Meeting your reflection!

Salam,

Way before I got married or even divorced, I have had friends who were/are single mums. But for the very first time in the past 3 years, I met another Muslim single Mum.

It wasn’t our first meeting, to be honest, I have known her for the past 3 years; one of her sons is just a year older than my eldest and her youngest is the same age as my youngest. I used to see her every week at the local surestart, at first she used to come with her youngest son, then later with the little girl.

We would always say salam, and I would ask how are the kids and she would answer in her broken English that they are fine. I tried to have a conversation with her few times, but it was a struggle, she couldn’t understand most of what I was saying so I just stuck to the polite hello.

As my kids were growing,  I started to see her at the paddling pool sessions  I take my girls to. By that time, I wasn’t a regular sure start attendee anymore; I had a full time job and would only take the girls to paddling on Saturdays. She would come there on her own with her four children and we would say hello as we normally used to and get on with our own things.

Last year, I met one of her friends who told me she moved to the same are as me, and to get in touch with her. I did accidentally meet her eventually one day in  Aldi, and we spoke briefly. She told me she’s seen me a few times on her street walking up (I used to go down her street when walking to work). And after that we just got on with our things.

Today, I was shopping in Aldi. As i was loading my car, I saw her coming out of Aldi, she stopped to say hello. And, we spoke briefly. I assumed she was going to the car with her husband. As I was exiting the parking lot, I saw her still walking, I stopped and asked if she’s going home, and asked her to jump in. She said to drive to my house, and she’ll walk for the rest of her journey but I said it wasn’t a big deal for me to drop her off.

Her English has improved considerably, we were able to hold a conversation, and as we were talking, I actually took the direction of my house. So we drove past my house and I showed her where I live. I told her she should come around now that she knows where it is. She muttered the word ‘husband’, and I understood she was asking about my husband being around, as she won’t be comfortable with her being in my house while his around. And I just casually answer as I normally do that I am divorced.  I could see she was shocked and she said ‘me too’. This was followed by a moment of silence, it was a silence of excitement, we were like two old friends who just met after a long time. I was happy, not because she’s divorced, but I have met someone who knows what it feels like, who understood and I could see she was feeling the same. Her eyes were a bit watery, she wasn’t sad, neither was I. We were happy that we had someone to share something with, we were happy to find someone who understood everything. She then said 4 years, and I said 3. She told me she was 3 weeks pregnant when she got divorced and I told her, I was a week pregnant back then. We both smiled and I could see her being a bit emotional. Then she said, ‘it is hard, and I don’t have anyone here.’ I understood, I have my brother but I am the type of person who believe that each one should take of their family, and try to avoid being a burden or worry for him and his family. But I knew what her life was like, I live it everyday! We swap numbers, and both left each other with a feeling of accomplishment.

As I got home, I received a call from her; she forgot her shopping bag in the car, so back I went. She invited me to come inside, and I was about to refuse when her children dashed out all excited. I haven’t really spoken to them before but something told me I should accept the invitation.

I agreed to come in for a little while, and the kids jumped with joy, they screamed ‘yayyy!’ It was strange, those kids did not know me, they’ve never spoken to me before yet it made them happy to welcome us in their house.

I knew what made me stay. Like her, I very rarely have visitors, except for my brother. And, she didn’t even have that. Her kids must be happy to just have someone else in the house, to have people to talk to, and other children to play with. I remember a conversation I had with a friend a week back, she came to visit, and my house was a mess with kids toy all over my living room, and I apologised for the mess adding that it doesn’t bother me, cos my house is for my kids first and foremost. And, she said it’s ok  (for my house to be like that) as I do not really have visitors. And she’s a good friend, and she didn’t mean it in a bad way, and neither did i take it the wrong way. After all, she was telling the truth and I seriously don’t care what people think of my house or me. 

My new friend’s kids must just be overjoyed to have company, to be like other families. Like me, she didn’t belong to any community in the city.  She’s Albanian and there’s very few of them where we live. I am Mauritian, and I have never met another one here.

In the Muslim world, people tend to stay with ‘their’ people, they mingle with ‘their’ people and those who don’t belong to the same community as them are normally outsiders who they acknowledge on the street but won’t really call over.  Majority of Muslims have family/relatives who they hang around with most of the time, leaving them almost no time to socialise with outsiders or even wanting to socialise with outsiders. On top of that, if they do socialise with people outside their family, it would still be mainly with people from the same country of origin as them, as they belong to the same community. When you belong to a different minority community, it’s harder to fit in and get accepted, as there is no benefit from befriending you. On the contrary, you will probably invite them to eat food other than ‘theirs’ and which they have no interest in tasting.

