Circle Soup = Spaghetti O’s

Tindo DS = Nintendo DS

Doll waffle = Waffles with pictures of Barbie on them

Brooming = Sweeping the floor with a broom (actually makes sense)

smacks = Gummy snacks (I pretend to smack her when she asks for it)

There are many more. I’ll post them when I hear them again. Keep in mind, she knows how to say all of these correctly. She just prefers her way and will violently oppose you if you try to correct her.

Grandfather: “If you’re good, maybe I’ll give you two some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

My 4-year-old daughter: “I don’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Grandfather: “Yes you do.”

Daughter: “No I don’t because they make me throw up.”

Not true of course.

Yes, sweet little Zahra has entered the world of imaginary friends. This one is from a TV show called Lazy Town, but apparently, he’s now bumming off of us in our own house. The nerve!

“Don’t sit there mommy! Pixel’s sitting there.”

Pixel. What kind of name is Pixel?

“The right of your mother is that you know that she carried you where no one carries anyone, she gave to you of the fruit of her heart that which no one gives to anyone, and she protected you with all of her organs. She was highly delighted, happy, and eager in enduring the harm, pains, heaviness, and grief until the hand of power saved her from you and took you out to this earth. She did not care if she went hungry as long as you ate, if she was thirsty as long as you drank, if she was naked as long as you were clothed, if she was in the sun as long as you were in the shade, if she was miserable as long as you were happy. Her abdomen was your housing, her lap your seat, her breast your nourishment, and her soul was your fort. She gave up sleep for your sake, she protected you from heat and cold, all in order that you might belong to her. You should thank her for all of that, but you will not be able to demonstrate your gratitude, except through God’s help and granting of success (tawfeeq).”

– Risalat al-Huquq (Treatise on Rights) by Imam ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Fatimah bint Muhammad (peace be upon them)

Happy Mother’s Day.

Our little suburban neighborhood has a playground. Zahra recently spent the day there. Click the image above for a larger version, as well as a few more snapshots.

A dress never tasted so good.

Try and think of the last Disney film you have seen that features a protagonist that has both parents throughout the entire feature. There are truly some discrepancies with this trend such as The Incredibles or Hercules, but the numbers that support this idea are alarming.

Read the full article

**Sigh** I don’t know what I’m going to do with this girl.

Umm Zahra, my love. You have given me four years of love and happiness, and two beautiful daughters. May Allah reward you infinitely for being the best of mothers and following in the footsteps of Maryam (peace be upon her), mother of Jesus (peace be upon him) and Fatimah (peace be upon her), mother of al-Hassanain (peace be upon them). For each of the past 1,460 days, I have smiled at least once because of you. I pray that Allah gives us many more…nay, eternity together in this life and in the next.

Happy Anniversary.

Here is the embedded video (for streaming)

Here is a direct download (46MB MPEG4)

Video editted using KDEnlive (see next post for info on it).

Click the photo for more pictures.

In other news, it looks as though Eid will be on the 31st of December, inshaAllah. Many activities planned, including bowling. It should be fun.

Once again, my prayers go out to those on Hajj, both for those who will complete it and those who return to Allah along the journey.

peace out!

zahra: “What’s this?”
me: “trash can.”
zahra: “trash can. What’s this?”
me: “ceiling.”
zahra: “ceiling. What’s this?”
me: “chair.”
zahra: “chair. What’s this…”

You get the idea. She could go on for hours, except she invariably gets distracted.

will report any news soon, inshaAllah.

Numbness in arm…shortness of breath…chest tightening…can’t go on describing symptoms…

“You will give me candy.”

Zahra loved the park. I pushed her on the swing for at least 30 minutes, and she never wanted to stop. Umm Zahra and I had to take turns pushing her. We tried to get her to swing her legs and swing herself, but she was content being the little princess. After she got out of the swing, she ran all over the park from end to end, not caring how far away from us she ran. I had to chase her all over (which she loved). Then, we found a squirrel sitting near us, watching. Zahra wanted to run up and touch it, so I had to hold her.

Some of the other people played soccer, and a lot of the other kids played on the playground. Most of the elders, of course, sat, ate, and talked.

Overall, it was a good outing. The only disappointing thing is that there was no one there to speak about the Prophet. We really need some leadership in this community or someone not too shy to make things happen.

They showed me the building plans for the new Zainabia. It has just about everything. Most impressively, the men and women have equal prayer space, and it is side-by-side (with a partition in the middle). None of that, women locked away in a room or in the basement kinda stuff you see in many masajid. May Allah make the venture a successful one.

I forgot to take pictures of today’s events, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

They grow up so fast.

Any questions?

We’ve now had at least 4 days of rain, with flooding. While some despise the rain, I see it as a symbol of growth and life. It is the marvelous beginning to a new season, a new beginning.

