Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Nadia is learning to write and she made the card for my mother, a drawing of her and my mom, building a snowman like when she came to visit us here in the US. She also wrote something without my help. I found it so cute that she managed to write things which sounded like the real words...

She also called her and sang her happy birthday song loud and clear and made my mom teary.

Thank you, Nadia

Sweet girl

Nadia is off school today until friday for the thanksgiving break. I was making the sandwich for Ammar's lunch.... and Nadia talks to me.

Me: "Nadia, did you hear those bad boys upstairs ?" (teasing... and hearing those noisy "boys" upstairs)
Nadia : "Yeah... and do you know who is nice ?"
Me : "who ?"
Nadia : "Me. I am a nice girl, and my mom is really nice mommy. I am so lucky to have her as my mommy"

6 year old molar

Nadia starts to sprout her 6 year old molar. She is 5 years 7 months and I start to feel the cusp of her tooth #3 (upper right first permanent molar) out of the gum. The left, and bottom ones are big budge....

She has been running fever, only at night, since Saturday, and I am worry sick because there is no signs of runny nose, cough, sore throat, ache, only high fever. If she is not getting better tomorrow, they want to see Nadia at the pediatrician's office. As of today, she has not gone to school for 2 days now.

the school with homework

I enrolled Nadia at the Sunday school at the mosque. Today is the second week.
Me: "Nadia, go get ready, you are going to school today."
Nadia : "Mommy, is it the school with homework ?"
Me : "yes, sweetheart!"
Nadia : "I haven't memorize the homework yet."
Me: "I will help you up."

Nadia's currently enrolled at the Private Montessori Kindergarten, the Montessori method doesn't give homeworks to the students....

hehe

Go to the office

Ammar has been longing to bring his little princess to his office. Today is the last week before Nadia goes to Kindergarten, and also his light day (no clinics), paper work day in the morning.
So, off she goes with her daddy, excited, because her daddy also wanted to teach Nadia how to use microscope at his office.
Have fun Nadia. I will pick you up with Aidan at the hospital and straight to have fun in the pool.

Love,
Mom

Quite an artist

I see close similarity between Nadia and her cousin, Zhara, daughter of my belated brother. Zhara is also Pisces, her birthday and Nadia's are very close to each other.
Zhara is very talented artist, she won a whole bunch of trophies in any drawing competitions. She also is very smart, always the first in her class. I saw her report card when I came to visit her, it was a jaw dropping, from all the subjects, she only had the lowest of 88 in sports, the rests are above 90.
She is also prays 5 times a day, ... anyway, looking at her, it's like a dream of every parent wants their child to be.

Nadia is a wonderful kid, she has been since she was born, but she is not perfect.

Lately, I have seen some resemblance of her drawing talent towards Zhara's talent. She loves to draw under the breakfast table in our great room, and she colored perfectly with pastel, and instantly, the drawing reminds me of Zhara's.

It's holy month... I will pray for what it takes that Nadia grows up to be like her....

I love you so much, Nadia.. for me you are perfectly imperfect that I wouldn't trade you with anyone else in this world.

First lose baby tooth

Just right before she lost her first baby tooth!

Lose Tooth

Nadia is almost 5.5 and she told Miss Andrea, her baby sitter that she has lose tooth when they were playing at the tree house.
Miss Andrea came back home and told me about it. I checked on her tooth, and found the tooth number 66 came lose, and her new tooth was pretty big compares to the older one it will be replacing soon.

Wow, my baby is getting bigger!

Quip

We went to pick up strawberry at the strawberry farm. Nadia and Sam had wonderful time picking the berries together while Aidan was busy eating the strawberry and making strawberry mustache.
Sam never wanted to try strawberries, but Nadia made him try... and he loves them.
We found funny shapes of strawberries and they tasted so good.
Nadia : "Hey, I found this Daddy strawberry.. it's hairy!!"

half japanese

Nadia has been very interested in her racial root.

Ammar and her went to the store, she talked to the cashier and said :

"Hi, my name is Nadia. I am 4 years old, but I am going to be 5 soon. My mom is from Indonesia and my daddy is Syrian, and I AM half japanese."

Such a sweet little girl

Nadia, the more she grows up, she turns out to be such a sweet hearted girl. She would help me out with the diapers, emptying the dish washer, folding laundry, or just kiss me every time I hurt myself. She always says : "You are the best mommy in the whole world!" 

She loves her little brother and always says how sweet Aidan is and how much she loves him.

She loves to write a love letter for her daddy. Her hand writing is rather good, and she loves drawing and playing make believe.

