All Hail the Blind Ding-bats, Part II

Remember a few months back, when I shared how both Ismail and
Hamo had to be fitted for glasses? Ismail chose lovely small rectangular
pale blue frames and Hamo got some nice black sort of roundish-but-
kind-of-catlike spectacles. Hamo sort of looks like Harry Potter only
much more handsome (no, really! I'd mean that even if I wasn't his
mother.) Well, our inability to see is apparently an ongoing saga.

Hamo has a bad habit of removing his glasses and leaving them all
over the house. Granted he is MUCH better about wearing them most
of the time, unlike Ismail who just hates his glasses. Hamo takes them
off to wash his face and leaves them in the bathroom. Or he'll take them
off to keep them from breaking when he wrestles around with Aiman and
forget them on the study table in the boys' bedroom. Well, I don't know
where he forgot them today, but Miss Randa MUST have found them.
She decided that he should have sunglasses. So she went and dug around
in my cupboard where I hide things from her (obviously the hiding place
will change soon) and colored the lenses in with a PERMANENT BLACK
MARKER!!!! Thank God Ismail found them just after it happened and
brought them to me. I dumped vinegar on both sides of the glass and
rubbed like crazy with a damp t-shirt. YAY. Got it off before it stained
completely...it seems to be a little darker now.
SHEW. That was close.

Thus ends another typical rainy day in the House on Looney Bird Lane.

Why I'm in Knots

Yeah, Randa has been spending the night in my bed since
Saturday night. Anytime her father is away on business she
just climbs right in bed with me and instead of taking his
side, she scootches right to the middle and snuggles up
against me and goes right to sleep. Unlike Samiya, Randa
is a fairly stationary sleeper. (Sleeping next to Samiya is like
being in a nighttime non-stop filming of a Jackie Chan movie.)
But Randa has her sleep-faults, too. Well, just one, really.
She's got to sleep with her hand under her face and her left
elbow jutting out right into my back between my shoulder
blades! OUCH. It doesn't matter how many times I roll her
over to her father's side or reposition her arm. She will turn
over just after I drift off to sleep and jam that joint right into
my spine again. I think I've developed a slight twitch in my
left shoulder. I fear it will turn into a full blown spasm if I
don't figure out what to do about this soon.
Is it not enough I only get 3-4 hours of sleep a night? Those
few precious hours have to be totally uncomfortable and
sometimes downright painful, too??? I suppose it could be
worse. It could be Aiman who believes it's his God-given
right to sleep next to me when Baba is out of town.
The child will not eat anything except chicken or fried (fill
in the blank) or pizza anymore....UNLESS I can guarantee
him that whatever other dinner item on the menu is full of
"fart power." Yes, he is 8. And unless whatever he doesn't
like has a fart power factor greater than 7 on a scale of 1-10,
he won't eat it. Could you imagine me having to sleep next
to THAT???? "Mom can we have lentils for dinner? They
have lots of fart power, right?"
OH THE HUMANITY!

Thanks, I'll stick with the back spasms. Leave Randa where
she is.

Our Latest COOL Science Poster

I'll tell you right now that I forgot to take a picture of it.......but trust me...it
totally rocked! I'll have to go back to the school tomorrow and snap a digital
photo of Ismail's latest science poster so I can post it here. His teacher was
so impressed that she gave him extra credit points not only for February but
for March, too. How cool is that?

Ismail is in the 4th grade and is studying the digestive system in science. His
teacher, Miss Amal, asked kids to make posters of the digestive system and
color in each part by smearing playdough (tm) on it and then labeling it. Ismail
asked if he could do it a little differently and she said okay. So, we were brain-
storming and I thought maybe we should make it like a relief map, sort of a 3-d
version but without the playdough. (SIDENOTE: that stuff blows! yeah, it's a
great builder of hand muscles and creative outlet, especially for autistic creative
kids like Randa.......but then they decide to stomp on it in the rugs or make "fake"
poop but REALLY flush it, ya know.......as though I actually NEED more work to
do or something.....)

