Apology and settlement for Arar!!

Here is the transcript from the article from the CBC website. Click HERE to read the whole article.

Maher Arar said his innocence has been confirmed by the formal apology Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued to him on Friday.

"This means the world to me," Arar said during a one-hour press conference in Ottawa on Friday afternoon.

Earlier Friday, Harper apologized and offered a $10.5 million compensation package to Arar and his family, along with money for legal fees, for the "terrible ordeal" they suffered after Arar spent nearly a year in a Syrian jail.

"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you…and your family for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002 and 2003," Harper said.

"I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives," he said.

I'm pretty proud of Canada for owning up to this and being accountable. And I am even happier to see that HUGE smile on Maher's face!! Is it not HUGE? Perhaps they can piece their lives back together again now that his name has been officially cleared and the government has assumed their share of the blame for his arrest and subsequent incarceration/torture. Of course, despite that fact, the United States still refuses to take him off their terrorist watch list.... But I seriously doubt that Maher Arar would ever want to set foot in this country again. And who can blame him.

caution: travelling with children

I just read this article about a family who was kicked off their flight when their 3 year old child refused to sit down and be buckled into her seat. The flight had already been delayed by 15 minutes and there appeared to be no sign that the parents were going to be able to get the child to sit down and cooperate. The plane cannot take off until all its passengers are wearing seat belts.

This is funny to me. And sad. I know the power of a meltdown in a public place and I know how claustrophobic it is on an airplane, and how every person coming down the aisle has that look on their face ("I hope that kid is not sitting next to me"). But come on, you couldn't get your own child to sit down and put on a seat belt??? How do you go to the grocery store every week? How do you function in your day-to-day life? Sometimes you have to be the Bad Mommy or Bad Daddy and say, This is for your own good. Do it. Here are some travel tips for you.

Granted I've never been on a long plane ride so I know some people who can offer much better advice than me in that respect - keeping attention occupied for the long term - but we've been on over a dozen short plane rides now with Maymuna and/or Hafsa and I think I've got it down to three basic elements: (1) sleep stuff. (2) food stuff. (3) play stuff.

For sleep, bring whatever your child needs to fall asleep so that if they are tired they can do so, instead of just melting down. So despite how precious that teddy bear is, and how the scariest thing in the world to you is losing it, bring it with you. I usually bring a blanket from home too. For babies nursing has always done the trick for us, especially combined with the bumpy take-off.

For food. Bring lots. Snacks, snacks, snacks. Some salty. Some sweet. Some special. Meltdown will occur if you don't have food. And the pretzels on the plane do not count. If you can, bring an empty sippy cup for each child and ask the attendant to fill it when they offer drinks. No one is really quenched by that tiny cup of water/pop/coffee, are they? Well, neither are the kids. And I personally recommend water. Like they need any sugar while in a confined space like that.

For play. Bring at least one thing they've never seen before. I picked up a colouring pad (the kind with markers that only work on the special paper) for Maymuna last time and it worked great. For Hafsa I brought as many small toys as possible and divided them into 3 ziploc bags. That way you don't have to fish around in the diaper bag for one toy - you can just grab a bag, exhaust its possibilities and toss it back in and retrieve another one. Unfortunately though, soothers, Little People and stuff like that inevitably get thrown around. Be prepared to be the last off the plane (which is likely anyway) and scoop them all up. If you are carrying a laptop for work, bringing a DVD for a child Maymuna's age can be a lifesaver.

The last thing is, don't underestimate the layover. The layover, while a drag, can be your friend. As soon as we arrive in Chicago we let the kids just go - run, walk, crawl - and get it out of their system.

Of course now we have an extra mobile traveler and an extremely active one... anything could happen, all bets could be off... we might annoy every single person on the plane, and I think it is likely that will happen one of these days. My new motto is Ticked off, not kicked off!! ;)

Here we are

It's been business as usual around here the last few days. We've settled back in, finally, after our trip. In fact, I think that we might have settled into a routine for the first time in almost a year. Hafsa is *THANK GOD* napping. You would think that babies just know how to do this - but that is definitely one of the myths of motherhood. Newborns sleep a lot, yes, but it's not long before they begin to resist sleep like it's the plague. I think it's when they learn that they would just rather be with you.

It took Maymuna a few months to get into a good sleep routine, and with Hafsa, well, it's taken a good ten months. I don't want to over-think it, I just want to rejoice and give thanks that things are working better now. She's been taking two naps a day this week and our days have been infinitely more pleasant. Hafsa is getting more sleep (therefore less clingy and miserable), Maymuna is getting more undivided attention (therefore less clingy and miserable), I am getting the occasional cup of tea in there too (definitely less miserable). It puts us all in a better mood. Here is a happy family scene from yesterday which I caught on my little digital camera: to view it just click HERE. Enjoy! Sweet dreams!

