The Day You Realize

So, leave it to me to be the person who writes only one blog post in over two weeks and then decides to break the dry spell by writing two posts in one day. I just figure if you’re going to do something you may as well take it to some sort of extreme.

But I digress.

In addition to not writing for a couple weeks I also haven’t read much blogdashery in a couple weeks either, so I feel like I’m emerging from some sort of blog-free cave. It seems like the rest of the world didn’t shut down over the past two weeks like I did. WTF, people. How am I supposed to believe the world revolves round me if everyone else doesn’t collapse into a heap when my sinuses are trying to kill me and I’m having trouble getting out of bed in the morning?

Oh wait. I digress again.

Back to the point. So I was catching up on one of my favorite families on dooce® where I discovered that Marlo is now sitting in a high chair, and that’s when I remembered. Isn’t it weird how some things in life sort of dawn on you in a way where you can actually remember the moment of realization? It happens all the time when you’re a child. You’re learning so much every day and everything is so significant. It seems so significant that moment you realize that letters are sometimes silent, for example. Or the moment you understand the concept of perspective. Or any of those other Eureka! moments in life. These moments are fewer as you get older, but they seem to increase in number once again when you have children.

When Azita was a baby we strove to make sure that we still made it out and about as we did before. When we would stop for a bite to eat, I would sit at the table with Azita in her sling. Gradually she got bigger and bigger and most dining tables and booths got to be a tight squeeze. And every time we’d walk in I would get weird looks when I turned down the offer for a high chair.

Then I had the moment. The moment where I realized that Azita had been able to sit up unassisted for months. Hell, she was already crawling and cruising. She was even sitting in the little kids chairs at daycare. She can probably sit in a high chair, too.

Whoa! It seems silly and pretty dense right now, but it sort of never occurred to me until then. About three months after the task was probably possible. It was a revelation though. It felt akin to the moment I realized that “know” was not pronounced “ka-no” or when I realized that I was also made of cells, just like all the plants and bugs I looked at under my microscope.

Since then I’ve had a dozen of those moments, and I have to say they’re pretty awesome. It’s like you regain one of the very best things from childhood, but you can experience it with the insight and experience of adulthood. It’s yet another reason I insist that parenthood is just the right dosage of youth needed to chase away old age.

No Comments

zahra, April 15th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

A Few of My Favorite Things

Every day as Azita grows older, she grows a personality that amazes me. My little girl has personality in spades, and she’s funny. Seriously. She has a sense of humor. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a look in her eyes when she does something amusing. It’s the way she smiles kind of crooked. You can tell she knows she’s funny and the power that gives her.

So, with that said, here are a few things that make me laugh. My favorite things. The things that make it impossible for me to not pinch her cheeks and smother her with kisses.

  1. Azita coughs a lot. It turns out she may actually have asthma, which isn’t funny. What is funny is that she passes gas every time she coughs. Loudly. And the best part is that she smiles her toothless smile and toddles along as if she didn’t just make the funniest sound ever.
  2. Azita loves to dance, and she does it all the time. It’s cute, but you know what’s funny? When Azita does something new or something she’s a little proud of, she dances a little jig. And it’s the funniest jig you’ve ever seen. She stands up on her tippy toes and starts stamping her right foot to an imaginary beat as her torso kind of jerks to and fro.
  3. Azita is as clumsy as she is daring, so she falls a lot. When she first became mobile, I was a wreck. Then I realized that I imagined it hurt far more than it actually hurt her. How do I know this? Because when she falls or has some other accident she says “Whoooooaaaaa”, laughs, and gets right back up, usually bolting across the room. It’s adorable, and not just because she says “Whooooooaaaaa”, but also because she falls with the comedic style and timing of Lucille Ball.
  4. Azita’s appetite can be pretty spotty, but when she gets hungry boy does she get hungry. Have I mentioned that she inherited her mother’s propensity for sporting a food baby. And she really, really sports it. When she gets up from her booster chair she thrusts her belly out and wobbles around, clearly off balance from the drastic change in her center of gravity. When I’m at work and missing her or just having a bad day, I close my eyes and picture her with her little belly pregnant with food and I can’t help but laugh.

