I miss Bangladesh

My mom got a phone call from Bangladesh this weekend. It was from a lady who used to be our neighbor in Chittagong for as long as I can remember. Obviously after my mom came to US to live with me, she lost touch with a lot of people in Bangladesh. This lady was missing my mom so much that she set her son, Morshed, on a manhunt literally. Her son had cell phone numbers that my parents had used in Bangladesh at different times. He called each one and talked to the person answering the phone to figure out if that person knew where my mom is, could give him a number where he can reach my mom. He hit gold when one of those numbers was answered by my phupu. My mom gave my phupu her phone before leaving Bangladesh. So after pleasantries, Morshed got my mom’s cell phone number here and called over the weekend.

I was so touched by this incident. I kept thinking about chachi (as we used to call her) all throughout the weekend. I remember she used to send us Halwas, mistis, different types of pithas almost every week. My sister and I were regular visitors to her kitchen. Both her and her husband adored the two of us since they had three sons and no daughters. Whenever I had gone to Bangladesh in the past, I had always made a point of visiting her since she was always just couple of steps away. Now with Abbu gone and chacha retired, I hear they have relocated to Dhaka to live with their son. I kept thinking would I see them again?

Why do I not meet people like that over here? Is it me? Am I not open enough to people? Or is it really the people in Bangladesh? Are they born to be hospitable towards everyone? Are they more trustworthy towards people? Whatever it is, I am missing my childhood days like crazy.

Happy Birthday Raffae

My baby is turning four today! Many many happy returns of the day jaan! Love you. Mommy

Motherhood

Motherhood is funny. Without even realizing what you are getting into, you get into this unconditional relationship with someone for life! I was up to my neck at work when my mom called this morning. I answered the phone and before she could say anything, I heard Raffae crying in the background. I was instantly snapped out of my work mode into my mommy mode. I had a feeling this morning that he is going to have a rough day today. We enrolled him for swimming lessons at the community pool. He has been going to the pool every day for an hour or so and as a result comes back home dead tired. We dragged him to the mall with us last night after he came back from his swimming lesson and by the time we came back home, he was so tired he went to sleep right away. This morning, he woke up cranky and I suspect he is still tired. My mom said she has tried everything that normally cheers him up, but all he wants today is his mommy!!! My poor baby! I broke my decision of not giving him any of his birthday presents before his birthday and told my mom to give him one of the board games I got him. Hopefully that will keep him busy till mommy gets home with loads of hugs and kisses (not the candy, real hugs and kisses!). As for my work load, since my attention is pretty much shot for the day, I'll be playing Scrabble with my Facebook buddies for the rest of the day!

Observation of the day

Some people are sooooo stupid that I wish I had a mallet to hit them over the heads and make them better. Nuff said!

Beauty comes with a price!!!

Last night when I was taking out my contact lenses, one of them ripped! It looked quite intact on my hand, but once I went to bed, my eye kept watering and it felt like I had something in my eye. So I gave my eye a good rub. No change. More rubbing. No change. Then my head started throbbing. At one point, I got up, went to the bathroom, splashed some water in my eye and went back to bed. Couple of mintues of rubbing, burning later, I went back to the bathroom again and looked carefully. Holy crap! I see a small piece of my lense floating around in my eye!!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEKKKK. Panicked, I call Tanveer. Took him a while to even see the piece. He is all thumbs anyway, so he was no use! Everytime I tried to grab the floating piece, it escaped and I ofcourse touched my eye and that burned like hell! After five or so minutes, Tanveer was getting ready to take me to ER. I felt as if it came out. So I decided not to go to ER and sleep on it.

This morning, I woke up with a throbbing headache! It still felt like there is something in my eye. I followed the same routine of rinsing and rubbing. I called my brother-in-law who is an eye surgeon. He said I probably have an abrasion from all the rubbing. Definitely go see a doctor if it is still bothring me tomorrow morning.

Then sometime during the afternoon, I felt something slide across my eye. This time I looked into one of those mirrors that magnifies the reflection and I saw the culprit folded neatly right around my lower lid! I closed my eyes and it came out!!!!!!

I am glad my eye is still intact!

