The 12 hour flight

I recently took the very brave 12 hour plane ride alone with a toddler to visit my family in the UK. For weeks building up to the flight, everybody (myself included) was worried about how I would cope with little miss tjankie on the plane. We even tried to get a doctor's prescription for something called Valagan which is supposed to knock the kid the hell out. Eventually the date of departure arrived and I settled on giving her 2.5ml zyrtec, 2.5ml stopyne, and sister Lilian's trusted homeopathic rescue rest remedy. Our flight was on the night 22h40 and fortunately they had the good sense to let all the many many passengers travelling with babies and children to board first because as they diplomatically put it we "may need a little more time to board". This worked out great, because it gave me time to get us all settled and then while everybody else was boarding I could put Sumayah to sleep standing in front of the seat (always ask for a bulk head seat when travelling with kids). So by the time we had to buckle up for take off Sumayah was fast asleep. She is too big for a bassinet, so I had to sit with her sleeping on my lap the entire time. But I didn't mind one bit, because she was a little angel! She slept and slept the entire time while the 4 year old behind us screamed her little lungs out midway through the flight. The hardest part was when she was awake the last 3 hours of the flight, but at least most of the passengers were waking up by that time. So I walked up and down the aisles with her a few times and she was so cute, because she would see the people sleeping and and put her finger on her lips saying 'sshh!'. Of course when we landed I had to wait till everybody passed us in the aisles so I could collect all our things and get myself comfortable. I took my pram along expecting it would be ready when we exit the plane, but they had already taken everything to the baggage claim. Anybody travelled to UK before know what a looong walk it is to the baggage claim area, so it was not fun to carry Sumayah and my coat and my nappy bag and handbag all that way. Fortunately I had a backup plan, I bought a carry thing at pep stores for 39 bucks that allowed me to carry Sumayah on my back while I filled out the arrivals card. The perk of travelling with a child is that you don't need to queue at emigration. The minute they saw me with my parcel on my back they sent me straight to the front. Then finally, the best part of my journey... walking through the terminal doors and seeing my brother, sister and parents standing at the end of the stretch eagerly anticipating our arrival with huge smiles on their faces. And the moment Sumayah met her grandparents for the first time... priceless. Apparently we brought just a little bit of warmth with us because the temperature bumped up from the minus degrees to a whole 7 degrees... believe me, that is warm here. So here I am posting from the comfort of my parents' home while my daughter enjoys getting to know her ma, papi, uncer meez, and aunty... and of course the cat Casper (known to Sumayah as Gabber).

Jozi Girl!

Sumayah hates the beach, she hates the sea sand, she despises the wind! And of course Cape Town is not known as the windy city for nothing! The poor child clings onto me for dear life if even a little wind blows her way, so you can imagine what happens at the beach where the wind tends to be even more joyous. Take her to a pool and she is totally happy. Guess we just have to accept that she is our little Jozi Girl! 

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Bilaal's first dentist visit

Yes, I know some of you might be thinking 'isn't it a bit late?' But you know the dentist was just never on the top of my to do list. I first made an appointment in Jan last year and kept postponing to make room for more pressing events until eventually I just cancelled altogether. I guess because Bilaal is very good with brushing his teeth and his not obsessive about sweets he's got lovely pearly whites and has never complained of toothache. But given that he is going to Grade R next year and he will be 6, the year children generally start losing their milk teeth, I figured I should better take him for a check-up and polish.

Bilaal has heard about visits to the dentist from children at school when they were learning about different professions, and we have some books and have had discussions about losing teeth, and he's even observed me undergoing root canal... but his first dental visit was still a huge deal for him. He wasn't scared at all, more curious. It was quite funny though, because he is quite a chatty boy, but when he is in a new/exciting situation he becomes more so. Usually patients get annoyed when the dentist keeps asking them questions while expecting them to say aaahh, but in Bilaal's case it was he doing all the talking in between each tooth being checked or polished. He was especially curious about the X-ray and kept insisting that he take it home!

In the end he was very proud of his certificate congratulating him for taking such good care of his teeth. He is still making up his mind though whether he would like the mouse or the fairy to visit him when he loses his first tooth (debate courtesy of Elliot Kid on Nickelodeon I think it is!)

movie clip monday 3

This clip was taken in July 2010 right in the midst of world cup fever. Sumayah had just turned 1 that month.

Body language of a wasvrou

I can handle mischievious, I can handle naughty, I can handle the physicality of a wild reckless child who writes on walls and tries to 'climb' the curtains. But what I absolutely cannot handle, the thing that really makes my blood boil... is THE SULK. The sulk that says "I don't care what you do for me or give me, the only thing I care about is that one thing you said 'no' to". It's the behaviour that can really turn me into a ranting crazy woman, usually in the car, and to no effect at all! But what I realised just the other day, is that while I am 'losing it' in the privacy of my car, my body language displays this to everyone NOT in the car. I was shouting at Bilaal again while driving home from the shops and while shouting, I noticed the man in the car alonside me looking at me, but then he drove slightly ahead and I continued on my mission to get my point across to someone who wasn't listening to me anyway no matter how loud I 'spoke'. Then we stopped at a traffic light and I pulled up alongside same said driver. He looked at me again, and then his expression changed from a casual glance in my direction to shere fright. I swear all I could see was white eyeball as though he had just seen a ghost. All the while I was continueing with my rant, the other part of my brain was simultaneously registering that, hang on, the source of this man's fear... was me! As he was slightly ahead of me, looking back at me in the driver's seat, he couldn't see my kids in the car. All he saw was this crazy wasvrou with anger and frustration seething out of her eyes and they were glaring in his direction! Poor guy, he probably thought I was scolding at him! Now I know I should try to practice more patience and restraint with Bilaal, but boy is it hard, I just don't have the willpower. But this incident, while in retrospect I see the humour in it, has made me realise that I need to have even greater resolve to find the softestness and patience in me that for some wierd reason people always assume I have. Aah ya ne, we'll see if I can post all about my success in this regard in future.

