THIRD PREGNANCY ALREADY??!

I can remember very clearly the day I announced my second pregnancy. I received mixed reaction from family and friends. There were those who were very excited as if they were the ones that are pregnant and there were also those who were upset for numerous reasons. Some even questioned how in the world I could think about getting pregnant when my Husband was still jobless. Of course I couldn't change people's reaction but Alhamdulillah I was still the healthy and bubbly me throughout the pregnancy. Well to be honest, we didn't plan for Layina's birth. Actually we didn't even really plan for Khairaldin's. All we know was that we wanted a child and Masha'Allah, we're now blessed and living happily with two children, Alhamdulillah. Throughout my pregnancy, Iskandar didn't have a proper job. He was on part time jobs most of the time. Alhamdulillah we managed to live with whatever income that was coming in. Also thanks to my parents for making sure we stay in their house. Alhamdulillah.

No doubt Iskandar was looking for jobs. He wasn't choosy of the job as long as it pays Halal income. He tried so many places and yet were rejected or no replies. We didn't give up, we believe that Allah WILL shower us with rizq when and how HE wants to. Iskandar kept searching high and low for a permanent job but the rezeki was just not there...yet. We didn't lose hope. We kept praying and asking for HIS help everyday and night! Come Ramadhan, we prayed extra hard for HIS help because only HE can grant us the best in life. Iskandar was so determined to look for jobs. He's on the PC every now and then looking for Islamic Banking jobs or even as a lecturer. He's applied almost everywhere, be it in Malaysia, UK or even in the Middle East. Noone replied to his application. Personally I know how much he's been hunting high and low for a Halal job. Trust me, it's not easy.

As the days go by, I finally gave birth to Layina with 

a "jobless" husband beside me. I was not afraid of the idea that my husband was still jobless. In fact, my faith grew even stronger! I know for a fact that Allah will not burden us with what we could not handle. HE has promised and repeated this in the Qur'an time and again. I felt everything will fall into place if not now, Insha'Allah in the hereafter. To know that we now have a baby girl could only mean two things, Rezeki and Barakah is on our side. In Islam, having a daughter is something special. It's mentioned in a Hadith; 

Jabir ibn 'Abdullah reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Anyone who has three daughters and provides for them, clothes them and shows mercy to them will definitely enter the Garden." A man from the people said, "And two daughters, Messenger of Allah?" He said, "And two." [Bukhari]

There I was thinking I don't have the luxury that everyone is talking about but what matters most is Insha'Allah I will have that luxury in the afterlife. Having said that, it doesn't mean we have given up with our life now! Of course we can't do that. Whatever we do it has to be for Dunya and Akhirah. There must be balance in our life. So, Iskandar was still with his job hunting. We were also thinking of going back to Malaysia for good if he doesn't get a job anytime soon. We were ready to hijrah to another country if he still doesn't get a job. It is good to do hijrah with the niyah for Allah Ta'ala.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a friend of my Dad e-mailed my Dad saying he wants to meet up with Iskandar as they have a job that he might be interested in. This person is a Director at MIHE (the place Iskandar was awarded his Masters in Islamic Banking, Finance and Management). Without hesitation he met up with the Director and was offered a permanent job there and then. It's nothing fancy but definitely a start for him. Who knows he might get connection from MIHE and can further his career or even do PhD there? Only Allah knows.

So, Insha'Allah, Iskandar will be starting his permanent job with MIHE this October.

This job offer has opened our eyes even more. All the places that he's applied for didn't even bother to reply to just say that they are not hiring or anything at all. However, the place that we'd never think of offering him a job suddenly contacts him and offered him the job. We have always believe that rezeki is from Allah swt even when people gave us the reason to doubt this. Who says you can't suddenly wake up and stumble upon a pot of gold? I believe that miracle do happen if Allah wills it. Nothing is impossible but of course, first we have to work and pray hard for the miracle to happen. Always believe that noone can give nor take anything away from you without Allah's will. If HE has stated that your rezeki will be there, it will be there. Sometimes HE is just testing us to see how far we would go to worship him.

Of course this is a reminder to myself too. Even though Iskandar will be in a permanent job, this doesn't mean we should stop worshipping HIM. This is the reason we should continue to worship HIM more as HE's given us something we least expected!! It just goes to show how powerful HE is and SubhanAllah there is just no reason to defy HIS power! We are really thankful to HIM and to those who's been praying for us. May Allah bless you all with goodness in this life and hereafter, Amin!!!!

