A Day in the Hijab of Shama

There's a hanger haphazardly dangling from the bathroom doorknob. Let's not get into why it's there or who put it there. To reach a conclusion to these mysteries it would take us through a time warp and onto the set of that Abbott & Costello episode, "Who's on First." So to prevent having to converse with my children for more than 2 minute intervals, i take the hanger to my bedroom, throw it on my bed (i should've hanged it in the closet right then of course, but hey, I'm grown and I can do what i want...right?)

Morning continues with a mad rush to the kitchen to make toast with jam for my son who is on his way out the door to Hifzh class(Quranic memorization). He will be leaving his wholesome lunch at home and will complain later that i didn't risk life and limb at 120 miles per hour on the highway in order to catch up with his ride and catapult his khaki-brown, Land's End thermal lunchbox into their sunroof. This is our ritual and it must be done bi-weekly in order for the world's cosmic energy to continue to flow properly.

While in the kitchen i go ahead and decide that all of my children deserve breakfast today in spite of my empty threats from last night to starve them until they shrivel into jerky meat and sell them to a dog food company. You see, "Not Me" spilled milk onto everyone's food while apparently attempting some kind of circus act at the dinner table (his sisters pay him with fries, garlic bread and desserts for his prime-time entertainment).

After the chaos of breakfast, "Mommy, i don't want jelly on mine," "Mommy, she's looking at me when i chew," and my all-time favorite "Mommy, she put a boogie in my juice," I sit down with my cup of coffee and attempt to steal 5 minutes of downtime before the next catastrophe. It's looking good. The girls are now hypnotised by the DVD i put on for them (4 kids ago I'd never have so many DVD diversions/sad attempts at peace and quiet)and my feet are propped up while i take my first sip of hazelnut cof- WHAT?!!! That blasted hanger is now in my 2yr old's hot hands! She must have quietly followed me (this kid will make a great stalker one day) into my room and taken the hanger back out. "Go put it back now," I scream-I mean, I calmly say to her. Realizing that she has closed the door to my bedroom, I know I've lost the battle again. I can tell her until my lips chap to go put it back, but she hasn't learned the twist and push/pull method it takes to open a door yet. So, because I've vowed that the next 5 minutes belong to me and my coffee, i tell her to just hang the stupid thing back on the bathroom door. We've gone full circle...the story of my life.

After the birth or her 5th child, she noticed the time and experience had begun to wear on her and she felt, well, quite less than desirable. She used to wake up and when she looked in the mirror she liked what she saw. Now, in order to achieve that sentiment she needed additional time to spritz, moisturize, conceal and emphasize.

So one day she was reading the second sentence of the same book she'd been trying to read for the past month. Was she slow, you ask? No, she was not slow. Dear reader, she was, a Mommy. Like so many women, she opted to have her children close together in order for them to grow up together and have a tight sibling bond. She never fathomed they would also band together in siblinghood against the dictatorship of the "Mommy." Anytime she attempted to read, sleep, organise, think or exercise her right to personal hygiene, they were there to disrupt it like a merry band of "down time" thieves. They were so very thorough that she began to believe they were union organised. She often found herself in the laundry, checking their little pockets for union dues slips.

She remembered cynically the days way back when she looked forward to children uttering that priceless word for the first time: "Mom-mee." Now the gross over usage of that phrase had practically become a curse word to her. 4 of her children now uttered, cried, screamed, laughed, coughed, choked "Mommy" on an average of 300 times a day each. She knew this on account of the fact that she took a day off from attempting to read the first sentence of her book in order to take a tally.

As her ears nearly bled from the constant pounding of that word, she had an idea. She could kill two kids with one stone, so to speak---hmm? Oh! Oh yes, you're right that is two BIRDS with one stone. Exactly. Honest mistake. Ahem! So like i was saying she had come up with a marvelous plan! She would change her name just in time for baby number 5 to learn rather than following in the footsteps of the others who shouted that dreaded obscenity at her minute after minute.

Two years passed and I had the pleasure of running into...er, "Not-Mommy Anymore" in the grocerystore. And I asked how her plan worked out for her. Her coy smile said it all. While we continued our conversation her 5th child, now age 2 was feeling a bit left out. So he called out to his mother using the name he'd been taught shortly after his birth, "You're Pretty!" "I want juice." The woman smiled and continued to talk with me. "You're Pretty, buy cookies please!" The toddler began to get irritated by his mother's lack of attention. "YOU'RE PRETTY," shouted the child, drawing the attention of other shoppers. She then turned to him and gave him a great big hug, an 8pack of juice boxes and a family size box of Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies. And everyone lived happily ever aft--not so fast! A month later she was blessed with the news of a new baby on the way. I havn't seen her since.