In this moment, I have it all.

Meet Florida's most adorable gator

I'm sitting at a cafe/kids' jungle gym as I write.

It goes without saying this is pretty much what I always imagined "stay at home mom life" to be.

Today: I prepared breakfast and cleaned while Ali watched Word World. Then after lunch there was every mother's savior: Nap time, where I cooked dinner as well as had a much needed phone call with the bestie about potty training and preschool. Post nap we headed to the library for an afternoon of story time and arts/crafts. And because I know my child has insane energy to burn, I found out about Family Night at an indoor jungle gym, Monkey Bizznizz. $5 to play from 5 pm til close.

We've been here two hours and I don't see any signs of Ali's energy running out. This place is great and what a fantastic idea! Parents get to have coffee/snacks and stare at their phone without whining in the background. Meanwhile, kids tumble, slide, jump, climb and do everything but stare at a screen for hours. Best $5 ever spent! 

Earlier this week a friend posted an article on Facebook about the concept of 'having it all' and how society has brainwashed women into thinking that we must have it all while also warping our definition of what it means. It got me thinking about the fact that I left a pretty promising career to be doing this. No pay, managing finances to live/save off one income, not to mention diaper duty (soon to be potty training duty, which Ali seems more ready for than I am!), booboo kissing, cheering him on to climb higher or celebrating his little victories.

Some days its really exhausting and everyday is harder than a day at a 'real job'. Yesterday I found Spider-Man stickers on the bum of my sweatpants (who knows how many ppl I met or stores I went to where no one thought to tell me!) and today I had to smudge finger-paint off my new KS purse (thank god for washable paint). Both those instances made me smile. It meant my son was exploring and growing; and most importantly I was there to be a part of it. I know people without kids don't get it, they and sometimes even we parents see children as a hindrance from 'living it up' or 'having it all'. But, I still remember not too long ago (1.5 months to be exact) sitting behind a desk staring at my kid's pictures on my phone as I ate lunch feeling depressed about missing out on his childhood. I had many things then, but I felt I didn't 'have it all'.  

I'm not knocking down working moms, I was one for 2.5 years. I have tremendous respect for women who continue to succeed with a career and duties of motherhood. And I know there are days you feel like everything is balancing just right and days where nothing is. I made a decision to leave work and spend time with my toddler, because I realized that for me, doing both simultaneously did not make me happy. And right now, that's a decision I'm SO glad I made. Tomorrow my thoughts may change or maybe I won't have the opportunity and choice not to work, so today I'm swimming in SAHM's blissful pool. This is what I define as a job I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I truly love the feeling that I'm not missing a single moment of watching him grow up; tantrums,tears and all.

So now for your viewing pleasure, the memories we made this week:

Favorite exhibit at Glazer's Childrens Museum

Cutest cashier Publix ever saw!

Sliding down the big boy jungle gym

Weekly Wednesday morning balloon and face painting at the mall

Tough guy coming through!

"Sabr" pronounced like "summer" but with a B.

Arabic/Urdu for 'Patience'.

“Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never runs out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.” - 40 Rules of Love, Elif Shafaq

I find myself constantly reminding my two-year-old to wait,  "sabr". He's always asking me for things, usually 'needing' them immediately. And sometimes I just can't give them to him, because for one reason or another it's not available right away. I'm trying so hard to teach him that he can't always have things how he wants them when he wants them, but I just learned a real life lesson on it myself.

I had a bit of a health scare and all I could do was wait it out. I was in a lot of pain, going through different tests and all I could do was wait for those results to come in and tell me that everything was normal, yet the hardest thing for me was the physical pain (which was pretty bad!) but the agony of waiting.

Sometimes when we're being told to wait it feels as if we're being punished for doing something wrong. We don't understand what it is we did to deserve this and why we are having to suffer a punishment. The reality is that we're not being scolded or disciplined. We are simply being taught a lesson that we really need to learn and that is, in my case, to be patient.

I was taught (yet again) that you MUST have faith above all. Have faith that things are meant for a reason and they will occur as they are destined. As much as you stress, fret, and agonize nothing will change the outcome. So, learn to do your best and then leave it up to fate.

It's been a tough couple of weeks. Funny thing is it feels like a century since my husband has been gone, but in reality it's only been two months and this month sure has felt extremely long.

 Remember that chronic worrier girl I talked about earlier? She had been back big time. I was getting impatient and ungrateful. I was focused on everything being so negative. How upset I was about all the change to come in my life and how lonely I felt without my husband. I worried that I had so much to get done and yet felt nothing was progressing. I was totally not appreciating having my family nearby to make things easier. This experience taught me how much I seriously MUST value all the loving people I have in my life. Additionally, I learned that I have an extremely difficult time asking for help. I also learned that I don’t always consciously know when I’m stressed out, but stress and my body have a terrible relationship.

