Raising kid is not only giving them visible things like feeding, dressing, cleaning, but also invisible. And, one of the most important invisible things we have to give them is build their confident. It’s not easy.

Love and accept them unconditionally.

One of my favorite places here, Manado, is Kawasan Megamas. It's a reclamation area with 37 hectares (I got this information from the celebes site). It is located not far from I live, only about 500 meters - 1 km. I found that place by coincidence.

When I was still a new resident here (about 4 months ago), I only saw Megamas from the outside. Although the location is quite famous for the people of Manado, but at that time I was still not interested to come in. From the side of main road, all I see is just a shopping area. So, even though I pass by the area almost every day, I still have no interest in stopping by Megamas. What's the difference with the others, nothing special, that's what's on my mind. 

But, I'm totally WRONG!!

One night, when we just went from somewhere and the umpteenth time right past this area, I said to my husband, "Mas, Let's come by here for a while," and he answered, "Yes!"

I just want to know, what kind of area that is quite famous among Manado people is like.  And it turns out, the area is not I thought, behind the shophouses I saw as if there was another world. Since then, we often go there, at least on weekends.

Then, what makes the Megamas area my favorite place. For me, here are some reasons:

1. The location is strategic, not far from home.

We don't need much effort to reach it. The distance is less than 1 km. By walking or by car, both can. We don't have to go far just to refresh our mind. It's a super short escape place.

2. There is a car free day every saturday and sunday from 5 to 9 am, yeah twice a week. My son can bike on that day. Alhamdulillah.

3. We can enjoy the sea and beautiful sunset.

4. Some fast food restaurants provide drive thru (KFC, MCD, Starbucks, Burger King), so we don't have to get out of the car if we want to eat. That is very suitable in the current situation, isn't it?

5. We can picnic in the car while enjoying the beauty of the sea. We can bring food for lunch or buy it by drive thru or buy it at Indomaret/Alfamart which is there.

6. As I wrote above, Kawasan Megamas seems to have its own world. It provides many things, not entertainment, but also daily necessities. I can say Kawasan Megamas is complete. I also buy daily necessities here.

7. I can see the tip of Bunaken Island and the Manado tua Island from here.

8. There is a delicious meatball stall here: bakso solo samrat (Sam Ratulangi).

With the various advantages that the Megamas area has and makes the place my favorite place, Megamas will be the most mainstream place as long as I live in Manado for the next two years. It's like Tsukuba Senta when I lived in Japan some time ago.

But, in the situation like this, we can’t go wherever and whenever we want freely. Honestly, there are so many activities we can do as long as staying at home. They are:

• Cooking, trying a new recipe
• Cleaning room or house
• Reading
• Playing with kid
• Watching film
• Learning something/useful thing
• Blogging or writing
• Talking many topics with our spouse or family member
• Doing sport that can be done at home
• ... Working from home
  

Although working from home seems easy, but in reality it’s complicated. We have to face and deal with these challenges:

1. About managing the time wisely

We have to divide our time for many activities, especially if we are a mom too. In the same time, we have to do many things. So, managing time during we are at home is a must. It’s not simple.

2. About dealing with our perfectionist side

Are we perfectionist person? If the answer is yes, we have to be careful because we can get stressed easily. In fact, it doesn’t matter if our plan can’t be real. We are not a loser just because we can do all things at the same time.

3. About feeling alone

Our team is far away. We connect with them just only by the social media. It makes us feel lonely. It seems like sometimes we are a lone ranger.

4. About people will judge you as a jobless no matter how busy you are

Working from home makes us so busy. We have to take care of all things. But, because we are staying at home all day long, so people judge us easily as a jobless. They don’t care about our condition. All the know is we are almost at home from morning to night, everyday. And for them it means… we are unemployment. So sad.

5. About being difficult to focus

Then, why I choose to work from home. 🙂

Honestly, I love working, I mean… I love earning money and doing useful thing. I don’t care wherever I work, as long as I enjoy it, I’ll be happy.

1. More flexible

2. Feel more productive when working alone, not in a team

3. Hate office politic or dramas

4. Wanna be with family while working

5. An introvert

Basically, everyone has their own reasons for same choice. How about you?

Being a mom is not easy. Sometimes it can make us loss the sanity. Especially if we don’t have experience/we are a new mom. 

As a new mom, sometimes, we still feel confused, stress, exhausted, and all another uncomfortable feelings. Don’t blame ourselves because it’s so normal. We are still in adaptation process.

There is a time where you feel exhausted or just hate yourself or your spouse. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your child.

Yeah, being a mom is never easy, especially a new mom. But, we all believe that every expert was an amateur. So is a mom. We also believe that happy mommy makes kids happy too.

There are 5 points we should do to be a happy mom.

1. Love yourself, make your life meaningful.

I believe that every mom has their own way to make them feel meaningful. We often hear that before loving another we have to love ours. But in fact, we find difficulties to love ourselves unconditionally. We often hate ourselves. 

Then, how to love ourselves?

