I am working!

When do you check your email? I am sure it’s often, but is it first thing in the morning? I am sure it is!

As soon as prayer and baby duties are done, we both rush to check our email… there is mostly junk mail waiting, but still…

So, this morning I actually had a lot of work to do (a website for a real, live, paying client! woohoo! thanks Crunchy!), so I asked my not-as-busy hubby to get the eldest ready for school. He casually said “ok, just checking my email”... Foolishly, I believe him.

I started working, expecting him to finish up at any moment and take care of the kids. Like 15 mins later, I realize he is still sitting at his desk! I look back and see this loaded on his browser!

He is damn lucky that he posted this yesterday, otherwise…

Guess who took the kids down, made breakfast, fed all of them, and prepared lunch for the kindergartener? Just guess…

Looking back into the darkness

A baby story.

We were driving to my dad’s home in Miami, it was very late at night and sleepiness was certainly catching up with us. My sister and the baby were sleeping the in back of the minivan, and my husband and I were trying our best to stay awake. We chatted, or tried to chat, at least I was trying to talk to him… he thought it was best to sip on a caffeinated beverage.

It was a little more than 4 years after we had been married, and a few months after we had our first baby. We always loved our road trips, it was ‘our’ time, we could re-connect with each other, remember why we loved each other, it was our getaway. But, this was the first time with a baby, and ‘our’ time was now non-existent.

I talked and talked so much on that 3 hour, red-eye road trip from Orlando to Miami, it was almost a monologue. Nattering on about working, my theories on life, religion, people, until finally I settled on the topic of university and reminded myself of how we met. Suddenly my head became so clear, almost, you know, like inhaling some Vicks vapor rub!

The past year flashed before my eyes and I realized that we were living a lie, we were pretending to have a marriage, I had not told him that I loved him in months… and I could not tell him because until that very moment, I actually thought that I hated him. There were times that he repulsed me, I could not stop criticizing his every action, I constantly complained about my hard times with the baby, I didn’t care if he was hurt, I just didn’t notice him. I only lived with him because someone had to help me with ‘our’ baby!

Life for him was a nightmare, he tells me now he was on the verge of leaving me. I didn’t notice his pain until that moment in the van, when I started to feel love in my heart again; I looked up at him and finally noticed the hurt he had been carrying. I felt like I was going to burst with emotion, I said I was sorry, I said that I didn’t know what had happened to me, I said everything that came to my mind, but he just stared at me, almost numb.

We did reconnect soon after that. But it was short lived. History almost repeated itself.

During my second pregnancy, I hated my body, I thought my husband was not interested in me at all, I spent 2 months in the hospital before I gave birth to my second son and I tried my best not to show any emotion. When I finally got home, I was secretly very depressed; I was struggling with my weight and my appearance. I had already put on 40lbs with my first son, and now I could hardly recognize myself. That, with the added effects of my fluctuating hormones gave me a severe self esteem problem. I projected all my negative feelings onto my husband, and I saved the best parts of me for my kids.

Our marriage again almost ended. I assumed that I was successful in convincing those around us that everything was ok, and I think that I also convinced myself that everything was ok. We eventually lost each other. We fell into routines with the kids, life was exhausting, work was never-ending, and pretending to be in love was certainly taking a toll on our emotional well-being.

Before life became completely unbearable, God had mercy on us. I managed to look deep into my heart, past my insecurities and fears, and I found some love in there! Seriously! It was not all gone, as I had thought. I forgot about being an over-weight mother for a moment, I forgot about instructing my husband on how to be a perfect dad, I forgot about my feelings that I was an unattractive wife. I had to just forget about every unpleasant thought that was making my mind foggy.

Usually in postpartum depression articles, I had always encountered discussions about sadness, and anger towards the new baby, and suicidal thoughts… I however did not experience any of that. I thought that I felt normal; I honestly did, at the time I did not notice that I was falling apart. It was hard to realize that I had become consumed with my self, obsessed with my declining attractiveness, engrossed in my self-pity, and was completely struggling with my self-esteem.

