We Ain't Normal

My 8 year old Nisa recently commented that our family is not normal. I was quite taken aback by that remark. My brain processed her comment to mean that we are not like other happy families. Maybe, we quarreled too much. Maybe the tyrant mother nagged too much. I was rather worried and concerned. Are we not normal? I thought we were.

We spend our time together most of the time. After work, there is no other option but to spend time together. We eat together. We read together. We watch movies together. We go out often. We hug and kiss one another with i-love-yous openly and frequently. And we EVEN sleep together - the 6 of us all in one room! I thought these are all the things that N.O.R.M.A.L families do. So what is it that made us NOT normal? Hmm, maybe the sleeping part....8p

As we walked hand in hand, on our way to eat at East Coast Park, I started to break out in cold sweat. I mean if a child said that her family was not normal, something must be wrong, right? It was frightening for me, her normal mother! As a normal human being, I just want to be normal and have a normal family. Anything, AB-normal or SUB-normal was something I don't want to deal with. It would be definitely taxing on the brains to be out of the norm. Normal should mean good.

I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to know her meaning of being normal. So I asked her. Her reply was "A normal family consists of a father, a mother, a daughter and a son. It is always shown on TV as such. Even in my books. How can our family be normal when we have Abah, Mak and 4 of us - all girls?" So this is how she defines normal...phew! I am most relieved. If that is her definition of normal then we don't need to be normal. Yes, we ain't normal. We are more than normal. We are just one perfect happy family. 8)