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Strictly speaking it is already thursday because it's past midnight, but for some reason I have been struggling to upload pictures onto blogger for weeks now, hence the lack of wordless wednesday posts. I also can't seem to figure out how to rotate the damn pic, I rotated it before uploading but it still keeps uploading in the original position... very frustrating. Nevertheless, here is my pic of Sumayah almost 3 months ago already shoo, how time flies! 

Well clearly this is also turning out to be a not so wordless post after all!

Movie Clip Monday 2

This segment shows us actually leaving our loved ones in Cape Town on our new and exciting adventure in the UK.

Not to night dear, I have a headache

Yaasier forwarded this email to me that someone had sent him. Its very funny...

A man and his wife were spending the day at the zoo.
She was wearing a loose fitting, pink dress, sleeveless with straps..
He was wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt.

As they walked through the ape exhibit,

They passed in front of a large, silverblack gorilla.

Noticing the wife, the gorilla went crazy.

He jumped on the bars, and holding on with one hand and two feet he grunted and pounded his chest with his free hand.

He was obviously excited at the pretty lady in the pink dress.

The husband, noticing the excitement, thought this was funny.

He suggested that his wife tease the poor fellow some more by puckering her lips and wiggling her bottom. She played along and the gorilla got even more excited, making noises that would wake the dead. Then the husband suggested that she let one of her straps fall to show a little more skin.

She did... and the gorilla was about to tear the bars down.

"Now..... show your thighs and sort of fan your dress at him," he said. This drove the gorilla absolutely crazy and he started doing flips.

Then the husband grabbed his wife, ripped open the door to the cage, flung her in with the gorilla and slammed the cage door shut.


"Now. Tell him you have a headache."

Forget me not!

Yesterday a friend and I took the kids to the Mama Magic Baba Indaba at the Dome. On the website it said the Barney show was at 11am and 3pm, so we diligently arrived at 2pm with the idea that we would walk around till 2.30pm, go nice and early to the Barney show and then we can be on our way home by 3.30pm.... perfect planning right? Well we get there only to discover that the Barney show times are 1pm and 4pm! Now that just throws all our perfect planning out the window. Apparently the internet times were the old times from May that they forgot to change on the website! So that left us with 2 whole hours before the Barney show! Thankfully all 3 kids were pretty well behaved as we walked the expo flat and spent far too much money on things like nappy bins and refills (see Margot's blog post eau-de-baby-shit on this topic). Finally 3.30pm and we made our way to the grand finale of our expedition, the much anticipated Barney show. now for those of you who have not been, there is a 'pram park' facility, where you can park your pram in a secure area while you attend the show. But deary deary me, this mum had 'muis neste' as my hubby's garnny would say. I parked my pram, sorted my parcels, made sure I had the right bag with me and hurried to meet my friend outside the pram park, Bilaal in tow. As we were walking away from the pram, Bilaal asked me, "mommy is this a place to park the prams?"... "Yes Bilaal!"... "But mommy, what about Sumayah?!"

And that's when I realised, I was walking away from my pram with my child still strapped inside! I immediately went back and then Bilaal and I just burst out laughing. What a wonderful mother you have Sumayah, she leaves you in the pram park while she goes to the Barney show!

Movie Clip Monday #1

As promised, today is movie clip  monday. I am npt strictly uploading anything new as this video is already on my facebook profile so apologies to my facebook friends who read my blog as you may have already seen this. Also I have been cheeky and have copied and pasted the description from facebook too!



This is part 1 of 3 from our home movie about our move to the UK in July 2006. Apologies for the poor video quality, the software & pc I was using at the time was not so good. I had to split the movie into 3 parts and still edit quite a bit out so that it wouldn't be too big a file size, but it still captures the essence of the original film.

Movie Clip Monday

I keep saying that I feel so bad that Bilaal has so much video footage of himself at different stages of development and Sumayah... well I am yet to make her her first home movie. I just don't have the time or energy to grab the camera everytime or fight with some technical issue to get the footage onto pc or to sit tirelessly editing it into a more entertaining 'movie'. I also became less motivated when I realised that once it is watched once it gets stored away in some DVD case or folder and doesn't get watched again (well Bilaal and I often watch, but thats us!). So I decided that to inspire my movie making efforts again to give Sumayah and any other children that may or may not follow a fair 'showing' in the family movie repertoire, I would like to suggest an idea to fellow bloggers to do a video version of the wordless wednesday trend, and we can call it movie clip mondays! Now I realise that not everyone is into the whole upload video thing what with the fantastically fast and cheap internet service we have in coutries like South Africa (note the sarcasm), but if you are a willing and able blogger and have as many clips stored away somewhere and would like to share it with us here in the blogosphere (doesn't have to be every monday), then please join me in observing movie clip mondays. I will try to do my first post next monday.

First the electricity, now the water!

Saturday past we had a power failure at about 7pm, poor Bilaal was in the shower at the time! The minute the house plunged into sudden darkness, my first instinct was to get the the bathroom as soon as possible knowing that Bilaal will be scared standing alone in the shower in the pitch dark not knowing what to do! But then of course as I ran toward the bathroom I heard Sumyah crying behind me and I realised... Oh yes! I have another kid don't I? In the mean time I managed to get the torchlight on my phone on, grabbed Sumayah and got Bilaal to turn off the shower and reassured him with my presence... us mums are such super heroes arene't we? lol! I don't know what the cause of the power outage was, it appeared to affect the whole complex as well as the street lights and the shops over the road. Now usually when we have these power outages, by the time I got enough candles stuck to one or other purity jar or saucer and lit, the lights come back on... but on this particular occasion the electricity only came back on about 1am in the morning!

Then yesterday, when we returned home from some of our eid celebrations, we discovered that there was no water!  We discovered that it was due to a burst water pipe not far from our house. Although it came back on at about 8pm last night, it was off again about 1am in the morning and remained off for the good part of today till about 3pm! I can say with conviction that anybody would take no electricity over no water any day. The situation just made me think about that advert they have on the radio at the moment where they say that it is believed the next world war will not be over oil or energy, money, poiltics, religion or any of the other common war inducing issues the world faces... it will be a fight over water! What an awful prospect! the irony of today of course was that it was a typically wet and rainy summer day in jozi.

