LIFE AS IT IS

Facebook's "Like" button seems to me one of the smartest virtual inventions of recent times. It has  saved its users' time and the trouble that they used to take in the past to comment on a photo, status or post. Today, a click on the "Like" button is enough to convey your feeling toward a post, but really? These days people "like" anything and everything. If you "like" my photo, I will "like" your next photo, even if you look like a lost witch in that picture. It is a give-and-take virtual relationship that people seem to have established on the Internet. Although the "Like" button saves us time and energy but I still like the old Facebook more, where if someone really liked your photo they had to scribble at least one word - pretty, beautiful, nice, sweet, hot or whatever - to express their feeling. Today, the click on the "Like" button does not really convey a friend's feeling - you will never kn...

Last August, we moved from Minnesota to Delaware, from America's Midwest to its East Coast. The move was exciting but exhausting at the same time. Coming from Bangladesh, such a relocation was like møving from Dhaka, the capital, to say, Bangkok, Thailand!  It was our third move in 5 years. But the first two relocations were inside Minnesota and therefore, less hectic. Our last move would have been super-hectic if my husband’s new employer had not agreed to provide and pay for professional movers, who packed everything for us. When I say everything, I mean everything. The movers packed our clothes, shoes, toiletries, crockery, pots & pans, spices, non-perishable food items, my child's toys and books, and what not. They even transported my husband’s car from Minneapolis, MN to Wilmington, DE. We never had a car transported before.  Considering the high costs of flying to and staying in Delaware for a few days to find an apartment, we depended solely on apartment-fin...

I was in Dhaka after four years for nineteen days. I was super excited about my trip. I was hoping to see positive changes — the new Mirpur-Airport Road flyover, the Hatirjheel project, etc. But it was something else beside the above-mentioned that caught my attention and made me fearful… the mushrooming of restaurants in Dhaka city. Growing up, fast food was something we ate only a handful of times every month. We would go to a Chinese restaurant on special occasions like birthday, parents’ marriage anniversary and own or sibling’s satisfactory performance in the yearly school exam. Dhaka did not have fancy fast food restaurants at that time. It was probably Helvetia and Dominous Pizza, which brought about a revolution in the fast food industry of the country. But before that, most of us would eat burgers, vegetable rolls, chicken or beef patties and sandwiches from local fast food shops that were neither chains nor franchises. Then slowly, days began to change and new restaurant...

When you are taking someone to your home country for the first time, you cannot help but be careful. You try to make sure that the food and water are safe and the weather is not too hot and humid. In September 2013, we took our daughter with us to Dhaka, Bangladesh on a short vacation. But who knew that taking her to my homeland would demand so much extra work! My 12-month-old daughter was traveling with us to Dhaka for the first time. The preparation for the trip began weeks ahead. Veteran moms advised me on food, water and weather of Dhaka city. I was going home after four years and I wanted to spend good time with friends and family - nursing a sick child was the last thing I wanted to do. Beside gifts, it was my daughter's foods, clothes and diapers that took most of our luggage space. I took four tins of baby formula for my three-week trip. I thought that would be enough but it was not - I had to go to Kids & Moms in Uttara to buy formula for her on the third week of ...

I never thought I would miss my hot and humid Dhaka days until moving to Minnesota, where, as the popular joke goes, the four seasons are: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction a.k.a summer. For someone like me, who spent most of her life in a tropical country, summer is the only season that brings a sheer sense of happiness to her life abroad. In Minnesota, I have seen snow showers in May. I switched “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again -- yes, weather can be this unpredictable. In winter, I feel so good when the temperature is 0 degree Celsius because the average January temperature in Minneapolis is -11 degrees. It is therefore no wonder that I, more often than not, miss the hot and humid Dhaka, where I never had to put on four layers of clothing before stepping outdoors, where I could paint my nails and flaunt them almost all year round, and where I rarely wore any footwear other than sandals and open-toed shoes. Some people are sensitive to...

So, I have lived in the United States for 5 years now and my husband and I do not own a house. Surprised? Perhaps you are not but a lot of people ask us why we do not own a house yet. Well, we have not bought a house because we love living in apartments! What? Are you crazy? Isn't it why people like to live in the West, where owning a house is much easier than owning a house in Bangladesh? Well, yes maybe but... People ask us why we pay so much money for a place that is and will never be ours. I say, everyone's taste and philosophy are different. I know living in an apartment gives you less freedom - your property management decides everything for you - from the kind of floor you will have, the size of your closets to the color of your bathroom tiles - in short, just about everything. But I am happy with it as long as the things that they have chosen match my taste. I like living in an apartment because when something goes wrong in the house, I can just call up the managem...