No Comments

zahra, February 8th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Inventing My Past

I was talking to my mom this weekend and like every other conversation I’ve had with my mother she went on at some length about the fact that I was a colicky baby and did nothing but cry for the first 6 months of my life.  I am not exaggerating when I say “every other conversation.” Seriously. Ever. Single. Conversation. This is especially true now that I am also a mother.

Somehow, I think my mother thinks I can sympathize with her now. In a way I can. After all, these past few days the existing agony of teething has been compounded by the cold that Azita has been suffering through. Like most of the colds she’s caught in her short life this one has come with a hoarse, rattling cough and a touch of wheezing. Our nights have been sleepless, and the daytime hours we spend with her are marked with plenty of crying and fussing and demands to be held constantly.  It’s not the most pleasant moment in the annals of our parenting history to say the least.

But don’t get me wrong. I do not mind this. In fact, I almost like it.

I may have mentioned this before, but when Azita was first born Roger and I spent many weeknights walking the warm hallways of one of our local malls. We desperately needed to get out of the house, but we couldn’t walk outside in sub-zero temperatures with a newborn. So, off to the mall we went. Mostly we window-shopped and talked, but occasionally we stopped in a store that captured our interest. One of these nights we stumbled upon the nicest salesman while we were admiring an armoire at his store. He was a father of 5 children, ranging from 7  to 25 years of age, and he reminisced so fondly of the days when they were babies like our little one. And, he shared the best piece of wisdom ever shared with me by another parent (especially a random one I had just met). He told me to savor every moment of that time with her.

It is true that others have told me this, but it was what he said afterwards that really rang true for me. “Even when I was up all night with my children, I felt like that was my special time with them. Time I wouldn’t have otherwise.” He is so right.

Being a parent is hard. Everyone knows this whether they are a parent or not. Maybe we don’t realize just how hard it is until we become one ourselves. But we have to remember we signed up for the task. Yes, there are times when I want to complain about Azita. She can be the biggest pain in the ass. I won’t lie. But, she is also the best thing to happen to me and my favorite person in the entire world. No matter what, the good she brings into my life outweighs any of the annoyances that come with it.

Maybe my mother doesn’t feel the same way about me. I don’t know, and I really don’t feel like asking her. Some things are best left unknown. But when I hear my mother complain, 36 years after the fact, of how incessant my crying was or of how I gave her permanent back pains because I wanted to be held so much or of any of the many other annoying things I’m sure I, like every other person, did when I was a baby, I get just the shot in the arm I need. 30 years from now, I want to remember all the wonderful things about this time. Just like the fellow I met at the mall, I want to feel nostalgic and happy about this part of my life. To get that, I need the right attitude now.

I’m convinced that our view of the past is always informed by how we viewed it when it was the present. If I focus on the negative aspects of my life right now, that will be what I remember in my old age. And I don’t want that. I want to live in a haze of rose-colored history when I’m ripened and wizened, and the good thing is, it’s completely within my power right now to make that happen.

P.S. I am once again participating in NaBloPoMo , so expect to read a lot more from me in the coming weeks.

5 Comments

zahra, February 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Giving a Better Life

Recently I was reunited with one of my sisters, with whom I’ve been somewhat estranged in one form or another for  much of my life.  The past couple of years have been maybe the most desolate in the wide expanse of arid land that is our relationship. We had no contact during this time, and I’m not even sure she knew I was pregnant and had a daughter. Well, a few weeks ago she reached out to me, and I reciprocated. We met up, and I got to talk and play and snuggle with her beautiful kids once again.

The most interesting part of our reunification though was that we actually talked for the first time in our lives. Really, I can’t remember a single time when we’ve had an actual conversation, where we not only exchanged words but the words actually sunk in. In the process I discovered that yes we are indeed very different people, but we have a lot more in common than I knew. We suffer a lot of the same issues, and we have some of the same feelings about how things went down in our lives. My sisters and I, no matter whether we are talking or not, will always have that bond.

