Don't compare your child

Don't do it!

We have all read the books and got the advice from professionals that children develop at their own rate and that the milestone guides are simply just that. Guides. But of course, you should trust your instinct if you feel that your child development is significantly slower and go for a check up with the doctor.

But you seriously need to just chill out. It doesn't matter if your neighbour's baby started eating solids before yours, or their hair is longer. You are going to have so many issues in your life, PICK your worries carefully! For instance, my friend and I meet every week for a catch up while our children who are one month apart sit together and play. As I am trying to teach Hasouni how to crawl, her baby is literally trying to climb over my head. She already conquered my living room, and now wants to climb me as the next mount everest -and this baby is younger than Hasoun. I was starting to get worried and was disregarding the fact that my child was walking along the couch to get to his toys. After I put my mind to check, I have come to the conclusion that if my child is trying to learn how to walk, than I think he is okay ;). Apparently, my sister and I never crawled when we were kids. So, there we go. 

If you start comparing the frequency of your child doing a peepee or a poo poo,  then I think it is time to take a little nice coffee break. Alone.

I don't know why we do this. We stress ourselves even when our children are looking at us and they are smiling and happy. I think the thousands of books exploding in our library shelves on parenting and the millions of guides on the Internet are causing more of a paranoia than helping.

I went out with a group of friends and their kids to a nice breakfast a few weeks ago and I noticed that one mom was feeding her child food with a silver spoon and giving him tap water. I started comparing how I feed hasouni, which is always with a plastic spoon and cooled boiled water so I asked her how come she is doing that. She said to me, and I swear, it was the exact shake up I needed to just relax with all the guides we read, "oh, this is my second child." She followed by the book with her first child, and after that experience, she learned that children don't immediately fall into pieces when you don't do things perfectly 24/7. 

Damn, that is good advice.

It gets quite difficult to raise a baby that any little time saving tips become God sent. Here are some of mine that helped me-and that will help me once I start taking it.


1) Spread nappy baskets around the house so that you do not need to walk up and down the stairs to get to your change table. This will especially be convenient if you have grandparents or friends babysitting. I have yet to do this in my house. I have a slight fear of using this tip because I will than never go up and down the stairs and just stay by the couch forever. But seriously, do this. It'll help.

Oh and include bibs and baby face towels in these baskets as well. Once your baby is teething or starting solids, you will need these at all times,

What would be really good is to make some of these baskets and keep at your relatives homes as well. Just not your friends because that's just an invasion. Even though my friend recently got keys to her new apartment and I'm already considering a special corner for Hasouni's toys and diapers ;) (A)

Click here to learn how to make this cute bag

2) Keep a toy or two in the baby car seat. It gets really frustrating when you are sweating your -ss off strapping your bub to his seat, putting everything in the car and getting ready to go off and then you realize you forgot his stupid toy and start considering to just keep going. Then you start feeling like crap for leaving him sitting  there without anything. So save your guilty conscious and keep a toy in the car. It doesn't even have to be the nicest toy, just anything. Its likely that they won't even give two sh-ts about the toy but your conscious will be saved.

3) Buy a few really nice toys and place them in different parts of the room. So if you need to clean your bedroom, you can just pop your bub down and he'll play with the toy in that room. And since its one of better toys, like an activity mat, wooden bead mazes, or jumperoos, you'll know he will be more than willing to play in it. And these toys take a huge amount of space anyway so it will be good to have them in different parts of the room. 

4) Speaking of jumperoos (the toy that the kid sits in and plays with the activities surrounding him); make sure you have this beside the door before you go grocery shopping. That way, as soon as you get home, you can open the door and quickly put bub in it and run back to the shopping bags that you have likely dropped at your front door. Hasan always gives me a dirty look when I do this. He knows I'm not really trying to entertain him. 

5) Purchase a hook like the brica handy hook which you can find at Toy's R Us. This thing can hold very heavy groceries and just hangs on the side of the stroller. Keep the bags on the hook and just carry that into the house. Once you get into your home, you can drop the hook down and not get all your hands tangled by bags that twisted around your fingers.

6) Leave a nappy and a small wipes package in one of the zippers in your stroller so that if you for some reason forgot your bag, you are saved. For example, if at the spur of the moment, you decided to take a stroll around the neighbourhood. You don't want to realize that you forgot to bring diapers with you and instead of having a relaxing walk, you just keep thinking to yourself, what if you needed to change his diaper, and you just stress yourself out and the night just gets ruined. It never happened to me but its just a matter of time.

