My first-born turned ten a couple of months ago and at the risk of sounding maudlin, I’ll say, oh, how time has flown! I can’t believe this spunky, cheeky little girl who stole my heart with her precocious ways has grown up so much. She’s always had an old soul. I remember that when she was about two, I pinched her cheeks after a joke and said, “You know, you are so cute ma shaa Allah!” She answered in all earnestness, “No! No! I’m not cute. I’m too big to be cute!” Her serious pronouncement made her look even more adorable, but I didn’t tell her that :) She had always objected very strongly to “being treated like a kid”.

My little big girl is full of grand schemes and shennanigans. She has been growing garlic and onions in her bedroom (we used the sprouts for our tuna sandwich filling!), made a bow (not the sort for your hair… the kind you shoot arrows with) and is planning to make bone needles (because you never know when you need to stitch deerskin for moccasins!).

Two days ago, she made us all lunch – baked pasta with minced chicken, sauce and cheese. She was a little daunted at first but with Bear’s support and much encouragement, she rolled up her sleeves and got into it like a pro. It was delicious ma shaa Allah. I only wish I’d remembered to snap a photo much sooner because this was all that was left once we had attacked it :)

I still don’t have my camera so this grainy photo is all we have… bah…

I remember thinking when I first had Mars that motherhood just didn’t come naturally to me at all. Maybe it did and I didn’t know it or maybe it really didn’t and I somehow grew into it. Whatever the case, Allah gave me a funny first-born who made it easy for me, alhamdulillah.

Mars, you’ve come a long way, ma shaa Allah. Baba and I are so proud of you! :)

The kids and I have been more homebound lately due to health and transport issues. I thought that we’d have been driven mad by cabin fever and clawed each other’s eyes out by now, but it has been surprisingly wonderful. Deliberately slowing and paring down has allowed us to pursue new interests, to rekindle old ones and to have many meaningful conversations. We’ve not been harried folks rushing in and out of home for activity after activity. We’ve been able to tackle our projects with a clearer sense of purpose and been able to complete them with greater attention to detail in a way that we have not been able to before. It has been so refreshing.

Alhamdulillah for silver linings…

One of the things I’ve wanted to instil in myself and my children is stickability… persevering and seeing things through. As I’d said in an earlier post, I wanted them to do more worthwhile craftwork. We had begun stitching a couple of years ago, but I found something lacking in our sessions… there wasn’t a sense of aspiration, if you will. There wasn’t an expectation of bigger things to come.

I think one of my many mistakes was that I did not guide them enough. When they saw a pattern they liked, however difficult, they immediately wanted to leap into it and I allowed them, thinking that their enthusiasm would carry them through. However, their lack of skill and experience often caused them a great deal of exasperation and it would not be long before efforts would peter out. When a project was completed, they would be so unhappy with the results and experience that they would be daunted to try again, even though they itched to create something pretty with their hands.

I ought to have done a little more planning and introduced projects that were challenging, but not frustrating. Dexterity and skill need time to be developed. My kids tend to want to do difficult things and achieve the same results that adults do. While I need not curb their spirit, I can help them see the value of learning things gradually and celebrating small successes along the way, rather than be overwhelmed part way and be forever discouraged.

Last Sunday, we started anew :) We embarked on a wonderful new project – sashiko. At first, the girls were a little hesitant, thinking it was an overly simplistic craft, since it uses only the running (or “tack”) stitch. When they saw how pretty the results could be and how there are varying degrees of complexity, they were all for it. Since we didn’t have white transfer paper (heck, we have NO transfer paper!) or blue fabric (traditional sashiko uses white thread on indigo cloth), we made do with blue carbon paper, calicos and assorted flosses.

I was really very heartened to see the gusto with which they stitched. Both of them finished their projects in two days and immediately asked for new patterns to work on, ma shaa Allah. Below is a pic of their completed sashiko stitchery… Forgive the horrid quality of the photo – I had only my mobile phone on hand :P

Their second patterns are a little more difficult, with smaller and more stitches required. Here is Bear, working on her second pattern (it’s a pic of cute handbags!) while waiting for her sister to be done with her Arabic class.

