Maryam turns Four, going on to Five. Personal Update.

Maryam turned four months old on 30 April 2009. By the time you would be reading this it would have been close to 30 May and she would have been 5. I overheard my dad mentioning once to someone on the phone, that, watching your kids growing up, makes you realise how old you yourself are becoming.

FoxTrot (c) 1998 Bill Amend. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

Unfortunately Maryam’s sleep schedule and my work schedule aren’t really synchronised yet. What I mean is that she’s fast asleep when I leave home and by the time I return she’s well into her nightly slumber. But because I see her so less during the week, makes my time with her on the weekend that much more special. Oh, I could here her gurgling and cooing all day long. The simplest of things fascinate her. It’s just the fan rotating on the ceiling, but she will stare and stare at it in amazement. The creaking of a door, the tinkle of a bell, the faintest and most of ordinary of sounds is enough to distract her. What a wonder it is to see from child’s eye and hear with baby’s ears. For some reason I’m not able to get her to smile very easily. Therefore most of her pics that I have of hers, has a sad, blank look. My Mum gets her to smile real quickly and easily. It’s probably one of those things that you have to be a mum to know how to do.

When I’m with her, a part of me would like her to grow up instantly. So I could take her to walks in parks. Read to her my favourite books (which I actually do anyway), re-watch my favourite Disney cartoons, play family board games together. Another part of me wants her to stay a 4 month old toddler forever, so that we can just hug and cuddle, so that I can hear her coo and gurgle, is there any greater joy in this world?

The following passage from Hadith-e-Muffadal by Imam Jaffer-e-Sadiq, comes to mind

If the infant had been born mature intellect with an understanding of his functions, there would have been few occasions for the sweetness felt in the nature of the offspring, and the exigency, under which the parents find a full time pre-occupation with the affairs of the young ones, would not have arisen. Love and affection, felt for ordinary children, following the inconvenience undergone for their sake, would not subsist between the parents and their offspring. Because of their mature intellect, the children would not have needed parental care. A separation would have taken place just after birth of the infant from its parents. Even a mother or a sister would have been strangers to him and as such within wedlock limits. Don’t you see that everything big or small has been created on a flawless plan without fault or error?