7) Purchase the same coloured socks and mittens. Yes, there are a lot of cute designs but babies tend to pull their socks off and leave them God knows where and instead of taking forever trying to find the matching pair, just save yourself heaps of time and buy white or black socks.

And that's how its done.

Hope these tips helped. Please share any of yours as well! We all need a helping hand once in a while.

Love,

Om Hasan.

Well I'm calling it as well. I'm calling bullshit.

Do you remember that scene in the movie, "What to Expect When You're Expecting?"when Elizabeth Banks breaks down and confesses how hard pregnancy really is and called pregnancy glow as bullshit.

That is very true.

There may have been those days when I presumably had a "glow" but that's because you saw me on my best hour where I took the entire day to get ready, put shimmer on my cheeks, and got out of my plus sized pjs. But trust me, I was NOT glowing.

I threw up everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

On the train, check.

On the floor of the bus, check.

On the side of the street where I worked, check.

In all three of my toilets at home, check.

On all the toilets at my work, check.

At my brother's house, check (sorry).

I threw up for 4 months straight plus more on my last trimester. I lost 8 kilos in the first 4 months.

But ohhhh did I gain those back plus more.

When I got hungry, the last thing I wanted to hear was the infamous advice that pregnant women do not necessarily need to gain that much weight and we should be careful (this advice is always said by women who have never been pregnant. The ones that have been know better). Honestly, we have been to the doctor's office. We have been given the professional advice on how to treat out body. WE KNOW. 

After I had Hasouni, I immediately lost 10 kilos which immediately followed the comment,  "oh, he's only 3 kg so how come you lost 10kg?

Well you know what...

First of all, it's not like I gulped Hasouni and he went straight into my stomach and I gained 3 kg. I'm thinking that if it takes 9 months for a baby to be developed in the body, I think, I THINK there is more to it.

When you're pregnant, you don't get those feelings "yeah, not really hungry but I could eat." When you're pregnant and you're hungry, you want to gauge someone's eyes out but you try to keep it cool...

It was as if you were on the brink of starvation. 

The heavier the meal was, the better I felt. It was a crappy feeling, but that's it. That's what happens when you get pregnant. For the love of God, you are creating a HUMAN inside you. Its tough business. You don't have control over your emotion, you don't have control over what you eat. You obvious do not want to eat bad food because you only want the best for your child but when you are spewing after every attempted meal, you just hope to God that you can eat something.

One night before I knew I was pregnant, Amar and I were in the kitchen and I was telling him that I was starving. I told him to go to his parents house and get the dish of food that I knew his parents made that day. I was really craving it. I was dead serious. Amar was  shocked. He said,  "you want me to go home, wake my parents up, and get you a plate of their food." I didn't understand what the problem was. All I heard from that was that I was hungry and I wanted a plate of the delicious meal they made. To me, it was basically a compliment to them. I was craving it so much that I thought for a split second, am I pregnant and why is he still here!??? But that thought went away and I kept trying to convince him. He didn't end up going. 

Unfortunately, pregnancy is hard for some and for others it may not be. AlhamdouAllah, I found raising a baby to be easier and even though pregnancy was hard, I would do it all over again for him.

On a good note, HASAN SAID MAMA!!!

Once. 

Next post will be less dramatic. I promise.

Horrific Nursery Rhymes

There comes a time in every parent's life when they feel this pressure to sing their children nursery rhymes. We are literally the only source of entertainment for our children and we are solely responsible for their development. So, the pressure is ON folks.

When they stare straight at us, it just gets too quiet. You start to perspire and worry that your child will not learn if you don't starting singing. Now.

So, I tried to find good-feeling sing a longs that can bring value to my child. I knew that I would come across some nursery rhymes that have those really freaky historical origins like "Ring Around the Rosy" and the plague. What I didn't realize is practically all of the freaking songs are bad.

We all know Jack and Jill. I never understood the point of the song. Why would my kid care if Jack falls down and breaks his crown? It's kind of depressing.  Then I found out that it's about King Louis  Number whatever, and Queen Marie Antoinette.  The guy didn't just lose his crown, he was beheaded. So was the chick. Jesus.

Then there was Humpty Dumpty which was actually a cannon used in a civil war, and don't get me started on three blind mice. Even if you did not know the origin of three blind mice, why would you want to sing to your kid "they all ran after the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife." I can just picture myself almost bursting into tears as I try to read that to my kid.