Because i can!

This morning Today I was allowed myself to be lazy. My little insomniac has been up to her old sleepless habits again this week, tossing and turning and moaning in her sleep, which meant I didn't get much sleep either. Thankfully being the end of the year, work has slowed down considerably, but to be honest I am still recovering from October when everything was at its peak. The students marks needed to be in, last meetings of the year, half term, and the biggest one of all... moving. So ending this week with little sleep has really tired me out. So this morning, after another night of a whole 2 hours sleep, after Yaasier and Bilaal had left I decided that I would play with Sumayah a little till she was tired, get her to sleep and crawl back into bed right next to her, and that's exactly what I did! We fell asleep at about 9am and when I woke again it was 11am... Sumayah slept till about 11.30am, just enough time for me to have a long hot shower... heavenly! By the time we tidied up and went downstairs it was time for Sumayah's lunch and then off the fetch Bilaal at school. I didn't bother with the morning dishes or doing any laundry (thank goodness as it ended up raining heavily) and all I took out of the freezer for supper is viennas. So tonight its oven chips and viennas for supper and I will see how I feel about giving the kids a bath! Because sometimes mommies deserve to be lazy and care-free and simply not give a damn ;)

A Child's Prayer

At sunset muslims perform the 4th of the 5 daily prayers. We always try to all pray together, but mostly Bilaal and his dad pray together. Gradually over time he has learned most of the recitations in that he now is able to 'lead' the prayer. The part he still needs to learn though is the prayer at the end which is harder because it is more 'impromptu' as it is the prayer that wraps up your thanks and requests to your creator. Tonight, Yaasier was not home for this prayer so Bilaal decided to perform the prayer on his own. I was just finished putting Sumayah to sleep when I saw him sitting on the prayer mat with his hands held high in preparation to make this final prayer... but he was stuck... 'mommy please help me I'm stuck'...

So I told him not to worry, that if he didn't know how to pray in Arabic he could make his prayer in English. I told him to think about what he would like to thank God for and if there was anything he would like to ask for... and this is what he prayed...

"Oh Allah... thank you... for this wonderful life... that I have. Um, thank you for... my wonderful sister and family... and... Allah... help all the poor children... um... help me to give the um poor children... to give them things they don't have..."

A long pause followed and after my heart finished melting I recollected myself and told him that if that was all he wanted to say then that was fine.

Birth Order

A friend and fellow parent and Bilaal's school sent this to me. It is funny because it is so very true. Although reading it I think I may have skipped 2nd child behaviour in most cases and just went straight to acting like a 3rd time mum! Enjoy :)

BIRTH ORDER OF CHILDREN

Pregnancy:

1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your doctor confirms your pregnancy.

2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.

3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

Preparing for the Birth:

1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.

2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time breathing didn't do a thing.

3rd baby : You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

The Layette :

1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, color coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.

2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.

3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Worries:

1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby.

2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.

3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.


Dummy:

1st baby: If the dummy falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.

2nd baby: When the dummy falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.

3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.

Nappies:

1st baby: You change your baby's nappy every hour, whether they need it or not.

2nd baby: You change their nappy every two to three hours, if needed.

3rd baby: You try to change their nappy before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.

Activities:

1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.

2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.

3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

Going Out:

1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.

2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached...

3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.


At Home:

1st baby : You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.

2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.

3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.
Swallowing Coins:

1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.

2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.

3rd child: When third child swallows a coin, you deduct it from his pocket money.


GRANDCHILDREN: God's reward for allowing your children to live!

I think they left a very important category out... the NAPPY BAG!

So here's my contribution:

1st child: you buy the best nappy bag you can afford and you make sure it is always stocked with everything you might possibly need in the event you get stranded on a remote island (even if you are just going to the shop for a loaf of bread)

2nd child: you downgrade to a more 'sensible' normal-looking bag that is at least big enough to carry a change of clothes and food

3rd child: you use your handbag that you sometimes remember to stuff a nappy and some wetwipes into and you don't bother with food, you can give a biscuit or buy some hot chips and an oros somewhere if the kid gets hungry.

Eeww! Grose!

Toddlers are disgusting... or rather I should say they have disgusting habits. Of course they can't help it because they don't know any better, but it is one of the main reasons they need constant supervision. Sumayah for instance loves eating things from the floor (like many other toddlers), be it the annoying little ants she finds crawiling in the garden, or that tiny piece of biscuit that I was busy sweeping up lying amidst all the dust particles and old hardened noodles. She also, for some reason loves sucking wetwipes. It's a huge battle everytime I change her nappy that I end up having to hide the wetwipes from her. If she does happen to catch a glimpse of it,  a huge tantrum ensues if I don't give her one. At first my sense of 'it's not good for her to suck on wetwipes' meant that I would end up fighting to keep her still with one hand while changing a monstrously disgusting poo nappy with the other. But as she got older and stronger my sense of 'good parenting' just got tossed along with the dirty nappies into the nappy bin and I now just give her one. Have you ever tasted wetwipes? They are so bitter and disgusting so I have no idea what her obsession is with it. But I think the thing that used to get me most is when she used to posset milk or juice on the floor she would rub her hands in it as if to spread it further and, if I didn't get to her on time she would proceed to lick her hand afterward! I do take comfort in the fact that these disgusting habits will hopefully wane with time, but for now I guess I just have to watch her like a hawk :)

A memo from your child

Yaasier brought home the Ar Rasheed newsletter last night and we were both drawn by this insert that was included by an unknown author titled 'A memo from your child'. We decided to keep it up on our fridge as a reminder of some of the basic things our children require from us. The interesting thing is that as simple as this list is, reading through it I was struck by how many I actually 'fail' to adhere to on a daily basis. Have a read through and see how many you succeed/falter on. Parenting really is a very hard and complex task. The sustenance, the love and the tending to daily physical needs is the easy part...

