Salaam

Just over two weeks to go to Ramadan!!! I usually love this time of the year and try to make the most of it, but this year for some reason I was feeling a little fearful. Next week my four-year old (little lady) starts school, last week my two year old (little man) started with potty-training, a stop-start affair, and I am still breast-feeding the six-month old (gorgeous), who seems to have started teething already (yeeaah). I've also only been back at work for six weeks. My in-laws are planning to come visit from Pakistan (mum, dad, naughty little brother-in-law) to help with the kids for six months so extra cooking at suhoor and iftar time. I was thinking about early morning feeds and cooking sessions and long taraweeh prayers and feeling guilty for not just being ecstatic that lovely Ramadan is here when I saw Sarah Joseph's latest editorial in her excellent Emel magazine. She spoke about the fear she felt of not making the most of Ramadan or of not fasting all the way through and how she looked back at the acheivements and lessons of past Ramadan's to encourage her. She really inspired me. I'm going to take one day at a time this special month and make the most of it, if it all gets too much I'll book time off work and sleep all day and make everyone eat toast for suhoor and dates and chips from the chippy for iftar, hee hee hee.
May Allah help us to take as much blessing from this month as possible InshAllah.