Many of you have asked how I manage to get through 15 hours without eating during the month of Ramadan. It’s hard of course, but after a while you learn to employ a few tricks to make things more manageable.
1. Think of a food or food-related situation that makes you cringe. Just the other day, for example, I visited Fogo de Chao with Ali and my brother. For those of you unfamiliar with a churrascaria, Fogo is basically a omnivore’s heaven. Waiters bring around slabs of meat and you keep chewing until you think you’ve eaten enough to justify $65. Or until you feel like throwing up – whatever comes first.
It’s been about a week since I witnessed Ali and my brother put away 5 lbs of red meat each and I am still recovering. The silver lining is that the minute I think about the various dead cows that appeared at the dinner table my hunger pangs *poof* disappear.
2. Distract yourself with the fact that your child is well on her way to a life of crime. I was washing Maya’s germ-infested lunchbox yesterday, just thinking about how great an order of McDonald’s beef-powder encased, sodium-laden, sugar-dusted fries would taste when all of a sudden I saw this:
Yes, Sticky-Fingers Maya is at it again. Despite the fact that she has no less than 200 crayons she is stealing more from school and is using her innocent Hello Kitty lunchbox as a vessel for her dirty habit.
“Maya, why are you taking crayons and putting them in your lunchbox? You have a million crayons right here.”
“Well Mama, I don’t have those colors.”
I guess yellow, green, and blue are more unique than I originally thought.
3. Let your guilty conscience consume you. Apparently there was a summer camp show at Maya’s school yesterday but I somehow missed the memo. Not only did I miss Maya doing Jazz Hands but per Maya I was the only person in the entire world who missed Maya doing Jazz Hands.
“Every single mom and dad was there except you Mama. There must have been thousands of moms and dads but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
This one will haunt me far after Ramadan is over. Consider me scarred for life.
Tags: churrascaria, fogo de chao, jazz hands, my 5-year-old is a thief, ramadan