As a single Mum and and an outsider, I knew exactly how much of a social life she must have. At least, I drive, I can take my kids around and enjoy days out with them. Transport is quite costly, and with 4 kids, it’s not easy to go on public transport. She must be lonelier than me I thought. We talked without talking, we knew things about each other which we didn’t have to say. We knew what it feels like when you are feeling really sick, yet you find the courage to get up and sort your kids out as there’s no one else to do it or even ask to do it. You just get on with life, and pick yourself up every time you feel like you are falling apart and start all over again. You know what it feels like when you feel like doing something with another adult, and no one has time for you as they are too busy with their friends and family, you know it all.

We had both moved on from our past, and happily! But, we have also found each other for support to move forward. Language was not a barrier anymore, we had each other’s company in a way we can’t even describe. We felt we could count on each other, without feeling we are burdening the other!

Preschoolers and toddlers: Word formation when reading

Salam,

This is one of my educational posts.

My eldest who is now 3 years 7 months has started reading CVC words.

Child 1 is the youngest is her class (she is born in August), unlike most of her classmates, most of the have spent already at least a few months before her in pre-school, so starting out she was a bit behind the rest, but Alhamdulillah she is now doing really well.

I do spend a lot of time at home with her, just teaching her or going over things she already knows. She is now able to recognise all her numbers between 1-10 and can put them n the right order. She is also able to recognise all her lowercase alphabets and is still working on the uppercase.

Recently, as she now recognises her letters, I have introduced her to word formations. We have just started with CVC words such as C-A-T. She is picking it up really fast. I would normally say a CVC wor very slowly so she can focus on each individual letter and put them together using her alphabet blocks. At first, she would try to find the letters, but she struggled to put them in the right order sometimes. Lately, I got her to start reading CVC words from books, and she has started to recognise the patterns now, and she also enjoys making her own rhymes with those words.

I read to my girls every day, but I found since I have started encouraging child 1 to read us a book (with CVC words) at story time, it seems to have boost her confidence and now instead of making up her own stories from pretending to read books, she is actually spelling out the words and even manage to guess some words we haven’t come across before. One such example with the word ‘red’ that we found in one of her book, I have never worked with her on the spelling of the word ‘red’. But, as she read it out as R-E-D, she instantly connected it to the word red.
Before, she used to pretend to read the books, now she actually pick up books she can 'read' (partly), such as her little number books.

Weaning

Salam!

I thought I will share a few tips about weaning inshAllah.

My eldest was weaned at 4 months, reason being she had quite severe indigestion which caused her to always vomit and be in a state of hunger. Having older siblings helped me a lot in deciding how to wean my children. My eldest sister already had 2 kids, who I adore but were a nightmare when it came to food. They would only eat puree up till almost the age of 3 and refused to eat any solids. I also knew people whose kids refused to eat anything that weren’t sweet. And by the time, I had my eldest, my sister’s kids who were about 6/8 were still very fussy eaters, and could not eat anything that was spicy.

I thought I didn’t want to deal with any of those issues. So, I devised a plan:

1.       I only fed them proper puree for a week, and the second week, I would give them food that was not properly mashed and still have bits in ( obviously not too big)

2.       They were not introduce to any sweet food for the first month

3.       By the second week, I also started mixing meat in their food

4.       Their very first meal consisted of carrot and coriander soup with a hint of pepper (spice).

5.       As the weeks go  by, the solids bits in their food grew bigger, until they were eating proper solid food ( obviously I used to overcook a lot of things, just to help them digest)

6.       They would only be served any sweet food as desert following their main meal.

7.       I did tone down the chilli and gradually increased it, but they would eat it the same food as me just in a more liquid form until they graduated onto the solid form.

8.       By the time my kids were about 8 months old, I would not spoon feed them, and would sit right next to them enjoying my meal with them, they would hold their spoons and eat by themselves and would not leave the highchair until they have actually eaten a certain amount. (Let me tell you it does get messy, but it gets better eventually, but what it does do is make your child independent, so you don’t have to keep spoon feeding them for the next few years.

All those worked fab for both my kids, although my 2^nd was weaned at almost 6 months. And within a year, my children were both eating the same type of food as me and on their own!

Juicing: energy booster?

Salam!

Our fruit caterpillar to go with The Very Hungry caterpillar story

As a Mum, I am very watchful of what my children eat and drink. Ever since they were little, I always wanted to make sure I feed them the best of  everything; I refused to feed them jar food, and used to make their own baby food that I would take out with me, as we used to spend a lot of time outdoors.

I am not very health conscious when it comes to me. I am a foodie and I enjoy being one, I don’t particularly have a sweet tooth (probably owing to the fact that my Dad had diabetes and I enjoyed eating and drinking sugarless deink with him, while my Mum would pour  a few spoons of sugar in her tea). But I love my savoury,  deep fried or not, I am ever ready to eat anything that’s salty. I also have a collection of chilli sauce (indeed I love my chillies!).