My husband did not know how to deal with what I had become, again. Both he and I did not know the signs. We did not think that this was a psychological problem. He developed his own coping mechanism. I immersed myself into a myriad of different projects to keep my mind busy. The kids were never neglected. The kids got our complete love and attention. Postpartum is only about neglecting your baby, or having anger towards your baby, I was ill-informed, I thought this had nothing to do with postpartum, and I was in fact sure that my husband had fallen out of love with me, was patronizing me when he said that he still found me attractive, and was outright lying when he said that he adored only me.

Three times a charm? The third baby came with many blessings, and we finally got things right. (Thank God). He was supportive. Supportive at the right times, and just the right amount so I did not feel suffocated. He was loving. Loving all the time, but not over-bearing. He was patient. As he always is with me.

If I had to advise any new father, it would be to be supportive, loving, and patient, not too suffocate and don’t be overbearing, towards your wife. And make her feel special everyday. And to any new mother, I would say “sometimes the darkness goes away all by itself, and sometimes we have to chase it away, but please don’t let it find a place to settle”.

We're a little weird… he's the weirder one!

Suroor tagged me… and the mousehunter… and this is my first tag! Yeah, like… ever! Good to be loved!

And now, 6 weird things, by Shaz & the Mousehunter Brave Mousehunter…

1) He buys more expensive shampoo and conditioner than me, to use on his beard! AND he has 2 brushes and a comb… 1 brush for his head and the other brush and comb for his beard! (I don’t even own a brush… I use his, but secretly, because he totally freaks out if anyone uses his brushes!)

2) She puts lotion on her feet before she goes to bed. Then all of a sudden, 5 minutes later, she needs to go to the bathroom. She comes back and puts lotion again. Have her feet dried out that much in such a short distance??!? Then, before she actually falls asleep, she’ll put even more lotion on! And if there’s only baby lotion close to the bed… she’ll even use that!

3) He MUST turn off the corridor lights… no, not for energy saving reasons, as he likes everyone to think, because he will ALWAYS leave the dinning room and kitchen lights on. Even if no one is in the room… but if I leave on the 1 tiny little corridor light, he totally loses it! Now, THAT is weird… am I right!

4) She is extremely messy, and hates to clean, but always complains that the house is a mess!

5) He loves to do laundry. (so do the kids) He started to do it when I was pregnant and refused to walk up and down 2 sets of stairs with a full laundry basket, and now he does not want me to take over… he said “I like to do laundry!” He really did… I am not even kidding!

6) She does not like to make phone calls (except to her mom and me), and she will not EVER call the credit card company, or any company that sends a bill to her… if there is a problem, she makes me call, even though they always ask to speak to her! She even refuses to call the doctor or dentist to make, cancel, or re-schedule appointments… she will call me at WORK, and somehow manage to convince me that it’s a better idea for me to make the call instead of her! Now that I think about it… she tells me that I do a lot of things “better” than her! Hmmmmmmmm

Make appointments better than her… how is that even possible?

7) Ok, had to take my blog back from him! There is really no number 7… it was just a plot to get back my computer back!
So, here’s the thing, I think everyone I know has already been tagged by this meme, so let’s do this… The most memorable moment in your life to Suroor, Crunchy, Maliha, Shabana, Mona, and Ann. Have fun!

Happy Friday & the new addiction

Recently I made a very innocent, but apparently huge mistake… I sent the mousehunter a blog post to read (this one, if you must know), and he read some more posts on the blog and just thought the guy was so funny! Yes, so very funny!

In fact, he thought it was so funny that he wanted to know if there was more like it… “more what? like blogs?”... yes, that is exactly what he meant. Of course I said, well, yes, some of the bloggers are funny. He was in awe.

At 11pm, while I was working away, he was on his laptop next to me, asking how to set it up so he can know when the blogs are updated. Now he has 5 blogs that he is subscribed to.

Last night, at 9pm, after the kids were asleep, and I was working, I asked him to take care of the dinner dishes. When I was done working a little after 12am, he had just finished reading blogs and was just about to go to bed! Guess what happened to the dishes?!

My husband’s new addiction means that his view that was once whats-the-big-deal-about-blogs, is now hey-did-you-see-this-cool-blog… which is nice, at times, but I had to institute some rules… seriously… like, no commenting on blogs that I read, unless I approve of the comment, no commenting right after me, you know, it’s a little weird…

And Happy Friday to you!!

Protection

Just want to take him, wrap him, and put him back in the womb sometimes!

He’ll at least be safe from his brothers!