Half-term entertainment

It's been half-term this week, and DH was supposed to go to London yesterday but the bankruptcy of Sterling airlines meant that he went today instead(on another airline of course). More and more of these 'financial crisis' things lead me to think about how Islamic financial system would avoid these sorts of things. How an airline can still take bookings when it knows it's in grave financial difficulties confounds me. Anyhow, that meant at least he was around to take the boys plus a friend to the science museum yesterday. I didn't have to go, phew, there are only so many times I can go there, but S particularly never gets bored of it, mashaAllah.

Today I took them to the library where they were having a visitor from the Reptile centre showing the children some of their animals. Funny, but he had as well as lizards, turtles and snakes, spiders, scorpions and beetles; I think they need to rename their zoo. The children who were very chuffed to have got front row seats, soon changed their minds as the keeper brought out the various fear-inducing creatures. It was the way he whipped them out the big wooden box he'd brought them in that also enhanced the effect, there were kids screaming all over the place, and he had to keep saying 'This is a library we must keep the noise down. I thought this would be most entertaining for H and Biryani, but it was M and S who's jaws were dropping, while H wanted to play with my phone (he's been to the museum with nursery, so maybe, been there done that type attitude) Biryani was a little worried. None of mine wanted to hold the huge, lengthy python (?) the keeper produced as his hat-trick at the end, but most of the other kids overcame their fears and helped to hold the snake (it took about 6 or 7 children at once to hold it along its length).

After this we have visited friends, and have found out the Dads are planning to have a meeting soon to organise some activities for the older boys, alhamdulilah, it is really more appropriate now for them to be 'with the men' , rather than with their mummies all the time.(Gives us a break too!)

and S likes woodwork..

Boy awarded about £450 damages after assaulted by teacher

Things that come into my head whilst feeding Hz

sms ringtones.
Microwaves beeps,
Screams and shouts,
bounce off these ever decreasing,
small,
walls.

Grass, greener.


Laughs, sleepy sighs,
Milk slurps,
Grey skies,
Warm soup,
Trust, du'a

Grass, yellow,
withering.

Last leaves of Autumn

MashaAllah, these trees greet me with a an orange glow as I view them from my kitchen window in the morning. I know the leaves' days are numbered, and I hoped to go to go for a walk in the woods to see the full splendour of the warm shades of colour of the leaves. However I have decided to limit use of the car this last week due to my back, and DH came back a bit later so he was not around to assist me with lifting kids in and out of the car.

As I expected, the early starts for school run has tired me out, rather than the baby. Hz's excellent sleeping pattern is, at the moment (I hasten to add), 9 p.m until til approx 6.30 am and then another couple of hours after a feed. Those extra 2 hours I could grab if didn't have to get kids ready for school would make a big differnce to me. Funny how Saturday morning the children finally get into the school routine and wake extra early when I could actually have a 'lie-in' alhamdulillah.

So we are all pretty flaked out when they are home from school, then it's food, prayers and homework (not necessarily in that order, depends on the child!). So getting on with anything extra is tough, but alhamdulillah, the children are (sometimes) asking for things/ doing things themselves. S asked to go over his surah they're learning at school again, and also his best friend is able to help him practice when they visit each other as he knows a lot of Quran mashAllah. S also decided to make a maths workbook on the computer today, so maybe inshAllah young Hz can have a copy when he reaches the right age!

H likes the way the Peter and Jane books progress and I think he will be v chuffed when he can (eventually) do 12b (as will I!). He also asks me to practice surahs with him before bed, which is good as by that time I'm feeling like flopping on the bed/sofa, but as he's asked I can hardly refuse can I?

Autumn and Spring, observing the past, preparing the new

I haven't been able to find time to blog for a while, although Hz is a relatively easy baby mashaAllah (sleeping through the night already?!) 24 hours divided by more and more bodies in the house leaves less for 'extra' things like this. S is home again with a cold, i think 3rd time this term. DH has popped off to Holland for a week, so that's one less although then I have the school run to do myself, hope my back holds out, as getting them in and out of car seats is the killer. The ibuprofen and co codamol are just about keeping it bearable now alhamdulillah.

