birth | The View Through The Window

To 3 or not to 3

Posted on January 29, 2015 by sheemsters

This is a picture of me as a baby. The person holding me is my uncle.

I don’t know why I look so angry. My husband says I still make that sour face. A lot.

Here’s another.

I’m with my mom in this one. Apparently I didn’t move a lot as a kid. Some things never change.

Excuse the quality of the pics. They’re pretty old.

No, I’m not old. Just the pics are.

My neighbor from across the street recently had her fifth child. She gets out of the house so infrequently that I found out she had been pregnant two weeks after she brought the baby home from the hospital.

She’s a little on the religious side. She likes to tell me that children are a blessing, birth control is a no no, and that we should have as many kids as God decides to give us.

Okay, Michelle Duggar. You do that. I’m going to hop on the first train back to the real world, where we have something called a condom.

As my boys get older, the question of So are you going to have any more? becomes inevitable. I’ve heard it quite a few times already. Everyone seems to think that we need a daughter.

My sister once asked me Wouldn’t you love to have a girl? to which I replied Not as much as I’d love to have a life.

If you listen closely, I’ll tell you a secret. Ready? Okay, here we go.

Kids. Are. A LOT. Of work.

Above is the picture of my eldest at around three months old. Isn’t he such a doll?

But behind those chubby cheeks and fat wrists lies a natural inclination to be hyper. And naughty.

Here is Child 2 at 1.5 months of age.

His story is the most famous post on this blog.

He’s the opposite of his brother. He loves to eat and to sleep. He also did this thing as a newborn where he would pull a fistful of his own hair and then scream at the top of his lungs. That was cute but I really hoped it didn’t reflect on his level of intelligence.

When you put the two of them together, you get 4 ounces of getting along, 3 ounces of fighting, and 1 ounce of He’s so stupid and annoying and I wish he was like Mini!

Mini is my brother’s deceased pet cat. He was also my kids’ first experience with the concepts of death and dying. I was hoping for some maturity and understanding from them when we mentioned Mini’s passing, but all they got out of it was that he had gone away and was never coming back and hey, that’s a good idea, let’s send my annoying brother there, too.

My kids are my world. They might drive me crazy, but they also make me laugh.

Like when my four year old comes up to me, points to my breasts, and asks Which one makes ice cream?

I’m guessing that’s some sort of reference to breast milk but I was laughing too hard to inquire.

As much as I love my kids, I’m not crazy about the idea of giving them more siblings. My experience with raising infants hasn’t been the greatest. It was challenging, to say the least.

While all the other new parents sailed smoothly, we hit iceberg after iceberg.

Smash. Acid reflux.

Crash. Inability to nurse.

Wham. Being blessed with the one baby in the world that didn’t seem to require any sleep whatsoever. His idea of nap time was an extra long blink.

The biggest problem of them all was my kids’ inability to put on weight. They would gain ounces, not pounds. Both were big babies at birth and in utero, thanks to my doing a really good job at the eating for two part, but my husband was a rail thin child and genetics eventually took over in full force.

Difficulty in gaining weight is a problem I never had. I can look at food and gain weight. Even embryonic me must’ve been on the heavier side.

Not my boys. They both eat like crazy and not one bit of it turns into baby fat. They have the metabolism of an Olympic gold medalist.

While it’s great for them as kids, as babies it was a nightmare. Infancy is the one and only time where fat equals cute. Kid one was diagnosed with failure to thrive and kid two with the audacity to completely fall of the charts.

I know now that children of Indian descent are naturally more petite. But as a new parent, any minor deviation from normal was the end of the world. And that’s what it felt like.

It’s tough to look back at their baby pictures and not remember a time when I felt like a total failure at the whole mothering thing.

An especially low point was when a cold ass bitch commented So are you feeding your kids at all or are you eating their food as well?

Apparently she meant it as a joke. I meant it as a joke, too, when I told her her husband’s tits were bigger than hers.

I’m in no hurry to flunk the test for the third time and neither is my husband. Sure, number 3 might be the charm, but higher powers seem to be agreeing with us on two being the magic number. Meaning my ob-gyn and my cardiologist. The only way I will be allowed to deliver any future child is through cesarean surgery and the pills I pop for my tachycardia are harmful to a growing fetus.

Let’s see. Stop taking potentially life saving medicine and be carved up like a Christmas turkey, or shut down the baby making factory and be a good mom to the kids I already have?

If anything I’d say God was telling me to keep my uterus to myself. Okay, God, I get your message. Sheesh. Now stop sending me those nightmares where I’m giving birth to the Antichrist.

I have converted from hateful comedianism

Posted on January 16, 2015 by sheemsters

I used to be a Bill Maher fan. I liked the way he approached his topics and discussions. Without fear and with no attempts at being diplomatic. He never seemed scared or intimidated by anything.

His body language was always of someone at ease, no matter what he was dealing with. He once wowed me with his ability to get Ann Coulter to shut up. I don’t know if you are familiar with the woman, but it’s quite the accomplishment.