a memo from your child

re: Me

1. Do not spoil me. I know quite well that I ought not to have all I ask for. i am only testing you.
2. Do not be afraid to be firm with me. I prefer it. it lets me know where I stand.
3. Do not use force with me. it teaches me that power is all that counts. I will respond more readily to being led.
4. Do not be inconsistent. That confuses me and makes me try harder to get away with everything I can.
5. Do not make promises you may not be able to keep. That will discourage my trust in you.
6. Do not fall for my provocations when I say and do things that upset you. Then I will try for more such victories.
7. Do not be too upset when I say "I hate you". I do not mean it, but I want you to feel sorry for what you have done.
8. Do not make me feel smaller than I am.I will make up for it by behaving like a "big shot".
9. Do not do things for me that I can do for myself. It makes me feel like a baby, and I may continue to put you in my service.
10. Do not let my "bad habits" get me alot of attention. It only encourages me to continue them.
11. Do not correct me in front of people. I will take much more notice if you talk quietly with me in private.
12. Do not try to discuss my behaviour in the heat of a conflict. For some reason my hearing is not very good at this time and my cooperation is even worse. It is alright to take the action required, but lets not talk about it too late.
13. Do not try to preach to me. You'd be surprised how well I know what's right and wrong.
14. Do not make me feel that my mistakes are sins. I have to learn to make mistakes without feeling that I am no good.
15. Do not nag. If you do, i shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf.
16. Do not demand explanations for my wrong behaviour. I really do not know why I did it.
17. Do not tax my honesty too much. I am easily frightened into telling lies.#
18. Do not forget that I love and use experimenting. I learn from it, so please put up with it.
19. Do not protect me from consequence. I need to learn from experience.
20. Do not take too much notice of my small ailments. I may learn to enjoy poor health if it gets me too much of your attention.
21. Do not put me off when I ask "honest" questions. If you do, you will find that I stop and seek information elsewhere.

Moving House

These past weeks have been so very busy. We are finally moving tomorrow so there have been lots to do and organise. As my cousin told me I should be an expert at moving already. Why? Because we have moved oh only 4 times in the last 5 years! Only this time we are not renting, it is OUR house so it feels great! It's funny though because for Bilaal it is so 'normal' to keep moving to another house (given that he has moved almost every year of his existence!) that the one day he heard me trying to organise a cleaning company to do the post-occupation clean at our current home and when he asked me and I explained, he followed with, "Oh, so when we move out of the new house we will also have to get the cleaners in?"

When Bilaal was born my in-laws were living in NZ and my folks were in the UK. They were all there for the birth, but all missed the 1st year of his life. We visited NZ just before Bilaal's 1st birthday where he 'met' his 'telephonic' grandparents. Unbeknown to us 8 months later would be living in the UK. He had 2 good years of quality time with his grandparents on that side when we returned to South Africa, but wait, not to our home city of Cape Town, but to Johannesburg where we had no family. In the beginning we used to worry that we are uprooting Bilaal so much that he might end up being an insecure child who struggles to commit himself to things of importance. But we soon realized that as long as we kept the most important part of his young tender life consistent and reliable and dependable he would in fact flourish with all these varied experiences. And that most important thing is US, the WE, the family UNIT. And I can see now that in fact these experiences have made him very adaptable, he makes friends very easily, he loves travel at this young age already, he's been exposed to different cultures and lifestyles and weather! And mostly despite family being spread everywhere he has a good relationship with all of them. I do realise that if he was older and there was the complexity of school and peer relationships at a time when identity starts to develop and all the rest it would've been a totally different story, so my advice to any young parents out there, if you want experience living abroad, do it now while the kids are still young and mouldable. I can tell you from my sister and sister-in-law's experiences it gets much harder when the kids are older.

But anyhew! I need to get my packing done and some more running around on erends so I better get going. It felt good to be blogging again. my internet may be down for a bit after tomorrow so I don't know when my next installment will be, so till then!

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For some reason Sumayah just loves Bilaal's swimming cap.

Watch this space!

hey hey hey! just dropping in to say I'm still alive and 'Watch this Space'  ;-)

Sumayah's 1st Accident and Emergency experience

Last night we had our first Accident and Emergency visit with Sumayah. What happened you ask?
She fell out of her feeding chair onto the floor and knocked her lip on the tiles. At first when I saw the bloody mouth I just tried rinsing her mouth, but on closer inspection I noticed that the thingy that connects the lip to the teeth thingy (which I now know is called the frenulum/threnulum not sure which!) was cut... I know sounds eina right? So anyway when Yaasier who was upstairs on a call came rushing down to see what all the fuss was about, he suggested a trip to the A&E. We decided it would be better to take the cautionary measure and go just in case there's something she needs stitches or something. We arrived at Olivedale A&E at about 7.30pm and seen impressively quickly by the triage nurse whose role is to classify the priority of your case. We were placed in the 'green' category which meant we were low priority, with yellow coming in second and red/orange taking top honours. According to the hospital policy, patients in the green category should be seen within an hour. However the nurse explained to us that there was a resussitation going on which could slightly delay matters. In the mean time while we waited Sumayah 'got over it' and started being her usual spirited, playful self, attracting the attention of all and sundry in the waiting room. We started to wonder if it was even worth waiting or if we should just go home and see a GP the next day. Nonetheless after about an hour and 15 mins we were sent through to the consulting rooms where we waited roughly another 20 mins. So by 9pm a doctor examined Sumayah, prescribed an antibiotic to prevent infection, pain medication and probiotics and were told that it should heal by itself, but that we should return on saturday for a follow-up... and then we were sent home. After an hour and half of waiting the exam took a total of 10 minutes! But you know what better safe than sorry, and I would rather go the extra mile for nothing than do nothing and the problem takes itself the extra mile. The follow-up visit probably isn't neccessary because the injury is healing well and Sumayh doesn't seem to have any qualms with me touching the area, cleaning it or even brushing her teeth around the area. Algamdoelillah (praise be to God)! it could have been so much worse!