Toy Mountain

I conceded defeat this weekend, as it finally happened.

The toys took over the house.

At our old house on Jackman Terrace, when Maymuna was just a baby (and her toys were of similar stature) we had a designated play space where all her toys lived and where she played with them. It was adjacent to the kitchen and the living room for perfect monitoring. And the rest of the house remained the domain of grown-ups.

I have tried the same approach here, with the main floor bedroom doubling as the playroom and just about every toy we own had its (somewhat cramped) place in there. Of course I had not factored in the quadruple whammy of this past fall/winter which consisted of one birthday, 2 Eids and Christmas. This has pushed the room to its full capacity. Lest Maymuna drown under piles of adorable stuffed monkeys and dress-up clothes, we thought we would have to expand the play area to include... well, the rest of the house.

The other pressing reason for this re-organization is related to the girls' very different types of play. Maymuna is three now and wants to play with more sophisticated toys with inevitably smaller parts; while Hafsa wants to (A) be wherever Maymuna is, and (B) eat anything smaller than a golf ball. Though maybe she would try to eat one of those too. I don't remember having to pin Maymuna down and pry something out of her little jaws more than a couple of times in her babyhood - I do this with Hafsa several times *daily*.

Needless to say, Maymuna needs a play space that's private sometimes, but shutting Hafsa out of the playroom leaves her with nothing at all to do because all the toys are in there. So after lots of debate we moved our much loved Crate & Barrel shelving to the dining room (sob!!) and brought some of the larger toys out into the living room (a once toy-free zone!!) and therefore given Maymuna some "big girl" space in her room for elaborate doll pinics and tea parties.





Speaking of kiddies, I just know that the grandparents reading are appalled - there have been no new pictures of the children up on the blog in ages. Well, Nan, Datti, Grandad and Dada... you've been very patient... these are for you...















Hafsa can walk when pushing the toy grocery cart, so it's her new favourite thing. That open-mouth grin in the last picture of her, that's the smile she puts on every time the camera comes out. Here's a better shot of it:



It's 10 o'clock now people, I've got to head straight to bed, preschool in the morning! Sweet dreams!

With my free time

It's Saturday afternoon and for all intensive purposes I am alone at the computer. In broad daylight. This morning I offered to give Ozayr a break by taking Maymuna out for some "Mommy-Maymay time" at the bookstore while Hafsa took her morning nap. Maymuna was excited because she wanted to visit the "princess books" which she found there last time and so we agreed to go. Over breakfast our playdate was extended to include Ozayr, "Mommy-Baba-Maymay time" she said. Hafsa, she decided, would stay here at home. In her crib. Then within an hour or so I was dropped from the equation, and I heard her tell Ozayr that they would soon be having "Baba-Maymay time". So guess where Ozayr is right now? Barnes and Noble, reading something pink and fluffy, no doubt. And I am here... with some free time on my hands. I could clean something or cook something... but no! I can't quite bring myself to do something so responsible. Instead I just finished watching the pilot episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie.

A review seems to be in order, though my feelings are mixed... I guess I'll start by filling you in, for those who haven't heard of it yet. Here is the official blurb on the series:

LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE is a new comedy from CBC Television about a small Muslim community in the prairie town of Mercy, many of whose residents are wary of their new, more “exotic” neighbors. The series takes an unabashedly funny look at the congregation of a rural mosque and their attempt to live in harmony with the often skeptical, even down right suspicious, residents of their little prairie town. The sitcom reveals that, although different, we are all surprisingly similar when it comes to family, love, the generation gap and our attempts to balance our secular and religious lives.

Some characters were a surprise to me... There is actually a white convert, a hijab-less woman, in the series which I didn't expect at all. That was a surprise. Their family dynamic is interesting to me. Other characters were SO not a surprise at all... the Pakistani Imam with the heavy oh-so-hilarious accent, rambling on about the evils of wine gums, rye bread and Canadian Idol. He's a caricature of the reactive, paranoid, fresh-off-the-boat Muslim. Granted, there is a presence like this in our community - people who are afraid of the new customs of the West and are suspicious of every little thing. But for me this joke's been done a thousand times. But there you go, perhaps the mainstream population will find him very funny because this character is new to them.

