Abez sez Assalamualaikum!

Author: Abez

  • A long overdue blog: Intoducing the Mystery Bean!

    Come this March InshaAllah, Khalid will be turning two years old. Scheduled to arrive on the exact date of his birth is what will either be:

    The best birthday present ever

    -or-

    The worst birthday present ever

    Khalid doesn’t know it yet, but he’s expecting a baby brother or sister. Alhamdulillah. 🙂 We don’t know what it is yet, apart from shy. I’m 25 weeks along (that’s out of 40 max, and 37 is considered full term, just in case you were wondering) and growing increasingly frustrated by this kid’s refusal to give up the secret of his/her gender. Khalid was a boy-flavored jellybean. This one’s a Mystery Bean.

    People keep insisting that we actually know but are refusing to tell anyone, which is a bizarre accusation considering that when we found out with Khalid, we told the entire world what we were expecting and what his name was, months before he was born. Also, Baby Shop and Mothercare just had National Day sales, and I couldn’t buy anything gender specific because I don’t know any specific gender! We’ve gone twice to find out the baby’s gender, and the first time he/she wouldn’t stop kicking, and the second time he/she was facing the wrong way with legs crossed. If this goes on much longer I’m going to rush out and buy tons of frilly pink things and if Mystery Bean turns out to be a boy, he’ll have to wear them anyway because it’s his fault for being so difficult.

    One woman I know, who says she correctly guessed the genders of all three of her children based on what type of clothes she felt like buying, insisted that if I thought about it hard enough I would know. “All you have to do is feel it,” she said, “What does this baby feel like?”

    I shifted around a bit and told her it felt like a backache, which is the truest thing I can say. With Khalid, being pregnant was a time of anticipation and excitement. With Mystery Bean, pregnancy is a time of chasing Khalid, taking the inedible/dangerous object out of his mouth and then trying to get back to work before he finds something else to taste/gnaw/take apart and eat.

    Also, because I don’t know the baby’s gender and therefore don’t have a name for it, I find myself referring to him/her as… It. Which is weird. I don’t feel connected to this child the way I did to Khalid, and I’m really hoping we’re able to find the gender out at the next visit so I can pick the backache out a name, an imaginary face, and some frilly pink rompers the next time I go shopping. :p

    For variety’s sake, we’re hoping it’s a girl. HF is preemptively referring to this baby as a she, and I keep cautioning him that if he gets his heart set on a girl-bean when we’re actually having another little boy, he’s going to give Son Number 2 an identity crisis. I mean, it’ll be bad enough that he’s wearing pink dresses, the least his father can do is refer to him by the right gender, sheesh! :p

    Please remember us in your duas, I’m still struggling through the flu and need all the help I can get.

    Peace & Chikken Grease!

    -Abez & Co.

  • Down but not out

    Ok, maybe a little out. Have the flu. A mighty flu. A mighty snotty flu.

    Will update when can, InshaAllah.

    -falls out of blogger-

    *zonk*

  • The Bebefiles: 20 Months- we don’t need no stinkin verbal communication!


    Khalid doesn’t talk yet, and that doesn’t seem to be holding him back. Case in point- Khalid wanted cheerios.

    When Khalid wants a book read, he will track me down and hand it to me. When Khalid wants a date, he brings me the box. When Khalid wants to go out, he brings me a shoe. (Just one, it’s enough to get the message across, but then we have to spend ten minutes looking for the other one because he’s probably put it in his toy box)

    Khalid has a variety of interesting sound effects in his verbal jukebox, but no meaningful ma-ma or ba-ba. Compare this to the 120-word list of my vocabulary at 18 months that my own Momma recorded for me. Khalid seems to be a little behind schedule when you compare him to baby Abez, but as far as other milestones go, he’s way ahead of the game.

    Take, for example, eating dirt. He may not even be two years old, but my Bebeface is a full-fledged dirt-eater. That in itself bumps him from ‘baby’ to ‘miniature boy.’ Why? Because babies don’t eat dirt, but little boys sure do! Khalid drives toy cars all over the furniture (and walls and floors and family members) which is also a very little-boy behavior. He doesn’t go vroom vroom yet, but I know he’s thinking it.

    He also drinks from a cup on his own, and is decently good at it, except when he stos paying attention and then pours his entire drink into the space one inch from his open mouth. Oh, and he eats bath bubbles too. That’s very advanced, is it not?

    *beams with pride*

    My little boy. They grow up so fast!

    *wipes away tear*

  • The rules of Salah- According to Khalid

    Dear Worshipers- Brothers and Sisters in Islam:

    AssalamuAlaikum,

    When standing in prayer, it is important that your feet be shoulder-width apart, possibly more, to ensure that there is enough space for me to crawl through.

    The placing of one’s face on the ground in submission to God, known as Sajda, must not be so short that I miss the opportunity to climb your head, nor so long as to bore me. Also, in the event of an insufficient Sajda, I consider it my responsibility to put both hands to your rear-end and push your head back down onto the floor.

    The lifting of the finger in Tashahud- the witness of faith- is an open invitation to go for a walk, if you put your finger up, I will grab it and walk away with your hand.

    It is a unanimously accepted by the scholars that laughing aloud will break your salah, even if I am laying between your feet and grinning at you with all 12.5 of my teeth.

    Speaking aloud during prayer is viewed similar to laughing, and so is yelping, and in the event of your ankle being bitten, do not cry out.

    Unnecessary moving around during prayer is disliked, as it reflects a lack of focus and inattention to what is supposed to be a private conversation with God- an act of worship. Therefore, do not reach for your phone or keys, even if I am walking away with them, even if I am sending everyone in your address book blank messages, even if I am making international phone calls. Concentrate on your prayer and hope to God I am dialing somewhere within the Gulf.

    May Allah guide us all,
    -Bebeface

  • The Husbandfiles: Home Sweet Home

    Photobucket

    6 am

    Me: Waleed, it’s six o’clock, it’s time for you to wake up and get ready for work.
    HF: That’s one fraudulent opinion…
    Me: Waleed, come on, you need to get up
    HF: And you need to grow a mustache.
    Me: -blink blink-

    -pause-

    HF: -waking up slightly- Hand me my cell phone?

  • So, umm… September?

    Let’s see, where did September go…

    Part of it was in the US, where I met up with Owlie and Momma and the rest of mi Familia, and had an awesomely crazy time hanging out with Selina and meeting Yasmine and Anju and a massive slew of other people at ISNA. Also, got horribly sick, and crash Baji’s place in DC where Khalid threw up on her couch. Ah, good times…

    There is a lot about the US trip that I just can’t remember anymore, and it’s fading even faster now that I have new memories from NZ to forget too! But there were some highlights, specifically, my heroes.

    My Amtrack Hero: For doing the 45-min wait at the ticket counter (the man in front of me was trying to get 50% off his ticket with a voucher they had never seen before) and then the mad rush to get on the train with one baby, one car seat, one stroller, and two suitcases just three minutes before the train departed all while dodging unfriendly co-passengers in a crowded train station- Owlie is my Amtrack Hero. As well as my Chicago Chauffeur, as well as my darling and my hamburger. And I miss her lots and lots. And I hope you Bostonians are taking good care of her because otherwise THERE IS GOING TO BE TROUBLE! (I’ll send Khalid to throw up on your couches, nya!)

