Virtue of the Month: Love

We have done lots of lovely activities this month. We have been reading "Love is the secret..." by 'Abdu'l-Baha during prayers each morning. We have made some gorgeous - if I do say so myself- love "letters" using wooden letters, scrapbooking paper and modge podge which we have displayed prominently in the dining room reminding us to focus on love.

We have read some beautiful stories based upon love.
We wrote little things that we love about each other on post it hearts that I found at Big W and stuck them up all through the kitchen.

We collected favorite quotes on love, wrote them on scrapbooking paper and stuck them up - banner style -around the dining room. (See the end of the post for some favorites.)Adding more quotes as we came accross them.

Till the dining room started looking like this:

The gigantic love hearts on the wall have the quote "Love is the secret..." by 'Abdu'l-Baha printed on them. One paragraph per heart. We had a Valentines / love craft day with friends and ate some love inspired snacks.

We recycled Soheila's old tissue can and made a love canister instead. We brainstormed ideas about how we can demonstrate that we love each other and wrote them on scrapbooking remnants. The kids took turns each morning pulling an activity out of the jar and we added it into what we were doing that day. Some of the ideas were really easy like give extra hugs and kisses to family members or read a story about love, while others required a bit of planning and special supplies, things like going to see someone that you love who you don't get to see very often or making love heart bath fizzies to give to friends.

My apologies for the quality of the above photo - they all came out like that. You get the idea.

I love having the reminder to love up on the wall.

I also found some blank, cardboard puzzles in the shape of a heart and the kids made picture puzzles of things that they loved.

I read a bit about love languages and how people feel loved and nurtured in different ways and tried to remember to "speak" to Mehran and the children in their different "languages." For instance Mehran doesn't like to say "I love you." He doesn't feel the need to hear it spoken but he sure feels loved when the counters are clear and the kitchen is cleaned...I'd better get moving.

I'll leave you with a few favorite quotes on love:

"Love does not make the world go round. It is what makes the ride worthwhile." Franklin P.

Jones

"Love is a given. Hatred is aquired." Doug Horton

"My most brilliant achievemnet was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me." Winston Churchill

"If you love somebody let them go, for if they return they were always yours. And if they don't they never were." Khalil Gibran

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people in a hostile world. Same world." Wayne Dyer

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into that action." Mother Teresa

"If you judge people you have no time to love them." Mother Teresa

"We can do no great things. Only small things with great love." Mother Teresa.

Love that Mother Teresa.

Hypocrite

Last night we were at a children's feast and towards the end the parents were chatting about some of the difficulties of parenting and I piped up about how much I love it. Not so much the hard stuff per say, but in general. I really do love it. So much. Like nothing else on earth. And the hard bits only make you appreciate the good bits even more. So really it's all good. Anyway that was the gist of what I was saying. Love it. All good.


But then this morning happened. Mehran is off playing his usual Sunday soccer match and I am racing around getting breakfast ready, coordinating outfits, locating tennis rackets and drink bottles and shepherding children into the car for our Sunday shopping at the markets. From there we head directly to Bayan's tennis lesson and then back home for Children's classes and when the planets are aligned just so, we make it to each place right on time. Anyway, I digress. We arrive at the markets and park the car. It is very crowded so this can be problematic. It is also very hot. While I grab the pram and load it with water bottles and shopping bags and strap Maryam into the Snugli the kids pile out and I can already tell from the look on Bayan's face that I am in for some fun. We lock up, head for the stalls and run into Martha with D. and A. The kids, who are all still a bit tired from the night before, perk right up and begin chatting. Soon we head our separate ways. That was the fatal mistake. As soon as we separated the nagging began. "I'm hooooot. Can we go now?"


