fashion clothes

The ouster is believed to have happened as the group -- whose full name is Jama'atu Ahlul Sunnah Lih Da'awa Wal Jihad -- entered into a back-channel dialogue with the government in the search for an elusive peace to a conflict that has seen multiple suicide bombings, attacks on government buildings and churches, and has claimed thousands of lives since 2011.

Sitting in a stuffy middle school cafeteria on a hot summer afternoon, he crawls up into my lap. He wraps his lanky arms around my neck and whispers in my ear.

Love you more, mama.

He pulls back and grins, and any frustration I had inside melts away.

He fidgets and flits, he can't sit still. He turns to face forward, feigns interest in the music being performed on stage.

I quietly whisper shhhh in his ear.


He grabs my hand and interlaces his fingers with mine, sizing up the difference between his tiny hand and mine, rests his head on my chest.

His head smells like him, a faint scent of shampoo mixed in with the sweat of a little boy who was just running around in circles. I close my eyes and drink it in because I know this time is borrowed, this time that I have left with him like this.

I know because before him, the others sat here with their arms wrapped around me as I inhaled the smell of fleeting youth.

I know because on the stage in front of us was the first to sit here on this lap. Today he's taller than I am. It seems like it can't have been that long ago that it was his turn. Where did the time go?

He was just here.

He was just here.

He was just here lacing his fingers with mine, and now he's over there, directly in the middle of adolescence, trying to figure out his own place in this world. He's this person now, unique and different, with his own set of like and dislikes, his own set of things he is passionate about.

He's someone entirely away and apart from me now and I hope every day that I've given him the tools to navigate this new world of his. I hope he can love himself, he can push himself, he can trust himself, he can laugh at himself. I think he can. I hope he knows that I'll be that soft place to land for however long he needs it.

The time we are given with them is never enough. The days last forever, but the years fly by. You blink and suddenly that little sweaty boy on your lap is on a stage somewhere and you wonder how it all happened this way.


When this little one is up on that stage someday, doing whatever he loves when he's at this place, my lap will be empty. I'll be in the crowd with no one else to keep an eye on, with no one else to whisper shhh to. I'll be watching, fighting back the tears of pride that always come, cherishing that bittersweet moment, wishing for time to slow just a bit.

There won't be anyone else climbing up in my lap anymore, wrapping their arms around my neck, tracing the veins on the back on my hand with their tiny fingers.

I know that the space between now and then is shorter than it seems. I know that it will come too soon.


Our children aren't ours, not really anyway. They are their own beings that just happen to be placed in our care for a time. I say quite often that I'm not in the business of collecting children, but that I'm here to raise them and then set them free.

What no one warns new mothers about is that every day a child grows, they grow a little further away from you. They grow a little more independent. They grow a little more self sufficient. They need us a little bit less every day.


Which is the point of motherhood. If we've done our jobs, they will need us less.

As much as bearing witness to this process of growth is what we strive for, it doesn't come without a price. For every step they take away from us, there's the one we choose to refrain from taking to follow them. For every piece of independence they learn, we are required to let them go just a little bit more.

Motherhood, just about every single piece of it, is bittersweet.

And so I sat with my boy on my lap and I burned that moment into my memory banks. I tucked it away. You have to drink in those times when they come. You have to inhale all the sweaty squirmy preschool heads while you can because one day, not far from now, they'll be grown and over there.

This little boy, he's not mine. I just get to keep him for a while, and keep him I will.

A while back now, a friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook about Comic Con. A fellow nerd (he even has the tattoos to prove his adoration of the comics), he was passing along information about volunteering at the Con.

A signed copy of this has been displayed in my living room ever since. Well played, Sheldon.

Who else needs to watch this movie right now?

Oh, that movie.

Infinite Wheaton. Husband may need this shirt too. I think this was taken at a Con.

All his shirts are dork shirts.

AWKA — THERE was a startling revelation, yesterday, that males operate sex spots, just like females in AnambraState. Investigations by the Anambra State Aids Control Agency, SACA, showed that there are 618 female and 24 male sex spots in various parts of the state.
Director of SACA, Dr. Ogochukwu Ndibe, who gave the figures at a harmonization programme for international partners operating in the state, said there are 5920 female and over 500 male sex workers in the state.

On the average, there are 10 female sex workers and 5 male sex workers in a spot.
He said: “There are men who have sex with other men as a matter of preference or practice, regardless of their sexual identity or sexual orientation and irrespective of whether they also have sex with women or not.”
According to Ndibe, local governments where the male and female sex spots were prevalent include Awka South, Awka North, Ihiala, Onitsha South, Orumba North, Nnewi North, Onitsha North, Aguata, and Njikoka.
Anambra, with 7.8 per cent prevalence of HIV, is among the highest in the country, although Ndibe explained that with the support of the state government and the current interest and support of many international partners in the state, the rate of spread of HIV in the state would soon reduce.
He, however, said there was need for all levels of government and the communities to improve on direct funding of the HIV response to achieve the desired result as quickly as possible.
HIV test kits
In the meantime, he said the agency had procured and distributed HIV test kits to 107 health facilities in the 21 local government areas of the state, procured and distributed male and female condoms, computers and four SUV cars for easy movement to all the local government areas,
Chief of Staff to Governor Peter Obi, Professor Chinyere Okunna, who is also the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, is not amused at the disclosure.
According to Okunna, who is also coordinating the activities under the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, the state government cannot afford to toy with the intervention programmes of the development partners, recalling how difficult it was for Governor Obi to woo them back to the state when he assumed office in 2006.
She said: “When Governor Obi assumed office in 2006, no development partner was here. As he settled down, he went after the partners and gradually many of them started partnering with us and the voluntary agencies.”
“As a relatively poor state, we cannot achieve much without partnering with the donor agencies which bring money to match with our contribution to execute projects in all parts of the state. In other to ensure that these projects go round, there is need to avoid duplication in some communities as had been observed in the sitting of some projects.

There was confusion at Apata-Ganga area of Ibadan after a 32-year-old man, Taiwo Saidi, aka Akinigai, slumped and died shortly after drinking an alcoholic mixture, popularly called paraga.
It was gathered that the tragedy struck at a popular drinking joint at Ago-Igbira, Adifase area, Apata-Ganga at about 10.30am on Saturday.

Saidi, whose wife was recently delivered of a baby boy, reportedly abandoned his wife and the newborn baby with his parents at Omi-Adio community.
One of the deceased’s friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, “Saidi, a commercial bus driver, was staying with another friend, Wasiu, when the incident occurred.
“The two friends used to go from one drinking joint to another in the Apata-Ganga area. They celebrated the birth of the new born baby by drinking.”
The incident was said to have been reported at the Apata Divisional Police Headquarters.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Oyo State Police Command, Mrs. Bisi Ilobanefor, could not be reached at the time of filing this report. Calls made to her telephone were not picked and message sent was not replied.