Pack Like an Egyptian

 

 

Yesterday, we happily decided it is time to head back to Egypt for a few weeks. Next month.

 

That means we have just a little over 30 days to:

• Apply for and receive Siraj’s passport
• Obtain travel visas for myself, Ismaeel, and Siraj
• Double check everyone’s status re: travel shots
• Review travel advice for Ismaeel & Siraj
• Buy weather appropriate travel clothing and shoes for everyone
• Buy enough formula, organic baby food, diapers, Pull-Ups, and wipes to last the entire trip
• Buy a travel crib for Siraj and a portable DVD player for Ismaeel
• Transition projects at work
• Remove the old photos from my SD Card
• Wax nostalgic about the wide angle lens for my camera that I still didn't buy
• Upgrade our mobile data plans to allow for international roaming
• Get Ismaeel one last haircut before we go
• Pack, pack, and pack

 

As usual, it will be a hectic month ahead and I am considerably daunted to travel with a busy toddler and mobile infant but know that our family vacation is long overdue. We miss having breakfast together in our Cairo apartment and are already counting down the days until we can introduce little Siraj to all of his Egyptian family.

 

Wish us luck for a safe and sane flight!

 

Bite This

("Happy teeth, when your smiling" by Anthony Falbo)

The incisors are here! After suffering with swollen gums for the past few months, Baby Siraj finally woke up with two little jagged edges of white enamel as his official debut into the biting and chewing world.

Congratulations Siraj!

I spend a lot of time thinking about teeth. I have my own tea-stained set to clean and every once in a while, worry about grinding them which, of course, only causes me to gnarl and gnash them even more. Each morning and night, I help Ismaeel to brush his and plead with him to please stop eating the paste. And for little Siraj, I have been keeping frozen teething rings and biscuits at the ready fervently wondering when his will come.

So far, perfectly normal, right? Not quite. Something about teeth really freaks me out so these daily little moments of dental hygiene are just gateways to a casually obsessive netherworld of teeth neurosis. I am grateful that I had a cavity-free childhood but after a cleft palate repair, two teenage stints with braces, and a root canal (related not to an infected tooth but an unexplained abscess in my cheek bone) – I prefer to minimize the frequency of professional hands in my mouth. While it is not full on odontophobia, a dream about teeth breaking or falling out will haunt me for weeks. I find the idea of porcelain veneers, teeth jewelry, and custom hand-painted teeth tattoos horrifying. And don’t even get me started on knuckle dusters with three human teeth. Seriously.

I don’t really think I am alone. And even if I am, at least I can embrace my shortcomings and know I can never become a dentist. In the meantime, it is a delight to see Siraj bobbing up and down with his little twofers covered in droll.

I just pray I don’t spend the next few weeks having nightmares about my own.

Sick Daze

I felt it brewing yesterday but tried to ignore it. Today, there is no denying it. A good ol’ fashioned summer fever and sinus infection have reacquainted me with despair and fatigue. Oh, if only I could embrace them.

For now, I’ll just let the room spin and my head throb to its own delirious beat. Until… Siraj cries himself awake, needing a clean diaper, and hungry for food. I ignore the pulsating sunlight and hold onto him while I stabilize myself against the side of his crib. Sometimes, if I am quiet and don’t turn on too many lights while I tend to him - he will promptly fall back to sleep. However, this soon became not one of those quiet dawns when Ismaeel cheerfully bellowed his own good mornings and urgent requests for apple juice and a cereal bar. Still in potty training reinforcement mode, I take Ismaeel to the bathroom while also holding Siraj. I am using all of my available energy to not fall down. Maybe I can use one of my lazy-no-good-mother cards and turn on the TV for them while I sneak back to bed. But this is Monday. There is no such thing as mercy.

I soon start packing and ironing all of our requisite items but the thought of coordinating pants and trouser socks for myself nearly put me over the edge. If nothing else, today is a flip-flop day. I email a note about my absence from work and finish packing the boys along their merry way. My husband touches my forehead confirming my (starting to slightly taper off) fever while Siraj and Ismaeel look bewildered that such a state prevents me from going with them. I wave my (still dizzy) goodbyes as they get into the elevator and bask in the quiet until I open my eyes and see the horror that used to be our home.