While we walked about my neighborhood in the bone-chilling dusk air, I relayed some of the things that I guess I had tried to keep from her for my whole life. Being five years older than her and having an enormously different relationship with my mother than she did and currently does, my life and upbringing were different than hers. We didn’t get into details, but my sister acknowledged this and then she countered with THE thing — that thing that hangs in the air between us sisters and thickens our words. The thing that is always unsaid. Our mother was only doing what she knew. Her childhood wasn’t that great either. I don’t think any of us know the details, but we do know that her past was not so rosy no matter what the color of the glasses you wear when you examine it.

And that was that, at least for the night. What can I say to that really? I mean, you can’t blame someone for actions that are driven by someone else’s mistreatment of them, right?

Then I was working out. And I was feeling angry. Maybe it was because I was kickboxing, or maybe it was because it was only with the clarity of mind that comes during a workout that I could actually mull over my recent conversation and to think about it in the context of the rest of my life.

I remember growing up how my mother frequently talked about her impoverished childhood — the single pair of shoes per year. Only having bread for some meals. No warm coat of her own. And so on. When she had children of her own she wanted to give them a better life. She would always end by letting us know that if she had to scrub toilets to give us more, she would gladly do it.

Here’s the thing. Giving your children better and more doesn’t only apply to the tangible things in life. I was far from spoiled, but my life was a far cry from my mother’s hungry upbringing. We had enough money to be comfortable, but what my mother neglected to realize was that it was within her power to also give us a better emotional life than the one she was dealt. I can attest to the magnitude of the task she would have faced. I know how difficult it would have been for her. After all, I now have a child and I can definitely say that it is a daily struggle for me to fight my child-rearing instincts, which have clearly been twisted over years of abusive treatment.

I also know, however, that I will do anything in my power to give my daughter something different and better. I will make sure  she never knows what I know and that she never suffers the consequences. If I have to embrace a little humility and get professional help to do this, I will. And that’s the core issue here. Humility.

In the end, my mother’s pride took precedence over the needs of her children. She was unable to kick it to the curb and get the professional help she needed to break the cycle. To give us a better life. So while I can feel compassion for her, I don’t think I can ever truly forgive her. After all, I have to live with the consequences of her actions for the rest of my life. On the plus side, it is this fact of my life that will keep me committed every day to do better for Azita, and I guess that’s something to be thankful for.

3 Comments

zahra, January 18th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Stop Touching Me!

I can still vividly remember my childhood spats with my sisters. As is the case with many siblings, our worst fights were in the car. I especially had some issues with personal space. My sister still laughs at my nearly constant stream of “Stop touching me”, “Mom, she’s touching me.”, “Get away”, and repeat. Mostly she laughs because it turns out her eldest son has inherited my fierce protection of the invisible bubble that marks my personal territory.  I still don’t like it when people get closer than a couple feet from me — not if I know them (i.e., I’m not talking about all the family and friends who are reading this). I can’t help it. A need for space is ingrained in the very fiber of my being.

I know it used to annoy my mother. She probably still breaks into a cold sweat when she gets in her car. But this is just how kids are. I see my nephews and niece acting out in the same way whenever I ride in the same car with them. Kids are just not as good at handling conflicts with each other. They haven’t learned the ropes yet. (Who am I kidding? Adults really aren’t much better, are they?)

One of the few bright points to Azita being in daycare is that she is every day thrown into an environment with a bunch of kids, and she is therefore forced to start learning how to resolve conflicts with her peers. She’s clearly not there yet, since I hear daily reports of face slapping, hair pulling, shoving, and so on — not just by Azita, but also directed at her. I figure she’ll gradually get better as her verbal skills develop and she learns how to deal with situations using words.  But I know that kids will be kids, and anytime she’s in a room with another child she is likely to have a spat.

