Muslim tot-school: al7amdulillah for mini prayer-rugs!

A wise and insightful friend, having read my last Muslim Tot-School post, said that she had found that her daughter suddenly started loving to pray alongside Mama after they bought her her very own mini prayer-rug. Well, a solution that simple has to be worth a try! So we bought Basbusa a little prayer-rug of her own ($5 at a local halal butcher-and-random-Islamic-stuff store)... and al7amdulillah! She loves it! At least once a day, and usually more than once, she goes and gets her rug and puts it beside mine while I'm praying (spending forever to get it spread outjust so, but hey, I'm not complaining!). Her "praying" consists of an opening takbeer and then lying face-down on her rug, tapping her index finger, but she hangs out there for at least a ruk3a or two. She also loves the salaams to each side at the end. I'm sooooooooo happy - it makes me feel so incredibly lucky to see my tiny munchkin there beside me while I pray!

Two other things have also been going well for us lately, al7amdulillah. If Basbusa doesn't feel like joining in at prayer-time, I never push the issue, but I do ask her to do a quick takbeer instead, and she now does so quite happily. What I'm hoping is that she'll get the idea that although drawing/jumping on Baba/pushing her doll in a stroller are very fun things to do, it's normal to expect to put them aside for just a moment when we hear the athan. So far, so good on that one.

The other is something I should have been doing since she was born: saying Ayat al-Kursi last thing at night as she's going to sleep, followed by dhikr. The main reason why I took so long to get around to this is that I hadn't yet memorized it myself. (I should have done so years ago, of course, but somehow, until I realized that Basbusa was also missing out due to my negligence, I never got around to it. Astighfir Allah. But better late than never.) So now our new bedtime routine is teeth, bath, glass of warm milk, goodnight to Baba, long chat in bed with Mama as Basbusa discusses everything we did that day and any other random thoughts that cross her mind... and then, as she starts to get sleepy, Ayat al-Kursi. It has been amazing - after just a few days, she began to associate it with time-to-go-to-sleep, and now she snuggles up close as soon as I start, and is out cold before I get to the end of the dhikr. Sub7an Allah :)