"Would you give your daughter away?"

When Iman was only 3 months old, I was watching her sleep as she lay peacefully in her crib. This was also about the time that I knew I was completely in love with my baby. I remember my mom coming up behind me and watching me "so much in love".

She asked me the silliest question "Would you be ok if someone came and took your daughter away from you?"

Hunh? What was THAT supposed to mean? How can anyone be OK if someone takes their child away? What in God's name is she talking about?? What's wrong with my mother???

So I said in the nicest way possible... "Mom, what are you saying? Ofcourse I won't be "ok", in fact, why would I let anyone take my baby away from me??"

And she replies...

"I can see you're so "in love" with her, and if someone came to you today and asked to take her away, you'd think they were crazy, but in 25 years or so, some guy is going to walk into your lives and ask to take her away, and you're going to have to let go."

Hmm. At the time I had only had 3 months of memories at stake when I thought of having someone take Iman away from us. But the story kind of stuck. And every now and then I remember what my mom had said that day, and as I watch Iman become more and more amazing as time passes, I realize that 25 odd years from now, when it is time for her to find the right guy and move on with her life, how hard will it be as a parent to let her go?

Years of falling in love with the most beautiful girl in the world. Years of memories, first steps, first words, first day at school, first sports day, first prom, first graduation.

And then one day she's going to leave us and move in with a boy.

:(

Sparkly clothes and other exciting things

Watching Iman get excited about anything makes me really happy. Her eyes light up and she does a little jumpy dance thing while squealing in delight. Yesterday my mom sent Iman her Eid clothes and I wanted to try them on to make sure everything fit.

When I pulled out the glittery purple “gharara” she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was bright, and sparkly, and I was putting it on her!! Usually, Iman, who fusses and wants to run away when she is being dressed, sat in awe and watched the folds of fabric. She was even more excited when I put on the “kurti” and gave her the “dupatta”.

Iman loves the mirror on our closet. She can stand there for a long time, trying on hats and scarves and putting on dresses and shirts. Those are also the moments when you get to see her squealing and jumping. So you can imagine the level of excited energy in our room when Iman was wearing her Eid clothes AND had the mirror to model in front of!! She put the dupatta on her head, and made her way to the living room screaming “Baba, Baba!” to show Omair her clothes, laughing in delight when Omair showed his excitement. Then she came back and rearranged the dupatta around her neck and went back to the living room to show Omair again.

Then we had a struggle to get her out of the clothes, because she doesn’t understand that she has to wait for Eid. As far as Iman was concerned, she was going to wear this gharara forever! At the end of the day when she was really tired, we slipped her into her pajamas and I hid the bag with her Eid clothes for another month and half.

Having a daughter makes holidays so special. Even before Ramadan Omair and I wanted to make sure that her Eid clothes were sorted out and she had her “chooriyan” and hair clips in order. Iman’s presence makes our lives more exciting. Her enthusiasm makes us feel more alive. In the true sense of the word, she’s the “light” of our life.


PS- I didn’t include a picture, because you can see her first hand on Eid day.

In the end... Justice Prevails!

Just thought I would let everyone know that I went to another one of those mom and baby parties yesterday. It was at Demon boys house. Luckily Iman was sleeping when I left... so I guess I couldn't take her ;)

The point is to tell you all that Damien got the crap beaten out of him by a girl only 3 months older than Iman. She didn't just hit him once or twice, but a whopping 3 TIMES!! AND... she hit him on the head with a racket.

thee hee hee

The best part was that when Damien's mother went to his rescue, the little girl's mom just said that she wasn't going to interfere, because she knows Damien is always hitting other kids, and this is just to balance the scale.

In the end she’s just “petite”

Everyone already knows that Iman’s weight has been a big issue in our household. I’ve been told by others, time and time again to “let it go” and “not to worry”. But there are always underlying issues when the Mom and Dad are concerned about something. Iman was growing perfectly fine up until 7 months, and then from that point onward, things just slipped from our control.

