Category: Uncategorized

I have the bad habit of using my desktop to keep unsorted files in view until they can be assigned to a file in my vast, over-sorted dropbox.  Some things though, aren’t like to find a home, and fit into the category of: Stuff I’d like to read again.  Tonight though, my beloved lappy is scheduled to be brainwashed formatted, so it’s time to move some of the miscellaneous desktop stuff to a new home- this blog.

___________________

Unfinished Blog: Highway Hifz Program

You may be one of those people who sings in the shower, hums in the kitchen, and has every infernal lyric to every song you’ve ever heard- good or bad- written in stone in your head.  Bad news- you are a human mp3 player.  Good news- you’re a prime candidate for a highway Hifz program.

Good news for human mp3 players-   I used to commute 120 miles, 4 days a week for my son’s therapy program in Dubai from Abu Dhabi, and I learned lots of things from the drive.  One is that the best shawarma in the UAE is at Baraka Grills, near exit 366 on theDubai-Abu Dhabi Highway.  The other is that time spent in the car can be time invested in your deen, via your own personal Highway Hifz program.  All you need is a good CD or mp3 of Juz Amma, and the desire to memorize more Qur’an, and pretty soon, not only will you have revised and fine-tuned recitation of verses you already knew, but you’ll begin adding more and more slowly to the playlist in your heart.

Other benefits include:

1. Using your commute for Ibada, and not just getting from point A to point B.

2. Reprogramming your mental jukebox by converting more of your mental tracks that benefit you and increase your status on the Day of Judgment instead of bring you down.  We all suffer from a certain song that pops into our head uninvited and escapes from our mouths unintentionally.  Having Qur’an on the brain means you’re more likely to be reciting Qur’an than singing, and the amazing thing is, it’s guilt-free, it’s refreshing to the soul, and the more you beautify your recitation, the more it penetrates you heart and the more you increase in love for recitation.  I never enjoyed listening to the Qur’an until I started reciting it myself.

3. (Crash into the gates of Jannah?)   Increasing the likelihood of dying with Zhikr on your lips in case of a car accident.  If you’re going to crash and die, wouldn’t you rather be reciting Qur’an from the depth of your heart rather than singing Lady Ga-Ga at the top of your lungs? Or worse, screaming four-letter words about excrement? Increasing the likelihood of dying with Zhikr on your lips in case of a car accident.

____________

Inspiring Hadith: 70,000 without Reckoning

Narrated Ibn ‘Abbas: Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Nations were displayed before me; one or two prophets would pass by along with a few followers. A prophet would pass by accompanied by nobody. Then a big crowd of people passed in front of me and I asked, Who are they Are they my followers?” It was said, ‘No. It is Moses and his followers It was said to me, ‘Look at the horizon.” Behold! There was a multitude of people filling the horizon. Then it was said to me, ‘Look there and there about the stretching sky! Behold! There was a multitude filling the horizon,’ It was said to me, ‘This is your nation out of whom seventy thousand shall enter Paradise without reckoning.’ “Then the Prophet entered his house without telling his companions who they (the 70,000) were. So the people started talking about the issue and said, “It is we who have believed in Allah and followed His Apostle; therefore those people are either ourselves or our children who are born m the Islamic era, for we were born in the Pre-lslamic Period of Ignorance.” When the Prophet heard of that, he came out and said. “Those people are those who do not treat themselves with Ruqya, nor do they believe in bad or good omen (from birds etc.) nor do they get themselves branded (Cauterized). but they put their trust (only) in their Lord ” On that ‘Ukasha bin Muhsin said. “Am I one of them, O Allah’s Apostle?’ The Prophet said, “Yes.” Then another person got up and said, “Am I one of them?” The Prophet said, ‘Ukasha has anticipated you.”

Is anyone else not seeing the white background behind older posts?

(Scroll down)

Take that, demotivation! Ha! KAPOW!