Ismail suggested fabric from the "rag bag" and I got excited because I've also saved
up all the polyester fiber stuffing from the various stuffed animals that have been
destroyed over the years due to the "It's MINE! Wars" over the course of raising
5 kids. God bless the inventer of the hot glue gun. We made Ismail lie down on his
back on the posterboard and traced his body from head to the tops of his thighs.
We cut out a burgundy denim liver and a red cotton stomach from old parachute pants and some dark green gabardine became a gall bladder. His pancreas was from
a lovely gold satin with flowers on it. The esophagus was half of a red broken zipper
and the small intestine was faded blue denim from old ripped jeans. The large in-
testine, colon and rectum were all from a beautiul autumnal print cotton fabric.
I cut out the body parts from the fabrics and showed Ismail how to lay them on the
poster. He glued them on and then I stuffed each one (sans small intestine) with
polyester fiber fill. He labeled each part in his best handwriting with black marker.
And THEN.....ta-da!........we gave it the final touch: We took an old school picture of
Ismail to a stationary store and had the guy xerox it (magnified 150%) till the photo
was life-size of just the face. We darkened it with the same black marker and pasted
it to the outline of his head. It really personalized the whole project!
And it was so damn cute. His teachers really dug it....AND he memorized the parts of
the digestive track in the process. DAMN. I should have been a teacher.

I'm currently preparing for my acceptance speech for my MOTY award. This, of
course, is not the final version. Just stuff I want to include:

****I would like to thank my mother for her "artsy-fartsy" genes and always encouraging us to use our creativity and do something different than the other
kids. She was a big fan of The Rainy Day Book (I have NO idea who wrote it...but
this isn't a recent one....I'm talking back in the late 60's/early 70's that she bought it
and it reallly was a fantastic project book.) Without my mother, I never would have
thought to save old socks and buttons for rainy days to make sock puppets when the
kids are running me nuts.
I would like to thank my father for his examples of creative uses of old pieces of
wood, nails, springs and other junk that most people toss out. Due to his helping me
in the 8th grade to make a solar-powered oven for a science fair project with mostly stuff we had "laying around the house," I was able to make a flashlight bulb work by
affixing a D-size battery to a board and running wires from positive to negative ends
of the battery. (Another 2 month extra credit grade for Ismail!)
I would like to thank KlineGlaxoWellcome for making a really great burn cream to
alleviate the pain in my fingers from where the glue gun "slipped" and scorched the
poop out of my hands. I think I may even be able to commit burglary without leaving fingerprints now as they've all been burned off now.
Thank you Mother Of The Year board and thanks to all my fans and oh yeah, my husband who insisted on keeping me pregnant for damn near 6 years straight that I
could BE in the running for MOTY and of course, thanks to my kids.

"Time in a Bottle" (orig. published in 2007)

"If I could put time in bottle..." a novel idea by singer/songwriter Jim Croce. If time were something I could literally save, I wonder if I might be less frazzled and worn out than I am now. When running late, I could just shake well and pull out the cork adding the 5 minutes needed to my day in order to meet that particular appointment. Even if those 5 minutes were added via rewind or pause to all of life around me except me, I'd be able to get so much more accomplished. I'd get those last 5 minutes of desperately needed sleep or get that pan out of the oven before the smoke alarm goes off or to prevent whichever kid was about to fall down a flight of stairs or catch his brother's left hook to the head.
Of course, the danger in having a bottle of time would be in using it sparingly. With some of the hectic days that I have, I'd be pulling that cork out with my teeth and pouring out extra time left and right until I found that I'd aged two years in what everyone else thought was merely 24 hours. If that were to happen, I'd have to open up and pour on an extra hour every 6 real-time hours so that I could dye my hair to cover up the gray 4 times a real-life day.
Maybe time shouldn't be bottled, afterall. Maybe Jim Croce was an idiot, afterall. Or maybe he actually DID figure out how to bottle time and then couldn't handle it. He did end up committing suicide. Maybe I have too much time on my hands as it is. I seem to have time for this lame blog.

