Monday, December 21, 2015

Hari Ibu yang ke-sekian.

She knew I would knock her door and wake her up for morning prayer. Looks like she woke up earlier and put this in front of her door and back to sleep. Or pretended to.


mana ibu?
mana ibit?
 
----------------------

"Untuk ibu tergaul
dan ter-anti gaptek

Selamat Hari Ibu
Happy Mother's Day
Araw Pagbati Ina
Muttertags - Glückwunsche
*Sumber: Google Translate

Maafkan anak gadismu yang keseringan main HP. Mungkin kalau aku ngurangin main HP aku bisa jadi ranking satu, ya...

Stay young, stay healthy
Rajin rajin yoga
Semoga lancar selalu
Wo aini."

---------------
"Ibu aja nangis, ngko aku melu nangis"
"Ya wis tak adus wae"
---------------------
Ulang tahun kemarin ucapannya masih 'semoga bisa aerobic sampai tua', sekarang sudah ganti :))
 
Juga ada hadiah kecil dari Aik, yang dibikin bersama Bu Guru di sekolah. Anything he does would simply melt my heart...

 

Dan juga senyum manis dan malu dari sepasang anak kembar yang 'cuma' berkata, "he... aku tahu, ini Hari Ibu' tapi tidak pernah lupa bilang 'terima kasih' jika aku melakukan sesuatu buat mereka...
--------------------------------
I am so happy that Ibit chose to congratulate me on 22 December instead of on that world's Mother's Day in May. Because this Indonesian Mother's Day is honoring women more than mother, but also their existence in and outside the house, their contribution to family, society, nation, religion, human  lives. My kids understand why I 'leave' them for work and all other activities. 
Every year I think 'this is the best Mother's Day I ever have' but that because I didn't know what next Mother's Day would be. I'm not the best mother in the world, I could've been better if I would struggle more. But this is how I make myself a happy mother, so I can make my  kids happier.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Belajar Membaca Metode Fonemik

‎Jaman Ibit TK dulu, dia sendiri yang meminta diajari membaca. Berhubung waktu itu aku lumayan selo, aku membuat sendiri sebuah buku belajar membaca, dengan mengadaptasi cara belajar baca qur'an metode Iqro. Bikinnya tidak langsung jadi A-Z. Sesempatnya. Yang penting tersedia dulu materi yang akan dipelajari. Halaman pertama hanya berisi 'a' dan 'ba' yang diacak susunannya sampai Ibit paham benar. Halaman kedua ditambahi 'ca'. Demikian seterusnya. Di setiap halaman juga kuberi gambar warna-warni dengan spidol dan pensil warna, supaya menarik.

Di TK B, Ibit sudah lancar membaca. Lalu buku itu dipinjam oleh seorang temannya yang belum lancar membaca. Sampai sekarang buku itu belum kembali.... Haha ya ndak papa.

Ketika tiba masa Ar Ir belajar membaca, aku keetulan nemu buku belajar membaca dengan metode yang sama dengan yang kugunakan untuk mengajari Ibit. Piki‎rku lebih praktis beli saja. Lebih menarik juga untuk anak-anak. Aku beli dua, karena aku merasa selama aku sanggup membelikan, anak kembar juga berhak punya buku sendiri-sendiri. Alhamdulillah mereka juga sudah mulai lancar membaca ketika masuk SD.

Buku itu ‎kemudian dipinjam oleh tetangga kami yang juga punya anak kembar. Karena kukira Ar Ir tidak akan punya adik lagi, kuhibahkan saja buku itu pada mereka...

Sekarang masa Aik belajar membaca, aku mencari buku serupa milik Ar Ir dulu di Gramedia. Tapi ndak nemu. Akhirnya nemu yang mirip. Kertasnya terlalu tipis sehingga lebih mudah kusut, apalagi kalau Aik yang pegang. Tapi lumayan daripada ndak ada.

Ternyata praktik belajar dengan Aik tidak semudah melakukannya dengan kakak-kakaknya dulu. Konsentrasi Aik yang mudah pecah membuat dia sulit fokus pada fonem-fonem yang kutunjuk. Perhatiannya mudah teralih ke huruf-huruf lain dan gambar-gambar di buku itu.