More cereal bar crumbs than usual have found their way into the fibers of our living room carpet. Apple juice and fingerprints have made an eerie and opaque fog on our glass coffee table. There are toys (that I didn’t even know the boys had) spilled throughout the floor. The kitchen counter is overflowing with pantry items that we bought over the weekend but didn’t yet put away. And most frightening of all, is the backlog of laundry (in desperate need of pre-treating) that might just swallow me alive.

I desperately wanted to sleep but knew the mess around me would only find a way to multiple during my slumber. And so, I started the laundry, scooped up the toys, sprinkled the carpets with deodorizer, wiped the table clean, and tackled the kitchen cupboards. In order to make space I needed to get rid of the older items in the back of the cabinets. I found myself throwing out more than a couple of boxes of expired brownie and cake mixes. Feeling like an inadequate and failed baker, I soon found myself trying to compensate by making a quick batch of orange halal jello for Ismaeel.

Somewhere throughout the day, the house got cleaned, I got showered, some schoolwork was finished, the boys were picked up from daycare, and I head out to my last class of the summer semester. My eyes are still bleary, it is nearly impossible to speak without coughing, and my whole body aches. What really bothers me most is wondering just when exactly is a good time to start taking care of myself.

For now, the answer seems to remain - not quite yet.

Two Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

("Watermelon" by Claudia True)

Happy 8-Month Birthday Baby Siraj !!!

At 8 months, Baby Siraj smiles each time he wakes and proudly stands and squeals in his crib to be picked up. He is still committed to drinking 40 ounces a day in addition to downing a small bowl of cereal, a cup of yogurt, and a jar of pureed fruit. And of course, the occasional ice cube. The extra meals have finally enabled him to keep pants sized 6-12m on his still slender waist. And as for other milestones, we are all eagerly waiting for his bottom teeth to make an appearance. However, despite the noble efforts of his swollen gums and little flash of white peeking underneath - it looks like he won’t be able to claim the same 8 month birthday dental glory as his big brother.

My husband, exhausted from working late the night before, went to our bedroom to read the paper and fell asleep before even deciding which section to read. I turned off the bedroom light and went back to the living room to finish birthday celebrations with the boys. Something about July watermelon on a humid day seemed like a great idea. Something about the consequences of giving something so sweet to an infant and toddler before bedtime escaped my consciousness…

Let’s just say they loved it. Let’s just say even Siraj, the baby who craves consistency and complains if we deviate from his regular routine, was jumping and giggling with Ismaeel close to midnight. I was grateful my husband was so tired and couldn’t see or hear the mayhem of little Cheech and Chong. As I hurried to change the sheets on Ismaeel’s bed, being eager to sleep myself, I soon regretted passing out the watermelon to the sugar junkies. But only for a fleeting moment.

Who am I kidding? I am always tired. Why not just embrace this? And so, I let Ismaeel tumblesalt and belly flop on his mattress until his sides hurt from laughing. Siraj giggled to watch the toddler acrobatics and eventually toppled over in his own happy slumber. Ismaeel helped me clean up the kitchen and we grabbed his GloDoodle to practice his letters in the dark. I was about to draw Capital G and noticed that Ismaeel was already blissfully snoring away.

Bedtime was much later than usual but I think we all needed some respite from the usual nighttime parade of tears. I promise to hold on to this thought when tomorrow’s alarm sounds and we are all missing those extra moments of sleep.

Surely, laughter is more precious. Or so feebly say, the sleep-deprived…

Guilty Thursday

From his lazy months in utero to his quiet newborn slumbers – Siraj has always been a sweet and gentle baby boy. Even as I texted (from my hospital bed) about his arrival - my first descriptions always included the words “kitten-like”. But this doesn’t mean that he isn’t a fierce and wily one too.

Each and every morning, Siraj fights me as I try to put a shirt over his head. Pants require me to practically kneel upon his chest to get him to stop rolling over. And please, don’t even ask me about socks or shoes. His little feet are actually two shades tanner than the rest of him because I don’t even bother anymore. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t scream – he just wiggles and turns to the point you start considering just how necessary infant clothing even is. But I push onward and hold him down tight like I have captured some slippery little alligator. He giggles, Ismaeel guffaws, I sweat, and my husband watches the ticking clock. As Siraj gets a little more mobile - our morning routines take that much longer.

