It goes something like this:

Hack, Hack, Cough, HACK

Then the chorus from upstairs

WAAAAIIIILLLLLL!! WAIL!!!! CRY!! Cough

Back downstairs

Sigh, Shudder, Hack, Hack, Cough

Back upstairs

WAIL!!!!!!!!!!! Cough, Cough, Cough

Downstairs
(whispered) please go to sleep little girl
(booming & reverberating) Hack, Hack, COUGH!

Upstairs

AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


And I'm actually thankful for this pattern, dear reader, because it was preceded by three good strong rounds of vomit. From the girl. Right after tylenol and trimenic strip. Remember those good ol' days of "spit up." They are long gone.

I can only be grateful that the child had the forethought to refuse to eat any of her dinner earlier in the evening. I'm not sure I'd have ever been able to face kiwi fruit again.

I am tired. I am so, so tired.

Feel sorry for me?

just this one thing

okay, i had to post this.

I am (mostly) alive

Well another fun filled trip to iowa. This one included nasty, nasty stomach-virus that not only did I catch but shared with Joe as well. Lucky, lucky her. She was also hung-over. That meant that my parents, my brother, his wife and my sister all ran around after our two not-sick (hamdillah) very active one year olds. Joe and I remained passed out on the couch for most of Monday. Sunday was spent heaving or on the couch. We can't even talk about saturday.

So don't expect much from me this week.

Here comes the "over-share" so you don't miss me over the next couple days.
Joe: I'm nauseous, I'm vomiting , I'm hung-over, I have a sore throat, I'm sore from heaving, I have a yeast infection and I've got my period.
Me: Well, I'm 5 for 7.

I'll leave it to you to deduce which.

At least my hang-ups smell good

What is my deal with Khubz and the food she eats?

It starts with one small seed pod. But it doesn't end there.

I want her sense of home to be cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, lemons and pistachios. I want her to stay home from school with the flu bug and ask for fideo. I want her to go away to college and tell me that she misses black beans tostadas. I want her to look lovingly at her partner when in the grocery store and replace the minute rice with brown basmati rice. I hope when she turns on the news to find out about the next u.s. occupation of the middle east and sees men sipping qahwa and think, "oohhh. . . I need make some right now."

I expect she will want twinkies and gift cards to unmentionable places in care packages when she is studying abroad. (Likely because, despite my better self, I want twinkies and those same poisonous gift cards.) That's fine. But I hope she'll pull out the envelope of cardamom pods, cook up some rice and then take the softened seeds to roll them around in her mouth.

I know there is no way and no reason to try and dictate what her future will be like. It's not that. It's more that I think we draft the landscape of "home" every day. This is what my home tastes like (along with pizza, sugar cookies, banana bread.)

At first I said "I don't want most of her food to be white people food." But that sort of fictionalizes my own history. I did grow up eating meatloaf and goulash and spaghetti and that kind of weird but yummy green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and those crispy onion thingies. But I also had mint tea and afghani meatball soup and lamb and okra and spinach/feta pies and dried chickpea candies and baklawa made with rosewater.

I fix goulash. It takes 10 minutes, is pretty cheap and totally easy. So I'm not saying the girlchild will have no exposure to american food. But having the daycare provide her 2/3rds of her meals mean that they draft the landscape. Not us. And the only place she's likely to eat kabsa or roasted eggplant with yogurt or foul is with us. And I don't want us to be up against the majority at our own dinner table. And somehow all that olive oil and tahana and burgl and parsley seems more precious and worth safeguarding.

In truth I doubt I'll keep it up (packing lunch for my toddler who is provided with perfectly nutritious meals at daycare.) But it seemed worthwhile yesterday. And it did again today. Tomorrow. . . ? Stay tuned.

Ouch!

So I found Ouch! via that fabulous goldfish. Ouch is a British disability site with a hillarious podcast, great postings and all kinds of goodies like this wallpaper:

or this

Check it out. I'm listening right now and can't wait for their promised trivia game: vegetable, vegetable or vegetable.

