Category: Family

What to do on a Snow Day

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I am sick today. And I sit here with a box of tissues, a bottle of hydrasense and a clove of burning garlic shoved in my aching ear. I am too sick to do anything but have random thoughts and watch boring shows on TV. Daytime television is bleh. There is more snow coming. “When the snows fall and the white winds blow…” the bus ain’t coming cause school is closed.

For Moms:

1. Make a huge amount of hot chocolate. Pour in a bottle of Benadryl. Give them as much as they like, they’ll all be out before you know it.

2. Send them outside and offer a ‘ten’ for every igloo they make. They’ll stay out of your hair the whole day. Then give them a dime for every igloo. What?

3. Send them over to Grandma’s. That is what parents are for. (Be sure to move to Florida after they get married and have their own kids.)

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For Kids:

1. Make your own hot chocolate.

2. Offer to make breakfast and let Mom go back to sleep.

3. Clean the house while Mom sleeps.

4. Take care of younger brothers and sisters while Mom sleeps.

5. Make chicken sandwiches for lunch, feed everyone, then clean up the kitchen while Mom sleeps.

6. Make Mom the best cup of coffee/tea ever and serve it to her on a tray with a flower in bed.

7. If you can’t manage all the above, take all your brothers and sisters and go over to Grandma’s. Stay there.

Any more ideas for the next snow day?

(All pics courtesy of moi taken on Feb 8)

by Categories: Canada, Family, Home, Humor, Life, Random ThoughtsTags: , , , 10 Comments

Ode to husbands

polar bear 084

Oh dear husband so loyal and true,
How do you manage to make me so blue?
Could it be all those rolled up, smelly socks
That is putting this extra gray in my locks?
Why do you so kindly offer to cook?
Then be cruel and not let me read my book?
I hand you every ingredient, chop everything up,
Then have to wash every pot, plate and cup.
You have to look after the kids too you know,
It’s not like I brought them in my trousseau.
Just how they drive me nuts, you have not an inkling,
As you sit in front of the computer screen blinking.
I think it is time you cleaned up your act,
Time to grow up as a matter of fact!
Your dirty laundry lying behind the bathroom door,
I ain’t gonna pick that up no more!
While I lug the groceries you let the door slam in my face,
I think I can arrange for your neck to be in a brace.
So become a gentleman or watch your back,
Before you find yourself tied to the train tracks.

(sketch courtesy of me-because every picture I googled was copyrighted :0)

by Categories: Family, Humor, Life, UncategorizedTags: , , 14 Comments

Black and white cats are awesome

Our cat, Patchy Patch, is so awesome. Most cats are. And she loves to jump. This is her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YxZorzMIcYE

My daughter put her video up on You Tube. She is the most adored member of our family and can get away with murder, but she is such a sweetie. She doesn’t have any Diva demands like many cats, she does not come and sit on my head at 6 a.m demanding to be fed but waits patiently for everyone to get up and then she wants to be petted first. Her stomach is her second concern not her first. The only problem she does have is falling into the toilet whenever someone forgets to put the lid down. Which is often.

No, this is not Patchy, I would not embarrass her by posting a picture of her at her worst. This is someone else’s cat I found on Google Images. How could anyone do that to their cat?

She is the subject of many photographs shot by my five-5-year-old, Twin 1, who knows more about my cell phone than I do.

I don’t know how Patchy manages to keep her patience with a persistent five-year old who continuously sticks a camera up her nose.

Twin 1 takes pictures of everything. She says she is going to be a cake decorator when she grows up. I seriously doubt it.

