Lil Grey Crayon and her three lovelies are here, and we ‘ve had a great time today despite Khalid being up all night w/a cough, Iman being up since 6:30 am, and HF being all the way over in OMAN of all countries.  (He’s no good at helping w/the kids when he’s in another country. pffft!)  Also, Joy was off today.  But we did it.  We’re still alive.   We’ve had a long and fun day and both of the kids are asleep and it’s 7:45 in the evening.  Alhamdulillah.

I even managed to send a few work emails this morning, and tomorrow I have an autism parents meetup to attend.  On the plus side, Joy will be back tomorrow, and InshaAllah, InshaAllah, I’m hoping I get more than just a few hours of sleep tonight.  Last night Khalid woke up around midnight and fell asleep shortly before Fajr.  Then, when I got out of bed to do wudu, he woke up, panicked, and ran after me half-asleep, thinking I was leaving.  I told him I was praying, so he got back into bed.

Then, a few minutes later, my alarm went off again while I was already praying (I must’ve hit snooze before and not realized it) and because I couldn’t do anything about it, it went off with its brazen ‘red alert’ sound until Iman sat up, climbed over to my side-table, and expertly slid the ‘slide to stop alarm’ bar.  I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had seen it.

“There,” she said, climbing her 2 years and 10 months old self back into bed.  “Iss finished. I did it.”

But she was awake then.  And maybe Khalid hadn’t been back to sleep yet.  But the kids were both up.  So we had omelettes with a few slices of turkey and peppermint tea for breakfast.  And eventually we woke and fed everyone else, and Lil Grey and her crew walked to the masjid for Friday prayer while Owl watched my lil savages so I could take a desperately needed nap.

Then we went out for lunch and Lil Grey took her lil shorties for indoor skydiving.  (Welcome to Dubai.  We ski in the mall, too.)  Khalid and Iman got to run amok in the indoor play area, but having been poorly slept, they both started to break down by 5:00.  Beebs, Lil Grey’s sweet and helpful eldest, helped me take the kids home and bathed Iman and even washed off most of the lipgloss that Iman adorned herself with while I was busy bathing Khalid.  Then I put the kids to bed, one kid at a time, and now here I am, trying to remember my day in chronological order but also remembering the laundry that’s still in the machine as well as the assortment of dishes waiting for me in the sink.  Which reminds me, there’s a half-made pot of daal on the stove too.  Hmm.  I should probably stop blogging now.  🙂

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Because sometimes, you really need a hamster… *urp* Today is not that day. W00t! W00t! W00t!!!