First when she was around 9 months, she fell really ill. This was the same time that Omair went to Ireland. So I was in Karachi, on my own with a very very sick baby. During the time in Karachi Iman was sick for 4 consecutive weeks. Also during that time she lost a lot of weight. Omair and I feel that she never really recovered from that completely.

Over the next few months Iman seemed healthy and active, which is why we never really hit the panic button. But her lingering weight was always in the back of our minds. At her 1 year appointment, her doctor looked at her charts and showed concern for her growth. We went through a grueling appointment discussing her eating habits and her day’s routine. Finally, he wrote out some tests which we did. Alhamdulillah that was all normal, and the doctor put her on a high calorie diet to help her catch up. He also told us that in the next couple of months we’ll see a growth spurt. But unfortunately at 15 months (3 months later) Iman still didn’t show any sign of a growth spurt. So our concerns continued to mount and finally, after endless discussions at home, we took her to Dr. Mansoor (a well known Pediatrician in Dubai for over 20 years).

Obviously only wanting our daughter’s health, we went to this high priced man, just to hear that she was fine. I was quite impressed with him and his work. He spent a good amount of time listening to her history, examining her physically, and observing her intellect and motor skills. Finally he told us that although things look good, we still should run some blood tests to make sure that there isn’t an internal problem that might require attention. He did the tests in his office, and after a few minutes he told us that things were fine.

Don’t get me wrong. There was no obsessing involved. When it comes to your own child, there is no amount of money that you can dish out to ensure that they are healthy and happy. I wasn’t being paranoid. You have to have your own to understand that even the slightest problem or health issue is magnified a million times when your baby could even remotely possibly be ill.

So after 9 months of agonizing about Iman’s slow weight gain, 2 doctor’s appointments, several tests and a good amount of money later, we came home with the verdict that “she’s just petite”.

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

When Iman turned from a sweet little baby into a toddler, we had to learn to cope with her developing personality and raging fury fits. Now that she has entered into the world of expressive anger, we have to decide how we’re going to handle her and teach her that screaming and crying are NOT ways to get everything you desire.

At this point most experienced parents advise that we should “let her cry it out”. I think all those parents have forgotten what loud shrilling scream crying can do to our ears. I’m quite clueless at this point. Letting her kick and scream isn’t something we want to do, but on the other hand we can’t give into everything she wants.

Just to get everyone on board, let me describe a typical temper tantrum… First Iman finds something she wants (that she shouldn’t have) and she starts playing with it. For this example let’s use a remote control. So she’s pressing the buttons, making the TV go haywire (which is even MORE amusing for her). When I try to take it from her (obviously using the “distraction” method) she starts this lower lip pout thing and her eyes become big and sad, this is the warning of the flood of tears to come. Then her eyes well up with tears and she starts crying. That eventually turns into screaming and then it just goes on and on and on and on and on… At this point there are 3 ways we can handle it. First, we can give her the remote back (big “no no”, it will teach her that she can always get what she wants if she cries). Second, we can hold her and play with her and pacify her (another “no no” because this will teach her that if she behaves badly, we’ll be quick to jump to her side, not letting her realize that she’s doing something wrong). Which brings us to the last way…. # 3, we can let her cry it out and teach her the hard way that she can’t have everything she wants. Which brings me to the initial point, listening to a child crying is a HARD HARD job. One second she’s a sweet little thing, playing with her toys, and the next she’s got tears streaming down her face, she’s yelling bloody murder and her nose is running into her mouth (not such a pretty picture).

So where do we go from here? I don’t want to spend the next few months in parent hell. Imagine if she throws a tantrum at someone’s house, or even in a public place. What then? I can sit in my own home and hear her bawling her heart out, but when we’re out and she throws a fit, we’re going to try to make her quiet at any cost. Also a “no no” because that teaches her that outside she can use this method to get her ways.

Exhausted yet? There is perhaps no solution to this phase, and we can only look forward to her getting older and out growing this. The sooner the better.