Thump in the night!

During the course of the night Sumayah usually ends up in bed with us. I really don't mind, but now that we are fasting and need to wake up at 4.30am to eat breakfast before the sun rises, it can pose a slight problem. Let us take this morning as an example. When the alarm went off, Sumayah was sound asleep in the bed and we were left with the predicament... do we leave her undisturbed in the bed knowing that she may roll off or wake for her bottle and fall off?... or do we pick her up to put her in her cot and risk waking her and end up with a little bright-eyed girl sitting regop at the breakfast table at 4.30 in the morning asking for a slice of our toast?

I looked at Yaasier and mouthed out quietly, "do you think we can leave her in the bed?" He nodded yes and that was that. I placed the pillow around her and we went downstairs. About half hour later while enoying a pastrami sandwich, we heard a Thump! Yaasier and i looked at each other and Yaasier asked, "Did Sumayah just fall off the bed now?" which was immediately followed by the sound of Sumayah crying. i flew up the stairs faster than I knew possible and when I entered the dark room I saw the shape of a tiny head on the other side of the bed looking around the room.

Shampies man she looked so small and vulnerable, but actually wasn't crying much. I don't think she really got hurt, more just of a fright and very annoyed. So we darem ended up sitting with her at the breakfast table, poor thing!

Once Bitten, Twice Shy!

Yesterday I took the kids to the local park. There was a cute little boy there with a lovely, friendly mommy. We chatted briefly while our kids braved the climbing structure. According to her the little boy is 16 months, only 2 months older than Sumayah. We parted as our kids explored the rest of the park in different directions, but then a little while later Sumayah spotted the little boy again and approached him. The boy's mom was sitting a few centimetres away on one side of them and I was standing a few centimetres away on the other side of them. I could see Sumayah wanted to hug the boy and he wanted to hug her too but as they leaned in toward each other Sumayah lost her balance and fell on her bottom. She didn't cry and I reassured her from where I was standing that it was okay and that the boy just wanted to hug her. Then, as if in slow  motion I saw him lean down toward her, put his arms around her in a loving embrace and then gave her a huge haps on her cheek! This cute little boy was biting my girl! By the time I managed to pull her away he had already left an ugly bite mark on her cheek, but fortunately no blood! Sumayah of course cried and the boy's mom quickly jumped up, apologised and asked if he pushed her because she didn't see him bite her. I just said 'no he bit her'and walked away to console Sumayah away from the boy. While I was playing with Sumayah on the other side of the park I noticed the mom's daughter arrived from her ballet lesson and then they left.

Now I have no ill feelings toward the little boy or the mother in fact. He is still only a baby and at that age biting is a common problem that develops. It could just as easily have been Sumayah who did the biting. She does after all tend to bite Bilaal when he frustrates her! But it did get me thinking, what is the appropriate response in this situation, on either side? I was so shocked in the first instance and then focussed on Sumayah and consoling her that I had no time to say anything to the mom. But only now in retrospect do I wonder to myself... shouldn't she have come to see if Sumayah was okay? If it was Sumayah who bit another child, I would've been profusely apologising to the other mom and making sure that the other kid was okay. But I don't know if she didn't hear me or if she didn't believe me, if she was embarrassed, or maybe she just didn't care (which I doubt), but this mom just carried on as though nothing happened!

All I know is I will be very reluctant to encourage hugs and kisses from other kids from now on. As the saying goes, 'once bitten, twice shy'!

Wordless Wednesday 30

Fire Scare!

On Saturday night one of those things happened that I never thought ever would ... being such a uber responsible supermom and all (read with much sarcastic undertone). Yaasier had a lussie for popcorn, but seeing as all the microwave popcorn was up, I had to go back to old school oil-in-the-pot method. I have been very scatterbrained these last couple of weeks I don't know why, but this was really the cherry on top. I put the oil in the pot and smugly announced my old-fashioned popcorn-making knowledge by telling Yaasier that the secret to good pot popcorn is to let the oil get hot before adding the popcprn kernels so that the kernels don't absorb too much oil before popping. So while waiting for the oil to heat up I watched a bit of telly. Not long and I suddenly saw a faint smoke waft pass the light! I asked Yaasier very ignorantly, "what's that smoke?"... and then it dawned on me, "Oh shit! I forgot about the oil on the stove!"

I ran to the stove and saw the smoke filling up under the glass pot lid. Now I know how fire operates and despite thinking that it would never happen to me, I also always thought I would know exactly how to react in the event it did. The thing is when your fight/flight mechanism kicks in you sometimes tend to forget valuable knowledge. See when I saw the smoking pot what I should've done is turn off the stove, place a wet cloth over the lid and immediately take it outside to cool down before opening the lid.

Instead my immediate reaction when I saw the pot was to remove the lid and put on the extractor fan... DOH! How dumb was I? Anybody who knows the first thing about fire knows that the worst thing you can do for a potential fire is to expose it to oxygen! Not only did I expose the burning oil to oxygen, but I extracted the flammable fumes further into the air! So of course the pot caught alight!

Fortunately I quickly regained some good sense and gave Yaasier a cold lid to cover the flame with and turned off the exctractor fan, and removed the pot outside. Of course by then the whole downstairs was filled with smoke. Yaasier brought the huge fan down, we opened all the windows and doors and made sure all the doors to the rooms upstairs were closed so that the smoke couldn't penetrate the rooms where the children were sleeping. My eyes were burning, my throat was burning, but worst of all while we sat in the cold waiting for the smoke to clear I was wandering aimlessly up and down feeling racked with guilt and completely useless and irresponsible. It may have been a small little flame that was completely controllable, but I kept thinking that it could have been so much worse! I was so ashamed and upset with myself for allowing such a totally avoidable thing to happen. I almost didn't want to blog about this, but then I thought 'suck it up Tasneem, others can learn from your stupidity'. So here are some very important tips that hopefully nobody will ever need:

When discovering a fire or potential fire in the home:

1. Stay CALM
2. Assess the severity and if you have any doubt whatsoever that you can get it under control, evacuate the house immediately!
3. If you are absolutely certain that you can tackle the small blaze, assess the type of fire and act accordingly

There are 3 main types of fires:

• Paper/wood/clothing/other material: it is safe to douse this type of fire with water
• cooking oil/fat: DO NOT open the lid of the pot, if the pot is already open when a flame erupts, either put a lid over it or throw a damp cloth over the fire and turn off the stove. NEVER throw water over this type of fire, the burning fat will splatter possibly harming you or even spreading the fire!
• Electrical: FIRST switch off the mains! The best way to tackle an electrical flame is to cover it with BICARBONATE OF SODA. NEVER throw water on an electrical flame or one that is near to an electrical socket or you WILL SHOCK!

