Why My Hair Dont Grow No More

Ayaan: “Can I come to the basement?”
Me: “No, I am working”
Ayaan: “Okay, I am coming”
Me: “No Ayaan, don’t come”
Ayaan: “Then fine, I am coming”
Me: “I said, no”
Ayaan: “Actually fine, I will come”

Comes to the office and climbs on my lap. 

Took the kids to the Demolition Derby this weekend (I know, I know).

If ‘t’ is the time we left, then it went like this :-

t – 2.5 hours:
Me after spending $24 to get in: “What a ripoff”

t – 2.25 hours:
Wife: “Can we get fries please?
Me: “Sure, I’ll go get it”
Me after spending $12 for fries: “What a ripoff”

t – 2 hours:
|Hamza: “Look, Demolition Dirty is coming”
Ayaan: “This is so much pun (he can’t say f)”

t – 1 hour:
Kids: “Can we go on rides please?  Please?  Please?
Me, looking at cash in my pocket: “Uh, sure.  But just one each”
Kids: “Yay….”

t – 30 minutes:
Kids: “Can we go on one more, please?  please?  Please?
Me: “Argh, sure”

t – 15 minutes:
Me: “Alright kids, I have no money left, lets go”
Safiya: “This is not fair!”
Me: “What’s not fair?”
Safiya: “I didn’t even get to go on the ride I wanted to”
Me: “Why in the world did you go on rides you did not want to?”
Safiya: “I want to go to this one”
Me: “Why did you go to the other ones then?”
Safiya: “I wanted to go to those one before.  But NOW I want to go to this one”

t – 5 minutes:
Safiya: “I did not even have fun cuz I did not even get to go to the ride I wanted to go to”

Next time I’ll just stay home, save $50 and hear “it’s not fair” at the comfort of my own home!

I am traveling.

I slept for, wait for it, 14 straights hours last night.  Tried to take a nap and slept through.  I can already see some hair budding out :).  Well, if I look really, really carefully (and use a little imagination). 

Wish I were home though :(

Lets take a break from poking fun at my kids and focus on what’s important.

Ayaan (he’s 2.5 yrs old) and I spend some time playing with cars and trains in his room.  He actually played really maturely.  His tractor would stop for my train and wait for it to pass (wow, there is hope for the boy).  After playing calmly for a bit he decided he missed his motorcycles (which were downstairs).  We came down and ate apples for snack. 

Yesterday Safiya (she’s 7), out of the blue, came to me, gave me a big hug and said “Baba, you are the best dad a daughter could ever have”.  I quickly said she was the best daughter a father could ever have and hugged her so she couldn’t see my teary eyes.

Same day Hamza (6 yrs) came and talked to me about the complexity of having a baby brother.  I mean a real mature conversation.  More teary eyes.

It’s stuff like this and this that gives you the strength to put up with enjoy parenthood with a smile!  You know when you happily stand in line in the hot sun for 45 minutes so your children could get a 60 second pony ride. 

So lets take a break for all the complaining and focus on the love.  We’ll return to our regular programming in a few days. 

We were visiting someone when Ayaan (2.5 yrs old) came downstairs with a toy car.

Me: “Ayaan, where did you get it from?”
Ayaan: “It’s mine”
Me: “It’s not yours”
Ayaan: “It’s mine”
Me: “Who gave it to you?”
Ayaan: “I gave it to me”

Can’t argue with that logic. 

Safiya is 7.  She likes to read.  So when it’s bedtime and she pleads to let me read a bit, I do what any loving father would do: I ask her to read to her brothers (so I don’t have to).

So she reads to her younger brothers as I catch up on TV shows.  Then they all go to bed.

And she thanks me for letting her read.  Kids ….

:)

So Ayaan comes to the garage riding a small car.  He doesn’t have a small car.  Ayaan is 2.5 years old.
Me: “Woh, what’s this?”
Ayaan: “It’s a car”
Me: “I know.  But whose is it?”
Ayaan: “it’s mine”
Me: “No it’s not.  That bike next to that crying kid is yours”
Ayaan: “No it’s not.  That’s his bike.  This is mine”

I’d have pulled my hair out if I had any left! 

We have a cat named Sushi.

Ayaan: “Look at Chuchi”
My wife (to imitate him): “Look at Chuchi”?
Ayaan, launghing: “It’s not Chuchi.  It’s Chuchi”
Me: “It’s Chuchi?”
Ayaan: “No, it’s Chuchi”
Me: “Sushi?”
Ayaan: “Yaaa.  It’s Chuchi.  Not Chuchi.  Chuchi!”