(I forgot how much I love Photoshop)

Musfira- aka Tiny Toes- has a new nickname.  Tiny Teef.  Because she has two. teeny. tiny. teef.  And they are the cutest. teef. ever.

MashaAllah, SubhanAllah.  Alhamdulillah. 🙂

Also, in the last month alone, she’s been to Manila, Doha, and Ras Al Khaimah.  Her stroller should be getting frequent flier miles or something.

Is it possible to be both over and underwhelmed simultaneously? Because I think I am.  Work is overwhelming.  Life is underwhelming.  The daily grind is… grinding.  The kids are beautiful.  Life is busy.  Feed the baby.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’m having the thirty-one year itch.  I perform meaningful roles out of duty and habit.  I’m not jealous of anyone else’s life, I’m just not sure what to make of mine at the moment.  I live from the fulfillment of one person’s needs to next, never succeeding in the impossible quest to fulfill them all, constantly being reminded of the 20% I fail and never being credited for the 80% where I don’t.

I want to simplify, downsize, and prune it all back to the essentials.  I want to throw away everything in my storage room.  I want to throw out the clothes in my closet that are twenty pounds too small and stop feeling guilty for not being the same size I was before three kids.  I want to launch the pretty shoes I bought that hurt my feet over the boundary wall of the house, because it’s not like keeping them around will remove some of the guilt I feel for not being a better kept wife for my husband.

I’m not sure if I live in my pajamas or sleep in my clothes anymore.

I only have two hairstyles, up or asleep.

I’m too tired to socialize and too busy to want to.

I heard once that the best way to tell if someone is depressed is to spend an hour talking to them, and if, after that hour, you feel depressed, then they’re depressed.

I doubt if this post is making anyone happy.  Least of all myself, and now I’m annoyed at myself for being annoyed with things that perhaps should not be found annoying.  I need to scream into a cave, but my cave is full of people and the baby is sleeping and I don’t want to disturb anyone.

I’m not a good mother, a good wife, or a good director.  My house is disorganized, my children are bored, and my business is sloppy.  I’m a barely passable Muslim, and that is probably what’s bugging me the most.  When my Iman is high (my faith, not my three year old) I feel alive, I feel free, I feel empowered, I feel humbled, I feel real.  When it’s low, I feel worthless, useless, and failed.  My heart withers and verges on death until I pour the life-giving water of zhikr on it- and it comes back to life briefly but then I get busy and forget to water it again, and the cycle of chronic spiritual deprivation versus occasional resuscitation continues, but it continues unevenly.  I had an African Violet once.  A friend left it for me when she moved away from the UAE.  I was only supposed to water it with one teaspoon every two weeks.  I would forget for six weeks and then inundate it out of guilt.  Naturally, it died.  Naturally, I feel guilty.

Am I complaining? No, there are two reasons why I’m not complaining.  1.) I have no reason to complain. Allah has blessed me with more mercies and gifts than I could ever count, let alone thank Him for, even in an eternity.

2.) If I say I’m tired then they say I don’t have enough energy.  If I say I’m overwhelmed they say I’m in over my head.  If I say I’m stressed they say it’s my own fault.  If I say I feel anxious then they say I’m always panicking.  The problem with sharing your feelings is that sometimes they’re held against you.  Complaining is shooting myself in the foot, because then people think I am an incompetent idiot versus an overwhelmed idiot.  So I’m not complaining.

So there.

Blah.

Ok, I don’t really want to drive people away.  I guess I just want to lose the mental barriers that have gone up since my blog has become a public place, and is therefore not always the best way of sharing private thoughts.

Hmm, I could be deluding myself here, assuming that anywhere on the internet is a private place.  But humor me for the sake of argument.

Also, the L key on my computer might have banana milkshake in it.  Thank you Khalid.  It took me five attempts to spell your name because of the sticky L.

