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  • I *heart* Islam

    I *heart* Islam

    One of the most difficult things for me, in running AutismUAE, is trying to escape from being thanked or praised by the parents of children we help via our therapists.  I don’t mind being cried on, but once people start telling me how great/awesome/cosmic I am, I really start to squirm.  I feel guilty, because on one hand, everyone loves hearing how much they’re appreciated, but when you’re making your intention for the sake of Allah, and seeking your reward with Him and Him alone, then how do you reconcile when peoples’ praise makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside?

    Islam has the answer!  Hence, the title of this post, and the link to this video, which I’ve actually linked before.  This link goes to the exact moment when Yasiq Qadhi talks about the same challenge that I face on a near daily basis- praise.  A man went to the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and shared his concern that sometimes, when he did something for the sake of Allah, people would later praise him.  The Prophet’s response must have felt as liberating to him as it does to me- the Prophet- salAahu alaihi wasallim- said that these praises are the heralds, the forerunners, the preliminary blessings for believers.  They are an advance of the good that is coming in the next life.

    When I first heard this, I had to sigh with relief.  Alhamdulillah.  Up until hearing that hadith, I was beating myself up for being thanked, and while that doesn’t mean I can start my own We *heart* Abez club, that means that the happiness felt in my heart when a father tells me that his whole family makes dua for me every day is not a guilty pleasure anymore.  It’s good tidings of good things to come, InshaAllah.  Provided, of course, that I keep my intentions sincere and my actions halal.

    InshaAllah.  🙂

    Alhamdulillah 🙂

    AllahuAkbar 🙂

  • Hooray for Ambiguity

    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.

     

  • Fuzzy Fiqh

    Fuzzy Fiqh

    HF: Getting married is half your deen, right?

    Me: Yeah.

    HF: So getting two wives must complete it entirely then, hunh?

    *rimshot*

  • Anonymity, shmanonimity?

    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.

  • Wondering

    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.

  • From Darkness to Light

    There are so many things about this talk that I like that I’m not even sure where to begin.  SubhanAllah.

  • Peace, until the rising of the dawn…

    I thought I would post a quick dua request here.  It is an odd night, and the 27th too.  So more people making dua is good, right?  So what do I ask for?  What if I miss something?  How can I make a quick request that covers every possible situation, need, shortcoming, or deficiency that exists in the world and in every one of its people, living, dead, and yet to come?

    اللّهُـمَّ أَنْـتَ السَّلامُ ، وَمِـنْكَ السَّلام ، تَبارَكْتَ يا ذا الجَـلالِ وَالإِكْـرام .

    ‘O Allah, You are As-Salam and from You is all peace, blessed are You, O Possessor of majesty and honour.’

    Allah is He, than Whom there is no other god;- the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace (and Perfection), the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Safety, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme: Glory to Allah! (High is He) above the partners they attribute to Him.

    Nothing in the world is as important as peace- salam, from As-Salaam, The Source of Perfect Peace.  To be ok with everything, and to have everything be ok.

    Ya Salaam, please give us salaam.

    Ameen

  • I love my kids.

    Me: Khalid, in five minutes it’ll be time to turn off the computer and take a bath, ok?

    Khalid: InshaAllah.

    ___________

    Me: What were you doing when you fell off the bed?

    Iman: I was going down to get you a present, you know? Like, an adventure crown!

    😀

  • Darn you, Pixar

    Khalid has a hard time expressing himself, which is very common for a person with autism.  We’ve learned to keep a closer eye on him, to looks for signs of things that he may not be able to tell us.  Today, for example, when Iman started bawling and saying that Khalid bit her, I checked Khalid’s arm first.  Sure enough, I found teeth marks and a nasty purple bruise that far exceeded the dent that Iman dramatically showed me in her finger.  Khalid bit Iman because Iman bit him first, but he would never tell us that.

    It’s not as if Khalid doesn’t talk- sometimes we can’t get him to stop talking- about trains, about Amtrak and Metrolink and Thomas.  It’s just that he won’t talk about himself.  He won’t even tell us when he needs to use the bathroom, and we have a roughly 90% rate of Khalid peeing in his pants if we don’t insist that he goes to the bathroom when we think he’s looking a little fidgety.  So you can see how hard it is to get an idea of what goes on inside of his head, and how easy it is to miss what a sensitive little boy he is.

    In addition to Khalid’s self-inflicted belief that HF has abandoned him due to bad behavior (see yesterday’s Umrah post) Khalid is also suffering from severe haircut regret.  One of HF’s personal traditions is to have his head shaved whenever one of our new babies has their head shaved.  This, he says, is so that the baby doesn’t feel alone.  🙂   This time, when HF went to the barber to match his hairdo to Musfira’s, Khalid got excited by seeing the ‘paint’  (shaving cream) on baba’s head, and said he wanted his head painted too.  HF was skeptical, and he called me.  I asked Khalid, Khalid said he wanted to have his head shaved.  So we let him.

    Khalid came home happy and we took some pictures of his and HF’s shiny new heads together.  The next morning the honeymoon ended.  Khalid woke me up by climbing into my bed with his hands on his head exclaiming ‘Oh no! Where is it? We need to find the hair!’ and since then, he has worn a hat, 24/7.  He even goes to bed in one.  He will run naked from one end of the house to the other (if he gets distracted while getting dressed) but he will be naked with a hat on.  We’ve tried to separate him from the hat, but he will cry and cover his head with his hands out of shame.  He will skulk around miserably with his head hanging, both hands covering his lack of hair.   We’ve decided that him not feeling humiliated is more important than us following vintage Western social norms out here in the Middle East where we have no such hangups about headgear, so Khalid gets to wear his hat.

    This evening, the kids ate dinner without a fuss, bathed without any protest, and earned a brief cartoon interlude before bedtime.  We had ten minutes to go before lights-out, so I opened my computer and turned on a Pixar short film- Boundin’.  It’s here, and in case you’ve forgotten, tells the story of a happy, fluffy sheep who shares his joy by dancing for the other animals until one day- insert ominous music here- he is unexpectedly hauled away and sheared.  He is returned- naked and ridiculed by the other animals.  Are you picking this up yet?  Thunder rolls.  The sky darkens.  The sheep is crying in the rain.  By the time it dawns on me that this might not be a good cartoon for Khalid just at this point in his dramatic life, he has pulled his hat over his face, and I can see tears rolling out from underneath of it.  I ask him what’s wrong and he tries to run away.  I gently pull him back because I want him to see that the sheep can be happy even without his hair, which is what his friend the Jackalope teaches him.  Khalid sniffs and perks up a bit.  The sheep’s hair grows back and Khalid is happy.  But then that darn truck comes back AGAIN and the sheep is sheared and Khalid looks like the rug’s been pulled out from under him again.

    It’s hard to tell how socially aware Khalid is or isn’t, but we’re learning.  When I introduced Khalid to my physiotherapist two weeks ago, she very casually asked Khalid where his front teeth had gone.  Khalid looked away from her and mumbled ‘nothing’ and then walked out of her office.  ‘Nothing’ is Khalid’s response to any question with an unpleasant answer.  She apologized to me profusely for embarrassing him, but I can’t fault her.  She’s not the first person who has asked and she won’t be the last, and as desperately as I wish I could, I can’t protect him from the world.

    Ya Allah, please protect Khalid from hurt and harm, whether it come from friends or enemies, and protect him and sustain him, and please keep him in Your shelter in this life and the next.  Ameen.

  • LabbaykAllah, huma Labbayk!

    HF left for Umrah this evening.  We loaded up the minivan with all three kids to drop him off at the airport, even though it was three hours past their bedtime by the time we got home again, because we wanted to give him a proper send-off and to help the kids understand where he was going.  Khalid and Iman were confused, but Iman was happy because she loves this nasheed and was excited to hear that baba was going to the Kabah to pray and drink zamzam.  (ZAMZAM!)

    Khalid wasn’t pleased though, and actually started crying on the way home. When I asked him why, his confused answer involved ‘scareding,’ and baba being angry. The gist of it seems to be that baba has left because yesterday Khalid made baba angry when he bit him. Ouch. Tomorrow I’ll write a social story for Khalid and we’ll read it together. I want to reinforce that baba is, indeed, coming back, and didn’t leave because he was mad at Khalid. SubhanAllah.

    (Truthfully though, I have no guarantee that HF is coming back.  Not to be dramatic, but people die at Hajj/Umrah every year.  It’s a statistical inevitability: when you put 4 million people together for the world’s largest gathering, there will be mortality rates.  The sick, the old, the people in wrong place at the wrong time when accidents happen- people die in Makkah and Medina, and while it’s sad to lose a loved one, I can’t think of a better place or situation to lose them in.  If I could think of somewhere to die, in sajda in the haram would be my top choice, and if Allah chose to take HF the same way, I would be jealous.  I’m not being morbid, just pragmatic.  We’re all going to die, we might as well try to die awesomely.)

    I digress.  I’ll be putting together a big ole dua list for HF.  If you would like your prayers added to the list please let me know and I’ll pass them his way, InshaAllah. 🙂 May Allah accept his Umrah and make it easy for him.  May Allah forgive us all for our sins, and make us among those earn His pleasure in this life and the next. Ameen. 🙂

  • C is for colic, but I’d much rather it be for cookie

    C is for colic, but I’d much rather it be for cookie

    And right about now, I’d much rather have a cookie.

    You know what the problem with typing while hungry is?  Even words look tasty.

    Musfira is getting properly colicky, crying louder and longer in the past few nights than before.  The Nightly Fuss has been going on for around four weeks now, and it starts at 6pm like clockwork and last night it continued until 2:30 am.  Please remember us in your duas.  I don’t like being nocturnal.  Or cried at for 6+ hours.  No fun. Very tiring.  Want a cookie.

