LIFE AS IT IS

I live in a world, where I file my nails a day after I clip them. *Guys may not understand what I am talking about, girls certainly will.

The problem with taking photos with babies is you look older than you generally do.

Clipping my nails is a luxury, clipping my baby's nails is a necessity - tale of a mother.

Some people do not know how to dispose of gas balloons. I went to throw the garbage and a gas balloon with "Happy Birthday" written on it came floating toward me from the trash chute. Freaky!

Patience is a virtue. It certainly is but if you are a mother then you know that passing a test of patience is not easy, not at all. My daughter is my instructor for the course Patience 101. She tests me on my patience level several times each week. Most of the time, I pass with flying colors. But then there are times when I fail. On those days I remind myself that failure is THE pillar of success.  I lose my patience with my child when she refuses to let me eat peacefully. She wants a bite of everything that I eat. It is normal but I feel stressed out when she won't eat the food but bring out the half-chewed food from her mouth and rub it against the floor. Sometimes, she will just bring out the food remains from her mouth and give it to me.  I lose patience and sometimes scream when she does not let me write or work on the computer. She will want to sit on my lap and when I take her on my lap, she wants to be down on the floor again. When this cycle repeats itse...

Happiness in life comes from small things. For instance, when a friend sends you a song and tells you that it reminded her of you. Or, when a friend sings for you on the phone. Or, when a friend calls you innocent (although now I am not sure if it came as a compliment or an alert!). Or, when a friend comes from a different state just to spend a few days with you. Happiness in life comes from small things...

I have always wanted to write about this but I was being lazy. Then after a post went viral on Facebook I thought that it was high time I wrote about my personal experience and thoughts about child delivery. The post that went viral on Facebook was a blog post by an English woman (married to a Bangladeshi man), who gave birth to her daughter at a top-tier hospital in Dhaka last September. Technically, she did not give birth to her child; the attending doctor forced her to have a Caesarian section. The baby was only 35 weeks old at the time of delivery and weighed 2.5 kg. The premature baby went through some of her roughest days right after coming into this world. Have you ever wondered why so many babies are now born through C-sections in Bangladesh despite the medical advances of the recent decades? Our parents, aunts, uncles, our friends and we ourselves have come to this world through a natural childbirth process. So, why suddenly we are seeing a shift from what has always been...

When will our society stop raising boys with the idea that only if they suppress their emotions and act macho, they will be considered "men?" It is unhealthy for these little boys, the women they will love when they grow up, and the world at large. I was reading, probably in TIME, that a suppression of emotions actually makes men weak and vulnerable - it even pushes some into dangerous practices and habit-forming behaviors like smoking, drink and substance abuse. I was also reading Dr. William Pollack's work yesterday - parents, who have sons, could use his book, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood.      style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px"      data-ad-client="ca-pub-1412858923217987"      data-ad-slot="2221625556">

It's not about what you have, it's about whether you are happy with what you have. Some people have a lot and are still unhappy, whereas some are happy with the very little that they have.

এই শীতল সময় কবে শেষ হবে? পাগল হয়ে যাচ্ছি তো!

We see what we want to see - we exclude the visual details that inconvenience us. -Wara

I was just reading a write-up by a friend on Falgun (the Bengali month that marks the beginning of spring in Bangladesh) where he compared the season and the festivity around it with Vincent van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows." A prolific writer, my friend's writing carried me back to the Falguni days I left behind in Dhaka. Years come and go but I do not get a chance to watch and enjoy the Falguni festivity, something that I so looked forward to in Dhaka. I would always wear something yellow, never a sari though. I am still not comfortable in a sari. I would just wear a yellow salwar kameez and a dozen or so glass bangles. No, no flowers. I cannot recall tucking a flower ever in my hair. Don't get me wrong - I love flowers! I like to give and receive flowers. Anyway, I used to see girls on my college campus and on the streets wearing a yellow rose or a strand of marigold, or just a single marigold in the hair - they looked beautiful! Young men would wear orang...

I don't want to be judged by you or anyone else. You took your journey and I took mine - I do not know what your journey was like and you do not know about mine. So, let's not judge each other! -Wara

Thank God, no one can see what's on our minds! -Wara

Friendship is pouring your heart out to someone and not fearing a breach of trust. -Wara