That's what I find hard to believe about this show - how will they make it work? Can they keep a balance between interesting/amusing characters and stereotypes? Authentic details about Muslim life can keep this series real and keep the characters from becoming one-dimensional... but those details, are they not mostly lost on the majority of the population? I found the argument about the beginning of Ramadan hilarious because it's the same struggle we have every year - but I wonder if everyone gets it. And certainly if they want to stay on the air they have to make the material as widely accessible as possible, don't they? So how long before the authentic details get dropped by the wayside for the quicker, cheaper laugh? Forgive my suspicion... it just makes me worry, that's all. I'm the first person who would love to see ethnically diverse, intelligent, funny, warm Muslim characters on television... I guess I'm just skeptical. As I'm sure you can understand, we've been more than once bitten.

Ozayr and Maymuna are back from the bookstore. Sounds like Maymuna made Ozayr read about a thousand books and he was not impressed with most of them and called for an immediate ban on princess/barbie/disney/bratz books and products. He told me about some of the plots of the stories they looked at and I must say that I was equally appalled, despite having grown up with all that fairytale goo and loving it like I did... Well. That's not to say I didn't turn out okay. But whatever. I've got to go and polish my tiara now.

of paper and post

These are the letters & parcels sitting upstairs waiting to be mailed this week. I think there are 3 packages and 8 letters...


In the past I have been gently accused of being "obsessed with mailing things". Like all... obsessions (if you will)... it's not really that simple. The layers of every infatuation are many - why do you really like the things you do? what draws you to a particular hobby as opposed to another? Perhaps it says a lot about you as a person (or maybe not). I do send out A LOT of mail. The post is picked up at your door here and I estimate that I send out about 2 to 3 pieces of mail every week. I have friends and relatives in South Africa, Scotland, Australia and England, and Canada. Whew!

When my parents moved to Ottawa from the UK, it was too expensive to make phone calls. There was no home computer for emailing, and certainly not a webcam. I grew up watching my mother sit down and write letters to her brothers and sister and my grandparents, on those blue airmail letter writing sheets, the kind that weigh practically nothing. And all my relatives wrote back, so the mail was greeted each day with the distinct possibility of something more than bills, a reasonable likelihood that there would be a letter for you. My mother would read these out loud to us when we were younger, and then started leaving them out in the front hall for us to read when we got home from school. Each of my aunts has their own writing style, and I can blindly identify the author of a Smith letter any day.

I don't know how old I was when I began writing letters myself. My first memories are of thank you letters for my Christmas and birthday presents. If my grandmother sent me money, I wrote to tell her what I bought with it. I soon joined my mom with writing to my cousins and my grandmother. My cousin Christie and I only started emailing each other a couple of years ago, but still send letters for the fun of it. And the days of blue airmail paper are long gone... I am a stationary junkie now. There's nothing like quality paper and a gorgeous colour...

To be clear though, my enthusiasm is not with "mailing things", not at all. My love of letter writing lies with the receiving end of the process. Getting a letter in the mail is a simple, but pure, joy. I love getting mail and I will save a letter from a friend until I have a cup of tea and a quiet moment to truly enjoy it. The paper they chose, their penmanship, all say something about them, when or where they wrote it... I love those little details. And the time they took to handwrite the note, when no doubt rationally it would have been quicker to call or email, that's a gift in itself in these fast times. To me it's the ultimate in good manners (in the case of thank-you's) and the best way to show someone you care.

A kind note on beautiful paper that someone took the time to write out by hand... What a special little surprise in your mailbox on an ordinary day... now that's what I love about sending you a letter - the surprise and that smile on your face.

For anyone interested in looking at some great stationary, there are some great stores in Minneapolis and online... These are my current favourites...

Crane's
Papique
Elum Designs
Kate's Paperie

My required reading

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but if I did, I would definitely say that catching up on my reading is a big priority for 2007. My parenting books are stacked sky high in the nooks and crannies of our house, and I think I should finish a couple of them before my children are 18.

First on my list, because I'm halfway through, is The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron. That book isn't for everyone, but I think it's given me lots of great advice that suits our family. I have to finish it before I start anything else (because I'm just wired that way) and that's part of the problem. I have two great parenting books sitting here collecting dust that I really want to get to: How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk and Siblings Without Rivalry. Both are parenting classics, written by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I get the sense from other parents that both books are excellent and contain wisdom that is useful no matter what age your kids are. I want to read them now to get the most out of them. I wish I had taken my sister-in-law Paula's advice all those years ago: read BEFORE you have kids, because you never have time after. So true!!

