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.

Loveless Motherhood

Before motherhood, I had no clue what to do with a baby. As the youngest of my immediate and extended family, I was never really around anyone littler than myself. I have never babysat nor held one without wincing or from the safe (but socially awkward) distance of a long-arm extension. I didn’t even know where to begin making those ridiculous googling noises in return. And their wobbly bobbly heads… I wondered why parents didn’t simply keep them home until their little necks were strong enough.

Thankfully, there was a wealth of resources to get up to speed during my pregnancy. My parents showed me how to place a diaper on Mitchell, my Fabulous Frog, with the warning that my own baby would not be as compliant nor still when changed. And essentially everything else came online. BabyCenter provided me with pregnancy tips long before I had to search for bathing instructions, growth charts, or vaccination debates. How to nurse and store my milk came from Medela. And scattered far and wide across the web, were endless product reviews to inform me about the various gear my baby simply couldn’t live without.

I was appreciative that so much information was available. I couldn’t imagine if I had to shamefully ask each and every one of my queries out loud. I took immense comfort in anonymously trolling through the messages of advice, exhaustion, pride, and even rage. I figured if I only read enough - I could muster the confidence to at least not drop my baby. The only lingering question was: would I be able to love him? Despite already relishing every little kick along my pregnant way, I feared that if I were to need a c-section I wouldn’t release enough oxytocin to properly bond. I feverishly worried I would be a cold and mechanical mother.

These ideas made my husband think I was insane. He thought it wasn’t possible to not love your own child. And he seriously couldn’t understand why I would waste energy fretting about this. I didn’t think it was so far-fetched. You feel a connection or you don’t. And even more frightening, if you don’t, there is no online tutorial to help. I imagine plenty of women suffering from post-partum depression (PPD) struggle to feel closer to their babies. How many of them would admit this to themselves let alone their families? Would I? Would I simply pretend to be a great and loving mother until the day I snap?

On June 14, 2007, Ismaeel was born on a sunny afternoon in NYC (without the help of an epidural or c-section). It was uncanny how much he resembled my own baby photos. We couldn’t stop staring into our matching brown eyes and as he clutched onto my pinkie with his entire little hand, I had no doubt that I deeply and truly loved him. I was relieved to see the same feisty moves from his ultrasound days and laughed that I didn’t realize I have known and adored him all along.

Still, I don’t regret my pre-natal paranoia. While I didn’t suffer from PPD or a lack of bonding with my son, I now realize motherhood will require me to put my ego aside, often and without hesitation. Even though there is plenty of online support, it doesn’t absolve me from asking for help or speaking to my partner about the things I fear and struggle with. I can only hope that embracing this newfound accountability will strengthen my marriage as much as the bonds between me and my sons.

And yes, even on the days I snap, I love them all without question.

Burger Time

I make a seriously mean burger. Are any other words even needed ?

Please see photographic evidence above and try to ignore the fact that yes, we are still enjoying the disposable luxuries of left over birthday party plates. I’m sorry Captain Planet…

With a home filled of ever hungry boys, it didn’t take long to realize making a bowl of cereal or a grand salad (with light dressing) for dinner just wasn’t going to cut it. The boys simply crave their meat. Even Siraj, who is only slurping down one pureed ingredient at a time, squeals and hollers to try a piece of steak. If only his toothless gums weren’t always in his way… But yes, I am handling more raw meat than I ever imagined - which is just another reminder that motherhood is not for the squeamish.

As for my burgers… While my spontaneous recipe is not in the archives of The Best Hamburger Recipes or Best Burger Recipes - I humbly offer it to those who are suffering from a less than burger experience (of their own doing).

We regularly buy our meat from a Halal butcher in Astoria so I start off with some pretty fresh and high quality chopped meat (often a mix of ground beef and lamb). I lightly season the ground meat with black pepper, garlic flakes, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, and an egg. I mix everything with my hands and roll into ball-like shapes. I am not overly-concerned with making them the same size nor perfectly round. The most important thing is that the meat is room temperature before I start grilling. On a non-oiled frying pan set to medium high, I place them down to sizzle, and touch them as little as possible. Before flipping them, I drizzle some balsamic vinegar to start creating a little gravy. My husband likes his meat well-done, but I still take his burgers out when they are warm and slightly red-pink. I do this because they will continue cooking from their own heat on the plate and if I left them on the stove they would get tough. As the meat “rests” – I make a gravy sauce by adding some mushroom broth and lemon juice onto the hot pan where the burgers just were. Once thickened, this is poured over the resting burgers. The burgers soak up the sauce while I lightly toast the hamburger buns with aged swiss cheese and roasted red peppers in my beloved DeLonghi Convection Oven. I place some feta cheese crumbles inside the toasted buns right before adding the oh-so-saucy burgers and they are ready to eat…

One important note is that Ismaeel sees absolutely no value in eating bread and will eat his burger bun-less and with a fork. So, don’t panic if you want to go anti-carb as well. It is all about the protein anyway…

Buon Appetito!

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...