Some people like to watch box openings on YouTube.  Others prefer cat and cucumber videos.  Personally, I love to watch kids cooking.  As a mother with moderate cooking skills, I am fascinated by their chopping abilities, cooking vernacular, and overall passion for cooking. Always dressed for success in the kitchen with big-pocket aprons and tied-back hair, these pint-sized chefs sauté, julienne, and grill with gusto, to produce amazingly creative cuisines.  Even in third-world countries, tough little-bedraggled toddlers carry firewood to light stone ovens and clean fresh fish for sumptuous, hearty stews.  It’s awe-inspiring!

As Ramadan approaches most Muslims are thinking about how they will slow down their day-to-day lives and focus on worship, good deeds, and spirituality.  Ramadan is a time of fasting, faith, and family.  It is a time to renew our spirituality and strengthen our faith as we increase our acts of worship and enjoy the blessings of family gatherings.  It is also a very important time for teaching our children about Islam.

I have always enjoyed doing arts and crafts with my children. I loved seeing the delight on their faces when I rolled out a big sheet of paper, set up the finger paints, and just let them have at it.  Of course, I didn’t always know what they had painted unless I carefully phrased my open-ended questions to get an identifying description of their latest masterpiece, but I knew inherently that they were getting something really good from the experience.  I could tell by the beaming smiles on their faces as they proudly held up their artwork for me to see.