AbezAbez Is... 50% White, 50 % Pakistani, Muslim Hijab-wearing type female, Daughter of Momma, Sister of Owlie Wife of HF, Momma of Khalid, a special little boy with Autism, and Iman, a special little girl with especially big hair, Writer, Graphic Designer, Editor, Freelancer, Blogger, Inhaler of Chocolate
Right Brain Left Brain Islam poetry
Mortal Wounds BebeFiles Husbandfiles

 
My sister, De Owl

My Husband, who never updates!

Mona, who I don't visit enough

Hemlock, who I don't hug enough

Baji, the orginal robot monkey pirate

Prometheus, who buts brains to blog about Autism

Socrates, a blogger with Asperger's

Jo, a funnier Autism mom with a great blog

Autism Watch-  for logic-based information

ASAT- Assosciation for Science in Autism Treatments

Quack Watch- for current news and info on all sort of medical treatments

Expat Women Blog Directory

My Cousin- really, he's my cousin.  Wish he would update more.

 
 
 
 

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Bebefiles: Ten Months, where has the time gone?

As I sit at this computer desk with all the wires taped securely to the legs and all the peripherals moved away from the edge of table, I wonder where the time has gone. Bebeface, whose misbehavior was once limited to wiggling alot and peeing on me, has morphed into something else entirely. He has become- Cap'n DangerIsMyMiddleName. Two days ago he unplugged the laptop. The day before that he pulled the wireless signal repeater out of the wall. Last week he reached up to this desk and got hold of the electric drill and very narrowly avoided dropping it onto his head. Yesterday, he woke me up by falling off the bed.

It was a different sort of alarm. Instead of beep beep beep the noise went waanh waanh wannh. I woke up in a panic- I could hear Khalid crying but couldn't find him in the bed. He was on the floor in an untidy heap of baby, his head down and his legs propped against the leg of the crib, looking very offended and somewhat more compact than usual. I scooped him up and went to the kitchen, where immediately, I turned on the microwave. Khalid likes the microwave. In a few seconds, the wails turned to whimpers. Then the whimpers were replaced with the silent hyper-vigilance of Khalid watching the plate in the microwave go around in circles. Then he giggled. All was well and the mighty fall from the bed was forgotten.

(Oh, and the other day he pitched himself off the sofa head-first and was caught in mid-air by Knicq. Many thanks Knicq Bhai.)

Khalid is now a little human. Officially. He used to be a little blob, and before that he was a jellybean of some sort. Now he's a little person who likes chicken, doesn't want his nose cleaned, laughs at the pictures in his baby books, follows you around with upheld arms, pulls my pant legs when I'm doing dishes, tastes absolutely everything, and plays peekaboo. Really, he plays peekaboo. He will hold things in front of his eyes, wait, and then peek out and smile. Then he'll do it again. And again and again. Alhamdulillah, SubhanAllah. He's growing, he's learning, he's developing sneakiness. Combine a desire to pull the phone cord with the knowledge that he shouldn't be, and you get a baby who drops the phone and runs smiling up to me when he's caught, as if he's never pulled a phone cord to within an inch of its life before. Oh no. Not me momma, would this face lie?

Right now Khalid is laying in my bed (surrounded by a wall of pillows) and drumming his heels on the mattress, growling, and playing with a rubberband simultaneously. In a minute we'll head to the kitchen for lunch, maybe scoot around the house in the walker later, and then we're off to Ikea for yet more adventures, so I guess I'll just finish this blog later.

Bebeface & I, over and out!

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Abez Today: FYI

I am reading
Methods of Learning and Evidential Deduction between Sunnites and Heterodixtsts
(Which is far more interesting than the title would lead you to believe)

I am listening to
Blink
(Which is a fantastic book, even in audio format.)

I am looking at
My hovercraft is full of eels.
(Because HF found it and HF rules)

I am taking
Bromelain-POS
(To reduce swelling in the ligament in my knee that hasn't healed since the accident)

I am eating
Weetabix
(Low-sugar, low-taste, low-thought breakfast option of champions)

I am wearing
Blue Jeans
(because they were clean)

So, what are you up to today? Blurkers, I'm asking you too!