    My DC Heroes: For coming back on his lunch break to take snotty, sick, fevery cranky Khalid and I to DC Children’s Hospital so Khalid could see a doctor, as well as grab our extra suitcase from the Amtrack station, all while providing gourmet culinary support (fabulous, fabulous omlette and salad) TP- Baji’s husband, is one of my DC Heroes. The other is Baji herself, who braved traffic and pregnancy-brain to pick us up from the airport, provide us awesome hosting, leave us notes and maps, pick up prescriptions and order us take-out. Baji is my other DC Hero. You guys renew my faith in humanity. Please come to Dubai, please. There’s a huge kindness that’s dying to be repaid.

    My Chicago Hero: Selina is my Chicago Hero, for being the most accommodating hostess, shopping buddy, and junk-food connoisseur- in one breakfast we had muffins, donuts, pastries, cereal… as well as rides all over the place, and directions when we got lost, and complete dominion over her living-room. >>>hugs<<< Selina, you are just too lovely. :) And now that I can’t remember anything else, and also because Khalid is asleep, I end this post now with a promise to update again soon, and next time, it’s going to be pretty darn amazing. I promise. Trust me. ;) Over & Out!

  • The view from up here

     

    This is the view from our window. The natural beauty here is amazing, SubhanAllah.

    Posted by Picasa

  • Disoriented in Auckland- like sleepless in Seattle, only with nausea!

    So much for updating on time- Now we’re in New Zealand- Auckland to be precise, and Khalid has gone from US jetlag to NZ jetlag, and I am one confused disoriented tired nauseated Momma. It’s a bidness trip, so HF is trying to work as well as take Khalid off my hands when he can so I can sleep. It’s 8pm now, and Khalid has been asleep for six hours already, have no idea when he’s going to wake, but I need to pray and crash. Lest I crash and burn.

    Please make dua.

    *falls out of chair*

  • And… we’re back!

    AssalamuAlaikum EveryBodies!

    -phew- Ok, so here’s a very quick rundown of what’s happening, which I promise to follow with a more detailed travelogue post soon InshaAllah.

    Khalid and I are finally nearly normal- he came back with the flu, and I came back with bronchitis, and spent many hot cold snotty miserable lead-lunged days sleeping it off. I say we’re nearly normal because we’re not quite there yet- Khalid is still on a time zone other than this one, and combine that with my highly unsuccessful attempts to straighten him out, and you’ve got a baby who’s going to sleep every night at nine and waking up at 4 am.

    We. Are. So. Tired.

    Neither of us is properly rested, and instead of his normal sleep schedule of 12 hours at night and a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day, he’s sleeping seven hours at night and five hours in the middle of the afternoon. The less he sleeps, the lighter he sleeps, waking often, waking cranky, and wanting nothing but Momma’s lap.

    So yeah, we are still recovering, please make dua for us, we’re collectively wiped out and desperately need rest. Oh, and Ramadan Kareem!

    Down but not out,
    -Abez

  • Almost… there…

    In an hour and a half, bebeface and I (who have endured a whirlwind vacation that’s included Chicago, ISNA, Indianapolis, Amtrak, DC, and a horrible flu) will hop a taxi to Dulles airport, where we will cram our snotty, exhausted, and congested but happy selves onto an Air France flight back home, InshaAllah.

    Then, there will be much rejoicing, as well as resting, and afterwards, there will be blogging.

    Laters, Alligators

  • Here we come!

    Khalid and I are heading state-side from the 20th (tomorrow!) until the 6th of September- we’ll be in Chicago most of the time, and DC for the last day or so.

    Yay! Road Trip! :p

  • When your eyes feel wobbly

    There are some days when you are so tired, and so sapped of energy, that the only will you can muster is to sigh very deeply. And maybe eat another cookie. Today is one of those days. I’m supposed to be working, but I’m actually reading pages and pages of information on the questions of what’s permissible and what’s not in cheese. Rats, I closed the links.. well, anyone who wants a copy can email me.

    And Khalid is emptying the shoe cabinet, one sandal at a time. Here he comes with the high-heels I got married in (and never wore again). Ladies, I tell you, when it comes to buying shoes for your wedding, don’t buy anything unless you can see yourself wearing it again. I have a closet full of shoes I haven’t worn in two years.

    Wow, this is a random blog.

    *falls out of chair*

    *falls asleep*

  • Good News:

    Owlie is blogging again! Or rather, she will be! As soon as she sees what I’ve done to her blog. :p

    Hooray!

  • I think I’m having a spiritual headache

    I think I’m having a spiritual headache

    Or maybe it’s a sleep deprivation headache, I’m not sure. Either way, my head hurts, and I’m seriously reconsidering the direction that my life is taking. Case in point: I work too much, and I don’t know why.

    I contract my work out on an hourly basis. In May I had 40 hours. In June, 60. July has just ended, and tomorrow I’ll be sending my invoice for 42. I have this chart on the wall that supposed to make me work out and read Qur’an every day, and out of the 9 days it’s been up, I have about a 50% success rate for both goals. Ok, maybe 45%. And I tell myself that I couldn’t work out today because I didn’t have the time. And why didn’t I have the time? Because I was working. And why was I working? I don’t know.

    Alhamdulillah, I don’t need to work to feed my family. I’m not working for pocket money, because out of the maybe thousand dirhams I’ve spent in the last three months, none of it has been on myself. (A thousand dirhams is a little less than 300 dollars) I’m not a big shopper.

    Work is an intellectual stimulant as well as a challenge, and I enjoy learning new skills and figuring that there is one more thing I can do, and do well enough to get paid for, Alhamdulillah. However, most people don’t turn to photoshop for intellectual stimulation, and I have plenty of other skillsets that are lagging behind. Like my Arabic skills, and my ability to focus on my prayer-

    Alhamdulillahi- presentation due tomorrow- rabbil alameen…)

    – and the frequency at which I actually get dressed in the morning and pretend to be presentable. I have a slight problem with work- I have a hard time stopping. I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve become a workaholic, and pair this with being a full-time Momma, and you get me now- baby-chaser by day, PR Media designer by night, sleep deprived always.

    I shouldn’t complain, because I do this to myself, and as HF reminded me a few nights ago- You always do this, you over do it! You get burnt out and you say you want to quit, you say this every month!

    I do actually. Usually around the end of the month too, when I’m pushing to finish everything that’s supposed to be finished by the first of the next month, and then I finish it all, send my invoice, and count up the money I don’t spend.

    Money is the means, but I can’t remember what the end is. I’ve lost my focus. I can’t remember what I’m doing here, apart from burning my candle at both ends. With a blowtorch. And I want to quit, but I hate disappointing people. It would be easier if my boss was unhappy, but he’s not- the last meeting he opened with- I like your work, how can I get more of it? (I thought- I can’t sleep any less, I’ll go mad!) so I said- what else can I help you with?

