American Muslima Writer -Daring to Work Towards Jannah

Family first has always been my motto.
If you are having children then you should be ensuring they get the best care possible.  The care that matters because it comes from YOU. Leaving children for a Nanny or Governess or DayCare to deal with while you go wax your legs or shop til you drop (for non-essential things) seems like cruelty to me. I'm not talking the parents that do this once in a while to relax a bit but the ones that chronically do this.
Another alternative to this is parents who work when they don't really have to. They spend gobs of time away from their children and family and in the end is the money they are bringing home going to fill the void the child might be feeling? Of course I'm not talking about parents who need to work to put the Halal-Turkey-Bacon on the table, but those who work because that is what they are programed to do by society no matter the end result it has on family.
There are Sooooo many factors though to this all and it's hard to make open faced judgements like these because everyone's situation is so unique. I see too many families split across the globe. Philipina mothers slaving away as maids or sales clerks with their 2-5 kids back at home with grandma. They need to work, they have mouths to feed. Yet some of them work for sheer ambition... it's hard to draw the line.
I see wealthy Arab mothers flitting from one store to the next in a large group of women, maids and babies training behind them. I have seen children literally left in carts with AND WITHOUT nannies in the middle of the Mall while the mother pops into a store for a good ten minutes.  The child without the Nanny kept staring around her looking so lost and forlorn, sitting dolefully in the shopping cart stuffed with bags as if she were no more than an inanimate object herself. I stared in horror thinking sure NOW the mother would turn around and go back to her child...okay and NOW she would?...and Now?...I guess that shoe sale was just so irresistible to wipe the memory of your child from your mind!  Finally after ten minutes or so she stuck her head out of the shop and waved the maid who had followed her into the shop to bring the shopping cart so she could place the new bags into it.  They walked onto the next shop. I stopped watching lest I vomit or commit murder.
What and where is the Balance to this?
The lines are so blurry it's hard to find which is right or wrong.
How much time Should you be devoting to your family/children?
How much time Should you allot for necessary work?
How much time Should you allot for personal improvement/relax time?

As a non-working mother I was finding it hard to separate my personal time from my family time. If I spent too much time on one thing I became cranky that I was over burdened and never saw the light of day. The whip was cracking 24/7 and there was never enough time to finish everything.
My creativity was dying and manifesting itself into other ways...like mass organizing...re-decorating.... etc...
For a long time I put off writing my novels all together, sure and 100% certain family was more important and my novels could wait.  Yes they did wait. But I found myself writing inane stuff like in depth shopping lists for food. Finally I began this blog, I had to release my stress and somehow get my words back out. I had used LiveJournal and MySpace to vent and keep up with friends but it puttered out and I wanted MORE.
As I posted and posted I began to realize my time was importantt and I needed to allot myself time for my creativity and making more friends.  So I did, and my family life suffered a bit more. Things got less clean, meals got less tasty, children got less quality time.  And the guilt would start again.
I'm being selfish using time I could have spent with my kids.
Then on top of this began my working career, with publishing projects that took up huge chunks of time, and then getting my job. Now everything seems to be hanging precariously by strings.  No one item seems to be getting enough of the time it deserves.... especially my kids.  And it cuts me to the bone.
I love my family and it will always be number one. That is how Allah created me and that is what I've learned from living a difficult life. Every time I see my kids playing by themselves I think why am I not with them? Memories always come to me of times when adults didn't have time to be with me, and that is all I wanted, more attention, more time.  I told myself I'd be different, I'd sacrifice EVERYTHING, to make sure they got that extra attention.  And for years I did. I refused to work unless it was absolutely necessary. I put aside my dreams and aspirations (or at least toiled on them when the kids slept). We lived mostly in scraping-by-poverty. But it was worth it, watching the bond grow between me and my kids.
It stopped being worth it when I was self destructing mentally, emotionally, maritally, and physically.
It stopped being worth it when my kids wanted more to eat and there was nothing else.
I don't regret those years, but now as things are changing there had to be a new balance.
I know I need free relax time
I know I need creative time
that keeps me sane.
I know I need time with my husband separate from the kids
that keeps us stronger.
I know I need time with my kids
that makes them stronger.
I know I need time for work/society
that makes us able to live.
I know I need time for family and friends
that makes us connected.
Above All else, I need time for Allah.

But it needs to be Balanced.
Crazy rushing from one areas to the next or bypassing some areas completely leads to burnout.


The amount of work I'm doing sometimes feels worth it when I'm helping people out in the world.  Other times when I get home to find my kids asleep and only get a few hours with them in the morning it feels like utter HELL. But then when they are sleeping peacefully in their beds and I have some alone time or creative time it's refreshing. When I get that paycheck it feels good to have helped out my family and be able to take the kids out for a special treat.  But I worry and feel guilty that the special treat is a bribe for taking away their quality time with me. I love the extra time I get on the metro to write my novels or read books, but it's transport time away from my family. I adore teaching my kids and have placed the responsibility of their education on my shoulders, yet if the day gets scrambled and there is no time for that, the guilt falls to me.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Scream of Fear or Happiness, could be both.

