As Salaam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,
My wife’s cousin recently gave birth to a darling little girl, who they named Marium. When my wife and I went to visit them the first time after Marium was born, I jokily said, that when your child is still a baby and it stays up the whole night crying you will think it doesn’t get harder than this but you’d be wrong. It gets more and more difficult with each passing year until you reach the point that you wish you were only dealing with a few sleepless nights.
I said that as a joke but I meant it.
Dhuha is now three years old and constantly on the move, running at full speed for the 15 or 16 hours that she is awake. She loves to spill everything. Leave a drink, lotion, shampoo, oil or anything like it within reach of her and she will gleefully dump it all on the floor and then rub it into the carpet with her hand. We have to keep her from anything that is harmful to touch, such as the cat litter or anything that she can damage such as the kittens. One or two times she fell right on top of them in her excitement. Keeping track of Dhuha is a full time job. Mostly, I don’t mind because I know she is just innocently playing, Sabah at four is another matter.
Sabah at school or madressa is a shy, quite and obedient little girl. At home she wants to run the show and challenges us at every possible opportunity. Yesterday, she wanted a tree house and she wanted it now. She refused to go to the toilet, put on her abaya, read her lesson, eat her food or anything else until she got it. Her mother assured her that she will be going to madressa and if she doesn’t stop acting up she won’t be getting a tree house ever. Reluctantly, she listened and got dressed. Zahira asked me to take her to madressa fearing that she would act up once they got outside. Fine, I said and I walked her all the way to madressa without a peep or a struggle from her. Once, we got to madressa she refused to go inside and started to perform. Not wanting to look like an aggressive psychopath, I took her home. At home, I sent her to her room. After a few minutes I brought her down and told her to apologize to her mother for troubling her so much, Sabah refused and I had to take her back to her room. After a few minutes, I brought her down this time she apologized but refused to do her lesson. After going back and forth from her room she finally gave in and listened to me, did her lesson perfectly, and then went out to play. The whole experience lasted just over an hour.
Parenting is difficult, frustrating and draining but there are those moments that make all the trouble worth it. Every accomplishment of theirs is your accomplishment, you share their excitement, wonder and happiness and you experience their unconditional love.
Every night at bedtime, I come into the girls’ room and kiss Sabah on the head and she will either make an eww sound or ask ‘why you kiss my head?’ but she expects that kiss and if she thinks that I’m not going to do it she will say ‘kiss my head’. Next, I crawl into the bed next to Dhuha and she starts giggling in expectant anticipation and she wrappers her arms around my head and laughs as I kiss her face. Then I give them the full salaam, ‘As Salaam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu’ and a turn the lights out and close the door saying, ‘Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim’.
Those beautiful moments far outweigh any of the difficulties.
Oh Allah grant them and all the Muslims your paradise.
