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About Asbah Alaena

I’m Asbah. A servant of Allah who is a muslim by birth and choice, Accountant by way of studies, an artist at heart and a Unschooling mom to 5 kids. This blog had been my major writing rendezvous when I was young but post Gaza things have take a different turn. I hope to write more about our unconventional life choices specially in todays day and age.

Letter L crafts

The frequency of our letter crafting has reduced to one letter a month from one letter a week. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks we regain our older frequency and finish up fast.

Also, It is now that I have begun seeing the fruit of all this effort, my 3 yo is picking up phonics by recalling the craft we did. her steps are:

  1. she recalls a crafts e.g. we made a Door
  2. then she recalls the letter e.g. D is for Door.
  3. then she tries to figure out the sound the letter makes – e.g. (if D is for door and dog) Daa is the sound of D

This enough had motivated me to resume doing our letter crafts and here are the crafts for letter L.

Toddler and Preschooler letter L crafts (9) Continue reading

Eid Mubarak!

r, lie, a lot

An Eid, two weddings and flying back to cayman in next 10 or so days and of course, two tiny tots to attend to, well, most of the times, means I am jam packed.

I always believed that two “C’s” Cooking & Crafting – are the best way to celebrate anything. But all the precious time before Eid was spent in shopping and Visiting friends & family. I should have planned better! so this Eid I would like to present an awesome & easy Eid Bunting made by an Incredibly creative person who fortunately happen to live with me, my sister-in-law Hafsa (aka honey). Continue reading

Laws of Parenting

This is definitely My personal favorite :/ Every single time I am bone cracking tired, my kids lose all the interest in falling asleep. They want to run around, with me following them, persuading, coercing and even threatening then to go to bed, but they run away laughing & giggling.

and sometimes, when I am all fresh they surprise me by sleeping so early!

so I think, in the laws of parenthood:

Time required by a baby to fall asleep ∝

Tiredness of a mother

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Independence day Accessories

The independence day is crawling near and every street is slowly turning green.

70 years ago, on the auspicious day of August 14, my country Pakistan was declared an Independent state. However, millions were killed during the process. To honor their sacrifice, every year on August 14, Pakistani people don green, flags are hoisted on cars and houses, Green buntings and banners are made and hung on doors and walls and in the hum of patriotic songs we recall our promise to love our homeland till our last breaths. Insha Allah.

Despite the political mayhem which is prevailing the country, I think I am patriotic. I love my country. And naturally I want my kids to love their homeland too. IMG_5026.JPG

I want them to be part of celebrations, wear green attires, put on badges, make crafts and wear green accessories. Here are three easy accessories for Girls suitable for Independence day. Continue reading

Are you a Good parent?

My Article for Muslimah Bloggers.

 

Parenting is a tough job. It requires constant attention, care, concern, effort, time, energy and love as well. It isn’t something one can take for-granted, after all it is a formation of an individual person,  development of a Human being. And in turn nurturing of a nation.

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However, in recent times parents and specially mothers have been guilty of not doing their job of raising kids properly. We are made to lose focus on something that should be of prime importance – parenting. We have media, social media, shoppings, socializing and a rat race to maintain status quo, in addition to career & family commitments and stresses to distract us.

The results are horrifying – we have hyper active kids, depressed kids, kids with psychological disorders, under-confident kids, stressed kids and kids who show other serious behavioral and even physical disorders. This is a strange sadness. Despite all the gadgets and toys and accessories, we have failed in providing a happy childhood to our own children. Continue reading

Comic Graphs – 2

The season have been changing, and sudden outburst of rainfall (and the ice-cold soft drink, which I would not give blame to) made me sniff and cough for some time now. Those days (and particularly the nights) were toughest, my kids were more upset than usual. The tantrums increased manifolds. The crying sessions were longer.

Ugh. I concluded:

Crankiness of a child   ∝     Illness of a mother

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7 Ways to make your kids Readers.

I have loved books and I want my kids to love them as well. 6 Steps that I take as a mother of two toddlers in hope to instill love of books in them are:

Book reading

1) Buy books.

Sometimes we are so caught up in buying them clothes and toys that we forget to buy them books. I think I have personally bought more books for them than toys. And actually made few myself for them as well. one example of an interactive fruit book I made for my baby can be seen hereContinue reading

My Guest Article at Piouscouple.com

Early Qualms of Marriage. My guest article for piouscouple.com

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All my life the one job I had ever wanted to excel in, was motherhood. For that reason I spent most of my bachelor days grooming myself to best fit the roles of a wife & a mom. From cooking & crafting to courses after courses on ‘how to be best at marriage’ and ‘how to raise perfect kids’. And then, I thought I was ready.

Besides, in my sibling’s words, I was an ‘incredible bachelor’. I had a lot on my credentials from academics to house managing, if not extraordinary, I, he said, fairly qualified for the above average.

Therefore, years ago when I was getting married, amidst the joy of the big day approaching near, I was sure of this one thing – I would naturally excel in marriage and everything that is a consequence of marriage. And of course I would be an awesome mom. Continue reading