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  • More Sweetness- Tweet Tweet!

    More Sweetness- Tweet Tweet!

    Sajid Umar
    Shaykh Sajid Umar

    I just finished six hours of class- possibly the best class I’ve ever taken- called The Unfolding Dream with Shaykh Sajid Umar.  It would not be correct to say it is the Tafseer of Surah Yusuf- because Tafseer only scratches the surface. Six hours… and we’ve covered thirteen ayas. I came to class with five hours of sleep and wasn’t in danger of falling asleep at any point. I have had such an amazing, spiritually refreshing, and emotionally satisfying day that I cannot remember for the life of me why I only attend classes like this once a year.

    I tell myself it’s because I work and have three children, but the truth is that my heart gets complacent and makes excuses to not be challenged, polished, or re-stoked when the spiritual hearth grows cold. It’s not life’s fault I stay away from classes, it’s mine.

    Shaykh Sajid Umar is a very funny, very interesting, and very smiley Imam from Zimbabwe who’s managing to keep people awake, engaged, and enthused about things they never knew they could be enthused about.  I learned the difference between Makki and Madani surahs today, and I realized most of my favorites are Makki, and I figured out why.  Alhamdulillah.

    I’ve been live-tweeting the class all day, so if you’re interested in some of the gems, follow me on twitter @zebasez.  If you’re in Dubai and have even half a chance of making it to Day 2 at the Islah Center at 9 am tomorrow- try.  It’s well worth the effort.

    May Allah reward the people at the Kalemah Center and Shaykh Sajid Umar for making this happen, and of course- all praise if for Allah who blesses us with the sweetness of Iman and knowledge when we seek it. 🙂

  • Right Brain, Left Brain, Tic-Tac-Toe

    Right Brain, Left Brain, Tic-Tac-Toe

    RB: The kids have really messed up the living room walls.  I think there’s even a game of tic-tac-toe behind that sofa…

    LB: Eh- You could be dying, why should you care about what the house looks like?

    RB: Just because I could be dying doesn’t mean I need to die in squalor.

    LB: You’ll be dead, how will you know if it’s squalor?

    RB: That’s a good point.  But if people come to give condolences they might see that tic-tac-toe game.

    LB: And?

    RB: They’ll wonder who won.  I want to paint the living room.

    LB: Then I hope you like zig-zags because your hands have been shaking non-stop since late August.

    RB: I know right! All my drinks are shakes, haha

    LB: Oh oh! And the manual toothbrush is now automatically sonic, HA!

    RB: And remember, when we went out for dinner with HF, he told me to just try to hold the salt shaker still, because that would do a better job of getting the salt out.

    LB: He’s horrible isn’t he.

    RB: Oh yes, and awesome.  There are some other upsides to the shaking hands by the way.

    LB: Oh?

    RB: Yes, all of our phone videos now come with DRAMATIC BACKGROUND TREMORS for EXTRA REALISM.  Like the Blair Witch Project.

    LB: Does anyone still remember the Blair Witch Project?

    RB: I do, but we never saw it.  We just remember the hype, and poorly made videos of frightened people with runny noses.  I tell you, if I was running for my life the last thing I’d think of would be starting a vlog.

    LB: Says the woman who’s dying on her blog.

    RB: Oi! I’m not dying!

    LB: Suit yourself.

    RB: I am going to paint the living room!

    LB: I hope you like squiggles.

    RB: Musfira does.  Maybe we’ll paint it together. 🙂

    The End.

  • Countdown to Catastrophe!

    Countdown to Catastrophe!

    If you hate Barney (you know you do) and you wish there were intelligent, adorable, totally halal, and well-written cartoons for children that also happened to be ISLAMIC!!! (talk about unrealistic expectations, hunh?) then I have bad news for you:

    There are only five days left for the Misri Bunch kickstarter campaign to find Season 2 of their Names of Allah series.

    Misri BunchThe Misri bunch is:

    • a sweet balance of cute & entertaining
    • not an insult to your child’s intelligence
    • the simple presentation of complex concepts that children learn and remember easily

    If your kids haven’t seen this, they’re missing out.

    And if season 2 doesn’t happen, we’re all missing out.

    All of season1 is on You Tube, and well worth the watch. Season 2 needs funding for development, so please, please, PLEASE donate to their kickstarter and give a gift to all Muslim kids with internet access.  Maybe even yours.

    JazakAllahuKheiran 🙂

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themisribunch/islamic-cartoon-misri-bunch-names-of-allah-series

  • Insha’Allah

    Insha’Allah

    InshaAllahpoem

  • Irony

    Irony

    So HF was in a fender-bender today.  He was stopped at a signal and someone ran into the back of his car hard enough to crash his into the next stopped car.  Alhamdulillah, he’s alright and as he cheerfully mentioned: the car needed new bumpers anyway.  It’s still a little unsettling to me though, that even though I’m the one all dramatically falling to bits and spending lots of my time contemplating death, that there’s no real warning for any of us.  I could live with myopathy until I’m 93.  Or HF could die healthy on his way to work tomorrow.  It’s all in Allah’s hands.  SubhanAllah.

  • Hey, good news for a change!

    Hey, good news for a change!

    Alhamdulillah!!!  I’m going to be publishing my first book!

    Given the last ten or so years of my blogging history, you’ll be surprised to hear it isn’t actually full of mortal wounds, kids stories, and personal reflections.  It’s actually a children’s book, and I’m very excited.

    The reason why I’m so excited is that the story is part of My Legacy. Yes, I’ve made it a proper noun for emphasis.  For more information, see the new My Legacy tab on the top of the page.  The way I see it, if I am not around to have important conversations with my children later, that doesn’t mean that I can’t script them now.  So I’ve started writing stories for children, specifically, mine. And yours might enjoy them too.

    I want to have at least one published story for Khalid, Iman, and Musfira.  Iman’s has been accepted.  Khalid’s was rejected, but the very kind publishers said they’d give it another look-over to see if reviewing it one more time will make it seaworthy.  Musfira’s has been imagined but not yet completed, but hey, well begun is half done!

    I’ve asked the publisher if they can actually illustrate the books to look like my kids, because if I’m not there, I want the kids to be able to see themselves still talking to me.  I know, it’s kind of sappy- maybe even melodramatic, but when I think about passing away, the thing that tears at my heart most is not being away from my husband (sorry HF), it’s actually the thought of my children looking for their mother and not being able to find her.  Of Iman seeking a cuddle and finding my empty room.  Of Musfira crying for me and being hurt and confused why I’m not coming for her.  Of Khalid panicking because I’ve disappeared and he can’t understand where I’ve gone.

    If you think that’s bad (gee, look who’s crying again) the absolutely, positively worst thing I can think of is my children finding out that I’ve “gone back to Allah,” and then resenting Allah for having stolen their mother.  My worst case scenario is my death pushing my children away from Islam, because as sad as I am to face leaving them in this life, that’s still nothing compared to the thought of any of my children turning away from Allah.  So the stories serve a dual purpose, InshaAllah- of creating memories for my children in case I’m not there to make them, and of teaching my children about Allah in a way that reminds them of me positively (happy stories) versus negative (Allah took momma away).

    But, back to being cheerful- Alhamdulillah!  My first story has been accepted and I’m very excited.  I’m fairly sure that if I hadn’t been Not-Dying-Yet, I wouldn’t have had the urgency to overcome my fear of submitting anything to a publisher.  I would be too scared of being rejected to even try.  But I did it, and they said yes.  And now I’m going to do a little happy dance.

    I’ll let you know when it’s published, InshaAllah.  In the mean time, check out Greenbird Books, they have lots of really adorable Islamic stories for kids.  And soon, InshaAllah, they’ll have mine too. 🙂

  • Sweetness.

    Sweetness.

    At nine in the morning, Khalid came and asked if he could borrow my phone.

    I told him yes, but he HAD to wake me up at 9:40, because I had a doctor’s appointment to get to. I have bronchitis so I’ve been stealing some extra snoozes in the morning.

    Khalid agreed, took my phone, and then left.

    What felt like five seconds later, he came back and said, “Momma, wake up! It’s 9:40 am!”

    I opened my eyes groggily and said, “Khalid, I don’t think it’s 9:40 yet, can you please check again?”

    Khalid studied the wall clock for a moment and said “Oh, sorry- it’s 9:21.”

    “Come back in twenty minutes please, Khalid.”

    “Okay!” he chirped, and then skipped out of my room.

    Ten minutes later I was still awake and figured that staying in bed any longer was pointless, so I got up. I went into the living room to relieve Khalid of alarm clock duty and this is what I saw:

    Khalid- stock still, sitting on the sofa, intently staring.

    At the clock.

    Watching the minute hand.

    Waiting for 9:40.