I think I might just stick to Dr. Seuss. Not sure how I will break it down to Hasouni when we read "Green Eggs and Ham" that we actually can't eat ham, even though the entire story is about encouraging the character to eat it. Maybe I'll just skip that one. WOW, this is going to be harder than I thought.

Xoxo,

Oum Hassan.

PS:

Sorry about taking so long this time. I just found out that Hasouni is allergic to a lotttt of things which was causing him eczema. Ever since I stopped having dairy products in my diet, such as milk, eggs, yoghurt, etc... his eczema has improved, alhamdouAllah. So, if your child is suffering from eczema, I'd recommend getting an allergy test done for him. I also found out he is allergic to peanuts, so I have been clearing the house to make it a nut-free environment. However, his parents are still pretty nutty themselves*! Or as we arabs say, akhbal. Sorry Hasouni, can't do anything about that ;)




*Sorry, I try not to use cliches on my blog, but I couldn't help myself.

How I told Amar I was pregnant

I always thought that the way I would tell my husband that I was pregnant would be in this big romantic and profound gesture. Maybe have a little gift at home wrapped in beautiful paper with a big bow and when he opens it, he sees tiny little shoes. Or, I sit him down at a candle lit dinner and tell him very gentle that he is going to be a father.

For those that know me, you know that just when there is an opportunity to have a great moment, I mess everything up and things get awkward real fast.

I am a very impatient person. I can't WAIT and plan things. If I planned something special for Amar, I burst and tell him as soon as I think of it. So, already there is no chance for dinner to be made. There is no chance for a thoughtful gesture. I'm just too impatient and well, crazy.

I was visiting my family in Canada when I found out. I told my sister in law that I think I might be pregnant and she offered to take me to the pharmacy and pick up a pregnant test. I felt like such a grown up.  I didn't tell Amar what I was doing because I thought I was just going through my overly dramatic phase. When the test came out positive, I was still not convinced. I tried to remember the episode where Rachel found out she was pregnant and whether or not there was such thing as a false-positive or if the error only happens the other way around.  So, I casually showed my sister in law, expecting her to tell me that it might be false but she let out a huge gasp, bursted into tears and started crying. Immediately. I froze and just stared at her. I knew Amar  was downstairs and I thought, this is it! This is the moment when the wife tells her husband she's pregnant!! I thought, how meaningful. How exciting. I am going to go through another milestone in my life. I felt so blessed. He is in the living room and that is the same place where he proposed to me. Excellent. But... I also didn't want to give him false hope. So, here is how it went:

Me: Amouri, I want to tell you something but I am not sure.
Amar: What?
I bust out " I THINK I'M PREGNANT BUT I'M NOT SURE SO DON'T GET  TOO EXCITED BECAUSE THE TEST MIGHT BE WRONG"

That's how I did it.  I didn't say, habiby I'm pregnant, gently. I didn't tell Amar very sweetly that he is going to be a father. I told him that I think I am pregnant, but doubtful, so don't get to happy - and  I didn't even bother explaining that I took a pregnancy test.

Amar: What?
Me: I thought you would be excited!!!!
Amar: I don't understand, what's going on?
Me: I MIGHT BE. GOD, Amar is this how you react?? You can't even be happy!?!?

And I storm upstairs.

Amar thought I was just going through my paranoia stage. I am not that paranoid. I just assume things that others have as well. Like when you think you felt a bump in your armpit and you immediately assumed the worse, but it turned out to be an ingrown hair (my nurse couldn't stop laughing at that). Or, when you thought that you saw a red back spider but it turned out to be a beetle (Amar actually got really pissed off at me for that).

Anyway, AlhamdouAllah, things turned out great afterwards. We decided to go to my parents house right at that moment to tell them even though it was midnight. When we got to the house, my sister and my mom were in the bedroom and I went in to tell them. My mom was shocked (refer to my first post of how people reacted when I told them I was going to be a mom). When they came out to congratulate Amar, he looked at me and said "You told them already???" I completely forgot that he probably wanted us to tell them together.

And that's how its done.

A Mom's and Dad's attempt to go on a date ALONE and Hasouni's first solids (fail)

On our 3 year anniversary, Amar got me tickets to see the Australia World Orchestra at the Opera House. It was such a lovely gesture from my husband. We weren't worried about Hasouni because we thought we can just give him a bottle of formula and leave him with our family to baby sit...

How wrong was I?..

Remember when you use to fuss because your wife took ages to get ready for a dinner night. I had to take TWO WEEKS for a 3 hour event.