What am I trying to say here…I used to freely complain on my blog with the desired outcome of catharsis.  Now I’m afraid of offending people if I do.  I used to talk through my own weaknesses on my blog, now I’m afraid of mixing my human frailties with my public responsibilities.  I’m a dag-nabbit director, dag-nabbit.  I’m supposed to be on the ball, in the know, up the eyeballs in managerial competence or something.  I shouldn’t be complaining about the banana milkshake in the L key and how lately Musfira has been so nocturnal that my daily waking time is noon and I seldom, if ever, leave the house during daylight hours.  I shouldn’t complain about how my Ramadan felt like an utter waste because I got a kidney infection on day five and missed fasting for the next 25 days.  I shouldn’t talk about the overwhelming sadness I felt when Eid was announced because another Ramadan had ended and I was no better off than I was before and not at all looking forward to reintroducing waswassa to the darkness of my own thoughts.  When the sun set for the last Iftar I actually cried.

I’ve been reluctant to post for a while now, not fearing public disapproval, but rather of opening myself up to too many people who actually know me as a person.  I’m not sure what it’s called when you have an easier time sharing your deepest, darkest thoughts with a stranger on an airplane than your own family or long-time friends, but I have that.  I’ll open my inner recesses of my mind to strangers (and sell tickets to the event on a decorated marquis!) but keep it tightly locked to the people around me.   But now a certain element of mixing has occurred, and I don’t know whether I should tell the strangers on my blog that I feel useless, overwhelmed and frustrated, or whether I should tell the friends and family on my blog that I’m a little busy but perfectly fine, thank you.

And thanks to the magic of RSS feeds (thanks for the reminders, guys) my ingenious plan of not updating for a long ole time is not likely to work.  Which is such a pity, because I spent all of five minutes devising it, and now I want those five minutes back.

Meh.

I have no choice but to be myself, because I don’t know how to be anyone else.  I just don’t know how much of myself I can be here anymore.  Let’s see.

If I leave this blog un-updated long enough, will people stop coming, and if people stop coming, will I get my anonymity back?  Just wondering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden-marijuana-crop_n_858301.html

I’m not usually a political or news-related blogger, but this had me laughing so hard I had to say something- Marijuana has been found growing near Osama Bin Laden’s hide-out in Abbottabad.  Now speculation has been flying wild and free about whether or not he was a joker, smoker, or midnight toker- or maybe just a dealer to make money on the side, who knows.

I’m sorry, I lived in Pakistan for eight years, and in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and almost the ENTIRE NORTHERN AREAS (like Abottabad) marijuana is a pernicious, giant weed.   It grows knee-high by the road-side, it invades the common garden, it crops up in farm fields and the goats eat it and get all giggly.  I’m serious.  It’s like crab grass.  Or dandelions.  Except if you make pakoras out of it (which the villagers sometimes do) you tend to feel a bit mellow later.  It’s an indigenous plant in Northern Pakistan, which is why so many unwashed westerners with backpacks and vacant stares disembark at the Islamabad airport and then wander aimlessly north.  It’s a free drug destination.  Pick it, roll it, smoke it.  It grows everywhere.  What are you doing to do, burn it?

Heh.

Lil Grey Crayon and her three lovelies are here, and we ‘ve had a great time today despite Khalid being up all night w/a cough, Iman being up since 6:30 am, and HF being all the way over in OMAN of all countries.  (He’s no good at helping w/the kids when he’s in another country. pffft!)  Also, Joy was off today.  But we did it.  We’re still alive.   We’ve had a long and fun day and both of the kids are asleep and it’s 7:45 in the evening.  Alhamdulillah.

I even managed to send a few work emails this morning, and tomorrow I have an autism parents meetup to attend.  On the plus side, Joy will be back tomorrow, and InshaAllah, InshaAllah, I’m hoping I get more than just a few hours of sleep tonight.  Last night Khalid woke up around midnight and fell asleep shortly before Fajr.  Then, when I got out of bed to do wudu, he woke up, panicked, and ran after me half-asleep, thinking I was leaving.  I told him I was praying, so he got back into bed.

