of her brothers ‘playing’ with her, but nope, she did it herself. Well all that painful kicking in the womb was worth it.
I haven’t been out in a week, it’s still too hot, and I just can’t face it. I feel sweaty indoors, so what will it be like if I go with Hafsah stressing me out as she doesn’t seem to like this heat either? Sweat city I think. She wants to feed every hour and is very unsettled unless I feed her lying on the bed. Now I know why they actually think cloudy weather is ‘beautiful’ in Pakistan….
DH has taken the older two swimming again at ‘simskola’so there’s a bit of peace for a couple of hours a day, Alhamdulillah.
Today started the mammoth task of tidying up the kids' toys. It does only seem worth it when they are kept occupied with rediscovered toys they haven’t played with in months. Still only done half of it as slow progress with heat, and babe to attend to. Lego has been keeping the older two occupied for hours the last two days, managed to persuade S to do a bit of Arabic but wasn’t too keen when he could have been working on his fleet of star wars fighters..

quite a long one..

Procrastination is one of biggest faults, hence the infrequent posts. I don’t know how people (with children anyway) get time to write one every day. Anyhow it would be pretty mundane if I managed to do this, i.e. got up ate breakfast , washed clothes cleaned up general mess (partially) changed nappies etc etc, please wake up…
So maybe my general summaries now and again can be more readable. Anyhow I think I’ll be glad of these to read in future years as I forget things from minute to minute let alone month to month or year to year.
So procrastination, yes, I’ve put off writing about it already in the above few lines, but I’m trying to do away with it, so whenever I think of something that needs doing, I do it. Otherwise it just keeps on bothering me every time I’m reminded of it and these negative thoughts are a complete waste of energy, e.g. that dirty kitchen window with ancient peanut butter finger prints had to go yesterday, despite the fact it’ll probably be replaced with similar marks of a jam nature within a few days (probably hours) One of the biggest excuses that comes in my mind is the fact that most tasks require more than a 5-10 minutes stretch of uninterupted time. So now I have to stop this typing as Hafsah’s whinging is turning into crying….not finishing anything my other failing…
Oh call the NSPCC she’d posseted down her top as was none too happy about that, not v lady-like to have cottage cheese on ones NEXT vest. She’s not liking this heat either (neither am I ) which makes it hard to put her in her car seat as it is so well insulated she gets way too hot. The only other safe place to put her when the kids are around (ie most of the time) is her cot but she gets bored in there if left too long as those symmetrical patterns I’ve put there to look at are quite interesting but not as much as people’s real smiling, talking faces. The other place that is safe is the sling but again that’s too well insulated for this weather, so the only place left is in my arms, which would be great if I didn’t have so much to do….
Anyway back to what this blog is supposed to be about (ie kids achievements not my failings) Hafsah’s smiling and giggling a lot now and likes being played, sung to. She knows when her milks coming and makes enthusiastic sounds and movements. She’s getting v strong in her legs as she manages to push herself down in her car seat (if belt is not on, bad mum) as if she wants to escape and crawl across the floor.
Trying to do the year 2 work with S most of which he finds uninspiring, and instead today he’s trying to reconstruct his X wing fighter with the incomplete instructions and lost pieces but its keeping him occupied and cogs turning in his head. Explaining the concept of auctions as trying to get some lego on ebay yesterday. Found it a bit of an anticlimax as was outbid on an item, so he’s got to save more pocket money.
Trying a bit of speech therapy with M with his ‘s’ ‘th’ sounds. It’s also affecting his Arabic pronunciation. So his ‘s’ is more like ‘th’ and ‘th’ like ‘f’. So tried some auditory discrimination asd recommended by mum and like me as a child ‘f’ and ‘th’ sounded the same to him. Anyway, he’s only 5 well nearly 6. ‘r’ is still like ‘w’ too. I expect he’ll mostly mature naturally and maybe peer pressure and reading will motivate him to change his ‘s’. He can do it, but similarly to what he looks like he doesn’t care how he sounds and it isn’t inhibiting his being understood.
Hafsah’s sleeping pretty well, sleeps around 11 pm, wakes 5 or 6 am, unlike the boys who last night went to sleep 11 pm (after having woke me around 830 that morning, and woke me 3 am having wet the bed and wanting milk subhanAllah the difference between boys and girls. The other day Hafsah had managed to keep her clothes clean for 24 hrs and then a young male managed to get weetabix on them for her in a few minutes. Having said that Hafsah’s behaving a bit more like the boys in the day with frequent feeds and poops but I think it may be due to the heat.
Funny comment from m the other day whilst I was changing Hafsah, ‘do you have to clean her every day?’
‘yes’
‘she’s a pet then?’
‘er no..’

