I must be doing something right

For more than a month now, I have been taking Saif to the park in the late afternoons. He gets the much needed sun and fresh air as well as some company of kids of varying ages, should he deem to play with them. Most of the time, he plays on his own and his ultimate favourite at the park are the ‘shwings’ where he has the most ‘funnnn’. In fact in Saif world, fun can only be had on the swing. Which should be fine except that the toddler swings are few and mostly have a waiting list of parents with their restless little ones dangling on their arms for a go. It has always been difficult to get Saif off the swing once he’s seated and on his way to ‘funnn’. He’s had a head-on tumble once when all the baby swings were busy and I put him on the regular swing at his insistence, it did not scare him though, Alhamdulillah and he wanted to sit again. He walks where his teeny weeny nose leads him too when we enter the park but then as he approaches the sandy paly area, his eyes are on the baby swings and if they are busy, or a child is seated in it just as Saif approaches…he takes umbrage and promptly starts a bawling protest. I then scoop him up and deposit him near the ‘shlides,’ ‘fish’ or ‘goat’ (it is actually a camel but we have not reach there yet) till a swing is free and he can have a go.

Often I see parents shamelessly hogging these much coveted seats of ‘funnn.’ At one time I spent half an hour trying to interest Saif in other things as a toddler swung on the swing, her mother on a nearby swing. Usually if the child has had the swing for too long and some other parent come and stand with their kid, it’s common courtesy for the swing to be relinquished. In this case Saif took me by the hand and stood there hoping for a vacancy…the mother got up from her perch, gave a couple of shoves to her child and then went back to her swing!

Yesterday Saif was on the swing and a mother and her baby came and stood by, waiting for their turn…earlier when I asked him he wanted to go and have fun of the blue slide, Saif had refused. Now I showed the baby to him and told him that the baby needed the swing and he needed to get off. My darling angelically put his arms up to be carried out. Of course I was a proud Amma…seeing as how the swing next to ours was still occupied by the same mother -child couple.

Today I was reading my book and swinging Saif when he told me that he wanted to get down, I took him out and he pointed to a little girl nearby and said, “ baby, fun.” He wanted to give the other kid a chance too! And I was soo proud of my chivalrous little boy I hugged him hard. Alhamdulillah such a considerate boy at just two years.

Just a moment later the kid’s mother spotted another emptying swing and took her there, whereby Saif immediately signaled that he wanted to be deposited back on the swing so that he could resume his fun.

I must be doing something right!