One Bad Night At The Masjid

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Day nearly fell off the chair, laughing when I lamented this story to her just now. Not exactly the sympathy I expected. Duh!

Anyhow.

After a cooperative 11 nights (minus 3 nights) of tarawih with the kids at our local masjid, last night was most unbearable, to the point that I rotan-ed each of them once on their palms, once we got home.

Before you dial the TeleDera line, let me just share with you what happened.

You see, our masjid is friendly to kids. In fact, it has 3 different places for muslimat to pray. The main area is upstairs, air-conditioned and within the masjid walls. The second is a large wakaf, built very close next to the masjid, open-air with fans and curtains on the walls. Most women who are not to fit to climb stairs and mothers pray here, for ease to monitor their kids and it's away from the main masjid, so if the kids run around a bit, the only people affected are the jemaah there. The third is a newly opened carpeted, open air terrace of the masjid, with a sliding door separating the men and the women. I like this as it's carpeted and Ariz and Adani can do their stuff at the back and we would not be disturbing too many people.

So, we've never prayed at the upstairs area and I thought since the kids have been exceptionally wonderful, we could give it a shot. Last night. We did.

I had a sackful of books for Ariz and Adani. And a bottle of air sirap too.

During 3rd rakaat of Isya', Ariz gleefully ran through the saf towards me. I shuddered. He's never done that downstairs. After Isya' was over, the makcik next to me screeched, "Siapa la yang bawak anak ni. Ish".

After a lot of stares and figger-wagging, Tarawih 1 and 2 went well. Tarawih 3 saw me running downstairs since Ariz needed to pass huge motion. Tarawih 4 was a little noisy, with Adani reading aloud a poem from Shel Silverstein with a friend and Ariz was in a discussion over t-rex and kamus dewan (brought to masjid by Asiah's 4yo daughter).

Since the jemaah was doing 8 Tarawih with a tazkirah, the witir was done in jamaah too. That went well too.

The last single rakaat of Witir saw me seething. Ariz was running the full length of the upstairs area in what would be best described as "mengilai and mengelekek". Sungguh menggangu konsentrasi aku and what was more annoying was that Aliya and Asha who were sitting nearby did not stop bubur-lambuk high Ariz. He was in a crazy mood and I snapped.

I stepped back, glared at Aliya and Ayisha angrily, tarik telinga Ariz and pulled him to the door and asked him in a murderous tone to stay there. I gathered our stuff and went to the door to find him NOT THERE. Geramnya. He was downstairs, tears streaming down his face, trying to find his shoes. The girls wanted to eat moreh but I said, get inside the car right now.

I gave an earful about being noisy and running at the masjid and also, the sisters, should be more responsible to stop their little brother or sister from being a nuisance like that. Excuses like, "Ariz tak nak" is simply unacceptable.

Coming home to MrGart who just got back from his bukapuasa at the office, I immediately instructed them to sit at the sofa, where I gave a lecture of how irresponsible for all of them to do what each of them did that night and how dissapointed I was last night at them.

I fetched the rotan and all of them received a lash on the palm.

Safe to say that, we will be avoiding the upstairs of the masjid till Ariz is at least 13 years old. So, we'll be at the wakaf or at the terrace, if you're looking for a mom and 4 of her kids.

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8 growls by fellow growlers ...:

Mommy Ummar said...

haha..i can imagine bebe. but seriyes i pun rasa nk gelak. but it's normal la kot budak2.

errmm..sorry terpaksa nk tanya. why dun u leave them at home wit bibik? i mean it's better for u, konsentrasi and all.

the same goes at mesjid here. budak2 uncontrollably bising.
i dare not take my Jr accompany, tak pasal2 i tak jadi solat sudahnya nnti. i think till he really can follow solat then only i'll take him.

Gartblue said...

ery .. cis .. kau gelak rupanya .. well, we've always practised never to leave the kids with the maid after office hours. It's bad enough we're away from them the 8 hours, after work it's us, us and us, through the shit and all.

Tapi ramadan ni my maid pg terawih jugak with her maid friends. so no one to tengok diorang.

zan said...

har har har..imagine keluar asap kat telinga gart lol.

kesian ariz kena pial telinga, harap2 that will not make him phobia dgn masjid.

dah pujuk dah budak2 tu?

Anonymous said...

ala shian Ariz! How old is he again?

Okay I'm all in on bringing kids to the mosque. I also found out that there's no such thing as 'putus saff' because of children, sunat or not. Yes, ada hadith yang sebut boys should be at the back. Men-boys-women. Tapi ada juga hadith yang sebut children should not be denied rights praying dalam satu saff dengan adult. So... wassup with jegil2 mata kat kita kan?

Having said that, for peace of mind, read this http://www.central-mosque.com/fiqh/traweehwomen.htm and .. alah panjang sangat link. Go to qaradawi.net for more.

numejo said...

:) Kids will be kids. Hope they learn from the incident. Kalu tak jugak..... Huhu. Hope todays a better one for you and your family.


Rotinina, thanks for the link, I was searching for some online sbb tak reti nak nulis and bagitau orang.

elisataufik said...

You know what, somehow I would feel more comfortable being able to hear my kids in the back rather than senyaaap aje.. takut kena kidnap ke apa ke..
paranoid kah?
Tapi kan, rumah my mom depan masjid, so most of the times either diorang kena tinggal or kena halau pegi rumah nenek.

Cherry said...

laaa kau upgrade ke upstairs ke ? i still duk bawah lagi, yang dekat wakaf tu. tak yakin le nak naik atas tu lagi.

أم الليث said...

dilema kan. anyway, bagus tu u marah derang. kids will be kids..bising2 kat tempat awam..bab tu tak kisah sgt. tp yg geram tu bila mak bapak buat tak heran langsung. marah anak derang pun tidak. grrr.