    “Khalid! Have you been staring at the clock since nine???’

    Khalid turned and blinked a few times, thinking. Then he simply said, “Yes.”

    I was so touched, and so shocked, and so humbled by the methodical devotion required to stare at a clock for thirty minutes that I smothered him in kisses. He seemed embarrassed but tolerated my affection briefly, then breaking free to leave and play with his dinosaurs.

    SubhanAllah, it’s times like this that make me marvel at how amazing a little person he is, and how grateful I am to Allah for making him that way. Whether it’s because of autism or in spite of it, Allah has blessed us both. AllahuAkbar.

  • Hello my name is: Not Dying-Yet.

    Hello my name is: Not Dying-Yet.

    So the funny thing about having unspecified myopathy is that no one says I’m dying, but no one says I’m not either.  Yes, the muscles in my body are atrophying, and yes you need muscles to do things like pump blood and breathe, but because I haven’t developed any serious heart or lung complications yet, we’ll stay on the safe side and just say I’m getting weak-er, but not necessarily dead-er.  Let us call it: not-dying-yet

    It can be awkward sometimes, this whole not-dying-yet thing, especially when meeting new people.  I feel like I need to somehow warn them before they emotionally invest enough for this to sadden them. Otherwise this is what happens:

    Me: Hello new friend, my name is Abez, and I love you!

    New Friend: I love you too! Let’s hang out tomorrow, and next year too!

    Me: Sorry, but I’m sort of dying but not really dying because my muscles are dying but my heart and my lungs aren’t yet dying but there’s no guarantee that they won’t at any time so I guess you could say that I’m not dying yet, though I could be but really aren’t we all?

    (awkward silence) (pity) (shock) 

    Versus:

    Me: Hello new friend, my name is Abez and the muscles in my body are dying!

    New Friend: Sorry to hear that but pleased to meet you, Abez!

    *firm handshakes for all*

    I have a good friend (I’m not sure if she has the time to read my blog anymore) who I’ve known for around six years now. When I casually told her I had been diagnosed with myopathy and that there wasn’t much that could be done, she was upset. And later she called me and apologized.  I asked her what she was apologizing for. She said she felt stupid- I was the one who was sick, but she was the one needing to be reassured that everything was going to be ok.

    I didn’t think that she needed to apologize at all, because I’ve known for over a year that I’ve had myopathy, and even longer that something wasn’t right with the way my body was working.  I’ve had almost ten years to get my head around being sick, but she got ambushed with incurable, progressive, muscle atrophy one lazy afternoon after tea and cookies.  I should have prepared her better, but I’m not sure how.  A catchy song perhaps?

    Hey, I just met you,

    And this is crazy!

    My arms are dying,

    So hold my baby!

    Sometimes I’m tempted to tell random strangers I have myopathy.  When I use my disabled parking permit, sometimes people glare at me.  I look fine- slow, but fine.  One lady in the hospital parking lot tried to stare me down last week.  I was in a hurry and didn’t want to confront her in front of Iman, so I avoided eye contact and just moved forward.  But I really do want to tell people who stare that the reason my housekeeper is carrying my toddler is not because I don’t care or don’t love her, it’s because carrying her can make my arms hurt for hours, or I could lose my balance and fall, hurting us both.

    The reason why I don’t pop up like a piece of socialite toast and help the hostess in the kitchen at dinners (like I conscientiously used to) is because my body hurts, my legs are weak, and all your guest-size platters of food are too heavy.  The reason why my husband changes diapers and takes kids to the bathroom even at a guest’s house is not because he’s whipped, it’s because he’s an amazing, hands-on, loving father who’s doing his best to keep my pain level to a minimum.

    Someone who loves me sent a muscle biopsy to the Mayo Clinic and got me this myopathy shirt!
    Well, I guess they do now.  Someone get this on Amazon, Momma needs a new mobility scooter! With racing stripes!

    And it is a pain.  It’s a deep down ache, starting from your bones and spreading uniformly throughout your flabby, shaky muscle.  It doesn’t come in waves, it floods and peaks and stagnates for hours, and sometimes all you can do is sleep it off or sit it out.  It makes it hard to be patient, hard to speak gently, and hard to suffer the inconsiderate acts of very considerate people who don’t actually know how much you’re hurting because you haven’t told them your limbs are dying.  Because how are you suppose do even do that when you’ve only just met them? It’s not like they make a t-shirt for that.

    So yeah.  It’s weird, dying. But not yet.  Technically we’re all dying, the only difference is that some of us get pop-up reminders about our appointment with God.  I kinda like this new system- my legs hurt, so I make dua.  My arms hurt while making dua, and it makes me make more dua.  I’m praying more, stressing less, budgeting my energy and prioritizing my life.

    I once had too many things on my plate, but I’m passing some of those things off to other people and I hope, InshaAllah, that I can leave nothing on it but my family, my children, my faith, and my health.  Also, my crazy attempts to cram as much legacy-building for the shameless pursuit of sadqa-jaariya before I meet Allah.

    That’s another funny thing about having unspecified myopathy- I don’t know if I have the time to be subtle about what I’m looking for, so I will put it bluntly:  Read this poem I wrote way back in 2004 after being told (mistakenly) that my pain was Trigeminal Neuralgia. If this blog or this poem makes you grateful to Allah, or strengthens your resolve in current difficulties, or even makes you say a single MashaAllah (for the sake of saying it) I’ve earned a few more blessings.  And I need me some blessings.  So start reading, cuz momma needs a new castle in Jannah.

    With racing stripes.

    By Abez, The End.

    There
    There is a nagging gnawing on the inside of my self 
    It’s the feeling of my body giving up before its time. 
    In the quiet twilight hours between one prayer and another 
    Once I prayed for health 
    Now I pray for peace. 

    There is a writhing moaning in the deepness of my heart 
    It’s the devil down within me that wants me to complain. 
    But I have built a fortress with the patience of my faith 
    And I will shelter there 
    However harsh the pain. 

    There is a desperate longing in the reach of my embrace 
    For life and love and happiness and gentle many years 
    But I shall fold my arms around the comfort of my prayer 
    And I may often cry 
    But never bitter tears. 

    (2004)

     

  • Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart.

    Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart.

    Musfira, staring into bedroom mirror: Momma, whez my beeowd?

    Me: Your beard? Musfira, you don’t have a beard.

    Musfira: Why naht?

    Me: You’re a little girl. Beards are for babas.

    Musfira: *pouts* I wan sum beeowd!

    Me: You can’t have a beard!

    Musfira, dramatically wailing and clutching face: I WAN SUM BEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWD!

    You can’t make this stuff up, folks.  You just can’t.

     

     

  • Some milestones are funnier than others

    Some milestones are funnier than others

    And Khalid hit a new one this week, all by himself.  He wrote, directed, and narrated his first independent documentary film.  And he did it on my phone without telling me, and it almost got deleted because I had no idea what it was.  But here it is.  Khalid’s first documentary ever.  Transcript available in youtube description.

  • You have been warned

    You have been warned

    If you’re here from my article on Muslim Matters and are looking for further maternal wisdom, then please take note: this update has no purpose other than the documentation of the intolerable cuteness that is my 2.1 year old Musfira.  You have been duly warned.

    As expected of a third child, Musfira is louder, faster, and more intense than the siblings who came before her.  You’d think that having raised two adorable savages before her that I would be harder to surprise and awe, but I can’t help it- Musfira surprises me and then I go awwww.

    Today, as we were pulling in to the gas station, Musfira piped up from the back seat, “Momma, can I have e-plus full please?”  Well, that’s what I know what she meant, but it actually sounds like, “momma, kinna haff e-pwuss foo peez?”

    And then there was the time she tattled on Iman, who was saturating her bath with bubbles straight from the bottle- “momma, eeman pudda bubbos too much inna baff!”  I had to go in and look stern and tell Iman to put the bubble bath away while inwardly giggling at the squeaky little accusation that brought me there.

    Musfira doesn’t sound like a baby.  She sounds like someone pretending to sound like a baby- she has a comically high-pitched little voice, and all the typical substitutions for consonants.  Please isn’t please, it’s pweez.  Khalid isn’t yet Khalid, he’s ka-lee.  Musfira is… wait for it… moos-fwa.

    It’s cuteness overload, and it disarms me when Musfira does things like say… draw on her self, the walls, floor, desk, and my computer with permanent marker, and then explain her work to me in her proudest little squeak: momma wook! happee buffday face!

    Then there was the time when HF walked in on Musfira industriously scribbling on a wall.  “Musfira, what is this??” HF asked angrily.

    Musfira pointed to the scribble and said:

    “Issa ‘asfoor, Baba. Tweet tweet?”

    ‘Asfoor is bird in Arabic. Obviously Baba.  Tweet tweet.