    So now I have more projects to make more money to sleep less hours and frazzle more of my braincells for Big Corporate U- an entity that means nothing to me but seems to occupy 80% of my conscious thought. I have no problem working full time, I’ve done it before- and I have no problem with challenges, but being a full time mother is already a full time job, and the fact that work is taking away from my ability to focus on what’s really important to me is bugging me. My priorities in life are my Islam and my family, but they’re both being pushed out of place by work. I’ve let it happen, and I don’t know how to make it stop.

    I need to outsource. That’s what the consultant in me sez- it sez: invoice Corporate U for the project at N rate per hour. Hire someone else to do it for you at 80 percent of N. And there are some things I can do that for, but most things I can’t. So that’s not much of a solution, although I’m going to pay Hemmie to take care of the newsletter this month for me, and I’m going to pay her a hundred percent of N, and that should actually save me about five hours of work.

    Five hours would be a nice nap. Or a very intensely satisfying workout, followed by a thorough shower, a non-distracted salah and some quiet time with the Qur’an. And then some running around with Khalid without worrying about how many hours have gone by that I haven’t spent on the next project due, or whether he’ll nap long enough for me to mail the boss a status update.

    Like I said, I have a headache.

  • Hooray for You Tube!

    The best of some anti-smoking ads featured on Youtube.com. Some are pretty graphic, but anyone who smokes must watch, and anyone who doesn’t smoke should watch anyway.

    And last but definitely not least-

  • Cheesecake and Strategic Negotiations

    “Oh Ye who believe! Fear Allah and make your utterance straightforward. That He may make your conduct whole and sound and forgive you your sins; he that obeys Allah and His messenger, has already attained a great victory.”

    The Qur’an, Chapter Al-Ahzab (33) 70:71

    So I came across this line today and it made me smile. It may be a reinforcement of what I already believe to be true: the best type of speech is honest and straightforward, but it’s great see that and be able to go, “And look, God said so too!”

    On a side note, I had an imaginary conversation with Bebeface a few minutes ago that went something like this:

    Bebeface, who was no longer much of a Bebe, but around 16 and wanting to go hang out with the guys on the corner who stand around each other’s cars and do whatever it is that teenagers do, comes up to me and says-

    Hey Mom, can I go hang out with the guys?

    And I put my cheesecake down (if I’m imagining things, I might as well add a piece of cheesecake) and say, Where to babe?

    Oh, we’re just gonna hang out. On the corner there.

    And I picture what we see every night now- groups of young men- some in their late teens, smoking and drinking that alcohol-free malt that still looks like a can of beer that no one would really drink if it was packaged to look like just another soft drink. There are younger kids too, hanging around them, but not with them, at a distance great enough to be safe but not too far to be excluded from the vicarious coolness.

    And there will be a few cars with the hoods up, and a few guys looking inside and comparing things. And although there will be nothing distinctly wrong with the picture, there will be an outpouring of wrong-ness; the cigarettes, the near-beer, the fascination with fast cars that has little to do with engineering and more to do with drag racing, and then there’s the hierarchy of coolness and bullying and the social pecking and punching order of youth when more than two of them occupy the same dimension in space. And then there’s wondering what they’re all doing out at 11:30 on a weeknight, and where they’re going afterwards, and what their parents think they’re doing.

    I can’t hide Khalid from the world, and I can’t hide the world from Khalid. I don’t want him to get burned, but he has to know what fire is to be able to avoid it. And I wonder if I say no- will he give me some sort of smart-alecky answer?

    No Khalid, now ask me why.

    Aw Mommmm… why?

    There will be times in your life when you can’t avoid people smoking around you, but this isn’t one of them.

    There will be times when you can stay up late for a perfectly good reason with friends, but hanging out on the corner isn’t one of them.

    If you want to hang out with your friends, do something tomorrow in the day time. If you need a ride or want to go somewhere cool, grab your dad and we’ll plan something out that’s a whole lot better than hanging out on the corner at 11.

    And last of all, if you just want to hang out, invite your friends over and just hang out. You know that smoking is a deathwish, and I wouldn’t let anyone else rip your lungs out, so I’m not going to let you do it to yourself-

    Mom, that’s gross-

    But it’s true, so you know not to hang out with people who are smoking, even though some of your friends may smoke, they don’t have to smoke around you.

    So that’s a no?

    Yep. Want some cheesecake?

    No thank you.

    And Khalid sulks away and goes to his room. And I’m not sure if that went very well, because the end goal is not control, but education and guidance. There are basic human needs that make everyone tick, and for kids, the need to feel like a part of the gang (aka: social acceptance) can be overpoweringly strong.

    So I call Khalid back.

    Hey kid, let’s have that conversation again. And this time, let’s use strategic negotiation, ok?

    Mom, I would like to hang out with the guys, who are, at the moment, hanging out down the street.

    I say Ok Khalid, I recognize the validity of
    a. you wanting to hang out with your friends
    However, I have the following concerns:
    1. The timing
    2. The venue
    3. Possible negative behavioral elements
    I would like for you to enjoy your friends’ company in a time and place that doesn’t infringe upon certain agreed-up boundaries, such a curfew and behavioral norms, how can we reach a solution that addresses both of our interests?

    Here, Khalid looks at me like I’m crazy, but because he’s grown up with the principles of strategic negotiation (which HF and I try to use for all disagreements, even now) he knows how they work and what he needs to do in order for us to reach a compromise. He swipes a bite of my cheesecake and says:

    As per venue and negative behavioral elements, Sami is the only one who smokes, and he’s not there right now because Hammoudi think he’s a moron, and I know it’s late, but if I could just go for twenty minutes, I can talk to the rest of the guys about meeting up tomorrow, at a venue that we both find satisfactory, during a time that fits well within curfew, and in a setting that minimizes the possibility of negative behavioral elements?

    And he smiles hopefully.

    I nod. And he comes home exactly twenty minutes later, and we arrange for he and his friends to come over tomorrow and hang out in the pool (imaginary cheesecake goes very well, poolside) after Maghrib. And I make secret plans to make them all volunteer in the cancer ward of a hospital for a few weekends, so they can see what lung and throat cancer does to your body, but that’s another imaginary battle for another imaginary day.

    By Zeba, the end.

  • 6:25 am- Owlie and the LackThereof

    It’s 6:25 am, and HF is asleep, and although it’s logical that he be snoozing at this time, I wish he were up. I need someone to sob on. Owlie is gone- en route to the airport right now, en route to big and exciting and prestigious journalism-flavored adventures in the US of A.

    It is not my intention to write a blog that will make Owlie sad, though we parted with tears, and it is not my intention to make her feel guilty by saying that I will miss her in a way that aches so bad, so very bad right now. I want you to know, Zarina, that I know you will do fantastically, I know you will rock the ever-lovin socks off of your colleagues and your professors. You will charm a new village, you charismatic dictator, you- and in doing so you will only add to the vast group (take a number, get in line) of the people who adore your wry wisdom and your awesome baking and can see through the armored exterior to the chewy nougat center in the middle.