Sempat hampir putus asa, aku teringat bahwa Aik cukup bagus dalam identifikasi dengan bantuan kartu. Akhirnya aku bikin sendiri kartu fonem mulai dari 'a' sampai 'za'. Ketika dia sudah familiar dengan 'a' dan 'ba', aku mencoba membawa Aik ke buku, dengan menutup halaman sebelahnya untuk mengurangi distraksi. Walaaa, berhasil!

Aku masih memakai kartu untuk menambahkan fonem berikutnya, meskipun sepertinya Aik sudah mulai paham harus fokus ke mana. Kartu masih lebih efektif untuk belajar dengan 'sambil lalu'. Ketika dia sedang bermain aku tunjukkan satu kartu untuk sekedar mengingat. Itu tidak akan bisa dilakukan dengan buku, karena dia akan langsung merasa keasyikannya bermain terganggu harus konsentrasi menghadap buku.

Anak lain pada umumnya butuh satu sesi untuk satu halaman. Aku tahu Aik akan butuh waktu berlipat. Tapi kalau tidak dilakukan, dia tidak akan dapat. Semangat!

Monday, June 22, 2015

Sebelum Menjadi Anak SMP

Ibit memakai jeansku, kemeja ayahnya, kerudungku. Kalau saja kakinya sudah cukup besar, mungkin dia pakai sepatuku.


Eh, kaki Ir ternyata lebih besar dari kakiku. Sebelum turun di halaman kantor Dinas Pendidikan untuk mengurus legalisir piagam Macapatnya, dia baru sadar tadi pakai sandal bukan sepatu. Maka dia pinjam sepatu Ibit, sepatu kets, jadi tidak masalah itu sepatu laki atau perempuan, Dia berjalan sambil meringis kesempitan. Sambil menunggu proses legalisir dia mencoba sepatuku, masih sempit juga, sedikit.

"Aku baru tahu kalau mendaftar SMP harus mengurus berkas ke kantor Dinas," katanya.
Itu karena kamu punya piagam yang harus dipastikan keabsahannya. Ar tidak.

"Dulu kupikir cari sekolah tidak perlu memikirkan nilai US. Pokoknya dari TK ndaftar SD, dari SD ndaftar SMP, lanjut terus tinggal pilih mau ke mana."

Kapan kamu tahu tentang itu?

"Kelas empat. Atau kelas lima."

Dan setelah itu baru kamu mulai serius belajar?

Dia tertawa.

***

Mengenang bagaimana sejak kelas satu hingga lima keduanya sekolah seperti semaunya, peringkat yang selalu di angka lebih dari setengah jumlah siswa di kelas. Kelas enam menjadi sedikit mendebarkan buatku, karena mereka masih mengikuti kurikulum 2006, masih memakai nilai hasil Ujian Sekolah (pengganti Ujian Nasional) untuk mendaftar SMP.

Mereka (juga aku dan Dan) ingin mereka bisa masuk ke SMP yang sama dengan Ibit. Karena berbagai alasan. Tapi dengan cara belajar dan nilai pas-pasan yang mereka biasanya punya, itu dekat di batas angan. Setelah beberapa kali pertemuan dengan guru wali kelas, dan memantau hasil beberapa kali try out, aku baru bisa mengurangi sedikit kekhawatiranku. Nilai mereka secara keseluruhan meningkat. Aku merasa cukup mereka belajar di sekolah dengan jam tambahan. Tidak ada les lagi. Hanya belajar pelajaran apa saja satu jam tiap malam. 

Kecemasan tidak pernah benar-benar hilang. Selalu ada kekhawatiran baru. Dan demikianlah kau menyayangi buah hatimu. Beban 'anak kembar' membebaniku. Apa yang harus kulakukan (kukatakan) jika nilai US yang satu lebih rendah (atau lebih tinggi) dari yang lain dengan selisih yang nyata? Bagaimana kalau mereka tidak bisa masuk sekolah yang sama? Dengan semua 'doktrin' dari sekitar, termasuk aku, bahwa kamu harus berusaha masuk SMP ini dan bukan yang itu?

Tuhan pasti menyayangiku, Dia tidak ingin aku menanggung beban pikiran. Nilai Ar nol koma sekian lebih tinggi, dan Ir punya piagam kejuaraan. Dengan sedikit penjelasan, Ir merasa tenang, bahwa bekal mereka untuk mendaftar SMP kurang lebih sama.