    Moos-fwa.  She’s Baba’s little pwincess.  She fights and bites and swings like a monkey from the rails of her elder sister’s bunk bed.  She crawls around the house meowing and uses her devious little fingers to open purses, poke food in the refrigerator, and last week- accidentally lock herself into my bedroom.

    She was supposed to be sleeping, but at roughly 9:30 last Thursday she was banging on the other side of my bedroom door with her tiny fists, begging to be let out.  Having successfully climbed out of her crib, she turned the key- instead of the handle- in the door and began what would be twenty minutes of panicking in the dark while HF and I tried to figure out how to break into our own bedroom.

    HF was contemplating smashing the window when Musfira accidentally unlocked the door- Alhamdulillah.  She ran out -tear-stained, pink-faced, her eyes puffy- and  into my arms, then HF’s arms, and then the arms of a friend of HF’s who had been with him when I called HF home from the masjid to help rescue Musfira… She was properly traumatised.

    You would think she’d have learned her lesson, but two days later, I heard her little voice crying from the other side of the door.  It wasn’t locked (we no longer keep the key in it) and as I pushed it open carefully, I saw Musfira blinking in the light- wearing HF’s shoes on her feet and HF’s socks on her arms.  I’m not sure what she had been planning, but it must have been an interesting idea.

    In a nutshell, that’s Musfira.  She hasn’t gotten much attention on the blog because for the majority of her life to date, she’s been a squishy pink blob of adorable baby fat without much to report.  However, as she’s growing out of her diapers and into her shoes as a fully-fledged toddlersaurus rex, she’s making our little home crazier, cuter, exponentially louder, and way more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.  Yes, having three children under the age of seven is difficult, but it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever done with my life, and I adore it- and her for it.  Alhamdulillah. 🙂

  • Planning a Fail-Proof Iftar with ABA!

    Planning a Fail-Proof Iftar with ABA!

    In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I love ABA.  Seriously.  I’m not referring to  table-top flashcard activities, I’m referring to the analysis of behaviour hence- Applied Behavior Analysis.

    ramadan-kareemAs part of behaviour analysis, behaviours are broken down into chains of A,B,C- Antecedent, Behaviour, and Consequence.  Basically, the antecedent is what precedes a behaviour, the behaviour is the err… behavior, and the consequence is what follows.  What does this have to do with Ramadan? Well, here’s a Ramadan case study for your analysis.

    Subject X has been fasting all day.  As Maghrib approaches, he/she sits down in front of a heavily laden iftar table with a beautiful, aromatic variety of foods and proceeds to drool at them until the azhan is called.  Once the first “Allahu Akbar” wafts melodiously through the window, Subject X proceeds to over-eat.  Unsurprisingly, Subject X is you.

    The scenario varies from one fast to another, but the outcome remains the same: you reach over-fullness in record time, going from light and spiritually connected to engorged and close to reflux if you go into sajda too fast. The consequences of your behaviour are weight gain, self-loathing, disappointment, and regret.

    You’re dismayed about the weight gain, so you google things like “Losing Weight in Ramadan.”  You find information about clear soups, fruit smoothies, insulin spikes, and lots of information finding fault with your food.  Turn’s out though, it’s not your food’s fault.  It’s your behaviour about food’s fault.

    Every day you tell yourself that tomorrow will be different, but every tomorrow you make the same mistakes because guess what- you haven’t had a chance to analyse your behaviour and try to figure out how you can make changes to the repeating cycle of behaviour.  To the ABA!

    First, we’re going to define the behaviour.  The behaviour (B) in this scenario is overeating; ie- consuming too many calories- whether through food quantity or caloric density, than your body requires.

    Next, we need to identify the  antecedent, or even antecedents, plural. A single behaviour can have multiple antecedents. Different things can lead you to the same outcome- in this case, eating too much.  There’s more than one antecedent to the behaviour of overeating at Iftar, and sometimes at an Iftar party, a half dozen of them can be applicable at the same time.

    • At-Home Buffet: Someone’s been slaving over the pot all day, and the result is sixteen different things to taste, and curiosity dictates that you have some of every single dish.
    • You’re a Texan at Heart: Your portion sizes are more suitable for hard-working farmhand than a desk-jockey. And we all know you’re a desk jockey.
    • You Go to the Source:You eat directly from the serving dish, ie- pakoras or samosas eaten directly from a tray so there’s no portion awareness, let alone portion control.
    • You’ve given yourself Carte Blanche: You figure that since you’re fasting you can eat whatever you want, even if it’s deep fried, chocolate dipped, and encrusted with flaming hot cheetos.
    • Instant Gratification: Following how long you’ve been delaying the gratification of food all day, you make up for your good behaviour by making up for lost time and eating iftar plus a full meal once the azhan is called.

    Overeating as a behaviour (B) are preceded by an antedent (A), and modifying the antecedent (A) is a good way of preventing the behaviour (B), and therefore avoiding the consequence (C) of bloating and regret.

    If you’ve ever heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, then you  understand the strength of antecedent modification when it comes to changing behaviours.   How does antecedent modifications differ from behavior modification? Behavior modification relies on simply stopping yourself from committing a behaviour, or having someone else stop you.  If you haven’t been able to stop yourself so far, and the people you eat with are just as bad as you are, then good luck relying on that.

    So,  let’s go back to our listed antecedents and see how we can modify each scenario to reduce the chances of you overeating.

    • At-Home Buffet: If you have a tendency to overeat out of curiosity at home due to the buffet effect, then modify your antecedent by reducing the  number of foods that you put in front of yourself at Iftar.  Have one thing for iftar, and one thing for dinner.  If you’re hungry before bed, have fruit.
    • Texan:  If your eyes are bigger than your stomach and your plate is even bigger than your eyes, then change your plate.  Downsize your plate or bowl and allow yourself only one refill. That way your portion is controlled by your plate size even if you’re not able to control it through willpower.
    • Eating from the Source:  In the same way we can reach the bottom of a bag of chips without knowing how we even got there, it is possible to be eating samosas and suddenly notice there’s nothing left but a greasy paper towel.  Serve yourself a respectable amount of food and leave the rest in the kitchen. Better yet, put the food back into the refrigerator once you’ve filled your plate. When your plate is empty go pray.  Go directly to pray. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
    • Carte Blanche:  Correcting a carte blanche mentality is a simple matter of math.  A single pound of human fat has 3500 calories in it.   A single slice of cheesecake can have around 1,000.  Just because you haven’t eaten anything since Fajr doesn’t mean that the calories you eat don’t count after Maghrib.   Your body doesn’t care what time it is, food is food and too much makes fat.   Modifying the antecedent of a carte blanche mentality means correcting the misinformation that justifies bad eating habits. Learn more about the calories and nutritional content of your food options to help deter you from making the spectacularly bad food choices that one can really only make while fasting.
    • Instant Gratification:  In our rush to compensate for 15 hours of hunger, we eat way too fast, and unless we’ve served ourselves in the kitchen first- we eat faster than our stomachs can think.  It takes around 20 minutes to register that you’ve eaten enough, so slow down and pace yourself.  One way to do this is to break your fast with a glass of water and a handful of dates ONLY- and then go pray Maghrib.  It may only take you five to seven minutes, but it will be more than enough to tame the wild-eyed beast.

    Now, if we were to combine all the antecedent modifications to Iftar, a nearly Fail-Proof Iftar could be constructed as such:

    Five minutes before Iftar, you take two noticeably smaller plates and head to your kitchen.  On one plate, you put a few dates- maybe a fig and a cracker.  On the other plate, you put a regular size serving of dinner.  You take the dates to the table and leave the dinner in the microwave.

    As you’re waiting for the azhan, you focus on dua (and not the food, since all the food is in another room anyway).  Once the azhan is called, you drink a glass of nice cold water, you savour your dates (and fig and cracker) and then you LEAVE THE TABLE.

    You do wudu or rinse your mouth.  You pray maghrib.  You make dua.  Then, you come back to the kitchen and microwave your single, normal-sized portion of dinner.  You bring it back to the table and eat.  Then you leave the table again, ideally taking your dishes with you.  The end.

    It’s seems almost insultingly simple, but the jist of the matter is that you can’t overeat if you’re not given the opportunity to, and preventing yourself from the opportunity can be the next best thing ig you haven’t been able to overcome the behavior.

    Yes, there will be times when you eat out at other peoples’ houses and there will probably be way too much food- but every time you manage to control your stomach at home, you build more control and more discipline.  If you reach a point where you become unaccustomed to overeating at home, there’s a good chance it won’t be such an easy backslide when you’re out, InshaAllah.