If you are still reading and waiting for me to officially announce about my 3rd pregnancy, sorry to say, I'm not pregnant. At least not for another few years, Insha'Allah. I'm sure if I suddenly announce my 3rd pregnancy there will be people out there who'd say something like "3rd pregnancy already??!" Even with a "working" husband people will find excuse to just mock about another person. Sometimes we just forget rezeki comes in many shapes and form, it's not just money/wealth wise.

Like I always say, we can plan all we want but in the end of it all, Allah has the last say. :) 

Ps: wish me luck on becoming a FULL TIME HOUSEWIFE and MOTHER to a toddler and soon to be 3 months old baby. Please pray that Allah will make it easy on the 4 of us, Insha'Allah. JazakAllahu Khair!

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Khairaldin's journey to diaperless bottom!

Khairaldin at 5 months old in Cloth Diaper :)

Alhamdulillah! Khairaldin's been diaper free for 1 month + now!!!! Never imagined this day coming true but Alhamdulillah, here I am writing about his diaper free journey. He's now 2 years 3 months. We started potty training him on 5th Ramadhan at around 4pm. I remember this clearly because I had a break from fasting so since I couldn't fast, I thought I might as well start as soon as possible and not procrastinate anymore. The reason I wanted to start him then was because it was Ramadhan and I had more free time also, things somehow flow perfectly during Ramadhan. And I was right! Alhamdulillah it's been a month since then!

Some CD Stash

Just so you know, we started him with going for number 2 as early as 1 year 10 months. Since he was wearing cloth diaper, both Iskandar and I became disgusted with him poo-ing in his diaper that we decided to firstly train him with number 2. Khairaldin is a creature of habit. He does everything in routine hence it was easy to train him. We knew when exactly he goes for number 2 since he does it around the same time everyday. It's easier on us because we are with him almost all the time. Training him for number 2 wasn't hard at all. Personally I think he found it disgusting to poop in his cloth diaper that's why he cooperated with us. Number 1 however, was difficult! We've tried one too many ways, for examples rewarding him with stickers, putting him in nice training pants so that he'd not wee in it and putting him straight in underpants. We failed miserably with those styles! I gave myself a deadline of 2 months because I wanted him potty trained before Layina's debut. We didn't succeed and were running out of time as I was already very heavily pregnant and just couldn't be bothered to train or even argue with him anymore. We then left the potty training at just doing number 2 in the toilet and number 1 was still in his diaper. That was good enough for us newbies. After Layina was born, we still felt disgusted with the smell of his wee every morning!!! We constantly told him to tell us when he wants to wee. Everyday when he wakes up we just kept going on and on about wee-ing in toilet. It didn't work. We felt that he's just wee-ing in his diapers to irritate us because I was irritated with our whining!! Then, on that particular day when I decided to train him, I just felt enough is enough! I can't deal with washing 2 batches of diapers everyday. People would say, "who ask you to put him in cloth diaper in the first place?" But may I just say, if it's not because of the cloth diaper, my son will probably be in disposable nappies till he's 5 years old or more! Really, thanks to cloth diaper as we are where we are today, Alhamdulillah!

So how did we start and succeed this time round? Well, at 4 pm, I decided to change him in just his underpants and t-shirt. I lifted his t-shirt just above his pants to supposedly see when he felt like wee-ing. But that didn't happen. I couldn't see it and the next thing I know, he's wee-d on the carpet in his toy room at 5pm. Oh by the way, I didn't dare to let him go anywhere around the house so we just stayed in his toy room for few good hours. When I first trained him, I always brought him straight to the toilet every one hour. I've somehow come to realise that he only does his business in his toy room so I brought his portable potty downstairs in his toy room. I even asked him if he wanted the potty downstairs and he said yes! Anyway, when he wee-d at 5pm, I instantly timed how frequent he wees. The 2nd time, he wee-d at 6pm at the same spot whilst we were learning some Arabic alphabets, really there wasn't any sign that he needed to wee. He was just standing up, talking to me and suddenly wees. He let's go when he feel like it without thinking of the consequences. Now that I know he needs a wee every hour, I asked him "do you want to sit in the potty and wee?" at about 7pm. He said yes. I brought him to his potty and he comfortably wee-d in there. I did that again at 8pm and again he wee-d in his potty. Then I stopped for the day because it was nearing his bedtime. He was back in diapers by night. Oh yeah, after every wee I rewarded him with sweets/marshmallows. So he had just 2 on that day because he managed to do it twice.