Difficult questions to answer.
S was asking after discussing surah al kafirun
‘why does Allah let them do what he doesn’t like ?’
I answered somewhere along the lines of ‘because they are not guided by Allah’
He replies ‘why should they go to hell fire then?’
Hmm have to think this one through, hard to understand everything myself let alone explain at 8 year old level

Other query as a novice to girl-children, what to call ‘it’ ie boys is a willy. Hishaam spontaneously said it was her ‘not-willy’
All I can remember from childhood is the phrase ‘front bottom’
Sorry but as much of my life is spent around the changing mat, potty etc I’m down to toilet talk...

escapology

5th July 2006-07-05

Today H and M went to nursery but I’ve decided to leave taking them until they are back at their usual nursery. During the summer holidays they put all the children requiring daycare in the area in one nursery as so many are off for the summer. I originally kept them at nursery during the hols as when S and M went like this 2 years ago they seemed to pick up more Swedish (the teacher who usually works the summer hols does not speak English), plus it gives me and S some time to do his year 2 work in a peaceful environment. For some reason M was not at all happy with this nursery’s routine of having a nap after lunch, and for those that can’t sleep (like himself) they listen to a story cd. I don’t know why he was so stressed out about it, but maybe there was a scary story or something, but kids do seem to get anxious over the strangest of things, and don’t want to talk about it. Well apparently M and H hatched a plan today to escape the nursery. M was helping H to open the gate to the pavement outside when H’s arm got stuck in the gaps in the gate, thus giving some pain and this must have alerted the staff to the escape attempt. I had thought that this nursery’s fences are quite low and I’m sure some of the more athletic 5 or 6 year olds could scale them.
Hafsah nearly laughed the other day to my rendition of hickory dickory dock. She did a couple of ‘hah’s so there’s a sense of humour in there! A lot of lipsmacking when hungry, just hope she makes it on the scales to 5 kg next time we go to the clinic. This is the first time I’ve had to worry like this about my baby’s weight. Have postponed the ENT appointment as well. Her breathing is sometimes noisy and other times OK.

7weeks on.......

and if you're looking for something coherent, then try elsewhere...
Here are a few snippets of life with 4 kids and brain approaching simultaneous dementia, neurosis and the odd bit of psychosis thrown in for good measure. It’s not so bad really but I’m sure people who accuse single mothers of having children to get more benefits know nothing about real life…I’m a part-time one and it’s not easy…
Actually it’s not the kids in the day so muchas the sleep deprivation. Hafsah doesn’t wake up too many times at night, in fact she slept 7 hours the other night. But then you get woken up by the others early in the morning or during the night for some other liquid requirement or evacuation and the brain goes numb.So here' what I've managed to note recently..

Hishaam learning some phrases by rote and using in slightly the wrong way e.g. He said to me ‘Stop lying!’ when he heard me saying something he disagrees with and doesn’t want to hear e.g. ‘no cake for you’

Muhammad had a few funny comments recently: When I had mentioned I was desperate for the loo he said ‘Hold it in Mimi!’
He asked me what would happen to water if you left it, like milk turns to cheese. This was prompted by the cheese making factory Muhammad has down the side of his bed where he casts his anywayupcups with milk left in them when he’s finished with them. We are currently missing at least 2 cups and I dread to think what stages of development they are in.
SubhanAllah he just asked me to show him some pictures of Hafsah coming out from you no where when she was born, to which I replied I don’t have any, and he said ‘can you take some next time ! I just want to see’ Oh the innocent inquisitiveness of childhood….
Muhammad wanting to learn to count in tens, so using all ten fingers, enjoyed flashing them up as we counted up in tens. I was thinking that home ed/’unschooling style’ can often seem to get straight to the point of why we learn, e.g. pinball scores, computer game scores (I have to find some justification for letting them play ?!) or milometer in cars need to be understood via maths. But they can learn directly by talking about these practical examples, I think more effectively, than by learning in the abstract. So Muhammad starting to grasp bigger numbers (100s 1000s) when playing with Suhayb’s pinball game. Still would feel better if he'd completed some work book or other but then he'll not be doing this in swedish schools for at least a year or two.
I was trying to decide which I can feel less guilty about, letting them watch kids TV or playing computer games. The former at least keeps up their English skills (?! I read that in a book about bilingualism) and the latter does require some kind of skill, hand eye coordination and is not passive like TV. All I can say is sometimes I just HAVE to lie down and sleep and it seems the only way to stop them doing some serious harm to each other while I’m unconscious.

