Friendship

Mikail spent the morning with us today as his mom had to go to Putrajaya for something related to her business.

He is Deen's age, and next year they will be in the same class.

Incidentally, Yaya too had some business to settle in town, so she went off straight after sending Al to school for the end-of-year prize-giving ceremony or something.

Both Deen and Mikail got the day off from school as school is practically over for these two average achievers.

Since I am now working from home, I babysat both boys while doing stuff on the computer, while the adults went about their business.

Lunch was easy - rice, fried chicken, coleslaw - as all the things that Deen likes seems to be Mikail's favorite too, so that wasn't too difficult to prepare.

They spent the entire morning playing games on their iPads, bragging about their various achievements like boys tend to do.

I was periodically interrupted by either one of them, "Auntie, nak ribena", "Aunt Sel, nak mango", "Auntie, Adik buat camni (demonstrating the irritating act)", and so on and so forth ...

Ah yes, everyone calls Deen Adik, it seems, even little Ara who is barely three years old addresses him as Adik.

I am not too keen on these boys spending the larger part of their time gaming, but I remember that at one time I was just as obsessed with computer games as they are now with their iPad games.

The difference being, I was well passed my UPSR years when I caught the gaming bug, while these boys are just eight year-olds who still can't construct proper sentences.

Al came home early today, and immediately sat in front of the computer browsing for things a nine-year-old would be interested in - today he is fascinated with planets, stars, and constellations, having finally moved on from pyramids, pharaohs, Musa A.S. and Harun A.S.

That means tonight I will probably be inundated with questions about planets, stars and constellations.

That's what we do before tucking them in, answer questions about what they learned during the day, be it in the classroom, at the playground or on the internet.

I sincerely hope that Al's and Deen's innocence can be preserved for as long as possible and that they will continue to talk to us and share their interests with us throughout their growing up years.

We have always been a rather close-knit family, and we hope that these boys will not only be brothers, but also good friends that will support and take care of each other.