Reorganization

Reorganize and renewal. That's what needs to be done, at least in my home. I follow the K12 curriculum. However, since I'm under OHVA, I can't choose which to take and which to leave, though I still do that anyway. I asked for exemption from music, which we did get alhamdulillah. I didn't do their art, for lack of time. I esepcially don't like their history because it's terribly biased towards the hebrews and nasraniyeen. Nevertheless, at this moment in time, I find sticking with this system is my best choice, due to many other reasons.

I tried doing seerah using Iqra' but since we're trying to save on photocopying, what I used to do was do the worksheets myself on Microsoft Word. Of course after a while, I gave up because it took too much of my time. We still have a lot of those worksheets we photocopied in Malaysian anyway, and i need to finish those first before my house becomes a paper mill. We already have too much paper as it is.

So after trying out what I can think of and seeing what works and what doesn't, I figured I'd better focus a lot on the Quran. In the conference I attended last weekend, Dr. Mamdouh Muhammad said that the sahabah used to spend as much time on seerah as they did on the Quran. I suppose, if you think about it, that covers the Quran and the ahadeeth. Perfect. The islamic studies, I can do daily as we do stuff. At least for now, that makes it more doable in my line of work and loads I have heaped upon my ever filling platter.

So, since S is already praying fajr regularly, after fajr, we betook to reciting the Quran, one by one. I still have problems with this because as i read with one, I tell the others to eat breakfast and then shower. So far, we've been spending an hour to recite the Quran for all three of them. It's still a hassle getting them to eat breakfast on time, shower and get ready for school. This seems to be my ongoing problem, which drives me crazy every day, no money return guarantee.

Usually I start with S, and I let her recite one full page of the Quran, and then we talk about it, pick up what words seems familiar to her so she would gain arabic/Quran vocabulary that way. For H, we work on his Iqra book 6, and just this morning, he cried because he couldn't prevent his tongue from touching the roof of his mouth in reading tanween or noon saakinah meeting the ikhfa' letters.

"I can't make my tongue not touch my roof! it keeps going up there!" he wailed, tears streaming down his face.

Apparently his wails reached all the corners of our tiny apartment and pretty soon, his sisters peeked in the room to see what had made him wail.

For N, she is the one thay insists on me reading the translation to her when she recites a surah or part of a surah from Juz Amma. The first few times, she went downstairs, climbed on a chair to get the Quran from the shelf, and came back upstairs to my room, handed me the Quran with a smiling face. Then she sat herself down and prepared to recite. As she finished one ayat, she turned to me and waited fo r me to read the meaning. I guess sometimes, we should take cues from our children.

Amidst all this, I'm also striving to learn more of the deen. Just last weekend i attended a leadership conference. At the same time, I'm also studying like crazy for the Almaghrib exam coming up this Sunday. I also have to prepare S for her march tests. On top of that, I just might be positively pregnant. I still need to have the doctor tell me before I truly believe it.

i think, attending Islamic lectures for me, is a positive experience, because after last weekend, I found a new surge of motivation to pursue what I'm doing. As one speaker said,

"If you want to clean someone laying in the mud, you spray him with water, while he is still in the mud, it's not going to make him clean. He'll just be even dirtier."

So it makes sense to take someone out of a bad environment first as part of tarbiyyah. That in turn says to me that pulling your child out of public school is like pulling someone out of the mud he is laying in.

It made me think of my approach with the kids on protecting their hearts. Insyaallah, I have told them (so far) all they need to know regarding protecting themselves from bad influences. I think as they grow bigger, the issues of friends will crop up and even though I've gone over it with them, it will need revisiting when the time comes insyaallah.

O Allah, You are the One Who Guides, please put us in the company of those who can guide us to the straight path.