Then...And Then...And Then

F was helping H recite his surah while I was simply lounging on the futon (I don't even remember what i was doing. Shows how much I day dream while chaos are alm around me). When I went for my eye exam, the intern remarked,

"Wow, you have three children! How do you handle them? My brother has one boy and I cannot even stay with him for more than an hour!"

She was a vietnamese. That much I could tell, from her accent. I actually warmed up to her, because she was so friendly. So contrary to what I would have said upon first meeting people, I replied,

"Oh, you just learn to ignore them after a while." I said this with no intention of eliciting guffaws from her, so I was quite surprised when she roared and kept repeating,

"Oh, that's soooo funny!"

But it is true. I wasn't joking. You DO learn to ignore them after a while. Especially for mothers who have been home with her kids since the moment they were born. O mentioned once that mothers like me cannot understand how other mothers who are used to having their kids in school have to adjust to suddenly having their kids home ALL the time once they decided to homeschool them. I guess it is true. In a way, I'm used to having the kids with me all the time that it poses no additional stress having them with me all the time. Of course, that doesn't mean I DON'T get stressed out for that would so very far from the truth. I remember the deals I made with F, so I could have some time off from the kids so I could regain my sanity.

However, human beings are so resilient that we soon tend to find solutions for our problems. Mine was to ignore them. I can block them out, well truth be told, I don't really let them run around the house screaming like savages while I switch off into 'Nirvana' mode. They have grown to know when I need my 'me' time. Now, I only need to tell them,

"Close the door and don't bother me please," and they will obediently leave me alone while I blog away in solitude.

Ok getting back to my main story:

F was helping H recite his surah, along with reading the translation of each ayat. After a while, H asked,

"What's thumma?"

"Then," said F.

I was still of course in my own world, so I only heard snippets of their exchanges. Suddenly I was snapped out of my reverie when H exclaimed,

"Why Ummi told me not to use 'then' a lot in my writing, but the Quran uses it a lot!"

For a few seconds I was speechless and dumfounded. My mouth was hanging open, forming a stupid-looking O while I grappled for a response. I came up with,

"Hmm he has a good point."

I couldn't rebutt him. He's been so smart-alecky lately. A lot of thinking and pondering going on in that spiky-haired head of his. I guess G was right when she said that boys' brains are different than girls'.

Another thing I couldn't comprehend is: H's obsession with having as short-cut hair as possible. Do you know what he did to his baby pictures on the computers? After acquiring the skills of retouching photos, he retouched all his photos that I consider so adorable, due to his lush hair, so as to make his hair look thinner. I asked him,

"Why'd you ruin your pictures?"

"Because I don't want my hair to look so big!"

I keep telling him,

"Don't worry about 'big hair'. When you grow old, you'll have hair like Abi. THEN you'll worry about havinga big hair."