    And I will make you proud. 🙂 I will prosper, I will carry on, and in your absence, I will create my own adventures, and as I sit here on your bed, making a mountain of soggy tissues, I am eying the box of Nutty Buddy bars and already wondering what sort of person eats four, and also, whether you can send me another box. :p There will never be any replacing of you- I checked, your EULA doesn’t cover replacement in the case of loss, but the good news is I don’t need to replace you because you’re not gone. Just like me, you’re still here, but just slightly there.

    And there you will have the world as your oyster cracker, and possibilities will lay themselves before you, and you, Pikachu, will evolve in Journalismchu. I believe in you.

    You will be fine, but we already know that. You need to know that I will be fine, and when you come back, I will be here, keeping your spot warm.

    I love you. I miss you already.

    I am proud of you.

    Love,
    Cowpie

  • The Bebefiles: Ten fingers and sixteen months

    In the last five minutes alone, Khalid has:

    • Placed one of my shoes in the bed next to HF (who is taking a nap)
    • Helped himself to a seam ripper that had been (or so I thought) safely out of his reach
    • Taken HF’s glasses off of the desk (also, presumed to be safely out of reach) dropped them on the floor, and nearly succeeded in standing on them.

    Khalid’s previous exploits have included:

    • Infiltrating the bathroom and splashing about in the toilet up to his elbows
    • Removing the cover from the drain in the kitchen floor and staring down the dark hole
    • Sorting the dirty laundry from the basket, one article at a time
    • Hitting redial and making international phone calls
    • Emptying HF’s sock drawer of socks

    At the moment, Khalid is:

    • Sitting on the floor banging a green ball and an orange ring together
    • Heading my way with the orange ring
    • Dropping the ring on the floor
    • picking the ring back up
    • Dropping it again
    • (he likes the sound)

  • All work and no play makes Jack a dull beanstalk.

    Right!

    So I’m very behind and very overwhelmed by my current workload, and in times like this, it’s good to make a to-do list, and if one posts the to-do list on their blog, then maybe it counts as an update, yes?

    To-Do (in order of descending urgency)

    • July eZine Draft 1
    • PRB Marketing Campaign Draft 2
    • Confirmation Instructions HTML
    • CBC entry form
    • Invoice & Outcome statement pub file
    • Website Correction/Review

    Ok, now it doesn’t look like all that much. Off to work we go!

  • Farewell Chateau

    Chateau de Chateau- Castle of Castles, has been the name for my parent’s home ever since I got married two years ago. It’s been the place where I come back to be a daughter again, to laugh with my sister and get hugs from my parents and wake up late in the afternoon to find two different cakes in the refrigerator, both of which make an excellent breakfast.

    Within a few weeks, the Chateau will be moving. Owlie is flying away to a super-cool science journalism fellowship where she will spend the next ten months evolving into an uber-journalist. I’m very proud of her, and very excited, and to say that I’ll miss her is a drastic understatement.

    Owlie and I, though we passed through a ‘mortal enemy’ stage somewhere during adolescence, are close enough to be considered two heads on the same set of shoulders. And although me getting married and moving off to husbandland has put some distance between us, it just means the shoulders have gotten a little bigger. I’ve kind of been avoiding the issue- not thinking too hard about it, trying not to bring it up, but within a week or so, Owlie will be gone and I will be oceans away from the sister that I have 24 years of inside jokes saved up with. (Tartar Sauce: The fish that doesn’t swim)

    It’s only fair I guess, Owlie had to deal with Abez withdrawal when I got married, and now I have to deal with Owlie withdrawal for a while. It’s not permanent though, InshaAllah she’ll be back soon. And I’m going to fly down to the states to visit too.

    And now Daddy will be heading state-side too. Lil Brudder, our great huge youngest sibling, is in need of some Dadderly guidance to get through college, and so Daddy is heading down for a few months. Momma has been in the states for a few months now, and you would think years of living like a nomad would desensitize me, but I miss my Momma. I miss Lil Brudder. And now I will miss Owlie and Daddy.

    Alhamdulillah, I have HF and Bebeface here, and Hemmie has been drafted to be my stand-in sister, and Mona has volunteered too now that’s she’s back from India, which gives you the warm fuzzy feeling of being loved and knowing that you’re not alone, but you can never replace your family. You can add on to it, but you can never replace it.

    And the Chateau is being packed up and rented out, so my castle in the sky with cake in the fridge will have someone else living in it. Let’s hope they bake. I wonder if they’ll let me come over on Thursdays.

    Sigh.

  • At least I had cake.

    Once upon a time, approximately yesterday, a young woman in a pink track suit began her first day at work at a beauty salon. It was all going well until just around lunch time, a customer came in for a hair cut. The customer said hello, and she had brought along a friend and asked her for a little trim. The lady nodded, sat the customer down, and broke out the scissors.

    After a few minutes of snipping, the customer resembled what happens to barbie dolls when bad little girls play with scissors. Or maybe weed-whackers.

    And the customer called Hemmie (who was out walking Bebeface) and the customer called HF, and the customer called Daddy, and the customer has to admit she even cried, but she couldn’t help it, it was just that bad. (She had just come in for a trim, not to have her head chopped in to a sideways mullet)

    And after a bit of discussion two things were concluded:

    1. The pink track suit lady, although nice, was not actually a trained beautician of any sort, and lied to get the job.
    2. The salon would pay for the customer to get her hair fixed somewhere else.

    And then the customer went home, hopped into a car and sat through an hour of Dubai traffic to wait an hour and a half for a turn in a very busy, very nice salon, and then told her sob story to the old beautician (whose name was Hermie) who looked through her glasses (which were hung on a string around her neck) at the customer and said, “Oh my God, what was she doing…?”

    And there was much snippage, and much concentration, and much more snippage to even out the damage, and Hermie finally brushed and blow-dried the customer off and pronounced it a success, at least what was left of it anyway.

    Sigh.

    Ok, so there were some high points in this misadventure. Hemmie not only provided free babysitting, but also much needed emotional support throughout the ordeal. And HF left his office work to magically appear with cake and hugs. And Daddy did the drive to Dubai, the two hour wait with Khalid, and then the drive back.

    By Zeba The End.

  • And furthermore…

    Afterthoughts from last week’s post on Hijab:

    There are no perfect hijabis any more than there are perfect Muslims. A woman wearing a hijab is not covering her head because she’s reached the zenith of modesty and womanly goodness (Lookit her, thinking she’s all holy…) she’s covering her head because she is trying to be modest, to be recognized as a Muslim, and to be free from the otherwise imposed status of Everybody’s Eye Candy.

    It’s a bit of a universal confusion- I’m sure Christians wearing crosses may intimidate other Christians who don’t, and the same with Jews in yarmulkes, and so on. And I’m sure that there are people out there who do wear their religion to show off, but I believe that for the most part, people wear these things to remind themselves, and also, because they are trying.

    I have a problem with labels. I would never, ever call myself religious. It would be an insult to religious people. I’ve actually been asked countless times- “So, are you a religious Muslim?”

    “Well,” I say, very clearly remembering prayers I constantly struggle with, trees I’ve never planted and bridges I’ve knowingly burned, “No.”

    “But you do that thing-” they say, pointing to my head.

