Jigsaw Puzzle

Snaps...

Three years.

Can't believe it! Aisha is three years now and oh! Alhamdulillah...Alhamdulillah, again a zillion times.... For this beautiful sweet little girl You have gifted me. How can I ever thank You, oh! my Lord, for these three wonderful years! Please take care of her, for none other than You can take care of her. Without Your care, no one can take care of her. Please help me to bring her up with the best virtues. Please guide her through the right path, guide us and guide everyone on earth. Please, please, my Lord, make for her a beautiful home in paradise. No one but You can do it for her. Show mercy on her, and shower Your blessings on her. Thank You again, for giving such a great blessing for me. Thank You for giving me the best daughter, and making me her mother.

Prayer Dress.

Aisha is waiting for me for the Zuhr prayer. At moments like these, words are never enough for us to express our feeling... Feeling of happiness, love, being blessed, thankfulness and every other good feeling. Oh! Allah! Show us the right path and bless us with paradise! Ameen.

Back to India.

So many things are happening...
Aisha's paternal great-grandmother died some days back. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon. I think Aish is the only great grand-daughter who has spent a lot of her time with grandma. She was a healthy person, although menatlly unstable, and died of no illness. It was sudden, which was shocking for us.
We got a new member to our family, my nephew on 14th. Masha Allah, our family is growing bigger and bigger!
We came back to India on 19th, since our visas got cancelled when Dad changed his job. Once again to our dear motherland. Aisha was happy to see her grandparents, hens, squirrels, cats etc etc. We had a marriage function on 20th. It was a four hour drive, and there were 7 of us. We had a happy trip and Aisha was excited to see her cousin after some 10 or 20 days. The marriage was at my sister-in-law's.

We stopped at a beach on our way back home, so that we could stretch our legs for a few minutes.
And on 21st, we went to see our new family memebr, Nidal Hammad.

It was a busy week. Hoping to take some rest now.

Eid ul Adha.

Happy Eid!
We just came back from Eid gah, and now we are going to Abudhabi to visit friends and relatives. See you all after that.

Swimming pool.

I took Aisha to the swimming pool today, and I promise I'll never take her again! She wanted to go to the middle of the pool, which was very deep and I was afraid to leave her, although she had air filled tubes attached to her. I caught hold of her tightly and she struggled to get free. It was a water-fight rather than a swimming session! I immersed her in water 2 to 3 times. I expected her to be afraid of completely going down in water, but she enjoyed it. Why are kids these days afraid of nothing? Trying to grab her with all my strength, I got exhausted and my muscles started aching. She did not want to return from the pool, and I dragged her out of the pool. She was kicking and beating me all the way home.

Swim suit.

Aisha's cousin, Aisha and myself in the pool.

Farewell party.

Aisha's Dad got a new offer and so he resigned from the old job. Aisha new most of his colleagues and their families. She will surely miss them, and those small gatherings we often had. Today was our last party with our friends. Our farewell party.

Gifts for Aisha.

Partying.

Speaking in English.

I don't know how, but Aisha has got the notion that to speak in English one should add an 's' at the end of the words. And to speak in Malayalam, she adds the plural sound used in malayalam -kal. It goes like this:

"Ente kalippattams evide?" (Where are my toys?) 

or

"Aa boys-ukale nokkku!" (Look at the boys!)

On the toy-phone, she says something nobody understands, and when asked what she was she talking, the quick reply comes, "I was talking in English!" Well, she adds some words like come, play, sit stand etc in between the lines.

Onam.

The festival of Malayalees, Onam, is also a festival in UAE, especially for the department stores that make everything a consumer product. This time there were flower carpets, big and small, in most places. The ona sadhya (feast) is served in banana leaves, and Aisha wanted one leaf when she saw stacks of it in the store. So we

A small flower carpet.

too decided to cook a sadhya for Onam. Sadhya is a pure vegetarian meal with lots of side dishes along with rice. We flipped through cook-books, browsed the cookery sites and asked our parents for suggestions of experiences. Shopping for the banana leaves and vegetables was the next step. We bought six leaves for everyone of us, and Aisha and her cousin divided it themselves from the store.
Eating on a banana leaf was new to Aisha. It is a common practice in Kerala to serve on banana leaves. The senior citizens still believe that food tastes better when served on banana leaves. Aisha was impatient for having to wait for so long to eat on a banana leaf. We prepared dinner so that everyone can join in for it. But Aisha and her cousin couldn't wait to be served on leaf and so they had their dinner earlier, before Dad reached home.

Poems.

Some poems recited by Aisha. Now-a-days its been difficult to record her audios or videos because she wants to be the one behind the camera. This audios were recorded with great effort.

A malayalam poem.

The first stanza of the song 'I am a barbie girl.'

First stanza of the Arabic song 'Shakhbit shakhabit.'