Suhayb was interested in making a sun dial with a stick in the sand in the park, and then we discussed how the shadow can be used to calculate Asr prayer time..

Had a slightly stressful time with Hafsah as the 6 week check with the doctor had us sent to the hospital for checks re her noisy breathing and the following day X rays which was distressing for her as she had to be held still while they took the pictures. In the end they found nothing untoward, but think it’s due to her having a soft windpipe and she should grow out of it. She’s also supposed to be checked at the ENT clinic which will involve having a tube down her nose and I tried to get out of this, hmm we’ll see… On the positive side Hafsah can now roll onto her left side so you cannot just leave her and guarantee she will be in the same spot 5 minutes later. The same goes to say for the boys who are still not bored with her, and try to pick her up and give me palpitations on a regular basis. Resort to carrying her in the sling to protect her but then they try to pull her legs off aaah. Snapping at them a bit, weird protective instinct seems almost to be a reflex action?
Oh yes and she's actually lost some weight last week, but th ehealth visiotr is not calling us back for another weighin for over 2 weeks, weird I thought she'd be more concerned. May be it's all the wriggling she does, as she seems to be feeding regularly enough ?! Or maybe it was her haircut which we finally got round to doing. She was getting a rash on her face and head with the heat, and DH didn't want to do as she's a girl, but now he's away it's done and that's it. Anyway lots of proper smiles to me and anyone else who pays her attention.

Have had to do some ‘proper’ home ed with Suhayb funnily enough put on me by school as he is skipping a class. So we have 8 weeks to do a years work. However he’s already done most of the maths. At least it keeps me up with my Swedish. So did ’geographi’ and telling the time ‘quarter to’ the other day.

Hafsah's progress and a whinge about last night

6 Jun 2006-06-06

Hafsah’s 5 weeks now and edging towards normality as regards nappy fillage (is that a real word ??) and vomiting. Normality as in what the other 3 were like. Still feel she sleeps slightly (emphasis on slightly) better than the others but then the 4 hours of semi darkness that constitute a June night here in Sweden may be giving me just an illusion of her sleeping through the night !!
Wind still a major part of her waking life so much so I’m surprised she doesn’t float up to the ceiling but now it's less silent but deadly and more the machine gun loud ones that vibrate the whole nappy ……… May be my diet of keema and chicken soup being slightly reduced is helping this as the 40 days are almost up and I am allowed a normal diet !
She just did a cute little noise, sort of like the coos you’d expect. Social smiling is increasing although the bathroom tiles get the same warm beams , they are nice and shiny and white !

Had a nightmare of a time getting the kids to bed last night (more than usual) . Somehow I think post traumatic stress has blanked it out of my memory as now, the morning after, I can’t really remember what all the fuss was about. But as I can recall if it wasn’t for my MIL protecting her, Hafsah could have been pretty badly damamged by the hurtling objects and jumping around children. I think I shall have to get a lock for the outside of my bedroom door so she can at leat be safe while I attend to the boys getting them into bed. Sometimes I just think, let their teeth have fillings and sleep in your dirty clothes, it seems such an effort just to get teeth brushed PJs on. Once that’s achieved then its usually downhill froim theron as a story calms them down, and sleep ensues. However my voice by that time is rather struggling to read after all the yelling I’ve had to do over the previous hour or so !

Hafsah has arrived !

28 may 2006-05-28

Alhamdulillah I had a healthy baby girl on April 28th 2006. The whole pregnancy was pretty tough so no posts for the whole of it subhanAllah !
Hafsah is 1 month old now and i should try to start up my blog again although its a bit slow going, typing one handedly while holding her with the other.