After my children were born, and they started to eat solids, I would join them and we would all sit together and eat. I realised how important it was for me to lead by example when it comes to eating. My kids are not fussy eaters Alhumdulillah, they eat everything and that’s something I wanted to make sure of. Growing up, I remember being a fussy eater, and my Mum always having to accommodate the menu for me. Anything my brothers and sisters didn’t like to eat, I wouldn’t eat, and also added to that list was my own ‘i don’t like it’ food.

As a mother, I didn’t want them to turn out like me, so I would cook food that I don’t like, and would give it to them even though I didn’t like it and would not eat it. But, as the kids were growing older and wiser, they would ask things like ‘Why don’t you have meat on your plate?’etc... So, I started having more red meat, along with them. No more questions are asked. Is till I’m not a big fan of red meat, but I do make sure we eat it once a week. I must say, I have to thank my kids for that, considering my iron level is always low.

My kids love their fruits/veg. I enjoy my vegetables, but I am not a fruit eater. Like I mentioned before, I do not have a sweet tooth.  Alhumdulillah, the kids never ask anything about me not eating fruits, they love it too much to be honest. But, it did make me realise that I must be lacking in some nutrients and vitamins. I finally found the solution to it: Juicing! Two of my friends have been juicing for a while and had really taken a liking to the thing. So I tried it out, and I love it!

At first I thought it was only going to give me essential nutrients and vitamins, but it happened to give me much more than that. It had a feel good factor, I mean mentally and physically, I felt better, it might just be a psychological thing, cos I know I am doing something right. But I must admit, it had made a difference to my life, I feel a lot lighter ( even though I don’t think it made a difference to the scale).

This isn;t the biggest surprise though, but since I have started juicing, today was the first time I managed to go swimming after a gap of about 3 months. I used to swim regularly before, but due to work commitments and feeling uneasy in asking people to babysit for me, I haven’t been swimming for over 3 months. One thing us single parents feel uneasy about  a lot is asking people to look after our kids while we have ‘me’ time.  No matter how close we are to someone, it is still very hard from us to come forward and say will you be willing to babysit for me while I enjoy some free time. I have thought about this a lot, I find that people who are in a relationship do not find it hard to say that to their partner or even other family members, but this is one thing a lot of us single parents struggle with. Maybe, because a lot of us have had to take more responsibility than others, especially in the case of an absent parent, where all the responsibility have been shamelessly ‘dump’ on us. And we know that it is not a nice situation to be in, and although in no way we think of our children as burdens, we know what it feels like when people are having fun instead of stepping up and shouldering their responsibility. Anyway, today since the girls were at nursery, I managed to go swimming and Boy it was amazing! I have been swimming for quite awhile, but by far this has been my best experience! I swam non-stop for the whole session, and didn’t even stop to breathe for a minute! I did more laps than I have ever done before in the same amount of time, my speed was better, my techniques were better, and it was all effortless. At the end of the session, I still felt fresh and probably could have gone on for a while longer.  I was even approached by people who thought I was great! They should have seen me swimming during my school days!(sarcasm).

I do really think, this all due to the change in my diet. But maybe not, but I guess other people should try it and tell me if it had had the same impact on them!

Why we don't have a TV

Many people are actually surprised when I tell them we don’t have a tv in our household. IT seems strange nowadays, as most houses have the latest technology and in my house new technology is not much welcomed.

I have had different comments concerning my lack of TV at home; sometimes people insinuating that I cannot afford one; that I am a very boring person and must be leading a boring life or even that I am a control freak who is being overprotective when it comes to my children. I know many Muslims who choose not to have a religious reason; they believe there is too much ‘fitna’ (corruption that deviates from the right path) on it. I must say, I didn’t choose to have a TV for that reason.

Growing up, I loved watching TV, it was THE entertainment. I remember rushing back from school, so I would be on time to watch my favourite cartoons, or even putting the alarm clock at 6 am on weekends so I would not miss any of my favourite cartoons. And also, finishing my homework hastily so I can watch my evening soaps etc... The list goes on and on, there were even times when I refuse to go out just because of what was on telly.  I remember how my Mum had to stand in front of the telly, so I could actually hear what she was saying even though she had been screaming it out for the past 5 mins. Looking back, it looked like my whole life was centred around TV. Oh I did have good family times, my parents loved to play board games with us, we use to have competitions from time to time and those were our family times on top of outings/picnics. Funnily enough, even though TV was the main focus of my life at that point, I actually barely remember anything about it, the things I do remember is the games we used to play as a family, I even remember some of the conversations we had  back then. Those are the moments I really miss, not the TV, not the programmes on telly; none of it; what I do miss is all my family sitting around the monopoly board, and my mum cheating as usual while we all try to play honestly, or the dominos competition me and my dad used to have every month against my uncle and cousin, and how we always beat them. Or even the days when I was so little, and I used to just watch my big brother, big sister, dad and uncle playing Carrom, while my mum and aunt served us snacks.

