Safa means tranquil, serene, calm…I try

-We have a DVD player in our vehicle…supposedly for the kids when we road trip. However, during our last weekend excursion, my husband sat in the middle row and basically forced my 5 year-old son and 6 year-old nephew to watch Napoleon Dyna.mite for 4 hours (even though the movie isn’t that long, my hubby has a way of rewinding a scene every 10 minutes to recapture the moment:)Needless to say I had to pull rank on the ride back!

- On same road trip, my sister sits next to me…supposedly to keep me company while I drive. hmph…if you call talking on your cell phone for 3 hours straight, then going to sleep keeping me company. That really peed me off!

- My son asked me a few weeks ago “don’t you want to be dead so you won’t have to take care of no kids”?

-A question…What’s the largest pay cut you’d take in order to do something you really enjoy…or if the job was in your neighborhood…no more interstate commutes. I’m not looking for, “oh, to do something I love, I’d do it for free”! Seriously.

-Gross alert: My hubby teased my son by telling him he had a booger in his eye. My son asked me to look. I look…no booger. He then says, “oh, mommy nevermind, it was cold not a booger cause I tasted it and it don’t taste the same”.

-I need a VACATION…SOLO I am really worn down lately.

-A friend of mine went home to her big sister’s babyshower and to meet her fiance’. After a while she realized that she’d talked to and exchanged photos with the guy on match dot com. He acted like he didn’t notice and she was just flabergasted. I think she was more stunned that he “pretended” not to remember her. I keep trying to remind her that maybe her image isn’t forever etched in the brains of every man she encounters.

Saturday me and the kids were outside the house of my neighbor around the corner. She had taken my 5 year-old to the zoo and I stopped by to pick him up on my way back from running errands.

She has five wide steps leading up to her front door. Her daughter sat on the top step closest to the door (she’s 12). My neighbor and my 5 year-old sat on the middle step, and I was standing on the sidewalk holding the baby (he’s 13 months). OK…

All of a sudden we see this dog…looked like a cross between a pit bull and bull dog walking alone on the other side of the street but towards us. He then stepped in the middle of the street and began walking faster up the middle of the street. All of a sudden he started trotting towards the side of the street we were on. Once he hit the sidewalk at a trot towards us, I ran to my SUV and jumped in the passenger side front. My neighbor’s daughter was about to run in her house and my neighbor grabbed my son and started for the door. The dog ran past us as the owner called from 2 blocks away.

My neighbor was laughing and saying that I took the baby and left J to his own defenses. I did not. I explained that he was sitting next to her and they were closer to the front door of the house. I would have had to run holding the baby up 3 wide steps, run back down, and try to get us all in the car…we would’ve been mauled by then.

Later I thought about it. Was that wrong? Did that send a message to J that I would save myself and Y and leave him behind? He didn’t pay it any mind…apparently, but I’m the type that will now have to have a “heart 2 heart” with him this week over ice-cream to remind him how much I love him and would never leave him to the dingos…

Here is a short summary of my mini-vacation to Indianapolis with hubby, 5yo son, 12month old son, and 12 year-old step daughter. I was there for a convention and since muslim women aren’t supposed to travel alone, we made the most of it. We had a great time! I spent 4 days doing convention stuff while hubby and daughter did the touristy thing. They went to the Indy race track and saw some cool races/crashes (my son is obsessed since watching Cars). They visited the museum, went swimming, etc. Anyway, here are some highlights:

- Forgetting at the last minute about the ban on certain items…no lotion and actually “lotioning” my hands with cherry flavored chapstick.

- Missing our flight by 2 minutes Thursday morning and fighting back tears at the gate after the struggle through the airport with all the kids, adreneline, etc.

- Our luggage being flown to Indianapolis even though we arrived the next morning (actually turned out great b/c our bags were sitting there when we finally arrived).

- After we missed our flight, leaving the airport all dejected when my son realized he left his backpack at the gate. Me being all Type A going back in, going through security all over again, to the gate, etc just to get his backpack that only had a coloring book inside.

- Leaving Indianapolis on Sunday, going through security…heightened security after the weekend attacks, only to be stopped, my baby bag checked. Guess what they found? A STEAK KNIFE!!!!! Did I mention I am muslim? I forgot that was in there. I was TOO embarrassed b/c the guard held it up so high that everyone could see it….oh…they also found a lighter from when burned incense. Why didn’t they catch this at Reagan National Airport when we left????

- This jerk who kept looking back at me and the kids on the plane everytime any of the boys so much as coughed, laughed, or rubbed the back of the seat.

- My 5yo who kept describing LOUDLY different scenarios of how the plane could drop out of the sky, land in water, blow up etc…did I mention that we are muslim?

- My son o’ded on television at the hotel since we don’t have one at home.

All in all….it was GREAT!