    “Ah, this thing…” My scarf. Yeah, I wear a scarf. SubhanAllah. But that doesn’t make me religious. It doesn’t even make me a ‘practicing’ Muslim, because no one practices perfectly. If being called a ‘Trying Muslim’ didn’t imply you were a difficult to work with and a wear on peoples’ patience, I would be ok with that, because I’m not religious, I’m very imperfectly practicing Islam, and the most generous thing I can say about myself – without first checking if there are any dark, ominous, and possibly lightning-prone clouds nearby – is that I’m trying.

    So yeah, you meet hijabis who smoke, and hijabis who date, and hijabis who werk it like life is their catwalk, but just because they’re hijabis doesn’t mean their actions are any more or less unIslamic. Why is it that we’re ok when a young Muslim woman shows up in tight jeans and no hijab, but if you add a hijab, we get really offended? Because people see hijab as a symbol of Purity (uppercase) rather than a symbol of attempted modesty, and they feel that by wearing tight pants, the girl is demeaning hijab. The truth of the matter is that the girl is demeaning the girl, not the hijab, not the religion, and not the concept. Her application is far from perfect, but are we all waiting to be perfect before we start practicing Islam? Because boy is that NEVER going to happen…

    Allah tells us that the person who reads/recites Qur’an fluently is rewarded for that goodness. And the person who reads with mistakes? Who has a had time? Who’s struggling? That person is rewarded double, because they’re putting all the more effort in to it. Allah knows who’s trying, and a girl who’s trying to be modest, but is obviously also struggling, should be encouraged, not condemned. And seeing her should make us look towards our own selves- why are we seeing what she does in such a negative way? Perhaps it’s self-consciousness about our own imperfections that causes resentment, and therefore- nit-pickiness in the practice of people who seem more religious than we are?

    Allah knows best.

  • Are you suffering from teenage affluenza?

  • The Bebefiles: Don’t look now…

    But Khalid is toddling my way with a tin of shoe polish in one hand.

    It would seem he has journeyed far and beyond the mirror, and sought the great Shoe Cupboard, from which he has won said Shoe Polish, and brings it to me, his Queen Momma, as a token of his love.

    Yesterday, he brought me a packet of soup mix.

    Khalid is, MashaAllah, walking. And exploring. And helping himself to things like shoe polish and soup mix, and today I found the cordless phone in the cabinet of tupperware that Khalid had, apparently, been making calls from.

    SubhanAllah, I thought Khalid (who is trying to climb up the side of the chair I’m sitting in) was a handful BEFORE. He’s been walking, technically, for about a week now, but only now is he confident enough in his abilities to go on great Quests- like Up the Hall With an Apple In His Hand, and To the Bathroom to Look Down the Toilet.

    The very prospect of trying to baby-proof this house is enough to make me dizzy- how do you baby-proof a toilet? Ok, we can install those latches that keep the kitchen cabinets closed- but how do I keep him from trying to get into the garbage can? At the moment, I keep the garbage can under a chair and let little bits (like potato peels and food packaging) pile up in a bowl on the counter until I’m ready to retrieve the garbage can from its sanctuary and dump it all in one go.

    Hmm, Khalid is in the shoe cupboard again.

    (also, it’s 3 am)

    But how can I cordon off the washing machine without hampering my ability to do laundry?

    (get it? hamper? laundry? HA!)

    I digress. SubhanAllah, it’s hard to explain the pride and wonder of watching Khalid walk- his little baby feet going pat pat pat on the floor and his little hands reaching for the next hand-hold. Now that he has the freedom to chose his own direction, you can see how his mind works. He walks himself over to the window, pats around in the fabric until he finds a way in, and then plays peekaboo with me from behind the curtains. He’s playing peekaboo with me! He has the forethought to

    1. Think of peekaboo

    (He just walked past me holding his toothbrush)

    2. Think of what is required to play
    3. Locate curtains
    4. Walk towards curtains
    5. Find a way inside of curtains
    6. Initiate peekaboo

    Oh, time to go. Khalid is rubbing his lil eyes and trying to climb into my lap. He may be ready to go back to bed now.

    G’nite!

  • Questions abt Hijab: Part I

    Questions abt Hijab: Part I

    Well, here’s the hijab post that’s been a long time coming. A sister, who asked not to be named, emailed me the following question-

    If a women wears a hijab how close is she suppose to stand next to an opposite sex? Can she touch him? You know like a pat here and a touch there? Can she handshake him? if yes, then can she also caress it? If she is an conversation with him, to what level her conversation is “hijab” appropriate? What are her limits in a conversation? Can she flirt and be part of manly jokes? What about her gaze? should she talk with her eyes or mouth? I know these question are dumb and to an extent i have the asnwers to these. the gist of the matter is that i do not wear a hijab and therefore i am no one to judge. But i know this much that all these things i have mentioned above are kind of a thorny issue. I just happen to know a girl who has each and every characteristics i have mentioned above and flaunts off the purity of a hijab. Please correct me if im wrong.

    First of all, I begin in the name of Allah, and seek refuge in Him, and ask that He guide me in my answer, and any good in it is from Him and any wrong or incorrectness is from my own self or Shaitan, and I ask Allah’s forgiveness.

    Second of all, no questions are stupid.

    And now, on with the show.

    Hijab, as you are correctly assuming, does not start and stop at a head scarf. The head scarf, rather, is an extension of the modesty the Hijab as a set of beliefs and behaviors is meant to create in the wearer. In a nutshell, Hijab is this:

    Modesty in dress, action, speech and behavior

    As far as the dress goes, the hijab is meant to cover your head & hair (leaving your ‘wajh’ open, wajh meaning ‘face’) as well as fall over your chest. The rest of the body is also meant to be covered till the wrists and ankles, in clothing that is not tight or see-through, and doesn’t over-emphasize your physical booty. or beauty, heh.

    The questions you’re asking are about Hijab in speech and behavior, like- whether a girl in hijab is supposed to touch a guy. Well, irrespective of whether a Muslim woman wears hijab, she’s not supposed to touch non-Mahram men. There will always be exceptions, most obviously in the case of say- a medical emergency or dragging someone out of harm’s way, etc, but the general rule on touching is: Don’t.

    Sometimes, the headscarf becomes a cultural choice, or someone else’s choice, and when that happens, sometimes the scarf is a symbol of modesty without any real behavioural changes. And then sometimes, a girl just doesn’t know better. I’ve been there, I started out wearing a hijab because I believed it was the right thing to do, but I wasn’t fully informed about hijab as a complete package, so I wore short sleeves, hung out with my dude friends and was one of the guys. So it’s best not to assume things about people- they could be crazy half-white, half-Pakistani punk teenagers with chains on their jeans and their scarves on sideways, hanging out with stoners after school but still going home to pray. They could be me ten years ago.

    And then, there’s the issue of the nafs- the ego. Even as a hijabi, you sometimes wish you could get noticed. So you sometimes make yourself noticeable, even when you know you may be violating the spirit of hijab though not officially and necessarily the rules. Your head’s still covered, but you know what you meant when you smiled that way. And you felt stupid for it later, and you sometimes feel like a hypocrite for wanting to be beautiful, be glamorous, be sexy because we live in a world where beauty, glamour and sex appeal are the end all and be-all of femininity. But that doesn’t make you a hypocrite, that makes you a human, and Islam is not an all or none deal- there are NO perfect hijabis, any more than there are perfect Muslims. Some hijab is better than no hijab. A woman in hijab with lipstick on is still more covered than a woman in a mini skirt with lipstick on, and it is important, SO important, to enjoin good as well as forbid evil.