Finally it is important to know how to react in the event of minor skin burns. It is handy to have some burnshield spray or swabs on hand. In the old days when you burned yourself on the stove or the iron the older generation always used to put butter on the wound... WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!!! this is the worst thing you can do! Butter coats the burn and creates an ideal environment for bacteria thereby increasing the chance for infection. You also should not put ice on the burn as it may damage the skin further and do not put a bandage on the wound as it will delay healing time. The best thing you can do is to keep the area under cold running water for at least 5 minutes. If the burn is very minor you may then afterward cover the area with a healing cream such as aloe vera for some relief and to speed up the healing process.

Of course it all also depends on the severity of the burn and the cause. You can visit this link for more info: First Aid for Burns

All that being said, Prevention is Better than Cure! So please learn from my stupid mistake and DO NOT FORGET about the oil on the stove!

Love Me!

With Rights comes Responsibilities!

I am pissed! Angry! But also sad! What has evoked such strong reactions? The strike. Now don't get me wrong, in principle I whole heartedly support the strike. Of course the health care and teaching proffessions are underpaid and undervalued. I come from a whole family of teachers. Both Yaasier's parents are teachers, almost all his aunts, I have cousins, uncles and aunts who are teachers, I have many nurse friends, so I totally see where they are coming from with their demands. But the problem with many South Africans is that we are very quick to point out what our rights are, but almost always seem to just as easily forget that with those rights come responsibilities. Just as everyone participating in the strike are entitled to execute this right, so those who have chosen not to participate are entitled to exercise their right. In addition those who exercise the right to assemble and demonstrate have the responsibility to do so 'unarmed and peacefully'.

So I get really angry when I hear stories on the news about premature babies being abandoned in hospitals, 2 babies consequently dying! Or the ambulance driver whose been driving around for 3 hours with a pregnant woman in critical condition  because he's been turned away from every hospital he's gone to. And what about the ambulance that was turned away transporting a man who needed urgent surgery because his hand was chopped off!!! Yes that's right his hand was chopped off and if he didn't get surgery within the 'golden hour' the tissue would die, but the striking 'health care' workers wouldn't allow them through! Now you tell me how is that any different from taking people hostage and demanding ransom in exchange for life??! Last time I checked being a hostage taker was a crime, so in my mind when you hold the lives of patients ransom you are no different. I have colleagues working at Baragwanath hospital who were yesterday barracading into the building because they had the nerve to turn up to work!

And then there are those poor matriculants who are writing their finals in 2 months time! The sad thing is it is the most disadvanteged schools where the scholars are particularly vulnerable to the poverty cycle that are affected most. I remember when I was at school there were also times when teachers were striking against all the retrenchments that were taking place at the time and we all supported them in their strike, but then they had the decency to put contingency plans in place so our work would't suffer too much. All you need is 1 parent out of a classroom on 30-40 children to 'babysit' the class and the teacher to set enough work to keep them busy for the time of the strike and you're sorted.

I just feel that just as their are many many hardworking, dedicated teachers and nurses who genuinely care about the society and purpose that they serve, equally, maybe even more so there are those who are in the profession purely for the pay cheque, who really don't give a damn! Believe me I have worked with enough lazy-ass miserable nurses who hate their jobs and treat their patients like shit. I have also come across many teachers who are just as bad. And the sad thing is they taint the reputations and beauty of all those teachers and nurses who always give their all. But I also balme the unions for allowing the strike to get out of control, for not approaching the situation with more maturity.

So I'd like to say to each and every person responsible for denying others their  rights by blocking their access to essential health services or denying a child the right to an education that could be his/her key to escaping the cycle of poverty... Shame on You!!! Every single person that dies due to lack of services... their blood is on your hands! Yes that's right I'm calling you murderers! How does is feel to know that you are responsible for the death of 2 babies? If you get your wage demands met, I really hope that extra 1% increase will be worth it!

And that's just my 2 cents!

Wordless Wednesday 29

Part 2 of 'Midgets and Swear Words'

What are the chances that Bilaal would have not 1 but 2 embarrass-your-parent encounters with a midget?! I refer to a previous post titled midgets and swear words where I describe an incident where Bilaal 'confronted' a midget about his size. Well!... the other day Bilaal went with Yaasier to the bank and while they were in the queue he spotted a midget entering the bank. Bilaal innocently turned to his dad and remarked:
"Daddy? I wonder how that small lady got here, she couldn't have drove here because she won't be able to see over the steering wheel." If that was not embarrassing enough Bilaal then added, "and in any case her feet won't be able to reach the pedals."

'Nuff said.

Wordless Wednesday 28

Verbal Upgrade

One of the joys of parenting is that you get to experience first hand the wonder of human development. It never ceases to amaze me how you can one day be overjoyed at the outcome of pee on a stick and the next thing you know you have this little person running around becoming more and more independent and growing into their very own distinct personality! It seems now that Sumayah has got the walking down she has turned her attention to talking. For a long time now she has been saying 'mama', 'dada', 'baba', 'ta' and 'up'. But then suddenly this week she decided to do a verbal upgrade. 'Dada' has now become 'da-ddi?' (yes always with an inflection at the end), she has said 'B-lal' a few times, and calls Abegail (her nanny) 'Abi'.

