I've Moved!

I've decided to open a new blog. I liked it here for a few years, but now I need a change of scenery. A fresh start is always nice. If anyone cares to follow me, here is my new address. theheartscry All are welcome. :) And yes, I'm still The Blue Eyed Girl.

Random Thoughts

     You know, when I started blogging again I promised myself I would write more frequently but it doesn't always work out that way. Shahid is off tomorrow which is nice because I'll have the car and I can take Imaan to the beach. She loves it there, and hopefully I'll be able to let her play in the water this time because the last two times we went there no one was allowed to go swimming because rain the night before raised the pollution levels in the water too high Luckily Imaan is an easygoing baby and she was just as happy to play in the shower.

  It's funny because the first time I took Imaan to the beach this year I was thinking "When was the last time I actually went to a beach"? Then I realized it was when I was in India,  about four years ago. I'll never forget it because it was so surreal compared to the beaches in the U.S. There were people taking camel rides up and down the beach, and every now and then you would pass a dead sea turtle washed up on shore. There were vendors selling drinks and snacks and all the women were swimming in saris instead of bathing suits. There were also lots of small fishing boats. 

    Now thinking about my India trip is bittersweet because I had such wonderful times there and now my friends and I are sadly out of touch these days. I miss my friends a lot. But thats a blog for another day. 
     I was supposed to audition for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire tomorrow evening but Shahid has a job interview so I'm hopefully going to audition next Thursday instead. Shahid and I watch Millionaire everyday and I get a lot of the questions right so we thought it would be fun if I gave it a try. You have to pass a written test and have an interview as well. Millionaire is the only reason I haven't deleted my Facebook account, basically I'm being held prisoner there due to my addiction to that game. :) You can read my post about why I hate Facebook so much here.
     So far while I've been writing this post Imaan has woken up twice and I've had to stop and put her back to sleep. A mother's job is never done I guess.....

                                                                                    

Bath Time is Finally Fun Time

     Imaan has finally conquered her fear of the big bathtub. It was partly my fault she was afraid of it in the first place. You know, when babies are tiny, they are relatively easy to bathe, they just lie there and kicking their legs and flailing their arms a bit while you do the washing and shampooing. I remember thinking it was going to be so much fun to bathe her when she got a little bigger. I had the image in my head of the happy baby laughing and splashing up a storm, playing with floating rubber duckies. Boy, was I wrong.

     As soon as Imaan learned to stand up on her own, that's all she did in the bathtub. She refused to sit down. I tried gently pushing her back down but she rose right up again. She was big enough to go into the big tub at this point, but then I was afraid because the tub at my old house was that hard porcelain type. I was worried that if she got away from me or fell she would crack her head open. So it was well past her first birthday and Imaan was still having her baths in an infant tub, until my sister decided to give her a bath one night when she kept Imaan overnight for me so Shahid and I could have a rare night out. She was really surprised by Imaan's reaction!

     Apparently as soon as Amy tried to put Imaan in the tub she started crying. Amy tried to show her that the bath was fun, giving her the cool tub toys to play with, but Imaan would have none of it. I probably would have given up at this point, but Amy decided that Imaan needed to get used to this experience so she stuck her in the tub. According to Amy, Imaan was screeching like a drowning cat the whole time. Now, Imaan is a tiny girl, but she is very strong and grabbing onto Amy's shirt, she managed to pull herself up and even throw one leg over the side of the tub in a desperate attempt to escape. Hearing this story later I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Amy assured me that if I just did this everyday Imaan would eventually get used to it. Water torture for babies, I remember thinking and went back to my old method of bathing her. It was the pool that Amy bought for her kids that eventually solved Imaan's phobia about the bath.

     You see, Imaan loves her cousins, Tristan who is seven and Aidan who is six. She wants to do everything they do and when she saw them in the pool she was dying to go in too. She loved the pool, which surprised me, considering her reaction to an ordinary bathtub. Later that night I decided to try the tub in our new apartment, it is made of plastic, so I didn't feel so nervous about her getting hurt. Would you believe she went right in without any trepidation at all? It's funny because now everyday she asks for a bath, delighting in throwing all her toys in the water and splashing Mommy. She is so impatient to get in that I have to shut the bathroom door to let the tub fill because she will keep trying to climb in! I also found out it's a good way to distract her from throwing a tantrum. Yesterday she woke up very grouchy from her nap and asked to go outside. Since I hadn't changed her into a fresh diaper or given her anything to eat yet I told her "Later honey". She shrieked, threw down the ball she was holding and proceeded to screaming and crying. I ignored her for a minute or two and then I said "Want a bath". Instantly she stopped and smiled through her tears.
"Okay".

