Aisha's Stimulation Activities

Aisha's genuine moves in Taman Suropati

First of all, I would like to aplogize for series of blog posts about Aisha, in english, this past few days. I was learning how to write in english, since I will have an English test this early January 2014. The most idea that enable me to write faster at this moment would be Aisha, so here we go I talk about Aisha over and over again, hehee. But, since this is my blog, I can just write what I want right? Haha. Thanks to Blogspot !

So in this post, I would like to review about Aisha's stimulation activities that has significant impacts on her development up to this almost 20 months old. I would also write about the activity I plan to do with her for the weekends, based on small research (read: Google), I have done during my free time in the office.  (I will write about those topic differently in other post).

Having taking care my own daughter for almost two years, I started to believe that Stimulatin is VERY VERY important. If we assume that baby's development is a product, stimulations are the machines to gain a fabricated product we expected. How we stimulate our kids will decide how our baby tends to be. For example, I just realized last night that I have been stimulating Aisha more on verbal and speech, which finally lead her to have more speech developments and skills than those of any "exercising/moves" activity. To prove, as I wrote before in my previous post, Aisha could speak mama and papa (and she meant it) before the agre of 12 months, but only walked after 14 months. 

Okay this is a list of stimulations that has been received by Aisha and has a significant impact to her development. Thus, I consider to continue give this stimulation.

1. Books related stimulation

Aisha reads a small books on her own.

I have been excited in baby books when I started to get pregnant. Yes, it was me who are excited. I myself do not love books unconditionally. Well, I read a book quite alot too though, but I read it merely because I feel I have to: to finish my job and to increase my knowledge consciously. I think my "book relationship" is resulted of my education backgrounds which encourage me to read alot as a social science student, and I did alot. But I remember I havelimited access to book when I was a kid, especially those good books, due to my family financial condition. Thus, to thank God that I could buy good books for my daughter, I always excited whenever I see a goog books: full colour, simple but not merely page (usually come with sounds, furr, magnet, wipe page, etc), I bought the books and read them to Aisha. My husband usually gives me a comment, if not a complaint, on why I buy more books while Aisha already have many. Until he sees the result that Aisha loves those book and start to "read" at the age of  1,5 year. Well, Aisha could not read the words of course, but she could already understand the story I told her, she could pointed out most of every objects in the books, she could imitate most of words I read to her, and even she started to read on her own using her own words and imagination! Besides, Aisha already able to ask me to read her a book before she sleep, she said "butu..butu.." while pointing a book shelf above our bed. She has several favourite books and ask her dolls to read the books: "Gadah..bata..bata..butu.." while holding her elephant dolls in front of the book.

2. Outdoor Stimulations

Well, Aisha's outdoor stimulation was not on a daily basis since both of me and my husband work a full day on the weekdays, and we do not allow our baby sitter to go outside the house with Aisha frequently. But I try to make our weekend the best outdoor activities for her. I almost as excited as her when we have a morning walk in the neighborhood. At first I showed her about birds, cat, trees, leaves, rain, water, ponds, and fish to her. And now she is the one who told me those outdoor stuffs by pointing her finger and said the words: "itan mandi" (kan mandi), "ain" (air), "poyon" (pohon), "buyun" (burung), "kutin" (kucing). I also encourage her to relate the outdoor objects with songs and then sing together. We sing about Burung Kutilang, Burung Hantu, Pelangi, Naik Kereta, etc. Actually I have a wish to plan a weekend class for Aisha, thaught by me with specific target and indicator. But I never managed to do it intetionally. 

Aisha asked us to ride her a horse in ITB Campus in one sunday morning

Ragunan Cycling is one of our most routine outdoor activities

Watering is her favourite

Sunday morning walks in Car Free Day

3. Speech Stimulation

Both me and my husband are enjoy to speak (well, talkative you may say :p). Both of us can spend hours to just talk at home, although we already meet everyday, haha. And probably Aisha also inherit this behaviour. In her 20 months no, she almost never stop making a sound from her mouth: either speaking, singing, laughing and smiling, or crying! We stimulate her to speak conciously though. We talked to Aisha since the first day she was born. We asked her every question a baby should ask, like: "itu apa?", "Mau kemana?", "Yang mana?", "Kenapa?", "dari mana?" to stimulate her, and we succeed, she started to ask questions now: "Apa itu?/apa ini?" and "Mana?". We talk to her in our language (I never try to imitate her baby voice such as tutu for susu, butu for buku, etc). This helps Aisha learn the correct word faster. I remember that she learnt to say: Mimik for only 2 weeks. The first she said: "mam" for "mimik", then it improved into "mik", and she said correctly "mimik" after 2 weeks. Also, we tried to tell her every objects and activities she sees and does. At first she did not responded on what we said (for example we said "Aisha sedang makan nasi"), and then she  imitated our words, and now she is the one who explain to us what she does: "ayta mam nayi". I don't know with other babies, but I am sure that the ability of Aisha's speech in her 20 months old now is on the advanced development of her stage.

She said: "adek..mimik ya?" to a doll. Ah she is no longer a baby.

Aihsa shows us where is Simbah, and here she goes pointing while laughing.

4. Stimulation with Educative Toys
I guess most parents like to buy toys for their kids. I do too. But what makes me excited in buying new toys for her is that I believe those toys could build someting in Aisha's development. BUT, actually, the bad news is that, most of Aisha's toys is educative toys...and probably less fun than any challenging toys. I realized this when my husband reminded me that Aisha's toys are "serious" ones (wooden blocks, bricks, wire game, Do-re-mi musics, books, flash cards, sortings, etc). Well, I don't want to waste my money, right? haha. Luckily since last week Aisha started her daycare. And in the daycare there are aloooot of challenging toys that attract Aisha's attention. It was a surprised for me that she enjoyed alot the toys, and stimulate her to move, to walk, to climb, and probably boost her adrenalin (plosotan) as she plays them by her own. So I guess this combination has been perfect for her, Alhamdulillah.

A corner where we gather most of Aisha's toys

I counted she almost able to recognize more than 60 pictures from a card/books.

Toys in the daycare

Toys presentation :p

Okay this is for now. To sum up, stimulation is a need for every baby. As a parent, I feel that I have the utmost responsibility in giving her the stimulations she should receive. Moreover, I feel that Aisha is receiving new informations and knowledge from me faster and better. She always shows her happy faces when I teach her something. It is indeed true that a moslem proverb said: a mother is the biggest madrasah (school) for her kids. I pray to Allah that He will ease my way in educating Aisha in the most possible way I could, to increase my knowledge to be the best mother and school for Aisha's development.

I also thanks to God for entrusting Aisha in our care.

cheers...