Sometimes I am amazed to see how she grows to be a very cute little girl. I don't consider myself pretty, cute maybe, but not pretty, but Gosh, every time I see her, she looks very pretty.

I hope God will help her, protect her, and bless her whole life. 

She is a precious little girl and I am so blessed to be her mommy, I am so glad that God picked me to spend my time with her, and trust me to take care of her. 

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MY LITTLE PRINCESS

Zetta, the new betta

After stopping by at the toy store today, and Nadia got the mozaic craft thingy, she ended up choosing another betta fish. I got her the whole set of aquarium for her. She decided to name the fish Zetta A (with our last name, part of the family, supposedly).

She had a good time today.

Trust

When we got home from vacation, our neighbor, Andrea who took care of Colorfulla (Nadia's fish) came by to tell that the fish just couldn't make it (passed away) the morning when we came back home. For some reason, Ammar told Nadia that morning before we got the news that Colorfulla may not make it... so she was just fine, took the fish from the fish bowl, and chose to flush it down in the toilet for the funeral.

The next morning, Nadia, the chatterbox who woke up 4.30 am for the last 2 days talked to her daddy :

Nadia : "Daddy, do you know that I can trust only Mommy, you and Aidan ? You cannot trust strangers. You can trust Miss Janet (her school teacher), Mommy Melissa (Milla's mom), Mommy Maria (Luca's mom), not people around on the street. I also can trust Colorfulla. "

Ammar: "Colorfulla ?"

Nadia : "Yes, she is my pet, so I can trust her. ... (pause)... Oh no.. I can't trust colorfulla anymore because she is dead. Mommy is going to buy me a new beta fish"

She also been making human body puzzles and wrap them up as presents with bows for her friends at school. Of course, she draws them from my human anatomy book.. the real one. She is so interested in human body. She spent hours working on it.

Smallest brain

Before bed time.

Nadia : "Daddy, do you know who has the smallest brain in our family ?"

Daddy : "Aidan ?

Nadia : "No, Daddy. It's Colourfulla." (PS: Colourfulla is our betta fish)

Quote of the day

Ammar drove Nadia and Aidan to school this morning. He called home and told this :

Ammar : "Should I open the window or put the heating on ?"

Nadia : "Just drive, Daddy!"

Studio Session

Today, she seriously went to her room, got dressed and picked this favorite "princess dress" of hers and wore it. My chance was to take picture of her for the first time in my studio at home.

She definitely look so much bigger than her age in this photo.

Busy watching TV

First day in Canada

It has been a year since Nadia saw her cousins the first time in Syria. She instantly remembered them, Malaka, Noor, and Adnan and happily played with them.

Big Sister

Since we are in the holy month of Ramadan, we learnt our lesson that it is too chaotic to have both kids while we break our fast. The time is around 8.15 pm, pretty late. So Ammar and I decided to have both kids to bed before 8 pm, good thing is that Nadia will have more sleep than she usually does. She usually sleeps around 9pm, sometimes she tries to push it to 10 pm. She quits her naps a long time ago, almost 1 year, so the good night sleep is the only sleeps she got.

For Aidan, sleeping at the same time, seeing his sister in bed at the same time he is sent to bed helps. But tonight, he still wanted to play with Daddy, he cried in his crib. I told Nadia to talk to Aidan while she is in bed, while the connecting doors between their bedrooms were open.

While we were eating, we enjoyed our time listening to the monitor in Aidan's room. Nadia ended up talking with Aidan in HIS room, she was so sweet to him, and she asked lots of questions which most of the time he answered : "NO". Unlike Nadia at her age, Aidan doesn't speak much. He is interested more to the physical, motoric, and problem solving more than saying "eyes, ears, car, etc". He just says things he really needs, like "More, Nana (banana), Nani (nadia), Mommy/mama, daddy/Dada, Andrea (his teacher), No, hi and bye"

Since Aidan kept saying "NO", Nadia sweetly replied : "Uh......... (Daddy's way)"

After a while she came down, asking us what to do with him, because he kept asking Nadia to play with him in his bedroom. We asked him to pretend that she was Aidan's mom.

She came back to his room and said : "I love you, Aidan" and start talking again.

15 minutes later, we didn't hear anything in that room. After eat, I checked on him, tuck him in his blanket, then I noticed, Nadia was sleeping in the twin size bed in Aidan's room (used to be my bed when Aidan was so small), she fell asleep waiting Aidan to fall asleep.

Before bed we discussed how much we are touched by Nadia's reliability, love and care for Aidan. We are so proud of her.

After bath