***

Di meja verifikasi piagam, Ir lupa syair Dhandhanggula yang ditembangkannya saat lomba. Aku tidak nemu video rekamannya yang (seingatku) kupajang di sini. Bapak penguji memancing-mancing Ir untuk mengingat tembang lain. Ibu petugas verifikasi di sebelahnya sibuk dengan berkas lalu memandang ke pintu masuk dan berkata, "Lho, itu anak kenapa malah berdiri di sana?"

Aku dan Ir menoleh ke sana. Ar
.
Itu saudaranya, kataku. Ir masih di kursinya, sedang mengingat syair tembang Gambuh.

"Loh, kok ada dua? Medeni!"

Ar lebih dulu maju ke meja verifikasi berkas pendaftaran, Ir baru menyusul sesudahnya, setelah selesai verifikasi piagam dan uji kemampuan. Berkas ditumpuk, duduk di kursi tunggu menanti panggilan.

Ar.
Khrisna.
Siapa lagi.
Siapa lagi.

Ar kembali membawa kartu pendaftaran. Pendaftaran selesai.

"Kenapa aku nggak segera dipanggil?" tanya Ir.

Karena memang kamu tidak langsung di urutan belakang Ar, ada beberapa anak selagi kamu diuji nembang.

Ir dipanggil ke meja terakhir. Dari kejauhan aku perhatikan, dua ibu guru petugas pendaftaran berpandangan, keheranan, mengecek lagi berkas pendaftaran. Aku sudah menduga mungkin mereka akan begitu. Dan mendekat membantu menenangkan mereka.

"Ini Ir, Bu. Tadi Ar."

"Oh? Oooh... ah... hahaha... makanya... tadi kayanya sudah... oh belum ya? Hahaha..."

***


Selesai untuk hari ini. Tinggal memantau jurnal setiap hari. Semoga tidak perlu cabut berkas dan mengulang proses dari awal ya Le.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

IG Yoga Love

It's amazing what internet can do.

When I decided to join IG Yoga Community, all I wanted to do was to learn yoga from/together with people around the world in a fun way. It goes way more than I expected. Not only I 'meet' wonderful people who help me improving my yoga practice, we also build beautiful friendship.

I received this card from Kate (@dennis_and_thewilsons) around January, she lives in US. She promised to let me put my feet on her car window, if one day I visit her.



And this souvenirs are from Kak Yzma (@yzmaiz), she lives in Malaysia. We, and Less (@lessxes) will have a cartwheel race. The race could be here in Semarang. Or in Australia where Less lives, because I want to see small kangaroos called wallaby.



And last month I had a wonderful evening with this warm loving lady Sher (@sheryljou), she lives in Bali but we first met in Instagram. It was so exciting to be able to meet a new friend we knew 'in the cloud', on the ground...



And this beautiful bracellet I'm wearing is from Sonia (@lilsonia_1), she also lives in US. I and her, oh and Steve (@angwin_yoga) is preparing for a practice together there at her house, and a party with beers and soda after that. Steve is still swimming and I am sailing, on our way there.


***
Love knows no language nor origin. It speaks in a universal way.

Receiving those gift from friends across continent, I remember when I was started blogging around 2008, I made friends with people around the world. Not only we communicate through each's blog, we swap gift one another and it was wonderful. Some of them are still blogging now some are not. Most have moved to FB and there we're connected and share about daily things we used to share on our blogs.

It just feels the same. It's beautiful to share love with people we never met before, far away yet feels so close. And I want to thank you, all beautiful souls for befriending me. Meeting you is a bless. 

I have a dream to meet them all. Don't say it will remain a dream. We never know which dream will come true.




Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Jarik Skirt Tutorial

When I have to wear kebaya, I usually wear my jarik in a certain way, a modified way and not the traditional one, so I can still walk in wide steps. That way I can keep my jarik original, no cut and sewing. I've made a quick tutorial about it couple months ago at Instagram.


Now as I have to wear kebaya (and that means also the jarik) to work every month on 15, that would be inconvenience. So I have done some experiments sewing jarik into skirt.

This is my first jarik skirt for work I wore last month.

Some friends have requested a tutorial of how to make the skirt. I wanted to record a video and me speaking but I don't understand how to edit a video and I didn't want to bother my daughter to do it, so here I tried to capture some pictures in my second experiment. It's a little bit different with the first one but, ya only a little bit.

First of all, what you need, and sorry I didn't take the picture of the materials:
- a piece of jarik
- elastic (2 cm width, your waist line length)
- thread
- scissors, sewing machine, measuring tape, straight needles.