  • Ramadan Reconcilliation

    Alhamdulillah, I’m fasting. I didn’t think I would be able to, and while Day 2 of Ramadan may be a little early to announce success, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to continue for the entire month, InshaAllah. The heat isn’t bothering me, Alhamdulillah, and neither is the hunger. Even the dehydration is mild despite feeding a seven week old baby.  The only challenge is the sleep. Musfira fussed from 6pm until 1am yesterday. By the time I was able to put her down, I had one-handedly:

    • Served iftar
    • Eaten Iftar
    • Prayed Maghrib
    • Had the kids put to bed
    • Eaten dinner
    • Attempted to clean off the table
    • Cooked for suhoor- daal and oatmeal
    • Watched three short documentaries and listened to Surah Mulk twice

    Yes, all of this was done either one-handed or hastily in between being able to put Musifra down for five to ten minutes before she woke up again.  Sometimes we have weird nights, and sometimes they spill over into weird days as well- Musfira will fuss- tired but refusing to sleep- and I will rock/walk/bounce her to sleep only to have her wake up again five to ten minutes later, regardless of whether I stop rocking/walking/bouncing or even holding her.  Normally, Alhamdulillah, she sleeps easily for four hours at a stretch, and that’s more than enough time for me to get stuff done in between.  Occasionally, she has these weird days, and those are the ones where I never get of my pajamas and Musfira cries, fusses, sleeps, wakes, and cries- later, rinse, repeat- for hour after hour until the sun rises and sometimes even until the sun sets the next day.

    So last night was a weird night.  By the time I was able to put Musfira down (1am!) I was too exhausted for any Tarawih or any Qur’an, and had barely any concentration in my prayers.  I crashed into bed and just two and a half hours later, had to get back out of it for Suhoor.  HF kindly got me out of bed, steered me to the kitchen and placed a bowl of oatmeal into my hands as I stood with my eyes closed and my head against the kitchen door.

    Then we prayed Fajr and went back to bed, and two hours later, Musfira woke up in need of a diaper change and a feed.  I’m not hungry or thirsty as much as I am tired and, yes- disappointed.  I love Ramadan.  I need Ramadan desperately, in order to counteract the downward spiral I’ve been in for the rest of the year and to help realign myself mentally and spiritually.  Ramadan is the reset button, ideally because you’re conquering your laziness, kicking bad habits, and remembering the sweetness of Ibada- ideally.  In actuality, I’m so busy juggling Musfira, cooking, shopping, taxiing Khalid and Iman around town, and working that I feel like I’m losing out.  My immediate thought is that I need to prioritize extra worship and the energy required to do it, but I’m not doing anything that I can cut out of my schedule.  I need to take time for Ibada, but I don’t know where to take it from.  If I get any less sleep than I already do I’m going to crash.

    (Two nights ago I jumped out of bed to pick Musfira up.  I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and crashed face-first into a corner.  The next morning I had a headache and a swollen eye, and it took a few moments for me to remember why.)

    So here’s the reconciliation.   Allah is responsible for any circumstances I am in, and they are all good, regardless of whether I am able to recognize that.  Last night, when I wanted to pray tarawih but instead spent the six hours between maghrib and qiyaam rocking Musfira, there was good in that too.   Ramadan is challenging enough, Ramadan plus young motherhood must be the next level for me.  I need to push through the busy-ness and the tiredness and somehow find the energy that I need to make the most of it.  I’ve always said Ramadan is spiritual boot camp.  Now I’m at bootcamp with a baby on my back, a spatula in my hand, and two children dragging me backwards by my apron strings.  It’s no longer enough for me to reach the end on my own, I have to make it there with a serene smile, clean and alive children, Surah Mulk memorized, and a tray of freshly baked samosas.

    May Allah make the path to righteousness easy for all of us, and grant us the trust in Him to know that all of His decrees are good ones.

    Ameen!

  • And I quote

    And I quote

    HF is preparing to leave for work and sprays himself with cologne. He then grimaces as it burns his post-shave skin.

    Me: Why spray it on your neck if it burns? Why not spray it somewhere else?
    HF: Like where?
    Me: I don’t know, your wrists?
    HF: Real men don’t wear perfume on their wrists.
    Me: No?
    HF: They wear it on their fists. Muwahaha!

  • There’s hope for humanity after all…

    The Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) said:

    “There are seven whom Allah will shade in His Shade on the Day when there is no shade except His Shade:

    • a just ruler;
    • a youth who grew up in the worship of Allah- the Mighty and Majestic;
    • a man whose heart is attached to the mosques;
    • two men who love each other for Allah’s sake- meeting for that and parting upon that;
    • a man who is called by a woman of beauty and position (for illegal intercourse), but he says: ‘I fear Allah’,
    • a man who gives in charity and hides it, such that his left hand does not know what his right hand gives in charity;
    • and a man who remembered Allah in private and so his eyes shed tears.’”

    (Abu Hurairah & collected in Saheeh al-Bukhari (English trans.) vol.1, p.356, no.629 & Saheeh Muslim (English trans.) vol.2, p.493, no.2248)

    I saw two people standing in jamaa’ for prayer on a sidewalk in Garhoud the other night.

    They were teenagers, and they were praying Isha.

    No older man/father/authority figure was leading the jamaa’, and there was no apparent need for the urgency in their salah- they could have prayed Isha later that night by themselves, at home on a rug instead of outside on hard cement in front of Fuddruckers.

    May they grow to be righteous men, and may I be able to give them big, squeezy hugs in Jannah, where it won’t be a sin anymore.  They made my day, and this old fogie of a thirty year old has a new respect for teenagers.  Just because they dress like greasy, gangly doofuses in pink polo shirts with popped collars doesn’t mean they don’t have stronger Taqwa than I do.

    May Allah grant them Jannatul Firdaus. 🙂 Ameen!

  • What Musfira *really* means

    Alhamdulillah, my new baby girl is a little over a month old now, and when she is first introduced to friends and family members, I am inevitably asked what her name means, and inevitably, I have a hard time trying to give the answer. Here’s why:

    Imagine this- a blast has just sounded, tearing through the sky. It is so loud it can be heard throughout the entire world. Every living thing, except as Allah has willed, has dropped dead. The mountains themselves have vanished- reduced to dust and blown away. The seas are gone, the earth has been flattened to one tremendous expanse, and without a doubt, it is the Day of Judgment. Then the blast sounds again, and the dead are coming back to life.

    Look around you- there is pandemonium. People are in a state of terror and panic, fleeing wildly in all directions, men from their wives, children from their parents, brothers from their brothers. Some are trying to escape, some are sobbing, others are begging to be destroyed rather than judged. The hell that they’d been writing off as a figment of monotheistic imagination has been stoked and brought near, and amidst the wailing and crying out for destruction, you can hear the inferno drawing in great roaring breaths. It’s alive, and it knows it’s about to be fed.

    But wait, what’s this? From within the sea of darkened, tear-stained, dust-covered faces you can see points of light- and they are people shining with happiness. They are unaffected by the fear or misery, and are instead overjoyed, laughing out loud, delighted, and elated that the promise of justice they have been waiting their whole lives for is about to be fulfilled. They are not looking towards the mouth of hell drawing breath in the distance, but rather to the gates of Jannah, as Paradise has been drawn near, and the only thing standing between them and eternal happiness is a meeting with Allah, whose blessed Face they have been yearning, not dreading, to see.

    Some faces that Day, will be Musfira– bright. Laughing, rejoicing at good news. Surah ‘Abasa

    Some girls are named for beauty, intelligence, or success. Some even for precious gems- Almas means diamond, Lulu means pearl. Others are named for righteous qualities- Saima is one who fasts, Naasira is one who is helpful- but I wanted to name my daughter something that would point her towards the one thing that would mean the most to her in this life and the next- when the world had been destroyed and remade, and the dead had been raised, and every recorded action hung in the scale of balance, I wanted her to be among those shining with joy. I wanted her to be Musfira.

    And so she is- baby Musfira.

    May Allah guide her and keep her on the path of righteousness.

    May she shine with joy in this life and the next.

    Ameen.

  • Red Velvet Ramblings

    So Musfira is very nearly a month old now. SubhanAllah. All in all she’s a lovely baby. She sleeps reasonably well during the day and although we do have a nightly fuss from around 10:30 to about 1 am, it could be worse. In fact, it was worse with Khalid and Iman, with Khalid being jaundiced, tongue-tied and constantly fussing and Iman being colicky.

    So how can I describe her? Well, she’s pink. And her eyes are grey, though they’ll turn brown later InshaAllah. She has lovely little hands and feet, and despite voraciously chewing, gnawing, and sucking on any hand, towel, blanket or shirt collar that comes within two centimeters of her mouth, she refuses to use a pacifier. She cannot yet say it, but I know she’s thinking ‘PTUI!’ as she spits her “New, Natural Shape! Perfect for Newborns!” pacifier out. We’ve gone through three of them already, my hope being that maybe this shape will be better. I only really need her to use a pacifier when I’m driving, because many of the roads in Dubai have lost their shoulders in favor of one more traffic lane, so stopping to feed her isn’t always an immediate option.

    What else? She has the most kissably soft cheeks. Really. Her skin feels like velvet. It is unanimously accepted (by Owl, HF, and I) that it has to have been all the cupcakes I was eating before she was born. She’s a red velvet baby, not only for the warm and fuzzy softness, but also because she comes with a distress alert system. Either she’s baby-pink all’s well, or she’s red-alert red and working up to a good cry, complete with pouty face.

    Her hobbies? Contemplating fluorescent lights above her changing station in the bathroom and collecting fuzz from her blanket and keeping it tightly balled in her itty-bitty fists.

    Her special skills involve remarkable bladder and bowel control that allow her to time her ambushes perfectly for the moment when she has been washed, dried, and just laid down on the changing station to be diapered.

    Her top speed is three diapers in five minutes.

    Her signature moves are slow-motion baby kung-fu and spitting up precisely down the front of momma’s shirt.

    Her pet peeves are socks that fall off in the mall the day after momma bought them (ok, maybe that’s mine).

    She’s the most beautiful baby in the entire world. SubhanAllah. And after 20 hours of labor and an hour left before the doctors prepped me for an emergency c-section, she was born a cheerful bright blue with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. But that seems like a lifetime ago, and she’s always been here, always swaddled in the flannel blanket with the ducks on it, and we go to meetings together where she sleeps through the boring parts but wakes up to share her opinions on important things like gas and why it’s better out than in.