• On day 2, I brought him straight to the toilet when he woke up. Again, I asked him every hour if he wanted to wee in his potty and I got a yes every time. This time I varied his reward with sweets and watching his favourite Youtube videos. I didn't want him to do it because of sweets so I varied his reward. By night time, he was back in diapers. I was also monitoring his diapers at night and it's still wet.

• On day 3, I tried asking him every 1 and 1/2 hours. He has now learnt that wee time is only when I ask him if he wants to go or not. I managed to make him control for 1 and 1/2 hours. His reward was just Youtube videos on this day. He looks forward to watching his videos hence wee-ing in the potty was ok for him.

• Come day 4, we (the parents) were slacking a bit. We became overly confident that he can hold his wee that we sometimes forget to ask him if he needed the potty. So there were a few accidents in his toy room. Thankfully he don't dare to have "accidents" in the living room because the carpet in the living room belongs to my brother. He knows that he can't mess around with people's things if we tell him not to. After we came to realise our fault, we started asking him again and this time it's every 2 hours +.

• By day 5, we brought him out to Tesco. Told him he has to tell us if he needs a wee as people will get upset if he wee's in Tesco. He decided to hold for as long as he could and only told us he wanted a wee at home. I've noticed until today that he doesn't like to wee at public places unless we tell him that he's got to go because of long journey. If it's just in town or groceries, he'll hold until we get home. By now we were confident that he can hold his wee for more than 2 hours. So we decided to train him in the toilet. I kept the potty away and everytime he says he wants to go potty, I'd say the potty's upstairs and that we'd have to go to the toilet. After a while, he just asked for the toilet instead of potty.

So that's our potty training journey. After 2 weeks, he can hold his wee for a maximum of 4 hours and we hardly get any wet diapers at night. Until today he's still in diaper during night time just because we've got spare disposable diapers and didn't want to waste it. We call it "special pants" and he knows he can't wee in it or else he will get drenched.

Ok, just so you know we didn't only have 2 or 3 accidents. We probably had about 5-6 accidents at the most. I've come to learn that he have accidents when I am sleeping because he doesn't dare to ask Iskandar to bring him to toilet. One time he also forced himself to wee because he wanted my attention when I was cooking. Other than that, he's doing great! It is difficult at first but don't give up too quickly. Give it a few days and you and your toddler will get the hang of it eventually. ALSO, it's better if the Mothers are control of it until you see the successful point. To be honest, Mothers level of patience is absolutely different to Fathers. Iskandar for example expects Khairaldin to be a professional wee-r by second day. He didn't have the patience. It became slightly difficult because Iskandar was pushy and gets upset when he had accidents. So, Khairaldin became scared of him since he gets told off everytime. As for me, I do get upset when he have accidents but I can tell myself that he's only 2 years old and that I can't expect much from him. After Khairaldin was comfortable with his potty training, he didn't mind going to the toilet with either one of us. So my advice is, make sure only one parent is active in the training and that only one style is being used. Having both parents active during potty training could only confuse the child. Like with Khairaldin, he goes to potty every hour at first so I didn't want Iskandar to accidentally ask him if he needs potty after 30mins because then he will change his routine to every 30mins or so. This doesn't mean Iskandar wasn't part of the training. When I needed to do something myself, I told Iskandar to only ask him at so and so time. This way it kept the ball (or in this case child) rolling at the same pace.

Diaperless big boy on 1st Shawwal :))

I hope this entry has been helpful to you Mommies and Daddies who are planning to potty train. This style might or might not work with all. I tried so many ways with Khairaldin too but one day I came to realise that patience was all that was needed to make the potty training successful. Also, need to know what's their interest if you're planning on giving reward. If you're scared they will just do it for sweets then vary the reward slightly. When we first started, with stickers, it was a downfall from then because he wasn't interested with stickers yet we were trying to impose to him that it stickers are fun. Know your child. Some say wait till they are 'ready', but really, how are you to know when your child is ready to go to the toilet? There's not harm in trying or introducing them with the potty/toilet. If you are determined to diaperless their bottom, Insha'Allah, there will be a way for you too.

All the best to you Mommies and Daddies!!! This will be one of the easiest task we'll have to do for them. Once they are an adult, our task becomes more difficult. Insha'Allah we'll all be able to get through this challenge! :)

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