"Hang on just a bit. We need some fruits and veggies. We'll go soon. Here. Have a drink of water." I pause patiently while Bayan drinks from his drink bottle. We move on. I purchase some strawberries. We continue on our way down the isles. The sun is a bit scorchy and the nagging intensifies. Anisa repeatedly steps on Ruhi's flip flops as Ruhi is walking just slightly in front of her. Ruhi is not happy and accidentally pinches Anisa a couple of times (I know. What the...? This is Ruhi we're talking about here.) As I peacefully play referee the entire isle of shoppers is privy to what just happened and Bayan is on the verge of tears. At this stage I decide to cut my losses and head for the two main stalls where I can get everything at once, possibly not the freshest, but at this point who cares? While walking to the stall I perkily make the suggestion that perhaps it would work better if people were to spread out a bit instead of all crowding on one side of the pram. In response I am greeted with: "Stop touching me! Mom! She's touching me!" Sigh. Before I can even respond Bayan pipes up with a huffy tearful. "I hate this! I'm HOT! I want to go! NOW!" It is getting decidedly hotter and I can feel the back of my neck beginning to burn. Maryam is starting to wriggle around in the Snugli and is making her unhappy sounds. We get to the stall. I leave the pram just outside the tent (so it will not be in the way... you know... thinking of other shoppers and all...) and tell the kids to go stand back in the shade. I pass them some drink bottles and quickly weave my way through the throng of shoppers, well as quickly as you can move with a wee one on your chest attempting to maneuver herself out of a pouch. I amass a pile of oranges, rockmelons, avacados, peaches, lemons, grapes and onions and manage to pay for them despite Maryam's fingers in my wallet. I stand in the sun attempting to place my produce in my bags and get the bags into the pram with one hand because the other was busy trying to keep Maryam in the Snugli and I don't even know where my wallet was... my teeth perhaps. The girls, bless them, heeded my calls for assistance and came to help. Bayan joins them, but not to help. His is a one man campaign to leave and leave now. The girls grab the melons at the counter for me while I wrestle 10 kilos of oranges into the pram. Bayan continues to whine. The sun is growing hotter by the second. I am still wrestling with the fruit when Ruhi drops her melons and Maryam makes a dramatic lunge in a desperate, last ditch, attempt at freedom. I drop the bag and the wallet (wherever that came from) and grab her to stop her from flinging herself backwards out of the pouch while Bayan continues to nag. Somehow in the midst of all this I notice that there are watermelons. Mehran loves watermelons. I can't forget the watermelons. Bayan continues to nag. Something inside of me snaps. Then I snap: "Bayan! That's enough! Just. stand. in. the. shade." That last part may or may not have been uttered through clenched teeth. I don't remember. Bayan might. Or maybe C. or L. could recall. (C. and L. were two of the parents from Feast last night.) They got to witness my mother of the year moment too. Poor dears they tried to help. I think C. may even have tried to collect some random fruits that had rolled away but I am pretty sure I looked like a complete sweaty, disheveled, hypocrite after my spiel on loving motherhood from the night before. Which is sad because I really do love it, even when I'm hot and tired and my patience disappears. But on the bright side I am getting some awesome opportunities to practice being patient right?...I guess I need some more practice... Just keepin' it real.

10 things I am loving right now

In light of the fact that our virtue of the month is love I thought I would share some of the things that I am loving right now. And (in no particular order) they are:

1). Hanging the washing while the older kids bounce on the trampoline. I love hearing their laughter as they play together.

2). This little helper and how she is right in the thick of things while I hang the wash. She loves to toss the clothes pins out of the basket, but she she also appears to enjoy putting them back, so it's all good. Note the partially eaten apricot with the pegs. I love that. I forgot how much I missed those things.

3). Ruhi's magic wall for Bayan. One night Maryam was having some trouble getting settled and while I tended to her Ruhi helped tuck Bayan in. He was scared to go to bed because he'd been having bad dreams so this gorgeous girl came up with the idea of a magic wall and she went around the bed tapping each bedpost and told him that an invisible, impenetrable, wall had now been established around his bed and that no bad dreams, none at all, could sneak in. He woke up in the morning (without having bad dreams) and has been asking Ruhi to put one up for him, each night, ever since. I love that.

4). The way Maryam eats her crackers vertically.

5). Having, mostly one sided, conversations with Bayan as he lays down in bed and listening to him talk about robots and cars and inventions and the house he plans to build one day.

6). The way that Anisa never fails to give everyone a good-night kiss at bedtime, even little brothers whom she has been angry with (a lot) that day. She makes sure that she tells each of us that she loves us and makes sure that everyone receives a proper smooch. I love that.

7). The last days of watching her commando crawl. As she is getting more and more confident about walking we are seeing less and less of her signature crawl and I am soaking up every second of it.

8). Ruhi's random acts of kindness, like when she goes out to the clothesline to collect the clothes and bring them in without being asked. I love that and I am so grateful for her help.

9). That Bayan chooses to do the hard things first. When he has to complete a maths assignment he looks it over, thinks about what will be most difficult and tackles that first. Love that.

10). Bayan's cheerleaders who sit on the sidelines with me and watch him play tennis. (Even though they don't look particularly enthusiastic here - they really do love watching him play.)

Or sleep through the match. I love that too.

countdown calendar

After two years of using the unfinished advent calendar for our Ayyam-i-Ha festivities and after long morning which I spent with Maryam on my back and hot glue gun in my hand I am proud to announce that it is finally finished. Finally. I looks how I had hoped. Awesome. (Except for some of the missing islands in the arctic but we won't talk about that.) I can't stop looking at it. I think what put me off (for two years) was my vision of the earth and children of the world...how was I ever going to make the continents much less the traditional costumes from around the world in felt with micro detailing and still have it look presentable. How? Anyone? Then, while organizing the hall closet a couple months ago I came across some laminated children I had made for some forgotten purpose. They were perfect for this. Not felt. But you can't always have everything. I can't wait for the kids to see it. Now I'm off to organize the prizes, activities and quotes... or maybe I'll just stare at it for a few more minutes...