    If you see a hijabi who you think is practicing imperfectly or incompletely, first, see the good they are doing. Then, allow yourself to see the shortcomings as the inconsistencies that all Muslims have in faith, and see them as habits to be improved rather than yet another reason why you’d rather not wear hijab than be like one of those girls who wears hijab but still struts her stuff all over the dang place.

    The gist of the original question seems to be that of hijab in action, or the lack thereof. We are all incomplete. There are those of us who look the part but don’t act it. There are those of us who act the part, but don’t dress it. To try to place one aspect over the other in importance is like trying to figure out which one is more necessary to make the color orange- red, or yellow?

    The other question I was asked was; Where exactly in the Qur’an is hijab mentioned? In Surah Noor (24), ayah 31, Allah says:

    “And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments…” verse continues here



    Arab women of the time were already covering their heads, but they were tying their scarves behind their necks. They had it half-way right, and so Allah revealed the instruction that their head scarves were to fall over their chests as well. The details of hijab as a full set of behaviours- modesty in action, speech, etc are found in numerous hadith, which, if anyone needs me to find, I can InshaAllah, but I’m not posting them here at the moment. (It’s 2am)

    So I hope that answers your questions, Sistahz, and if I’ve missed anything out or if anyone else has comments or feedback or heck, more questions, the comment box is right down there. I’ll try to check it regularly, though Bebeface and I are in Doha at the moment, wallowing in five-star luxury on our first business trip with HF, having a great time but also facing certain spiritual hurdles that I will try to blog about soon InshaAllah, before we leave the day after tomorrow.

    (Our hoity-toity dessert had an odd tangy flavor that turned out to be Bailey’s Irish whiskey, and now we feel sad)

    Salaams from Qatar!
    -Abez

  • Come on guys, it’s not as gross as it sounds…

    It’s my knee! Yay!

  • heheheheh

    I am such a geek, and I am such a gross one too, that I am going to post the DVD of my knee arthroscopy on my blog. Yep, I am, and I will, once I can get HF to do it for me. Cuz he’s my tech support hero! *heart*

    The surgery went well Alhamdulillah, just a few zaps here and a few zaps there to fix damage at the back of my kneecap as well as fuse my miniscus (squishy important bit inside of my knee) back to where it was supposed to be. It was, according to my awesome orthopedic surgeon, “mobile,” which doesn’t surprise me, because in this day and age, what isn’t wireless?

    I thought about asking my surgeon to do a few add-ons while he had me under the knife- God knows I need a third arm to wrangle babyface into his diapers these days (he too is mobile) and maybe a built-in mp3 player so my knee could play audio books. Oh and of course, a laser of my own. That way I could have the stealithiest, deadliest knee in the entire world! Haha!

    -ahem-

    Alhamdulillah, I am feeling much better of late. My knee, which was as flexible as a piece of wood for the first few post-surgical days, is now loosening up. I can bend it about 60%, and am not limping quite so obviously. Which is nice, because it’s a funny thing- when you limp, people stare. And if my Doc had installed that knee laser then I wouldn’t mind, but he didn’t, so I’m glad to be hobbling a little more smoothly.

    My stitches come out the day after tomorrow InshaAllah, and I’m really excited about walking, sitting, praying without pain. One day, I too will be mobile. InshaAllah. 🙂

    Next up: Arthroscopy video InshaAllah
    Followed by: Hijab Questions, finally!

  • Bring on the Lasers!

    Bring on the Lasers!

    AssalamuAlaikum peeples

    I am very sorry to be so tardy w/the hijab post, but I have knee surgery in the morning and a few more days can’t be helped.

    In the mean time, please remember me in your duas for a successful operation and a speedy recovery InshaAllah.

    Peace & Chikken Grease!
    -Abez

  • Overworked, and for once, overpaid 🙂

    A week, I need another week to wrap a few projects up, and then I can sit down and properly blog. But in the time, how about some blogletts?

    A brief update: Bebeface is taking his first wobbly steps on his own, and his fantastic new mobility means dire things for my paper lamp, the crystal in the living room, and edible-looking dustbunnies everywhere.

    SubhanAllah:     I visited the chateau (my parents’ apt)a few days ago, and was playing idly in the living room when I heard the sound of the azhan coming through the balcony doors. It sounded strangely familiar. It sounded like my father.

    It was my father, MashaAllah, calling the azhan from the masjid up the street.

    Freelancing: Has moved in to an interesting new direction, where previous jobs involved graphic design, or editing, or creating content, this new job combines all three, and I get to use an awesome program called Articulate, which apparently only ubergeeks like HF and I find cool and exciting. Articulate is a software for turning Powerpoint presentations into flash-based presentations, with interesting interactive options. Right now I’m designing courses for an online academy, as well as their hand-outs, a few logos here and there- it’s enjoyable work, and it pays well Alhamdulillah.

    On the down side, I have to get everything done while Bebeface snoozes, and lately, he hasn’t been doing very much of it. His sleeping schedule has taken an odd new twist, now he wants to sleep 8 hours a night instead of the 12 before, so we’re trying to adjust his nap times and waking hours accordingly.

    Things are going well, Alhamdulillah, and I’ve been trying to keep my Fridays as work-free days. Yesterday HF and I went out to Ibn Battuta Mall, wandered around the shops, munched on Chinese, Mexican, AND Shawarma in one evening, and got to meet up with some friends from Abu Dhabi for a lovely time out.

    Update: Bring on the lasers! A doc’s visit this evening has revealed that I have torn the miniscus (sp?) in my knee, which is apparently an important little blob of cartilage shaped like a black bow tie (that’s what the doc said) and I’m scheduled for LASER SURGERY (zap!) this 28th, InshaAllah. Please make dua everything goes well and I recover fast, bebeface is reaching new and death-defying levels of mischief with the newfound mobility, and in order to keep up I’ve got to move pretty fast.

    Peace & Handi Grease!
    -Abez

  • Chai, the sequel!

    It is fitting that this ultra-brief recap of Chai’s layover in the UAE be typed when I am sleepy- Chai had no less than two naps in the same afternoon, and consumed no less than a thousand jellybeans and defeated us in Scrabble by no less than a million points.

    And we shopped, but we forgot to eat ice cream, and we stuffed ourselves silly at Fuddrucker’s- a place I had never been to and am uncertain of how to spell. We had burgers. They were Good. I did not have enough room to sigh by the time I was done trying to accommodate 1/3 pound of burger (it was the smallest size, really!) in my stomach, part of my spleen, and two-thirds of my left lung.

    Ok that’s sort of gross, but the burger was really good, and that’s a compliment coming from me- my response to eating American food out is never overly enthusiastic. I’ll have a nice time, but I’ll decide that I can make the same thing at home for nothing (using only a small aubergine).