    So that’s it.  As long as you stick to the system or portion control, single serving, and healthy choices made AWAY from the serving dish, there’s really no way you can mess up as long as you don’t sneak into the refrigerator later.

    May Allah give us all the strength- not to lose weight- but to gain discipline over ourselves in Ramadan that begins with the stomach and continues to the other parts of our bodies that need it too.  Ameen.

     

  • Sometimes.

    Sometimes, when my arms feel especially weak and the bread for dinner seems especially chewy, I feel kind of deflated and end up googling for things like “myopathy experts,” and “where to find help for myopathy.”

    Due to things like location and financial constraints, nothing seems useful.  And then I get sad.  Just once, I wish Google’s top result would show “Allah,” because then I would remember that I don’t have to feel sad.  Even though sometimes I want to.

    Hasbun Allahu Wa Ni’mal Wakeel

  • A happy dance

    A happy dance

    Coming home, coming home! HF is coming home!

    After roughly two weeks abroad for work, HF is coming home in three hours.  I told Khalid that Baba would be home by the next morning.  Khalid’s response was:

    “Oh, I think I will jump all day at school!”

    “Does that mean you’re excited?”

    “Yeah!”

    Me too kid, me too. 🙂

  • This one’s a keeper

    This one’s a keeper

    photo (3)Iman drew me a kimono-wearing cat, complete with fan, princess crown, and parasol.  AWESOMENESS! MashaAllah 🙂

  • Marty is our new hamster

    Iman: “Momma, if we don’t feed Marty, he’ll die.  Then, he’ll turn into grass and antelope will eat him.  That’s the circle of life.”

    😀

  • Crime, Punishment, and Batman.

    Why yes, I am blogging about Batman.   Excuse me, I think my geek is showing.

    In this day and age superheroes have their own sort of mythology, and they are the modern equivalent of demi-gods in our shared popcultural experience.  They have devoted followers, fanatics even, and people can have stronger beliefs about which school of comic book thought they adhere to than to which religion they identify with.

    I think it’s safe to say that the top three monoheroistic religious are Supermanism, Spidermanism, and Batmanology.  Personally, I have leanings towards Batmonology.  HF is a devotee of Spidermanism. Despite our differences, we are united through a common belief in Islam.  Alhamdulillah.

    In traditional Batmanological texts, Batman could crash your car through a brick wall and land it upside down in a ravine, but you were guaranteed a background shot of leaping to safety or at least moaning from within the wreckage in order to be taken into custody later, injured but definitely alive.

    Remember the A-Team? And GI Joe? All those bad guys leaping out of exploding jeeps at the very last second to viewer-established safety? Yeah. Heroes seem to share this amazing ability to inflict city-destroying amounts of damage upon cars and buildings without giving the baddies anything worse than a dramatic concussion.  In fact, it is actually safer for you to be a henchman than a good guy, because family members, friends, and love interests are more likely to be killed as plot devices than henchmen are to be critically injured.

    This refusal to kill is an integral part of mainstream Superhero Lore- and it is the central moral lesson in traditional Batmanology.  In the awesome animated movie Under the Red Hood, Batman’s refusal to kill is tested in the most brutal way possible.  The movie opens with this:

    Joker tortures and kills Robin.  Batman arrives seconds too late to save him, and digs Robin’s brutalized remains out of burning rubble.  Fast forward a few years and one well-written story later, and then this happens:

    The video says it all.  Batman wishes every day that he could kill the Joker, but he won’t.  He can’t kill, because killing would be too easy and if he went down that path, he would inevitably spiral down into the same murderous darkness that his foes live in.

    Batmonology is not the only superhero religion that adheres to this principle- Supermanism, Spidermanism- so the bad guy never dies, unless he is actually a robot (Braniac, Metallo) or he somehow kills himself so that Superman or Spiderman don’t have to.  The monoheroistic concept bears striking similarity to the distinctly Bibilical concept of “Thou shalt not kill,” as well as the concept of Ahinsa that is shared by Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism.  Ahinsa literally means “No Harm.”

    (I will make no assumptions on what Judaism may say about killing or capital punishment, because like all well-informed first world citizens of the twenty first century, I know more about Batman than I do about Jewish Scripture.)

    We get it.  Real heroes don’t kill.  It’s not right.  It would be too easy.  That would make them just as bad as the villains they fight.  We wouldn’t want the good guys killing the bad guys.  That’s why our police aren’t armed with- WAIT A MINNIT!

    The police do have guns!

    And so do soldiers!

    And when an old lady manages to shoot the guy who breaks into her house and tries to beat her death, we cheer for the old lady! When a Texas mother ran over a knife-wielding carjacker that had hidden in the back seat with her children, the newscasters were gloating on her behalf, even if she looked quite shaken by the experience.

    So why are superheroes held to such unrealistic standards? Thou shalt battle vicious, inhumane killers who will use lethal force against you without provocation, whose continued presence in the community guarantees that more innocent people will be killed, raped, and crippled- but whatever you do, don’t kill them, not even by accident, because otherwise you’ll be as bad as they are?

    Batman killing the Joker during the course of an epic, long-time battle to protect Gotham from a psychopath whose kill-count is in quadruple digits would not make him as bad as the Joker.  It would not make Batman a murdering psychopath anymore than you fighting off and killing a rapist would make you as bad as a murdering rapist.  Like the old lady with the shotgun and the mother with the minivan, it would make you… a hero.

    I believe that it’s ok for good guys to kill the bad guys to protect the rest of us, and the people who don’t honor the sanctity of life have no right to claim it when it comes to their own.  The sanctity of human life didn’t apply to their victims, so why should it apply to them? And when killers get out on parole and kill again, I don’t think the sanctity of life will protect their next victims either.

    If a police officer shot a known murderer to protect a child in imminent danger, he would be a hero, but we’re still not so sure that good guys are allowed to kill bad guys? We have some serious double standards about this, and the gross over-simplification of “good guys don’t kill” is hurting lots of imaginary victims and by-standers in the comic book world.

    There is another, lesser-known school of thought in Batmonology, and its disciples made The Dark Knight Returns.  No, not rises- he returns in another brilliant two-part animated movie.   Gotham has gone to hell in a handbasket after ten years of forced retirement for Batman, and one day Bruce Wayne snaps. Finally, we’re allowed the PG-13 satisfaction of a bad guy disappearing down the same blood-stained hallway he was about to drag a mother into, and we don’t see him walk out. Another rapist/murderer is thrown into electrical wiring and he is electrocuted, screaming off screen.  The screaming stops, but we do not see his body drop.   The electrical sparking continues meaningfully.

    A 17 year old henchman sent to kill Commissioner Gordon is shot dead, and when the Joker attempts to use a woman as a human shield, without pause Batman throws three of those little bat-shaped knives at Joker- landing one in each shoulder and one in his right eye.

    (The Joker’s shocked reply: “Are you out of your mind?!?!” See? Even he’s been accustomed to Batman trying to protect the world with kid gloves on.)

    The knife stays lodged in the Joker’s eye throughout the final fight scene, and ultimately until his death at the hands of Batman.  And I have to say, as a long-time fan, it was so good to see the Joker final get what was coming to him that I actually did a little happy-dance in my chair.

    Some people might shake their heads disapprovingly at this madhab’s darker, grittier version of Batman, but I give two thumbs up for the Joker finally no longer being allowed to threaten and kill in Gotham.  In killing Joker, Batman has saved countless other imaginary lives without compromising his own morality or becoming a villain himself.  Finally killing Joker made him more of a hero than he already was.

    By Abez, the end.

  • Today the barber, tomorrow- the moon!

    Today the barber, tomorrow- the moon!

    This video offers advice for hairstylists to help give children with autism less traumatising haircuts.  I really wish it had been produced four years ago.  Getting Khalid’s hair cut used to be as terrible for the stylist as it was for him, and he’d cry so hard he would vomit and/or soil himself.  Khalid would end up with an obviously crooked haircut, the barber would end up a shaky, anxious mess, and HF and I would be almost equally plastered in snot, tears, vomit and hair.

    So what changed? Alhamdulillah, the older Khalid grew the more we could use reasoning to help him, but we also had a few other really helpful strategies that this video didn’t include, and that’s why I am writing this.

    So, here are some of the things that made a significant difference in getting Khalid’s hair cut with less stress for everyone.

    We went to the barber more often, and it wasn’t for his haircuts.  When HF went for a beard trim, we started sending Khalid along with him, and we made sure there were reinforcers involved.  Chips, gummy bears, using Baba’s iPhone… we wanted Khalid to be in the barbershop without being in a state of terrible anxiety and fear.  Over time, he was able to enjoy being there, where previously he would freak out simply being in a salon, even if he wasn’t the one getting a haircut at all.

