AR goes to school...

We have decided to put AR in school for this year, which I was totally not ready for, and neither was he or H. He goes to school 5 days for 4 hours in the mornings. The reason why we made this decision is to help him pick up Arabic (inshaAllah). Its a good school Alhumdulillah, he really likes his teacher, he keeps talking about his friends and Abla Emaan (his teacher). 


It took us two weeks to make our final decision, we did istikharah (Praying 2 rakkah and reciting a dua, seeking Allah SWT's guidance in a any matter) and Allah SWT has put contentment in our hearts. Alhumdulillah, we can already see him picking up Arabic, he said to H earlier today "istani" meaning wait! Those words assured us that inshaAllah there is khair in it for all of us. Researchers of the bilingual field suggest that, if a child it to exposed to a language for 3 hours a day for 18 years by a mother tongue speaker of that language, it becomes the child's mother tongue.


After AR's school hours at home we are doing the same stuff we were doing before, different activities, islam in life, quran and play! We don't want to over exhaust/burden him so most of the activities are light and fun. I am making it a point to ask him  if he wants to continue, or just watch him closely to see if he is interested or not.


For the first week I went to school with him, I would sit outside in the playground and H played in the park area. Second week I went with him the first day only, since then he had been going on his own. However on Wednesday last week, he wouldn't let Baba drive away, (my husband said it was too painful to see him cry so he brought him home) which I think was a good decision he made. I took him to school last 2 days, I talked and explained to him that he will enjoy a lot inshaAllah. Alhumdulillah he came home very happy. Today they had a little party and gift exchange, following the hadeeth of Prophent Muhammad SAW "Give gifts to one another, and you will lobe one another" Sahih Bukhari. 

As for H and I at home...we miss AR soooo much. For me, I had some things in mind to keep myself busy and productive, some goals to reach. I think about him often while working. H on the other hand really misses him. She keeps bringing things that AR plays with and says "baee's" or "bhaiya ka" or point to his belongings. I think its harder for second and third child to entertain themselves because they're used to having company from the beginning. InshaAllah she will get better, I have things to keep her busy now. We started a few activities together (I will post about this subject in detail later).


We are all really proud of him, as a mother its hard to let go of our children sometimes, however we have to realize that it's an important phase of life. It will help them be independent, strong and more confident with the permission of Allah SWT. We canNOT possible run after our kids in every aspect of their lives, as much as we would want to, we have accept it as a part of them growing up. The thing that we should do and teach our kids to do is seek Allah SWT protetion at ALL times, if we can succeed in teaching them this then even when they are far from us we know deep down inside in our hearts that Allah SWT will protect them.

In the morning before AR leaves I make him say all his protection duas, if he's getting late then, he does them in the car with Baba. We repeatedly tell him even if we are not there with you, know, that Allah SWT is ALWAYS with you, and He will protect you better than us, because He loves you more than us.

May Allah protect ALL our kids, from any evil of His creation, from the whispers of Shaitan, from the fitnah of others, O Allah protect us all from the Fitan (trails) of this duniya and grant us Your Shade on the Day of judgement. Ameen!