my thaqif in the middle, the sweet, gentle-looking middle child of mine turned 11 at approximately 1.01pm yesterday, december 6. how time flies and how he has grown, though not that much in size, i must say. gentle looking yes, but can be really fierce and very sensitive, i wonder where he got that from. well, errrrk... truth is he inherited that from his mommy, ouch... why can't children just inherit the good part of you and leave all the bad ones behind? anyhow thaqif is a year away from being a teenager, if you consider 12 years old as the first teenage year that is... and i wonder when he grew up. in a few years he would leave the nest and that means leaving me behind, to pursue his own life and dreams and destiny. and as a parent, we have to know when to let go. i don't know if i am ready for that. i look at thoriq and he is so big now. i didnt even realise it until he got taller and bigger than me. he is being a typical teenager, doesn't talk so much, mumbles a whole lot, being extra sensitive, prefers his friends to his brothers... most definitely, and sometimes rather stay home than being out with the family. were we like that before? preferring our own space than being stuck with the family? ok maybe i am overdramatising that a bit. anyhow, he still allows me to kiss him goodbye each time he leaves the house. he still hugs me and that's really endearing, and i so treasure that. as for my youngest baby, ruiz, he will turn 9 end of next january. oh my god, how they all grow... i always tell ruiz that he should stay small so that i can cuddle him forever. and just the other day, he turned to me at the dinner table and said "mommy, i want to stay here for the rest of my life. even when i am big and working, i want to stay here so that i can always be with u, and i can take care of u." i was pretty taken aback with surprise. never expected him to say that, my warm cuddly 8 year old baby who is tall for his age and so chubby in size, i struggle to even pull him up. and there he was saying that he wanted to take care of mommy in all sincerity. well, don't worry, i will not hold that against him though i can. record it and save it and play it over and over to him should he ever want to leave me one day. haha...that is so insane of me. so nope, i will not do that though the thought of it makes me go grinning like a cheshire cat. and this morning as i was driving just with thaqif, i asked thaqif "can u be a baby again?" and in reply, he asked me "how do we do that?" i looked at him and said "we shall think of a way. maybe we get some machine that will take us back to the past." what wishful thinking. my children will grow up, whether i like it or not, no matter how much i want to hold on to them and will them to stay little, or to wish upon a falling star that they somehow can get small as a pea and crawl back into my tummy so that they will always be with me, carried around any place i go... they will grow up and go through the phase of being a teenager, a man, become a husband and a father insyaAllah... and i have to learn to let go and never hold them back. all i can do as a mother is pray that they grow up to be good human beings with a kind heart and soul, good muslims, good sons, be successful in their lives and never forget their family, strong faith in Allah swt, have happy families of their own and come back to visit mommy every once a while or as often as we both like... isn't that every mother's wish for their children?
and on this day like it was on thoriq's birthday a month ago, i have this to say for my three boys:
my dearest first born child thoriq born at 915am on november 3 is the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for a child. my first child is my best foot forward and the one i crow about to the world.
my middle child is the babe i hold in my arms for an hour after he has gone to sleep, incase if i put him down in his crib, he might wake up changed and fly away. my "thaqif in the middle" turns 11 yesterday at exactly 1.01pm and since then, he has never ceases to take my breath away.
But the last one: the baby who trails his scent like a flag of surrender through my life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that's love by a different name. i could hardly stop rocking him, drinking the light from his skin, breathing his exhaled dreams. my heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on his cheeks. he's the one i can't put down. the one who will soon outgrow me, my baby for now, my ruiz who will soon turn 9 this coming january 31, born at precisely 11.55pm, 5 minutes away from the dawn of a new day.
a mother's body remembers her babies--the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. each child has its own entreaties to body and soul. and i don't dare say i love any of them more than the other. they are all beautiful and special in their own way and i savour that beauty, and the difference and the special ways that they are... i thank Allah for the every day and minutes and seconds i have them, and i shall live and bask in their love for as long as i have them...
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