What I learnt in my travels

Well, here we are.

Happy scenes surround us this morning, 4 generations of our family intermingling and getting reacquainted... Maymuna in particular is in her element -- it's a place that's familiar to her, with family she adores, and toys she hasn't seen in months (which means they are good as new!)

We are pretty tired today and so we're mainly just taking it easy... It was a long day yesterday and an even longer night (I've given up on the idea that nights are supposed to be restful! What's that all about??) But things went pretty smoothly yesterday during our travels - the kids were pretty good, Hafsa even napped on the plane, and (wonders never cease) I managed to get a Chai Latte in the airport in Chicago and Ozayr didn't get "randomly selected" for any intrusive search procedures. Woo-hoo! It doesn't get any better than that for the 'Loojees.

There was a family on the plane yesterday, who inadvertently taught me a lesson in parenting... This couple had with them two sons, one who appeared to be 8 or 9 years old and another who was much younger, perhaps 2. The younger son was quite boisterous and the parents were almost constantly busy with him, entertaining him, feeding him etc. The older child didn't say much at all, but occasionally would do something out of the blue, like stand on his seat, or yell out. His parents would turn and scold him and then turn back to their little son. I couldn't help but feel like the boy was lonely, but the only way for him to get noticed was to act out or disobey his parents, because when he was acting well-behaved he got completely ignored.

Maymuna was sitting so quietly next to me reading a book by herself, and I realized that I had been completely focused on Hafsa (being a bit more high-maintenance at this point in her life) and because Maymuna didn't seem to need our attention, we weren't giving her any at all. In fact, for fear of disturbing or interrupting her good behaviour, I hadn't even told her how good she was being.

I had heard people say this before but it really made me realize anew that we need to CATCH OUR KIDS BEING GOOD - otherwise we are rewarding them (with our attention) for misbehaving instead. And how sad it is to see a good child be completely ignored.

When the plane stopped the older son just wandered off with us into the terminal, his parents were yards behind, still fussing over the stroller and hand luggage and coats... and other "more important" things... What will this kid do when he's 16 years old for attention???