In fact, Day 3 is harder

So Day 1 at new daycare was pretty good and they said, "usually day 2 is harder"

Day 2 was whining, some crying, plenty of clingy-ness.

Day 3 is shrieking. Like, as Scully was leaving she could hear Khubz's wailing all through the building. It started as soon as Scully put her down. There were toys all around. Friendly people. Oh no. Khubz knows this trick and it's not working anymore.

The child clawed at her mama. Tears streaming down her face. Red puffy eyes and the high pitched scream that is both "how dare you leave me!" and "why would you leave me?"

I am such a coward. I am so relieved I don't do drop off.

Sorry, Scully.

My fngG. How hideous.

I'm restricting myself to one call a day and she's been there less than an hour so I'm going to wait. Maybe I can call at 9?

More discoveries

Khubz started her new daycare and all is good. . . or will be sometime soon. . . surely.

Of course any change leads to more discoveries for both Khubz and the mommies.

• It's easier to be left in a new place by the mommies if that new place has tons of kids, a giant mirror and tons of brand new toys
• Eating a fist full of sand will make you spit up
• There are lots of people in the world who are able to care for Khubz while the mommies are at work
• Being left at daycare is easier on day one than it is on day two. At last report (10 minutes ago) she was a bit fussy but was, overall, fine
• Daycare two blocks away from our front door does make for a better morning.
• I was shamelessly thrilled when I walked into daycare to pick Khubz up yesterday and (though she'd been happily hanging-out before she saw me) she burst into tears as soon as she saw me. I know, I know. This will soon turn into tears that she doesn't want to go home with me since daycare clearly meets all of her needs so much better.
• I have serious hang-ups about the food Khubz eats
• Those hang-ups about food are connected to my control issues, ethnic guilt and endless angst about identity politics
• If "old-fashioned family values" weren't saturated with homophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia, judeo-christian legalism, nationalism and a bizzaro love of capitalism, I would actually consider myself pretty OFFV. For example, I was just about to put a bullet lamenting the eroding influence that the family has in this culture.

Hmm. The start of this list claimed that I would be listing discoveries for Khubz and the mommies. It seems this has degraded into yet another list about myself. Let me end with one more discovery--not even discovered at daycare--that Khubz is thrilled about: Her vulva.

• So that's what the diaper covers up! And is it ever fun!

ramadhan mubarak!

And thanks go to islam online for the reminder that wet dreams while sleeping do not invalidate a fast. I'd been worried about that one.

Come join us for a breaking fast sometime this month.

Almost midnight

It is almost midnight. Why am I up?

• Is the girl up, puking her guts out or constantly chewing on you for comfort? no.


• Are you madly trying to finish something and had to take a break and am now procrastinating? no.


• Are you out of laundry and desperately waiting for the "low-heat cycle" to actually dry your clothes? no.


• Did you and your partner get into another endless "the lesbians are talking themselves to death" conversation and you couldn't fall asleep because you were filled with conflict? yes to the first part. no to the second.


• Are you staying up all night because it's now Ramadhan and you want to eat everything you can before the sun comes up? Uh. . . yes, it is Ramadhan but no I'm not on an all night binge if that's what you mean. Thanks for the idea, though.


• Are you staying up all night because you have a constant cough and the only things you have in the house are all labeled with warnings that "good mothers certainly wouldn't take anything with this active ingredient while they were nursing." Sort of. Okay, yes.
  

Truth be told I even called a pharmacist to plead with him. Plleeease, can I take this? Pleeease? "Sure" he reassured me. "As long as you don't care what happens to your kid." What does he know? I'm calling my dr in the morning.

Really, though, this isn't even the post I wanted to write. The post I wanted to write was more like "Discoveries!"

