Day 3 of Ramadan Kindness
I have a peppermint tea. I have a bar of chocolate. And most importantly I have two children in bed watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, so I am good to go with our Day Three of Ramadan Kindness.
Today's little slither of benevolence was planned in advance. Last night, in fact, as the Lads and I were still basking in the afterglow of giving fresh flowers to a group of beautiful children. Catch up on the magic of that by reading yesterday's blog post. Better still, figure out what it's all about with my Day One post.
If you live in Brixham in South Devon, as I am lucky enough to do, you will probably know there is a local footy hero among the kids of the town named Shaun. Now Shaun is just the right mixture of youth, humour, energy and talent to lock in the attention of any child within a four-mile radius who has even the slightest leaning towards the beautiful game. He trains kids in football skills and provides them with great quality opportunities in football with 'Brixham Development Academy' (NOT a plug, by the way, I actually do think it's all just a bit ace).
Big Lad attends Shaun's coaching sessions every Friday and when asked last night what he fancied doing for Day Three of Ramadan Kindness, the words practically poured out of him. "I want to make Shaun a card. I want it to be in the shape of a football with black dots on it like a real football and I'm going to put hashtags inside it and everything!"
(This, BTW, from the boy who when faced with a creative task as school homework visibly shrinks into the sofa and practically morphs into the biscuit-crumb-encrusted cushions)
Then Little Lad piped up: "What about me? I want to do something for Shaun too! Why can't I make a football shaped card? Why does he get to do everything he wants? It's not faaaaaair!"
I did a quick time-check, knowing full well that I wanted these wailing banshees in bed pretty damn soon, but using my mummy-powered sixth sense I calculated that there was time to rise to this particular crafting challenge.
"Ok, ok. This is what's going to happen. You are both going to be involved in making the card. You will design a side each and then you can both write inside it. We'll give it to Shaun tomorrow at football, alright? Alright?"
Accompanied by my mid to severe maternal stare reserved for such an occasion, they quickly nodded and went about finding the felt tips.
And although Little Lad just had to put his particular stamp on this creative endeavour by not actually completing it in the allotted time last night, but dipping into it in bite-sized chunks at time-slots convenient solely for him ("Little Lad, why haven't you put your pants on yet?" "Little Lad, why have you deserted your toast?" "Little Lad, we were meant to leave for football FOUR CENTURIES ago!"), we did, in the end, get it finished.
Sadly, the strain of producing a portrait of Shaun was too much for Little Lad and he was 'too exhausted' to write a message inside. No biggie. It just meant Big Lad got all the glory AND a photo with the man himself.
So we can all start our weekend safe in the knowledge that Shaun's fridge is suitably adorned with a whole lotta love from the Yardimci Lads. PLUS our Ramadan calendar has one more post-it note telling the story of our month of kindness.
Until tomorrow, go well . . .
Abi
xxx
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