Then, a few minutes later, my alarm went off again while I was already praying (I must’ve hit snooze before and not realized it) and because I couldn’t do anything about it, it went off with its brazen ‘red alert’ sound until Iman sat up, climbed over to my side-table, and expertly slid the ‘slide to stop alarm’ bar.  I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had seen it.

“There,” she said, climbing her 2 years and 10 months old self back into bed.  “Iss finished. I did it.”

But she was awake then.  And maybe Khalid hadn’t been back to sleep yet.  But the kids were both up.  So we had omelettes with a few slices of turkey and peppermint tea for breakfast.  And eventually we woke and fed everyone else, and Lil Grey and her crew walked to the masjid for Friday prayer while Owl watched my lil savages so I could take a desperately needed nap.

Then we went out for lunch and Lil Grey took her lil shorties for indoor skydiving.  (Welcome to Dubai.  We ski in the mall, too.)  Khalid and Iman got to run amok in the indoor play area, but having been poorly slept, they both started to break down by 5:00.  Beebs, Lil Grey’s sweet and helpful eldest, helped me take the kids home and bathed Iman and even washed off most of the lipgloss that Iman adorned herself with while I was busy bathing Khalid.  Then I put the kids to bed, one kid at a time, and now here I am, trying to remember my day in chronological order but also remembering the laundry that’s still in the machine as well as the assortment of dishes waiting for me in the sink.  Which reminds me, there’s a half-made pot of daal on the stove too.  Hmm.  I should probably stop blogging now.  🙂

• One sliced tomato
• One cucumber, but only half should be put into the salad because Iman will have walked away with the other half
• One scrambled egg that Khalid didn’t want for breakfast
• A handful of sunflower seeds, because they’re healthy or something like that
• A handful of spicy roasted corn, because it’s tasty though definitely not healthy
• Three sliced mushrooms, which neither of the children are interested in
• Way too much full-fat ranch dressing
• A huge dollop of yogurt
• Oh, and some lettuce.  Somewhere.

Salad is healthy, right?  *nodnodnod*

🙂

Today is the end of day three without Khalid’s caregiver and therapist Joy, insert witty jokes about the lack of Joy in our lives here.

Also, I don’t like email any more.  Or my phone.  Or the internet.  It all represents the constant inflow of work/requests/obligations that I am simply not equipped to handle without Joy on staff, and I am beginning to realize that in order to cope I may have to go partially AWOL from work.  Every time I open my inbox I see letters that needed urgent replies yesterday, work that’s overdue, follow-ups that I couldn’t make.  My RTM is an itemized list of so many pending tasks that the red flags are meaningless now.  I am frustrated, and the problem with being frustrated is that even if you do have five minutes to answer an email, you’re too frustrated to try.  It’s cyclical.

And I’m tired.  And frustrated.

And in the course of all this, my love, prayers, and admiration to all the autism mothers out there who DON’T have the benefit of trained caregivers, because you are braver, stronger, more patient women than I am.  You are also smarter than I am, because you’re probably not trying to launch a business and do consulting on the side.  You probably have your priorities straighter, and you might sleep better too.

I know this entry is uncharacteristically depressing for me, but it’s been a tough three days.  Unless I put everything else on hold, I can’t give Khalid the attention he deserves.  But because business moves whether or not you do, I can’t.  But at the end of the day, I might as well, because I’m so far behind that things are becoming irrelevant.

Sabr and Shukr.  Owl reminded me of Sabr and Shukr.  So I’ll take two of those.  And maybe, if I don’t hate my phone too much, you can call me in the morning.

I don’t know why I’m even blogging right now, except that occupying my mind helps distract me from the state my body is in right now. I slept until 1pm today. Straight- or nearly straight- through from ten pm the night before. And I woke up in a pile of toys and books and vaguely remember Khalid and Iman coming to jump on me and kiss me and yell MOMMA YAKE UP! enthusiastically, but then Joy and Cindy very kindly removed them from my dream and sleep continued.