**(This post was originally published sometime back in 2007 on my old myspace acct.)

Infotainment (orig published after Heath Ledger's death)

Okay, so living overseas has it's benefits. We don't have six pages of completely USELESS headlines and ghastly details every time some Hollywood dumbass overdoses or gets drunk and hauled off to 4 hours of jailtime in Los Angeles. Of course, thanks to satellite television and infotainment shows ready to peddle their Sin City drivel to the masses worldwide, crap tv such as The Insider, Inside Edition and Hollywood Uncensored are all on one right after the other even here in the Middle East where the average family has a plate of beans and bread and olives for dinner.
So, when I read on the internet that Heath Ledger had seemingly swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and was found dead at age 28, the first thought that popped into my head was, "That's one less sold soul I'll be seeing on TV two weeks from now!" Isn't that sad? A young father, probably kills himself and I'm thinking that after two weeks the tabloid shows will make a fortune off of it and then once the dead horse has been thoroughly bludgeoned, they'll go back to Paris' picture perfect representation of how NOT to raise your children or some other Hollywood whore and her baby-bump.
Back to Heath Ledger, the second pathetic thought that popped into my mind was "Why? Did someone mail him a copy of 'Brokeback Mountain' on dvd and he watched it by himself at home, depressed because his wife left him with their baby and he realized what a sell-out he'd become? That he'd left his manhood with his agent when he signed on for the role that got 'rave reviews' from the Academy but left the real men of our country scratching their heads (or other parts) thinking, "Is NOTHING sacred anymore? Not even the COWBOYS are safe these days? What's this world coming to? Faggotry is everywhere!" Maybe Heath realized that one day his little girl would grow up and SEE this film and ask him, "Daddy, why don't you smooch Mommy like you did Aunt Jake in the movie??"
It's pathetic and hateful, I know. But I can't help but wonder why so many people flock to read about these moron celebrities, their empty lives and their even emptier deaths. And why on earth it's not just one more blurb in the obits instead of making the front page when there are REAL people with REAL problems in the world that need to be heard (like the Palestinians or the Iraqis). Instead what sells is a self-inflicted death on a person who did self-degrading things causing self-inflicted problems in a very selfish world.

**(this post was originally published by me on my old myspace acct just after Heath Ledger's death, 2008, whenever THAT was....it wasn't a real freeze-frame in time for me so I don't recall the actual date!)

5 Reasons for Hearing Loss (May 2007)

In the beginning my children were quiet and relatively well-behaved. Yes, all five of them were relatively QUIET. Since two of them have arrived at the "tweens" stage with a third one close on their heels, the noise level in my life has increased by at least 40 decibels. If it isn't the 12-yr old boy erupting into an explosive temper tantrum after being told NO to computer priveleges until all homework and studies are complete, then it's the 11-yr old having an autistic meltdown because the 9-yr old is hell-bent on bullying her into handing over the remote control. The "DestructoTwins," ages 8 and nearly 7, have only two volumes ever: LOUD and LOUDER. (Well, three if you count ASLEEP.)
When I was still working outside the home, in an environment prone to loud noise, I was required to take a hearing test by my employer every few years. Certainly, it was only to document my hearing loss in case I ever got litigious. The nurse who administered the test noted that while my noise levels at work had gotten lower since I'd changed offices, my hearing loss had increased. When I explained that my hearing loss was probably due to the 5 screaming kids at home, ages 1-6 at the time, she laughed.
I find very little funny about a little boy who answers the phone with a lion's roar instead of hello like a normal person. Parents of autistic children can attest to "loud" being a part of the child's daily routine. While our daughter tends to have her "freak out shriek fest" when she is really tired or upset, her high-pitched screams are actually more welcome than Ismail's rhythm-less attempts at non-rhyming gangster rap at the top of his lungs. This is a relatively new stage for him. It follows his last stage of LOUD closely, when he taught himself to whistle with two fingers jammed into his mouth. His practice sessions usually coincided with my franctic attempts to get dinner ready by sunset during Ramadan. ((Ramadan is the month of fasting for muslims, where we do not eat, drink, smoke or have sexual relations from just before sunrise until sunset.)) Now when someone who normally totes a coffee in each hand for several hours a day suddenly gives up caffeine cold turkey for a 14 hour fast daily for 30 days, headaches can be pretty wicked. Throw a wolf-whistling, gangsta-rap wannabe with NO rhythm into the mix and you are talking HATEFUL pain. I have been known to break my fasts by chewing through the childproof cap on the extra-strength tylenol bottle.
I don't know that they'll ever learn the meaning of the "inside voice" but I'm sure that by the time they do the damage will have already been done. I'll be the hearing impaired lunatic screaming in the movie theater, "WHY'S HE DOING THAT? WHAT DID SHE SAY TO HIM???" And if I ever go to a quiet restaurant with my husband for a romantic dinner (shu-uh, like THAT will happen in the next 10 years!) they'll be forced to ask me to leave because my shouting, "Huh???? WHAT?? The special is WHAT??" will ruin the mood for everyone else in the restaurant. But who cares, really? They probably won't end up having five really loud children and may still be able to hear when they reach 40!

