Shopping for Ibrahim, at the supermarket and a meltdown

I took Ibrahim out shopping for his clothes today. He behaved himself pretty much the whole time. There were a few occasions when he had to be threatened but we got the job done. He has everything he needs.

After shopping for clothes we had to get vegetables from the greengrocer's and some things from the supermarket. I ended up having to go to two different greengrocer's and two different supermarkets to get everything I needed which was an extra hassle that I really didn't need. The weather was hot, humid and dusty and I was feeling pretty worn out by then. 

At one shop there was a particulary nasty boy who was giving the Egyptian shopkeeper a hard time. He was throwing things on the floor, making rude remarks and then after he'd bought some eggs he intentionally walked out of the store and broke half of them and then came back in and demanded that they be exchanged... which the shopkeeper did (to my surprise). Then the boy walked out and repeated the scenario with the eggs again! And once again the shopkeeper exchanged them. I was really shocked! 

The shopkeeper finally got rid of the boy. He was upset and told me 'I cannot do anything to the boys that come in here and make trouble. I can very easily be deported.' I told him I was very ashamed to see the boy behaving like that and suggested that he talk to the boy's father. He replied 'I have done that in the past, but it it useless. His father behaves the same way. Where do you think he learned such behaviour from?' I didn't know what to say in reply other than 'May God help you.'

I was exhausted by the time I got home. I got the car parked and everyone had excuses as to why they couldn't help me unload the car. This did not go over well with me at all. I had to threaten bodily harm to get the bags up the stairs and into the house. And to top it off when I got upstairs I found that the things I had asked the girls to do while I was out were not done. So I got angry. I shouted at girls 'That's it! I'm going to bed and you'd better have everything done, the table set and the 'breakfast' ready to eat by sunset! DO NOT bother me until then!' (I've left out the swear words and some of the kids got smacked). I left them to sort out the taco salad and make a potato tagine - I had already prepared the soup before the shopping trip. I headed for my room and took a nap until it was time to eat. 

I felt better after having had a nap. This all night long routine that my kids have adopted is getting to me. I don't like sleeping during the day. It makes me feel as though the day has been wasted. And when I try to sleep at night my sleep is disturbed by all the noise they make. I never did understand why people just switch from a daytime schedule to a nighttime one during Ramadan. Isn't that just defeating the whole purpose?