LIFE AS IT IS

My husband, daughter and I returned home yesterday after a 2-day trip to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. I was visiting the Poconos after 9 years...!! The mountains cover a 2,400 square miles area. The views from the Poconos are breathtaking, the air is fresh and you feel close to the heaven once your are on the top. Here are a few clicks from the short trip.

Sometimes all a mom needs is a comfortable pillow under her head...

The gratification comes from not just beating the #2 guy but from being better than everyone else in the competition.      style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px"      data-ad-client="ca-pub-1412858923217987"      data-ad-slot="2221625556">

Motherhood has instilled in me a different type of emotion, an emotion whose existence I was unaware of in those pre-mommy years of life. Today, when I see suffering children, turbulent emotions rupture my heart. Sometimes, I shed tears in silence. I ask myself if all this emotional overflow is because of my new identity as a mother. Perhaps. Every child deserves a happy childhood. But to millions of children around the world, "happiness" is a word that carries little or no meaning. Many a child’s childhood is snatched away at such an early age that they never know what it feels to go to school five days a week, eat three good meals a day, or sleep without having to worry about their houses being blown up by enemy troops. In any conflict, it's the children who suffer the most. When I see images and video footages of living and dead children of Palestine and Syria, I sit still before my computer and know not what to feel. Sometimes I wonder what I myself would have

Smiles and the sorrows will think twice before coming near you.      style="display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px"      data-ad-client="ca-pub-1412858923217987"      data-ad-slot="2221625556">

We celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr here in the U.S. yesterday. We cooked special food, talked to our families back home and watched TV at night. It was not a day too different from a regular day except for my husband went to the mosque for his Eid prayer and took the day off. But Eid in Bangladesh used to be so different. We would visit and call relatives and friends, watch special Eid programs on TV, eat loads of good food and collect salami/eidi (a monetary Eid gift from relatives older than you). Here, Eid comes and goes by and in some years, we don't feel that it really came. Sometimes I wish I lived in a mega-city like NYC or Chicago, where you can feel the festivities around the occasion. We thought we would visit NYC this time, but changed our minds later... perhaps, we will visit NYC next year, when my daughter will be almost three. We did not cook much this time around - saffron polao/pilaf, chicken roast and a salad followed by firni, a traditional rice custard cooked with