My little hero, MashaAllah

Some children are bad at taking turns, but my kids are good at it for all the wrong reasons.  When Iman is getting an involuntary manicure, she’ll plead “Khalid’s turn!  Khalid’s turn!”  And when it really is Khalid’s turn, he’ll do the same.  ”Iman’s turn!  Iman’s turn!”

To say it’s the other sibling’s turn is loosely translated as “Not me, take him instead!”  On the other hand, when Khalid is playing with a toy that Iman finds interesting, she has no hesitation in grabbing it and yelling out “Iman’s turn!” and when Khalid wants to use my computer, he’ll stand at my elbow and cheerfully announce “It’s Khalid’s turn!”

Turn-taking has been anything but an altruistic skill, until now.

Iman had a dental appointment two days ago, and of course, she screamed bloody murder while having her teeth cleaned.  I held her in my lap, Cindy held her legs, one assistant held her head while a second handed tools to the dentist- a lovely lady who works with the rapid expertise of someone with a small window of opportunity in the midst of a big fuss.

In all of this, Khalid was just outside in the waiting room, playing uneasily with the legos and periodically trying to come in to see what was happening to Iman.  Joy redirected him back to the legos several times, but he was quite upset by Iman’s screaming.  And my brave little boy, you know what he said to Joy as he tried to enter the room again?

“It’s Khalid’s turn.”

SubhanAllah, MashaAllah, Alhamdulillah.