[Memoirs from Umi and Baba]
This is a long overdue story, when Nenek went to Umrah for 2 weeks in early January. All this while, we have been sending Nadhrah to Nenek's place on work days, and have never thought of sending her elsewhere.
sending Nenek at the airport...
..where I got to see the air plane!! (of course, this is only the kids' playland airplane)
When Nenek's impending flight to Umrah came, we set out to look for a nursery where we can send Nadhrah while we go to work. It needed to be close by to our place, and we encountered upon Taska Oren, which was located inside the compounds of the Matrade building, pretty close by to us. The facilities looks fine, the cost was also very reasonable, and their terms was nothing out of the ordinary.
So we paid the registration fees, with plans to send Nadhrah for a month as a testing period. If everything goes well, then we will continue to send Nadhrah to the Taska, where she can have friends her age and learn plenty of new things.
We started the build-up to her nursery days by continuously telling Nadhrah that she will be going to school, have friends, play around, learn new things and all, and she seemed excited to go. Everytime we send Nadhrah to Nenek's place, we would pass by a few nurseries and schools, and Nadhrah would always say "Nadhrah nak pegi sekolah tuuuu..."
So the first day of nursery came for our little girl. Umi was so concerned and couldn't stand the emotional roller-coaster that she asked Baba to send Nadhrah to the nursery. The first day Baba sent her, it seemed uneventful. Baba passed Nadhrah to the teacher, said some encouraging words and kissed Nadhrah goodbye. When Umi fetched her back at the end of the day, her face was so sebak, but the teacher said she was okay and enjoyed her first day.
Then the next day came. Immediately after she woke up, she said that she didn't want to go to school. She cried and cried and repeatedly said "Nadhrah tanak pegi sekolah...". When Baba's car came to the nursery's compunds, she cried and didn't want to be let go. It was these kind of heart-wrenching stuff that Umi wouldn't have been able to handle.
Over the course of the first week, she continuously said "Nadhrah tanak pegi sekolah..." whether it's in the morning or at night. We tried asking her some of the stuff that she learnt and experienced in Taska, but she would become all emotional and teary-eyed whenever the words "school", "taska" or "sekolah" came up.
In the second week, Nadhrah got some fever and flu. We thought she was recovering during the weekend, so we sent her to the nursery on the Monday as usual. But on Tuesday her fever got worse and Umi had to take an emergency leave for 2 days to take care of Nadhrah. We sent her to the nursery on Thursday, and on Friday Baba sent her to TokMama's place in PJ instead just to entertain her and let her play with cousin Aimar.
The next week Nenek was back from Umrah and Nadhrah was happy to see Nenek and get some presents from her. Nenek also asked Nadhrah how was her experience in school but she would get emotional again and we didn't really get to know what was her actual experience during school.
wearing my presents from Mekah
We knew the eating part would be a bit difficult cos Nadhrah does not eat certain foods that they were preparing such as bread (she feels like throwing up everytime we toast bread at home cos she couldn't stand the smell of toast!!). But as far as other things she did, like playing with other kids her age and learning new stuff, we didn't really know how she coped and what she did cos she didn't wanna tell us anything.
In the end Nadhrah's nursery experience was only on those two weeks plus one day on the third week. We sent her to the nursery to give Nenek some time to rest, but Nenek would ask us to send her back to her place again after that. We don't have anything bad to say about the nursery, we think they did a good job, but unfortunately Nadhrah's own feeling and emotions towards her experience being left with strangers wasn't so great, and it wasn't a good experience for us as well dealing with her emotional days.
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One fine day, way after her nursery experience, we learnt that she did learn something... Suddenly, out of nowhere :
Nadhrah : Allahumma barik ana... fima rozaq ana... waqina azabannar... amin
(Baba looked at Umi, and Umi looked at Baba, startled)
Baba : Uiks!! Mana Nadhrah belaja tu?
Nadhrah : Kat sekolah..
Umi : Sape ajar Nadhrah?
Nadhrah : Cikqu Tiqah (her teacher's name) ajar..