Actually though mashallah she has been the only one happy to lie in her carrycot, just looking around, and also at night . I was concerned about the recent ‘cotdeath’ concerns about bedsharing (which I’ve always done with the boys in the early days). But with Hafsah I can put her back in her cot when she's finished feeding, (or when I wake up which I suppose is not so safe). Its all very confusing with attachment theories and ‘cot’ death theories changing year on year.

Actually on the nappy side we don’t look like we'll be sponsored by Pampers as she doesn’t get through so many and I've been willing her to do a poo all week ! We finally got a pretty small excuse of one just now, but we’re both relieved (pardon the pun) as the health visitor's check is tomorrow and I think its been a week since the last dirty nappy. I didn’t want another issue of her being ‘underfed’ like 2 weeks ago when she hadn’t gained enough to satisfy my health visitor. I was instructed to wake her up (WAKE HER UP !?) every 2 and a half hours in the day. She’s been going every 4 hours like a bottle fed baby which I was quite happy with. I should also be happy about the nappy changing situation, but its just so different to the boys that it can't fail to be a bit perplexing !

She’s started smiling now and again the other day and although most are probably due to the usual suspect (i.e. wind which is pretty lethal, maybe due to my keema based diet, Pakistani style), she did a really cute one , smily eyes too this evening.

Hishaam had gone backwards a bit wanting feeding rather than doing it himself, wetting himself, which he rarely did before, and wanting me to lie down with him at bedtime. Boys boys boys!

A quick Poem

Just a quick poem I made up the other day while finishing my supper and relevance to H.

Life with a nearly-2-Year old

All drinks will be spilt
All items must be thrown
Things that can open will be opened
Things that close will be closed
All ‘Yes’s’ will be ‘No’s’
And all ‘No’s’ ‘Yes’s’

Tears will be smiles
Thoughts are second guesses
All anger will be love
All love will be shown
Life is one experiment
The answers yet unknown.

Strange experience now, all children are in school now, M and H at daycare and S at 'compulsory' school. So I shall start my Swedish course soon InshAllah.
H. very upset when I leave but apparently OK during the 3 hours and ate his lunch yesterday. However he doesn't look particularly pleased to see me when I pick him up. He's probably angry with me !
Home education on hold at the moment due to difficulties forming a group (i.e. most mum's working) and have missed this years application deadline (!). Anyhow S will still be getting his education in English from myself.
I have got S's new timetable which includes Somali, I shall have to double check that!

Acute department (Again)

I haven't written a post for a long time, things have been very difficult recently, husband away a lot, chicken pox, the usual colds. Anyhow I think the last time I wrote it was about peas, now H had another trip to exactly the same room as he was damaged by the living room radiator. I did not see what happened but S was apparently carrying him and slipped and bumped into the rather pleasant looking but obviously lethal old fashioned radiator. H sustained a bad cut to his top lip and resembled a rugby player who had come off worse in a brawl. Blood was everywhere and he was screaming so much the nurse on the end of the emrgency number could barely hear me. In the end I took him in the ambulance, and one of the worst parts was having to leave the other two alone in the flat with the neighbours (who I could not ever say are friends unfortunately. Maybe this experience could be a help) popping in now and again. Anyway he was seen very promptly, given a sedative and then being uncharacteristically friendly to the doctor and nurses due to the drugs, soon changed his mind when the anaesthetic was given, and stitches sewn (4).
Now he has a very swollen top lip and when we got back home he had his first ever proper tantrum, as I had had to take my mobile phone away from him. (I found out later this mood swing was due to the medication). Screaming, hitting, scratching, throwing of remotes controls ensued. I had never seen him this angry.
Now he is ok but I'm not looking forward to when he has the stitches removed.
Despite this major setback H is talking a lot more now: "juice", "computer" (puter), "go out", "go up" and many more. He's also being like M and potty training himself, as he undresses himself, including nappy. The only drawback is the lack of potty. It's somewhere in the cellar, but he actually manages quite well on the toilet, and if he doesn't succeed on one he toddles off to try on the other one !