• Khubz loves to feed herself. Her top eateries include spiral noodles, shredded sharp cheddar cheese, watermelon, cake (ha ha), green beans, pinto beans, black beans and peas.
• Khubz made her first attempt at escape. I was cooking, Scully was putting dishes away. We looked down and the girl had just crawled out onto the deck. The sliding glass door was open and Khubz made quick work of opening the screen door. (I guess that's why screen doors have "locks" on them.) "The human child is getting away," I mention to Scully. "We have to worry about her sneaking out already?" Scully replies. All this while Khubz headed for the hills.

and it is that same human child who has now woken up and is asking for milk. when did i say i was going to wean her? hm.

ramadhan mubarak.

quite funny

How many innuendos can you catch?
I counted 19.

Simply hilarious.

Thanks to the republic of t for also linking to urban dictionary. You know, just in case you need to look anything up.

i got cake

This pic is too good to keep to ourselves. Besides, it'll be fun to see how many "anonymous pics" i can post without making Khubz put on a hijab. Who needs a veil? This girl's got cake!

Wow. Just WOW.

But a good WOW and what a good WOW.

Birthday. PARTY.

What a good time. Let's start with the people.

Gift # 1: Seeing our community
People full of love for Khubz and Scully and me. At one point I looked around and thought, these are the people out in the world that will make it okay for Khubz to go out in the world. And we met all of these people all over the place. Some at work. Some at play. Some at daycare. Some at school. Some at birth. And these are the people the kinds of good people that Khubz will meet as she moves through life. In fact, we live in a world full of good people and it is possible to find them and even to gather them together in park! There were people who came from down the street, down from iowa and Scully's parents who--surprise!--showed up at the party.

Gift # 2: Having a great time.
A nice balance of games and free play. The best park in town with a spongey ground perfectly made for falling down. We got our itsy-bitsy spider on and I mean really on. There was the spider toss with spiders handmade by Scully. A spider pinnata with a great goofey smile courtesy of Aunt Jalila. And of course, there was the itsy-bitsy spider itself. All in all, a slightly creepy spider theme was pulled off for a cuddle-y, cutsey (and any other -ey sort of word you can think of) one-year old birthday party. For the record, Rhiannon took one look at the pinata and said "that's not an itsy bitsy spider. that's a fatsy watsy spider." Fatsy watsy it was.

Gift # 3: Partying without excess
I am proud of Khubz for doing so well at her party. I am thrilled that there were no meltdowns from kids or from parents. And I am totally proud of me & Scully for resisting the temptation of mommy meth. And surprise, surprise. No one approached us and asked for the itsy-bitsy origami party hats that were supposed to be on the spiders decorating the cupcakes. Not one person left the party in a huff because they were expecting itsy-bitsy balloon spiders. Lemonade and water was fine. Snack mix and cupcakes was fine. The park without an onsite bathroom could have been better but was ultimately fine.

There is more to say and many more gifts. Will post more later.

10 commandments

hello friends.
you can't blame me for this. it had to be written. and you can't blame me for being the kind of person capable of creating a list like this. i'm allowed my cognitive dissonance, right? p.s. i would have loved to go to an rwa convention in the early eighties!

10 commandments

For writing a romance novel published between 1973 and 1985.

(The best!)

1. Thou shall use the term sardonic to describe the hero no less than 14 times with extra points for using the term ominous in the same sentence. "He laughed sardonically before his face twisted into an ominous smile."

2. Thou shalt not allow thy heroine a perforated hymen, lest thou be relegated to the "second chance at love" series.

3. If thou insists on dabbling with darkies remember that the hero must be at least half civilized. Even so, though shall never write a hero who is Muslim, Black or East Asian (although for different reasons.)

4. If thou wishes to exoticize East Asian cultures, an East Asian heroine is acceptable. African cultures shall be best realized by a rugged englishman (hard edged, friend and colonizer of the bushman, still knows how to fix a good cup of tea) and Muslims are allowable provided the hero or heroine has secretly confessed to know jesus in the biblical sense.