    We brought a hairstylist home.  This was an amazing turning point for Khalid, even before we starting sending him to the barbershop.  A lady with scissors, a comb, and an hour and a half to spare came over, sat next to Khalid at the dining table and let him look at her tools.  Khalid combed my hair.  We played with plastic (TOY!) scissors and both Khalid and Iman “cut” my hair too.  Then, at the dining table and with no real rush, the hairdresser took a few little snips here and a few little snips there with lots of small breaks and Khalid’s favorite cartoons on the laptop.  That was the easiest haircut we ever had, and it gave Khalid his first experience with a non-aversive haircutting.

    We used some good old fashioned ABA strategies!

    We used a reinforcement schedule so that after every X-seconds of motion-free sitting (while his hair was cut) Khalid would get the next chip/tic-tact/reward.  We counted down (not up!) so that Khalid would know exactly when the snipping would stop.  We started from five, and gradually built up to counting down from ten   if he figited, the count was reset.  Once we got to zero, we’d stop, clean off the hair from his face and neck and arms, and he would have a break and a treat.  A few seconds later, we’d start another countdown.

    As it became easier for Khalid, we started counting more slowly.  The next step was to start counting up instead of down- we’d start from one and see how far Khalid could go before asking us to stop. By the time we reached the counting-up point, Khalid was given the option of saying “Stop please,” when he had enough.

    We used D.R.I.– differential reinforcement of an incompatible behaviour- we filled Khalid’s hands with the iPhone (which required two tiny hands to play) so that he could not use his hands to push the scissors or comb away.  I also held the iPhone at a level that was higher than he would have held it in his lap, that way he had to keep his chin up in order to play and not duck away from the scissors. If the stylist wanted his chin down, then I held the phone down in his lap so that he couldn’t lean back to push the scissors away from the back of his neck. If Khalid took his hands off the iPhone, I took the iPhone back.

    We used D.R.O.– differential reinforcement of other behaviour, so that if Khalid was angry and irritated by the hair falling on to his skin and clothes, he could use the barber’s little brush to clean it up himself instead of yelling or slapping at his arms and clothes.  We also told him that instead of crying, he could ask for a break, and that we would then grant one to him.

    Alhamdulillah, Khalid had a haircut just a month ago, and it was actually the first time the barber was able to use the electric trimmer instead of the time-consuming scissors.  Khalid was terrified of the trimmer when he was younger- I don’t know whether it was the noise or the vibration, but it put him into a state of panic and we avoided using it for years.  The last time though, when the barber asked if he could use a trimmer, I asked Khalid’s permission first.

    “Khalid, the barber wants to know if he can use this on your hair.”

    “What is it?”

    “It’s a trimmer.  It’s like a tiny hair-cutting robot.  You like robots?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Want to turn it on?”

    Khalid turned the trimmer on and giggled at the funny feeling in his hands.  Then it was the barber’s turn, and although he wasn’t as comfortable with it as he would have been with scissors, Khalid sat stoically through his tiny robot haircut and more than earned the icy-lolly that was waiting for him at the end of it.

    Alhamdulillah, Khalid has made an amazing amount of progress in the past two years and it has been such a blessing.  Sometimes I feel like I can’t wait to see where the next two years takes us- today the barber, tomorrow- the moon. 🙂

  • Artfully vague but critically important

    DPO, my former boss, asked me an interesting question yesterday.  He asked me whether I could consider the creation of another version of myself, one that had my existing strengths, none of my existing weaknesses, and all of the skills she needed to get what she needed done.  He called her Abez 2.0.

    We assigned her an empty chair at our table, and allowed ourselves to speak of her in present tense.  Here is what we have decided.  Abez 2.0 is able to:

    • Aggressively pursue business development without guilt, because the profit motive is not inherently evil.  In this case, the profit motive behind non-essential services is what facilitates growth of the company as well as our ability to subsidise services for children who can’t afford them.
    • Reserve feelings of guilt for things that actually warrant them.  At present, Abez 1.0 bastes herself in an unhealthy coating of guilt every day- whether it be about time spent at work, or elaborate cupcakes not baked, or sofas not looking as immaculate eight years on and three children later… Abez 1.0 has mommy guilt about taking time off, spending on herself, or allowing herself to have social outings.  No one in their right mind should feel guilty about resting in between work, caring for themselves, or seeing friends.  Needless to say, Abez 1.0 is not in her right mind about these things, but Abez 2.0 is.
    • Not grant destructive criticism an audience.  Constructive criticism will be taken objectively and from sources that are trusted.  It will not be taken as a sign of failure, and it will be taken as an opportunity for improvement, rather than a cause for feelings of guilt about one’s professional inadequacy.  (see above)
    • Not allow the desire to please everyone all the time to dictate what policies are enforced at work.  No one can please everyone, all the time.  My responsibility  is to help our kids, take care of my staff, and use the minuscule amount of “celebrity” status I have to further autism awareness and opportunities for kids on the spectrum.  If that doesn’t make people happy, that’s ok. Making them happy is not my job.
    • Maintain a locus of control that is as internal as possible, and take action to change situations rather than lament how difficult they are to change.
    • Explore multiple plans and challenge limiting beliefs about what is possible for me to accomplish, personally and professionally.  There is a voice in my head that pours water on the the fire of exciting new project ideas by saying “Oh, but I would never be able to do that…” Abez 2.0 tells that voice to shut up and wait to see whether we actually fail before making that assumption.
    • Delegate without panicking by accepting that outsourcing can bring projects up to 80% of the way, and that my involvement can be withheld until the final 20%, allowing me to accomplish more, panic less, and have deliverables created to my standard of perfectionism without waiting to hire a perfectionist clone of myself.
    • Assemble a group of trusted advisors to keep me honest- not because I am dishonest, but because the danger of being your own boss is that when you start projects, there isn’t anyone around to make sure you finish them.  I need accountability and follow-up, and rather than expect myself to develop a multiple personality disorder, it would be better to seek outside help.
    • Give myself deadlines and share status reports with above advisors.
    • Create a workspace that is respectful of the role I am expected to play- in other words- set up a desk and keep the laundry off of it.
    • Not allow myself to feel like an imposter, but accept that people play different roles and adjust their behaviours accordingly to get the job done.  Being no-nonsense at work shouldn’t make me feel guilty, because being silly is a behaviour I reserve for playing with my children. Being sympathetic and completely trusting is something reserved only for my husband, not for the well-off clients who try to guilt me into discounts from already zero-profit, at-cost services.
    • Accept that fear is actually F.E.A.R- False Evidence Appearing Real- that there is no truth to failure until it happens, and living in fear is allowing myself to be dictated to by the lie of perpetual failure.

    There.  That’s the beginning of what Abez 2.0 is going to accomplish.  It’s a tall order, and we’re breaking the stages down into 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.  I’m actually excited- and this is all going to sound vague I’m afraid- because I’ve been living in fear of failure in spite of being a reasonably successful person, and it’s tiring.  I live dangerously close to the fight or flight response, where I feel at any moment, someone is likely to yell at me, or discover that I am an impostor and in order to avoid being found it, I hide and avoid doing anything that would attract attention.

    (Funny that I should avoid attention in the real world when I’ve been inviting the whole dang internet into my personal world for over ten years now, but maybe the two are directly connected.  Maybe it’s my withdrawal from the world that motivates me to connect with people from behind the safety of pseudonym and an avatar?)

    I’m looking forward to meeting Abez 2.0.  I think she’s going to be confident, comfortable in her own skin, and more likely to take the risks that lead to success rather than hide from an immobilising fear of failure.  InshaAllah. Please remember us both in your duas. 🙂

  • Sometimes I forget she’s five

    Sometimes I forget she’s five

    Iman: Momma, all birds lay eggs-

    Me: That’s right, very good…

    Iman: -except for tigers.

    Me: Iman, tigers are not birds.

    Iman: What about bats?

    Me: No, they’re not birds even though they fly.  They don’t have feathers.  They’re kind of like flying mice.

    Iman: But they’re not alive, right?

    Me: Of course bats are alive!

    Iman: Oh yes, in the rainforest.

  • Musfira’s Great Nap Escape

    Musfira’s Great Nap Escape

    Musfira will be turning two next week, and the older she gets, the more creative and amazing her attempts to escape from nap-time become.

    I put her down for a nap at 12:00.  At 12:15, she desperately cried out “Momma, Ow!” I rushed to the room wondering how she could have gotten hurt while in her crib, and found her holding up a paper-cut that she had gotten over a month ago. I kissed her Ow and left her to sleep.

    A few minutes later, Musfira called out with “Momma, help!” In an act of maternal goodwill, I went back up the hall to see what the problem was.  She had a dirty diaper, which was legitimate.  After being changed and allowed a ten-minute reprieve from napping, I put her back down again.

