The connected tots :D

I can still remember clearly, back in uni days during my undergrad, the subject we all feared most was Physiological Psychology. Some even choose to take up the subject later in their 3rd year. Well, I was close to following everyone else’s footsteps but I wasn’t left with much choice since other subjects were all full, leaving me to register for that subject in my 2nd semester of 1st year. I’m not really a science stream person. For SPM I took up science stream but dropped biology and took accounts instead.

Surprisingly, alhamdulillah the subject turn out to be one of the best subjects through out my 4 years of undergrad. Well, I would say the lecturer was the major factor that contributed in making the subject interesting. No doubt, it wasn’t easy…as I said biology wasn’t my cup of tea, so the words, neurons, cells, membranes and all were like alien language to me. Getting into the details of the cell connections, how it works was just too heavy for me (oh not just for me, for the entire class I must say).

But now, being a mom to 3 toddlers, I’m glad that I have had a little background knowledge on how our brain works. Do u know that we are born with 100 BILLIONS of cells?! However not all are connected, in fact there are still cells waiting to be connected. That’s why there’s a saying, a kids’ brain is like a sponge, they absorb easily…the cells are there, it just needs to be connected. As the child learns, his / her brain cells will make connections inside the brain. That’s why for me, personally I would say early exposure is very important…some might say….”alah besar nanti reti lah”, but y not make use of Allah’s gift? Our children are blessed with billions of cells, why not make full use of it? Get all of those cells connected

Those were among the reason that we decided to send them to kindergarten earlier. It wasn’t easy to get a kindie that would accept them, unless I go to daycare / nursery. But we wanted a proper kindergarten. Glad we found a Montessori that accepted them at the age of 22 months back then. Now, the elder 2 has changed been enrolled into an Islamic kindie. Now that they will be 4 this year, we have more options now.

athirAh’s first day to skool, Itqan.

upon fetching them, she was excited to see me..trus lari ke gate. Amazing, she didnt cry on her first day.

For learning to happen, brain cells needs to connect. The more brain cells connected, the faster the learnings happen. Sadly, brain cells that are not connected would be lost. Of coz mom’s milk is the best but some are just not as lucky as their milk supply will drop, thus it is best to get milk that contains nutrition to help the brain cells connection. To help brain cells connect for faster learning, gangliosides is an important brain nutrient. In fact studies have shown that supplementation of gangliosides would help to improve cognitive function. (oh speaking of which, Cognitive psychology was another subject that we all feared! yup, anything tat involves biology scares us, hihi)

Basically, the gangliosides would help to maximize brain cells connection for faster learning, insyaAllah. It’s a nutrient crucial for brain cell connections. Brain cells connection relates to kids thinking out of the box. Just like hArith knows mOmmy’s tummy is big because there’s baby inside, but when my gynae asked what about his tummy, he answered his tummy has food. But why is pApa’s tummy big just like mom who is 6 month’s preggie? oh he knows its not bcoz there’s baby inside, but he said, pApa’s tummy have fats…huhu.

I’m glad I have managed to get my kids to sleep on their own bed by now it wasn’t easy at first. As I kept telling hArith he is a big boy now, cannot sleep with mOmmy, he actually questioned back “pApa also big boy, why pApa can sleep with mOmmy?” haha. Never thought of such a question. Well, im sure most of u with small kids have experienced this, the minute u put on ur hijab, they know u are going out aight. Even young babies can connect such situation; mom wears hijab = she’s going out.

Some of my blogger friends have witness how uZAir uses the iphone, even before he turns 2 he had mastered the usage of iphone already. syauQi showed him twice and now he can surf the utube search for his fav wiggles video. He scroll by himself for the videoclip he wants, goes back to the menu whenever he wants to change the video clip and so on.

In fact, my kids knows very well…if pApa goes to work with the check-in bag luggage, surely pApa plans to buy something big to bring home. So each time pApa balik with the check-in bag…they will greet their dad excitedly at the door and the first question that pops out will be “pApa beli ape?” The other day when we were in toys r us, the kids kept asking for this and that. And each time the dad replied “nanti pApa beli kt LA (los angeles)” (since its much cheaper there). I guess hArith got fed up, sume mende nanti beli kt LA…thus he ended up saying “hArith je lah pegi LA ” haha

Basically this kids are able to learn AND apply what they have learnt into their everyday life / situation. Perhaps we shall call them as “the connected tots”  . They not only know how to memorize or spell long difficult words, they are more than that, as they have built a pool of knowledge by forming connections between things around them, masyaAllah. It is amazing how young kids can do that..

On another note, smlm athirAh left me speechless. She was playing with her fav soft toy, or shall i say it’s her security blanket.

athirAh: ” athirAh have 2 ellies (elephant). soo cute!”

then i got her to count, 1 ellie, 2 ellieS . trying to teach her on singular n plural “2 ellieS”

she then continued “2 ellies…sooo cute”

few second pause and she continued “mape (mengapa / kenapa) uZAir tak sooo cute?”

i was speechless, well what would you answer??

I guess, kids’ say the darnest thing..hihi . Im sure all parents out there have ur moments, where u cant stop laughing seeing / hearing how ur kids connects things aight

Do share ur kids’ stories! Lets spread the laughter around