• Don’t compare our life. I know, It’s easy to be written, but it’s difficult to be done sometimes. 
• Don’t be perfectionist. It will kill us. It doesn’t matter if sometimes we so mistakes. Everyone does. Don’t push our selves to be an idealist or too good to be true. It’s impossible. Everyone has their own scar.
• Do exercise/sport we love.
• Enjoy the process. Enjoy the moment. Remember that motherhood is not a competition and childhood never come back.
• Don’t judge ourselves easily just because we can’t do some thing. We’re not a superhuman. Don’t push your self in high expectation. You are not a wonder woman. Don’t be perfect, be a normal.
• Don’t love and hate too much. It makes us disappointed.
• Don’t seek an attention. Just do our best.

2. Don’t be too active on social media like FB, Twitter, IG, or others which make our enery drain. Don’t waste the time. Be an independent mom. I mean we do not need others’ approval to be happy. No matter how they said, we have to be ourselves.

3. Be thankful. I finally became a mom after eight years of marriage. Alhamdulillah. Be grateful every day. 🤗

4. It doesn’t matter if sometimes we cry a lot just because a simple thing, but make sure that we have the solutions after all. We have to move on and move forward.

5. Manage our inner child well.

Do you believe that everyone has their own another side? It’s called inner child. There is always a child inside of adult. Maybe, it sounds nice. But, unfortunatelly, it’s not. Inner child can damage our future if we can’t manage them well.

The cambrigde dictionary explained that inner child is a child personality that will react when something happened that related with your past: bad experience or unfinished business. Inner child has two kinds: positive and negative. Positive inner child makes our life as adult more interesting, not boring. But, negative inner child? Not only ourselves who can be suffer, bur also the others.

Then,As long as we life, it’s so imposibble if our life is always be okay. Sometimes, we hurt by people’s behaviour. Or in another time, we are being someone who hurt another one.

How to deal with inner child?

• Identificate what the problems you still feel until now which happened when you were child or young.
• It doesn’t matter if you still have bad feeling about your bad experience in the past. Don’t be denial person. Accept them all. Accept that sometimes you are so weak and fragile. Not only you, but all people do the same. It’s normal.
• Then, promise to yourself that no matter how hard your life and how bad your past, you can be a better person. It doesn’t mean you have to be someone who can get everything. No, it’s not like that because all the achievements are meaningless if you are not happy. So, being a better person means being a happy one. Be happy for the first. Not for them, but for you.
• Forgive! Yeah…. I know It’s not easy, but if you want to step forward to the next higher level, you have to set them free. You have learned many things that is useful for your future.

I hope those points I wrote above can remind you help me help us to be a better mom, be a happy mom. I believe when we are trying to give the best to our family, our children, spouse, and... ourselves.

Happiness is not only looking happy face with smiley, but also when the inner has the same condition with the outer. Let's be a happy mom! 

Setelah mengikuti orientasi pelatihan calon Relawan Keluarga Kita atau lebih dikenal dengan istilah RANGKUL, selanjutnya bagaimana?

Ya, seperti yang sudah saya singgung pada postingan sebelumnya bahwa tahun ini saya bergabung sebagai RANGKUL. Setelah proses seleksi, Alhamdulillah, saya dinyatakan lolos sebagai ((calon)). Ya, masih calon karena kami harus mengikuti proses berikutnya.

Empat minggu mengikuti pelatihan sebagai calon Rangkul secara blended, termasuk mengerjakan tugas-tugas, alhamdulillah akhirnya saya lolos sebagai RANGKUL.

Sumber gambar ini dan satu gambar di atasnya: IG @rangkulkeluargakita

Lalu, setelah orientasi pelatihan calon relawan keluarga kita (RANGKUL), selanjutnya apa? Kami sudah boleh mengadakan sesi sesuai dengan pembekalan yang didapat sebelumnya. Namun, agar ilmu yang didapat lebih mumpuni lagi, kami harus mengikuti program basic parenting yang dimulai sejak minggu kemarin hingga Oktober nanti. Sama seperti sebelumnya, proses pembelajarannya pun dilakukan secara blended melalui platform sekolah.mu (sebuah platform yang begitu familiar sejak Taka menjadi siswa PAUD TK A di SMM yang notabene menggunakannya juga).

Sebenarnya, saya sudah mendapat materi mengenai basic parenting di tempat Taka sekolah. Ya, sebagai orang tua yang anaknya sekolah di SMM, saya mendapatkannya secara otomatis.

Basic parenting yang saya dapat sebagai walimurid SMM PAUD TK A dan sebagai RANGKUL

Namun, tetap saja ada perbedaan. Jika materi basic parenting sebagai walimurid SMM PAUD TK A semuanya dilaksanakan secara mandiri, di RANGKUL ada sesi interaksi dengan fasilitator (plus ada tugas-tugas yang harus dikerjakan). Seperti yang sudah saya jelaskan di awal, pelatihan basic parenting sebagai RANGKUL dilaksanakan seperti sebelumnya, blended. Sampai saat ini, pelatihan seminggu sekali via zoom masih terus dilakukan.

Sebagai orang tua yang memiliki anak di zaman serba menantang seperti sekarang ini, saya berharap apa yang saya dapat bisa bermanfaat untuk keluarga dan sekitar. Doakan, ya.

Pengasuhan anak adalah tanggung jawab bersama. Tidak ada orang tua yang sempurna, jadi yuk saling me-RANGKUL. Sebagaimana kata pepatah it takes a village to raise a child.