   

3 a.m. Eternal

     It's 3am and I'm still awake. I'm tired but I don't want to sleep yet. Like I mentioned in my last post, late nights are the only time I get to myself these days. Which is pretty crazy because my daughter rarely sleeps past 6am no matter how much I try to coax her. I always regret it in the morning, but I am sure to repeat the cycle tomorrow.
     Glancing over at the cover of my people magazine, I am reminded of the recent death of Amy Winehouse. It's a shame such a great talent gone to waste. I'm sorry she's gone, sorry that her family and friends lost someone they cared about. But I feel disgust as well. Disgust that someone could continue to use drugs and alcohol so heavily when they were clearly slowly killing themselves. And I also feel disgusted that someone could continue to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day when they have been diagnosed with emphysema. Worse than anything is the fact that her family and close friends were begging her to get help for years, and she in answer wrote the song "Rehab". Here is a sample of the lyrics
"They tried to make me go to rehab I said no, no, no.
Yes I've been black and when I come back you'll know, know, know.
I ain't got time
And if my daddy thinks I'm fine
Just try and make me go to rehab I won't go, go, go." (Listen to it here)

'Nuff said on that subject.

     Back to my late nights, right now I'm sitting in the dark listening to the crickets chirping and other creatures which I can hear but cannot identify. Smelling the fresh air coming in through the open windows. Ever notice how lovely the air smells at this time? I sometimes forget when it's so hot outside during the day and the air is so heavy it almost chokes you. Now if I listen very carefully I can hear a different sound of the night, Shahid snoring away in the bedroom. It sounds terrible from here but somehow I manage to sleep through it every night. 

     It's just starting to rain and now I'm finally feeling sleepy..... I guess its time to go to sleep. Good night everyone....

    




    

Where I'm At

     Back and forth I go with the blogging thing, I'm back for now, who knows how long I'll stay this time? Life gets in the way I guess. Shahid, Imaan, and I have moved to a new apartment in a new town. I like it here a lot better. It's a dead end street, nicer then our previous block where people would speed up and down all day, nerve wracking if you have a twenty month old who is apt to try and dash into the street at any given moment. The neighbors are nice and quiet too, at the old place I would often hear the people across the street and next door cursing each other. I like the landlords too, they mind their business and since we mind ours theres no drama whatsoever. There is a small park a few blocks away I can easily walk to so Imaan can play and really run around.

Here she is on the swing.

Having a snack.

    I do feel bored and lonely sometimes. I've been a stay at home Mom since February and while I know I am incredibly lucky to be able to do this right now, I feel like I have no life of my own anymore. Shahid and I share a car right now and since he works he usually has it. There are no close shops to walk to, so I feel isolated a lot of the time. I know this will change soon because we are planning to buy a second car before the end of the summer. I'll be so happy because its tough to be home bound. I stay up late at night because it's the only time I have to myself. I think a lot of Mom's must live like this. All day you take care of your kids, your husband comes home and you take care of him, then when they are both sleeping you have time to yourself. I sit up and read, watch a show I recorded on my dvr, or surf the net. I'm dying to have a day where I can get a pedicure, go to the salon, buy new clothes, get new glasses and contacts. Imaan broke my glasses in half so I had to mend them with crazy glue because  I ran out of disposable contacts.

     Yeah, I'm kinda looking like a hot mess these days. Well it can't last, I'm sure things will improve, I just have to keep my head up.



    

The Way Too Social Network

     I hate Facebook. There, I said it. I really really REALLY hate it!
Whew! That felt great............

     Why do I hate Facebook? First of all, I feel like I was forced to join. No, there wasn't a gun held up against my head. I was a happy member of Orkut for a few years. I was pretty crazy about Orkut, jumping on my computer as soon as I got home from work to read my latest scraps, (wall posts for you Facebook freaks) checking out friend requests, looking for interesting communities to join. I made a lot of friends there too. Then one day I noticed my friend Omar posted this little note "Facebook is better".