    A few more minutes passed quietly, and I was under the assumption that she had fallen asleep until I heard Musfira properly crying. I went back up the hall again and when I opened the bedroom door, I found Musfira standing in her crib and holding out her beloved pink cat, Meow-Meow.  Her teary eyes met mine and she said, “Look Momma, Meow-Meow wet.”

    I took Meow-Meow, and he was in fact thoroughly soggy.  I looked at Musfira.  She looked blankly back at me.  I looked into her crib, and saw the cause for Meow-Meow’s current state of distress- Musfira someone had been using her sippy cup to slowly soak him in milk, one drop at a time.

    Meow-Meow was taken and unceremoniously crammed into the washing machine, and when Musfira objected, I said to her, “Look, this machine is for washing. Meow-Meow is dirty, we’re going to wash him.”

    “Iss for washing?” Musfira asked.

    “Yes.” I nodded.

    Musfira began pulling her shirt off. “Washing me?”

    “No dear,” I said, escorting her from the washing machine before she tried to climb inside of it. “Not for washing you.”

    meowmeow4inchIt’s 1:30 right now, and I’ve decided to let her skip her nap in favor of washing the crib and bedding.  It’s sloshing around in the machine along with Meow-Meow, and considering how hot it is today, should all be dry in roughly five minutes.

    Musfira is currently walking around backwards and “singing” a nameless tune of her own invention update: it’s the UAE National Anthem.  The longer she stays up, the crazier she will become, until she finally goes down in a fiery ball of toddler exhaustion.  Alhamdulillah, she’s awesome. 🙂

  • From Iman with icecream and love

    From Iman with icecream and love

    20130603-201908.jpg

    Iman drew a picture of HF today- a bearded, bespectacled figure with square glasses, big eyebrows, and a happy smile. Also, a crown and an icecream cone in each hand.

    Gorgeously accurate. 🙂

  • A conversation with you, dear Internet

    A conversation with you, dear Internet

     

    Me: Hey Internet, guess what!

    You: What?

    Me: I got my disabled parking spot approved the other day, hooray!

    You: Congratulations…? Wait, why do you need a disabled parking spot?

    Me: Oh. Well, I kinda omitted this from my blog for the past few years, but the muscles in my body are atrophying for reasons that doctors can’t pinpoint.

    You: Errrr…

    Me: It’s myopathy, unspecified.  The genetic tests are negative for any of the known myopathies, and the muscle biopsy confirms that the muscle is deteriorating.

    You: Wait, is there anything they can do about it?

    Me: Well, they gave me a parking space!

    You: That’s… nice?

    Me: I thought so too, Alhamdulillah. 🙂

    You: Why didn’t you say anything about this earlier?

    Me: Well, I don’t like being negative and it’s hard to be positive about having rare, incurable and chronic muscle disease.  But it could also be worse, so why complain about it? Alhamdulillah, I’ll be fine.

    You: Why are you telling me now?

    Me: Because I’ve only used my disabled parking three times, but each time I do I feel like the whole world is watching me and wondering why I’m behind the steering wheel instead of in a wheel chair.

    You: Are you faking?

    Me: Nope. My leg muscles are easily fatigued.  I do stairs slowly and only as a last resort.  I walk funny. I don’t lift things. Typing makes me tired. My phone is heavy.

    You: To be fair, some of those Android phones are like trying to have a conversation on a reader’s digest.

    Me: It’s an Iphone 5, the skinny one? I’m slowly developing T-rex arms. They’re functional, but largely ornamental. :p

    You: I’m not sure what to say.

    Me: Me neither, but I thought I’d say it, because denial ain’t just a river in Egypt  and I may or may not have been paddling its waters in the rubber ducky of self-delusion.

    You: You think you don’t have myopathy?

    Me: No, I think I don’t need help.  However, I am forced to reconsider my status as a superhuman when the grocery cart weighs a ton and my telekinesis abilities fail to guide it to the car accurately.  I have no choice but to ask for help now, and it’s very hard for me to accept that.

    You: Everyone needs help sometimes.

    Me: Meh.

    You: Do you need help? Is there anything I can do?

    Me: Well, you can make dua.  But that’s it, really.  I’m not throwing a pity party, and I’m not accepting condolences.

    You: Can I come and visit you?

    Me: Only if you promise not to sit in awkward silence, or sigh dramatically, or cast pained, regretful glances in my direction.

    You: I can do that.

    Me: Good! Then we can still be friends. 🙂  Now, back to your regularly scheduled blog.

    By Abez, the end.

     

     

  • This made me feel better today

    This made me feel better today

    The Prophet ﷺ was asked, “O Messenger of Allāh, which of the people are the most sorely tested?” He said:

    “The Prophets, then those similar, then those similar. A man will be tested in accordance with his level of faith. If his faith is strong, he will be tested more severely, and if his faith is weak, he will be tested in accordance with his faith. Calamity will keep befalling a person until he walks on the earth with no sin on him.”

     

    (Tirmidhi)

  • Take THAT racial inferiority complex, HA!

    Take THAT racial inferiority complex, HA!

    A few days ago, Iman was sitting at the dining table next to me coloring when she put down her crayons and pouted.

    “Momma, which crayon is my skin? It’s not this one,” she said, holding up the Caucasian “skin-tone” crayon.

    “And it’s not this one,” she said, holding up the brown crayon. “Which crayon is my skin?”

    I leaned over and started poking around in the plastic tupperware that holds Iman’s treasure trove of crayons.

    “Hmm, I don’t see any crayons in here that are the same color as you dear. Sorry sweetheart, we don’t have any caramel colored crayons.”

    “Caramel?” Iman said, still pouting.

    “Caramel is a beautiful warm golden color. Caramel is a kind of candy.”

    Iman’s eyes practically popped. “I’m the color of… candy?”

    “Yes dear, but we don’t have any crayons that color. Sorry. Looks like we need to buy you more crayons.”

    Later that day, HF came home and Iman ran excitedly to him. “Baba baba!” she said, jumping up and down, “Did you know, I’m caramel colored??”

    “Are you?” HF said, looking to me suspiciously.

    (HF, I’ve decided, is dulche de leche.)

    “Yes!” Iman squealed, “It’s a kind of a candy!”

    Icecream“Well then,” HF said, picking her up and hugging her, “I guess that makes you my Caramel Princess.”

    That was last week, and since then, we’ve changed the yardstick of skintone from lightness to ice cream.  Chacha is milk chocolate. I’m butter pecan.  Musfira is toasted coconut.

    Because all skin colors are good skin colors, the same way that all ice cream is good ice cream.

    So, what flavor are you? :p

     

  • How to melt momma with happiness

    Khalid: Momma, what does the word “hang out” mean?

    Me: To hang out? That means to spend time together talking and enjoying someone’s company.

    Khalid: Okay, right. Can we hang out?

    Me: I’d love to. 🙂

    Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.

  • Hehe

    Two cows are standing in a field.  One turns to the other and says, “Hey, aren’t you worried about that whole mad cow disease thing?”

    “Why should I?” the other cow replies, “I’m a helicopter.”

     

  • The Gardener’s Submission

    The Gardener’s Submission

    The Gardeners Submission

  • HAMMER TIME!

    Sometimes I wonder how much longer that I -writer, doodler, talker, teacher, dreamer- will be able to continue working as a director.  Managing people, services, cashflow, and strategy- these all rub against my Muslim-hippie nature like a hair shirt.

    But since I don’t have a choice, the only thing I can do is suck it up, dig my heels in, and take it like a brave round peg in an irritating square hole. Somebody get me that tiny hammer. POW! Back to my inbox.

     

  • And I quote

    Khalid: Momma, when I die…?

    Me: (putting my drink down slowly) Yes Khalid?

    Khalid: And my body goes into the earth…?

    Me: Yes?

    Khalid: Will people remove my fossils and put them in a museum?

    Me: No dear, they won’t.

    Khalid: Why not?

    Me: Because you’re not a dinosaur dear.

    _____

    Iman: (is looking through rows of flavored vitamins as we’re waiting in line at a pharmacy) Momma, why does this have a picture of icecream?

    Me: Hmm? Because those vitamins supposedly taste like icecream.

    Iman: Why?

    Me: So that kids will like taking them.

    Iman: This one has cherries.

    Me: It’s probably cherry flavored.

    Iman: This one has fairies on it. Is it fairy-flavored?

    Me: I don’t think so, I’m not sure what fairies would taste like.

    Iman: I know. Meat.

    Me: Meat?

    Iman: Yeah, because that’s what bodies are made out of. Meat.

    Me: You’re a very sensible girl.

    Iman: I know.

  • Because caterpillars turn into butterflies

    Genghis-Khan---Mongul-war-007
    Genghis Khan- conquered Asia and left his eyebrows behind.