Tonight we were also astounded by how much she actually understands. After supper Yaasier said to Sumayah, 'go fetch the ball for dada' and just as I was getting up to show her where the ball was she walked over to the toy box, picked up the ball and brought it to Yaasier. Yaasier and I just looked at each other in proud amazement. She also tends to say 'up' whenever she wants to go out and will often lead us by the hand to the outside gate and say 'up, up'. But the thing that amazes me most is her level of problem solving. Whenever the sliding door to the garden is closed she would stand on her toes trying to reach up to the key hole with the housekeys. I simply put this down to role-modelling. But one day I witnessed with my own eyes how she pushed one of Bilaal's plastic Jolly chairs to the sliding door, house key in hand and proceeded to climb onto the chair so she could reach the key hole! I stood watching her, too dumbfounded to remove her from this clearly dangerous stunt for a 12 month old. Of course she fell off the chair and cried, but was soon trying to get back up again. We now leave the plastic chair outside... not that that stops her from climbing on the coffee table!

wordless wednesday 27

I'm gonna moo you!

When Bilaal was still a wee lad learning all the various animal sounds, he would hook onto a favourite and then use it all the time. I blogged about an incident with the 'quack' sound in a previous post where I described the embarrassment he caused me because he instead used to say 'kak'. Well when it came to the cow sounds there was never any problem there. He always used to moo at us and say 'I'm gonna moo you', followed by a very animated 'mooo!' Of course we found this amusing, one because he was so adorable when he mooed and two because it sounded as though he was saying 'I'm gonna moer you', but since we were in the UK it didn't matter because the English wouldn't know this. So we used to laugh and continue our bemusement everytime he said this, which of course true to Pavlovian theory reinforced the behaviour. Naturally as his communication skills advanced, he outgrew this little game and proceeded to drive us nuts with incessant talking and questions. Well... for some reason Bilaal has recently re-adopted this phrase recently and at first when he used to say it in the house I didn't really bother much about it because of course I know the story behind it. But then one day the neighbour's kid was at our house and while they were playing I heard Bilaal saying to the boy, 'I'm gonna moo you, i'm gonna moo you!'. And then I realised, what if this kids goes to tell his parents and it is totally misunderstood. And then the following day we were getting out of the car at the shops and Bilaal says to me very loudly and with much zeal, 'Mommy, I'm gonna moo you, I'm gonna moo you mommy!' That turned a few heads! So when we arrived home I had to explain to him why he shouldn't say that anymore and thankfully so far he's listened!

AWOL

16 days! That's how long it's been since my last post! It's so true that you only realize the true value of something when it's gone. While blogger may not be gone, the damn internet certainly was missing in action over the last 2 weeks. There were so many little things I wanted to blog about but alas!

And then I get a pleasant surprise from a fellow blogger Simply Mel who commented on a previous post enquiring how me and the kids were. Wow that just warmed my heart, thanks Mel! Sure I know there are many people I know that read my blog, but it's wierd how much I really value these cyber interactions with people I have never even met. It a strange thing the connection I feel toward some of the bloggers I regularly follow. I worry when their kids are ill and feel immense pride when they do something great. I feel happy when good things happen in their lives and disappointed when things don't go their way.

So thanks all my blogger buddies. Thank you for the new perspective, thank you for the comments and variety of opinions, for making me laugh and yes even the times I felt a little teary eyed.

Oh Poo!

Yesterday Yaasier came home early and we decided to take the kids to the park. We went to the nearby Kingfisher park because it has a huge open field where the boys can kick ball and play rugby. Unfortunately we stayed at the park for a shorter time than it takes us to get everyone out of the car! They should rename the park Dog Poo park. There wasn't a single spot of grass that the boys could safely run or tackle or roll around without the risk of landing some part of their anatomy in dogdie doodoos. So we left and went to the much smaller park at the library. No I have no problem with dogs or their owners, but I do think having one as a pet is just as much a responsibility as deciding to have a child. They require lots of love and attention, they need to be fed, they are often reprimanded and will eat anything that looks or smells even remotely edible off the floor. And if your kid is like Sumayah then they also both love eating shoes and rubbing their gums on the corners of the furniture! Yes, I did just compare my child to a pet dog!

You also need to provide both a place to do the smelly deed. Now to continue my comparison, if I go out with a baby, nappy bag in tow and baby does a skunk manoevre that cannot be ignored if death by intolerable fumes is to be avoided, I would whip out my handy changing mat, find a reasonably decent place to clean and change said nappy, and then... Now here is the key part... I would pick up the nappy and throw it in the nearest bin! So it really erks me when dog owners fulfill their rightful duty of taking their dogs for a walk/run/play in a public park meant for everyone and do not oblige to same decency. In the UK you will get fined if you get caught leaving your doggy doodoos lying around. They even have special doggie doodoo bins in all the parks and even provide little handy disposable poop scoops and packets in case you forgot yours.

Tell me fellow dog owners, is this an unreasonable request?

Wordless Wednesday 25

Walkies walkies

So Sumayah has decided to become vertically mobile! And like most experienced parents will tell you, now is when you really know the meaning of the word 'hectic'! She had been showing signs of walking for a while already... cruising along surfaces, getting from sit to stand without holding on to anything, standing on her own for long periods, etc. But whenever we tried to get her to walk she would laugh at us, get down onto the floor and crawl. So even though we knew walking was imminent she still took us by surprise. See with Sumayah it wasn't a gradual process. She took 4 steps one day and then refused to do it again, until last Friday when I visited a friend's house. When I arrived I put her down on the floor in standing, expecting her to sit down and start crawling around. Instead she just started walking toward my friend as though she'd been doing it all along! So there was no 2 steps then 4 steps then 10, then off we go... no it was no steps at all for almost a month and then suddenly off we go! The funniest part was when she was walking and patting herself on the chest and clapping her hands as though congratulating herself on her achievement. Guess that is rather characteristic of our little Sumayah even with the whole coming into the world thing... she will do it on her own terms thank you very much!