So, when I picked him up from daycare and saw a horrific bruise all over his tiny little wrist – I immediately blamed myself. What is wrong with me and how sleep deprived am I to hold him so tightly? How could I leave such a mark? Am I really this burned out? How did I not notice this in the morning? But wait…how could I hurt him like this and he didn’t even cry? Did he fall and is just bruising too easily? What could that mean? Why didn’t anybody else notice this? Of course, I asked if anything happened to him during the day but nobody saw or heard anything. There was no incident report to fill out so I can only assume this happened “on my watch”.

The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. I keep re-playing the morning and can’t think of a single time that he could have been hurt. I know he didn’t have this bruise when I bathed him. I know no one would intentionally hurt him and with the exception of my rushed shower I was with Siraj the whole accident-free time. If you were to look at his purple and red wrist – you would think it was broken. And yet, he isn’t bothered when I touch it and is still happily crawling all over the place with full pressure on it.

I scoop him up (before he can hit his head on the glass coffee table) and apologize again for the thousandth time as I put him in his high chair. Even though I am sickened to my stomach I have become this oblivious bullying monster, I still need to make some dinner for Ismaeel.

Despite not having any teeth, Siraj is desperately hankering for food. As a compromise, I give him ice cubes in the mesh safety of a Sassy Teething Feeder. He loves this. He loves to hold it on his aching gums or to simply smash it against his food tray. And lately, he likes to throw it across the room with gusto. And just as my hands are covered in raw egg – he tosses it down to the floor and lets out a happy shriek for it to be returned. I call for Ismaeel to help and before Big Brother can decipher my directions – I catch Siraj taking matters into his own hands. Or should I say his bruised wrists...

Apparently his teething has gotten so bad he has taken to gnawing on his own wrist as if it was an ear of corn on the cob. Oh my poor suffering baby, you have no idea how relieved I am! What a wonderful day it is indeed when you find out that your infant son likes to give himself a hickie.

Phew! At least now my only crime is not having enough teething rings pre-chilled in the freezer. And now that I am not a delusional and abusive mother I can get back to focusing on my regular guilt list...

An Upright World

While everyone around us put on their bathing suits and headed towards the beach, my husband and I were more than happy to spend the day on our couch in the comforts of our AC. That’s not to say that a toddler and an infant let us spend any time relaxing. Still just the thought of lounging around in our pajamas seemed like a perfect way to savor the last bits of a long weekend. We aimed for some quiet cleaning of the house and our emails while we offered Ismaeel a Pixar movie marathon. Bored of his film collection, Ismaeel pleaded with me to Swiffer instead. While I can appreciate his offer, I can’t help but wish his aim under the couch were just a tad more efficient… And so the day was quickly filled with email filtering rules and household cleaning products. You would think it would be an uneventful day. You know, one not worth blogging about. But the boys always know how to keep things interesting.

Siraj refuses to believe he is 7 months old. While he can’t pronounce any recognizable words beyond “dada” and “hey”, he is more than capable of expressing himself in a hodge-podge of giggles, grunts, raspberries, shrieks, and squeals. He is starting to hold his own in territorial exchanges with Ismaeel and is putting away more food than his big brother could keep down at 1 year. So you would think we would see this coming. But we didn’t. And neither did our baby-proofing-to-do-list.

Today, Siraj decided crawling is for babies and started standing on his pipsqueak legs. I love my sweet baby boy dearly and in my big brown motherly eyes think he is absolutely gorgeous. But weighing in regularly at 10th percentile, Siraj is an itty-bitty one. With the exception of his long legs and mature face, Siraj is tiny enough to be easily mistaken for a 4 month-old. So even I find it disorienting and surreal to see his little thighs holding himself up. My husband even asks if Siraj could stunt his bone development by standing too early. But there he is - smiling and squealing away as he clutches and drools on the glass coffee table. The very same table that I just Windexed. And the very same table that Ismaeel held on to before he spun around and bit through his lip so badly that he needed half a dozen stitches at 13 months. Just as my husband and I start to panic about another accident waiting to happen – we laugh to remember that Siraj doesn’t have any teeth. But we still have plenty of wood floors and sharp corners to worry about. So we start panicking anyway…

We’re thrilled to see Siraj thriving but are completely overwhelmed that he has become so mobile so quickly. I have already spent a morning completely reassembling his high chair since his happy jumping for yogurt routine loosened all of the screws. And what good is a bouncer that holds nearly 30 pounds when at 15 he is able to turn around and use it as a springboard to propel himself towards the couch?