On another note, I did some stitching too :) Bear was enamoured by Made By Joel’s vintage fabric dolls and begged me for one. We dove into my stash of fabrics and settled on a cheery green and pink print. We made several adaptations – I sewed on a calico face (which we agreed to leave featureless), embroidered a bob hairstyle (Bear used to sport this Dora-like look!) and stitched on Bear’s choice of cute buttons. (“Put star buttons at the top to show it is night, OK?”)

It is a simple project – the doll is essentially an embroidered 18-by-9-inch pillow (but don’t call it that in front of Bear… she has a name and she is Choti) and stuffed with polyfill fibre. If you have a sewing machine, you can probably complete it in a couple of hours or less. I did this completely by hand – I am still afraid of sewing machines! – so it took me a little longer. Still, I loved the whole process and when I knotted my last stitch, I was truly excited to surprise Bear with it. She had just woken up in the morning and her look of pure delight is something I’ll treasure always.

(Notice the little peg doll? We made it a couple of years ago and it is wearing a purple kimono… Bear says it is Choti’s doll. Again, pardon the awful quality of the photo – my Nokia is just rubbish, so I tried posterizing the pic but my graphics skills are even more rubbish :P)

Bear adores Choti and won’t let her out of her sight :) I guess I did SOMETHING right, alhamdulillah!

Mars is running out of clothes to wear. It isn’t easy shopping for this first-born child of mine for the following reasons:

(1) She is not your average girly girl. Now, I’m not unhappy about this, but in a country like Pakistan where stores cater only to girly girls, it is a problem. I was a tomboy myself – hated eveything fussy and frilly and would not be caught dead in anything pink. Mars is a lot like that, but a little better. She will wear skirts (which I’d never deigned to wear back in the day, LOL!) and things slightly (keyword being SLIGHTLY) feminine, provided they have an edge. They have to look grungy, shabby chic or retro … they just cannot be prissy and they cannot be, you’ve got it, PINK.

(2) She believes in covering up. This, of course, I’m pleased about. She started wearing the headscarf back when she was 2 going on 3 (not full time). I remember when her aunt told her it was way too hot once when they were going out – it was a sweltering Isloo summer – and told her not to wear the scarf. She cried her eyes out. I had to step in when I heard the commotion and tell the aunt that it wouldn’t harm her and that we shouldn’t stop children if they want to do what’s good. ANYWAY! By the time she was 5, she wore the scarf full time and stopped wearing short-sleeves out of the home (she’d wear them with a long-sleeved T under). These days, she prefers wearing her abayas out. I do want to get some more abayas and long-sleeved blouses tailored for her, but we’ll still need some jeans and Ts though for her outdoor play and “explorations”.

(3) She has odd taste. I should say that she basks in her individuality :P This is a girl who asked me to embroider a skull and crossbones on her bookbag! She looks at skater Ts and grungy hoodies with longing. I had, last year, bought a couple for her that were not masculine and that suited her colour, but we’ve really run out of luck in this department this winter. In Pakistan, you don’t always get a good range – some of the skater Ts and hoodies are garish and downright awful. She has scoffed at the girls’ sections – they have glitter and lace (oh yes, those are out too, didn’t I tell you?), silly captions (“Adore Me!” … “I LOVE to Daaance!”) and just plain horrid pictures.

So what’s a desperate mum to do? Well, I’ve been thinking… The stores these days are selling lots of plain cotton Ts that serve as undershirts – they are long-sleeved and turtle-necked and look quite decent on their own. The fabric is also quite thick and durable. I thought I would buy loads of these for Mars and… EMBROIDER THEM!

Genius, no?

Heh, I actually got the idea from this site which I’d bookmarked ages ago: Made By Joel. (There are LOTS of wonderfully creative ideas for toys and games that you can make yourself so check the site out.)