    Yes, it does take us forever to get anywhere these days, because we have to account for feedings, diaper changes, inconsolable crying, and the stroller being a huge pain to remove from the trunk. And yes, that one time I tried to drive home by myself it took two and a half hours to drive just a few miles because she would not stop crying in her car seat and I could not safely drive with that level of panic in her wailing. I can’t help it- when she’s stressed, I’m stressed- and I think that’s part of the job description of being a mother. If you’re not unable to tolerate your newborn suffering, then you might not be likely to cope with insanely insufficient amounts of sleep and the back-breaking labor of feeding, cleaning, maintaining, rocking, burping, and sustaining a tiny person with no self-preservation skills beyond a cry that tears your heart into tiny pieces.

    Khalid and Iman adore Musfira. Really. Khalid wants to kiss her CONSTANTLY. Like once every few seconds. And that can get very frustrating when I’ve just gotten her to sleep and in burst the kids- Iman wants to give Musfira a toy, Khalid wants to kiss her again, and when I whisper at them to leave, they get mad and loud and wake up Musfira up. When I get desperate I lock the door until Musfira is asleep and hope the kids banging on the other side of it doesn’t wake her. But like I said, it could be worse. They adore her. They just adore her a little too much, too hard, and too loud for a newborn.

    Musfira is very well loved, even if a little over-cuddled and way too well-traveled for a little girl who hasn’t been in this world for an entire four weeks yet. She and I went to two meetings and spent three hours in a furniture warehouse within the first four days of her being born. We do banks and groceries and summer camp for Khalid and Iman. We stay up late at night watching classic Japanese Anime to bide our nightly fuss, and we have collectively decided that if you make a cartoon in Japan that does NOT prominently feature giant and/or powerful robots destroying and/or saving the city/world/universe, then you are shamed into committing seppuku.

    As usual, I digress. Alhamdulillah, we’re tired, busy, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed with the backlog of work that’s been piling up while I’m “on leave,” but very, very happy. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. 🙂

  • And I quote

    Iman: Momma! The baby’s crying! Because she wants icecream!

    ______

    Me: Here Khalid, you can hold Musfira carefully.
    (I put the baby carefully into Khalid’s lap)
    Khalid: Oh! Oh! Scareding!
    (He passes the baby back)

    ___________

    (Iman sees me laying down on the sofa for a quick break around 11 am today)

    Iman: Momma, I bring you a pillow, you want a pillow?
    Me: It’s ok dear, the side of the sofa is like a pillow.
    Iman: I bring you a pillow, ok?

    (She runs off and returns with the pillow from her bed)

    Me: Thank you dear.
    Iman: Momma, I bring you a blanket, you want a blanket?
    Me: (Realizing I don’t have a choice) Sure dear.

    (Iman returns with her tiny blanket and covers the middle half of me. Then she starts patting my head)

    Iman: Momma, you can sleep and InshaAllah when you wake up I’ll take you shopping and buy you a nice gift! An umbrella! A pink one! With Dora! You like that?
    Me: Yes dear, that would be nice.
    Iman: Goodnight!

    _________
    11pm-
    HF: There’s this one lone mango in the fridge and it’s late but I just want a mango milkshake…
    Me: Ok, go pray Isha and I’ll make you a milkshake.
    HF: You’ll make me a milkshake?
    Me: Yeah. Go pray and I’ll make it for you.
    HF: Thank you, but don’t make the kind that brings all the boys to the yard. Because it’s late, and we don’t want the front yard full of people right now.

    😮

  • The best kind of outsourcing!

    I haven’t had a chance to update yet, but Owlie has! Full post here and copy-paste below. Thanks luv!

    Thursday, June 16, 2011

    On Monday I was sick so I took a day off and figured, hey, this would be a good time to catch up with the super busy preggo rockstar business director big sister of mine Abez. So I call her up and ask how she’s doing, to which she calmly says “Oh, fine. The usual. Working. Responding to emails. Trying to get stuff arranged for the new staff. Oh, and I’m in labor.” 0_0

    Yeah, that’s my Abez. Busy having a baby while simultaneously managing her business. “Woman, um, are you ok? I mean, you are nuts. But is everything ok ok? Is there anything I can do?” “Oh, yeah, could you please pick up Khalid and hang out with the kids and distract them while I’m at the hospital.” “Sure thing bob. On my way now.”

    So, I picked up my favorite elf boy Khalid and took him home to his sister – the firecracker that is Mini Iman. Meeman as we call her, had been sick at home with a dental infection, and was hopped up on medicine. She’s a hilariously intense and unpredictable child when she’s ‘sober’ . Throw some extra strong meds into the mix and comedy ensues. I bring you the highlights of my few hours with Meeman.

    AUNTY! I want the earth!
    Excuse me?
    The earth!
    As in, the planet?
    THE EARTH!
    (At this, she gestures to my Blackberry. Which has a picture of the earth from space as its background screensaver. Turns out, Meeman wanted to take pictures with my Blackberry. I now have about a dozen pictures of her feet, hands, the ceiling, the sofa, and her lunch.)

    (While holding an orange on her head) Look it’s a hat!
    Is it? I thought it was an orange.
    IT’S A HAT! IT’S KINDA FUNNY!

    (after disappearing for a few minutes)
    Aunty, find me!
    (I find her. She’s on the toilet.) Oh, hi. Do you need help?
    Yes. I want a pink pool. You can get me a small circle pink pool Inshallah?

    (While climbing onto my arm) Can I ride your muscles?

    (After putting on two skirts on top of her pants) Look aunty, I am a double princess!

    (Upon bringing me one of her mommy’s hijabs) Make me a Muslim.
    *confused* Iman, you’re already a Muslim.
    *scowl* MAKE ME A MUSLIM!
    Uhhh. With this hijab? Oh, ok.
    (I wrap her up and she happily skips away wearing a hijab as long as she’s tall, two skirts and a pair of pants. Goofy child. :))

    And now I have TWO nieces! Can’t wait for the new model to grow up and amuse me. 😀

  • Alhamdulillah 🙂

    We are pleased to introduce puffy pink baby Musfira, born two days early and well-loved, well-poked, and well received by Khalid and Iman, who adore her, Alhamdulillah. 🙂

    In true international fashion, her weight is 3.685 kilos- almost perfectly the exchange rate of the UAE dirham to US dollar, which is fixed.  Proper blog update coming soon InshaAllah, JazakAllahuKheiran for the duas. 🙂

  • Status check

    *pokes self*

    Still here, check!

    *pokes stomach*

    *stomach pokes back*

    Still pregnant, check!

    Did you know, that for all the jokes I make about taking up extreme trampoline sports in the last few days before delivery, that extreme trampoline sports is actually a …err… sport?

    You learn something new every day. :p

    Nine days and counting, InshaAllah.

  • The business license should say ‘Frustrated Incorporated’

    I have a day off today, Alhamdulillah.  I got out of bed at noon, had two showers- one accidentally with a cup of tea, the other with the standard water- another cup of tea, a bagel, watched a Japanamation movie that I don’t know if I could ever sit through again, and I have studiously avoided doing anything useful, house, or work-related.  Having spent fourteen hours in bed asleep (or something close to it) my feet are almost feet shaped again.  Almost.  Alhamdulillah.  They’re not entirely unpuffy, but I have ankles for the first time in weeks- two of them!  Thank you HF, for taking the kids to their grandparents’.  You are the awesomest.  I couldn’t have been happier if I had woken up to brand-new chocolate-covered minivan in the driveway.  Really.  This is too good.  🙂 And now, another luxury- to the blog!

    So AutismUAE has been licensed and operational since late September of last year.  We have only one more quarter left on the business license before it’s time to pay up the renewal fees, and in the mean time, we’re operating at…drumroll please… 2/5th of our capacity.  Why?  Because I issue visas for therapists and they sit for SO LONG in the Philippines consulate that I’ve had one visa expire before the employee could even get here and two more in limbo for over a month and a half.  If I don’t get them in the country within the next two weeks their visas will expire AGAIN and the whole four-month process will have to start all over again.

    Between these three and one more therapist who’s been stuck in Iran for the past week waiting for her employment visa to be issued (already, it’s a week late) I have had months and months of lost revenue, and for a business that operates at cost, that’s a kick in the teeth.  How am I maintaining expenses?  Loans.  How long is our waiting list to get a therapist? Six to eight months, optimistically speaking.  How am I coping with the 30+ parents on the waiting list?  Not so well.  One parent called me the other day (she’s been on the waiting list since January) for what is, I am sure, the tenth time despite being politely told, please don’t trouble yourself to call, when I have a therapist, I’ll call you.

    (Yes, I know, time is of the essence when it comes to autism therapy for child.  Yes, I know the early intervention window is running out.  Yes, I know you’re desperate.  No, I can’t do anything to make the therapists come faster.)

    The conversation concluded with: These are our children, we need to get our act together.  And I sympathize with the mother, I really do, but the presupposition that I’ve been sitting on my hands since January  is what set my teeth on edge.  I’m 9 1/2 months pregnant.  I have a child with autism myself.  I have a paying job in addition to this completely non-paying job, and between pulling my hair out as well as one can from beneath a hijab and running after visas, agents, freezone people, and documentation- and still meeting with parents individually as well as for the monthly support group meetings, I think I could redefine the word ‘overworked.’  Just maybe.

    Then there are the parents who call every other week, despite being on the waiting list for only a month or so.  And then there are the parents who want to know who they should follow-up with weekly once I am on maternity leave, and I say ‘just email me.’ And- here’s the hardest one- there are the parents who ask me for help.  I know I would do anything for my child, and so I don’t expect other parents to try less.  I get emails, I get parents on the phone begging, crying to me even, about how they cannot afford any treatment for their children, and is there no chance for any sponsorship or discount?  Forget the mothers, the fathers cry.  And I bite my lip and tell them I’ll put them on the waiting list for a service that is already marked down 60% from other centers, but that’s all I can do.  And I hate myself for saying what it basically No, I cannot subsidize a service that is already provided at cost  and when they finally hang up, I cry too.