Not to mention, having a toddler in the house means toys with little pieces everywhere. So, should my husband become the LEGO-hunter while I frantically forage for leftover shipping materials to make styrofoam nests on the edges of our furniture? While we hurry to make things safer for Siraj should we ask Ismaeel to take over the cooking? He is after all doing a fairly decent job dusting. Sadly, Ismaeel can’t yet read recipes so we must embrace Siraj’s status as the second child and cling frantically to clichés that anything less than a baby proofed utopia will only make him stronger.

And so to continue our non-traditional celebration of the holiday weekend, we shunned thoughts of BBQ and ordered some Mexican takeout. There’s something about dipping a tortilla chip in guacamole to make you savor the last innocent moments of babyhood. Well maybe not. But we definitely savored the guacamole.

Welcome to the upright world, Siraj !!!

Home Disorganization

(West Elm)

Due to a generous maternity leave policy at work - I was very eager to fulfill many items off my nesting to-do list. One of which was to organize the boys’ closet before Siraj’s arrival. Hmmm. Let’s see… Siraj is about to turn 8 months and I am still working on this. Perhaps I should re-think my project management skills.

In my defense, I think I have made considerable progress. I spent my last trimester assembling shelves and drawer units courtesy of West Elm’s Bergen line. I bought collapsible canvas storage boxes, transparent shoe bins, Baby Buddy Blue Size-It Closet Organizers, and even little infant-toddler sized wooden hangers. And yet my husband is still quick to point out that I can’t seem to get it together. Inside the clothes are intended to be sorted and there is a designated section for blankets and a month’s supply of baby wipes, infant diapers, and toddler Pull-Ups.

But this just isn’t enough. It comes down to having too much stuff. You would think having two boys should make things hand-me-down-easy but it is a bit daunting to manage and rotate the various clothing sizes. Ismaeel is wearing size 4T-5T and Siraj is still waffling between 3-6m and 6-12m clothing. For those of you unfamiliar with baby clothing, here is a list of the sizes I am busy sorting and holding on to: newborn, 0-3m, 3-6m, 6-12m, 12-18m, 18-24m, 2T, 3T, 4T, and 5T. As if 10 different sizes aren’t hairy enough, Big Brother was born in June while Little Brother came along in November so nearly every piece of Ismaeel’s clothing is now out-of-season for Siraj. Let’s just say Siraj is always fashionably layered.

So my current aim is to purge and donate anything “non-core” that doesn’t fit into the canvas box for that particular size. So anything stained, with too much pile, or worn out knees is out. However, this still leaves me with more than I should be keeping. I blame OxiClean for not leaving me with more soiled clothing. But seriously, why is this so hard? Why is it heart-wrenching to consider giving away their itsy-bitsy footie jammies? And so my inner-hoarder keeps trying to hold on to what should just be charitable goods.

Granted things are no longer an indistinguishable heap on the closet floor but if you look closely there are still micro-collections of laundry spill-over throughout the house. And so today was the perfect opportunity to avoid the NYC heat wave by hiding inside the air conditioned comforts of home organization. Ismaeel was very eager to “help” which created all sorts of new nap-less tantrums. Still I let him assist by throwing away an unnecessary collection of extra plastic hangers. But after a bit, we got hungry and decided the afternoon would be better spent cuddling over lunch and watching “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”.

In the meantime, the closet is still not quite Better Homes and Gardens perfect.

And to the boys’ closet, I say...

“I know. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m trying to make this right. I really am. Tomorrow, that is...”

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For…

While it is hard to see Ismaeel’s babyhood fading fast – it is thrilling to see him mature into a wonderfully exciting little person with his own ideas. Granted, his best thoughts involve some sort of dessert or monsters with terrible great big claws but they are nonetheless his very own ideas.

Today, he asked my husband and me if we would like to share ice cream with him. The image of him “treating” us to ice cream is simply charming on its own. However, compared to the dinner of leftovers we were trying to garner enthusiasm for – it was more than easy to agree that Ismaeel’s stroke of super-genius was the best detour home.

Rather than waste our time with Mister Softee we went straight over to Soho for the Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Truck. Seriously supercalifragilistically good. My husband and Ismaeel choose to share a double-scoop of chocolate in a bowl, and I went for peppermint & chip in a sugar cone. All the while, poor little Siraj stared at us with a sense of wide-eyed injustice.

