Tasmiya

Husband and I find it very difficult to hold a conversation. The mornings are hectic. We have 4 children to get ready and as God/stars/luck whichever you believe in would have it, there will always be at least two who dig their heels in and refuse to help themselves. We never wake up early enough, the lunches are never quite what the children ordered, one will want to have a shower even when there is no time, they take forever to decide what to have for breakfast and there is at least one tantrum from each before 8:00am.

Husband leaves at about 7:15 or so after kissing and hugging the children and giving me a kiss on the cheek (yes, Muslim couples do that sort of thing) and we don’t usually converse till the late morning when he sends a text asking how the morning went. It’s always very quick and business like because we are just so busy – him with meetings, managing difficult people and difficult directors and me with surfing the internet and eating chocolate biscuits (and by that of course I mean housework and bussing the children back and forth and then looking after them and feeding them and witnessing frequent meltdowns because they are just so tired at the end of the day.)

When he gets home from work, we cannot speak to each other. The boys have so much to say, there is usually a crying baby (he comes home at witching hour) and I have yet to set table or tidy up. We do try to start up a conversation but inevitably the children need one or both of us so the talk is abandoned until they are all finally asleep. There is much for me to tell him and him to tell me but oftentimes we are just so tired that it’s all left unsaid.

Sometimes it feels as though we are those ships. Those ships that pass. You know. But not in the daytime when the sun is shining. In the nighttime. Like we are huge and we are floating on the water and we pass in the water. But you know, like in the nighttime so we don’t see each other. Even if we have our lights on. Yeah. Like that.

My favourite moments are the stolen ones. The times when we both manage to be on the computer at the same time and have 5 mins to spare:

him: But if you read 800 tasbeeh’s it’s all ok

me: tasbeehs..no apostrophe!!

him: your wrong!

me: it’s called the greengrocer’s apostrophe

him: ur rong!

me: because they always put..apple’s 2.99/kg

him: but the 2.99 belongs to the apple’s!

me: lol!