Sulaiman is a brilliant child. He taught himself to read when he was 3 years old, knows all the names of the planets, stars, moons, VY Cannis Majoris and UY Scuti, and was on the way to being multilingual before we had to move house and change his kindy because of Ayub’s special needs.

I am constantly feeling guilty over Sulaiman. He’s always in the shadow of his very loud, extremely charismatic, big brother Ayub. And since Aisha’s arrival in 2016, he gets even less attention. Also, because he’s such an intelligent, soft-spoken, sweet boy, we never really have to worry or fuss over him.

Oh, sweet middle child. This post is dedicated to youuuuuu!

Sulaiman’s fascination with maps

Whenever we bring the boys to the bookstore to buy a book each, Ayub will pick some horror-ghoulish-zombie-type story book. Sulaiman will pick a non-fiction book, usually about the solar system or like… an atlas.

Sulaiman loves maps. He spends his phone time looking at Waze and Google Maps. For his 5th birthday, he asked for red velvet cake, a Pokemon plushie, and a globe. The kid owns multiple books on flags, maps, and geography. He can tell you the time and distance to get from our house to specific locations in Malaysia, if there’s no traffic. Sulaiman memorised the capital cities of all 195 countries in the world, as well as certain populations of his favourite nations.

Anyway, when we went to Penang last year, Mr Ninja brought them to a convenient store to pick one thing each. Ayub chose chocolates. Sulaiman chose a notebook and pen.

Here’s what he did with his notebook and pen:

Sulaiman filled his notebook with “maps” of our journey and stay in Penang. I think it’s awesome. Unfortunately Aisha got her grubby little baby hands on his notebook and destroyed it. Sulaiman cried a lot. These were the only pages I could salvage. Aisha is the worst.

Sulaiman’s journal entries are the best

At the beginning of the year, I got the boys to start journals. One entry a day. It didn’t last long. But while it did, it was amazing. Sulaiman the overachiever started two journals and would write in both every day. Ayub is the opposite but we found a way to make journal writing fun for him.

So cute. I have to find his other journals.

Sulaiman’s goals for 2017

I was teaching the kids about accountability and goal-setting. So we all sat down to create our plans for the year. Of course, once it was done and stuck on the wall of the living room, none of us really took notice of it. This Mama ain’t accountable haha.

But look at Sulaiman’s goals:

He pretty much did everything he set out to do. He’s a good kid. I love this kid.

Ayub’s goals, on the other hand, were ridiculous but I’ll save that for another day.