I am a fierce ice cream purist. I could argue for hours unapologetically about how ice cream should be forever soft and never chewed. Even at home, I mash our ice cream to a creamy bowl of fluff before serving. So the whole premise of adding chips to peppermint should have negated the possibility of my order. But this is Van Leeuwen where organic peppermint is complemented by ultra-thin Michel Cluizel 72% chocolate chips. The chocolate nearly melts within the ice cream and certainly doesn’t need to be left behind as sugary chocolate grit in your teeth. Imagine a York Peppermint Pattie grown up as a refined frozen cream with an even cleaner and more natural mint. The sugar cone was perfectly crispy sweet and so good it seemed downright cruel not to let both my husband and Ismaeel try it.

They are already talking about the flavors (pistachio? hazelnut? strawberry?) that we will try next time. Though, I suspect Ismaeel will remain loyal to his sweetheart chocolate. The whole excursion was a refreshing end note to a warm summer day. If only every day was filled with such toddler spontaneity!

And now on to those uber-thrilling leftovers. Sigh…

Daddy-Oh !!!

Here's a not-said-enough-gratitude-list for my husband...

Thank you for:

• Sharing in the trust that our family would grow with God’s will.  
• Being so pleased to hear about both our pregnancies that you were in a state of pure disbelief for days. 
• Patting my back and still carrying on a conversation despite me kneeling during one of my many bouts of morning, afternoon, and evening sickness.
• Supporting me during each and every wild pregnancy craving. I know it was tough keeping the refrigerator fully stocked with lemonade and having to share in all those “I-must-have-a-tres-leches-doughnut-right-now” moments.
• Waiting patiently as I stood in (yet another) too-long line for the bathroom.
• Not only not fainting but being such a trooper during labor. No one delivers the perfect cup of ice-chips quite like you.
• Falling in love with Ismaeel and Siraj utterly and completely.
• Cherishing being able to nourish the boys by simply holding their bottles and stroking their hair.
• Being such a warm and compassionate father.
• Sleeping on the lambie rug next to the crib while Ismaeel fought to go to bed without his pacifier for the first time.
• Waking up with me at 4am just to enjoy listening to Siraj’s cooing.
• Staying up late to decorate the boys’ room with glow-in-the dark stars.  
• Buying a set of home theatre speakers so we can watch Pixar movies with the boys in surround sound. 
• Trying to help with the morning routine even if it means Ismaeel winds up with his shoes on the wrong feet.
• Letting me take two and a half years to build up enough nerve to have Ismaeel’s hair cut for the first time.
• Helping Siraj get settled into slumber while Ismaeel and I read “just one more” story.
• Introducing a voice of calm while the whole house seemed overwhelmed by the trials of potty training.
• Getting just as excited as Ismaeel does when a helicopter is nearby. 
• Cheering for Siraj’s early crawling skills even if it means we have to race to baby proof the house again. 
• Making sure the boys never miss a good night’s kiss.

Happy Father’s Day !!!

Black, Never Let Me Down

Other than to share the occasional link or video clip, I rarely update my Facebook status. However, I realize this is one of the fastest and effective digital communication tools at my disposal. And so today, at the height of my motherly and fashionable shortcomings – I felt it appropriate to broadcast the following:

Lesson Learned:  A mother of toddler and infant boys should never wear white. Never.

And here goes the whole sordid story:

Getting dressed in the morning is probably one of my least favorite activities. Truth be told, I miss my smaller sized wardrobe and pre-motherhood privacy to try on enough outfits until I am satisfied with my appearance. Instead, I typically grab whatever is clean and vaguely matches. And I try to look back as little as possible in the mirror. As I am easily bored with this technique, I save aside a few pieces of new clothing for particularly low self-esteem days. And so, today seemed like a wonderful day to bolster my confidence by stepping out in a brand new white cardigan. I remember buying it and thinking I have to remember not to drink cranberry juice in this one. Little did I know that Ismaeel would find a way to get tire grease and toddler fingerprints on my backside or that my poor new summer sweater would fall victim to Siraj’s spontaneous bout of intestinal mayhem.

Before motherhood, I never knew such messes were even possible. We are talking a serious comedy of errors here. And I am sure there are some sort of decency standards that preclude me from going into any further details. Basically, my cardigan was pristine until the world started to move and rumble in slow motion and the words soiled or ruined wouldn’t even come close to describing the aftermath.