    My father very proudly says that we are direct descendent of Genghis Khan.  I believe him, and require no other proof than the eyebrows I inherited from my ferocious genealogy.  Regardless of whether I have Genghis Khan’s eyebrows, I definitely have my father’s eyebrows, and while they look perfect on a cuddly, hairy, white-bearded man, they’re a bit out of place on his daughter.

    When I was 14, my mother sat me down- unprompted- and did perhaps what blonde ladies do tidy up their eyebrows- she shaved off the top half of them and told me to keep it up.  Being a non-blonde though, my Genghisesque eyebrows started growing back in right away, and I consider myself blessed to have very little photographic evidence of that awkward, stubbly phase.

    Noor Jehan is a classic example of classic Pakistani eyebrows.
    Noor Jehan is a classic example of classic “bow & arrow” eyebrows.

    Later that same year, my sister and I went to spend the summer with our cousins in Pakistan, and being non-blonde descendants of Genghis Khan and his many savvy wives, they said: “What the heck have you done to your eyebrows!?” They staged a proper intervention, and a wise elder cousin immediately sat me down and threaded my eyebrows into the Pakistani equivalent of the bow that was meant to shoot the arrow of my glance straight into a young man’s heart.  That was my introduction to threading.

    It was years before I learned that reshaping your eyebrows is not permissible in Islam, but by then, two things had already happened:

    1. I had forgotten what my real eyebrows actually looked like.
    2. I had grown to believe that my real eyebrows were hideous and that growing them out would cover the top half of my face.

    It has taken me almost fifteen years to finally stop reshaping my eyebrows, and for the first time in my adult life, I now know what my real eyebrows look like, because I actually have them. I no longer have “eyebrows,” I have Mybrows.

    It was hard at first to stop shaping them- they grew in seemingly random places and kept straying further and further from the invisible boundaries that I had assigned to them.  I would look at myself in the mirror and sigh- and during those months of transition, it was very difficult for me to stick with it.  My one source of encouragement- believe it or not- was my husband, and he had no idea what an emotional ordeal I was even undertaking.

    He walked past me one day and casually said; “Hey, have you done something to your eyebrows?”

    “What? Me?” I squeaked, my conscience guilty for wishing that it had, “I’m letting them grow in.”

    “Oh,” he said approvingly.  “They look really nice.”

    I was dumbstruck.  It was another few weeks before my husband noticed the next boundary grown over, and this time he said, “I like your eyebrows this way.”

    “Are you sure?” I asked, “Don’t you remember what they looked like when we were married?”

    “I do,” he said. “I thought they looked…fake.”

    I glared at him, completely sure that he was somehow part of a conspiracy to pretend like my eyebrows didn’t actually look like caterpillars inching across my forehead.  So I went back and dug my wedding photos out of the important archive that is my sock drawer and guess what? My old, thin, highly manicured eyebrows struck me as looking… fake. And while I wasn’t yet in love with Mybrows, I was at least disillusioned with having their artificial looking alternative.

    Sisters talk about eyebrows sometimes, and the conversation usually goes like this:

    Helga: delicate. lady-like. pow.
    Helga: delicate. lady-like. pow.

    Sister 1: “Oh, my eyebrows are so unruly! I know we’re not supposed shape them but I feel like such a Neanderthal!”

    Sister 2: “What are you talking about? Your eyebrows look fine! Now, MY eyebrows… they make Helga’s from Hey Arnold look delicate and lady-like.”

    Sister 3: “You’re both crazy and your eyebrows frame your eyes perfectly! Now *my* eyebrows, they look like two handlebar moustaches without a sense of direction…”

    The circular consensus seems to be everyone has a real problem with their eyebrows, but everyone ELSE looks fine and they’re just stressing for no reason.  In recent fashion, heavier (relatively) eyebrows have come back into the spotlight, I think this is a great time to piggy-back on the bandwagon and wave the flag for more natural looking eyebrows.

    This tumblr account is, simply named- Thick eyebrows, and you can go here for an assortment of gorgeous ladies with luxuriously large eyebrows- models like Cara Delevinge, Brook Shields, even Audrey Hepburn- looking lovely with eyebrows significantly thicker than the media has previously shown us.

    While Muslims, of course, don’t wait for fashion to agree with religion before deciding to become religious, it is nice when the media can do a part- even a teeny tiny one- to help boost our natural-looking self esteem when it comes to eyebrows.  Yes, the women are all still uncovered, photo-shopped, artfully painted and arranged by professionals- but the point is, they have big eyebrows and they are daring you to make caterpillar jokes about them.

    *filed teeth, anyone?

    I haven’t come as far as to say I’m in love with Mybrows, but who am I to even suggest that Allah made a mistake in how He made them?  Allah Himself designed what my face and eyebrows were going to look like, and it should go without saying that His designs for what humans should look like are Divine (with a capital D) and everything else that we do is just “fixing” what isn’t really broken.*

    Please note- this doesn’t mean I’m saying that things like cleft palates are Divinely created and who are we therefore to alter them. No.  Defects in the original human design are permissible to correct, and that’s like replacing a lost eye or reconstructing a face after an accident or congenital birth defect.  There’s a difference between correcting a defect to meet the standard and redesigning the standard altogether.

    Deciding that all of femalekind has been designed with the “wrong” kind of eyebrows is something else entirely.  But, seeing as how society in general still has a problem accepting women themselves in different shapes and sizes, maybe starting with a tiny part of women- like their eyebrows- is a tiny first step?

    In any case, I’m not waiting for society to accept my eyebrows before I do, so here I go.  Alhamdulillah, my eyebrows are perfectly designed for whatever it is that Allah has destined for my face.  Whether my naturally drop-dead gorgeous arches are meant to be a life-long battle with ego whose victory could yield me Jannah, or whether my hirsute forehead is an exercise in accepting the Qadr of Allah that can be rewarded with a place among the Sabiroon in Jannah- either way it’s fine for me.

    And since, in the back of your mind, you’ve been wondering what Mybrows actually look like, and you’re looking forward to having that circular conversation where you tell me that my eyebrows are fine and YOU’RE the one who should be in mourning, here you go.

    Mybrows

      I’d love to see your natural brows (so I can tell you they look fine), so if you feel like sharing them, I’ll post them here too.  Let the conversation begin.

     

    (more…)

  • Three shades of crazy. And locusts?

    AssalamuAlaikum Blogistan, hope you’re doing well! It’s been a while since I’ve written, and like most of my letters, this one starts off with an apology for being late too. So yeah. Here’s an update.

    Alhamdulillah, my children are gorgeous and amazing. Check!

    Alhamdulillah, HF is the perfect trophy-husband as usual. Check!

    Alhamdulillah, we are all safe, well-fed, and reasonably within the limits for health. Check!

    The bad news is, I’ve discovered that I’m a crazy person. Seriously. It’s taken me so long to realize it that I don’t even feel like sugar-coating it. I run a business where I feel guilty about taking a salary, but I wouldn’t expect other people to work without salaries. Then, I get tired of getting no return from my hard work and I get annoyed with my job. I make investments of my time with little thanks and zero financial return. So then I think about getting a “real” job as someone’s personal assistant instead of the director of my own organisation, because at least someone would say thank you and I would have some pocket money at the end of the month. As a business strategy, I call this: Crazy.

    I count the hours down between when the kids wake up (6am) to when they’re all in bed (8pm) while turning over projects in my head- things I’d like to write, emails I’d like to send, presentations I want to design, an online course that I am excited about launching- but once their little heads hit the pillows- I rush to my computer and open- crap.com, or a wasteoftime.bla, or internetaddiction.meh and three hours later, I hate myself for missing opportunities to be creative and to PRAY ON TIME and I wake up the next day and guess what? I DO IT ALL AGAIN. Crazy.

    I make it a point to eat healthy during the day and limit myself to fruit salad and salad and the kid’s dinner leftovers, but once they’re asleep all bets are off and I eat whatever sort of junk I can get my hands on. As a health strategy- to exercise effortless discipline over my food in the day and then throw it all to hell in a chocolate-covered handbasket at night is illogical as well as… crazy.

    I feel like I am pretending to be a productive, disciplined, and professional adult, and as long as there is someone watching, keeping up the act is effortless. Once people turn away though, I revert to the wicked sloth-monkey that my momma used to complain about, and I cancel out all the “good” I did during the day- setting myself up for a cycle of failure, guilt, overcompensation, and burnout. I am, frankly speaking, disappointed with myself, and my first impulse is to lament how I want to change but don’t have the ability to, but then I remembered a conversation I had with my former boss just last week or so.

    He asked me whether I knew what a “Locus of Control” was. I told him the only locusts I knew flew around and ate crops. He’s a nice man, he laughs at my jokes.