    Sometimes I worry about what would happen if one of my clients found this blog and started reading through all the AutismUAE posts- they would see past the shiny Director mask and into the world of a tired, complaining, pregnant, director and I think they would lose faith in me.  Well, the good news is, I don’t have any faith in me.  It’s all in God, and I need to stop beating myself up for not being able to save the world.  I have tried my best to get five therapists on the ground running within my first year of business, but with three quarters gone I have two.  We had to fire one already, and that was an amazing lesson, though I would have preferred to learn it when I was more financially stable and less in debt.

    Sometimes I wonder whether all humanitarians eventually become misanthropes.  Not that I’m much of a humanitarian, but already I dream in dirhams, and I calculate expenses by how many months of therapy such and such an item costs.  I see a woman with a designer handbag  and I want to beat her with it.  Thirteen thousand dirhams for a small YSL bag is two months of help for someone’s child- two months of skills and hard lessons learned toward independence, maybe even speech.  Two less months of fathers worrying themselves sick and mothers crying themselves to sleep because every day they watch their children drift farther and farther away from the outside world.  Is that dramatic? No, it’s realistic.  We waited only 3 or 4 months to start Khalid’s therapy, and every day was agonizing.  It felt like watching Khalid die a little bit more every day as he became more silent, more withdrawn, and less and less likely to interact with us an any level whatsoever.

    I’m starting to hate men in sports cars.  I don’t want to start on what I could accomplish if some rich sheikh dropped a Maserati’s worth of money into my lap.  Forget a Maserati- even a new corolla could set me up with an additional business license and five more therapists, bringing the waiting list down from thirty children to twenty, and although new children are added to the list every day, every therapist we employ makes a small financial margin that goes towards expansion, and the more therapists we have working the faster we can hire more therapists.  It’s a catch-22 of sorts, and although we could expand faster if we charged more for services, if we charged more for services it would defeat the intention of making services affordable.

    HF keeps reminding me that Allah knows and plans best, and the fact that there’ve been months and months of delays due to unforseen, uncontrollable, non-deliberate circumstances should only reinforce that.  We’re not slacking off, we’re just being held back and Allah knows the reason.  He’s the best of planners, and while I can’t really say that to a crying parent on the phone from an emirate that I can’t foresee sending therapists to for the next two years, remembering that will at least help me retain my sanity.  Or at least my humanity.  I don’t know, I feel tremendously disconnected from the people and world around me.  No one else I know, no other friend of mine is pregnant, trying to run a business, trying to successfully parent two children- one of whom has autism- and is also an annoyed corporate communications consultant on the side.  While there are overlaps of interest, as well as a few really lovely people who will listen to me no matter what I’m talking about, I have so little time for destressing, socializing, or even holding still for very long that I’m starting to wondering if I shouldn’t come with a warning label: Contents under pressure.

    (The sticker should be big and orange, and it should be stuck to my feet- they’re generally so swollen they look like they could explode.)

    Maybe I should write out a list of topics that one should avoid in talking to me: Khalid’s apparent ‘lack of autism’ being one of them.  Another mother at the school was accusing Joy of looking too much into Khalid’s ‘disability’- “There’s nothing wrong with him! Are you sure he has a problem? Look, he’s fine!” and while it’s a relief that Khalid can ‘pass’ for normal to a casual observer, it’s a slap in the face to be told ‘You’re so wrong, you’ve been making it up and imagining a cause to spend so much money on therapy you’re in debt and so much time worrying that it’s made you see ‘special needs’ everywhere you look!’

    The insinuation is either that we worry for no reason or we’re making it up to get special treatment.  Joy is more patient than I am, and she just said thank you we know he has autism and he’s made wonderful progress.  But then the mother pushes, because she’s a doctor, and demands to know who stuck the autism label on Khalid and how they went about doing so.  Because you know, as a dermatologist, she’s qualified to judge these things.

    Excuse me, I think my misanthropy is showing.

    I digress.  Sometimes it feels like my world is divided between people drowning in autism and people refusing to believe in it. On one hand you have people write off the years of blood, sweat and tears with a wave of their hand- Oh no, he’s fine.  I’m sure you were just imagining it all along. On the other hand, you have parents who are trapped living the same nightmare we were less than three years ago, and my inability to do anything for them puts an additional heaping of misery on top of my frustration.

    I tell the parents- I know what you’re going through, I’ve been there myself and I’m working as fast as I can- but I know that when you’re at that stage you can’t believe anyone has it as badly as you do.  I remember talking to another mother- she was crying of course- about how she was so exhausted because her child wouldn’t go to sleep for two hours the other night, and then woke up again.  When I told her I could sympathize, she said really it’s so hard and I said yes, I know- Khalid fought going to sleep every single night of his life until he was almost three, and even then he would wake up every two hours kicking and crying.  Every night.  So yes, I know.  And I’m still trying to get you a therapist as quickly as I can.  And one father told me with tears in his eyes- you don’t understand- my son hits and kicks and pinches his mother and she’s nine months pregnant! And my mind went back to life with Khalid just before Iman was born- I’ve been nine months pregnant with busted lips, scratched face, and bruises from the daily battle of the daily everything involved with a child who has no idea what you’re trying to do and no idea what he’s doing to you.  It got so bad that I would have to keep Khalid at arm’s length.  If I saw him coming towards me I would have to deflect him and move away, because his only way of communicating pain, frustration, or want was to pull, hit, or fight until I understood what he needed.  And I know there are cases more severe than ours, much much more, SubhanAllah, but I get so tired of trying to convince people that the delays we’re facing in getting them a therapist have nothing to do with me not caring, not trying, and not putting everything I have into AutismUAE.

    SubhanAllah.  I do have some happy thoughts, really.

    Happy Thought Number One: I got the nicest SMS from a father making dua for our success and that Allah grant us Jannatul Firdaus.  And that made my week, and it still brings a smile to my face, because AutismUAE has two goals, one of which is a halal, sustainable operations and the other is Sadqa-e-Jaariya.  Charity that keeps on giving.  We may be really, really struggling, but at least we’re not in danger of having to close up shop -yet- and I can’t think of better business ROI than duas or better KPI’s than your customers praying for you. 🙂

    Happy Thought Number Two: The Al Noor Training Center for Special Needs opened in 1981 with eight employees.  When I popped in for my first visit last week to their huge facility in Barsha, I saw an entire fleet of school buses.  And they started with eight people when I was a one year old!  It takes time, it takes patience, and according to the logos on the back of the buses, it may also take corporate sponsorship from HSBC.  Hey, a fleet of buses doesn’t pay for itself!  Or, maybe, it could. 🙂

    Happy Thought Number Three: Hey, InshaAllah we’re having a baby! 🙂  Not yet though, but soon InshaAllah.  Any day now.  For Iman it’s not soon enough.  The other day she climbed into my bed, first thing in the morning, and poutingly demanded “Momma, where’s my baby ___________?” (gender-specific designation censored 😛 )

    Happy Thought Number Four: Khalid has started to hug and kiss me of his own imitative, gently and without any of the ‘peck and go’ of a little boy who’s just kissing his mother because his therapist told him to.  It’s become a natural behavior to him, and I’m still bowled over every time he climbs through the car before going to school to put a kiss on my cheek that I didn’t ask for.  I absolutely love it.  He climbs in bed with me and puts his head on my shoulder and lays there happily, not wrestling or bouncing or looking for my phone, he’s just cuddling with me.  And I lay there with him feeling melted and happy, and when Iman comes in she kisses me sweetly and cuddles up on the other side and we have silly conversations and the two of them tell me all the things they’ve been waiting to tell me since they woke up a WHOLE TEN MINUTES before me and they’re still in their pajamas but they have things to tell me that just cannot wait.

    Hmm, this post has gotten really long.  I suppose that’s alright considering that I don’t know when I’ll have another opportunity to sit uninterrupted at a computer while simultaneously ignoring work email. I’m on maternity leave, gosh darnit!  I am leaving my phone on silent and my pajamas on the bed, because two hours from now I’m going to put them back on and not get out of them until we run out of groceries!

    Though if you happen to be a rich sheikh and you feel like dropping any amount of money in my lap, I promise I will answer your email right away.  Everyone who isn’t a rich sheikh, please just remember us in your duas for an easy delivery, a healthy baby, and successful operations for AutismUAE.  JazakAllahuKheiran!

  • At this point, I’ll take whatever compliments I can get.

    Iman: Momma, you not big! You tall!  Lika Burj Khalifa!

    Me: Like a Burj Khalifa?

    Iman: (giggles) Yeah, it’s kinda funny!

  • Nine months pregnant. Again, Alhamdulillah 🙂

    Here’s my post for nine months pregnant with Khalid

    And here’s the post for nine months pregnant with Iman.

    Notice the difference in the two.  Khalid’s post is about expectation, Iman’s is about ninja turtles.  Really, go look.

    At the moment, Khalid and Iman are eating dinner and verbally taunting each other, two exercises that may seem incompatible (chewing + taunting) but they’re very skilled savages and I can hear Iman goading Khalid with her mouth full and here comes Khalid to my elbow, also with mouth full, to come and complain about her.

    -pause to supervise dinner, with interlude of sophisticated dinner conversation-

    Khalid: (looking at my stomach) Oh, it’s big tummy!

    Me: My tummy is big?

    Khalid: Yeah, it’s nice! (patting my stomach and then tracing the patterns on my shirt) It’s circle.  And sun! It’s nice!

    Me: Thank you.  I’m glad you like it.

    Iman: Momma, P is for princess!

    Me: Yes dear, and pink, and pencil.  And how about the letter W? Do you remember?

    Iman: (Nodding) I ‘member.  Iss for spider.

