Structure

I need more structure with Boss. Life is a drifting, aimless mess. He is bored. I am bored. If I had a car I am sure things would be a lot different, as I could just get out of the house, but I can't. So everything is house-bound. Which shouldn't be at all bad, but actually he is a very energetic boy masha'allah who just likes to run, explore, run, walk, run, bounce, run, jump, run, climb then sit for a bit then run some more. He doesn't stop til he hits the sack. Getting him to sit down all day and do arty things, or constructive things, or makey-things, or play-doh, or play with toys is simply a recipe for internal stress. So I'm stumped for ideas which will keep him intellectually happy. Bums-on-seat not an option.

Afternoons are quickly becoming wasted space and all he does is run around the living room in circles pretending to be a lorry. For an hour. If I suggest a "lets do lego" thing, or "lets play with the road set/train set/ anything" it will be out for 5 minutes while I play with it then he's up again looking for something else to do but really what he wants to do is RUN AROUND THE LIVING ROOM.

So.

Also I need to start implementing an Islamic routine with him, some kind of teaching material needs to be going on there. He ran up to the Arabic Poster today and said "Yaa for yad... look two dots underneath!"... er, yeah, bang on, but last time I told you that you were two-and-a-half. Can you believe that? It comes out now.

Do you ever sometimes get into the mundane rut of just life and wonder why you are unfufilled and realise its because you haven't done any dhikr for three months? Life is totally pointless without dhikr and although Boss knows quite a few tasbihs I never sit down with him and do any dhikr or read him any Qur'an stories. But I will teach him the English alphabet!! Come on, Debbie, get your act together woman.

And I had a weird experience whilst reciting Qur'an in my head this morning. I was really uptight (you know, more than usual... :P) and so just started reciting Surah Ikhlas in my head, simply because I wanted to switch off from thinking more than anything. All of a sudden it was like something under my skin was released and I literally felt all these bubbles of tension and angst and sadness that I didn't even know where there start to surface and dissolve. And when it was all over I felt really content and back on track. I have had other experiences whilst reading Qur'an but nothing quite so meditative-like. It's odd that when we need Allah the most we forget Him most of all. You know today was like I had started to breathe in after weeks of holding my breath.

And does anybody know of an effective du'a to aid someone in getting their lard butt into actually learning to recite Qur'an? I mean, I'm getting nowhere with it and I'm feeling a bit dead inside and I'm so nafsi that I can't envisage a time where I will ever had read it even once all the way through, so does anyone know of a du'a that will get that kick-started please??