It wasn't even the part of being a full-time working mother to an energetic toddler trying handling all the single-parent duties. Nor was it about trying to sell all our furniture and items or researching apartments in our new town OR contacting movers and setting up meetings to get an estimate.

It was truly just the suffering of being impatient and allowing myself to become frustrated at everything not  progressing as I wanted it to that affected my health. It is pretty amazing how when we are not strong internally our body reflects it externally, leaving us no choice but to slow down and focus on what is most important.

Before all that happened, I remember thinking how spiritually distant I felt and I actually had a moment where I thought to myself ‘God I promise I’m going to fix this when I have time; once I’m done w this crazy period in life I’ll make more effort to get back that spiritual mojo, but right now I just can’t focus on it. I've got too much going on’. WELL, God had some other plans. 

I was reminded to have faith that God is on your side. He sometimes tests you and pushes you to your limit and inevitably that happens when you think you least need it. Truth is, it happens because you need it pretty bad.  I was forced to stay home, to rest, and to ask for help. During those horrible days of waiting for test results where I couldn't tell my family, because I didn't want to worry them unnecessarily I reconnected with an old friend who helped me in so many ways she will never know. We were both going through some difficult moments and the irony of how we were brought together at a time when we could support of each other was amazing. We both encouraged each other to have faith. 

Life will never be void of it's troubles, everyone has their own. You cannot wait for the perfect moment to find time for your soul. Especially as you grow older, more and more responsibilities demand your attention, grabbing you away. Find even small bits to feed your soul each day; to be thankful, to be aware of His immensity and know that you run on His time. He does not run on yours. Acknowledge that you and your troubles are only a small portion of the immensity.

via Tumblr

I forgot to mention that Ramadan started a midst all this change. With everything going on Ali hasn't been his usual self either. Since iftar time is so late, he's going to bed later than his usual bedtime and he's also missing his father a lot; all of which leads to him being clingy, cranky and putting up a fight about pretty much everything. Again, it isn't always easy. I'm learning easy just isn't in the books for me right now. And that is okay, but when I do encounter moments of 'easy' I am quick to say a silent thank you. We've wrapped up our apartment and our last few weeks in NJ are being spent at my parents. I am really enjoying being home with my family, plus Ali loves the constant attention from his Nani Nana and Khala. And while I sometimes can't help worry that they're spoiling him rotten (lol they really are!), the way I see it he's building some of the best memories of his childhood right now. Memories he will grow up and cherish, possibly when the people in those memories may be very far away. :( So I've been tired, lacking food, sleep and energy. But the best part of all this struggle during Ramadan is that the one thing I'm not lacking is spirit.

 I Eat Pork During Ramadan Light T-Shirt (Google Affiliate Ad)
Ramadan Mubarak Rectangle Magnet (Google Affiliate Ad) 

The strange thing about habits

It’s so strange how a habit forms. You start out not being familiar with something at all, it feels awkward and foreign the first time around. Then slowly, without realizing it, you are able to adjust it into your routine. The habit of going to school/work/ waking up next to someone/holding your newborn baby in your arms all bring about the same feeling the first time around. The initial moment of change is an indescribable feeling. Whether it is something good or bad; the only word that comes to mind is ‘Strangeness’. Yet, by the second experience you already can detect the feeling of unfamiliarity/uncertainty leaving you. That's what I'm going through right now.

When we first talked of moving, about Wajih leaving first while I stayed back here with Ali I knew it would be a huge change. I understood that it would not be easy, but a big part of me was just not ready to let go of my life as of that moment, especially not the habit of my routine. So I was entirely on board with the idea of living apart for 3 months heck maybe even 6, while Wajih settled into his new job and became oriented with the new location. In my mind nothing for me was changing in those few months, aside from the difficulty of being distant from my love. But I shrugged it off, thinking all relationships can use some healthy time apart. I could finally enjoy time out with my girlfriends or do some activities alone that I would put off before due to spending all my time with him.

The first two days were just plain strange! I was with my own family, my sisters and parents, yet I felt something was completely a miss. I clung to Ali as taking care of him was the only source of familiarity of life prior to. (Ali on the other hand was loving the little vacay we were having at Nani’s house; he didn’t asked for his father until day 3 or 4). At first I didn't even want to be in my apartment, because it reminded me too much of life before all this. Of weekends where and I got to sleep in, while Ali watched Superman cartoons with his Dad. Of weeknights "you watch him while I cook dinner, then I'll bath him while you clean up' routines which ended in us collapsing on the couch, me falling asleep on his shoulder as we attempted to catch up on TV sitcoms. Sigh, such a boring life we led. Yet, for all those same reasons, my apartment was also the only place I wanted to be; clinging to those moments. Crazy, I know.