Funny enough, I wasn’t really upset about it. While I hope that he stops touching grease to point out how messy tires are, I am pleased Ismaeel still enjoys giving me such heartfelt hugs. And little Siraj looked enormously refreshed after his own incident. What mother wouldn’t be relieved to know their baby shouldn’t be suffering from a tummy ache anymore?

Luckily, I still dress in layers and being in NYC means there are plenty of clothing stores within t-shirt walking distance. I am also particularly grateful that they are open before 10:00AM. I was soon flipping through the sale rack at Gap and was delighted to find several replacement cardigans in my size. However, just as I rejected pastel pink and was about to walk to the cashier holding light baby blue – I realized I didn’t want to watch history repeat itself. At least not today. So, I promptly stepped out of line, past the sale rack, and grabbed a full price sweater in black.

Oh, my sweet slimming, matchable, and stain-camouflaging black, promise me you’ll never let me down. You do, after all, cost twice as much...

Happy 7-Month Birthday Baby Siraj !!!

Baby Siraj's toes.

• At 7 months, Baby Siraj is pleasantly settled into the chaotic existence of NYC babyhood.
• He is wonderfully sweet and curious about the world.
• Despite his slender weight and lack of teeth, he is a voracious little eater who constantly tries to steal our table food.
• He attempts to keep up with his big brother’s exuberance by mastering the fastest crawl I have ever witnessed just to chase him from room to room.
• He will happily and intuitively play with anything given to him but has a particular weakness for trying to tear important mail.
• He is contemplative yet loves to be near everybody.
• Essentially the only time he cries is if we break eye contact or happen to walk out of the room at the same time.
• He knows his name and enjoys hearing it exclaimed when we discover he has created some sort of mischief.
• He is able to remain calm throughout the loudest of his friends’ tantrums and will partake in a full slumber in his crib as long as everyone kisses him goodnight first.
• He makes us consider ourselves lucky every day.
• And he is absolutely worth every bit of the constant fatigue, heartburn, and nausea that his pregnancy brought me.

Here’s to celebrating the special day by introducing some blueberry YoBaby organic whole milk yogurt to Siraj’s diet. Now if you could only see his delighted legs kicking and spinning wildly as the spoon comes near…

I Am Not a Pageant Mother

Today is Monday. This is the day where I not only race to early business meetings but prep the boys’ weekly supplies and lunches for daycare. Baby Siraj needs his lambie blankie, a clean crib sheet, a generous allotment of diapers, wipes, back-up clothes, and three bottles of his formula, oatmeal, and pureed fruits packed. Regardless of the menu, Ismaeel requires his own bag of “snacks” aka a full back-up lunch (vegetarian “chicken” tenders, cheese sticks, red grapes, strawberries, SIGG of organic chocolate milk, and a spare granola bar), his supply of just-in-case-clothes, and a handful of Pull-Ups. As if this isn’t enough – add the stress of prepping for Picture Day. Yes, Picture Day.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to dabble in digital photography. My beloved camera is a Nikon D90 but even this won’t guarantee a decent shot of the boys. There are indeed many aspects and challenges of parenting that people won’t admit to. Photographing a toddler and an infant together without someone breaking into fits ranks pretty high on that list. And this pertains just as much to the one behind the camera. Today, I figured I could let the professionals try their luck.

Ismaeel and I have been practicing his picture-day smile for the past week during each and every tooth brushing. So, all I needed to do was iron semi-coordinating outfits and get both boys to daycare stain and tear free. So far so good (as long as you conveniently ignore the part where I went to bed sometime after midnight and woke up four hours later to begin my Monday).

We let Ismaeel pose first and I was relieved he didn’t try to entertain the photographer with his “angry dinosaur” or “chubba wubba” routines. While his tendency to squint and over-smile made me want to shout something nearly-expletive-filled about our early morning and late night smile practice sessions – I quickly reminded myself: “I am not a pageant mother”, “I am not a pageant mother”, “I am not a pageant mother”, “I am not…”

The next few shots were of the boys together. We placed Siraj on the ground and asked Ismaeel to hug and hold him steady. While Siraj has already impressed us with his super-genius crawling skills at a mere six months – the task of sitting still reduces him to a mere weeble-wobble. He was absolutely perplexed that we were entrusting Ismaeel to hold him and kept staring at us with his little toothless mouth gaping wide open. I seriously broke a sweat trying to make him give us his usual happy-go-lucky grin - but no dice. If Siraj was smiling, Ismaeel would be busy sticking out his tongue or randomly poking at his own eye. At some point, you just have to cut your losses and promise to find these unscripted moments forever endearing.