Two weeks before the event, I went to  Baby's R Us and  purchased the same dairy-based formula that I use to give to Hasouni when he was just born. I gave him this formula once a day for 2 months. Ok, sue me. No, sorry I was not super mom.  No, I did not give my baby breast milk exclusively during that time BECAUSE I WAS TIRED. He was hungry (Alhamdouallah) ALLL THEEE TIMEE ANDDD he was in the 25th percentile so he had a bit of catching up to do. I fed him breast milk throughout the day and just ONCE during the night he had a bottle. Ok fine SOMETIMES maybe TWICE when I was super tired, my mom would kindly gave him a bottle for his first morning feed but that was it. It worked. I got my kid to finally be at the 50th percentile in a matter of weeks. 

Sorry I went a bit off track there. Where was I? O yes, Baby's R Us. So there I was all proud of myself for planning ahead of time. I even purchased some cups and spoons and baby rice cereal to prepare for baby's first solids. 

The plan was to reintroduce the formula that he had when he was a baby and to finally introduce solids at the same time since he was of age. 

The instructions of solids was very simple to the normal person. It said "Spoon 1 tablespoon of Farex cereal into a clean bowl. Add 2-3 tablespoons of your baby's usual milk or cooled boiled water to make a smooth consistency."

Now, this was me:

1. What's 1 tablespoon? Is it 1 tablespoon of regular sized tablespoons that we adults use or is it the size of a tablespoon of one of those kiddy plastic ones?
2. Can I use my measuring spoon sets or do I need to buy one exclusively for baby foods?
3. Do I have to sterilize my measuring spoon?
4. Do I need to sterilize his spoon?
5. Do I need to sterilize his bowl?
6. It says that I can't use a sterilizer for his bowl. Can I pour hot water? Will it hurt the plastic? 
7. Bowl instruction paper said that I can use  the cold sterilization method. What the heck is that?
8. If I use formula to add to his cereal do I need to prepare a bottle first and then pour that into the bowl?
9. Can I just pour the formula powder straight to the cereal and mix it with water?
10. Am I over thinking this? Should I just wait another day?

Anyway, I finally figured it all out and I mixed the cereal with cooled boiled water just for the first time. I got all excited. I prepared my camera to record Hasouni's first solids and made sure I was looking at him  as well to really capture the moment in my heart.

I ended up recording half of his upper face. The spoon and his mouth was not even in the video frame. 

The next day I went out with some of my girlfriend's and prepared two bottles of formula for Amar to give to Hasouni. I was so excited because if this worked then that meant Amar and I would be free to go on our anniversary date the week later.

Hasouni developed an allergy to formula. Apparently, babies can develop an allergy even AFTER they had the milk before. 

AND he now completely refuses to take a bottle even if it's filled with breast milk.

I just accepted defeat.

My child is allergic to formula and won't take a bottle. So, what was the solution? Keep him in the city and come out of the orchestra if he needed me. My beautiful brother and sister in law (Yasir and Shirley) were kind enough to babysit him during that time. Amar and I decided to go for a lovely dinner at Sushi-E, a beautiful sushi restaurant in the city with Hasouni before the concert to really make a day of it. We would order some of the finest sushi and appetizers and enjoy the beautiful lounge seating. We were so excited.

Traffic was so bad that we ended up dropping Hasouni with Yas And Shirley and got a quick bite at Mcdonalds.

BUT, we did manage to see the concert!

Hasouni was a good boy with Yas and Shirley but he wouldn't fall asleep unless he was in their arms. We found Hasouni sleeping on Yasir who didn't dare to move because he was scared to wake him up. Poor guy was holding him for a long time. 

Hasouni woke me up several times that night.

The End.

How to get people to stop asking when are you going to have another baby

I have to talk to you about my foolproof response to the notorious question "when are you going to have another baby?" which sometimes is paraphrased as "when is (baby name) going to have another sibling to play with? or "Aw haram, is he/she going to have a baby brother or a baby sister to play with soon?

This question is usually asked after you have delivered the baby and you're in the maternity ward with your guests.

Andddd it's usually asked by some lady that is related to a friend of a friend of a friend.

Yep.

I had 9 months to come up with the perfect response. And I got it.

Some lady: Woww Mashallah Mashallah what a beautiful baby. Ouy Hasouni is so beautiful. Inshallah his brother or sister will look just like him *Fake laugh*. When will that be ya Mariam?

