I wish I could be more like Daniel Tiger's mom all the time

 'I wish I could be more like Daniel Tiger's mom with my kids' , sighed my best friend. You knowww always knowing the perfect thing to say and never letting a stressful interaction get to you.
 
             
 I wish that too especially when my 3 year old is trying her best to test my patience. All those past judgemental speculations like 'I would never do thaattt no matter what' come swooping to laugh in my face.I now fully appreciate the fact that parenting is no walk in the park. Its tough to keep up her (DTM's) attitude especially when your toddler is having a difficult day.At least that's my experience. 


Soo occasional proud moments call for a showing off right? Hence this post.I am kidding, I am merely sharing incase it might benefit you in one of your stressful moments with your child.So here goes 

This morning I was giving my three year old daughter and 1 year old son their baths. After I cleaned them, I grabbed the last two swim diapers at home and  put one on my son. Then I grabbed the second diaper for my daughter when I heard   'NOOOOO I want Pooh bear diaper too.' I look down and ofcourse just my luck that my son has a pooh bear diaper while the one in my hand has Nemo on it. Bless the variety character diaper pack.



 Then the crying started. We kept going back and forth for good 15 minutes that hey we are out of Pooh diapers, you have a choice of either sitting diaperless or take Nemo or you can wait till we hit the store later. Which was of course followed by more tearful screaming 'Noooooo I want poooh bear right now' . It was a headlock, we weren't getting anywhere. 


I bitterly thought that Daniel Tiger's mom would have calmed down her kid by now without so much as lifting an eyebrow. Come to think of it, I should have a bracelet saying 'What would Daniel Tiger's Mom do or short WWDTMD.

What was fueling my annoyance further was that my one year old son was observing his sister and imitating her tantrum. I was telling my 3 year that look what are you role modeling now for your baby brother. Then it hit me, OK what exactly AM I role modeling by getting all frustrated? Light bulb goes on in my head . My mom's words rang in my ears 'listen beyond the words to spot the actual problem and address that '.  By the way I did discover later that the problem was that she needed her inhaler (asthma)and her nose was all stuffy. I could probably have avoided this if I had taken care of those two things before plopping her in bathtub! Note to self for future.

             
Anywhoos back to my proud moment, I swallowed all my pride and anger, took a deep breath and used all my energy to say in a calm friendly voice ( Seriously the amount of energy it takes, it should show on the weighing scale but nooo thats totally another story) Anywhoos

Me: "are you sad? "
Her "YESSSSS!!!!!"
Me: " You want a Pooh Bear Diaper like your baby brother?"
HER " YESSSS!!"
ME " You like Pooh Bear ?"
HER " YESS!"
Me " I like Pooh Bear too. Do you know where Pooh Bear lives?"
Her curiosity got the better of her , She goes " Where?"
Me " In a Forest. You live in a forest too right?"
Her giggling " No I dont live in a forest , I live in a house."
Me " Whaaaattt? Are you sure? I always thought you lived in a forest. Don't you have a bear and a kangaroo for a neighbor?'
Her giggling ' Noooo haha my neighbor is _____'
Me " Whaaaaaaattt ? Imagine that, Do you know the neighbours Pooh bear had? What other neighbours do you have? "

 I dont think I will bore you with the entire conversation where we listed all the people in her neighborhood and compared her friends to Pooh's friends. And how amazed she was that her neighbors were my neighbors too. The point was that in this particular case acknowledging her feelings, invoking her curiosity by story telling and humor distracted her well enough from her tantrum. Tadaa


We finished our bath time with giggles and a little education, took the inhaler and lived happily for 20 more minutes before the one year old and 3 year old picked a heated fight over Dora the explorer doll! The End

DIY staircase makeover in $25

Soo I did this for a wedding , my wedding to be precise. 

It was in an unfinished basement.  I needed to dress it up on a budget. Hence carpeting was out of the question.

This is what it looked like:

 

 I got Rock Wall Patterned Flat paper from stumpsparty.com for $19 plus shipping. 1 roll was enough for that staircase.

Next I got the flat head thumb tacks :  .

Thats all the material I used.

There was nothing to it. I really stretched out the paper and pressed it flat on to the stairs with thumb tacks . To avoid hurting my thumb from pressing all those thumb tacks, I used a hammer. And I made sure not to leave any crease or loose paper to prevent falling accidents or rip and tear.And I use thumb tacks on the top of each step as well as the sides of it to avoid falling hazard. I can't stress that enough. This is what it turned out to be

e 

Girls walked in on it throughout the event with high heels and I was impressed that it didn't tear. And the color of it gave the benefit that it didn't look dirty with all that traffic..normal weather traffic..I haven't tried wet muddy boots on it, I didn't have the heart to test it out over my hard work. But anywhoos Tadaaa 

Woww I didn't even remember I had blogged here

I used to be a regular blogger at OpenDiary.com but then I got married. Didn't feel like writing for 4 years with all the major adjustments and growing up :) Imagine my dismay when I tried signing in on it after all these years only to find out that the site had been shut down. I was so heartbroken. A notification would have been nice from the admin. 6 years of blogs down the drain. I was a chirpy happy blogger in those writings. 