We moved to Siraj’s solo pictures. Again, with no one to hold him – sitting alone was a major challenge. I think the best (upright) shot included a great big gummy smile but a chin full of his trademark drool. Go figure.

All in all, no one bled, cried, or fell so I consider the morning an overwhelming success. Now I just have to count down the days until the prints arrive.

Royal Flush

And so the cliché’s say, “motherhood is its own reward” and in general this is true. But after successfully potty training a defiant toddler, I think I deserve something more than just a pat on the back. I’m not looking for anything expensive. Just a mere token to tell the world that I am a survivor. Perhaps an embroidered toilet badge that I can wear proudly on my sleeve or a jeweled brooch in the shape of toilet paper. And, funny enough, if you google it – it exists.

("Toilet Paper" by LiciaBeads)

Surely, I should be given something like this (or this) to let people know that I have lived through so many months of torment.

Thankfully, Ismaeel has always preferred to wear a clean diaper and around 12-18 months he was definitely self-aware and able to communicate when he needed to change. But it was always after the fact. We bought board books and a BabyBjorn Potty Chair but he only liked to sit on it with his diaper and pretend to read. If you tried to get him to actually use it – he would burst into a fit of giggles and “no no no’s”. We took this as a clue that he was not quite ready.

So we spent the next few months reading up on other potty training techniques and trying to explain to concerned relatives that we were confident he will get the hang of it over time. But in reply, we just kept receiving (albeit well-intentioned) stories of so-and-so's child mastering elimination communication before the age of 1. It was hard to graciously smile and thank people for their “advice” while repeatedly hearing that we were failures or imagining that Ismaeel would go to college psychologically scarred and wearing Depends. And as we became pregnant with Siraj, there was an even louder urgency and extended family pressure to get our toddler out his diapers. Not to mention, Ismaeel was already wearing the largest available size of Pampers. The crux of the argument was that it would be easier on me to not have to change two children in diapers. Perhaps this was true but I don’t know if anyone could appreciate how many times a day I was already kneeling down on the tile floor with nausea. Did I really want to spend another minute in the bathroom trying to build up the merits of flushing with my toddler?

I just simply couldn’t do it. Maybe if I wasn’t pregnant it wouldn’t have seemed like such an uphill battle - but I was and it did. Even though daycare tries to introduce potty time around the age of 2 – neither Ismaeel nor his friends seemed to have grasped the concept yet. I felt daunted to spend energy on something that would unravel during the day because there was no peer pressure or consistency. After a long day of work and school, I just couldn’t ignore the need to make dinner or start the laundry to be yelling about bodily functions and bathroom habits. I just tried to relax and let his friends take the lead.

Within a few months, the girls were considered potty trained. At this point, Ismaeel was now embracing his “individuality” and a new state of radical defiance. We felt we definitely missed a sweet spot but also knew we couldn’t have done anything more or earlier. And once Siraj was born and settled into a manageable routine - we began “no mercy potty training boot camp” at home.

It started with a loud declaration from my husband that “we don’t change poopy diapers anymore”. Ismaeel and I were both stunned by his serious tone while my husband tried not to giggle over his out-of-character stance. We also enlisted the help of Mitchell, a Build-a-Bear Friendly Frog wearing his own white briefs. Productive moments on the toilet received a new sticker to be placed on Ismaeel’s calendar. And while we bought backup supplies of Pull-Ups and Kandoo Flushable Wipes, Ismaeel was especially thrilled to receive his first pack of big boy underwear and use the bidet. We didn’t leave or enter the house without using the toilet first. Once we repeated the routine a few times, the stickers seem to multiply, and it became just another comforting toddler ritual. So far, so good.

Indeed, there were a few moments of horrific non-compliance and a lot of Resolve but we made it to “officially potty trained” before Ismaeel’s 3rd birthday. Granted, having only one child in diapers is definitely helping with the family budget but the issue of convenience is debatable. Absolutely, it is more hygienic for Ismaeel to use the toilet but the amount of time it takes to assist him only aids the years of my youth from circling the drain of our porcelain throne. Likewise, the whole netherworld of navigating public restrooms in NYC provides enough fodder for an entirely different blog post.

But today, I’ll just bask in the long-awaited success of telling people he’s gloriously out of diapers. Consider my back patted.