Sixteen Candles....

Sixteen years ago today, my beautiful daughter, Randa, was born.  She was my first girl, my smallest baby (oh, yes! a teeny, tiny 8 lbs, 13 ozs), my only vaginal birth.  It was amazing.  My husband was there, just like with all of the others. But also, my Aunt Virginia was there. She really helped a lot. And she didn't pass out at the sight of blood like my Uncle Tracy said she would.

Miss Randa was so different from her older brother. She got stuck in the birth canal and they had to use forceps to pull her out. The doctor managed to catch part of her eye and a nerve in her neck and she was born with a brachial palsy and looking like she'd gone a round with Tyson. She didn't want to be held much and I thought it was because of having such a rough birth. But she was one of those "hold me while you nurse me and then let me be" kind of kids. We exercised her arm several times a day and in a month, the nerves reattached themselves (Thank God) and she could use her arm all by herself. She started walking at 8 months, weaned herself at 9 months and ran by 10 months.

The years have flown by and I look at this young woman standing in front of me who still loves "Shaun the Sheep" and making weasels from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" out of play dough. Having autistic tendencies has not stopped Randa from becoming bilingual, from teaching herself to make  pizza dough from scratch, from bossing her brothers and sister around. Nothing holds my girl back.

And I cannot be more grateful for this beautiful, intelligent, happy, funny, and awesome girl in my life. Randa was a gift to us from God. And I praise Him daily for blessing us with her. Happy birthday, Randa.

What Randa Doesn't Sniff

I've talked about Randa many times before. She's my soon-to-be 16 yr old daughter. She is tall and beautiful and hilarious. She's also been diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Delays with Autistic Tendencies. She's overcome a lot of her challenges/issues. Some are still giving her a hard time. On the speech front, though, she has made remarkable progress.

Most of her dialog comes from memorized movie/tv scenes. But she'll switch up words to fit whatever situation she's in.  She once watched an episode of that ridiculous show Drake and Josh from Nickelodeon where the two boys were stuck babysitting and they needed to check if the baby needed to be changed and one says to the other, "I do not sniff baby butt!" Randa laughed for about an hour after this. She also added it to her repertoire of smart alecky things to say to her siblings. So here is the list of things that Randa will not sniff:

"I do not sniff Samiya feet!"

"I do not sniff Ismail armpits!"

"I do not sniff Mohamed stinky mouth!"

"I do not sniff Aiman fart!"

"I do not sniff Mommy shoes!"

"I do not sniff stinky shirts!"

"I do not sniff horrible ugly beasts!"

"I do not sniff Baba socks!"

"I do not sniff Randa hair. It's got flies! Outta my face, Clown!"

"I do not sniff stinky cheese!"

2012 Will Bring More Randa Time

Happy New Year.  Yes, it is 2012.  Can you believe that just 12 years ago we were running around like cockroaches, backing up hard-drives, stocking up on bottled water and ramen noodles and dancing around to Prince's 1999?  Yeah, um, I didn't do that either.

Like nearly all the other New Years Eves before this one, we pretty much did nothing. Watched t.v., drank some soda, ate some peanuts, did some dishes, went to bed. Yeah, we're party animals.

But I started the year out right.  I took Randa for a long walk through the souk (open market).  I bought her a Ho-ho and some apple juice and then we bought vegetables and came home.  She thoroughly enjoyed her time out without "the kids."  She doesn't get that much one on one time with me outside the house anymore.  But I'm hoping to change that.  I miss my girl.

She calls herself my "special sauce girl."  I think that's a pretty spot-on description.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Last night I was in a really shitty mood. I know. Language, language. But I don't know that there is a better adjective to use than 'shitty.' So I'm not editing.

So you know how when everything in your life as a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) becomes rote and goes on in a sort of "autopilot" mode and you wake up the same everyday and brush your teeth the same everyday and buy bread the same everyday and take the kids to school the same everyday and yell about watching cartoons before homework the same everyday and you're late with dinner the same everyday and you consider jumping from the balcony the same everyday only to argue yourself out of it the same everyday because let's face it a dive off the first floor balcony is only gonna get you into a cast and not into a dirt nap and then life would be the same everyday only in a friggin' cast which would just complicate shit and not really solve anything or give the same selfish result that ultimately you want anyway and that would be that the people in your life THINK ABOUT YOU more than just to locate some lost random item like a backpack, cigarette lighter, or adapter to charge a mobile phone. And it would be really itchy and hard to walk.

So you just suck it up day after day thinking "it's going to get better...it has to....I chose the SAHM life and I love my kids and my family and I wouldn't trade it for the world." And you know that deep down you never would trade your husband or children for one of those hot firemen calendar poster guys on a big red fire engine with his ropes and hoses....oh my! Although there would probably be a big long 'pros' and 'cons' list, if only mentally. But in the end, the SAHM-gig would still win out. Because after all, you ARE making a difference in the world by repopulating the planet with intelligent, kind and productive people. And you love them and they love you. And that husband, even after all these years, is still really hot. And he's seen you in the throws of childbirth and helped you during a really messy miscarriage and helped change the poopy diapers and made you dark-chocolate covered baklava for your birthday and he's seen you in bad flourescent lighting with all your stretchmarks and 'still planning on losing this' pregnancy fat and hasn't run screaming down the street in search of a younger, hotter version of you....AND STILL WANTS YOU.