Pincer skills just a bit too good

I've finally mangaged to get them into bed at a reasonable hour for the first time in ages, so I have some time and a bit of energy to write this.
Well last Sunday saw a trip to the acute department for young H. He's recently found his finger fits up his nose, and instead of the usual extractions, he found picking up peas and inserting them more interesting. I had managed to get two out, and only after a phone call with my mum, talking about boys ending up in casualty for a variety of reasons (including peas up noses), that I decided to recheck his nostrils before putting him to bed. There it was the third pea, much brighter green than anything that should have been there. So I rang the advice line and they said I had to take him to the A and E department. Dubiously I left and AlHamduLillah my mother in law could stay with the other two who were asleep ( husband still in sunny Singapore). I say dubious as H was in A and E last summer on a Sunday night due to a suspect rash, which meant a long, long wait. Anyway this time they were not busy so there was hardly any wait and H had fallen asleep in the car on the way. Then a nice Spanish doctor had to wake him up in a very unpleasant way by sticking a metal stick with a hook on the end to get the pea out. Unsurprisingly H was none too pleased about this ! The accompanying Swedish nurse was quite surprised at the pea as it was not like typical Swedish ones (relatively big). It was actually from a packet from the Muslim supermarket we go to, and the doctor said peas were also like that in Spain. I couldn't believe the nurse had never seen a petits pois before ! Anyway I've got some Swedish ones now which I think won't fit in the nostrils (yet). She was also surprised he'd got three up there (as was I). The lesson is also to be learned that these sort of foods (well actually all food) requires supervision at all times ! I had given him the peas to keep him busy while I served the other two's food ! I was pleased that they had been eaten up so well, but not as many had gone into his stomach as I had thought !
Generally I'm pleased at S's reading progress. He's doing the Peter and Jane at the moment, which I think he finds a bit boring, but he likes the achievement of reading a whole book with hardly any help. He didn't like today's book, which was telling him what he likes ('You like the dog, you like Jane '- oh not girls that cannot be true !)
M annoyed S the other day by recognising the word 'ball' before S got round to reading it.
S not particularly happy going to school still, but I can see why as when I drop him off it is usually the first playtime and some of the older boys taunted him, obviously not so clever to do it in front of me. I gave the boy a piece of my mind (in English but I think he got the message, and I managed to tell him to apologise in Swedish, which he did). I felt a little bad as the supervising assistant then went and told him off aswell. S. reacts intensively to any sort of comment and the children have learnt this. Unfortunately a friend he seems to have at the moment was off today (due to a cactus having pricked his finger according to S) who I was pleased S was happy to play with.

New vocabulary for the whole world

Bismillahir Rahaman ir Rahim
Quickly browsing the web, I came across several people actually managing to find time to blog amidst the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster. Interesting to read actually.. but this is another topic.
But it made me remember I hadn't posted anything for a while solely with the lame excuse of being tired.
Anyway, S. has actually been able to read some of the basic reading scheme books, and is quite pleased with himself. M is trying to copy him as well !
H. now says 'mama', 'akbar' (Allahu Akbar God is Greater) and does sujud (prostration). He also loves his Quran computer (well it was for the other 2 actually but he uses it the most at the moment) and moves to the rhythmn of the surahs. He especially likes An Nas (mankind) and tries to say 'nas'.
Other words are 'up' used for all prepositions and indicates he wants to move somewhere needing help, even if its down off our bed. He flings his arms wide for a hug, and loves to give kisses. He is very able on his sit on car now and frequently chases his brothers on theirs miraculously round our small flat ! I think some of the child psychology books are only relevant to first children, as he tries to play with his big brothers, and does less of the typical 'parallel play'.
His newest thing is to do is say 'woof woof' for dogs (there are a lot round here unfortunately, I say this because of their pavement contributions and habits of scaring the living daylights out of M by chasing him. I also had to rewash a load of washing the other day as someone had probably washed their dog's blanket in the communal washing machine before I used it, leaving my clothes covered in hairs yuk. InshAllah we'll have our own machine soon ).
Anyway he likes a DK book with a picture of some puppies in it so as soon as I say dog or woof woof he runs off to get it and comes back saying the dog sound, with his lips sticking out amazingly far, I can't quite explain it.
S. still not reliable with the bedwetting issue and it can be a headache with washing, but he's grown out of the largest nappies just about. They don't have those special pants here, when I saw they are for up to age 11 in the UK my heart sunk. Can it really go on that long ? I hope it gets it sorted before H. is fully dry....
Gave S. his first spelling test which he got only one wrong, and he seemed quite excited by it, how long will this last ?!

