Saturday, December 25, 2010

Bright Spots in My Day Today 5 of 5

This handsome guy is my first born, Mohamed. He is 15 years old and talented beyond his years in art. Mohamed has a passion for drawing and painting and animating his own comics. He can sit in front of the laptop for hours creating comic book characters using the paint program or in front of a sketch pad with a pencil for even longer. Of course, this can sometimes get in the way of studies. But to his way of thinking, studies usually get in the way of his artwork. Mohamed carries a lot of responsibility. He is the oldest of five kids, one of whom is autistic. He is usually the one who stays home and keeps an eye on whichever of the younger ones I've decided
to NOT take with me on whatever errand I'm running. He seems to take it with a grain of salt that he rarely goes with me anywhere one on one. I do try to make a concerted effort to take just him with me sometimes...which usually means we have to literally RUN the errand because Ismail plus his siblings with no adult supervision usually means FIST FIGHT before I get halfway back home. But Mohamed is a good sport about it and we usually get our one-on-one time together at night after the pesky younger kids are asleep.
Hamo is extremely polite and well-mannered and is always being complimented by neighbors and family and friends about how well-behaved he is. I'm always left proud by these remarks...and scratching my head wondering, "WHY do you use it all up on them? Why do I deserve all the 'buttheads' and 'shut ups' and 'I'm going to  pound you into dusts'?" He's a good kid for the most part.......that's saying a lot about a teenager!
He has his moments and he carries that infamous "put upon" attitude exactly as described in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. But I think that that is something that is synonomous with teenage boys and is not unique to him. He inherited his inability to let someone else have the last word in an argument from his grandmother. (Well, you CERTAINLY didn't think I'd admit it was from ME, did you?)
Hamo is a sweet and loving and caring boy who comes across to many as awkward and shy. He's both of those things but he's soooo much more. He's sensitive and deep and devout in his deen (Islam) and he wants to learn how to cook and help his father with work and volunteered 2 or 3 years ago that if (God forbid) something were to happen to my husband and me, that he would be the one who would take care of Randa. His reasoning was because she "likes him best" out of all the siblings and she listens to him more than the others. I love how selfless he is sometimes. I think we're doing something right with him. And he is one of the brightest spots in my life. I tell him all the time how I waited 26 years for him to come into my life and how my life will never be the same since he entered it.

1 comment:

  1. Haven't heard from you since the riots, are you and yours safe?

    ReplyDelete