    I digress. Chai is as crazily wonderful as usual, and there was much rejoicing, and much sleep deprivation as her flight arrived at 5:50 am and then departed less than 24 hours later at 2:45 am.

    She’s flown away again, that crazy international bird, and we look forward to a whirlwind jellybean festival again soon, InshaAllah.

    And speaking of jellybeans, my son is finally asleep. It’s past 2 am now. His Momma is tired, and his Momma is mentally arrrgh about the prospect of another day of busy-ness tomorrow. I’m working on basically the biggest, coolest freelance project I’ve had to date, the coolest part being that it pays in US dollars- possibly with three zeros on the end, w00t! But it’s ALOT of hard work, and I spend my waking hours taking care of Khalid and Khalid’s sleeping hours (as well as some of my own) taking care of work. Had Khalid been a good bebesaurus and gone to sleep at his normal 11 instead of tonight’s 2, then I could have gotten two hours of work in before slinking in to bed next to HF, who’s been snoozing since the jealously reasonable hour of midnight. Alas.

    SubhanAllah, life is busy, sleep is precious, and the bed is calling my name.

    Know what I mean, jellybean?

  • There’s a little boy in my bed!

    Oh wait, that’s my son…

    Khalid had his first hair cut yesterday, and in a process that resembled a temper-tantrum with a beard-trimmer, he cried, raged, and fussed his way to a snappier, more grown-up ‘do. Short on the sides, longer on top, his crazy silly over-the-ear curls have been replaced with neat number-one sideburns. SubhanAllah, he’s looking more like a little boy than a little baby anymore, and he looks dashing, but I also miss his cute widdle curls. *pout*

    Khalid’s sleep schedule has reverted to nocturnal madness again for the past few days, and he went to bed just half an hour ago (it’s 1:36 am right now). And he’s in my spot, and he’s taking up half the dang bed like a star-fish in blue pajamas, hmmph.

    🙂

    Other miscellania- My appointment with the ortho confirmed damaged ligaments on the inside of my right knee, and I have an MRI scheduled to determine whether things can be patched up with physiotherapy or whether I’ll need laser surgery. Once upon a time, in the pursuit of all things neato, I would have eagerly hoped for something like ‘LASER SURGERY!!!’ mostly because it sounds dramatic, and partially because it involves lasers. Now, Abez the Momma is hoping for boring old physiotherapy, because if my knee is put out of commission by surgery, then caring for Bebeface is going to be a serious challenge, and if I over-do things, I might further damage my poor busticated knee rather than let it heal.

    SubhanAllah for your health, and the blessing of just being able to walk without pain. I’m looking forward to that again InshaAllah. Please remember me in your duas!

  • UmmahFilms.com- you must seeee!

    This guy- Ali, he does video blogs, and if you miss these, you’re missing the funniest thing to hit the Muslim media, possibly ever.

    Props to Ali, you guys gotta see this.

  • I should be staring at the carpet instead…

    It’s a little odd for me, praying in public places, because I stand up for qiyaam and ruku, but I need a chair for sujjood. The ligaments in my right knee have been painfully troublesome ever since the accident in October, and if I pray sitting on the ground, my knee hurts so bad I have a hard time walking. I’ve been to a variety of orthopedic surgeons, each of which have prescribed me progressively bigger and bigger knee braces- the most recent one being a ‘hinged knee brace’ with enough padding, gears and velcro to make me look like a cross between a football player and a cyborg. It went from my calf to half-way up my thigh in all its immobilizational glory, and after trying it on over my pants (because there was no way it could fit inside) and feeling no better and no more immobilized than the previous brace, I decided to pass.

    So I have another date with another Ortho, who will hopefully prescribe me something other than yet another brace, but in the mean time, half of my prayer is in a chair. And I know it must seem odd, a perfectly healthy-looking, Alhamdulillah, young, non-limping, non-pregnant woman walks into a masjid and pulls up a chair. The chairs are usually reserved for those who are old or extremely pregnant, and me being neither, sometimes people stare.

    Sometimes, they turn around and stare alot. Last week, a woman sitting on the ground near me, who had finished her prayer, kept trying to look up into my face as if to ask, “What’s your excuse?” Needless to say, that really makes concentrating on prayer difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gotten the Cyborg Football Player From Outer Space leg brace just to make things obvious. Or maybe I should be paying more attention to my prayer. Heh

  • Post-Partum Depression & I

    There are a few mommy-related blogs that I’ve been meaning to type, one of them is on post-partum depression, or PPD. There’s an interesting generational/cultural gap that exists where PPD is concerned- traditionally speaking, in the Pakistani culture, there is no such thing.

    (Wateezdiss, pee-pee-dee? After your baby is born you’re supposed to be miserable!)

    Yes yes, so after your baby is born you become a sleep deprived, and you worry about whether you’re doing things right, and you desperately wish the baby would sleep, but when the baby does sleep, you have to go check to see if the baby is breathing… Being a new mommy is hard, but is it supposed to make you depressed?

    One friend of mine, whose baby is six months younger than Khalid, called me up and very bluntly said- I’m taking a survey about post-partum depression. My mother said there is no such thing, but after Asiya was born, I couldn’t sleep, stopped eating for 36 hours at a time, and felt mentally paralyzed, no one told me about this! How about you?

    How about me? Well, I was a sleep-deprived baby-tending robot whose engine ran on caffeine and the terrible fear that my baby was starving all the time. And, this is hard to admit but unfair to hide- I wanted to die. I did. I didn’t want to kill myself, and my contradictory brain was terrified of anything happening to Khalid or to myself (because then who would take care of Khalid?) but we used to live on the sixth floor of our apartment block, and I wondered what it would be like to fall from the balcony. I have never wanted to be in a car accident, but there were times in traffic when near misses disappointed me. I wanted something to happen.

    Why? Was I unhappy with my baby? No, I adore bebeface. Was HF unsupportive? Not at all, and he did what he could to support me and make sure I was taking care of myself too. (Also, we snuck out to movies and ice cream and went for drives and walks)

    I was constantly tired, but had terrible insomnia. I was completely disinterested in socializing. I stopped answering the doorbell, and I kept it all, the misery, the insomnia, the thoughts of death- all to myself for as long as I could. I dreaded having to feed Khalid, because nursing was, in the beginning, difficult and very painful, and no matter what I did, he always seemed hungry.

    (It turns out we had serious latch issues + low supply for nearly two months)

    At one point I broke down and told HF. I think it took him by surprise. He asked me what was making me so depressed, and I wasn’t sure what to tell him because I had no idea myself. Nothing specifically was making me unhappy- but I was miserable about everything, and I was sure that I was doing everything wrong- why else was Khalid crying all the time?

    When did things get better? Gradually, when Khalid was a few months old, things got better. They didn’t get easier, they just got better. One thing that made a huge difference was HF checking up on me- “How are you feeling? How was your day? Hey, you’re doing good.” It seems like such a small thing now, but HF reassuring me that I was doing good and that Khalid was fine gave me the reassurance to not freak about him starving/ailing/wailing, and it made everything lighter, more bearable.