(Cat in the toilet is courtesy of Google Images the rest are courtesy of Twin 1)

by Categories: Blogging, Children, Desi Mom Eh?, Family, Humor, Life, Mothers, Pets, PhotographyTags: , , 3 Comments

It’s Always a Good Time

I yelled at the kids to go to sleep early one Saturday night in the summer vacation so we could get up early and be out of the house by eleven at the most. I woke up at 11:21. Everyone was up before me. No one realized that they could not actually leave the house if I was still snoring away. So I had to start yelling again as soon as I woke up. They just wanted to let me sleep in, isn’t that sweet? The day I need to wake up early, they finally let me sleep in. My kids make sure my vocal cords get plenty of exercise every day. The thing is I don’t really dream of being an opera singer.
After ranting about the height of negligence that my kids and their father have been endowed with, I started making brunch and packing picnic food. I had marinated the chicken the night before. Good thing I have an obsessive compulsive disorder with organization. Unfortunately this does not go good with my absent-mindedness. But that is life. Isn’t it ironic, don’t ya think?
Picnics are loads of fun with five kids. I pack enough stuff to make you believe I was going away for a month. 5-year-old twins mean you need lots of extra clothes and towels. You never know who is going to decide to get carsick. They’ve been trained to give a 5 second warning so I can catch it in a plastic bag.
So I make an Olympic record for the best time in the ‘make breakfast, feed kids, pack picnic, yell at kids to get ready, close all lids on toilet seats, feed cat, and push everyone out the door’ event. We get in the car and as soon as we are in the kids start fighting over seats. No one wants to sit at the back with the twins. I can’t blame them. Who the hell enjoys catching vomit in a plastic bag?
We had to stop to buy buns and drinks. And coal. And lighter fluid. Because husband does not have any sort of obsessive compulsive disorder and efficiently tunes out when I start listing off ‘things to do’. So I sit in the car while he buys stuff, and try to ignore the kids who are arguing about who will sit where on the way back. I receive a phone call from husband, “I can’t find the buns”.
By 1:45 we were sitting outside the second grocery store because husband could not find coal at the first. After 25 minutes he comes out smiling. Success. It took two people 25 minutes to find lighter fluid. We finally move on. On the road husband realizes someone’s door is not closed right. At the first red light we all open and slam the doors really fast, green light we drive on but one door is still not closed right.  Change radio station because no one likes the song. Yell at kids to stop yelling at each other. Next stop light, door open, door slam, door still not closed thank you ma’am. Kids still yelling at each other about whose door is not shut properly. Teenage daughter only has enough strength to hit her brother in the back of the head and that is all. For anything else her hands seem to have no life. Have to change radio station every two minutes. Husband wants to know why all the songs sound exactly the same. We pull into someone’s driveway and husband gets out to close the door shut.
Teenagers are now commenting on all the ‘swoggy’ people they see on the way. As if they are full of swag themselves. Change radio station.
At the lake finally, more bickering among offspring. Who will pick up what and why they get to pick up that particular object. Deciding on the perfect spot takes about 20 minutes, but by now I have started to tune everyone out. It is such a beautiful day. Warm and sunny. We are finally settled, I just want to get in that water. I walk in and my longed for peace is replaced with horror. The water is freezing. God dammit!
“We don’t even have to try it’s always a good time..O o o ..”
(All images are from Google Images)

 

by Categories: Blogging, Canada, Children, Culture, Desi Mom Eh?, Family, Humor, Life, Mothers, parentingTags: , , , , 12 Comments

Parents Just Don’t Understand

Sometimes after I have finished yelling at my kids, I wonder what it would be like to be in their place. Then my imagination goes a little wild and takes on different personalities, like a desi teenage boy. Here is an article I wrote for Dawn when my imagination was him.

Yo! You have crazy parents dude? Man I’m telling you they don’t understand anything. It’s like after 30 their brains stop working. And if your parents are Desi, man you have the worst type of parents ever! Desi parents? They speak desi, they think desi, they act desi, they spend desi. You can’t help but think “Yo old man why are we here? You should have kept us all in Desi Land!” And they tell you they came to give you better opportunities than they had. But man they can only think with desi brains and all those opportunities go out the backdoor. All my white friends, they don’t have it half bad. They’re lucky man. At least their parents speak the same language. Don’t believe me?

I had a pain in my tooth, had it for days man. Kept telling my mom I’ve got to see a dentist, you know what she tells me?

“Aye Allah! Who knows what that man will do to you putr! Here put this in you mouth.” Then she shoved a broken clove into my mouth and shut it so hard I almost bit my tongue off.

