From race tracks to corn fields

Day 4 of our adventures took us to Playdium for some kid-friendly Go Karting. Kids, ages 3 to 10 are allowed to go on with an adult, so of course my husband took both boys, one at a time. When the 3 year old came back to me, the first thing he said was “mommy, daddy was making my head fall out!”, which I think meant that his dad was driving waaaay to fast and causing the poor kid’s head to sway almost outside of the go-kart! When the 4 year old returned, I tried to get him on my side arguing that his dad was driving too fast, but unfortunately all he could talk about was how much fun it was and how cool his daddy was for driving so fast!

Adventuring with kids tip #3: Playdium has a “Toonie Tuesday” as well (for those of you that do not understand that term, it’s when establishments offer $2 deals on Tuesdays), so all of their outside games are $2 per game!!

On Day 5, we went to a corn maze and it was positively exhausting! It was also fun, but just more tiring than anything else! The kids though, had an extremely grand time, it seems to be the adventure for the week.

Adventuring with kids tip #4: If you’re going to a maze, or any event where you need to be able to keep track of your kids, dress them in like, VERY bright colors, with hats – they will be easy to spot!

My husband had the most difficult task of trudging through with the double stroller! I tried to help him out, but it was just too much for me, so if you’re going on an ‘off-road’ adventure with a stroller, you may want ensure that it’s bicycle type stroller!

Of bookstores & kids

As part of our adventures, we took a little trip to a bookstore (adventurous move for my husband and I!) and I just could not believe how much I really missed bookstores! The experience was almost surreal for me, I just wanted all my kids to disappear for a few hours so I could be alone!

I also found a wonderful brand of journals, read about it at the art journal blog.

On subways and other trains

As it is effectively the last week of summer and my husband is on vacation, we decided upon the theme “10 days of adventure” to celebrate the start of school!

Now, just to keep things in perspective, a walk to the nearest supermarket can constitute an adventure in our eyes, so some days may not be particularly ‘adventurous’, but surely our kids will think it is!

For our first adventure, we decided it was time to introduce our kids to the subway system, so we packed up (very lightly) on Friday evening and headed downtown to the Royal Ontario Museum.

Adventuring with kids tip #1: The ROM is free 1 1/2 hours before it closes everyday, and if you’re with small kids, that’s just about as much as they can handle! It is also half-priced on Fridays after 4pm.

We were on the subway back home at 10pm, which was quite an experience with 3 small kids, but they handled it pretty well, and the Toronto subway system is relatively safe.

On day 2 and 3, we took an impromptu trip to Ottawa to see Thomas the tank engine up close and personal.

Adventuring with kids tip #2: If you forget to bring milk for your baby, make sure that you send your husband with the empty bottle in search of sustenance, he will be looked upon kindly as the every-helpful dad. If, however, you have to go on this mission, be aware that you will be given looks of disapproval and disdain for being ‘the bad mother who forgot her baby’s milk’!

Stay tuned for more adventures and tips!

Currently resisting the urge to lock him in a closet!

I’m kidding, of course! Sort of.

Talk to me & blogging while muslim

When I first started blogging, I didn’t really advertise the fact that I am muslim, I mean I didn’t hide it, but I didn’t make it obvious. Although I was not new to blogging, I was new to the world of “mommy blogs”, and i wasn’t quite sure how the mommies would react.

As I got more comfortable with my blog, it slowly evolved into something more personal and reflective of me, and I started to write articles about being a muslim mother, and small articles related to Islam in general. My blog readership continued to grow slowly, and I noticed a shift in my comments – I started getting comments mostly from other muslims and less from other mommy bloggers. This is something that I don’t mind, but has always been on my mind.

A little more than a year ago, I read an article (forgot where I read it now) that basically said that one of the biggest supporters of the Bush administration and his “anti-terrorism” campaign, which sadly translates into an “anti-muslim” campaign by many, were ‘soccer moms’, and I realize this is a huge generalization but I have always wondered what these moms would think of my blog, or more specifically, muslim mommy blogs.

My husband started blogging recently and all of the comments he receives are from other muslims, which I have noticed is sort of a trend among muslim blogs, unless they are political or religious in nature (as these genres seem to generate very diverse traffic). A lot of it, I know, is due to the fact that most personal muslim blogs do cater to a muslim audience, and I imagine it’s the same with other religions as well, but when it comes to a blog like mine that really is a ‘mommy blog’, just authored by a muslim women, I wonder if I would have a better chance of success if I was a non-muslim with this very same blog.

This is not to say that I have no non-muslim readers or commenters, I do, and in fact one of my favorite readers, Cakes, is the wife of a pastor! All of my readers, muslim or not, have been the reason I continue to blog, I love the support, feedback, encouragement, ego-boost, and I completely appreciate all of it! There are times when I do see the ugliness of discrimination though.

If you’re muslim with a personal blog, how diverse is your readership? And if you’re a non-muslim, what do you think the chances are of this blog being read by the ‘soccer moms’ referred to in the article?

{Disclaimer: I am not calling all ‘soccer moms’ Bush supporters or anit-muslim, I am just having a discussion based on an article that indicated this was the trend.}