Eid Mubarak! Day 1

S fasted full the whole month! Mabrook!! N missed 2 days because she was sick. And H fasted 7 full days, 2 three-quarter days and 1 half day. Eid fell on Thursday, after much waiting until at night on Wednesday. The kids had already gone to bed that Wednesday and they fell asleep not knowing that the next day was Eid.

Clad in their Eid clothes, we all headed to the Bill McDonald Sports Complex for the Eid prayer that was supposed to commence at 8:30 am. But of course, Muslims and their perception of time, we only started praying at around 9 am or later. I didn't even pay attention because we were rushing like crazy, thinking we were late for sure, and when we got there, they haven't even lauded the Takbir yet! S came with me to the women's side while N and H went with their Ab to the men's side. In our rush S forgot to bring her hijab, we when we arrived at the complex she had to wear N's hijab while N had to go without. So much for all the training during Ramadan!

The Eid prayer went on smoothly, we heard the khateeb very well. Overall it was a very nice Eid prayer. We rushed back home for our open house. Received Indonesians and one Malaysian. The other Malaysians who were supposed to turn up before noon didn't turn up until much later in the day, rendering us bleary-eyed and weary. I vowed never to hold an open house without making sure people can actually attend, ever again. To make it worse, it was on a weekday and most people had to go back to class and work. I also just realized that most of the Muslims here live in clans and have their own families to spend Eid with, though I'm sure there are some who don't but they had to go back to work. Spending Eid in a university town where most of the Muslims were foreigners was much different than here. I still have to get used to it.

We had promised the kids we would go to Chuck E Cheeses, but the people came to our open house group by group, one after the other, stretching our open house hours longer than we intended to have it. F had specified it to be from morning till noon, but it became extended till 4 pm. We were also invited to our Indonesian friend's house at around 5/6 pm, so that meant we had to rush to Chuck E Cheeses right away. We promptly left at 4 after our guests left.

I was dead tired by then. Never had I wished for guests to leave like I did then. Some didn't stay too long, but some did. By the time we all were in the van, headed for Chuck E Cheeses, I was very deathly silent; a very abnormal occurence for a chatter like myself.

I felt bad for the kids, because we only had a small slot of time left to spend at Chuck E Cheeses then. We had planned to go around 3 pm initially. So since maghrib came in around 5:30, we only spent a rushed half an hour or more at Chuck E Cheeses. ALhamdulillah though, the kids had fun and didn't demand more.

The last part of the day was spent at our Indonesian friend's house and it was such great company. The kids really enjoyed themselves there too because there was a lot of romping space. Alhamdulilah our day ended with joyful company.

When we got in our front door, S said to me,

"Ummi, here's my money. It's for you."

"What for?" I asked, simply relieved to be back home.

"For bringing us to all those places even though you were tired," she replied.

My heart melted right there and then. Did I ever mention that we were tired to the kids? I didn't think we did. My silence was what probably did it, or maybe I did unknowingly say to F that I was exhausted beyond exhaustion in Malay in the van, unaware that S understands Malay.

Alhamdulillah, to Allah the most High for blessing us with very good children.

We went to bed that night excited to go to another invitation the next day. The host is a chef, so I anticipated GREAT food. Night, night, don't let the bed bugs bite.