I remember when I left home for uni, one of the things I was worried about was how was I suppose to spend my time if i don’t have tv. I must say though even though I didn’t have tv, I did have my laptop and internet, and if any was not working, then they were the most boring days of my life; not because I couldn’t watch anything, nope! Just cause I could not keep in touch with my family and friends.

I realised I didn’t need a TV anymore, having spent ¾ years at uni without one I never really missed it.

Following my marriage, I realised how much harm TV can also cause to a family. I used to resent the TV at some point as it had taken over my place as a wife; it also became a reason for argument many a times. I had learnt that there’s a life outside the square (now rectangle) box, and I wanted to live this new life instead, and my ex-husband thought differently. But this was never the reason why I don’t have a TV.

I can very well afford one if I want it, and I have even been offered people’s old TV which I kindly refused. After having my daughters, I realised how precious each and every minute we spend doing things together as a family is important; those are the memories they are going to cherish, the memories they will talk about and miss as well. It is easy to just switch on the TV and let it babysit and raise your children, but instead I choose to raise them and make them independent so they won’t need a babysitter. Oh, it would be way easy to have them in front of the screen, while I get all my jobs done; knowing that they won’t have made any mess, but this is not the life I have chosen.  I choose to make the mess with them,  I choose for us to not rely on any object, but to rely on ourselves and I choose to give them fond memories of me.

Are we bored? Not at all, we always have something cooking. There’s always something exciting to do, a new activity, something to get our hands dirty with, it never gets boring, and we enjoy each other’s company all along, we talk about random things, we laugh about stupid things, we make silly faces and sounds; there’s always something to do up till bed time!

As a single Mum this is the choice I have made, any Mum can make that choice, it’s not because someone chooses a different life that they must be ridiculed. I spend a considerable amount of my day working, and having my kids away, it is not fair on them and me to even ignore each other for the few hours we do spend together.  They need me and my love as much as I need them and their love. Besides, we still have the laptop if we want to watch something suitable for them together. It is not the end of the world!

Deep conversation with a neighbour

Deep conversation with anon-muslim neighbour

Salam everyone,

I just wanted to share a conversation I shared with one of my lovely neighbours recently. She’s simply adorable old little lady that posted me a welcome to the area card when I first moved to the area, and she’s always putting my bins back after collection, a true lady with English values.

She was just having a little chat with me when she randomly asked, I hope you don’t mind but I wanted to ask you something. I was like oh sure go ahead, thinking it’s probably a ‘islam/muslim’ question. Then she went on: “It’s  quite sometime now that you have moved here, and you seem such a lovely persons, and your girls are such a delight, I was wondering if you don’t feel lonely sometimes,” she carries on, “ don’t get me wrong please, it’s just I remember when I separated from my daughter’s dad, a long long time ago, I wanted to find someone else, and I did eventually find the right one after a while, although later on he turned out to be the wrong one as well.” She laughs. “It’s just I was thinking, I never see any man coming around, except for your brother and I was wondering, I know what I feels like, I just thought maybe I could give you some advice.”

I was actually really touched by what she said; it was nice of her to think about me even though we don’t have a deep and meaningful relationship. It was definitely a sweet thought from her.

I started to think how am I supposed to answer this, so I started: “Oh thank you that’s very sweet of you. We muslims don’t date you see, we don’t mingle with men other than family members and we avoid mixing with the other sex.”

She listened carefully, then said, “oh! I understand. But how do you meet your husband then?”

“Very good question! We normally rely on family, friends or acquaintances who would set up a meeting between potentials. For example, a relative may know of so and so who wants to get married, and bring a marriage proposal to a potential, who then consider to pursue or not.”

“oh that’s interesting, it used to be like that in the old days, but not anymore, but it’s nice to see some people still living by their values. So do you just get married after you receive the proposal?”

“Well not really, normally the two parties will talk (including the bride, groom and families) and if they think it’s a good match, then islamically as they are not allowed to date then they get married.”

“Oh it must be hard though. You are basically marrying a stranger. And, what if you two can’t get on?”

“Marriage is risky anyway isn’t it? What guarantee do you have when you date someone that they always gonna be right for you? I mean many people date for quite a while before getting married and it stills doesn’t work out. It’s all about destiny.”

“True. At least in my case,” she says. She carries on, “so are your family and friends trying to look for someone for you then?”

An innocent question from an innocent lady. Yet, it was harder to answer this question.