    Alhamdulillah, my experience with PPD was, from what I understand, really mild. I thought about dying, and I had some pretty fantastic crying sprees, but it never got in the way of me caring for Bebeface- I was never incapacitated by it. There are people who have had it far, far worse, and I am grateful to God that I was able to break out of the misery and be alright again, Alhamdulillah.

    So yeah, we’re taking a survey- Anyone else out there had PPD? Any advice? We have some new mommies on the block who may benefit from what you can share.

    Love to all Mommies!
    -Zeba

  • Welcome to the world little doll!

    We interrupt this lack of updating to welcome baby H, the long-awaited conclusion to Mona’s Baby Story blog. If you haven’t been reading it, you’ve missed out on a sweet and funny account of Mona’s pregnancy, and very soon, H’s birth.

    I’ve not spoken to Mona yet (as she was slightly unavailable) but did speak to her husband who sounded breathless with happiness and called his new daughter a “perfect little doll.” HF, who also spoke to Mona’s husband, asked me, “Was I that bad?”

    I thought back to the first hazy hour after Khalid was born, and I remembered seeing HF hold Khalid for the first time; carefully in both of his hands and staring at him with watery eyes and a tender smile on his face. Even now, when Khalid is asleep and his cherubic pink cheeks are looking especially perfect and SubhanAllah beautiful, I again see that look on HF’s face as he touches Khalid’s cheek and whispers, “Mera beta…” (My son…)

    Mona and her husband ZMan are in for quite an experience, they are going to fall in love with a tiny baby whose every coo and wiggle will become the axis upon which their world turns. They will be bursting with the urge to share how beautiful her every finger toe eyelash movement is, and they will refer to their novelty-sized human as perfect, amazing, gorgeous.

    They will call her their little doll.

    Such is parenthood.

    Yes HF, you are that bad. We both are. And I’m sure people without children must get sick of hearing about the overwhelming splendor of Khalid’s little hands or the fantastic accuracy of his peeing abilities, but it is a blessing from Allah that he causes us to fall so head-over heels in love with our children. It makes the sleep deprivation, 24/7/365 work, and loss of social life seem like the tiniest little sacrifice.

    Mona, ZMan, welcome to the club. Little Doll, welcome to the world. 🙂

  • Stupid Musical Snail!

    This post is dedicated to the smiling musical snail, who ambushed me while I was trying to tiptoe away from Khalid as he napped- it leapt out in front of me (pretty quickly for a snail I might add) so that I struck it with my toe, triggering the flashing lights and the Row Row Row Your Boat that woke Khalid up.

    Grrraaaah

    Alhadulillah though, I think Khalid’s sleep schedule is ironing out. If I wake him up at 10, I can get him to sleep by 11pm. He still wakes up 3-4 times a night, but SubhanAllah, at least he’s sleeping!

    Gtg, have freelance work to finish, five posters, one proposal, and one overdue invoice.

    Peace and Musical Snail Grease!

  • Beware of Nocturnal Baby

    We’re playing the sleep deprivation game again. Today I woke Khalid up at 10 am, rather early considering his bedtimes for the last week and a half have been around Fajr. And I feel all wobbly and tired, but gosh darnit we are not staying nocturnal!

    -zonk-

  • The Bebefiles: One Year!!?

    It’s 10:23, and Bebeface is asleep, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.

    Of course, yesterday he insisted on staying up until 4:30 am, and the night before that, 3, and the days following those long nights tend to be fuzzy and a little disoriented, but hey, SubhanAllah, it’s all good. 🙂

    Khalid cruised by the one-year mark a week or so ago, the 19th being an uneventful though especially cute day, MashaAllah. These days, Khalid is working full time on his newest skills- getting around by holding on to the sofa and taking wobbly steps in the direction of the laptop, crawling or something like it, and learning simple games.

    Every day Khalid does something that makes me gasp out of either surprise, amazement, or shock. A few days ago he went from sitting to crawling position by leaning too far back to stare at the ceiling and then turning in mid-fall to land on all fours instead of his head, Alhamdulillah. And then there is the ‘feed momma crackers’ game, where I open my mouth and Khalid pokes whatever soggy edible he has been gnawing on inside. We’ve learned, rather unexpectedly, that this game also applies to other cracker-shaped objects as well, like the business card Khalid pushed into my mouth last week.

    And Khalid plays peekaboo with newspapers, and bedsheets, and embarrassingly, with the hem of my skirt at a dinner party. (peeka- No!) And Khalid has discovered that the best things in life have buttons on them, like the cordless phone that he yanked out of my hand and dropped on the floor, or the TV remotes with the tasty rubber buttons, or any of the many mobile phones belonging to the various family members foolish enough to leave the phones where he can demand them. Khalid sent his daddy a blank sms two days ago. We were all impressed.

    HF: (checking phone) You sent me an sms just now?
    Me: No, what do you mean?

    -pause-

    HF: Where’s your phone?
    Me: Khalid?

    And Khalid has turned bath time into a force of nature, specifically, a typhoon. He whirlwinds his arms and legs, churning up furious waves, soaking the floor, the towel, the momma… anything in a five foot radius.

    And Khalid is intensely interested in personal grooming, specifically manicures, and any time nail clippers are placed anywhere near his nails, he immediately wants to inspect (as well as taste) whatever it is that they’re doing and why they insist on doing it to him.

    And prayer time with Khalid is extra challenging, as there are fewer less distracting things than a baby crawling excitedly over to your feet so he can grab hold of your toes and talk to them.

    (bibbibibibib bbbbwwwwwwmmmm)

    And I know exactly where the last year has gone, but I can’t believe what was taking so long has passed so fast. SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah, Khalid isn’t really a baby anymore, but he’s not quite a toddler yet. He’s at an in-between stage, he’s an oversized grabby wiggly thing that wants to go for a walk to see the oscillating fan oscillate, but still clings to his momma like a shy koala baby.

    Too big to be a baby, too small to be a boy, my little Babysaurus. 🙂

  • Five Minute Update at 3 AM

    I need a new layout! *pout*

    I made Baji a new layout, and I made Ushi a new layout, and if anyone else wants a new layout, I will make you one for a random cash amount if I ever set my paypal up… but who will make me a new layout?

    This one’s not bad, it’s just not… me.

    It’s 3 am, and I will write a real update later. Really. I promise.

    *zonk* -falls out of chair-

  • Possibly one of the more interesting evenings spent shopping

    There is no way to describe how hysterically funny as well as deliciously relaxing it is to sit in a showroom massage chair (The OTOCare Deluxe, only 6,500dhs!) with the foot rest up and the remote control in Bebeface’s hands. I laughed until my stomach hurt while being massaged randomly by Khalid’s ham-fisted grip on the remote control.

    The salesman in the corner was trying very hard not to be seen laughing. He turned pink. Khalid cooed and growled and mashed at the remote control, turning the chair off a few times and turning the intensity up regularly, until I felt like I was being pummeled by an pair of oompa-loompas who had been paid to hide behind the chair and rhythmically punch me in the back, shoulders, and uummm.. seat.

    (oompa, loompa, doompity doo!
    yes, we can beat on your tushy-tush too!)

    SubhanAllah. 🙂