I’ll look up some urban and funky designs in shaa Allah and give it a shot. I might even applique! I must remember to steer Mars away from her skull and crossbones notions… I might also make some for Bear although she has been fortunate – there are loads of very lovely clothes for kids her age. Well, the dad man did buy a pink T with a crown that said “Princess”. Bear has vowed to cover it up with a very anti-Princess caption. This is all Mars’ influence I tell you… :P

The air these days is terribly chilly. The blessedly bright and sunny day we had on Eid gave way to dark clouds and biting wind. Soon, unrelenting cold rains will fall for days on end and winter will be officially here. Our room is now cluttered with voluminous bedding and blankets and the wardrobes are busting at the seams with winterwear we’ve unearthed from the store-room. Things seemed to come to a head yesteday – the gloom and mess left us feeling unsettled and annoyed.

Poor Bear had been coughing badly the past few days. She’d been stuffed with all sorts of warm beverages, home remedies and medication, none of which seemed to be working. Yesterday, she coughed practically every other second and by evening, slumped in her chair and pitifully declared, “I’m SO tired … I’ve been coughing so much.”

Mars, just recovering from her illness, wasn’t doing much better. She was coughing as well, though not as badly as her sister, and was irritable after being cooped up in the house for so long. Without her loyal partner in crime to mess around with, she was a shell of her usual bouncy self.

The Dad Man, already worried about Bear, was upset because he had been forced to consume 7-UP at two homes he visited and was convinced it was what had given him the ‘flu. I was about to tell him that his symptoms may have been psychosomatic, given his aversion to caffeine and soft drinks, but levels of irritation were so high all around that I knew it would escalate into an unnecessary, heated argument.

Tired of the frazzled nerves, we decided that some comfort food was in order. We needed something warm, something hearty, something soul-soothing to bring back the cheer. We needed Lamiya’s Soup.

Now, there are an awful lot of ingredients in this soup – chicken stock, tomatoes, potatoes, chicken, capsicum, carrots, coriander and noodles. The stock needs to ‘brew’ and the vegetables must be cut and diced well, so preparation can be awfully tedious. The girls wanted to help and begged me to let them cook along. I remembered how we chatted and laughed in the kitchen last winter. I also had a less pleasant recollection of tempers fraying as the work progressed – when ingredients weren’t cut delicately enough; when there were spills and peels to clear; when the little kitchen felt too constricting altogether…

I made some ginger tea for the kids while trying to decide if I wanted my rowdy ruffians as my apprentice chefs and they watched. Mars began telling me about her gardening efforts – she has been growing garlic and onions in her room. Bear talked about her cross stitch sampler. I felt the tension dissipate and I knew that I had to let go of my exacting standards. We WILL have bad days, rooms WILL get untidy and moods WILL fluctuate – life isn’t a well-choreographed movie. Nothing is perfect so just roll with it.

I did. We did.

We made du`aa for barakah in our effort and result and plunged right in. Bear put on a face mask (yes, she was coughing THAT much!) and took charge of washing the vegetables and chopping the capsicum. Mars peeled and diced the potatoes. I tackled the chicken broth and other trickier bits. Interestingly enough, the kitchen’s cubicle proportions didn’t bother us for once. We didn’t jostle one another or encroach on each other’s work space. Everything was prepared beautifully and *just so* and the girls amazed themselves with their dexterity.

We got to know each other again that evening. The girls learnt that their mum likes things neat and so they remembered to clean up as they went along. Mars is into method and hurries to see the result of her efforts. Bear enjoys the process – she likes the company and is sorry when the job is done. It made me smile when they both broke up the noodles for the soup. Mars broke them three at a time and when Bear saw this, she cried out, “Don’t! No, do it SLOWLY! I want to TALK TO YOU!”

When we all sat down and ate the soup together for dinner, there was silence at first. We had our first sip and let the goodness run through. There was palpable contentment. Dadi was the first to break the silence and said in a gleeful manner that all one needs in winter are soup and pakoras. :) We all laughed, good humour was restored and conversation was merry.

I know we will have hectic and even trying times ahead, but I shall tell myself each morning: I will be grateful for this day.

Mars (examining a zip-up boot) : I was wondering… how did people in the old days keep boots like these fastened. You know, before they had zips.

Me (quite horrified) : Heard of buttons? Hooks? SHOE LACES!?

Mars : Oh yeah! Haha!

*sigh*