    -return to computer-

    The children are in their respective showers now, and once they’re out and freshly pajama’ed, HF and I will tuck them into their bunks, recite their duas, kiss them and say Ma’assalama for the night.  It’s a ritual we all enjoy, with Khalid reminding us if we miss a step (Momma, dua in the bed. Kiss!)  and Iman doing her best to negotiate one more story or random extra demand to prolong the routine.  Khalid enjoys the routine while Iman is forever trying to mold it around her desires.  She has now emerged from the shower and is, at this very second, streaking up the hall and yelling ‘run for your life!’ to escape being dressed by Cindy

    -children tucked into bed and lights off.  in the dark, they are still teasing each other and the sound of giggling carries up the hall-

    So Khalid decided to reinvent the English numeral system today.  Seriously.  It goes like this:

    Zeroty one, zeroty two, zeroty three and so on until zeroty nine and then plain old ten.  Then comes onety-one, then onety-two, onety-three, until onety-nine and finally, twenty.  And here Khalid smiles, and his overhaul is complete.  Alhamdulillah 🙂

    I think this blog entry closely follows how this pregnancy has been; mostly about Khalid and Iman, because they’re louder, more demanding, more amusing, and overall more urgent than Stringbean.    They kick harder too, though there is something to be said for the frequency and accuracy with which Stringbean seems to target my ribs.  I’m going to blame all of this fetal aggression on self-defense.  Khalid and Iman pet, poke, jump on, bump into, even drum on and play cars on my stomach.  This baby is just acting in self-defense, and they’re probably so used to retaliating that they’re going to come out kicking and punching.

    I spend most of my time chauferring, entertaining, feeding, and refereeing Khalid and Iman and all the rest of it trying to ignore/work through being pregnant so I can get work done.  On one hand I feel guilty that I haven’t started ‘bonding’ with this baby.  Yes, I know it hasn’t been born yet, but daydreaming, talking to one’s stomach, lovingly setting up the nursery, and making lots of dua for your unborn child are all things that I did much for Khalid, a little for Iman, and even less for this child.  Not that I’m not excited about meeting Stringbean, or that I don’t already know the gender (yay!) and haven’t done all of the adorable pre-baby clothes shopping, but the time I spend focusing on being pregnant is way, way less than the time I spend trying to forget that I’m pregnant so I can get things done.

    Which is easier said than done by the way- my wedding ring no longer fits, my feet are so swollen that they hang an inch and a half off the back of my sandals.  My back aches, my top speed is .1 miles per hour, even the maternity tops are getting tight.  If Iman, who is still a novelty-sized girl, stands too close to me she gets eclipsed by my stomach and occasionally even knocked over.  Khalid runs to hug me and crashes face-first into my stomach and then rebounds away.  He’s learned to come at me sideways for hugs now.  I feel like enormous, and yet, I’ve maintained the same weight for nearly a month now, Alhamdulillah.  Between swimming, working, and the fact that EVERYONE IS TOO MEAN TO BUY ME A DOZEN RED VELVET CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING FROM MAGNOLIA BAKERY (basement one, near the Dancing Fountains, Dubai Mall, Index Mall parking area, she said subtly.) I have gained little weight, and even lost some according to my last weigh-in at the OB/GYN.  The doctor looked at the paper with my weight scribbled on it and frowned.

    “Did we weigh you in your abaya last time?”

    “Nope.”

    “Same shoes?”

    “Yes.”

    The doctor shrugs and carries on.  She tells me I need to rest more.  She asks me what I do, and I tell her.  Then she offers to write me a note for sick leave.

    “Why would I need one?”

    “So you can rest for a few days. Just take it, it’s only seventy dirhams.”

    “Who would I give it to?”

    “The center you work for.”

    “I’m the director.”

    “Give it to the office, they’ll have to give you time off.”

    Here the nurse interjects – “Madame, there is no one to give it to.”

    The doctor looks at me again, confused.

    “You don’t understand,” I tell her.  “It’s my business, and I even dream in employment visas.”

    I told Owlie about this later and we had a good laugh.  Owlie suggested that I take the sick note with my left hand, pass it to my right, nod sternly and deny myself the down time.  In actuality, I would need to give it to Khalid and Iman, and Khalid would read it from top to bottom, and Iman would take it and draw a squiggle fish, a squiggle flower, and maybe a squiggle crocodile on it, but neither of them would approve it and school, cooking, shopping, working, meetings, outings, and entertainment would still go on.  HF very lovingly drops Khalid off to school in the mornings for me sometimes, and while once a week I do need to sleep in for a few hours, the rest of the week I have too much to do and too pushy of a secretary to be left alone.

    “Momma, wake up! Open your eyes! Stand up! The sun is up! Can I play with your phone?”

    “Yes Iman, I’m up. No sweetie, not now.”

    Iman wrestles the blankets off me and theatrically takes me by the hand to ‘help’ me out of bed.  Sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn’t.  Sometimes Iman tells Cindy that I would like a cup of chai, even when I haven’t requested one.  Sometimes she has my chai supersized too- my default is a small cup of chai.  Iman runs up the hall and I can hear her call out- “Cinny!  Momma wants big chai please!”

    “Small…” I mumble face-first into the pillow.

    Iman comes back and updates me.  “Momma! I told Cinny!”

    “Thank you dear.”

    So I have a tankard of deliciously well made but WAY too big chai waiting for me on the dining table when I eventually stagger out.  How much extra sleep do I usually get on these days?  About 45 minutes if Iman is persistent.  If I cave and give her my phone to play with, I can get an hour and a half.  After that she gets bored and she expects us to launch into our daily routine- I go to the pool and Iman applauds and waves when I swim past her.  At every progressive lap she tries harder and harder to somehow insinuate herself into the water where she, being only three, is not allowed to swim.  Cindy calls her back to the poolside, where she waves at and encourages the other swimmers.  She also informs me, regularly, that she’s bigger now.  See?  She stands on her tiptoes and tell me “I’m seven.  Allah made me bigger.”  Why seven? Because that’s the minimum age for being allowed in the pool.

    Then we go grocery shopping or come home and work on my computer.  By 12:30 it’s time to go get Khalid again, and once he’s home we do lunch, attempt to constructively entertain ourselves without too much screaming and battling over toys, cook dinner, and then find something for the kids to do in terms of physical activity.  It’s over 110 degrees daily now, so the park is out of the question.  In winter, the kids were off to the park every day by 3:30.  In summer, we cycle through the free play areas in various malls on a daily basis so that the kids can burn off some steam without dying of heat stroke.  Iman’s favorite is the play area in Babyshop, Khalid’s new favorite is Magic ‘Plant.’  Alhamdulillah, there’s a mall nearby that has both of these, albeit on opposite ends.  Cindy takes Iman one way and Joy takes Khalid the other.  I find a comfortable sofa somewhere in the middle and attempt to check email from my phone.  By five o’clock we’re home again and by six it’s time again for dinner, bathing, reading The Gruffalo with Baba and then the bedtime ritual, and the kids’ day has come full circle.

    Once the kids are in bed, HF and I will occasionally go out, but usually get on our respective computers to work.  By ten I’m in bed, and tomorrow is another day.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Notice how nothing in my day involves appreciating, dwelling, relaxing, or luxuriating in the expectancy of expecting.  That’s what I was talking about.  With both Khalid and Iman’s pregnancies, the time just would not pass.  Now I feel ambushed every time another Babycenter.com email alert pops up saying “Congratulations, you’re X weeks pregnant!”  Last week’s number was 36.  I’m expecting the next one any day now.  The baby’s due date is anywhere between June 8th and June 17th InshaAllah, and the doctor says June 15th seems most likely.  I am torn between wanting the baby to be born early (because I’m tired of being a weeble-wobble juggernaut) and wanting the baby to be born as late as possible because I have too much work to do and I’m not ready to go on maternity leave yet.

    So yes.  Here I am, nine months pregnant, happy, busy, tired, over-worked, not overfed though I wish I was, and not very likely to be able to slow down any time soon.  Poor lil Stringbean, you better come out running.

  • Her grasp of phonics can be… tenuous.

    Look Momma, issa letter double-yoo!

    Good girl Iman, you’re right!

    Double-yoo is for Spiderman!

    O_0

    Web?

    Yes, and big cookies!

    Good job Iman.

  • A First, but Probably not a Last

    This afternoon Khalid requested ‘momma’s kemtooter,’ so as I was heading out for a meeting, I came to turn my laptop on and log in for him so he can play games.  My computer has been password protected for a few months now, roughly since Iman realized she could drag, drop, and delete icons from the desktop.  Today, I turned on the computer and Khalid, instead of waiting for me to log in, plopped down in my chair.

    “Oh, it’s password! It’s happy!  123! Let’s counting!”

    I freeze.

    “Khalid, you know my password?”

    “Um, yeah!”

    His chubby finger slowly types 1-2-3. And then instead of hitting enter, he accidentally hits backspace.

    “Oops!”

    He hits 3 again, presses enter, and officially becomes the youngest and most adorable little hacker in the history of both adorableness and hacking.  No one told him what the password is, but it’s safe to assume that he’s just watching me type 1-2-3 enough times to figure out what I’m doing.

    I am so proud.  And I am so changing my password.

  • When good reporting goes bad, lol

    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.

  • Khalid’s first blog: Dictated by Khalid himself.

    Khalid’s first blog: Dictated by Khalid himself.

    My name is Khalid.
    I am five years old.
    I like strawberry milk juice.
    My sister is Iman.
    My baba is sitting.
    My momma is sitting on the sofa.
    Miss Taleen is big.
    Miss Hind is big.
    Swish milk.
    Joy and Iman are in the house.
    Iman is late.
    Couting 123! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10!
    2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20!
    A chocolate cookie is eating the brown cookie.
    Where is my two hats?
    Khalid is so hungry!
    Eating the Khalid!
    School bus is yellow.  The school bus is going to the Arabian Center.
    Khalid is big! Iman is small!
    Wow! Wow! It’s something! Wow! It’s something yellow!
    Ikea Carpet?
    (Khalid leaves to drive his yellow school bus on the road carpet from Ikea)
    By Khalid, the end.

  • Last Day of April

    It’s been over two and a half years since I was thrown into the deep end of autism parenting and just over six months since I started AutismUAE, and while it’s impossible to say that you’ve heard it all, one can assume that they’ve heard a fair amount.  But nothing I had ever heard before affected me like what I heard last night, first hand, from a behavioral consultant visiting from abroad.

    She went to visit a family to assess their child.  She entered and made small talk, and asked where the young boy was.  They pointed her towards a room.

    There she found, in an empty room, a little boy restrained and with his hands bound.

    And that was how he lived.

    Every day.

    I’m not done crying about it yet.

  • Kids these days…

    At the Arabian Center's 'petting' zoo

    Iman: Look momma, issa angry bird!