“This tastes like ‘bleep’ Ma!” And I tried to spit it out but she grabbed my face in her hands. Dude you won’t believe the hand muscles desi women develop from kneading all that dough!

She made me stuff cloves in my tooth for one month. Then the dentist told me I’d have to get a root canal. My old man wasn’t too happy about that. Not the pain I’d go through. The cost man! Dude, desi parents have desi wallets. Literally. My old man bought 42 wallets from his last visit to Desi Land. He got them off a thela for Rs45 each. That’s less than 45 cents. You can’t imagine his joy when he tells everyone he meets how much he saved on those wallets. You can’t imagine mine either. Anyways he tells the dentist,

“Just pull the tooth out! He doesn’t need that one much, he has plenty of others.”

“Mr Chaudry we need to eliminate the infection otherwise…” says the dentist.

“Otherwise what? No one will be willing to give their daughter’s hand in marriage to him?” says the old man.

That night he tried to pull my tooth out himself with a pair of pliers. Lucky for me I’m the only son and my mom beat him off with her rolling pin. Those desi wallets are like black holes, nothing ever seems to come out of them dude. Asking desi parents for money is like asking the cute white girl in your class to a high school dance with you. The answer is always ‘NO!’ Desi parents wait till Boxing Day to buy you stuff. Yeah they don’t give you the money. They take you shopping dude.

“Oh putr, look at this! 70 per cent off! And in your size too!” says Ma.

“Ma it’s got a picture of Justin Bieber on the front, everyone will think I’m ‘bleepin’ gay.”

“Tauba tauba! All that ‘bleep’ was not enough for you? Now this ‘bleepin’ stuff!” She’s least concerned about the Chinese couple who have covered their kids’ ears. “What is wrong with being happy? And he is such a decent boy, look at that innocent smile.”

“Ma! It’s something a kid would wear.” I try to drag her away.

“Are you not my kid?” The old man asks loudly and everyone in the shop turns to look questioningly at Ma.

“Man! Stop being so loud Dad, come on…” I try to drag them both out.

“No, this matter must be settled!” He glares at me then at Ma. “Is he not my kid?” By now there is a crowd wondering at my legitimacy. I pick up the Justin Bieber T-shirt.

“Alright! I love Justin Bieber and I want to buy his ‘bleepin’ T-shirt because I’m happy ok?” I scream and everyone gasps.

The seven dollar shirt hangs in my closet. Justin Bieber smiles at me every time I open the door to get the Rs800 Leisure Club shirt my cousin managed to send me with the old man.

by Categories: Children, Culture, Family, Humor, Life, Teenagers, Uncategorized, WritingTags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Thanks

Thanks Fortyteen Candles for nominating my blog for the One Lovely Blog Award.

No that is not the Award, this is:

And you don’t just get an award and then do nothing but be happy about it. There are some things you have to do.

1. Give credit to the person who nominated you. Which I have done.

2. Describe 7 things about yourself. Which I have not done. Yet.

3. Nominate 15 other bloggers. Which I suppose I should do. Even though it is Friday afternoon and I am feeling very lazy.

7 Things About Me

1. I need breakfast first thing in the morning. Other wise this happens…

2. I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder for putting things in the proper place. None of my children seem to have inherited this. They insist on inheriting all my husband’s genes. They will be sorry when they one day grow up and find their houses are on “Hoarders: Buried Alive”. And I will be watching and laughing in my spotless living room.

3. After I had kids I started using Mommy language. This consists of standard sentences such as :”who ate all the ice cream?” “who didn’t flush the toilet?” “who put the cat in the freezer?” as well as “no I don’t have money” “no I have not cooked anything else for dinner besides the four course meal on the table” “no you can’t use my lipstick”. And most commonly, ” I can’t wait till you have kids of your own!”

“who took my tweezers damn it?!”

4. I forget to close the lid on the toilet at night even after reading “Good Habits my Cats Have Taught Me” by http://misanthropology101.wordpress.com/.

And my cat falls in without fail.