Every once in a while, though, she surprises me with a demonstration of love and kindness.

Azita and her cousin, Ali

Azita and her cousin, Ali

And the feeling I get from these moments could sustain me for days.

1 Comment

zahra, January 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Shabe Yalda

Right about now is when the whole NaBloPoMo commitment is wearing on me. Azita is not feeling well, I have a ton of work to get done before I take some time off (that is, if I don’t want to end up working through my entire vacation as I always do), I failed big time on the Christmas shopping this year, the snowpocalypse of 2009 has put a damper on all of my pre-Christmas preparations and on the getting work done before vacation thing…the list really doesn’t end. So, with all that said, my mind is feeling pretty dead right now. I can’t think of a damn thing to write, so here I am writing about the fact that I have writer’s block.

This cannot happen. So I started thinking about what’s going on in the world today. What could I possibly write about? Oh wait! All of the above misery has made time stand still in a way, and I completely forgot. Tonight is Shabe Yalda, the longest night of the year. In many ways, it is the Iranian holiday that speaks the most to me, although I shamefully never really celebrate it.

It is a night where people stay awake all night and celebrate, eating the last of the fresh fruit from the summer months. Clearly this is a holiday that caters to insomniacs such as myself. We are frequently awake all night, after all. There’s something to the night. Something that really speaks to me, and leads me to romanticize it.

I love the night. I love darkness. I always have. Even when I was afraid of “the bad man” — my mom’s version of the bogeyman — I still looked forward to the hours when the sun slept. I looked forward to this time, because I knew that I would be awake, unable to sleep. And I loved it. Sure insomnia can be infuriating at times, but usually there is something nice about being conscious when the rest of the world is sleeping. Everything is so quiet, and the darkness is so conducive to reflection. It is my favorite time to read. It was my favorite time to study when I was in school. It is my favorite time to work.

I think this is something I share with my father. As a surgeon who not only worked for the government but also had private practice, my father frequently did his rounds in the evenings. Just as frequently, he was on call at one of our area hospitals. Sometimes when he was called in to the hospital in the middle of the night, he would stop by my room on his way out to find me awake, reading or just thinking. And he would always invite me to come along. I never declined.

We would drive together to the hospital in the dead of night. The roads were always empty and tinged with that orangish glow imparted on them from the street lamps. It was such an adventure, and it was our time alone — to talk about politics, religion, philosophy, science, literature. All the things in which we shared an interest. It was a time when I felt the most like my father, and I have always relished the ways we were alike.

Then we would arrive at the hospital and we would walk the empty halls, the click-clack of our shoes echoing quietly. I’m not sure what it was about those nights, but they made me feel special and important. Here was the rest of the world sleeping, and I was awake, observing everything that people missed. It was like I was in on one of the world’s big secrets.

And tonight is a night for celebrating those secrets and the rebirth that occurs at dawn when the sun’s glow spreads, taking over the night sky, awakening the world from its slumber. What’s not to love?

So have a very happy Shabe Yalda my friends. And if you are still awake when everything and everyone around you starts to quiet down and go to sleep, I hope you take a minute to stop and take it all in.  To appreciate it. To realize just how special and magical those moments are.

No Comments

zahra, December 21st 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Culture + Stuff

All Grown Up

Azita is growing up way too fast these past few weeks. It seems like the first half of her first year moved in slow motion, and I liked it just fine that way. She was so tiny and so fragile and still so much a part of me. When she curled up on my chest to sleep the lines between us blurred, and we melded into a single person. My cousin recently announced his shock that she was a person. Not that she wasn’t a person before. But now she had a personality. She was more real.

I know what he means.

Two seconds ago, she was still very much an extension of me, and then she started walking.

AzitaWalking

Then she is drinking from a big girl cup…

AzitaSippyCup

and refusing to let me feed her. She not only wants to feed herself, but she wants to use a fork to do so, just like the big kids.

What’s next? Cutting her own food up into little pieces with a knife? Cooking dinner for the family? Running? Pole vaulting? Pumping iron?