Mariam: EE Inshallah soon! I hope so soon? Don't you? I just can't wait! God, I hope it doesn't take long!!

Some lady will be taken back and a bit disappointed by this as she probably anticipated the usual "oh not for a while!" response. She probably just wanted to gloat on how she had children right away and give you "advice" to feel a little bit superior.  Not that you haven't heard them before; such as:

Darling if you have all your babies right away you will still be young when they are older. (As if you don't know how to calculate this yourself). Or,

If you have all your babies young, you will still have the energy...Actually, that is good advice so I'll leave that one alone ;) But you will have many people give you this advice as if they came up with that all on their own.

When you respond back that you are trying to have another baby right away, she won't ask you again. Even the pushiest of the pushiest know that it is just bad form to repeatedly ask you when they think you are actually trying. (Doesn't matter if that's a complete lie).

Now you can adjust this response to other similar invasive questions people to tend to ask such as:

Oh, wow you guys are talking to one another..when are you getting engaged? 

Followed by: O, congratulations on your engagement? Are you getting married this year?

To probably the most annoying: "We are having such a great time at your wedding. The hall looks amazing. Love the decor. So, are you having your first baby in 9 months *hehehe- hardy- har- har*?"

As long as your response is very..positive and upbeat..people will be disappointed and will probably leave you alone. #arabclass.

First few months of having a baby

Sheno?? Mimi a mother?? Little Mariam? I don't believe it.

Yep. That was practically every single person's reaction to me being a mom. At first it was touching as it shows how long people have known me but then it just started to become..well kind of insulting actually. 5 months later and it's still the same reaction. Not, "o ya, of course! She's been married for almost 3 years now..." or "well Mariam is a woman now..over 25" Nope. Come to think of it.. I don't think anyone has said these last two sentences. Ah well, what are you gonna do.

God bless my kid, I love him. It definitely has that good feeling but man it can be tough. And just when I thought my kid was sleeping through the night, NOPE. He started to wake me up every few hours now. The really frustrating part is in the morning when he wakes up and I feed him, change his diaper, moisturize him (dermeze is AMAZING for kids with eczema) -blah blah blah - I become completely awake but then he falls asleep after 1 hour. He does this EVERY morning. I just don't get why he won't just push his sleep for 2 more hours, wake up and start the day. It would be a win-win situation for the both of us.

But at least my baby knows how to put himself to sleep without my help. OOO ye.

But then he wakes up half an hour later

(No, that's not my baby).


So what are 10 things I learned about the first few months of having a baby?

1. Poo comes in all different colours. Thankfully none are from the hues of a rainbow. Well, maybe the green. And maybe the red. Apparently, some babies may have blood in their stools. If this happens, consult your GP. 
2. Heat up your sandwich only after your baby has been sleeping for at least 10 minutes. You will have a better chance to completing it without interruption.
3. Do.Not.Google.Anything. Just ask your GP.
4. Do.Not.Ask.Everyone.For.Their.Opinion. You will never get a straight answer. Just ask your GP. 
5. You can exercise after 6 weeks of having a baby not 6 months.
6. Don't waste your money on buying many newborn clothes. Just buy a few as babies quickly grow out of them. Remember they are sizes by mere months not years.
7. Dummy's aka pacifiers only give you a few seconds of that amazing bliss. The - oh my God, yes, it is finally silent, I can finally sleep..I can finally just shut my eye---and your baby will end up dropping it and screaming for it again. So, with a couple of tries, I decided to not bother with them. No point in getting my baby use to something and go through the hasstle of wrestling it out of him when he's older when it only gives me a few seconds of quietness. Yes, I am quite aware that I called my baby "it" here but trust me, with the constant crying, you will hear yourself saying "whyy won't it stop??? What's wrong with it??"
8. There is no point in buying a book to read in the first few months. Don't kid yourself.
9. Mother's are not the only ones to roll their eyes on all the different advices they get from people. Doctor's do as well. I tried to get the general consensus on whether or not to use hydrocortisone on my baby to help with his inflamed eczema and I still don't have it. 
10.  This brings me to my most important note. Take your time to find a GP/pediatrician that you can trust and is best in his/her field. I went to a GP on a weekend who literally had to lean his left ear forward so that he can hear me better. It didn't help that he had a confused look about him when I asked him a question. I took his advice but then went back to my original GP for her opinion. You are going to have a lot of questions with open ended answers. Hopefully these questions won't be too serious and you can depend on your doctor whose done his  or her research to ease your mind. 

I  hope you liked my first entry!