Namaz time

My masala is full!

Namaz time at my house is awesome. Yusuf does namaz with me and pretty well I'd say for a 3 year old. He stands next to me, does niyaat, ruqu and sujud and even understands that we do namaz to do shukur. And in his words, "Shukur means 'Thank you'" All this while Nooriya "does namaz" too. Her idea of namaz is to do sajda and roll around pretty much everywhere I can possibly put my head down for sajda. Then we all do Ya Husein! and Ya Syeda Shohadai matam. After namaz is over we taught Yusuf and Nooriya do salaam to us, a great tradition we saw friends do with their son.

I'm pretty sure I'm at a low for focus and concentration during namaz, but it is awesome! I hope this namaz time stays with Yusuf and Nooriya for a long time (and hopefully it counts a little too!)

I need to get a california king-sized masala:)

Fish is Fish

There's a children's book out called Fish is Fish. It is a fable about a fish who is friends with a frog. The fish wonders what things are like on land and the frog explains and describes the different animals on land. All the fish can do is imagine a fish with the same description.

The frog describes a bird and the fish imagines a fish with wings.

This image moved me. I hope to keep the appreciation of my lack of perspective all the time.

Big Boy

Some huge Moula news this weekend. Like many, I imagine, I received it with mixed feelings. It took lunch today with Yusuf and Nooriya to put it in perspective for me.

"Can you feed me abba?" Yusuf said to me in his sweet persuasive voice. Usually, the response is, "you're a big boy, eat". But I just couldn't say anything other than, "sure!" I fed him happily, as he counted the number of bites, told me a semi-nonsense story as he made it up and drew a rhino upon request. Right next to us Nooriya was babbling some words, mostly nonsense and gesturing for me to feed her too. It wasn't long ago that was Yusuf, and not too long from now Yusuf won't want me to feed him.

This froze me; I couldn't stop myself from thinking of all the potential on both sides of me. Nostalgia describes how I was feeling, but nostalgia for the future not the past (I'm sure there's a word for that). And then time started to pass again. I was jolted into the present by the Yusuf and Nooriya screaming for me to appreciate what was on either side of me.

This is helping me process the news. An awesome, exciting future is ahead. There is an awesome and exciting right now to be cherished. Mubarak!