About Aysh

Hey welcome! Assalamualaikum! My name is Aysh (Ayesha) Siddiqua. I am the founder of Jeddah Mom. This is my About Me page. You can visit my Start Here page first to know more about this blog, if you like.

My Story…

If you’ve hopped here, I am sure you’d like to know who it is that writes this awesome blog! Well… hello there! Let me tell you my story.

I am Aysh Siddiqua. I am a former college lecturer, who used to teach Biophysics and Molecular Biology to grad students. If back in 2003, when I first started this blog, if anyone had said that one day all this blogging craziness would become my profession and I’d start a company, I would have never believed them! But… here I am!

In 2003, I was freshly out of college and trying to get a seat to do my Masters. I had ample time waiting for the results to be announced. I had already knit a sweater, made five bouquets of artificial flowers from scraps.. I was babysitting my little cousins in the afternoon… doing a course on making Bonsai Plants… pestering my mother to let me adopt a stray dog… and writing my first novel.

The novel didn’t happen but one day at breakfast, while reading the newspaper, I found blogging. I have been here ever since.

In the past 19 years, I have written about my life and hobbies on different blogs. In 2009, I brought all my work together to create Words ‘n’ Needles, a blog where my words came more freely. When I had my first child, I started recording my parenting adventures on it.

In August 2016, Words ‘n’ Needles became Jeddah Mom. You can read more about why in this post here. But … here we are 12 years later.

Jeddah Mom, is not my only blog. Words ‘n’ Needles that I mention above, is my crochet blog. We separated it a few years ago, and then I found a blog called Creative Kids Crafty Moms to share my printable kids activities, and then a blog to teach blogging called Blogging with Wisdom and then… now, I have 11 blogs and counting.

You know… my blog is not my real business. Somewhere, in the middle of all of this, while I was making these blogs to share my message with the world, I noticed all these people following me. Many people would write to me to share their stories or ask for help. While reading their emails, I realized that I had a dream and a bigger – more important, mission in life.

I realized that my whole life, my whole existence had a purpose.

I was to every woman out there in this world, who was just like me – a Muslimah, well educated, God fearing hijabi and niqabi, content to be a “just a mother”, but with a flame in her heart to make God proud of her – an example. I was her inspiration that she too can go out there in the world, and without showing herself, or sacrificing her beliefs, make a difference.

The day that realization hit me, blogging became my reason to get out of bed and be “more than just a mom“. I started looking for ways to help women like me, become better than me.

In August 2022, I started company called ILM Powered Solutions in Sharjah, UAE. ILM is an Islamic Lifestyle and Motherhood focussed online coaching company, that empowers mothers with education, tools and resources that motivate them to dream big, set extraordinary goals and achieve phenomenal success. So far, we have 37,000 families who follow us, and I am so grateful to the God Almighty to have placed me in this position to serve Him through this service.

About My family:

Now a little about the people on this blog because behind me is my loving husband and children, Alhamdulillah.

I am married to my best friend Z!

He is the reason I was in Saudi Arabia. Z is the reason I left my job in India, my car, my hobbies, my family and chose to live a life of a trailing wife. I have no regrets… only gratitude. He loves trains, travel and tea. 🙂

Z‘s super power is that he can calm down people by just his mere presence. He is also a great listener… unlike me… who talks too much! Don’t you think, we make a great couple?! 😉

Z is my rock and when I count my blessings, I start with him, Alhamdulillah. We have four children – 15 year old boy name D!, a daughter Zaara (in heaven), a 10 year old daughter Lil’ and another 8 year old daughter who we call Cuppycake on the blog.

D is my first born.

He is our little engineer who loves to invent, tinker and discover, He loves to write too. He has already written numerous little hand written books and sold them off! Yeps! he is very creative and always up to some little adventure.

D is also my little assistant on this blog. He loves to help me with the back end stuff like taking pictures, creating activities to blog about and he loved to make fun printables for his sisters. At the moment, we are not uploading them on the blog yet.

Here is a post from when he was 6 years old.

Zaara is my late daughter in heaven.

She was 14 months old when she was suddenly taken from us. The reason I am mentioning her here is because she is very much part of this blog too. I talk a lot about grief and child loss on this blog. Having her and then losing her at that young an age, totally changed my life and the way I parent.

Lil’ is my brave but shy princess.

Yes, she is my free spirited child. She loves cars and bulldozers but she loves to dress up like a princess too. She loves to experience, touch, feel and taste everything. Sometimes that can be a problem but… most of the time, she makes me enjoy her childhood.

Lil’ is also the little artist in our family. She loves to draw and paint. She is an exceptional Kawai Artist and even has little sticker company that sells stickers and memorabilia to family and friends! 🙂

Lil’ was my inspiration to start homeschooling. We didn’t exclusively homeschool for long but she did set me on the path and Alhamdulillah, during the pandemic in 2020, I was able to homeschool all three of my kids with this experience.

Cuppycake is our wonder child.

She calls herself SuperHero Princess. Yes, she is a super hero. She is also the naughtiest one in the family. Whatever I had never though was possible with a toddler, I have experienced. Umm… hmm… I’ll leave you to your imagination.

Cuppycake has a great memory but she hates to write. She is the reason I started making/downloading printables and preschool activities for my children. She is also the reason I started experimenting with food. We have a picky eater in our family. She only eats healthy!

So my dear Friend, this is my little family. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures here. But wait… I’d love to know about you too! You can sign up to my email list to stay in touch because that’s where I share my most recent adventures.

You can also follow me on Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter or get a peak into my daily life on Instagram.