Step 1.  
Fold your jarik in two. Cut a curve of quarter circle at the folded corner. You can see the measuring tape, there is your skirt length. Do't forget to add 1/2 inch for sewing space. Let's call this part 'side A' and the perpendicular side to it where we cut the curve  is the 'side B'. The curve will make your skirt's waist. Because I am going to put elastic here, it should be the hips line. The radius of the circle is = jarik width - skirt length. 
That usually will leave less then skirt length at side B, that's fine. For you with larger  hips, keep the skirt length at side A, and sacrifice few inches at side B.
I cut 4 cm of the edge line for the waist band (I marked it with the scissors). 







Step 2.
Put the two pieces of cut edges together inside out for the waist band. Jarik's width is usually 100 cm. Should you need more than it for larger hips (I hope you're not that large) you can get additional fabric with appropriate color.


Step 3.
Put the waist band together with the waist line curve inside out. We cut it in quarter circle when the jarik was folded. When we open it, the curve is actually half a circle.


Step 4. 
Put the elastic inside the waist band. The elastic length is your waist line, plus 1/2 inch  lid for sewing. Use some help of straight pins at both ends of the curve, also at the middle and at the quarters. This will help to spread the elastic evenly.



Now sew it. Hold tight two straight pins and pull, and sew between. Go on until we're done. Make sure you sew at the middle of the elastic width, and also at the inner edge along the waist band.


Step 5.
Put both sides of 'side B' together and sew it inside out.


Step 6.
Your skirt is ready here. It will fall elegantly on the floor and would be nice to go to party with.


But I am  making this one for work. I don't think walking around office sweeping the floor with your skirt is a brilliant idea so I will do a few more steps.

Step 7. 
Cut the jarik in skirt length, radiant to the center of the quarter circle curve we made before. You can't keep the length at the side B so you must stop somewhere at a certain point (mine is there marked with the measuring tape). Leave the rest to side B's end. Sorry for the photo bomber.


Step 8.
Here I will show you the difference I talked about at the beginning of this post.
In my first experiment with my white jarik, I didn't make a quarter circle for the waist line, but I cut it just a little bit arching line. I kept the skirt length at the side A side and sacrifice more at side B.



Both ways provide a big difference in the way of the skirts fall. My first skirt falls less in the front and much more in the back and creates beautiful drapery there. The half circled waist I made in my second experiment spreads the jarik evenly around the hips. The drapery I wanted doesn't come, and it makes the skirt a little bit weird. So I have to make it fall the way I wanted. Not as beautifully as the white one but it helps. I sew a line starting from the end of the waist line (where we put side Bs together in Step 5) to the certain point I mentioned in Step 7. Take a look again at the picture in Step 7, I sew right there where the measuring tape lies.

Step 9.
Sew the bottom edge of the skirt. I forgot to take a picture but you know where it is...

Step 10.
Oh. No more steps. We're done. It's ready to wear.


  
There you go. Not a pretty good tutorial but I hope it helps... Let me know if you're done with yours, by leaving a comment with a link to your picture. Or just send the picture me through email. Or BBM. Or whatsapp. Or Facebook. Or any other ways you like. Selamat mencoba!


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Love You More.

We have two guitars at home. I named my own 'David' and the other one that I've handed over to Ibit is 'Jasmine'. I let Ibit to play with either one, at home. Every one can feel that David is more comfortable to hold and play with. But any time Ibit needed to bring a guitar to school, I told her to just bring Jasmine. David has far better quality, and is much (yes much) more expensive than Jasmine. 

This morning she said she needed to bring her guitar.

"Use the bag," I said.
"Wich bag?"
 
We only have one guitar bag, and I usually use it to cover David.

"That, bag."
"David's inside. I'll just carry Jasmine."
"Get David out. Or... Just bring David."
"Really? I can bring David?"

Her eyes was shining bright, she looked so happy to be allowed to.

"Don't leave him at school.."
"No I won't. I promise! I will never leave David at school!"



I love David much. I take care of him as how any musician takes care of their instrument. I do my best to protect him from scratch, bump, water, humidity. I have protected him from my worries of all those harms by not letting Ibit bring him to school. Not because I don't trust Ibit. But because I don't know how her friends would treat him, they might not understand the bond I and David have.

Ibit understands this. And she was okay with that.

But I love Ibit more. It felt so good, so great, to see her all cheered up.