Here’s my little Bear… once the baby of the family, she seems to have grown up overnight, ma shaa Allah.

So my smally molly, I love how you comfort me when I get my horrid migraines. I love how you forgive me when my awful temper gets the worst of me and those around me. I love how you like giving people presents and surprises. I love how you find joy and delight in the simplest things. I love how you love Mars and Peep.

In short, I love YOU :)

Good things come in little packages :)

Alhamdulillah, this little guy is now the newest member of our student body. Little `Isa aka Peep was born in late January and he’s kept us all busy, dizzy and in a tizzy!

We’ll be back to our regular programming pretty soon in shaa Allah :) In the meantime, I hope you’re all having happy, sunshiney days!

I know … this is meant to be a homeschooling blog but the home-ed categories show precious few entries.

I’ll post some lesson plans on butterfliesnext in shaa Allah… but I will confess, the reason why I stopped posting for a while was because I felt like a fraud. What I mean to say is that I do still firmly believe that for us, homeschooling is THE road to take. My methods were another story altogether ;) Marz was (and still is) doing alright alhamdulillah but I began to crumble. I had a list of goals to achieve and wanted to do everything *just so* but this is not always possible when one has a little baby to care for at the same time. I was getting overly anxious – will I ever get the Singaporean out of me? (You’d have to live there to know what I am talking about *S*)

The beauty of home education is that it is flexible. I don’t mean to say that a parent can put in next to zero effort, let a child run willy nilly and then say that homeschooling is flexible. I mean that education is not just about and through books. There is more to a child/person than that. While I was fussing about lessons still undone, my daughter was doing some learning of her own. She learnt to help her busy mum, to share unreservedly, to give way to her little sister without resentment and to be independent.

Sometimes lessons are best learnt when you put the books aside and speak straight from the heart. Some you can’t TEACH – they can only be learnt through plain and simple LIVING.

A sister told me to relax and to breathe… another told me to just love my child and place trust in Allah.

They are right.

There is so much room for improvement where I am concerned. So we will try to do better each day but we are doing OK alhamdulillah…

I read these ahadeeth yesterday and truly, they shamed me. How many times have I been in a hurry to complete my chores and placed my child last on my list of priorities? How many times have I forgotten to just STOP and BE THERE for my child?

Well, now is always a good time to change. Must go and colour some pictures with Marz!

And hey, give your kids a hug and kiss… just because, you hear?

• Anas radhiallahu `anhu said: “I have never seen a man more kind with children than the Prophet .” (Muslim) Anas also said: “The Prophet had the sharpest sense of humor with children.”
• The Prophet exhorted justice when he said: “Allah likes that you be just with your children as He likes that you be just among your own selves.” (Al-Daraqutni)
• It was reported from “`A’ishah that the Prophet kissed Al-Hassan and Al-Hussain, the sons of “˜Ali radhiallahu `anhu while Al-Aqra’ bin Habis Al-Taimi was in his audience. Al-Aqra’ said: “I have ten children, none of whom I have ever kissed.” The Prophet looked at him and said: “Those who do not show mercy to others will not be shown mercy.”
• “`A’ishah radhiallahu `anha narrated: A Bedouin came to the Messenger of Allah and said: “You kiss your children, while we do not kiss them.” The Messenger of Allah said: “I can not help that Allah has removed mercy from your heart.”
• It was reported by At-Tirmidhi and others on the authority of “`Abdullah bin Buraidah from his father (radhiallahu `anhuma) who said: I saw the Messenger of Allah while he was delivering a sermon. Al-Hassan and Al-Hussain radhiallahu `anhuma came wearing red garments and stumbling while walking. The Prophet descended Al Minbar (the pulpit) and carried them and put them in front of him. He then said: “Your property and children are only a trial. I saw these two boys stumbling in their walk and could not help stopping my sermon and raising them.”
• Al-Nasa’i and Al-Hakim narrated: While the Prophet was leading people in Prayer, Al-Hussain came and rode on his neck while he was prostrating himself. The Prophet prolonged prostration, until they (the worshipers) thought there was something wrong. When Prayer finished, the people said: “You prolonged prostration, O Messenger of Allah, until we thought that there was something wrong with you.” He replied: “My son rode on me i.e. rode on my back, and I disliked to disturb him until he satisfies himself (and gets down).”
• It was narrated in Al-Isabaah that “the Prophet was of the habit of playing with Al-Hassan and Al-Hussain radhiallahu `anhuma, walking on his hands and knees while they both clung to him from both sides, and saying to them: “What a good camel you have and what a good camel-riders you are.”
• It was narrated in Bukhari and Muslim after Anas radhiallahu `anhu that the Prophet said: “I enter into Prayer intending to prolong it, but when I hear a baby crying, I shorten it, as I know how his mother is anxious about his crying.”