Ramadan Routines, In-Laws and Late-Night Coffee

It has been seven days since Ramadan started, a week of the holy month gone by so very quickly alhamdulillah.  After failing to wake for suhoor on the firsts day and spending the day with a debilitating headache, the rest of the days have gone by fairly comfortably.  Our sleep is broken, our diets are haywire and our bodies are getting used to the new mode of living, but the days and nights feel so very special in our home alhamdulillah.

Suhoor is a simple meal and mostly me in the kids’ rooms, toast in hand, haranguing them to get up.  I then drag them out of bed for dawn prayers and they want to know why no one woke them up for suhoor.

We are still waking up early for school and work, and it is no mean feat at the moment to get up myself, let alone try and get the kids up.  It’s like Zombie nation at 7:30 in this house.

We get through the day and then everyone gets back home telling me how hungry they are and how they still spent a solid hour playing football at lunchtime even though they are fasting.

After work, I make sure I have a short sunnah nap (qaylulah) so that I can concentrate for the night prayer.  Then I get up for prayers, reading Quran and then kitchen duty.  I did say to my husband this year that I have no intention of spending hours in the kitchen making special foods and then being too tired for the night prayers. He, being a sweetheart, fully agreed and said he didn’t expect anything special and we should keep things simple.  Me, being a greedy guts that I am, have been spending ages in the kitchen making lots of dishes and then propping myself up with coffee before the night prayer.

The iftar meal is a delight in our home, my in-laws have just come to stay, so there are nine of us at the table spread and it often feels like a bit of a party.  We sit on the floor on a big cloth and everyone tries a bit of everything.  Then they leg it before I can start getting them to help me and I have to drag the oldest three back to help pick everything up.

After this there is coffee, lovely, soothing, warming, darling coffee. Coffee and blogging.  A perfect combination.  Once I fell rested and my feet have recovered from standing in the kitchen, it is time for prayers.  Unlike previous years I have found the night prayers (taraweeh), easy this year.  My legs can take it and my brain isn’t zoning out every minute alhamdulillah.  I don’t remember enjoying it like this for a long time, and I pray that Allah (SWT) make salah an intense pleasure in my life insh’Allah.

Most people stay up overnight, but because I have work, I get two hours of sleep in before suhoor.  They are honesty the most delicious hours of sleep ever.

My in-laws are here for summer and will be staying for the next five months or so.  Over the twenty years of my marriage they have changed so much from robust, vibrant people, to a frailer and more dependent couple.  I pray that I can care for them, make them feel valued and never let them feel burdensome in any way.  It’s funny, mum-in-law and I have had our ups and downs over the years, but more recently I feel nothing but love and respect for her and we share a deep sense of kinship and friendship now.

I am looking forward to the rest of Ramadan.  I hop it doesn’t go so fast that its over before I make the most of it.  I hope I can take some benefit and good habits that stay for the rest of the year insh’Allah.