Sarcasm (orig. published May 2007)

Well, yeah, it's been a while since I've put anything on here. But not from a lack of subject material. I've just been pretty busy helping the kids get ready for their final exams. OMG. It's been unreal. We got back Aiman and Samiya's results-----YAY. Both got perfect scores in Arabic, English, Math and Religious Studies. Ismail finished his exams yesterday, but we won't know his results for another week or so. Mohamed begins his exams tomorrow. I'm beyond worried. He's in 6th grade and how well he does on these exams will determine which middle school he gets into.
Well, Wednesday morning I walked Ismail and his best friend to the school for their exams. I waited for them to go upstairs and then excused myself from the group of worried mothers so that I could beat feet over to the bread ovens and pick up some bread. My mind was still doing the usual balancing act at test time of worrying about whether or not Ismail will remember the ins and outs of long division, could I make it to the ovens before the line was a mile long, and whether or not my nervous energy would turn from the current mild anxiety to a full-blown case of the runs. I guess in all the excitement my brain couldn't handle the usually rote process of putting one foot in front of the other as the next thing I knew, my foot had twisted up underneath me and I was sprawled out face first on the street unable to breathe as I'd managed to knock the wind out of myself when I landed on my big fat honkin' purse. So, I just laid there for about half a minute before deciding to get up. I sat back down on the curb to pick the gravel out of my palms, brush off my dress and catch my breath. A woman across the street saw it happen, and came over to see if I was okay. Also, the waiter at the coffee shop came running over carrying a chair for me to sit on and then ran back inside to get me a glass of water. (This is typical Egyptian courtesy/concern. They are helpful people...almost to a fault.)
I started to laugh when I realized that although a little bit scratched up, I'd really only broken my dignity and that'll mend in no time. The woman looked at me like I was a little crazy. Then she asked me if I fell because I was dizzy or what. So I told her, "Nope. It was my plan. I was a little thirsty so I fell here because I knew the waiter would bring me a glass of water." Then I cracked up laughing at how clever I am. She looked at me then like I was REALLY crazy and walked off in a hurry. What?! No kiss for my skinned knee? Chickenshit.
It's sometimes hard for me living here. The Egyptian people just don't seem to get my sense of humor sometimes. I was once chided by a nurse at the hospital just after Ismail had had his lip and chin stitched up (he'd decided to play Tarzan by swinging on a belt that he'd hooked to the top hinge of his bedroom closet and fell on his face.) I only asked if since this was the 4th time I'd been there for stitches in the last 2 years, would the next round of stitches be "on the house" since we were "frequent flyers," if you will. She turned red in the face and yelled at me about testing fate. My brother-in-law, however, was laughing. He knows my garanimal-kids.
Yesterday I had to take Aiman to the hospital because he couldn't open his left eye for about 14 hours. This is a pretty normal response when one's older sister pokes her finger into one's open eyeball by mistake. It turned out that he had a tiny scratch from her fingernail and the doctor gave him some drops and a really cool white cotton eyepatch. Aiman looked a little worried still and asked me, "So, what's going to happen?" I didn't know the doctor spoke English as well as she does until she laughed out loud when I replied in all seriousness, "Well, we're going to let you keep the eye. It's only a little scratched and not worth trying to find you a new one." He just rolled his good eye and said, "Well, THAT's good news," while Dr. Amina giggled. I guess sarcasm just isn't their thing here.

**This was originally published by me on my old myspace acct last May.**