But from time to time that overwhelming, 'oh dear God help me not to puke from boredom' feeling  hits you. And this is how I felt last night. And I told my husband that I was bored. And his answer was, "Go to bed."
NOT what I was hoping for. But men aren't intuitive like women. We have to lay it on the line with them. No hints-dropping because they're not designed to pick up on that sort of stuff. If we want flowers, then we have to say: "Hey, Honey. My birthday is Saturday and I want red roses with daisies mixed in and I want a gold bracelet and if you get me another kitchen gadget that plugs in, you can also hire me a divorce lawyer."
That's how you get what you want from men. Telling them stuff like, "I am bored with my life and I need a change," is NOT going to get you a hired babysitter and a night out on the town. I know this. But I hoped for a fleeting moment. And instead of living up to my weird female expectations, he lived up to the reality that is male. So I went to bed.


This morning I decided to wash the curtains in the foyer for a change of pace. So, I climbed up on the four foot wooden painter's ladder and took the curtains down. Randa was complaining because her brother farted next to her and it stunk. (The computer is in the foyer and she was playing on the computer.) So I told her to turn on the ceiling fan judging that I was at least a foot or more out of reach of the blades. She told me, "Be careful, Mommy." I thought, "How sweet. My little girl has overcome the autism speech issues enough to worry about my concern." And then I noticed that the curtain was stuck to the wooden splinters on the ladder so I lifted my arm out to pull the fabric away and stuck my damn hand right in the path of the metal ceiling fan that was on high.

I don't know about you, but five stitches in my index finger before noon definitely counts as a change in my regular routine. Think I'll keep my mouth shut from now on and just count my blessings.

Bright Spots in My Day Today 2

Isn't she pretty? This is Randa. She's my first daughter, second-born. And she is extremely bright. She was diagnosed with Autism when she was 3 years old and all the professionals, doctors, experts, special-ed teachers discouraged me from teaching her Arabic and insisted I only teach her English so as not to confuse her. Idiots. Fortunately, I not only make it a habit to question authority, I usually defy it. You know, provided I'm not going to do any jail time as a result. We spoke to her in both English and Arabic just as we did her brothers and sister. I mean, how was she supposed to communicate with her father, for crying out loud?! He didn't speak much English at the time she was born, although NOW he's pretty proficient. At any rate, we figured she's got developmental delays in speech anyway. What difference will it make? We didn't know if she'd ever become verbal. Well, guess what! Randa is now 14 years old and she speaks, reads and writes in both Arabic and English. She is by no means at a 14-year-old proficiency level in either language. But she definitely knows how to get her point across. To be honest, she watches a lot of t.v. and uses the internet frequently. About three years ago, some guy across the street from us built this monstrosity of an apartment building that totally blocked out access to the satellite dish signal. So we went for a whole summer with no t.v. While the fighting levels went down, I noticed Randa spent a lot of time in my room laughing her head off. After a couple of days, I figured out why but chose not to share her secret. Everytime she would laugh loudly and attract the attention of her siblings to the point they'd open the door and go in, Randa would slap off the monitor and say, "Get out!"
Well, the child had seen me google a couple of times on-line and, being the genius that she is,
she started doing searches for YouTube uploads of Tom and Jerry cartoons. She knew that if the other kids knew what she was up to, they'd have me enforce the "everybody gets a 15-minute turn" rule and her cartoon time would be cut by four-fifths.
Randa's speech is primarily picked up by repetetion in films, cartoons, remarks that her family members make, songs and books. She even surprises us by the appropriate insertion of some bizarre one-liners. Remarkably they're also delivered with just the right amount of inherited "smart ass" from my side of the family. Here are some of her "sitcom moments:"
1. In Dallas, while visiting my sister's home, Randa walked into the kitchen while my brother-in-law, David was busy at the stove. He said hello to her and she responded with, "Hey, Baby! Are you a fallen angel?"
2. While my mom was visiting us in Egypt last year, Randa caught her in the kitchen and with all seriousness said, "Hey, Toots. What's for dinner?"
3. Ismail was teasing Randa mercilessly one day and Mohamed and I fussed at him several times. Finally I asked him point blank, "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?" Randa answered for him, "Ismail's JACK ASS!" Mohamed sprayed coffee out his nose.
4. This past summer, I was taking the kids from our home by the beach into downtown Alexandria to visit their cousins and Randa was extremely tired and started to cry. We were on the bus and people kept staring at us and asking what's wrong. Finally, after 15 minutes I turned to her and asked, frustrated, "Do you think you can stop crying sometime today?" And she sniffled and then patted my hand like I'm a moron and said, "Maybe later, Dear."
5. About four nights ago, I was falling asleep when I heard Randa yell, "Oh, man!" So I asked her what was wrong and she said, "Stupid computer." So I asked if she would like me to fix it for her and she deepened her voice a bit and replied, "Why, yes, my juicy dream girl!" Oh, the incontinence due to laughter! (No, really.)
Randa has taught me so much over the years....patience, love, tolerance, the ability to ignore rude people and lots of laughter and lightheartedness! She brightens my life daily.