And here I am at 8:45 pm, HF is putting Khalid to bed, Iman is already asleep, and my stomach is churning itself in bright green waves of turbulence. On the plus side though, I did manage to get out of the house today and met not one, but two nice people.

Nice Lady No. 1 gently tapped me on the shoulder while I was morosely nursing a cup of coffee outside of the Ikea in Festival City. She had a free spot at her table, and invited me to join her and her adorable hot-dog eating six year old. May Allah bless her for her kindness, we chatted for about twenty minutes and I even almost forgot how sick I was feeling.

Nice Lady No. 2 is, apparently, a neighbor from up the street who Joy introduced me to, and she sat with me in the park this afternoon while we let the kids have their daily run-amok. Warm late-afternoon sun, sounds of children laughing, nice conversation- it was another mini-vacation from being sick and exhausted, and I think I may be beginning to understand why it is such a blessed act in Islam to visit the sick. Conversation helps. Thinking about something other than how toxic you feel helps take your mind off how toxic you feel. I need to remember how good it felt to talk to someone and why I must remember to pass this on to someone else if I get the chance.

And of course, there’s HF- who helped me make dinner, and yesterday ordered lunch, and is putting Khalid to sleep right now, and who gently wakes me up for Fajr after having turned the water heater on first, who covers me up when I fall asleep in an arm chair and goes out of his way after work to buy Khalid’s hypo-allergenic breakfast cereal.

May Allah bless you, HF, and Nice Ladies No. 1 and No. 2. May the kindness you’ve shown me be returned to you a hundred fold in this life and the next.

Me: Iman, what would you like for breakfast?

Iman: Hmm?

Me: What would you like for breakfast? Would you like some cereal?

Iman: No. I wanna helicopter.

Khalid: Hummus!

One day, when I’m a grown up, I’m going to go to sleep at night at wake up in the morning.

Khalid woke up at 3:45. And Iman woke up at four. So it’s a party. Hooray! 😀

So we’re leaving in the morning for a road trip to visit HF’s family in Oman, and my phone doesn’t work there, and chances are internets may be in short supply.  So leave a message after the beep.  And maybe we’ll be back by Tuesday.  With some pictures.

Beep!

Overalls by OshKosh
Hat by Shan, who let her borrow it
Shoes by Kaycee, who wasn’t wearing them anyway
Bag by Momma, who bought it to keep snacks and diapers in
Fridge by Whirpool

First, there is the Story of Bottled Water, which is not only adorably illustrated, but well scripted, and well-needed information about the bottled water industry.  Abez gives it three thumbs up, and is going to buy Reusable Bottles for All, made out of BPA-free plastic, of course.

Hip, hip?  Hooray!

And then there’s the second bit of awesomeness- in addition to the Neturei Karta, and the JVP, Dr.Norman Finkelstein has joined the list of people who make my day by proving that seeing the truth about the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a matter of humanity, and that crimes committed in the name of the Holocaust are not justified, but further darkened by the flimsy excuse of injustices past.

A young Jewish woman plays the Holocaust card at one of Dr. Finkelstein’s lectures at the University of Waterloo- watch this video for his response; the intellectual equivalent of a can of wh00p#$$,  pardon my French.

 

 

I can see my house from heeeeeeeeeeeere…. 😛

InshaAllah, Owlie-pie is getting married in T-minus six days and counting, and the blast-off will be happening in our ancestral stomping grounds- Chicago. It’s been over two years since I was there last- Khalid was sebabeen months old, and just developing the necessary bravery to crawl up the stairs and then scoot down them on his bottom. I was thinner, had a better hair style (hehe) and it was August of 2007. Fast forward to now, with Khalid skipping across the livingroom carpet (even as I type) singing ‘Ay bee shee dee ee eff jee!’ and Iman asleep for the afternoon. She was helping me pack earlier- her contribution to my suitcase being a panda, a book, a toy train, and herself.