Changing habits is hard, but the funny part of human nature is how quickly we adapt. When I first sold off our bookshelf and kitchen table, seeing our place with them missing was so weird. Now it’s as if my eyes have become accustomed to seeing piles of cardboard boxes and the toaster on the kitchen floor is no longer out of place. My only initial concern about this arrangement was how I’d deal with 'single mom life’. However, just two weeks in and Ali and I are bonding amazingly! The meal/bed/bath time routines are somehow seamless. I am even able to quench the “I don’t wanna leave the park” tantrum fairly quickly. ALL BY MYSELF. (Dear God please let me not be speaking too soon). I like to believe it’s the Big guy throwing me a bone while I still figure all this out. But I’m pretty sure it’s my attitude too.

I'm throwing myself in head first with this transition. I am resolved to not let this feeling of strangeness turn me unpleasant or exasperated. I have cleaned, organized, and made more progress on my 'To Do' lists these two weeks than I have in the past many years! I've set goals to do some healthy eating, hardcore exercising, and soul purifying during this phase of my life's new chapter. I realized that if I try to cling to ways of my routine before, it wasn’t long before I'd fall into a severe rut of unhappiness, is so easy to fall into that place when you are faced with a new experience outside of your comfort level. Lucky for me, I keep reminding myself that this is short-term. I am refocusing my emotions toward setting small weekly goals and spending as much time as I can with my parents before I will be a 3 hour plane ride (instead of 3 mins) away :( .

Some great advice I was given: “It is not easy for anyone to adjust to a big move, to become accustomed with a new place takes time. It will be awhile until you are familiar with roads and a different lifestyle but the truth is soon enough that will be your life and everything before it will be just a memory. So enjoy this transition for what it is; the time in between the old and the new.”
 
That advice held so much truth in it.  It reminded me how I got out of 'pre-married life' or 'pre-baby' habits. I had the engagement period before my wedding to transition into that new chapter just the same way 9 months of pregnancy is a transition into motherhood. Its like experiencing the future and the now at the same time. Sort of. The hard truth is,  life as it was isn't coming back. But that doesn't mean what's to come won't be even better. Accept change, accept the initial awkwardness. Set small goals. Take the time to tie up loose ends and say proper goodbyes. Most of all be thankful.

In this short time I realized that one mode I don't want to adjust to.. is life without my best friend. The bathroom is too clean and the fridge is missing a few 100 packs of assorted chocolates.Without you around I waste too much time on Facebook I sleep too late I yell less and eat less (shocker, so it is possible!). And it turns out I can actually throw out the garbage and even killed a bug all by myself. Sigh. I realize I can live without you, but truth be told, I would never ever want to.  

May I never have to live without my best friend unwillingly. And may change always be for the better. Ameen.

Sunshine on a cloudy day - Inspirational Monday

If I have learned only one thing about marriage it is this: 

Source: http://www.9quote.com/

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Happy 35th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Mirza Clan 2013, 2 parents 5 daughters 4 son in laws and 10 grand kids. Mash' Allah

My sisters and I threw our parents a surprise 35^th anniversary party earlier this month. The thing with surprises in our family is that all five of us sisters majorly suck at them! We are very close to our mom and speak with her almost daily, which made hiding the whole planning/prep of this party a huge task. We also rely on her immensely to advise us whenever we’re doing a big event, so the lack of her guidance was definitely felt. “How many paper cups do we need? Are two trays of biryani plenty? Should we buy back up naan in case the caterers don’t provide enough? Where is soda on sale?” These are all questions Mama Mirza would have a simple answer to. So, we struggled without her a bit, but in the end we pulled it off and they were both surprised and very proud. Goal Accomplished.

Planning an anniversary party for your parents:

Set a budget and begin brainstorming early

It makes it easy to know what you can and cannot do if you know how much you plan to spend. We had a decent size budget since all 5 of us were pitching in, but still we began planning for the party about 6 months beforehand, simply because four of us are working moms and living in different states so it was a lot of late night group IChat’s where we’d hash out details. Once we were all on the same page about how much each person can contribute we were able to figure out quickly how the costs would be divided up.

 

Book the hall

The most important task to get out of the way for a big event is to set a date and book the hall. We shopped around in our area for nice places. We spoke with fancy banquet halls and also local VFW halls. In the end we decided it was best for our budget to stick with a local VFW hall where we could spend more on décor, cake, food, and entertainment. Make sure to start calling places at least a month in advance, especially if your event is around a holiday because most halls, especially nice ones, are booked up quickly.

Book the Caterer

Again this was tough without mom since she’s always the one to know which caterer makes the best nihari and which now charges too high a rate. It took a few phone calls, but we got a good deal at Nawab Grill and ended up having a great amount of food that our guests really loved too.