So I decided to blog again and I came here. I was shocked to find I had three entries here and few nice people had  even left me comments . Reading the posts made me feel so wierd. I don't recognize the person in those writings. I sound so depressed, boring and dry.  I can't even decide if I have changed for the better or worse . But I suppose who cares, what difference does it make. 
Hah this a very non productive and useless entry but I needed to write it anyways 

Eid: day of nostalgia and sadness for me...

Somewhere along the bittersweet experiences of life, I have lost the joyous and heartwarming feeling that I used to find in Eid. As a child I remember going to my uncle's house for every eid where us cousins would play while the women would cook and laugh in the kitchen and the men would sit and watch TV ..It was such an exciting feeling to dress up and anticipate what the menu would be and how many compliments would we get and when the aroma fom the kitchen arose mmmm ......

If I had any idea or even a hint that few years down the road it would all change so drastically, everyone would fly away to make a place for themselves in the world, some relationships would grow stronger while others compliacted , some would fade away and some new ones would emerge, few loved ones would pass away, parents generation would grow older and weaker, responsibilities would take toll on life, life would become a race for survival and acheiving worldly prestige and living upto people's expectations from my imprefect self, that growing up would leave me heartbroken, numb yet stronger I guess, , I'd have appreciated everything much more that I actually did back then.

Now that I live in US by myself while my parents and everyone whom I grew up with is far away, Eid day holds no meaning to me. It only brings nostalgia and sadness that I cannot shake off. I miss people who have passed away, miss being that carefree one, miss being loved unconditionally and mostly miss being around people I grew up with. I tell myself that I am again repeating the same mistake of not appreciating what I have, yet I feel lost. I tell myself that its unfair to the new people that have come into my life. Yet I prefer to spend the eid day in hibernation if possible.


.. I know now that I am about to be married and Inshallah have kids one day, I need to make Eid a speacial occasion for them and my husband and the upcoming generation too as our parents managed to do it for us but I am not sure how good of a job I can do with a broken heart.. maybe it will come to me for theirs sake..I am just not sure..I used to look at elders who wouldn't stop with their stories of their past and think that I'd never do that and would make an effort to make the entire life memorable! But now on eid days I find myself doing the same thing. I know that to create new memories I need to let go of old memories somehow...

Hiding in our Comfort Zone!

"'Comfort Zone'..... It sounds relaxing and a soothing place to be in....but come to think of it...its such a limiting negative energy that tries to control our actions...We are scared to take on new responsibilities and venture into new horizons just because they take us out of our comfort zone....Through out my life I have foolishly walked away from grand opportunities that life threw at me....I regret those decisions now...coz If I had accepted them...I'd be a much more influential and a more daring person.....Afraid of giving a chance to new people for possible long lasting friendships...afraid of accepting higher professional responsibilities......afraid of being completely myself for the fear of being ridiculed or misunderstood.....But thats it!! I m not going to let fear and anxiety dominate my life anymore....I am going to stop playing with my life.......I'll not let any other opportunity go to waste!!! So what if its scary? So what if its risky? So what if it takes me out of my comfort zone....I can run into problems in my comfort zone as well...can't I? After all if I don't believe in myself, who else will?? ...like they say nothing ventured, nothing gained!!

I specially love this Chinese proverb: Pearls lie not on the seashore. If you desire one you must dive for it.

Also this quote: One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time~ Andre Gide

And this one: To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing~Elbert Hubbard

And this one: Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing~ Helen Keller

Where does global village leave national cultures?

As a child, I remember being taught the importance of living and preserving one's cultural values and traditions which included 'Language' and 'Literature'. Personally I never found myself a sucker for the culture philosophy. Doing something in a certain manner just because my ancestors did so wasn't a good enough logic for me...

And as we have entered the era of global village, it seems like the concept of cultural heritage is diminishing away at a shockingly accelerating speed. The whole world has become one huge 'melting pot'... Its sad to see that most of the younger generation is embarrassed to get caught speaking their native language or involved in cultural specific activities. People who express disapproval at adopting other cultures specifically western are viewed as stuck up conservatives...

I feel that a lot of good comes out of this 'melting pot' . We all learn to appreciate each other's differences and grow as a person. We broaden our minds/perspectives and adopt the noble aspects of other cultures. But where does it leave the patriotic spirit of preserving and living ones life according to the national cultural heritage? Will many Non-English languages/cultures die away 20 years down the road?

However I don't appreciate a lot of the current trends the world seems to be gravitating towards . On the surface it seems like lifestyle has upgraded to being more open, liberal and glamorous! But I feel that stuff like: women and men abandoning modesty in dressing up and interacting with each other, meaningless high school drama of popularity amongst friends, the need to know and hang out with millions of people regardless to whether they bring a positive influence or not, excessive use of drugs, alcohol,  foul language, music industry becoming mostly about sex songs, party attitude with 'party' meaning to jam with strangers while getting drunk leading to vulnerability , its all just glittery stuff mistaken to be gold! It feels like the death of civilization to me.. 

Those attitudes have more of a profound negative impact on relationships and society than positive in general! Almost every other person seems to be in a rush to achieve the 'american dream' without pausing to reflect upon the spiritual aspect of life... I never gave much of a thought to these things but I guess as you get older, you begin to see the superficiality in the so-called 'norms'...