She’s an amazing little girl she is, and it’s cutting my heart out with a dull plastic spoon to not be able to take she and Khalid with me to the US. HF can’t get time off from work, Joy (Khalid’s full-time therapist & care giver) and Cindy (Housekeeper & Girl Friday) can’t apply for visit visas to the US until they have worked with us for over a year, and neither have been on for longer than six months.

I can’t take Khalid on my own, and although I could take Iman, it wouldn’t be fair to split them up. When Khalid has lunch, he insists that Iman have lunch too. When Iman has a bottle of juice, Khalid has one too. When Khalid wakes up, he goes to Iman’s bed and wakes her up. When Iman cries, Khalid helps her up, and if anyone so much as scolds Iman, Khalid runs to her rescue and glares furiously at us or throws a full-out tantrum in protest of our unfair treatment of Princess Godzilla.

Iman, in return, charges off in Khalid’s defense, fists and teeth clenched, to rescue him from whichever therapist of wicked OT who could be making Khalid cry. Sometimes they walk hand-in-hand through the park, or hug each other and giggle. They are a bit like the mismatched twins- Khalid is huge, shy, speaks relatively little, and is comparatively a gentle giant compared to his little firecracker of a sister, whose waking hours are generally back to back with shrieking, jumping, giggling, babbling, singing, dancing, pinching, smacking, and pulling hair. Also, sharing and blowing kisses. She’s a toddlersaurus rex, but she’s a loving little toddlersaurus rex. 🙂

I’m trying to steel myself and not die of bebe deprivation in the US. I will miss HF too, in ways that will ache and hurt and eat me with loneliness, but I am not worried about missing what cute, adorable, amazing thing he will do for the first time that I will have missed and will never have the chance to see again. Plus, HF will email me (or suffer the consequences) while the kids have no way of telling me what they’ve been up to and what they were thinking and how Khalid discovered he could make phone calls on a gummy bear.

(Holding gummy bear to ear: “Awo? Aitikatikatikatiak. Ok. Bye bye.”)

I need to not think like that though, and I should instead focus on how awesome it will be to see old friends, new places, and pretend to be a husband-free, kid-free Abez running wild and fancy-free in the city where I grew up.

(I can’t wait to see the Shedd Aquarium again, and the Museum of Science and Industry, and to go sledding with a group of friends and a thermos of hot chocolate.)

I’ll be flying out in the morning, please remember us in your duas. 🙂

Iman: (pointing to the number 5 on the laptop screen) One!

Me: No sweetie, five.

Iman: Five?

Me: Good girl! Five!

Iman thinks for a moment, and holds up five fingers and begins jumping.

Me: Yes Iman, Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head!

Only, only in Dubai, do we have firemen who ride around in a rescue Corvette. The trunk is full of firefighting equipment, and this unit’s job is just to drive up and down Sheikh Zayed Road to rescue people trapped in burning cars.

Wow.

Sleepy, tired, hungry, achy, overextended and happy. 🙂 Alhamdulillah. 🙂

I love Ramadan, because I know that even though the first few days can be very rough, the rest of the month will feel light, unburdened, and somehow… free.

SubhanAllah.

As art imitates life, Iman is often pushed out of the limelight by Khalid, and I think there’s a disproportionate number of posts in Khalid’s favor. Well, let’s change that. It is time again, for a post about Iman, aka Booboo, who was so named after the sound she would make while trying very hard to cry and pout at the same time.

I will be heading in to the hospital around six in the morning, to be admitted by seven and have surgery by nine InshaAllah.

Aaaak! I broke my blog! Where is HF when you need him?

Because this is the Best. Email. Ever. Received just a few minutes ago. From my beloved. God Bless.