     That was the beginning of the end. Slowly all my friends started leaving Orkut. So I joined too so I could stay connected. But I never felt like I was having as much fun as I did with Orkut. There is way too much random crap on Facebook. I don't like that when I open my home page I have to read that Alison and Jessica shared a link or Cynthia liked Carlos B's video. Who cares? Not me. But I suppose a lot of people do care, especially the ones who who post something like this to their walls "Just got home from work, super tired...." Or "Just made a great cup of coffee!" Or even "Man I gotta pee!" Just kidding on that last one, but you get the idea. I don't care about Farmville, and I've got no urge to "poke" anyone. As for friend requests, I have to laugh when people I went to high school or college with that I never liked, never hung out with, or I remember them actively disliking me sending a friend request. What for? I just don't get it.

     I have to admit there is one thing I like on Facebook, but at the same time it's totally ruined for me. I love "Who Wants to be A Millionaire", and while I was on the Millionaire website I noticed there was a link to the Facebook version. It's actually a lot of fun, you play live with other people and the questions are pretty challenging. I got hooked pretty quick and then when I tried to play more games they asked me for Facebook credits to continue playing! You get one free game a night and then you have to pay??

Those bastards.

     I'm not going to let Facebook ruin the social networking thing for me. I just read an article about The Google+ Project and I think it might be the kind of site I'm looking for. What I really like is the "Circles" idea. Basically you take different groups of people in your life and assign them to different groups, like friends, co-workers, family. Just like in our real lives. So you can share certain information with  your family Circle and different things with your co-worker Circle. You have more privacy that way. You can take the Google+ tour here. I signed up already I'm just waiting for them to open it up for everyone. Hopefully I'll like it there, I'll keep you posted....

Tiny But Mighty

     Since I have not kept up on my blog regularly in such a long time I thought I would use this opportunity to introduce everybody to my daughter Imaan. She's 15 months old right now, and I'm using her favorite TV show "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" to keep her busy so I can hopefully finish this post. We'll see what happens....
     Imaan was tiny but mighty from birth. She was only 5.4 lbs (2.4 kilos) at birth and now she is only 17.8 (8.1). I remember being shocked at her size when I first saw her in the delivery room. But she was a strong girl from the beginning. The nurses were impressed with how alert she was right away, a lot of C- section babies are groggy for a while because they have it easy, just getting taken out rather then going through all the pressures of going through a natural delivery.

Here she is with her Daddy when she was a few months old.

     The thing with Imaan is, she's a very picky eater. She doesn't like most foods I give her. Her Doctor told me to give her ice cream every day to put a little more fat on her bones. Sounds like a dream diet right? Imaan won't eat ice cream, I think it's too cold for her, she just spits it out and yells at me when I try to feed it to her. She likes yogurt, oatmeal with fruit, and pediasure. Shahid is always trying to get her to eat rice, she will take a few bites and that's it, shes done. I go through periods of time when I get really worried and wonder if there is something wrong with her, but then again her health is excellent, and developmentally she has always been ahead of other babies in her age group.
     Imaan stood up on her own at seven months old, and was fully walking at eight months. It looked really funny to see this tiny girl wandering around the house! And she loved to walk, she would just march all over the house, almost never sitting still. Of course she was burning off precious calories the whole time. I remember when she was ten months old and we took her for her first pair of Stride Rite shoes, Imaan was running all over the shoe store and customers were gawking at her, shocked to see such a tiny baby running around.
     Imaan is also very smart. Shahid told me when she was first born that he could tell she was very intelligent because of her ears. I had never heard anyone say that before but now I think maybe it is something Pakistani and Indian people say because a few Indian friends of mine have made the same comment. She loves books, if I'm not reading to her she will just sit on the floor with a book and flip through it. And if you sit with her she will point at the pictures and tell you about them in her baby language. She is not speaking a lot of real words yet, just lots of baby talk. I speak to her in English and Shahid speaks to her in Urdu, and she understands both of us perfectly. We're curious to see what happens next with her language skills, it is our hope that she will speak both languages equally well.
     Well, I think that's enough "proud parent posting" for now. I don't want to be one of those moms who just blabs about her kid all day. :) Although I'm sure in the future I'll have some funny stories about Imaan and her adventures. Take care guys.