It makes me wonder. Is there truly “another” language that babies intuitively have from birth but lose as they become children? Your thoughts?

On the one hand, I will be happy when she (and possibly future siblings) are old enough to clean up after herself. On the other hand, most elders tell me that the time passes too quickly, and you only wish that they could go back to being young, playful, and innocent.

Meanwhile, I’ve received a letter in the mail indicating that I might be laid off from my job this year. But, they say, I should not panic. I should just wait until May, when they make the official announcement. Right. So, here I am, back to making resumes and filling out applications. I feel too old for this, yet I’ve been told that I’ll change careers at least 3 more times in my life.

What I’d like to be doing is writing full-time, and preparing Bayt-al-Hikmah (which needs funding from imaginary sources…perhaps my successful writing career). Then again, who has time for that, while working full time and raising a family?

“In this pain, of passing days we lost track
Each day carried the pain upon its back
If days pass, let them go without fear
You remain, near, clear, and so dear.
Only the fish will unquenchingly thirst,
Surely passing of time, the hungry curst.
State of the cooked is beyond the raw
The wise in silence gladly withdraw.”

– Rumi

“What?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I didn’t think of it,” she said.

Anyway, I just had to call her out on that one, but we had fun.

Zahra was OK for a while, but when everyone got up to start eating and kids playing, she was ready to go. Nothing we did could calm her. As soon as we got into the car, she asked for cake and acted like nothing had happened. I think she’s inherited some of what I might call my “agoraphobia” (for lack of a better term).

We then went to the store, bought some halal meat, and got some Turkish Delight. That made everything better, even though Zahra wouldn’t try it.

Now, she’s watching Dora the Explorer, again.

Anyway, a sister (don’t remember who) pointed out an interesting book called Ghadir Declaration by a Sunni scholar named Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. He definitely has an interesting perspective on it that is worth reading.

In other news, my wife is trying to get the little one into some type gymnastics or something. I’m not really sure.

The other day my sister gave me some tea. I think it was called herbal black tea spice chai or something weird like that. SubhanAllah, that stuff was very invigorating, almost made me wonder if my sis spiked it. I’ll have to ask her the name of it, and I’ll post it here, inshaAllah.

Enough blabbering on my part.

Taubah, my significant other, is taking an Arabic class in college, and I thought it might be helpful for her to consolidate her 500+ flash cards. I am also studying Arabic, when I have time, and using a computer program would allow us to share our vocabulary lists with each other.

Enter: KWordQuiz, a free application, released under the GPL, that does more than just flash cards. It also does multiple choice and short answer quizzes. You can flip your flash cards to either side, mark all of the ones you know or do not know, and make as many different sets as your little hard drive will hold.

You can do all of this and more with this program, but you cannot do it with Windows. Sorry folks, but this program runs on KDE, which only runs on GNU/Linux (and other Unix-like operating systems).

KDE has built-in support for Arabic, but as of now, my wife does not have a keyboard with Arabic letters on it. So, I hooked her up with Viki (no, not the robot girl from “Small Wonder”). Viki stands for “Visual Keyboard.” It’s an accessibility program that allows you to type on the keys using the mouse pointer and a graphical layout of a keyboard. She can use “shift-alt” to switch back and forth between English and Arabic.

In addition to this, I’ve also ordered her a set of Arabic stickers from Datacal. It’s a reliable company. I got my own Arabic key-stickers from them. They also sell Arabic keyboards, as well as other languages.

Aren’t husbands wonderful?

In other news, I still have two weeks off from work. I suppose I need to get organized and try to figure out a plan of action. Otherwise, I’m going to become stuck to my chair with my fingers glued to the keyboard. It’s not like I have nothing to do, with OneUmmah.net, MuslimMessage.net, Muslim Writers Society (OK, maybe I don’t really do anything with the Writers Society, but it sounds cool), and of course the business…OK, here’s the deal, anything to deal with free software (i.e. GNU/Linux, X11, and so on) or anything about the Server and the web hosting business or anything about my day-job as a mild mannered librarian, goes on my OTHER blog. As I’ve said before, Lanterntorch has three wings (.com, .net, and .org). I own them all! Muhahahahaha!

Miss Repentance (my wife) has a job now. Can you believe it? She actually got up this morning to go to work. I’m at home with the baby. I could get used to this…ok not really, but for now it’s cool.

How many people are ready for Eid next week? It’s unfortunate that, in America, Eid al-adha gets less hype than Eid al-fitr, even though the former is greater than the latter. Of course, for us this is a busy time any way with the Ghadir celebration and stuff only weeks following al-Adha.

Unfortunately, the memory card for our new camera came today (i.e. one day too late), so I was only able to get a few decent pictures at the Zoo. And I spent like 15 minutes waiting for this rhino to get in the perfect position for a picture, only to find out that the image got corrupted when I got home. Other than that, everything else was cool. By the way, Digikam rocks!