I realized National Novel Writing Month 2010 will begin in a few weeks!!!!

I SAID....

YES!

It's been a crazy time in my life the past few months.  My husband has been out of work and money has always been tight but more so these last few months. You all know what a firm position I take on staying home with my kids and dealing with household tasks and Homeschooling my two kids.
Now things are flipped around and I got a job.

Alhamdulillah it's part time for now so I still have time for my kids when I get home.

has been a peaceful place for me! My neighbor did some free labor and planted all the flower seeds he owns. The result is a big wild crazy mess of beautiful flowers. Especially sunflowers! Every week I go out with my clippers and using a newspaper to hold them I cut myself a random bouquet. I put it in my single open mouthed vase and place it in a cheerful place in my living room. Thus on the days when I don't get outside I can still see flowers. I LOVE flowers! There is no reason why someone can't have beautiful flowers in the house. It just softens and brightens up any room! Yesterday we went out playing in the garden and as I clipped the kids played with our two stray outdoor cats. They all had a blast. Then I found a weird bug and proceeded to capture it. I'll have to blog more about the bug on the Homeschooling Blog because now it's part of Rajaa's life and she's become very attached to it. I was happy to find in the middle of the night it eating the sunflower's leaves (behind the yellow petals) as I was afraid it was a bug eater and would starve and was about to free it today. Now I can keep it happily fed easily.

I also finally got some honey called Acacia Honey that is a light golden color and it's soo sweet even more so than regular honey because the acacia flowers have a beautiful fragrance! So I've been randomly spooning some full strength into Mustapha's eager mouth. It seems to be helping with the coughing but I still had to give him syrup in the night because it intensifies... ahh so much for pure home remedies... i can't stand coughing. such a wicked sound. Poor baby can't spit out the phlegm either so it's like torture hearing him cough and swallow every few minutes at night. Too much info? well welcome to my life....
I made chicken soup...with a whole chicken and potatoes and carrots and noodles..... no one barely ate it, the half pot left finally went bad.... I tried Honey and warm water in his new sippy cup but he didn't' go for it at first. I'm not sure if it was the warmness or the newness of the cup. Finally I manged him to drink some and he guzzled it but it was hardly warm then. Maybe I will try sweet lemonade today...

I was gonna try making a cake today too but with a sick boy all night I think I'm too tired to try and control them and bake again. Looks like Tuna Casserole for dinner because I'm too tired to make anything fancy and everyone will eat the tuna casserole. Thanks mom for the recipe. It was always a smash when you made it and it's always a smash here.

We've been having a bad sleeping schedule the last two nights in a row. Not going to sleep until 3-4am and then sleeping til 1pm then waking up playing then sleeping a nap at 6-8pm then Up wild til 3-4 am....ugh! Enough to make any mother miserable.
The good thing about homeschooling is though if she's gonna be up in the wee hours of the morning she's gonna be doing school projects. Or reading books as a family. So at least we get some one on one time more. The hard part is keeping them quiet so hubby can sleep in the next room. I really gotta figure out how to get them to sleep properly. It's hard enough working around hubby's work schedule but trying to make them sleep at right intervals is annoying! One day i got it the next it's whacked. The following day is adjustments and the third day is back ok....etc infinity... that's my life the last few years....

I had misplaced my homeschooling calendar this past month lol and so i was very behind schedule until I found it and realized I only planned for half a month in March and left two week window open, ah clever me. Now we are two weeks behind and have the space needed to catch up!

The other night was just soo weird!

Thursday night the kids trashed the house (what I call it when they make huge messes for me to clean where you can hardly see the floor) and they took the bed half off to make a mattress slide. So inbetween watching cartoons they went mattress diving. Til 2am~! Then of course the next day Jummah Friday they were sooo sleepy. We had a lazy day cause I wasn't feeling good. That night we were supposed to go out to have some family time but Husband was tired. i was tired too beyond so. SO I just turned off all the lights int he house at 9am, forcing the kids to bed. Rajaa went down really fast but Mustapha who is used to regular bedtime at 11pm stayed up tossing and turning in the dark for 3 hours. (till 11pm.) then he fell asleep. Husband woke at 3am and so did I. So did Rajaa. ugh! So we stayed up a bit, I made oatmeal. Then we went back to sleep at 7am and woke at 8! We all got up and had some fun. Mustapha took an early nap at 11. And we all took another nap at 3:30. They are still sleeping now it's 6pm. I think tonight will be another late night arg! Wish I could get things re-shifted better. Insha'Allah!