The girls have finally received the dress-ups we bought at the garage sale. Anisa has spent the last day or so changing from a mermaid, where she wanders through the house singing "under the sea we go..." and other ocean worthy songs at the top of her lungs, to a Hawaiian hula dancer to a shimmering princess complete with a pipe cleaner crown. Aside from when she has changed into her pyjamas to sleep she has not taken off her princess costume and now fondly refers to it as her "Ayyam-i-Ha dress." Here she is singing to an imaginary audience while I try to snap a candid photo.
Ruhi enjoyed her hula skirt and lei but had a lot more fun flying around the house pretending to be a fairy. She also adores the library bag (horse related - of course) that we got her for school.
Notice the abandoned mermaid tail on the carpet...Bayan, meanwhile, was perfectly delighted with his first official bath toy: a boat including a captain, small vessel and some blocks. He generally uses a combination of little plastic animals, an assortment of bath friendly kitchen utensils and small pieces of Tupperware. All perfectly useful and good but now the animals have transportation. While Anisa got in on the action and enjoyed a bath with Bayan, Ruhi noticed how the scene was similar to Noah's Arc.
Tomorrow Ruhi has the day off from school as all the teachers have a training day. That works out brilliantly as we will be hastily making all sorts of preparations for her birthday party on Saturday. We are planning a bit of a circus / carnival theme to go with the fact that she will be collecting gifts (rather than receiving them herself) to be given to the pediatric ward of the hospital. Out of the blue, as we were preparing to walk to school, Ruhi said that she wanted to give lots of presents to the children in the hospital. She was very clear, very decided and very definite and has happily planned a party with the focus on having fun and games with some friends and at the same time doing something nice for someone else. I am so proud of her!
We have done this sort of thing before and some of the comments I have received have made me second guess whether we were really doing the right thing. While ultimately deciding that we were, this completely confirmed it. I hope that the children will continue to use their special days to make a difference in the lives of others. In the meantime wish me luck. I have to sort out the pinata stuffing, organize some prizes, do a bit of food shopping, make a clown face and about 16 beanbags, not to mention a fishing game and a cake that I will attempt to sculpt into some semblance of a carousel..oh yes, and also do some major cleaning outside and decorate the back veranda all in about 36 hours... that's perfectly possible - right?
2 comments:
I also gave each child a gift per day for Ayyam-i-Ha. When they are young children's focus is physically-centered and I think having something each day helps them realize the specialness of the days. I must admit, though, as they grew I tried to figure out when I could transfer Ayyam-i-Ha into something less material. I came upon the age of 15 and prepared the boys as they approached that age. Each son, one by one, received only one gift for Ayyam-i-Ha once the turned 15 and it seemed a perfectly logical progression out of childhood into maturity. I also made sure to NOT pay attention to how much things cost as gifts, ie making sure I spent the same on each person. Rather I focused on the need and appropriateness of the gift. When someone would mention with a little jealousy that his brother got something "better", I would ask, "do you want me to get you one of those?" "Of course not" was the response (which I knew was the case). Then I focused on the thing that person got and how much more he wanted that gift rather than the one his brother got. I also made sure to mention that each person is different and will be treated according to his needs/wants, not dollar amount. It seemed to work ;-)
Happy Ayyam-i-Ha!!
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