Long time no blog

Bismillah,

I have written some notes on a word document and this is, finally, the 3rd attempt. The computer keeps eating up my documents (I'm using a different computer which has new-fangled xp or something and I haven't got my head around it yet !) .
So I'm writing this directly on-line so let's hope Blog-spot does not disappear into the grave of cyber-space.
I had felt so bad the other day for having scolded S. for not picking up his pj's off the floor, which turned out to be his brother's. I quickly apologised and gave lavish praise for this act of tidiness. It reminded me as well, that maybe my underlying pessimism in expecting the boys to do anything I say (if it is not much fun for them), on which actually they can pick up, causes them to appear uncooperative. I have read somewhere to avoid saying 'OK?' at the end of requests, and I expect this includes such phrases as 'could you please?'. Politeness but firmness is what is needed and a belief in yourself that what you are asking is reasonably achievable. If you are asking them to do something but saying it in a way that implies a choice then of course they will take the easy option.
Another general bit of advice which I have had to learn through experience, is about the power of force of habit.
I think the autistic featuresof inflexibilty in routine are just am exagerration or extreme of normal childhood (and/or adult)behaviour. For example, as we only have fizzy drinks very occasionally as a treat, they do not demand them. However I am partial to a bit of cake with my tea and it is hard to eat it without being observed my children. So they seem to think it needs to be a regular constituent of the daily diet. I know I should cut down too but I do eat all my supper up as well !
Watching DVDs, computer games all become habits too easily. But I can see these things can be reversed as well. For example CBeebies which I have heard quotes as 'an evil force' by one journalist, was S's daily interest. Some of it was beneficial but it's constant availablity made saying 'no' tougher. Now we are in Sweden where the kids tv is generally useless, and of course in Swedish, they rarely watch it, (although M. would watch things in any language if you let him.We can get things in Arabic, Danish, Finnish, Chinese, Afrikaans thanks to the advent of satellite technology).
So I am glad to say TV viewing is much down on previous years in our house.
The point being once something is started it can be hard to stop it especially for children. That's why I am so happy H. has never seen an episode of teletubbies in his life !
H. made another milestone yesterday, he can now open the bathroom door. So now the key must be employed unless you want him to join you in the shower. The key would have been used normally but the kids tend to lock themselves in the bathroom which is another hassle as you search for the screwdriver to get them out. He also shuts it in an amusing way, by using his tummy, thrust out for that final push at the end of closing the door. In fact hardly anywhere is safe from him now as he regularly pulls a chair up to climb on tables, desks etc. They are foldable chairs so sometimes I have to fold them up just to have some peace of mind. H. has also followed in M's footsteps and discovered the power of screaming. I am doing my best to ignore it as this is the only way to stop it. The whole point of it is for attention as I can see his eyes twinkling if I look at him.
He now clearly indicates 'yes' by waving both arms aup and down simultaneously and going 'aah aaah' loudly. This especially relevant when he wants his milk.
Swedish being spoken a lot now by both S and M.. S. I think, does have a slight English accent in there, but sometimes it seems they haven't spoken English for half an hour or more.
Their grandmother is staying at the moment so Urdu is another language being heard and attempted in the house !

Ramadan is here

AlhamdulIllah, Ramadan is here and I think this is the first year S. is properly appreciating and being fully aware of it.
Last year I was not fasting due to feeding H. and his dad was at work mostly during the fasts. However the request for him to refrain from getting us angry has not really had much effect !
He is noticing the older boys and some of the teachers are fasting at his school.

Something that made me smile the other day occurred after we’d had a ‘literacy 10 minutes’ using the magnetic fridge letters. S. can now read regular words using phonics (when he’s in the mood), up to about 6 letters long (he wanted to do longer and longer words, but it gets difficult to think of them). Then we talked about vowels, as he tends to spell things without them e.g. Muhammad ‘MHMD’and they are being problematic due to the irregular variety of sounds they make. Anyway at the end of this he asked me ‘shall I tell you how many bowels are in my name ?'
I couldn’t help but smirk ! ‘b’ and ‘v’ have often been muddled by both S and M !