I am not suggesting a book club by any means (I have a terrible time honouring commitments like that these days) but I am giving myself another 3 weeks to finish The Highly Sensitive Child and then I'm going to start on these books. I thought I would begin with How to Talk... and just go 10 or 15 pages at a time, every week. I'll try to post every weekend about my progress with the book and anyone who wants to read along with me is most welcome! This way if you are reading too it might be interesting to share insights (via email or your own blog) and the big plus for me is that it gives me incentive to start (and finish) reading them. I know 10 pages a week is pretty slow, and it might take 6 months to finish each book, but they've been sitting on my shelf at least that long now, so I might as well start with a slow and steady approach, it's better than nothing. Other books on my list for later on include The Five Languages of Love for Children and Kids are Worth it! which are both around here somewhere... but we'll deal with those later (and I hope it won't be 2008!)

drs. on the move...

Maymuna woke up this morning and said, “my ear hurts.” We took her to the doctor who confirmed that the cold she’s had the last week has developed into an ear infection in her right ear. She is on antibiotics now, so hopefully we’ll see an improvement soon.

We didn’t get to see our regular pediatrician because Dr. Daniels has left our local practice and is moving to Montana. This makes me inexplicably sad. I found her pretty much by chance when we got here. A colleague of Ozayr’s recommended a doctor but when I called he was not taking any more patients. I asked if I could meet another doctor and Dr. Susan Daniels was available. We met and I liked her right away, I asked if she could be the primary care physician for Maymuna, and later for Hafsa who was not born yet.

Dr. Daniels turned out to be a blessing for our family that I won't forget. When Hafsa was born, Dr. Daniels drove out to the hospital downtown to see her the next morning before she started work. A trip that easily added another hour to her work day. By that time we had already taken Hafsa for an x-ray and she came to talk to us about the possibilities we could expect. I think it was from her mouth that I first really heard the words spina bifida…

Throughout Hafsa’s first days in the hospital, Dr. Daniels continued to drive out to see us in the morning before she started work. After we had our ultrasound, and finally the MRI, it was Dr. Daniels who called us in the hospital and informed us of the test results. She also gave us her personal cell phone number for us to call at any time.

At Hafsa’s one-week checkup Dr. Daniels had a list of experts she wanted us to see, and a battery of tests lined up for Hafsa. She explained that the neurosurgeon’s clinic was out of the way, about 40 minutes from where we live, but “if this were my child” she said, “this is the only person I would want to do this surgery.” There was something about the way she related to us, as a parent, that made me trust her all the more. She has sent us personal notes to our house several times since then. As we have sent more than one to her, relaying the many thanks we owe her.

But it’s not just the big things that make her a great doctor – she never belittled a single sniffle we brought our kids in for, she never acted like she had another patient waiting in the next room, and she always encouraged us to follow our instincts in regards to our children and how they feel.

My brother began his own personal journey towards becoming a doctor tonight. His flight for Australia (via Toronto, via Hong Kong) left at 7 p.m. this evening. I hope for him… everything. I hope he gains knowledge. And I hope he gains skill and valuable experience. I hope he never loses his remarkable compassion for people, and I hope he always uses the same tenderness with his patients as he shows towards his loving nieces. I hope he finds amazement and fulfillment and a touch of awe in everything he learns.

I guess it's a coincidence that both of them are leaving this week. I'll miss them both. But I rationalize that such outstanding people need to shared with the world...

Tiny Gamer

Here is the scene in front of me currently:


Maymuna and Ozayr are bonding over a game of "Burnout". It's pretty cute. Then Maymuna looks over at Ozayr and says, "we forgot to eat lunch Baba!" Then they go back to playing. Of course for all intensive purposes Maymuna's controller is plugged into the exersaucer. Poor girl is still sick, and it's confusing for us because "Mama" and "Baba" both sound the same because of her congestion. So we're never sure who she's talking to. Yesterday she told me "mucous..." (which sounds like "bucous") "... is what makes BOOGIES." And she told me like that was life's greatest question, how boogies are made. Thanks Mim. :)

Small one is doing better, thanks to the antibiotics. Her cough still sounds pretty rough, but her natural disposition to trouble has been restored. Here's a picture of her attacking the giant stuffed polar bear at my parents' house just before we left. She would totally wrestle this thing, picking it up (as much as she could seeing as it's technically bigger than her) and throwing it (as much as she could) then pouncing on it and squeezing it... It was fun to watch... unfortunately it wouldn't fit in our case otherwise we would have stolen it from them.


That's all for now, it's a pretty lazy Sunday in Minnesota... and this is as productive as I'm likely to be today...