  • Muslim Matters on Sexual Harassment in Muslim Cultures

    Muslim Matters on Sexual Harassment in Muslim Cultures

    Hena Zuberi just published a great, awesome, relevant, necessary, important article about sexual harassment in the Muslim community, and I found myself typing a comment so long it could stand alone.  And I think it should, because the more websites, the more people, the more Muslims talk about sexual harassment, the more people there will be to stand against it, InshaAllah.  Before reading my post, I recommend reading the original post here.

    Unfortunately, I know the humiliation of the Pakistani bazaars and tailors too.  I learned to carry a big, empty purse (empty, because the bag would be exposed to pickpockets) and place it over my backside while walking through the crowded streets, and to walk with my elbows out to make more space around my body and to move only in groups. We learned which tailors were safe and which were not, and it didn’t matter if he made your sleeves too big and your pants sideways, at least he was shareef and you could go back and have the clothes fixed without being groped.  My extended family in Karachi has been using the same tailor for so long that he was the family tailor when I was 9, and I’m 30 now.

    I have heard stories of getting fed up and screaming one’s head off, but in a tight crowd, you don’t even know who you’re screaming at.   I’ve spoken to cousins who say they want to smash someone’s face in, but they turn around and don’t even know who touched them.  Even here in Dubai there are cases of taxi drivers, men in shopping malls, coworkers, legal sponsors, even waiters and cleaners making deliberate, inappropriate contact with women.  It is punished, *when* it can be proven, but when women are so shocked they don’t react or are too humiliated to draw attention to it, it simply repeats itself as silent abuse.
    <
    Owl and I have both had plenty of experience with this, and I used to think it was because we were half-white, and therefore gori-chitti-ai hai recipents of unwanted attention anywhere we went.  It turns out that this happens to any sort of woman in Pakistan- anywhere where molesters can hide in the crowd.  Another one of my cousins told me about a man touching her through a space in the seats while seated behind her on a bus.  Yet another got her chest grabbed by catering staff in typical wedding-buffet traffic, and for years afterwards we held our dinner plates at chest level for the same reason.

    I was angry about it as a young woman, but now as a mother, I think I would fly into a face-punching rage if I saw someone inappropriately touching either of my children.  I never reacted this way as a young girl or teenager, but perhaps I needed those years of suffering (I lived in Pk for eight years!) to help me break out of the passive shame.  The first time I ever spoke out was at a wedding here in Dubai, and I was standing near the bride & groom’s seating area when I felt someone press very definitely against me.  It was not a crowded space, and although there were other guests standing around and socializing in the same area, there was no question about there being enough room to pass me without initiating full body-on-body contact.  At first I was stunned.  I turned and looked behind me to see one of catering staff sidling away from behind me without making eye contact or even acknowledging what had just happened.  Then I wondered whether or not I had imagined it, which I think must be a standard reaction when that happens.  You doubt yourself, and sometimes if the groper is subtle you might even make excuses for them.  Your mind would rather do anything than admit what had just happened, and that’s what my mind did.

    And then I remembered Pakistan.  And I remembered what it feels like to be bumped in to accidentally by a waiter (Oh, sorry! So Sorry! Excuse me!).  And then I remembered being pushed against, brushed against, pressed against like this in bazaars, on crowded streets, sometimes within shops themselves by men craning  to look at merchandise just over your shoulder, baji.  And unless someone is walking pelvis-first and in slow-motion, there’s no reason why I should feel that part of another person pressing against me.  That’s not how human beings walk, especially here in the UAE, where employees trip over themselves to stay out of a woman’s way for fear of being arrested and deported (and maybe a little beaten, too) by her angry husband.  The police do not deal very graciously with groping here, so if you want to keep your job, you have the sense to watch where you’re walking.

    So I told HF, and I adore him for this, his first question was Who?  He didn’t say ‘are you sure?’ or ‘maybe he just bumped in to you?’ or ‘you probably imagined it.’   He took me on my word and even told his brother, who was also a guest at the same wedding.  At the time I was embarrassed that he did so, but later I felt happy and relieved that HF found nothing shameful about what had happened and brought in reinforcements to help protect a woman in the family.

    I was able to point the man out.  HF made note of the name on his tag and discreetly found the manager.  About half an hour later the manager came to apologize with the same server.  He said he had tripped, and while the man looked blank and unapologetic as the manager issued an apology on his behalf, at least he had been caught out.  About an hour after we left the wedding a higher level manager called to apologize, saying the man had stumbled somehow, but was profusely sorry.  Nothing much happened, and nothing much came of it (as far as I know anyway) but hey- I did it!  I told someone!  And no one yelled at me, or called me a liar, or told me I was making things up.  And most importantly, no one said it was my fault.

    Alhamdulillah for good men, and Auzubillah for the bad ones.  I guess every man needs to decide which one he’s going to be.  And every woman needs to decide whether or not she’s going to suffer in silence or take a stand.  Angrily turning around and yelling ‘who touched me?’ may not yield any immediate confessions, but at least a groper will think twice about whether he wants to be caught.  The sooner we stop blaming and shaming ourselves, the sooner we can speak up and InshaAllah, give sight to the blind eye that is otherwise turned to casual sexual harassment.


    Video from the Harassment in Egypt Blog

  • P is for poke, apparently.

    P is for poke, apparently.

    (I am sitting at the dining table working on my computer, and suddenly I get a jabbing feeling in my left side.)

    Me: Iman! What are you doing?

    (Iman grins and holds up her pink pencil)

    Iman: I poking you!

    Me: Yes, I can see that.  If you want to get my attention, say excuse me Momma!

    Iman: Excuse me momma?

    Me: Yes Iman?

    Iman: Can I poke you?

    :s

  • Knee-high Theology

    So I’m home again in Dubai, 32 weeks pregnant and horribly sick- I’ve spent the last four days more asleep than awake, if you can count passing out punctuated by coughing myself silly as sleeping.  Today I get to see an ENT finally, Alhamdulillah.  We’re getting ready to pack the kids into the car and make a family trip to the hospital.  In the background, onions are frying.  Tonight, HF is making biryani. 🙂

    A few days ago we sat down and watched an adorable anime called Summer Wars, which has a nice, non-violent, non-romantic story line that the kids enjoyed.  There was only one problem though- Obacha dies.  The old grandmother, who is the matriarch of the extended family, passes away in her sleep and animourning ensues.  And of course, Iman fixates on this, and a full two days after having watched the cartoon, she pipes up at dinner:

    “Momma, what happened to the gwamma?”

    -pause-

    (HF looks at me expectantly)

    “The grandma died and InshaAllah she went to Jannah.  Do you remember the story about Jannah?  Jannah is the most beautiful place ever, with castles and lovely clothes and yummy food!”

    “Werizit?”

    “With Allah!  Allah is up!”

    “Up onna house?”

    “No, higher than that.  Up past the sky.”

    “Up inna stars?”

    “Even higher than the stars.”

    Khalid swallows his rice and says, “Moon.”

    “Very good Khalid!  But Allah is past the moon too.  He’s higher than that.  And that’s where Jannah is.”

    “Angel.”

    -HF and I are collectively flabbergasted-

    “Yes, the angels are in Jannah…”

    “Angel fell down.”

    *blinkblink*

    “Shaitan wasn’t an angel, but he fell down to earth. You’re right.”

    “Angels onna earth.  Angel is there.  Jumping.”

    We turn and look towards the front door, where Khalid is gesturing.

    “If you say so sweetie.”

    The End. 🙂

  • How’s this for an update?

    I’m sitting here waiting for the next interview to begin and thought I’d actually post something.  Alhamdulillah, the trip is going well.  Yesterday we held a 2 1/2 hour orientation for therapists and some seniors from a local center.  After that we interviewed four of them, hopped into a taxi, and then went to the other side of town to meet with the Executive Director of the Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP).  He was such a lovely person to talk to,he was very helpful and gave us the inside-out of how ASP works, what the structure is, how they’re funded (or not!) what their projects are, etc.

    Joy renewed her membership, and I signed AutismUAE up as a member as well and we’re very happy to support them in any way we can.  The ASP reminds me of us, really.  The Executive Director- Ranil- sits in a one-room office with a total staff of four- there are fifty national chapters, but he’s still the one driving around, making phone calls, running errands- the fancy titles don’t mean much and everyone does whatever is required regardless of the job description.

    It felt a bit strange introducing myself to a board room (eep!) full of therapists yesterday as the Director (eep!) and I felt like I had to specify that I was also the driver, the clerk, the web designer, and the office boy- but after having met Ranil, I feel less self-conscious.  I feel less like I’m ‘pretending’ to be a director and more like making coffee and copies is actually part of the directorial job description.

    Yes, I’m sure there are people in managerial positions out there who pay other people to wipe their noses for them, but I don’t see that as anything I aspire to.  And I feel better now that it doesn’t seem like that would be expected of me, either.  *phew*

    The interviews that I mentioned in the first paragraph actually happened some time between the second and third paragraph, and now that they’re over, I can talk about them.  We have two potential therapists who both have their Bachelors degrees in Child Psychology, are in their final year of Masters in Special Education, and have four years of ABA experience with two very reputable centers.  We’re not hiring them yet though, we’re giving them three months to develop… the powers of speech. :p  They’re too shy, too quiet, too polite, not loud enough, not verbal enough, and not confident enough to swim with the sharks in Dubai, the sharks being the demanding, inquiring, and highly verbal parents that they’ll be working with.

    Unlike center-based therapy, where contact between therapist and parent is very limited, home-based therapy involves complete immersion of the therapist into the child’s home environment.  There is no middle-man to mediate, and since therapists and parents together form the team that is responsible for the materials, the learning environment, and the consistency of the behavior modification plan from each family member, the therapist needs to go in wearing their own pair of bossy boots.

    Yes.  Bossy boots.  Big, steel-toed, bossy boots.  You grow them after developing the confidence that you know what you’re talking about and it’s more important that the child be taught correctly than to be mis-taught because you’re afraid of offending a ‘senior’ therapist or parent.