5. Thou shall not allow the heroine any homosexual pleasures (especially sex with herself.)

6. Thou shall not even think about homosexual tendencies for the hero.

7. Thou shall use an endless run on sentence and refuse to see reason even when thy editor pleads with thee. Extra points if the run on sentence is describing a sexual assault. "Panic stricken now because she realized she had unwittingly offended his masculine pride by rejecting his lovemaking and he was going to use his superior physical strength to overwhelm her and take what he wanted, she hit at him again, her hands slapping sharply against the bare skin of his shoulders and against his head until suddenly he wrenched his mouth from hers and wrapping his arms around her held her tightly so that she couldn't move her arms any more; holding her, his head pressed hard against hers, until she stopped twisting and trying to escape and hung helplessly in his arms, sobbing for breath." (I did not make a single piece of that up.)

8. Thou shall end the story with the birth of a male child remembering that any other ending shall be viewed as utter failure

9. Thou shall develop characters with the assumption that women experience fear as a precursor to love & men experience rage as a precursor to tenderness.

10. Thou shall utilize bizzaro pop culture expression with greatest glory going to such phrases strung together in a row to honor the 7th commandment as well. "Oh, belt up, darling, you talk like a tract!" said Cleo with an unamused laugh. "Don't, for heaven's sake, go dropping sly hints to Dom, hoping to queer my pitch. I've not made up my mind, anyway, what I'm going to do. I was simply warning you off the grass."
    

birthday poem, unfinished

sweet child,
we have had our first year together.
you have taught me so much about myself, mothering, tu mama and most especially about you.

who will this person be? we kept asking each other this time last year.

and what have we learned?

• you are joyful, demanding, curious and persuasive
• you are skilled at cajoling both of the mommies into doing your bidding
• you are loved, wholly/holy loved and love in return
• the world is more ready for you than i had ever guessed
• you love being outside, going on walks, looking out the window, sitting in the grass and hanging out on the porch
• you conjure dangerous objects (pop can tabs, coins, twist ties)
• you are resilient even in the face of arbitrary bedtime, malicious vaccinations and unjust restraints along I-35

Overdue

a. what i was really hoping I wouldn't be this time last year
b. the status of my library book "1001 muffins you want to try"
c. used in a sentence: this blog post is seriously _________.

Okay, it's all of the above.

There's a lot to catch up on (on & off the blog) so this will be an unsatisfactory post for those who must know all the intimate details of my every waking moment.

Speaking of unsatisfactory posts: there is some resolution for anyone in need after the last couple of weirdo posts. Anyway.

We had a blast in texas. Khubz's first ever birthday cake. And there was cake. Serious, serious cake. Cake in the hair. Cake in the eyes. Cake somehow wound up in her nether regions. I think it was just a full-bodied "let's roll around in cake and absorb it's sugary goodness through ever pore on my body" kind of celebration of cake. And who am i to argue? Think I haven't rolled around in cake like that (lately?) And don't get me started about magic shell!

There were also games. Musical chairs. A tortilla toss (complete with a hormonal horse coercing you to throw the tortillas her way.) Popping balloons with one's butt. A steel-reinforced pinata. Serious, serious games.

About halfway through the fun I looked around and thought, "they must have been working on this for weeks!" and then o shit! Khubz's birthday party (that we are hosting here) is coming up on Saturday and Scully and I have. . . . done nothing.

Almost nothing. We did make the invites. The conveniently un-mailable due to the pompom invites. Apparently everyone in Iowa was a bit peeved thinking I had made them but decided to just skip them so we didn't have to make as many. No, we are waay more classy. The people we ran in to over the week got their invites. Everyone else? An apologetic phone call. "So we made these invitations but the trick is you have to come to the party in order to get it!" Oh well. People will forgive us as long as there are good games.

o shit! games! games require preparation! And games for 20-30 kids aged 9 mo-12years requires preparation and finesse. I'm not actually worried about that many kids showing up but remember one sister alone is bringing 5 kiddos.

It is true that all of this winds up being a convenient excuse for not posting, but in this case it's actually true. Add to that Khubz is sick with another ear infection and I have all the excuse I need. (Excuses coming out my ears, if you'll pardon the pun.)

With that said, it's time to go try out one more muffin recipe before returning that book.