     

    Locus of control is a theory in personality psychology referring to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an aspect of personality studies. A person’s “locus” (Latin for “place” or “location”) is conceptualised as either internal (the person believes they can control their life) or external (meaning they believe that their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence).

    Individuals with a high internal locus of control believe that events in their life derive primarily from their own actions; for example, if a person with an internal locus of control does not perform as well as they wanted to on a test, they would blame it on lack of preparedness on their part. If they performed well on a test, they would attribute this to ability to study.[1] In the test-performance example, if a person with a high external locus of control does poorly on a test, they might attribute this to the difficulty of the test questions. If they performed well on a test, they might think the teacher was lenient or that they were lucky.

    Thank you, wikipedia.

    My boss, or DPO as he is known, introduced me to the Locus of Control as such: people who have an internal locus of control take ownership of the situation around them. People with an external locus of control are victims of the circumstances around them. Which would you like to be?

    I was embarrassed that he asked me, because I realized right away that I was talking about higher-level issues with work that were due to allowing the locus of business control be external vs internal, and it was a bit of a kick to the organizational teef. I was messing up the business by letting other people dictate what the business did and did not do.

    Now, moving that observation forward, it’s nice that having other people around makes me more productive, but once their presence is removed, my productivity is out the window. My locus of control is so crazily external that without other people pushing me- to email something on time, to complete a sheet in excel, or to make dinner before their homework is finished- that when they’re not there, I do nothing. Absolutely. Completely. Nothing. If- on the odd occasion HF has all three children out to give me some time off, I do absolutely, completely, nothing. I won’t even feed myself properly. I’ll plop some peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on an old piece of pita (true story!) and call it dinner while I watch anime until my eyes crust over. This might be ok if what I really wanted was to eat peanutbutter on pita while watching Fullmetal Alchemist, but that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to feel accomplished- like I had four hours to write a week of activities in a subject that I love writing about- I wanted to feel renewed, and accomplishing something creative does that for me- but instead, I did wasted my time, ate unhealthy, and resented myself for it later.

    My locus of control is stupid. It needs to be internal. If I accomplish something, it needs to be for my own sense of productivity, self-respect, accomplishment, and personal pride in what I do. If I eat right, it should be because I care about my health even if there’s no one there to scoff at the marshmallow fluff jar. If I make a decision for the business, I should stick with it and push it forward, because what the parents want* is not enough to grow the business and give their children what they need instead.

    *(customer wants can be broadly defined as: everything. free. yesterday.)

    I need to make a decision and stick with it. Now, my mind is saying- oh no, but I don’t have enough self-discipline for that! Well, that’s a statement reflecting an external locus- that I would blame someone or something else for my lack of action rather than saying Ok, I know I have weak self discipline, so how do I make it stronger?

    Once upon a time, I didn’t have the self-discipline to pray regularly. I would pray maybe once or twice a day, and make excuses for it- I don’t have time, can’t get out of class, there’s no prayer room in my highschool, I’m not dressed properly, etc- I made myself a victim of the circumstances I lived in (American public highschool) and it wasn’t until I made the choice to pray five times a day that I was able to change the factors around me. I was still in exactly the same environment- same school, same friends, same me- but I made the changes necessary to accomplish what I wanted to and disciplined myself to stick with it.

    I started with keeping a chart of how many prayers a day I missed. The goal was zero. I started off missing three and four prayers a day though. Over time, and with forcing myself to update the chart daily, I built prayers into my daily routine and there’s been no looking back since, Alhamdulillah. Yes, my Fajr shifts around, and that’s a failure on my part- but I don’t see it as being out of my control. It’s my fault, and I’ll fix it. I’ve fixed it before, and I can fix it again.

    The same needs to happen with my personal standards of what a productive Muslim and grownup does with their time, their resources, and their health. I need to stop victimising myself in all three areas and take control of a situation that is well within my power to do so, InshaAllah.

    For my next act, I will activate the TinyFilter feature in Chrome that HF kindly installed for me. It’s a Chrome plugin that blocks URL’s completely and puts a custom message in their place. It can be password protected as well, and I’m going to enter a list of time-wasting websites in there and ask HF to lock it down for me. He’s done that to me before, but because I hadn’t asked him to do it, I resented him for it and badgered him until he gave me the password. This time, I’m making the decision myself, and I will maintain the self-discipline to not beg HF to unlock it.

    That’s going to be my first step. My second step is to start taking measurements again- for eating healthy, for working out, for keeping my inbox at zero and my house running smoothly. Please make dua for me, because I know my self-discipline muscles are weak and my locus of control has been external my whole life- this is going to be hard for me, but I want to do this. I want to take back my locus of control from the rest of the world and make it my own again, because the alternative is not acceptable- I start hating myself for falling short of my expectations and I lose respect for my own self.

    So here we go.  Updating blog.  Activating TinyFilter. Now.

    By Abez, The End.

  • A non-poem.

    A non-poem.

    I want to write a poem
    I want to turn this pain
    Into something beautiful
    But my hands are tired
    And my tools are bent.

  • Third time’s the charm?

    So HF is kindly accompanying me to my third of three urgent doc visits this week- I’ve been jumped by bronchitis, sinusitis, and laryngitis simultaneously, and it’s taking some tweaking of my antibiotics to keep me reasonably upright and functioning within working requirements. I’m embarrassed though- because I’m here in the ER. Again. And as I was shyly slinking into the front entrance, HF turned and emphatically stated:

    “Now remember, even though you’re paying for this service, everyone here is absolutely disgusted that you’re using it.”

    He then kindly offered to buy me a bag of chips from the in-clinic vending machine. He thought I could use the bag. To hide my face? He then apologized, as the bag would obviously be too small.

    Such a nice man.

  • Most informative (and correct) over-simplification in cartoon form, ever.

    Click here- I couldn’t figure out how to embed, but it’s well worth the watch.

  • They grow up so fast?

    This morning, as I was power-walking up the hall on the way out the door (to drop kids off at school) I was stopped in my tracks by this:

    Musfira in her footie pajamas, standing at the bathroom door where HF was inside getting ready for work, holding a sippy-cup in one hand and knocking gently with the other gently calling out- “Jaan? Jaan!”

    Lol!!!

  • BEST SPAM EVER

    I got this in my work email today. Normally spam makes me angry, but today, it made my day. In fact, it made me feel sociable, and…fluffy?

    Subject: Whatsup Bro:

    You have drawn my attention to a site of acquaintances. I hope, as I shall like you. How I to you in a photo? The truth – pretty? 🙂 But in a life I more nice!!!
    And as I cheerful, kind, sociable and fluffy! I like to go in for sports, read books, to listen to music. I love winter and summer. I do not love spring and slush.
    If I have interested you, with pleasure I shall tell about myself more in the following letter.
    I wait for the answer on (evil link removed)

  • Enunciation, The Sequel

    Khalid and I are in his doctor’s office for a visit, and we make a bathroom stop.  I carefully hand Khalid my purse and a folder of papers. I’m a little nervous, but I want Khalid to get this right.

    Me: Khalid, I am going to use the bathroom.  I would like you to please hold my things.  Please watch them carefully.  Don’t let anyone take them.

    Khalid: Watch them?

    Me: Yes.

    He smiles mischievously.

    Khalid: Not wash?

    Me: No, not wash! Don’t wash anything you silly boy!

    Khalid: Momma, remember in RAK, I washed your things?

    Me: I remember. I asked you to watch them, but you washed them.  That was a misunderstanding.

    Khalid: Misunderstanding?

    Me: That’s when someone says one thing, but you understand it to mean something else.

    Khalid: (grinning) And then you wash their things?

    Me: Yes.  Apparently you do.

    Cheeky monkey.

  • You are my sunshine…

    My only sunshine,

    You make me happeeee!

    When skies are grey!

    You’ll never know dear,

    How much I looooooove Yooooooooooou!

    So please don’t take my sunshine away.

     

  • Next time I’ll enunciate?

    Next time I’ll enunciate?

    Khalid, Iman and I stop in to use the restroom before I swing by a legal office to pick up some papers for work. I am holding a large, black leather document binder with fancy official paperwork inside.

    Me: Khalid, I would like to use the bathroom, would you watch this for me please?

    Khalid: (Looking uncharacteristically blank) What?

    Me: Watch this for me please? Here, take it.

    Khalid: (Cheerfully) Ok!

    I use the bathroom and return to Khalid.  He hands me my folder- dripping wet.

    Me: Khalid, what happened?

    Khalid: I washed it for you!

    Me: You washed it?

    Khalid: Yes.  With soap and water.

    Me: *blink blink*

    Khalid: *proud smile*

    Me: Good job sweetheart.  Thank you.