Wizard's Pearls of Wizdom

Veysi: Monster has body hair appearing on her legs!!!

Me: Yeah, so? She's half pakistani, what else did you expect?

Veysi: It's not from spicy food, right? She ate some today.

My poor hairy desi girl.

An emotional night for me

Granted, a lot of things make me emotional these days, this one is a gem.

Wizard and I have frequently talked about instilling Islamic values in our daughter and agree on most things except one: Hijab. I think Monster should wait till she's 16-17 years old to even consider covering up and personally, if she decides not to it wouldn't be an issue with me if she at least agrees on staying true to other qualities of hijab apart from covering the head.

That is the age when I took up the hijab and I'll admit, peer conformity may have played some role. Even at that age however, I made the conscious decision that if I'm going to adapt someone else's way of life, I'll make sure it's something better than what I'm used to. Every day with the hijab, I was aware that I had definitely traded up.

I can only hope, Monster makes those kind of friends at that ripe age who make her want to be better than she is...and not just socially but religiously as well. After all is said and done, it's the trust in HereAfter that will carry her through many a heartaches, let downs, and disappointments. If there is one thing I can leave my children with, is the knowledge and hope, that this life is only temporary and not half as important than the life that will begin at the end of this world.

There is a saying in Persian that goes Avval qawaish, baad dervesh. Practice begins at home. Tonight as I set the table, Wizard joined us late at the table because he was praying. Monster wanted to "pray" (her version of whispering into her little jaa-e-namaaz and kissing it for sajjdah) as well, so I promised her she can pray with me after dinner. She confirmed from me several times that I will pray too and settled into dinner.

After dinner, I made wud'u and she picked out a scarf for me to wear, then continued to dig for a scarf for herself. She told me to tuck it "under chin" and stood patiently while I wrapped the longish scarf around her. Then she told me the magic words.

"I look pretty!"

Sniff, yes you do my little heart!

Bonus funny:

After praying, she asked me to stuff one baby doll down her shirt and the other one to be wrapped on her back. I'm raising the next generation of Muslim Attached Parents:

Grilling saves dinner

I don't need to rub it in my own face, yeah, dinner is not my favorite activity. Eating? Yes. Cooking? Uh, not so much.

I try to get out of long cooking sessions as much as I can. I've even mastered the fine art of cooking intricate Pakistani dishes in batches done in morning, noon and night instead of all at once. Oh hell, I'll admit more: I skip at least 10-15 minutes of sauteing, frying and "Bhoon-ofying" of masalas at every step, so I can finish cooking quicker. So there really isn't any surprise that my dishes come out only half-assed lolz.

The one thing I love doing however, is grilling. Not the outdoorsy kind, just the electric kind. If we were to stay in US longer than mid-next-year as is in the cards right now, I'd go buy myself a fancier electric grill pronto.

Among grillable foods, my favorite and by far the yummiest is grilled chicken breast. I don't use any premade spices. All I use are freshly grated garlic cloves, a bit of salt and lemon juice. I oil the meat as it sits on the grill and recycle the drippings that collect in the grill tray.

I did this time though, use a bit of chicken tikka masala I got from Patel Brothers, and I think it might have come out better if I had used a lot more than I did. Monster ate the ones grilled without masala, mixed with white rice (her staple, of course), while Wizard and I made mini tacos with corn tortillas.

October: Breast Cancer Awareness Month

1. Use picture of a pink ribbon as your Facebook picture for a month.

2. Trend one tweet each day and quote a breast cancer statistic.

3. Dedicate a blog post to creating awareness about Breast Cancer and encourage readers to get mammograms regularly.

4. Start an email petition asking your address book friends to sign the petition once they've a. scheduled a mammogram, or b. talked to a mother, aunt of relative about scheduling a mammogram.

5. Start a text chain asking all the females on your contacts, "Did you have a mammogram this year?"

6. Promote breastfeeding by forwarding a link like the one included in this post to a pregnant friend whose researching her feeding options.

Share articles on your facebook, not where you leave your handbag. Even if you're serious about creating awareness and not repeating suggestive updates, the message does nothing to encourage women to get checked regularly. They do as they are told, laugh a little at the shock value and then go on with their day.

An article gets them thinking, hitting trackbacks, reading related stories, reading comments, commenting. THIS is awareness.

A study by Yale University researchers showed that women who breastfed for two years or longer reduced their risk of breast cancer by 50 percent.

From Lewin Farms, Long Island

Photographer Me

Camera Sony dsc h10

Natural light

Chivalry is so not dead in our home

Me: (faced for the first time with a can of coffee that needed a can opener to be opened) I really need an automatic can opener, so I can feel fancier

Wizard: Why? I'll open them all for you baby.

*swoon*

Mothers of two or more, I respect you!

Talk about imminent nervous breakdown!

How do moms do it with two, three or oh my God three kids? How do you go shopping?

It's not the process of getting there, neither is it the hunger pangs, or whining....my Monster is past all that. We're well versed in the miracles of secret baggies of pretzel snacks procured right at the start of a tantrum. Its the happy moments that leave me tearing my hair out.

We decided a rainy Monday morning would be the perfect time to go shopping for winter clothe for Monster who has out grown all her clothes from three months ago. I knew it would be useless to even try to fit her in her last year's winter clothes (if I could actually remember where I stowed them in my cavernous one bedroom NYC apartment.)

Children's place was packed by people who obviously share great minds with us. I wish they'd also learn to spare personal space. I swear I may have unwittingly used this small lady as a step ladder a few times as she kept creeping right.behind.my.huge.bum. Really? How many times do you want to get your feet crushed before you get the hint that maybe standing right behind me is not a good idea?

Then there is my unstillable spinning top who needed to try on the adorable jeans I found in her size...plus a few bagfuls of clothes. I managed to reduce the pile of try on clothes to save me the trouble of dancing around little restless. I was near tears anyway after the fiasco of trying on snow boots with no success even though they were a size up , until Wizard reached in and pulled out a wad of paper from the toes.

I had to park my bottom on the nasty floors to push, tug and yank clothes on and off little angle, who looked so adorable in every outfit that I needed to think long and hard about our financial situation to put back a few of the more expensive outfits.

After all the bloodless limbs, torn scarves and scratched faces (mine, each time Mknster decided to lean against my facial skin for support) , we came home with a decent enough addition to her wardrobe.

The purple hoodie top right was $4.99 and the green leggies just $2.99 on clearance. SCORE!

The darn snow boots with hidden compartments, and the ultra mod pink leopard skirt that was also on clearance for just 5 bucks!

I'm still looking for more jeans, tights and clothes to wear at home. Holding a clothing swap two weeks from now that I'm hoping lots of moms will bring 3T clothes to exchange. That should be interesting.