Back To School

School holiday is over. My children has gone back to school starting this morning. Yesterday myself and yaya rehearsed about what she’s going to say to her teacher should she be asked how she spend the holiday. She’d say she go nowhere, spend her whole holiday at home, cycling every afternoon and playing with her brother and friends at the playground. I hope nobody is going to say kesiannya cuti tak pergi mana2.

There is nothing to be kesian off kalaupun the children spends their holiday at home. They can always play with other children (anak2 jiran yang sebaya dengan mereka), each have they own bike – diaorang memang suka berbasikal setiap petang, the small but adequate playground is just at the end of the road – we can always monitor them from home. Aku lebih suka the children spend their holiday or free time cara zaman dulu2 – macam zaman aku membesar dulu except that permainan aku zaman kanak2 dulu lebih adventurous, kami main sorok2 dalam semak, panjang pokok asam jawa, main pondok (with the boys sekali), main masak2 with the boys melibatkan real fire kami tak masak daun2 kayu tapi kami cairkan semula timah yang dikutip dalam semak, you can imagine what sort of treasure yang kami jumpa di kuarters polis yang dah berdiri sejak 50 tahun lepas dan pernah jadi tapak askar jepun. Kalaupun my children tak dapat merasa sepenuhnya adventure aku dulu, dia dapat 50% pun dah kira ok. Daripada setiap kali musim cuti sekolah diaorang merengek minta dibawa berjalan ke tempat percutian or paling tidak tidur kat hotel main air kat swimming pool.

Me and hubby memang sepakat tak nak besarkan diaorang dengan kemewahan dibawa bercuti setiap kali school holiday. Bukan kami tak mampu, sekarang memang kami mampu. But aku selalu terfikir kalau dah biasa sangat disogokkan dengan percutian dan anak2 pun dah seronok dengan lifestyle sebegitu, what will happen bila kami can’t maintain such lifestyle? I don’t want them to look back and start thinking those were happier days bila dapat pergi bercuti, and bila tak dapat bercuti means we are not at our best. I want them to feel that they are fortunate enough they can be happy no matter where they are.

I talk to my children a lot. I share a lot of stories masa zaman aku kanak2 dulu. Fahmi pernah merungut kenapa mama dan daddy tak nak belikan playstation for him. aku memang tak pernah ajar anak2 main game, sebiji game pun takde kat rumah but they learn to play games kat handphone from they uncles and atok. And fahmi tau pasal playstation from because his cousins (sebelah daddy dia) ada PS kat rumah masing2. So I told him terus terang that there’s no way I’d ever buy him a PS or apa jua permainanan yang aku tau will bring no good for himself. I abhor the idea of bringing a PS to my home. I find PS is an anti-social game. I’d rather my children go out and play, pergilah panjat pokok keluarkan all their energy daripada stuck in front of the tv or a PC. Walaupun sekarang dia tak faham, soon he will understand.

So today they all went back to school. Fahmi had to be fetch by his teacher sebab kereta aku buat hal – bateri kong. Yaya seperti biasa dijemput oleh teacher dia. I noticed a little Indian girl berjubah tanpa headscarves dalam kereta teacher. Yes the kindy walaupun Islamic kindy tapi terima non-muslim students.

And hari ni juga hubby collect kuih akok dari Terengganu yang dipesan dengan kawan ofis dia. Ermm kecur liur aku sepanjang hari teringatkan akok, puasa sunat plak tuh! balik tadi nak berbuka dengan akok, tapi sayangnya akok dah mula berlendir & berbau masam. dah basi!!! now you wonder kenapa ada istilah black monday? out of banyak2 hari kenapa hari ini pertama sekolah start dan hari pertama of the week bateri kereta aku kong? dan akok yang dah berhari2 mengecurkan air liur ku itu terpaksa di tong sampah kan. :-P