Pumping Iron

Pumping Iron

I can feel her flying the coop already, and I can hardly stand it. Then night comes along and she snuggles tightly against me as she falls asleep. And there’s something about the feeling of her warm, milk-scented breath on my face that assures me that she will be a part of me forever.

No Comments

zahra, December 16th 2009 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Inheriting the Fun-damentals

When I was a kid the whole “Reading is Fun-damental” campaign was pretty much unnecessary for me, as were the summer reading programs where kids could earn a pizza or some other treat for reading a certain number of books. Or any of the other incentives adults came up with to teach children to make reading a habit. I loved to read. I still do. By the time I was in high school I would sometimes read up to 2 or 3 books a day. Yes. I meant “per day.” I’m not exaggerating.  One of my coworkers insisted that I must be lying about this statement. I’m not. I know you’re doing the math right now — how many pages per hour?

Well, I can read pretty fast. I actually read slower now than I did in high school and college. But I read so much because I quite simply couldn’t put books down. Once I started a book I had to finish it immediately. This means that I was frequently walking around with my nose in a book, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to stay up in bed reading only to discover that the sun was once again rising. Luckily, I have  always been able to survive on very little sleep (a trait that has been very handy to me as a mother).

One of my sisters also loves to read as much as I do. We both still read constantly, and many of our conversations revolve around what we’ve read recently. My other sister is so very different from us, however. She does not enjoy reading. In fact, she’s not really very good at reading and was nearly illiterate for most of elementary school. It is this fact that breeds internal conflict in me.

See, I love reading so much that this is the one trait of mine I deeply hope Azita will inherit. If she has no interest in science and math, I won’t care. I won’t mind if she does not inherit my musical ear or artistic capabilities. I could care less if she looks like me. I want her to be a reader, and I want her to love it. I want her to be intensely curious about the world around her and to want to read everything there is to know about it. It is this trait of mine that has not only made it just about impossible for me to ever get bored, but it has made it possible for me to learn quickly and adapt to almost any situation.

I once had a professor who professed admiration for the fact that I learned new things by throwing myself into the deep end and learning as I did. It is true that I do this, and the only reason I am able to do this is because I feel confident that whatever I don’t know (and I don’t know a lot) I can learn from what someone else has written. I lack confidence in myself so frequently, but it is my confidence in learning that holds me together and brings me any success I may have in life. I want Azita to always feel secure in this way. To know that the great unknown is not so scary, because it is learnable.

I desire this so much that I obsess about it. I watch her every action around books. How can I tell if she will love reading as my sister and I do, and not dislike it as our youngest sister does? I mean, we all grew up in the same  household, and yet we are so very different in this aspect. How much of the love of reading and learning is nurture?

I frequently talk to my sister about my fear that Azita will not love books. Considering that Roger and I both love to read, it may seem irrational. But until very recently Azita would not let me read to her. Books were things to rip up and throw and chew on. On rare occasions I could make it through a couple pages of Goodnight Moon or Olivia before she would lose interest, but those occasions were very rare. My sister assured me that my worrying was for naught. “Just exposing your daughter to books will teach her to love to read,” she said. I had my doubts.

Then, this morning as I was feeding Azita her breakfast, she leaned over the side of her booster chair and pulled her “Colors” book over so she could flip the pages as she ate her mangoes and waffles. She was actually eating with her nose in a book. Just like I did at the dinner table when I was a child. Maybe all is not lost after all. We may yet be a family that reads together.

1 Comment

zahra, December 13th 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Crossing my Fingers and Knocking on Wood

I believe in science and mathematics. If I have a question about why something is the way it is, I know science holds the answer. I’ll admit that I have a problem with faith in that I need a scientific explanation for everything, and I’ve just never been able to reconcile faith and science.  I’m definitely not the superstitious type.