Our menu was: Chicken Biryani, beef Nihari, Baghare Bangan, Chicken 65, Naan, Salad, Raita, Ras Malai all for $750 which was more than plenty to feed 100 guests. 

Invite your guests

I’ve used Paperless Post in the past for my son’s birthday party. Read here how I feel about the website. I really love their designs and again, we found one that was elegant yet simple and it went nicely with our theme! 

There was supposed to be another tier of pom poms at the top, I got lazy.

Party Décor 

This is where your budget can go out of hand since it’s all about how extravagant or simplistic you want to be. Nothing a few trips to the dollar store, amazing savings and Costco along with a creative mind can’t solve though. My little sister was in charge of this area for our party and she did a wonderful job. We had an elegant theme of Grey & Coral Pink for the party. We made the centerpieces at home along with the banner found via free download here.  Mariam created these great programs to place at each table with a love quote on the cover. I loved the Mr. & Mrs. sign for their chairs but we just didn't have time to put together the ribbon, so we stuck it on the door where they entered from and it ended up being a cute addition!

 Order the Cake

This was my first time working with Piece of Cake by Saba Mendha. She did a great job bringing my ideas to life. I wanted a simple white cake with a thin grey ribbon on each tier and a big coral colored flower on top with some stylish yet simple piping work one each tier. She did just that. We had one layer vanilla with fresh strawberries and another with chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Both cakes tasted great! My only critique would be that I imagined the flower being larger than it turned out, since it was the only ‘pop’ part of the cake I wish it was a bit bigger. Also, the piping work wasn’t totally clean, but I understand that she’s still a new cake artist and it wasn’t a big deal to me. Taste and look overall were great. She was on time with delivery and very open to my ideas for the cake design. I loved her professionalism and great taste of the cake! 

Write a Speech

This was tough because I’m a sap. Also, I never have a spare moment to collect my thoughts. I would start thinking of things on my drives to work but usually I’d be a mess of tears by the time I got to my desk. So it took some time, and some Googling of wedding speeches, which I found were all quite useless. So here, use mine and put your own creative liberties on it, I’m glad to help since Google, for once, was inept:

Sab se pehle mein kehna chahoungi ke aap saab humare ammi aur abu ke aziz dost aur rishtedaron mein se hain, aur humme bahaut khushi hai ke aap unki zindagi ke iss ehem din ko celebrate karne mein humare saath shamil hosake. Humari dua hai ke Allah tala ammi abu ko 35 aur khushiyon bhaare saal ata farmein. 

 “Firstly, I would like to say thank you to all our guests. You all are mom and dad’s most dear friends and relatives and we are very happy that you are able to join us in celebrating this special day in their lives where we honor their marriage. We wish that God grants our mom and dad with 35 more years filled with happiness.” 

Abu and Ammi, your marriage has always been an excellent example for us five, in every aspect of life. Every child thinks their parents are the best, but the real truth, sorry to tell the rest of you, is that my parents truly are the best. You two have taught us many lessons through our lives. But the most important one you taught us is that it is your ikhlaq, manner, generosity, your ability to be a good friend and a helpful neighbor that makes one a better person. And you both have shown us that a big part of being a better person means to be an ideal spouse. A spouse who shows respect in public and in private, who cares for not just one another but for each other’s families. Seeing the amount of patience you both have had in the past 35 years with all the situations that life put you through is what inspires me when I know I’m losing my patience! 

Mom, to us you are the ideal woman. We call you a Spartan because you are a warrior. You are the ideal standard by which we measure all our life goals. I cannot imagine the difficulties you went through coming into this new country without your family and very few familiar faces. But you did a great job at everything that came your way. you raised 5 children, worked full time, had numerous house guests and random visitors popping over all the time and never once did I see you struggle. I only saw you open your doors and your heart to others, you always told us that Allah puts barqat (blessing) in a home that has its door open for loved ones and that no situation is difficult if you keep in mind the blessing that come with it.  

Dad, you are our hero. It’s true that every girl’s first love is their father and I can speak for all five of us when I say you are definitely ours. You have an unending amount of patience and love to offer us. You have taught us what it means to be an excellent son, father and husband.  

I have learned from seeing you both that no human and no marriage is perfect, only Allah is perfect. But Allah (SWT) gives us a spouse to complete us so that their strengths make up for our shortcomings, and together we are whole. We pray to always see you two being whole together with a long and healthy life iA. 

we gift wrapped as shoebox and had paper/pens for guests to write down memories for our parents to read later on as a keepsake from the party.

Prepare a Slideshow

Everyone loves looking at old pictures of themselves in the '70s with crazy hairdos and stylish bell bottoms. Just don't go crazy, remember that people can just browse at a lot of these pics on a Facebook album too so keep it short sweet and add some sappy songs to pile on the nostalgia.

My happy child in front of the Slideshow area

Cake cutting

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