—-

Dear Beloved,

I apologize if the contents in this mail are contrary to your moral ethics which I feel may be of great disturbance to your personal life, but I feel quite safe dealing with you. Though this medium (Internet) has been greatly abused, I choose to reach you through it because it remains the fastest, surest and most secured medium of communication. However, this correspondence is purely private, and it should be treated as such. I am contacting you based on trust and confidentiality. I have reposed higher confidence in your ability to handle this matter perfectly for my sake. I am serious minded person. I am Mrs. Judith Shumejda, I am 51 years old, a widow to late Mr.John Shumejda who was the President of agricultural equipment giant AGCO Corp, who perished on the 4th of January 2002 in a plane crash in Birmingham.

After going through some files of my late husband, I discovered a Deposit Certificate of (£15Million) (Fifteen Million Pounds) with a Bank in London. But due my sickness, I have not been able to claim this fund from the Bank, as I have been in the hospital in Liverpool and my sickness continue getting worst. I am suffering from a protracted cancer of the lungs which has affected my brain. From all indication my condition is really deteriorating, and my doctors have courageously advised me that I may not live beyond the next Six months to eight months, this is because the cancer stage has reached a critical stage.

Please View the Website below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/1742404.stm
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/01/04/england.plane/

Please in your response, send me the following information to enable me validate you as the legal beneficiary of this funds:

1) Your full names:
2) Mobile phone number/home phone number/office phone number:
3) Age:
4) Address and Marital status:
5) Company’s name & address:
6) Precent Country:
7) Name of your next of kin:

These whole information is what I need from you so that I can present a Letter of Authorisation to the Bank where the money is deposited to contact you as the beneficiary for this funds transfer. Send your urgent response to (helpmrsJudithshumejda@gmail.com)

Your assistant will be highly appreciated.

Thanks and God bless.

Mrs. Judith Shumejda

Iman is 30% pouffy hair and 70% attitude. At 11 months, MashaAllah, she takes herself on high-speed crawling tours of the house, following me, Ruth, or the vacuum cleaner. She also ventures out on her own for daring expeditions under the dining table, behind the curtains, and occasionally into a tangle of computer wires where she will become stuck and then cry to be rescued.

Iman is an optimist. She will crawl over to Khalid and try to take what he’s playing with. Then she’ll get pushed over, not maliciously, but in a matter-of-fact sort of “You, down.” from Khalid, who isn’t hitting her, but moving her out of his way. The point is though, she tries, and repeatedly tries, and above all, believes that one day she will win the car/block/bottle/sock/cracker that her bigger, stronger, faster brother exercises eminent domain over.

Iman is willful and stubborn and aggressive in a way that is unbecoming for a little girl the size of a house cat. As Khalid was big, Iman is small, and her last visit to the pediatrician reported that she is underweight, but healthy, active, and a little on the shrimpy side for a big-haired diva.

Iman is generous, and will share whatever she is licking/sucking/gnawing on with a person half-way across the room by holding it at arm’s length and grinning happily at the person. The person is then expected to smile, close their eyes and say ‘num num num num!’ while air-munching the proffered cracker/ball/key chain.

Iman is quick. Not just on her little hands and knees, but on the uptake. She sings along with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ signs for Hat, Dog, Clap, and Duck, and even says Ruth. Yes, she says Ruth. Not Momma, but Ruth, and while it cut my heart to pieces to hear that, I can’t beat myself up too badly- Ruth takes care of Iman while I take Khalid to therapy, and she does a wonderful job playing with, singing to, caring for, and feeding Iman while Khalid and I are out from when we leave in the morning until we get home late in the afternoon, or evening if I stop to buy groceries or run errands. Ruth is a godsend, and leaving Iman in her care for most of the day is necessary in order to get Khalid the help he needs.

Iman is growing. way. too. fast. It seems like yesterday she was born and today she’s moving rapidly from baby-ness to toddler-hood. She’s started to pull herself up to standing position using the legs of the dining chairs, and soon she’ll be cruising around the furniture, she is- Up! Gtg!