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Husbandfiles: Good days and bad days

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There are good days and there are bad days. Some days you may come home from work and the dishes will be dirty and the laundry unfolded. Your wife will grumble a greeting at you as she walks by, still in her pajamas. There will be no dinner cooked and you will have to walk on tiptoes because the bebe, who was a grouchy little teething monster all day, has finally fallen asleep.

Also, no one will be able to find the external hard-drive, which you need for work.

Also, the curtains will fall off the wall, rod and all.

And you, tired from work and tired from sitting in traffic, and hungry from forgetting to take a lunch and sleep deprived from the odd hours the baby has been keeping lately- you will smile and take your wife in your arms and hold her, and tell her it's alright to have a lousy day, and you will tell her to get dressed because it's been a while since we went out for dinner.

And you will joke and make your wife laugh, and tell her to hurry up and NOT iron her clothes, and you will pile everyone into the car, wrinkles and all, and drive to a posh Irani buffet and have a fantastic time putting a massive dent in the barbeque and dessert tables.

And you will drive home and do the dishes as your wife hangs laundry, and you will pray and go to bed. And that will have been a very good day.

I love you HF.

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Monday, January 08, 2007

This is the Captain speaking...


Every now and then I decide I've been a wicked sloth monkey. This is a phrase my mother coined that I believe combines all the worst elements of the evil flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz and the deadly sin of Sloth. As far as eating according to the Sunnah, as far as working out, as far as reading Qur'an and praying Fajr and giving an overall damn about my personal and spiritual maintenance- I've been a very bad sloth monkey indeed.

I'm still holding on the ten more post-baby pounds, I can't remember the last time I did a push-up, there's a layer of dust on my Qur'an so thick that opening The Book may require an archaeological dig... It's sad, but the good news is, I'm still Captain of the LazyShip Abez, and I say we're going to change course!

I know, I know, I do this often, and the reassuring this is, it works. Considering how often (hu)man slips up, one should be willing to change course however many times necessary to keep the ship from going into the part of the map that says Thar Be Monsters. One should be willing to take correction, to admit mistakes, and if necessary- to make charts.

I have a tendency to make charts. I have charts from 1996 until 2000 that count the number of prayers missed a day, every day. They are all titled, "Abez Is An Idiot," but they mean that in a good way, in a gentle way that means that if I miss prayer for anything less than a coma, I'm an idiot. No water? I can do tayummum. No masjid? All of the earth is a place of worship. No time? Generally, honestly, there's no such thing as no time. How many minutes does it take to say just the Fard- just the basics of prayer? Five? And how long do I spend surfing the net, taste-testing cereal and installing crooked bookshelves in my bedroom? Too Long. If I can just pray first, just pray before I spend an hour and a half realizing I have the wrong drill bit for cement, then I won't have to suddenly realize (with dust on my hands and an oddly shaped hole in the wall) that I only have ten minutes left until Asr time begins.

I digress. I made a chart. Because I do better with achievable, short-term goals, it is divided into two one-week sections. Each day has a field for Working Out, Reading Quran, and Drinking A litre of Water a Day. The more water you drink, the less hungry you feel, and the easier it is to eat according to what your body needs as compared to what your stomach wants.

Starting today, Monday January 8, as soon as I finish this blog, I have to do 30 min of reading/Qur'an, 30 min of working out, and fill a big water bottle and carry it around with me so I drink from it all day.

Life is an ongoing process, and Self should always be a work in progress. None of us are perfect, but all of us could be better, InshaAllah.

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Friday, January 05, 2007

I love my family

BigBro: i am rubber your glue, bounces off me and sticks to you.

Me: Yeah well, there's a force field around the glue! (or it is then scraped off, concentrated, and sprayed on you in a mist form that settles on the rubber with no danger of bouncing back)

BigBro: impossible, that's like a fish saying he is protected by the sky

Me: and is the sky not doing a good job? I mean, when's the last time you saw a fish get hit with a meteor anyway?

BigBro: but the fish ends up in my plate, so the sky failed

Me: yeah, but then you could choke on a fishbone

BigBro: i always de-bone the fish

Me: alright alright, so there are no bones.

BigBro: and fish stick are not just yummy, but make good play swords and projectiles


That they do sir, that they do.

 
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