The worlds of ZeeNotes and Jiggety Jig finally collided

Finally we got to meet Katie Z and Isaac this weekend! Katie left a comment on Tanveer's blog sometime ago and when Tanveer checked out her blog, he found out we have a common friend! How small is this world! I've been reading Katie's blog ever since. She came to DC last week with her son Isaac (Coolest kid ever! Really funny. Kept us entertained and was very patient with Raffae) and was able to come visit us on Friday. Here are some pics of Raffae and Isaac. They jelled instantly, as if they were separated at birth!

See how they both know how to pose for the camera!

Isaac shared his Gameboy with Raffae

Raffae was worshipping Isaac for letting him play his Gameboy

Isaac very patiently showed Raffae how to play

The Death Clock

As if I wasn't depressed enough today, I found this on the web.

The Death Clock - When am I going to die?

My death date is Thursday, January 6, 2050 :'(

Reality bites

No matter how grown up I act/am, when it comes to my family, specially my “chacha”s, I still feel like a little girl. I grew up in a joint family, indulged by my uncles and aunts. They are an intricate part of my life, of who I am. I’ve been out of Bangladesh for a long time now and over time I feel like my ties have somewhat loosened with them. Then I see a picture or receive an email from one of them and I just want to throw all my responsibilities away and go sit on their laps just like I used to when I was a little girl and let them tell me that they will be there forever to take care of me, nothing bad will ever happen to me because they will be there to slay the monsters for me.

My Chacha has been sick for some time. I received some pictures from my cousin today. Chachchu looks soooo frail in the pictures. The pictures turned me into a complete emotional wreck today. Life sucks.

Home sweet home

After nine days of almost non-stop driving through torrential rain, sunny weather, scattered showers, cloudy days; throughout which we consumed way too many McDonald’s meals, Tim Horton’s/Starbucks coffee, donuts, chips, apples (Zoya ate three apples one day!), grapes, chanachur, cookies, Chinese food, awesome Indian food (One night in Montreal and one night in Toronto), and of course yummy homemade Biryani, shutki vorta along with other types of vorta; which took us to Centre Island, to African Lion Safari, to Montreal, to BioDome, to the Botanical Garden, to the Olympic Stadium, to visit family and friends; we are back home!

Highlights of the vacation:

• Raffae became a lion
  
• Zoya became known as the "Apple Baby"
  
• Raffae loves his cousins and cried for half an hour when we left Toronto.
  
• Tanveer is a lean mean driving machine!
  
• Raffae drove a car
  
• Zoya saw an "Ocean"
  
• I got THREE beautiful sarees as gifts!
  
• The weather in Montral sucked! Rained! We couldn't walk the city streets to our hearts content
  
• My mom found peace in Japanese garden
  
• My sister got "Kankles"
  
• My mil is in love with Montreal
  

Stay tuned for pictures!!!!! Hundreds of them! :-D

Words of wisdom from a three year old

Raffae broke one of his crayons this morning. When I tried to peel the paper away to get to the broken end, he screamed "Mommy, you can't peel it! It's not a BANANA!!!!" :-D

The Awful Truth

I went to the doctor last week. The assistant who came to check my pulse, blood pressure etc asked how tall I was and I said 5’2”. She looked at me and said lets measure you. I stepped under the measurement tape with a little smirk on my face. Then she said “Well, you are actually 5’ 1.5”. I guess you always round it up.”

Three things:
1) I swear on my kids I don’t remember rounding it up! My sister and I used to measure ourselves a lot growing up to see who is taller. We were always just about the same height and she always wanted to claim that she was taller. (She still is not btw). I know I am 5’ 2”
2) What does it matter even if I am .5” shorter? How does that affect my health?!
3) I guess I lied to Tanveer also. Baby, I am .5” shorter. Is that ok with you?

Friends

Anyone remembers my resolution earlier this year to get in touch with my friends? Well, I think I can safely check it off as DONE and it’s only May!!!!!!!!! :-) How it happened you ask? To begin with, I finally joined Facebook. (The average age of Facebook users also jumped up I hear the day I joined!! Hehehe…) An old high school friend found me from a group I became member of. Through him, I got in touch with two other friends! Saw their kids’ pictures, exchanged emails, even talked on the phone!

Couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a friend who saw my email address from another friend’s mass email and took the time to write to me. Glad to say, we are emailing each other regularly.

Then last week, I was in Dallas for work. I knew another friend from elementary days lives in Texas, but I wasn’t sure which city. Turned out she is in Dallas and I absolutely had to see her!!! Her kids are adorable. I’ll have to figure out how to post videos on here so I can show you the little dance number one of the kids performed for me!!! From my friend, I got the phone numbers for two other friends. I was able to talk to one of them and I am planning on calling the other one soon.

Remember that little rhyme that goes:

Make new friends
Keep the old
If these are silver
Those are gold

Whoever coined that rhyme knew from experience what he/she was talking about. Old friends are the best. I met some of these friends after like 15/19 years and it felt like we never lost touch.

There is one other friend in Bangladesh that I need to get it touch with. That’s my next project.

I love Technology!!!!!!

I was surfing the web for a handheld vacuum for my car and I found this. What will they think of next?? :-D

On Pins and Needles again

Zoya’s Pediatrician called this morning. She has some new information from the health department and wants to run some tests to see if Zoya has this disorder which would explain all her past medical history. On one hand, this new one seems to fit her. On the other hand, this means taking her to the doctor’s office/hospital again and she soooooooo hates it. I don’t want to put her through any more than she already has been, but a definite answer would put to rest so many unanswered questions/self doubts. It would also mean we can help her more. I need to be strong for this.

My handsome little guy!!

Bangladesh beat South Africa on Saturday in World Cup Cricket! I can just see the ear to ear grin on all Bangladeshis!!! Here is my little Bangladesh supporter.






I had to switch the tshirt around because he got upset that he couldn't see "Bangladesh"! :-D

Future Bollywood Star??

Amazingly I speak English even though I am brown skinned!!!!!!!!

As I was getting into my car this morning, a school bus came and stopped right behind me. The driver, an older white woman, slid open the window, said “Excuse me”. As I turned towards her, she looked at me, hesitated for 5 seconds (She really did, it was quite obvious) and then asked me “Do you speak English?”!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was leaving for work. I was dressed appropriately for work. I had my laptop bag on my shoulder. There was no way I could have been mistaken as a maid or a nanny or whatever else she thinks brown skin people do.

At the time I thought it was quite hilarious! She wanted to know where the Elementary school was. I gave her directions and we were both on our way. Then I started thinking about it and got more and more upset! I should have told her, “No, I don’t speak English” and driven away. I’ve had people tell me numerous times that my English is perfect or I speak English well! You know what?! I hate that too. Just because I am brown I am supposed to talk with an accent?! Arrrgggghhh!!

I know I am just ranting! Now let me go back to my work where I should get paid more since I have this amazing ability of speaking English even though I am brown.

He LOVES me!!!

Tanveer got me the Casino Royale DVD yesterday knowing how much I lust after Daniel Craig!! ;-) How can you not love a guy who is that confidant about his own MoJo??!! :-P Funny thing is Tanveer and Daniel share the same birthday! What can I say! I like my March 2nd boys..... ;-)

Creepy Helicopters

I woke up at 5:00 this morning and couldn’t sleep anymore. So I thought I’d get to work early and maybe put a dent on my to-do list. Well, traffic was worse than usual which is saying a lot as you might or might not know that DC area has the second worst traffic in US!! Heard on the radio that there was an accident ahead of me, which explained the traffic jam. As I neared the accident scene, I saw two news channel helicopters hovering over the accident area. That just creeps me out. Does it bother anyone else!? They make me think of vultures somehow! I see those helicopters a lot during my rush hour commute since all the news channels are now into "bringing you real-time traffic news". I just can’t get used to them somehow! I think because when I see them, I know there is something bad going on, and that translates to my dislike of them. Needless to say, despite my efforts, I still got to work late and now I am dragging since I woke up so early today! I just can’t win!

Raffae

Raffae wrote his name and Zoya's name without any help or guidance the other day!!!!!! Keep in mind he is only three and a half years old!!!! Couple of weeks ago, I noticed he is trying to spell anything and everything. We got him some books and things where he could trace the letters. As you can see he has been practicing diligently!! I am sooooooo proud of him! My baby is growing up so fast!