Then this happened. 😯

What he said doesn’t surprise or shock me. I’ve heard it all before. He’s entitled to his views and opinions. Whatever people want to believe is up to them.

I’m just disappointed that Maher generalized. That’s such a Fox News thing to do. I thought he was better than that.

And I have just one question.

When the hell did Muslims ever agree on an issue enough to classify it as the mainstream view?

Muslims concurring? That’s news to me. That headline can definitely “break the internet.” It’s got even more potential than Kim K’s giant oily ass.

We can’t even agree on when to celebrate our two holidays. Yeah, just two. The Islamic calendar runs according to the lunar cycle, so classic discussions about when to hold the occasion of Eid have been Is the moon visible? Did <enter far off relative> in <enter farther off country> see it? Was it hiding behind a tree? It was?!

In that case, I think I’ll celebrate it the day after my third cousin’s great uncle’s daughter in law’s granny does. You know, just to be sure, in case Allah is watching and he gets mad that we missed the chance to argue over something.

My husband no longer calls it moon sighting. He says the correct term is now moon fighting.

Maher would like us to believe the majority of Muslims support the criminals that perpetrated the violence in France. That the extremist view is the dominant view. But what about the Muslim police officer that was one of the twelve victims? And the Muslim employee at the Kosher deli? What about Malala Yousafzai and her family? Abdul Sattar Edhi? Ahmed Aboutaleb?

Did these people just miss the memo or what?

As the actions of the crazy fucked up minority of the religion get more frequent, I am seeing more of the world calling for the peace loving ones of us to do something about it. I think they see it as sort of like asking parents why the eff they don’t do something about their delinquent kids. Except I don’t remember giving birth to evil monsters. Shudders.

That delivery would’ve been something. Forget the birth. Just consider the episiotomy.

My cousin is more religious than I am. She covers her hair and I don’t. She doesn’t gossip and I do. A lot. She’s involved with social work and I’m not. My contribution to the community is to keep my kids from fighting in public places.

We both follow the same book. She interprets verses one way while I interpret them another. I don’t say she’s right and she doesn’t say I’m wrong. We are both free to practice the religion as we see fit.

I don’t understand, then, why we are to blame, apologize, or take responsibility for someone who doesn’t follow her version or my version but chooses to espouse his own evil, perverted version. I fail to see what we have to do with that. Or what Buddhists have to do with this. Or Hindus have with this.

Say we followed the religion of shapes. I liked circles and you liked squares. And then some dumb ass mofo decides to bust out a triangle. Do we give up our love of geometry?

Am I getting anywhere with this, or is my circle story pointless? 😆

It might be for whom nothing we say is enough. We can condemn until the cows come home and make buttermilk. We can preach nonviolence, hold interfaith gatherings, give interviews, but they’ll still insist “Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”

Thanks, Rupert Murdoch. How the hell did you get where you are if you can’t even spell Muslim? What else would you like for us peaceful Moslems to do? Sit on the bombs ourselves? I’m all for making the world a better place, but how do I do that with my ass falling off of me?

The majority of us are just people simply trying to live our lives. I’m sure you don’t hear of us, though. How could you? “Muslim working, 9-5″ doesn’t make the news. Muslim dropping kids off at daycare doesn’t either, nor does Muslim enjoying company sponsored free seafood buffet. Muslim slowly realizing he’s allergic to shellfish might, though.

Before you know it, a whole lotta people are blamed for the actions of some.

That’s not to say Muslims or Islam is in any way near perfect. Far from it. We’ve got our problems, like any large, multiracial, and multicultural group would.

One complaint I always had was that Muslims should lighten up and be less judgmental of other Muslims. The liberal use of the word haram, meaning sinful, is another. Because haram is everywhere.

I’m haram. You’re haram. Is anyone out there not haram? Come on, people, save the judging for Allah and the afterlife.

Yup, we’ve got issues all right. And the fucked up, crazy minority is one of them. Sad that only the stupid ones are heard and spoken about. Such as this guy.

*Shaking my head in disbelief *

Forget sharing minute similarities of the same faith. Right now I’m embarrassed to be part of their species.

When I was in middle school, I made the mistake of making fun of the religion of a couple of classmates that had been teasing me. Yes, I went there. I regretted it almost immediately, though, and apologized soon after.

I saw the bewilderment and hurt in their eyes at the insult to their god and their religious practices. I decided that that was a level I never wanted to stoop to ever again. A person’s religion is beloved for him or her. It’s their way of life. And to ridicule something that important to someone else would truly be a callous thing to do.

In the words of Homer Simpson, “Jesus, Allah, Buddha! I love you all!”

But that’s just me and my way of doing things. I can’t shove that opinion onto someone else. If you want to draw cartoons, you should be able to draw cartoons, whether they offend people or not.

I remember watching a news special on the KKK once. The African American mayor of a large city was in charge of and had to provide the security for the rally that the group intended to host that day. And of course he didn’t agree with them in the least. But it was their right. And rights are and should be equal for all, bucktooth ignoramus included.