Back.

Pulled an all-nighter the previous evening to beat the holiday traffic. Left NJ at 3:50am and got home at 7:15. Exit 1 on the turnpike now has 10 toll booths instead of 2. Good stuff. Took a nap till noon only to wake up with the cold I knew was coming. All my in-laws had colds. Nuriya woke up all crusty too. But she rolled over with help for the first time yesterday at 2pm. At 10:23pm she ate her first "solids" if you could call it that. We hit up Walmart last night and got her some Gerber rice. Mix one tablespoon of that stuff with 5 tablespoons of water and that tasteless slush is apparently considered a solid.

Oh yeah belated Eid Mubarak! We got Nuriya all gussied up for the day and then ended up returning her first Eid dress. The funny thing is we are sentimental and keep everything! But even Mariam recognized the mistake she made when buying the ugly pink "frock." My daughter was rocking a pleated dress against my wishes.

Nuriya also got her ears pierced on Eid eve. Ruby earrings that don't match any of her outfits all thanks to me. But that's her birth stone and I had to maintain the integrity of that. We got it done at the Piercing Pagoda in the middle of the mall which I wasn't too thrilled about until I found they are affiliated with Zales. But the fact that one of the girls who did her ears was a former co-worker of Mariam's at Hannaford's grocery store didn't help. Nuriya cried for a good minute but was all good after that.

Her grandparents here in VA don't know about the earrings yet though. Gotta collect that eidi tonite!