5. I got my eyebrows threaded and no longer look that much like Russel Brand. But my daughter still calls me Russel. 

6. That is not a picture of my eyebrow. Mine are better.

7. I don’t really care whether Robert Pattinson moved out or not. He is not really Edward Cullen people, get a life!

15 Blogs I Nominate:

1. Story Addict

2. Communicating.Across.Boundaries

3. smileinstyle

4. clotildajamcracker

5. the urge to wander

6. yummyfoodmadeeasy

7. Ashley Jillian

8. Words From The Woods

9. Writerlious

10. heylookawriterfellow

11. Paddy’s kitchen

12. Nazar Blue

13. Life Behind the Pages

14. Life As We Show It

15. Fabulous 50’s

(All pics are from Google Images)

by Categories: Blogging, Children, Family, Home, Humor, Life, Mothers, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized, WritingTags: , , , 29 Comments

Immigrating Granny

This is an article I wrote for July 1st’s Dawn newspaper, the editor asked me to write about settling in a new country. Since I was moving back home and it was not a new experience for me, I wrote from the view point of an old lady moving abroad from Pakistan for the first time. If you want to read about interesting things that happen when you move out of North America go and visit this great blog : http://communicatingacrossboundariesblog.com/

http://dawn.com/2012/07/01/rant-and-rave-allah-tauba/

by Categories: Culture, Family, Home, Humor, Life, Mothers, Travel, Uncategorized, WritingTags: , , , , 11 Comments

Multicultural, confused and enjoying it.

I was feeling kind of homesick, which is confusing, because now I have two homes (Canada and Pakistan). If I stay at one, I’ll always be missing the other. This is a post I did for Karachi tips. Ever feel homesick?

Click to read:http://www.karachitips.com/blog/2012/04/26/love-from-abroad-i-miss-karachi-my-home/

by Categories: Canada, Culture, Family, Home, Humor, Life, Random Thoughts, Travel, UncategorizedTags: , , 4 Comments

10 Excellent Ways I Wasted My Time Today

I write and I love to write, the thing is I get a little distracted sometimes. Okay, yes most of the time, but I always try to learn from my mistakes and have developed really useful ways to get distracted. Here are today’s excellent time wasters:

  1. Since I slept late the night before (because I was writing !) I had a hard time getting up. I wasted time by continuously pressing the snooze button.  When I finally managed to wake up, I went to the kids’ room shook them all violently and declared: “This is the fifth time I have tried to wake you guys up, don’t blame me if you miss the bus now!”

2. I fell asleep in the bathroom while brushing my teeth.

3.  After kids left for school, I sat and watched the Weather Channel. I had originally meant to turn it off, but then I realized that they keep advertising Emily Vucovic’s wardrobe by Thyme Maternity because she is actually pregnant.  And then I fell asleep on the sofa.

                             

4.  I opened up all my email accounts, still didn’t find the Life Changing mail that will tell me some top literary agent is dying to sign me for every word I will ever write. I signed out of all of them, waited five minutes while trying to look busy in the kitchen, then checked them all again.

5.  Half an hour and no new mail later, when my eyes started to turn watery from staring at the unchanging screen, I again signed out. Then I explored all the interesting stuff on Yahoo like: “Rihanna shares bikini pics”, “Canadian fast food vs. world”, “Aguilera snubs Bieber”  and most important of all: “Pippa takes heat over racy party”. You know how besotted we Canadians are with Royalty (and all their relatives).

6.  Checked mails again, just in case those idiots wonderful agents realize what an awesome writer I am.

7.  Tried to figure out how Twitter works, still don’t get it. Husband thought I am busy in writing the next NYT Best Seller.

8.  Pondered what to cook for lunch, went through 47 different recipe websites, and saved 38 incredibly mouth-watering recipes. Then heated left-overs in the microwave.

9.  Looked at pictures of the awe-inspiring recipes I saved as I ate corn chips and drank coke that had gone flat thanks to my kids. Then I googled “ways to lose weight fast”.

10.  Facebook.Nuff said here.

So how do you waste your time?