So explain to me why motherhood has completely knocked the pragmatism out of me? Explain to me why I actually really believe that if Azita eats breakfast one morning when I happen to be wearing my blue pajamas with the red apples on them and I’m holding a squeaky toy with my left hand, then the way to get her to eat breakfast the next day is to wear the same pajamas and hold the same squeaky toy. With my left hand. At the same exact time as the day before.

Why has parenthood made me so superstitious? I really think it’s the desperation of being so utterly out of control over just about everything in your life just about every day of your life. Especially when it comes to getting Azita to eat or sleep or do any of the other things that, you know, keep humans, specifically my little human, alive.  It’s not that I really believe that any of these superstitious rituals will work. It’s just that it’s 11:30 on a Monday night, and I really, really need Azita to fall asleep so I can go to bed because I have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning tomorrow damn it. Or maybe Azita has refused to eat anything for 3 days, and I just know that next time she goes to the doctor they’ll tell me she actually lost weight and somehow grew shorter. Or Azita will not let me buckle her in to her car seat and I’m late for work but I obviously can’t drive her to daycare until she is safely protected against all the crazy drivers out there. Or she’s doing any of the fifty other things she does that I fear will damage her for life, and there is nothing I can do to make her stop.

I read the books. Books based on science. I know all of these things are completely normal. I know how to handle most of them, and I know that sometimes just riding these situations out is the only way to handle them. Still, what I wouldn’t give for some kind of ritual that would actually get Azita to eat or sleep.

1 Comment

zahra, November 19th 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Goodnight Kittens and Goodnight Mittens

Like my sister and me before him, my nephew Danyal has a tendency to be painfully shy. When we were children, my sister and I were so shy that it even took us a good half hour to an hour to warm up to our closest family members whenever we would see them. Even my aunt. My aunt who is basically a second mom to me. My aunt whom I saw several times a week, sometimes nearly every day. If that’s not shy, I don’t know what is. You wouldn’t know it if you met either of us today. We’ve managed to work on these issues in adulthood so that we are now passably sociable.

So, when my nephew reached an age where he could interact verbally with other people, I wasn’t exactly shocked that he was rather reticent to actually interact. Even with me, his aunt. I understood where he was coming from though and I didn’t push the issue even though I was dying to hug him and talk with him and play games.

I remember my first visit to North Carolina right after my sister and her family moved there. When I excitedly ran to my nephew for a hug after a long drive, he hid behind my sister’s leg. He stayed there for much of the day. The next day, as I sat on their couch looking through his favorite board book, Goodnight Moon, Danyal slowly crept over from the other side of the couch until he was sitting next to me. And when I asked him if he wanted me to read to him, he nodded his head up and down. If I had any doubt in my mind that I had made some headway, it was soon gone, right about when we got to “Goodnight kittens and goodnight mittens.”

When I flipped the page to say goodnight to the clocks and the socks, Danyal stopped me and pointed to the mittens. “Mittens,” I said. Then he pointed to the kittens, prompting me to say “kittens.” And again he stopped me as I tried to flip the page. We continued that way for some time, and spent many hours that weekend with him pointing to the page and me repeating, “Goodnight kittens and goodnight mittens.” And there you have it, the moment we bonded. To this day, Roger and I will without thinking say “Goodnight kittens and goodnight mittens” whenever we thinking of Danyal.

This past weekend we bought Azita her first copy of Goodnight Moon. Excitement was bursting up through my throat as we got through the first couple pages. Then “Goodnight light and the red balloon.” I’m really getting excited for the payoff now. I just know we’re going to have that moment. The “goodnight kittens, goodnight mittens” moment. Instead I had a little moment of truth. Azita is no Danyal. She’s a rambunctious 10 month old with the attention span of a flea. Instead of mittens and kittens I had baby laying on her belly across my lap, reaching for a dust bunny under the couch. So much for recreating a perfect moment.

One day, hopefully soon, Azita and I will get through the book in one sitting. And the lesson has been learned — when that day comes, it will be a perfect in its own way.

1 Comment

zahra, November 18th 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Family + Friends, Parenthood + Childhood
« Older Posts