    These two therapists were not wearing bossy boots.  They were wearing what we call the too-nice loafers of Pinoy Politeness, where the cultural norm is that it’s more important to be polite than honest, and rather than say ‘no’ to anything (because it could potentially offend someone) it’s better to say yes and then disappear.  I’ve been in this situation twice or thrice already, and twice (TWO TIMES!) this has involved people accepting jobs and then being nowhere to be found when it comes time to sign the contract.  They don’t answer email, they don’t answer phones- they just disappear.  And weeks later we find out from other therapists that, in one case, the therapist’s significant other didn’t want her working abroad, and in the other case, the therapist changed her own mind about working abroad but at no point whatsoever decided to inform me.

    We’ve even had one candidate cut and run- literally- from the car of a family we set up an interview with, and disappear.  After making a few phone calls, we discovered that her aunt had worked for the same family before, and reported that the mother could be verbally abusive.  Why she couldn’t have told us this before we set up the interview, before she got on the bus, before she traveled for two hours and then gotten into the mother’s car only to jump out again a few minutes later- I don’t know.

    I digress.  Alhamdulillah, we have finalized and approved of our next three therapists, all of whom are wearing BIG OLE BOSSY BOOTS because they’re all senior-level therapists with years of experience managing other therapists in addition to their children, and they have the presence to prove it.  Among them, even the quietest senior- who has been an ABA therapist for seven years- makes up in content what she lacks in volume.  She reminds me of a neighbor that Erma Bombeck once wrote about in one of her many gems as a humor columnist.  Erma described herself as a mother who screamed and yelled her kids into obedience (or some semblance thereof) and bitterly resented the demure Southern Belle who lived next door and never raised her voice above a whisper.  Imagine her surprise one day when her kids came back home and reported that they had been gently told, in the most feminine whisper, that if they played ball on that lawn again they’d have their gizzards ripped out.  0_0

    So yes, volume.  You don’t always need it.  🙂

    Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, by the time we’re done processing papers (which could take two months) our team will be comprised of:

    • Joy: My lead therapist and Khalid’s ABA therapist who commands such authority that if she weren’t handling kids she’d be bossing around a naval fleet somewhere.  She’s been with us for a year and a half now.
    • Jel: A superstar Physical Therapist turned ABA therapist who earns rave reviews from the parents as well as the visiting case managers and psychologists. She’s been with us since the beginning of this year.
    • Grace: An English teacher turned ABA therapist who is four and a half feet tall but manages older, more severe children two feet taller and double her weight.  She’s been with us for two weeks and is already garnering good feedback from parents.
    • Cheng: She’s the senior therapist with seven years of experience, a degree in Child Psychology and the authoritative whisper. We hope to have her in Dubai within the next two weeks, max.
    • Adrian: A broad, tall Physical Therapist and senior ABA therapist who handles the 16 year olds and physically demanding children.  He is scheduled to be down by mid-May of this year at the latest, InshaAllah.  He will be joined by:
    • Sherry: His wife, who is also a senior therapist, possibly even smaller than Grace but with no less command in her personality.
    • Jan-Jan: A senior therapist, Physical Therapy graduate with a Masters degree in Special Education who has also been giving speech therapy to deaf children for the last three years.
    • GNet: Another triple-header- A Physical Therapist, Special Ed Masters, and senior ABA therapist- GNet also taught high school for four years, so she’s got the kind of bossy-boots that you come to expect from someone who has taught teenagers.

    After that, we have our two too-nice Pinoy Polite aba therapists with Child Psych degrees.  They’ve been given three months to take up public speaking, debate, or just arguing with people around them :p and then they’ll come back for a reevaluation.  Not for their ABA skills, but for their confidence and ability to communicate effectively.

    And now that we’ve wrapped up three intense days of work, Joy and I are heading to Qiapo- the Muslim part of town to visit the only Mosque in Manila and maybe find a halal lunch, InshaAllah.

    Ma’Assalam!

  • Live from Manila…

    Wow, the Philippines looks a lot like Karachi- but with more shorts and flipflops and no donkeys. 🙂  And no one even stares.  Which I am amazed and impressed by.  Am here for one and a half more days of interviews and meetings, but I’ll try to update tomorrow if I can. 🙂

    A Jeepny- a bit like a stretch-limo rickshaw, lol
    I did a double-take when I first saw this- Yes, 7-11 is here, and apparently, they're here on every single block!

  • Y’all are invited!

    You're invited! April 9th, Zaabeel Park, 12pm Gate 1. BBQ & Fun for Autism Awareness!

  • April is Autism Awareness Month!

    Because it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t slather my blog in as much autism as my daily life is slathered in, this month, I intend to post as much as possible about autism.  Whether you want me to or not. :p  So here I go. 🙂

    First of all, there’s this picture gallery of individuals with autism from around the world. Many thanks to  Hemlock who mailed me the link today.  I like to think that I’m seasoned enough to keep it together when talking/looking/dealing/interacting with autism, since not only do I do that at home with my own son, but also with the children and families that our therapists take care of, but I cried anyway.  Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant and slightly more emotional than usual, or maybe it’s because I feel for each of the families in the pictures.  I’m not sure, it’s a combination of both, most likely.  But I know I’m not the only one who gets hit by this unexpectedly sometimes.  A certain nice man who just happens to live with me (though I won’t say who) was once reduced to silent, manly tears by this Arabic nasheed about autism.   Me?  I bawled.  And I don’t even think I was pregnant when I saw the video so that kind of shoots down the hormones excuse.

    Second of all, Khalid turned five this March, Alhamdulillah. 🙂  And Iman turned three.  Alhamdulillah.  My amazingly beautiful, vicious, unexpected little savages- who are studying Arabic in anticipation for their entrance exam to a bilingual KG program- are busy running, jumping, arguing, and whacking each other out of babyhood and into young childhood.  We’re praying that InshaAllah, come KG-2 in September, Khalid won’t need a shadow in school.  At the moment, Joy goes to school with him every day to help him, basically, learn how to learn.  He will always need some extra support, but if he can function independently in a school setting, then that’s a huge step towards independence in the real world.  Please make dua that Khalid can take that step, because the sooner he can pass for ‘normal,’ the sooner teachers stop handling him with kid gloves- an educational tactic which is the frustrating equivalent of ‘give the kid what he wants, don’t make the retard cry.’

    I know they mean well, but when Khalid is asked to do something by the teacher that he doesn’t want to do and Joy is working hard to teach Khalid to listen for the teacher’s instructions and follow through, it’s utterly useless for the teacher to backtrack as soon as she sees expectations being placed on Khalid and say “Oh no, it’s ok! He can lay in the middle of the floor while everyone else sits nicely on the mat!” or “Look class, Khalid is helping us choose a song!” as Khalid is gleefully pushing buttons on the CD player in the middle of the lesson.

    The teacher is, in essence, undermining her own authority as well as Joy’s, and un-teaching the compliance skills that we’ve spent over two years building.  Khalid’s motto is, and has been since birth, “You And What Army?”  When other kids in the center got over their initial resistance to therapy within the first few sessions, Khalid insisted on crying himself silly for over three weeks.  I would peek through the window in the therapy room to see him blowing bubbles- and sobbing.  Putting coins in the piggy bank- and sobbing.  Cutting toy fruit with a novelty-sized plastic kitchen knife- and yes, sobbing.  He is still remarkably stubborn, strong-willed, and very determined in very nearly everything he does.  He does not suggest, he insists.  His train does not say choo-choo, it says beep beep, and if you suggest otherwise, he will get angry.  RTA is not an acronym for Roads and Transport Authority, it is a word in itself and it is pronounced ‘ri-taa’ every time an RTA taxi, bus, or metro train pass by.

    I digress.  Compliance has been one of our toughest battles, and I get really, really annoyed when I pick Joy and Khalid up from school and Joy is sighing from exasperation because the teacher let Khalid lay at her feet as she stroked his hair while the other children sat nicely on the circle and listened to the story.  (Teacher’s pet, literally?)  Joy has taken to simply removing Khalid from these situations by walking him out of the classroom, much to the teacher’s confusion, as Joy basically has to step in and interrupt the lesson in order to reinforce such simple requests as ‘we sit in a circle during circle time’ which the teacher neglects because she ‘doesn’t want to make Khalid upset.’

    SubhanAllah.  Right.  I think I’m supposed to be talking about autism.  I am, really, but in a way specific to how people perceive a child with autism.  I realize that people are trying to be sensitive, but my maternal hackles are raised (and teeth bared, too) every time people treat Khalid as something pitiable.  Yes, fifty years ago they would have written him off as ‘retarded,’ because they didn’t realize what they are only slowly realizing now- that there is intelligence locked inside of body that fails the mind.  Many non-verbal individuals still have 100% comprehension of what is being said around them, or have remarkable analytical, spatial, mathematical, or artistic abilities that go un-noticed for decades because they cannot be accessed, but not because they don’t exist.

    So there.

  • Alhamdulillah for Clarity!

    Alhamdulillah for Clarity!

    In the culmination of a journey that began in November, I finally have an assessment of my knee from Dr. Extremely Awesome of Harvard and pro-sports patients fame.  OB’s have pictures of babies from happy parents.  Pediatricians have thank-you’s posted on their walls that are drawn in crayon.  This man’s entire clinic is cram-jammed with autographed jerseys, posters (and one basketball  signed by Hakeem Olajuwon) from happy, rehabilitated soccer, football, and basketball players, so if he can fix them, he should be able to fix me, right?

    Right?  *earnest nodding*

    *more nodding*

    Right?

    Alhamdulillah ‘ala kulli haal.  Praise be to Allah in all circumstances. 🙂  Dr. Awesome and his Head King of Physio collectively concluded:

    Surgery Number 1: Unnecessary.  The surgeon says he is fixing a tear, but that’s not a tear.  He melted it back together with laser.  So he melted bits of my knee that never needed poking or melting.

    (“You’re saying I have a chop-happy surgeon?”)

    (“You said it, not me.  In most hospitals surgeons only get paid when they do a surgery.  In this clinic, they all earn a flat salary.”)

    Surgery Number 2: Removal of problem that first surgery caused.  Failed “repair” of meniscus then leads to partial removal of meniscus.

    Surgery Number 3: Clean-up of back of knee cap can be warranted following a dashboard injury, though wouldn’t do much to help other problems in knee.  Though it was nice that the crunching and grinding stopped afterwards.

