On faith

Yesterday I wrote about finding comfort, but I didn’t speak about faith, which I think is deserving of an entire post all it’s own.

Although I was born into a Muslim family, I spent most of my life being more or less secular, I did what I thought was the basics but I didn’t really know much about my religion. At 19, when I started to explain it to my husband, I sort of understood more about it and we both found a love for the utter simplicity and fairness that is now unfortunately seldom ever associated with Islam.

My faith has been a really big part of me since then, but my life remained pretty much unchanged, until about 6 years ago, when, because of whatever reasons I made a conscious effort to look for something more, a sense of purpose, if you will.

There have been a number of occasions when I’ve said that my life has not been the way I anticipated, and no matter how many times I say it, it still remains a huge understatement, because in so many ways I have always felt like my life just happened and I had very little control over it.

When I got married at 20, neither of us really knew what we were getting into, and we both share the feeling that we were somehow meant to be together, given the very bizarre set of circumstances under which we met and became friends. I say that our life together has been filled with challenges, and it most certainly has, so much so that sometimes I am amazed that we have managed to get through it all, but, at the same, sometimes I am not amazed, because of my faith, I now see life as a journey, as a path, and I’ve learnt to live without regret, without the woulda’s and the shoulda’s, and I just believe that things will be as they are meant to be.

My faith has been an immense source of comfort for me, when life makes absolutely no sense, I can hold on to it and be guaranteed that the confusion will pass. It is for certain the only way that I ever feel real peace… “Surely in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest” [Qur’an, 13.28]

Finding comfort

I’ve been sick for a while now… is it just me, or do sinus infections completely overstay their welcome?!

At some point last week, while I was feeling really crappy, I started craving French Toast, which is something I love, but rarely eat because I only like it the way that I make it and I don’t make it too often. It is one of those things that I find really comforting though, and since in addition to being sick, I was dealing with some really bewildering personal issues, I was seriously in need of some French Toast! Funnily enough, my 3 year old is now completely in love with it, and I’ve made it about 4 times since then.

Since my kids have turned into stereotypical boys, you know, jumping off sofas, sword fighting, transformer loving, headache inducing boys, I have been drinking a lot of coffee, it’s my crack people, I can safely say I cannot function without it! Somehow though, when I am in need of some tlc, I will choose tea in a second, I am not sure what it is about that substance, but I’ve just noticed that it is so charmingly lovely and calming.

I’ve had this conversation about finding comfort with my husband, who declared that sleeping is just about the only thing that comforts him, I wonder if that’s maybe just a “man” thing, because I honestly find very little comfort in just sleeping, although I would be easily swayed if there happened to be a newborn on my chest. I am one of those people that find enormous comfort in food, or is that just a “woman” thing, because for example, on cold, rainy days, I love really savory food, like lamb in hoisin sauce, or clam chowder, and when I am depressed, I’d have to go with dark chocolate truffles, (or pretty much anything, but let’s not go there!) and I think when I am just melancholy, French Toast is truly amazing!

Beyond my obvious and somewhat obsessive love of food, I find comfort in really sappy movies, the sound of a loved one’s voice, a hug, or just maybe a really good cry. How about you?

Life with men

I just finished a 15 minute diaper change, and no poop was involved! There was a lot of cajoling though, as in “please can I put on your diaper? please? can I put it on now? please?”... and it ended with “ok, are you done playing with your pee pee now?”

*pee pee as in what my kids call their “private part” not actual pee!

Do you hate having kids?

Well me neither, but let me just say that after 2 days of caring for them practically on my own, I am almost there!

Firstly, really hungry children can turn into monsters fast, not that I was starving them or anything like that, but I did get back into bed this morning and it sort of got late for breakfast! Secondly, 3 small children are very hard to manage, I mean VERY.hard.to.manage, seriously, not even “challenging”, it’s DIFFICULT! Thirdly, my smallest kid is incredibly spoilt and I am not sure what to do about it, I mean, he has complete meltdowns if he does not get want he wants… but being the discipline obsessed mother that I was with the other 2 kids, I have absolutely no idea how to handle this blatant lack of proper and appropriate behavior!

To blog is not to pay for therapy, so, please excuse this clearly ill-prepared and un-thought-out post. Ok, as you were…

Wherein I confess to being really irritating to live with

Remember how I was sick last week, well in my attempts to be more “green” (as in eco-friendly), I was collecting my tissues on my desk so that I could throw them in with the organic waste… I never actually got around to doing that though and this morning the tissues were in the garbage courtesy of my hubby who really hated the sight of them!

I don’t know, but markers on kids doesn’t really bother me that much!

And apparently, markers on the wall either! Well, it does bother me, but that wall needs to be painted anyways, so I don’t know if I care all that much, but my husband has not seen it yet, and will surely lose it with me, as the kid was in my care at the time! (but in my defense, I was billing a client at the time, so I didn’t want to make any mistakes!) Any ideas on what ‘creative’ excuse to use this time??