"Time flies," I used this phrase innumerable times in my life, but most of the time, I had used it without really feeling its true meaning. In the past, I used "time flies" just because it is a very common phrase to mean that a period of time passed quickly. But today, I use "time flies" when I really mean it because now I can see before my eyes that time can actually fly. A baby in the house can change so many things. They change your lifestyle for sure, they change your spending pattern and how you used to keep your house during those pre-baby days. But I realized one big thing that is, a baby teaches you about time. Clocks became my best friend after Wareesha was born. I had to check time to see if her diaper needed to be changed, if she needed a feeding or if it was her nap time and what not. Then time literally began to fly. The tiny baby that we brought home from the hospital was helpless. She would be inside her swaddling blankets nearly 2...

What a weird title for a blog post! You must be wondering what she meant by a paper-eater. I was actually referring to my baby, who loves to eat paper. Oh well, I think a lot of other babies like to eat paper too... maybe. She loves to eat paper, any kind of paper. If paper were an edible item, it would probably be her favorite snack. She likes the glossy papers of magazines like Time and Fortune, she likes notebook papers, drawing papers and paper labels found on bottles and jars. She also loves crayon wrappers and price tags! On five occasions, I inserted my right index finger into her mouth to bring a piece of paper out. Like most 10-month-old babies, she is very mobile. She can crawl and cruise to every nook and corner of the house. She can open drawers, al kinds of drawers. She can open cabinets with even more ease. On an accent table in my living room, I used to have a pile of magazines. After I found out about her favorite snack, I stashed those magazines into the cabinet of...

Tweety was our three-year-old parakeet, who we got from a PetSmart store in St. Cloud, Minnesota, two-and-a-half years ago. He was our first pet and we loved him so much. We used to hand-feed him, give him a shower once a week and play with him almost every day - he would sit on my shoulders for hours. Sometimes, he would hide behind my ponytail. He loved music, especially Hindi film numbers! He would sing along and hop from one perch to another. He was blue and white - very handsome. Tweety is not with us anymore. He is at a foster home. I miss him every day but we had to give him away because we are moving to Delaware soon. When Tweety fell ill last month, my husband took him to the Como Park Hospital - he was suffering from what looked like a sinus infection, he was also underweight. They gave him two shots and sent him home. Although he began to recover from the infection, he was not the old Tweety anymore - he did not eat and he was not as active as he used to be. It was at tha...

Even before my baby was born, I heard two types of opinions from people I know. While one group opined that it was absolutely okay to let a baby cry, the other group (this group was much smaller in size) strongly debated against letting a baby cry. I thought that instead of listening to what others said, I should do my own research and find out why a baby cries, what should be done when a baby cries and what are the implications of letting a baby cry for prolonged periods of time. From the local public library, I borrowed Dr. Jenn Berman’s “SuperBaby,” a Los Angeles Times bestseller.  Dr. Berman, a licensed psychotherapist, writes in her book that when a baby cries for prolonged periods of time the level of stress hormone cortisol increases in his body.  This cortisol can have dangerous effects on the growing brain a baby, inhibiting its normal development. Babies, who experience long crying episodes, lack confidence in themselves when they grow up. Distraught episodes...

No, Trinky is not the name of a person or a pet - Trinky is my 10-month-old daughter's most favorite toy. Trinky is white and pink, she is made of cloth and cotton. She is adorable and she accompanies my daughter everywhere. Trinky is Wareesha's favorite toy. Perhaps, I should now call Trinky a rag of a toy because my daughter's chewing and chomping have done some permanent damages to her hands and legs. But Trinky is still my daughter's favorite companion. There is a funny story behind how we got Trinky: No, we did not buy Trinky. It happened last January when my aunt was visiting us from New York. Among a bunch of gifts that she got for Wareesha, there was a sleeper with very cute cow prints on it. The sleeper came with a soft toy, which looked like a cow. The sleeper was too small for my daughter so I returned it to my aunt. But I liked the soft toy cow so much that I asked her if I could keep it. My aunt agreed readily. That little soft toy cow was Trinky. We...