    The advice?  If I meet anyone else who says surgery will fix my knee, run (or hobble) the other way.  Apparently I have a combination of flat feet and knock knees that cause my legs to turn in slightly, therefore making my kneecaps rub against my femur lopsidedly.  Instead of the force being distributed evenly between the convex femur and the concave kneecap, I have a 75% destroyed kneecap (grade 3 condramalasia [sp?]) rubbing against a the same side of my knee where the meniscus is no longer present, resulting in 1+1=3.

    The solution?  Very specific physio to tighten ligaments and muscles all the way up my leg with the desired outcome of properly re-aligning my kneecap so that the force is evenly distributed, reducing the pin-point wear and tear that is otherwise accumulating between my crooked knee, missing cartilage, and busticated kneecap.

    I find this all amazing.  SubhanAllah.  I’m not sure how much of this is medicine and how much of this is physics, and I am even more amazed that it’s taken three surgeries and six years of physio, painkillers, and hyaluron gel injected into my knee to have- not a solution- but for once, an idea of what’s going on inside my knee.   Everything happens for a reason, that much I know for sure, Alhamdulillah.   At the very least, I got to post some cool surgery videos to my blog.  Plus any trial/affliction that a believer faces with sabr and trust in Allah helps expiate sins and increase them in blessings.  That’s a given too.  Alhamdulillah.  I’m still disappointed with the last two surgeons though.  And I can’t help but wonder why they were unable to nail the problem down six years and three surgeries ago.  It’s been six years since I’ve been able to do sajda and I miss it.  I miss my face on the floor, feeling small and vulnerable and at peace, submitting everything that is human ego, “intellect,” and self-serving justification to Rabbi al-‘Alaa, my Lord Most High, before whom I am His servant, most low.

    I miss being able to run, to walk any amount of distance, and it was only last year that I realized I wasn’t pressing for Hajj and Umrah because I felt humiliated by the possibility that I would do tawaaf in a wheelchair before I’m even 31.  It stings even now, thinking about it, but who am I to feel stung by what Allah has decreed?  Obviously there’s good in this for me, otherwise He wouldn’t have given me this challenge to overcome.  And I may not be happy with losing what I feel is my physical capability, but I would be an idiot if I did not try to build my spiritual strength in its place.

    I’m still human.  Very much so.  And my own frailty is frustrating.  It always has been, but Alhamdulillah, I know it’s a test.  I can’t climb a mountain.  I can barely climb the stairs.  But I have other abilities and Allah has given me the opportunity to do more than many, many other people. Yeah, so one knee doesn’t work so well.  So the floor is far away and I keep my shoelaces knotted because I can’t tie them myself.  Big whoop.  I have my faith, I have my beautiful children, lovely husband and family, and the cognitive abilities to take my time and turn it into an act of service and a sadqa, InshaAllah.  I can renegotiate my surroundings without being able to physically function in them, because I don’t need to climb over obstacles when I can work around them completely.  I have resources, Alhamdulillah.  And above all, I have Allah’s promise of complete justice, equity, and compensation for patience, faith, trust and hard work.

    And at least now, Alhamdulillah, I have some clarity.  There is no ‘fix’ for my knee.  There is exercise and a long road of hard work for trying to physically change how the inside of my leg works.  That’s ok.  You know what else there is?  Jannah.  Where everyone has perfect everything.  Perfect bodies and features- lovingly remade by Allah to exclude illness,tiredness, pain, and the impending doom of mortality.  Nothing but perfect everything- not in the monotonous ‘strumming of harps on puffy white clouds’ version of eternity- but perfection in a capacity beyond the best conceivable spouse with the best, most emotionally, sexually, interpersonally fulfilling relationship you could imagine in the best, most amazing abode, with the best company among humankind, with the best food and having earned the best of rewards- Allah’s pleasure.

    I want it all- safe, permanent, gorgeous, spacious home- a palace, in fact- the interior decorating of which is done by God Himself, which includes gardens and pavilions in an estate so vast that you’re suddenly the inheritor of an entire world of gardens beneath which rivers flow, where your next-door neighbors happen to be Prophets, companions, beloved family members- the best of mankind in the best form they could ever be remade in, free of pettiness, dishonesty, cruelty and sin, and retaining the personalities, souls, and memories of the lives that earned them Jannah in the first place.

    I want all that’s good from this world, magnified and exponentially increased without any of what’s bad.  I want an all-you-can-ea-buffet from Allah’s-Own-Catering that never causes fullness, obesity, indigestion- I want my husband six feet tall and sculpted like a work of art, I want everything that I cannot have here, the silk, the gold, the brocade, the rich carpets, the enormous estate, the wine without intoxication and the contentment without limit or end.  And if I compare all that to wanting a working knee, well then I say nuts to the knee.  I know that we’re supposed to ask Allah for everything we want or need, even a shoelace, but I’m not asking Him to fix my knee.  I want him to replace it with a better one.  A permanent one that never breaks, bruises, buckled, grinds, creaks, or aches.  And I want everything else replaced too- the flabby body, the dry skin, the filled teeth, the indigestion- and in its place, I want Paradise.

    InshaAllah.

  • And I quote:

    HF, Iman and I are en route to Abu Dhabi for an appointment with my Orthopedic surgeon.  We take the exit ramp for a gas station and…

    Iman: I want special full please.

    HF and I have a good chuckle.

    Me: Ok sweetie, let’s go inside and get you a drink.

    We go inside and stand in line at the cafeteria.

    Cashier: Yes Ma’am?

    Iman, from two feet below the level of the counter: Special full please!

    ****

    We’re sitting at the dining table having dinner and Khalid suddenly jumps down from his chair, rushes to the front door, opens it and sticks his head outside…

    Khalid: Oh, iss dark! I need an umbrella!

    ***

    Banging urgently on the bathroom door, which I am on the other side of:

    Iman: Momma!  Momma!

    Me: Yes Iman?

    Iman: Have you seen my toes?

    Me: I think they’re at the end of your feet.

    Iman.  Oh. -pause-  Ok!

    ****

    Khalid is reading a book of old nursery rhymes, and comes across The Lion and The Unicorn:

    Khalid: Oh, the lion is ow! The lion is hurt! The lion is go to the doctor!

    Me: The doctor for animals is called the vet.  The lion needs to go to the vet.

    Khalid: No, the lion is go to the pharmacy.

    ****

    Iman is feeding grass to a cow at the Bahiya Kids Park & Zoo, and gets slightly nibbled in the process.

    Iman: Ow!  Bad cow!  Time out! No biting!

    ***

    A car cuts in front of us as we’re driving on the highway, and HF honks the horn:

    Iman: SubhanAllah!

    Khalid: Bad car!

    Iman: Time out!

    ***

    As usual, Khalid gets to go into the Ikea play area, and Iman stands beneath the 95 cm mark on the wall, aspiring one day to reach it.

    Attendant: I’m sorry, but you’re too small.

    Me: I’m sorry Iman, InshaAllah when you’re a little bit bigger you can go inside too.

    Iman raises her hands.

    Iman: Oh Allah, please make Iman bigger.  Ameen.

    ***

    Khalid wanders through my peripheral vision with something in his hands:

    Khalid: Oh, iss hungry!

    I’m working on my computer and take little notice.

    Khalid: Oh, it’s eating!

    Still no blips on the momma-radar.

    Khalid: Eating curtains!  Scissors is hungry! Om om om!

    And suddenly he has my full attention

  • CINDY IS BACK!

    Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. 🙂  and w00t

    Did I mention w00t?  Even as we speak, Iman is at the park running wild and fancy-free, and I have managed to put an entire two hours of work in, which is, frankly speaking, two more hours than I had done all week.  And the house is clean.  And dinner is made.  And the laundry mountain has been conquered.  We did it.  We survived a month without Cindy, and even brought her home to a clean house with minimal dust-bunnies and a large slice of lemon-cream cake.  And we learned some things about ourselves in the process too.  Like how I’m not good at cleaning because I am just too good at it.  Case in point:

    I went to clean my bathroom.

    It looked like it could be better organized.

    So Iman and I went to Ikea and bought a shelf, as well as some markers to entertain Iman.

    In order to make space for the shelf, I had to hang the mirror in the bathroom that had been leaning against the wall for the last eight months.

    I needed to drill holes in the tile first. So I went to the storage room to find the drill.

    I found the drill, but I couldn’t find the size eight wall plugs.

    The storage room was messy.  It looked like it could be better organized.

    So I spent two hours cleaning out and reorganizing the storage room.

    Then I drilled the holes in the bathroom tile and hung the mirror.

    Then I assembled the shelf.

    Then, as I was transferring the miscellany of toiletries onto it, I noticed that they looked a little messy.  They needed organized.

    So I threw away anything expired, wiped off everything dusty, and made some tough executive decisions on whether or not to keep the tube of facial scrub that gave me an allergic reaction just because it was still full.

    (It’s still here.  Apricot scrub, anyone?)

    And by that point, five hours had passed since I first decided that I needed to clean my bathroom, and Iman and I were late to pick Khalid and Joy up from school.  And the bathroom was still dirty, but hey, at least it was organized!

    I have discovered why Cindy can clean the whole house from top to bottom in four hours and still have time to browse facebook.  It’s because she doesn’t care if the tupperware is alphabetized.  This is a very important skill in a housekeeper, and rather than feel inadequate about not having it (crippling inadequacy about my level of huswifery is so last week) I prefer to see myself in light of other skillsets.  I may not be a very efficient housekeeper, but I’m a very good corporate communications monkey.  I can organize files and create style guides like nobody’s business!  Everything will be fine long as their design specs don’t look messy, lest I should try to organize them or something, in which case I get paid for my nit-picky, hair-splitting tendencies and lauded for my attention to detail.

    Now there’s something that doesn’t happen when the tupperware is alphabetized but the sink is still full of dishes and dinner hasn’t progressed farther than the ‘thawing’ stage.

    Oops, gtg!  It’s time to go pray and supervise the washing of the sandy savages.  (Translation: It’s Maghrib and the kids are back from the park).  The kids look messy.  Maybe they need organized.

  • w00t! -yawn- w00t!

    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.  🙂