(All pictures are from Google Images)

by Categories: Family, Humor, LifeTags: , , , 8 Comments

Meet the In-Laws

Meet the In-Laws (Click link to read on Dawn where it wasted originally published)

Are you still a bachelor? There are a few reasons you might want to stay one!

So you are about to take the big step?? You’ve given Mom the go-ahead to find the perfect girl. Good for you — it is time you settled down, not getting any younger right? Just some advice, don’t go for the looks (God knows what they look like under all that makeup), don’t go for the modern girl (she’ll keep you at the end of a leash), don’t go for the status (daddy will always be downsizing you at get-togethers). Go for the orphan. Really, I am not joking. Go for the orphan.

I know what you’re thinking, that this is some kind of pathetic joke; that’s because you haven’t met the in-laws yet. So you’ve seen a girl or two and met their families; nice quiet folks, polite and interested. It’s a trap, all part of the plan to snare unsuspecting, happily unaware innocent guys like yourself into the most complex and thorny role in the history of man. The son-in-law.

You think I am some jealous, lonely, scheming bachelor trying to keep you from marital bliss? Believe me man, there’s no such thing! I’m in it up to my neck, trust me. Married for five years now, or should I say I was sold into slavery five years ago by my parents with the connivance of my married friends. They couldn’t deal with my freedom — traitors. I am doing you a favour, giving you the inside story.

Before you are married, your soon-to-be mother-in-law calls up your mother to ask how you are and how your job is going. She cooks nihari (your favourite) and sends it over with your soon-to-be respectful young brother in-law. She and your future sister-in-law pick up the latest designer shirts for you when they go shopping and hope you like it, if not they get it changed. Future mother-in-law knows all your likes and dislikes; after your mother, she is the one who is most concerned about your well being. Until you get married.

You remember that story about the kids who get lost in the forest and this nice little old lady lets them into her candy house? That’s the stuff I am warning you about dude!! She’s gonna sink her teeth into you. After you get married the only time your mother-in-law phones is to listen to her daughter’s complaints about you and your family. She doesn’t talk to your mother because your wife always reaches the phone before anyone else, no matter where she is in the house she can hear the phone ring and it’s always her mother calling.

When Saas-jee does talk to you on the phone, it is to inform you that she needs to go somewhere and she’s giving you the honour of driving her there. While you are driving, you will have to listen attentively as she tells you how to live your life and the errors of your ways. You will be required to make sounds of agreement, and nod your head in the affirmative; never, ever speak, even to agree. What you have to say is inconsequential, you must only nod.

Gifts will be bestowed upon you on birthdays, anniversaries and Eid. The apparel is usually last year’s sale leftovers that were going at 80 per cent off. And if you think there is no way you would be caught dead in a parrot green kurta, think again my friend, think again! You have no idea how your sali searched every shop in Ramazan, whilst fasting, to find you the perfect kurta. Sali.

The only dish your wife’s rude little brother brings over is your wife’s favourite, which coincidentally, is some weird tasteless concoction with an even weirder name. You are informed it is French and given a patronising look by your sala, who has incredible tolerance in dealing with your inexperienced, simpleton ways. Sala. Beware of Daddy (susur jee), the once jovial, back slapping, ‘so pleased to have you as part of our family’ gentleman. You whisked his princess away, you don’t treat her right, and man he is no longer pleased to have you as part of his family. He will let you know this, often and publicly. Be prepared beforehand and have your doctor prescribe you some heavy anti-depressants. Always take at least two before attending his dinner parties, that way you’ll be totally out of it and won’t realise you are the butt of all his jokes. Susur(a).

Never think of older sister-in-law’s husband as an ally just because you are in the same boat. Big mistake; he’ll sink your boat to ensure smoother sailing of his own. He lets you believe he’s on your side, but after you get married, he gets promoted. He’s Big Daddy’s spy, he’ll sell you out just to get an approving nod from the old guy.

And that’s the inside story, just a second, phone’s ringing, “Hello? Yeah I’ll be there in 10 minutes. What? Be there in five? No, no it’s no problem at all. Five minutes, I’m coming.” Sali. Do you have a painkiller?

by Categories: Family, HumorTags: , , 2 Comments