Anyway, here're some pics:



Those flowers did turn out to be pink...

and inspiration from you know who you are via Ihsan Newsletter got us planting bulbs. Still have some hyacinths to do as I think they'd like to see some plant-growing-action a bit more quickly. (Cress seeds are probably my best option actually..)

Some autumn leaves... and H and M went out with their Nature Detectives website leaf bags and brought in lots of 'nature'. H made his into some 'tea' for a ceremony. (Japanese tea ceremony he'd seen on 'Timothy goes to school). I was quite interested in why the leaves actually change colour which was nicely explained on the website. If anything, at least I am learning something from this semi-home education lark..

and guess who's been looking at books:

It was bound to happen..

Yesterday S was looking for something on the internet and came across a blog that was basically anti-Islam. It was some guy who posts any relevant articles from the media on his blog, many involving the kids' school. It sounds like there's a big resentment to any state funding of anything Islamic. Then I wondered if he would have picked up on our article about home ed. Of course yes, and being an Islamophobe home education wasn't his problem , but the fact I was a stay at home mother. He wrote, why does she not work, does she not want to,? Does her husband not allow her? Does it say in the Quran women are not allowed to work? Is it because she wears a scarf she cannot get a job? sunhanAllah.

Of course by being in the media these sort of comments are bound to come up and I hope by getting involved more good than evil came about. But of course anonymous comments were not allowed on the blog, in fact one had to be a group member to post a comment (not sure what the point of this blog was then unless it was just to have a good Islam- bashing- group-session) Anyhow there were no comments on the blog at all and I shall not post the link as I don't give publicity to negative websites, and I doubt many people read it anyway.

I have come across other such blogs by mistake, one 'monitoring' fundamentalist activity in our city, and I'm sure there are such things in the UK and all over the world. The funny thing is the extent they think the Muslims are organised, from my own experience organising some children's activities or a study circle is about as far as it gets....

Kid’s quotes

I've been trying to 'ignore the bad and praise the good' behaviour: I try to give choices rather than dictate things Let's see how that went

Me: You're welcome

Biryani: I'm not welcome

Me: Thankyou, good girl

B: No

Me: Do you want orange or red (plate)?

B: Purple

S Do we see in pixels?

H How do you know it's (the flight) been delighted (delayed)

B I'm too busy (if I ask her to do something not totally interesting)

B You're too busy (to say prayers, sleep etc)

B I'm not a brat, I'm (Biryani) (response to brother)

M If you think about it almost anything can happen, flower toothpaste for example.

H Is Postman Pat a Christiain? (after I'd explained what Rev Timms church was)

Eid Mubarak!

MashAllah, Ramadhan went so quickly and Eid came suddenly, most Ramadhans have been 30 days since I have been Muslim.

I've had to give Biryani the last of the crisps left over from Eid to be able to get on the computer to write this. You see there is only so much I can achieve while she is sleeping out of the things that are made almost impossible for me to do during her waking hours. These include sleeping myself, going to the bathroom ( I just have to lock the door and be as quick as possible if she's upset by my tempory absence), praying (it's got really bad recently that if she sees me washing my feet she knows I'm not just having a usual 'wash' and am about to pray and starts protesting) , reading Quran (esp if I want to keep my prayer clothes on whilst doing this).

Eid consisted of the prayer and usual lego fest (except S wanted cash this year and is still thinking what to buy with it), too much sugar and saturated fat. May Allah let us live till the next Ramadhan and give me strength to fast by then amin.

MashAllah Hz is actually a fairly good sleeper, in fact this evening have been wondering about the house managing to do stuff that needs doing (removing the fluff from under my bed that keeps niggling me for example) as he went to sleep around 8 p.m.

Today H had a day off school as he had croup and also diarrhoea since yesterday (maybe from overindulgence on Eid?). Once I gave the details of the illnesses nursery seemed less keen to persuade me to bring him in as it was class photograph day today. In the end he was pretty much OK at home He dictated a story book about Wallace and Gromit to me, He was asking a lot about 'What's inside things' : the moon, blood, bones, brain cells so we looked them up.

PS Hz slept the whole night I can hardly believe it, I was tempted to feed him before I went to bed around 111.30 pm but left him, and his thumb kept him going I think.Of course I myself woke at around his normal feeding time and he was wriggling about a bit, and had ended up at right angles to the usual position with one leg outof his sleepsuit!