Safe arrival

We are back in our little house... blurry-eyed and exhausted, but here and safe all the same. Hafsa seems to have recovered some of her spunk and is doing alot better today. She crawled around on the floor of the plane. She even threw a fit or two in protest when we tried to contain her. I don't think the airlines had Hafsa in mind when they envisioned the "lap passenger". Her breathing is still rattling quite a bit, but I am happy to see her little smiles again -- that was the part that had me worried the last few days. Now she is *supposed* to be going to sleep but she is getting re-acquainted with her crib instead, and it is quite exciting apparently. There's a party going on, with lots of coo's and pointing at her mobile in the dim light. I'm hoping that she is going to fall asleep eventually. I am blogging from her room...

Maymuna is pretty wiped out. She must be exhausted from rolling her little Dora backpack/suitcase around the various airports. She watched a video on her father's laptop for most of the first plane trip, and we barely heard a peep out of her. The second plane ride she was a little more agitated, but still didn't touch a single activity or snack that I packed for her. Instead she played with our boarding pass ticket stubs the whole time. Sometimes they were money. Sometimes she had to swipe them in the little phone in the back of the seat in front of us. Sometimes she passed them out to us. Sometimes she had to have them back. She lined them up. She stacked them. Just before landing she packed them. Kids are funny.

Anyway, we got our (FIVE) bags and our huge rental van (to fit said bags) and headed home, with a stop for milk on the way. Our little house was waiting for us, with snow on the lawn... In my mind I thanked 2006 Jen for cleaning so diligently before we left -- 2007 Jen loved coming home to a nice orderly house. Then we dumped our stuff all over it and clothes, toys and toiletries began to spew forth from our cases, seemingly without our assistance...

Thank you to everyone in Ottawa for such a lovely trip. Leaving you was hard... please someone tell me, when does it get easier?

Believe it or not, there is quiet here in the nursery... all except for raspy little breaths... Sweet dreams. xo

From rags to royalty

For Christmas this year Maymuna received the following card from her Uncle Dan:

Dear Maymuna,

This card entitles you to:

• One Free Dobbin ride
• One trip to the Pet Store
• One wrestling match
• One turkey sub
• One toy of your choosing from Mrs. Tiggy Winkles (subject to available finances)

Love,

Your Uncle Dan

And so Maymuna and Dan set out yesterday morning to the local shopping mall for their outing. Their goal was just to have fun, have lunch, and buy Maymuna a present. Before they left I begged him not to let her come home with anything too over the top... He tried to promise, but ultimately he said, it's her choice. Of course he was wise to say this. A disclaimer, if you will.

Apparently they had not been in the mall too long before Maymuna stopped dead in her tracks and dragged Dan into a store (the name of which he can still not recall), transfixed by the vision of pink, tulley loveliness in front of her...

She is now Princess Maymuna, and her gown is pink and gold and sparkly and, I imagine, quite scratchy, though she has yet to complain. And in case you missed the princess part, it has a round disk sewn right on to the chest with a picture of Sleeping Beauty right on it.

It frightens me a little personally (are this much gauze and tulle and tafetta and glitter meant to come together in a single garment?) but Maymuna adores it, AND her uncle...

Thank you Dan... Now let's just get our stories straight, Sleeping Beauty went back to school and became a lawyer after she was awoken by Prince Charming, right? Alright then.

Memory Lane

Maymuna and Hafsa fell asleep in the car this afternoon (no surprise seeing as they've been up late and awake early the last few days) and so Ozayr and I drove around the city for almost an hour, giving them (and us) a bit of a break. Ozayr's stream of consciousness driving took us past Bell High School, and we couldn't resist driving through the parking lot and peering in through the glass doors...

Everything seemed... smaller. The lockers, the doors themselves, the front walkway where we'd all go to catch the bus. The grounds are now dotted with ugly 'portables' for extra classrooms, but otherwise there is not much change from when I was there last. It has just shrunk.

Leaving the school was the biggest difference: there is a highway now which runs right next to it, right through Bruce Pit, our old rebel grounds. I tried to remember the old roads, the old way home and I closed my eyes and I could visualize pulling out of the parking lot in a friend's old car (a certain green station wagon more often than not) and heading home...

For a fleeting moment I could really feel what I remember feeling then... a bright and sunny day... the freshness of the air after being trapped in a stuffy classroom all day... we could go anywhere, do anything! I remember that release, feeling free at last, and the giddyness of getting to be with my friends again and laugh and sing at the top of our lungs...

There is a simplicity to this scene, we have not yet begun to consider the great questions in life, or even the medium sized ones. No one has had children, or lost a parent, or lost anything at all. We are just enjoying the day and loving the moment, turning up the radio loud.

Funny thing is, though I smiled remembering all these things, I wouldn't go back to 16 years old for anything. Anything at all. :)