M. being as independent as usual, but in a more positive way. Now he is realising his early rising is not to my pleasing, so he washed up and poured himself a cup of milk (lidded ‘anywayup’ cup, those lids are hard to put on). Also it is a bit ironic as these are designed for 6 months plus to drink out of !) He also makes himself cornflakes without any mess, I was very impressed.
His Swedish is really coming on (well Skånsk, the local dialect, which is akin to Geordie I think !), He sometimes seems to be talking this more than English, and mixes the two. To make a verb he pus an ‘a’ on the end e.g. put – ‘puta’ (should be sätta), and adds ‘et’on the end of nouns sometimes e.g. hat ‘hattet’ should be ‘mosa’ I think. The latter maybe influenced by his dad’s joking way of speaking Swedish ! He was 'reading' some simple books to himself in Swedish although they are in English, by describing the pictures, and partly remembering what I had read.
We go to the Muslim children’s activities on Saturday morning in Lund, and I was very proud of them as at the end the children stood and gave a quick presentation about Ramadan, and Muhammad tried to speak Swedish in front of everyone.

H. is responding to simple requests quite reliably now, e.g. shut the door, put that in the bin (although not such a good idea maybe as wanted things may end up mistakenly ‘posted’ in there !).
Also he loves to go out now and readily finds his shoes and socks if lying in the vicinity when asked. Now he gets upset when I go out without him, but I think he may be upset over not going out rather than missing me so much now. He did not cry when our builder came over for coffee last night.
He makes ‘brmming’ noises when on his sit-on car, and copies his brothers with gun type noises as well. He did just say something like 'car’ and his first word in Swedish was ‘gurka’ which means cucumber. ‘mama’ is still like ‘baba’, unless ’baba’ is his word for 'parent’ !
He is currently having a conversation on an old mobile phone talking about ‘aahs’ ! while I’m typing this !
He is still wanting to breastfeed a lot, and pulls on my top shouting ‘aah aah aah’ when he wants it. The other two stopped before they could communicate without crying.
He walked down all the stairs to the washing machine room, holding my hand the other day which was no mean feat. Unfortunately his stairs ability makes it harder for me to supervise and keep an eye on S. during swimming school as I am having to look after H. more. Previously there was an area I could contain him in because of the steps !
Winter is fast approaching and I am having a potential mini gloves crisis. Things just seem to get swallowed up by our flat, well specifically in all the mess ! I think I'm just going to buy some more and some stop stressing about it ! I wish the mess could somehow be lost too, but 1 of me against 4 males is usually a losing battle....

Social skills, a personality, not a home ed, issue

S’s behaviour is still an issue. We are to have a meeting with his teacher soon. The teachers always start off with 'he’s very intelligent but…’ His teacher was hinting on them not having enough staff next year to cope with him, as he works best in small groups. This is what all the teachers he’s ever had have said. He can’t wait his turn in a typical 30 child class, it has to be in a group of 5 or so.
Having said that, some of my words of advice to S must have gone in and registered somewhere, because although, yes, there were some outbursts against other children yesterdayin the park, he did on the way home announce to me that he was going to hit a car with a stick but he had but had stopped himself. This shows what all the books say, that it is easy to encourage bad behaviour as that is what draws our attention, whereas good behaviour is not noticed. So here S was making me notice his good behaviour.
As goes for reading English he has agreed to try to learn with me. Vowel sounds seem to give a bit of difficulty, but he is getting the idea with CVC words, and has played some BBC games to practise this. He tried to write 'curry' today, and it came out as 'cre'. He said it was in a Scottish accent !
I took a look at his maths books at school and it was just colouring activities to practise counting, something he could do 2 years ago I think, except now his colouring is neater! So he has tried some of his maths sticker book from the UK. What a difference the two countries education system expect at this age ! The sums using double figure e.g. 29 add 32 are so much harder. However I think he could do them if he would just listen for a second to an explanation of how to do them. But his impulse control is such that he just wants to try himself, and then gets frustrated and angry because he can't do it. So we have to finish quickly as it all gets too negative.

M just loves nursery, he even asked me if he could go when he was off with a cold a few days ago and over the weekend. He is just so sociable, and in the park the other day a group of older children were messing about and he just kept trying to join in and imitate them in a bid to get to play with them.

H. I realise is not saying ‘ta ta’ as 'bye' but I think it his way of saying ‘KhudaHaafiz’.
He finds it amusing to shut his eyes voluntarily, and now covers his eyes with his hands to play ‘where’s the baby?’. A couple of weeks ago he would try but end up putting his hands over his ears or hair instead !. Sleeping has gone downhill a bit with his cold. I am also wondering how I will be able to wean him. He’s not keen on milk from a baby cup.