I was changing Ayaan’s unusually stinky diaper when I asked, “why didn’t you use the toilet?  Why did you go in your diapers?”
Ayaan: “Noooo I didn’tttt.  Mama did”
Me: “Mama did what?  You did potty in your diapers”
Ayaan: “Mama did.  I did noooot”
Me: “Mama did this?” I pointed to, well, you know what
Ayaan: “Yaaaa”

This is getting out of hand.  How do you discipline a two year old for lying? 

Hamza is 5.  Ayaan is 2.

Last night after we tucked them all to bed I came down to drink tea (don’t ask).  I heard someone come down the stairs.

Me: “Who is coming down?  You are in deep trouble”

Footsteps paused.

Me: “Who is it?”
Ayaan: “This is Ham-chcha”
I hear footsteps upstairs
Hamza: “noooo, it’s not me.  It is Ayaan”
Ayaan: “No, I am Ham-cha”
Me: “Whoever you are, go back to bed right now”

Pause

Ayaan: “I am thirsty. I want water”
Me: “Go drink it upstairs”

Pause

Ayaan: “I have to tell you something”

Well, at least that boy is persistent. 

Ayaan is 2.

Me: “Did you hit your brother?”
Ayaan: “Noooo I didnnntttt”
Me (in a very stern voice): “Are you lying?”
Ayaan: “No, I am nooooot”
Me, giving him the stare of death known to vapourize people instantly: “DID.  YOU.  HIT.  YOUR.  BROTHER?”
Ayaan: “Yes, I did”
Me: “Why did you lie to me?”
Ayaan, calmly: “I did noootttt”
Me: “Why did you say you did not hit him”
Ayaan, in the same calm tone: “I did nooottt say thatttt”

My future generations are doomed. 

There will be no complaining today.

Ayaan came running to me, jumped on my arms and gave me a loonnngggg, tight hug.  Then he kissed my cheeks and went “and nose?”.  I said “yes”.  Then he kissed my nose. 

To suck up to my wife (to get brownie points for later use, ya know) I asked him to go hug his mama.  “No, I don’t want to”, he replied.  Then he got off me as if he was saying “you blew it man, you blew it.” 

There are words I use that, well, I suppose normal people aren’t exposed to as much. I’ve taught my kids those too, so they are well on their way to prosperity.  I honestly did not realize until fairly recently that these words aren’t as commonly used as I thought they were:

• Lets keep a buffer and meet at 4:30
• Do you have the bandwidth to finish the document tonight?
  Translation: Do you have enough brain cells for the task?
• That man has an amazing throughput
  Translation: output
• Dang, I just blew my buffer
  Translation: I lost my train of thought
• Dude, you’re burning cycles
  Translation: Wasting time
• We’re on a death march
  Translation: final phase of development
• He’s drinking from a fire-hose
  Translation: He’s over-whelmed with the amount of information presented
• I am dogfooding it
  Translation: I am using a beta product for testing
• There’s a fire-drill at work
  Translation: There’s something that needs immediate attention
• Ping me when you have time
  Translation: Contact me quickly when you have time
• I can’t wait for the weekend, I really need some downtime
  Translation: Need a break
• I will sync with you later
  Translation: I will touch-base with you later
• Lets chat offline
  Translation: Lets take it off the group and talk 1-on-1 later
• Lets parallelize it, you go do <this> and I’ll do <that>
  Translation: Divide tasks
• Go interface with him, dude
  Translation: Go talk to him
• I need to recharge
  Translation: Need to recuperate
• little-r me
  Translation: Don’t reply-all to the e-mail, just reply to me
• It’s a binary problem
  Translation: There are two possible solutions (yes / no; left / right; etc)
• You’re thrashing
  Translation: You’re not getting anything done because you are trying to do too much
• I need to take a bio-break
  Translation: Err, self-explanatory

Me: “I love you Ayaan” (Ayaan is 2.5 years old)
Ayaan: “No”
Me: “I really do love you”
Ayaan: “I don’t love you”
Me: “huh?””
Ayaan: “I don’t want to love you”
Me: “But I really, really love you”
Ayaan: “I am not talking”
Me: “Ayaan!”
Ayaan: “I said, I am not talking”

And he walks away.

Ah, all those sacrifices, costs, sleepless nights … and this is what I get in return! 

So I had 7, yes SEVEN kids yesterday.  A few things happen when you have that many kids to look after:

• You get the fear of God in your heart
• Walking into a burning building suddenly seems very appealing (fortunately none of the buildings were on fire)
• You start contemplating eating that rat poison with peanut butter and bread
• Your desire to live diminishes almost as fast as your civil liberties have been diminishing lately
• Banging your head on the wall actually makes the pain go away
• You want to climb up the building and dive down, head first
• You cut out the seat belt in your car and disable airbags and breaks before almost going for a high speed joyride (couldn’t disable them airbags)
• You try to microwave your head
• You pour yourself a glass of Sulphuric Acid to go with dinner
• You put water in the bathtub, put toaster, hair dryer and boom box inside and jump in (stupid shot circuit)
• You start eating the broken glass instead of throwing it away

I should get a badge or something.  “I survived 7 kids, only 3 my own”. 

Someone gave me two tickets to the air show (thank you, once again!)  So I did what any father would do, I took my two boys and left the house to turn it into a Hamid-family-male-bonding-day.  The only problem was that the other two Hamids were 5 and 2!

First we got stuck at the traffic forever. Yes yes, should’ve taken the train.  I got it now.  Then, we spent an hour looking for parking (yes, an hour). Eventually I found something 3.5 kms away from the air show, which is when I realized I didn’t take the stroller.  Oh get this, this wasn’t entirely legal parking. I did pay $15 to park, but it was in a residential building and all visitor spots were taken.  So I parked at the reserved spot.  $15 earned me that, I think.

Waking 3.5 kms with two young children was nothing.  The “fun” started when we got there. The morons at CNE didn’t know where the air-show was. One of them pointed me to a direction (”go there and find a place”) and failed to mention that “there” was far, FAR away AND that they had a free shuttle going from here to there.  We were already so late, we made a run for it.  I was still carrying the 2 year old while the 5 year old tried not to complain. 

So eventually we got to a bridge.  Nope, not it.  Then a second bridge, not that either. At which point I decided to go see the map and noticed a third bridge.  “Is that the right one?”  Being a good consumer, I decided to ask a worker.  That waste of skin directed me towards somewhere totally different. What the heck?  How difficult is it to say: “I don’t know” or “I am not sure”?  Idiots!

By this point the kids were tired and decided they wanted to go on rides instead (btw, the third bridge was it).  To make things worse, since the 2 year old could just hear loud planes and not see them, he decided he was afraid of them. 

Alright, fine. Lets go on rides.  Each ride was $4 per child.  WTF?  Merry Go Round for $8?  So poor kids just went on 3 rides before I ran out of cash.  We spent rest of the time walking around.

Oh guess what, when I got back they had called the tow truck.  I just made it out before it showed up. 

Did I mention I was fasting? Yes sir, 5 hours of walking in the sun with not a drop of water to drink.

Yup, that’s why my hair doesn’t grow anymore! 
[On the flip side, the kids had a blast.  Weird]

I was at my parents’ when I heard the 5 year old screaming in fear.  I turned around and saw him run past me and hide behind the couch.  I looked further and saw the 2 year old chasing him with a can of Febreze (except he thought it was Raid).

Me: Ayaan, what are you doing?
Ayaan: I am trying to kill him.
Me: Huh?  Don’t kill your brother.
Ayaan: No, I want to kill him.
Me: Come here, give me that.
Ayaan: I said, I REALLY WANT TO KILL HIM
Me: Come here!
Ayaan: I am not talking to you
Me: Can you come here please?
Ayaan: I said, I am not talking. 

And he’s two!  My future!  He is supposed to carry the family  name forward, spread my DNA. 

I think I will change his name while I am ahead.  Bush seems like an appropriate family name for the behaviour :)
(I kid, I kid .. he’s not that bad)

From http://bit.ly/gXv5E.

Texas State Fair has 8 new treats. Most are artery-clogging-heart-attack-causing deep fried.  But this one takes the price:

"100 percent pure butter is whipped 'til light and fluffy, then specially sweetened with a choice of several flavors.  It is then surrounded by a "special dough" and quick-fried.

For those counting, a stick of butter has 810 calories, before it is deep fried.  And I doubt they are frying in olive oil.  And it’s pure fat, baby!

Okay, so some of my hair-loss is because of stressing out over the stupidity of fellow humans. 

Ever felt that no one really understood you?  Ever felt everyone was weird?  That only you could see things when others could not?  Well, wonder no more. It’s settled. If you’re normal then everyone else is weird.  In fact, scientists find that everyone (else) is a mutant. 

Rejoice, (other) people are weird. You are normal.  It is them, not you.  Hurray!