What not to say when...

We flew to Cape Town recently and encountered the same problem we have with Bilaal everytime we fly. Because of the loud humming sound inside the plane, Bilaal tends to lose all ability to control the volume function on his voice box. We have to constantly remind him, "Bilaal we are sitting right next to you, you don't have to shout." He tones it down a little, but the volume slowly increases back to a shout. Of course it doesn't help that he is such a chatterbox. We are convinced that he sometimes just says random stuff simply for the sake of saying something.Who can blame him, both sets of grandparents will give testament to the fact that Yaasier and I have got exactly what we deserve, because apparently we were both just as bad as kids. But I digress.

Recently we have been reading Bilaal alot of stories about the different prophets. Naturally, the book starts with the story of creation and of Adam and Gouwa (Eve) and their descent to earth from heaven. This of course brought up questions about heaven and so forth. So anyway here we are sitting on an aeroplane getting ready to take off and Bilaal starts shouting at the top of his voice, "Daddy, when I go to heaven can I ask Allah for aliens?" (he is more than a little obsessed with Ben10 alien force) So we say sure Bilaal and remind him not to shout. Not much longer and he has moved off the topic of aliens and for some reason remembers something from the movie 'Speed' that he wants to ask his dad about but can't remember the name of the movie, so he asks, again at full voume, "Daddy, what's that movie we watched where there's a bomb on the bus?" Yaasier and I looked at each other thinking the same thing... with a name like Bilaal, utterings of going to heaven and bombs on buses should not be used when sitting in an aeroplane! At least now that the CIA and FBI didn't swoop in on us, we can joke about it.

There are also things one shouldn't say when entering someones home for the first time. We've been going on a few house viewings recently and on one particular viewing the family was home. The minute we walk in and greet the folks Bilaal chirps up, "Mommy the house smells like...(please don't embaress me, please don't embaress me)...vanilla" (shew!) That was a close call, but I definately explained to Bilaal that he shouldn't make comments about the way people's houses smell... at all! Of course that was too specific an instruction for Mr Pedantic. I didn't include all clauses into the contract of appropriate behaviour with regards house viewings. So the next time we view a house where the owner is home, we hardly step in to the house and Bilaal asks rather loudly, "Is this house also too small mommy?" and when we step into a room that's a bit cluttered, he says "oo! there's alot of stuff in this room".

Then there is the situation with the car guards. I usually give the car guards some change if I had been parked for a long time, but sometimes I have absolutely no change, maybe only a 5 cents in my purse. I also don't give them anything if I 'd been away from the car for less than 15 minutes. Ashamedly I usually try to avoid all eye contact with them and make as quick a getaway as I can to avoid feeling guilty. So the last thing I need is Bilaal asking me just when we are approaching the car, "there's the guard mommy, are you gonna give him money or don't you have change again?"

Things that impress

At every stage of life there are things you have in common with people in a similar stage that are foreign to those who aren't. Like when you have a long term boyfriend/partner/spouse and you bore your single friends to death with your rants and raves about partnerdom. Or when you are pregnant and you lose all ability to converse on any other topic and suddenly it becomes okay to discuss perineum exercises and the state of your cervix in front of all and sundry.

So naturally when you have children you tend to speak about them to anyone who will listen (even if we don't realize it). But what never ceases to amaze me is the type of things we in the world of parenthood find amazing and wonderful and wonder why others look at us strangely with a sarcastic 'o-k, that's gr-e-a-t!' expression. For example the first time baby rolls over or lifts its head. Or the first time baby can burp on its own or makes his first single syllable gurgle. And how happy we are that baby's poo is the right colour, quantity, smell and consistency! Then they start growing into their little-personness and then we really can't help bragging about the fact that they can say 'ta' or 'dada' or have 4 teeth!

But I guess babies being cute and all, some non-parents often do share in the cuteness of these little milestones. I find I now have a growing child and the things that I am proud of can seem very insignificant to the non-parent. For example Bilaal has recently mastered the art of tying his own shoe laces. It didn't take long and I remember how he came running to me so excited and said, 'look mommy I tied my own laces' and I was bursting with pride. Or how impressed I am when he can write simple words. I can only imagine the state I will be in the first time he dons his grade 1 uniform!

wordless wednesday 24

Bye bye baby, Hello toddler!

I can't believe it's been a year already! It feels like yesterday that we were rather impatiently waiting for the arrival of our little Princess Fiona. I call her that because she aint your regular classic fairytale princess type... no she's more your modern day kick-ass I-know-what-I-want princess type. Yep that's our Sumayah. She has this bib that is so perfect for her, it reads, "what part of princess don't you understand!" So it's the night before her birthday and i find myself reminiscing about this momentous night one year ago.

My gynae was so convinced that I would go into labour at 38 weeks, but that just made the wait much longer because we were anticipating her birth any moment for 2 weeks. My actual due date was Monday 29 June 2009. My mom arrived Friday, 26 June and Yaasier's parents and sister surprised us with a drive up from Cape Town on the Saturday, while my husband's grandmother had been staying with us for 2 weeks already. So we were a pretty full house, all... waiting! So due date came and I visited the gynae one last time. I was so convinced he was gonna tell me that I was dilated and that labour was imminent because I had been having 2 weeks of pre-labour  back pain. But alas! that was not to be. Funny how my first thought was, 'oh no! my mom is only gonna be here for 2 weeks and they only induce after 10 days overdue so she might miss the birth!'

Fortunately, doc put my mind at ease and said that he would book me in for an induction the thursday morning in the event that I didn't go into labour naturally before then. So D-day came and went as did Tuesday and finally Wednesday last chance for au-naturalle. Of course by now every morning when I crawled out of my cave after a very uncomfortable night of no sleep in an upright position, I would meet with a house full of loved ones and inevitably someone would ask, 'no baby yet?' And everytime I so much as paused in a sentence or went a little quiet my mom would anxiously ask me, 'are you having contractions?'

But wait! Wednesday morning was different after all! I certainly was having contractions at very regular intervals and they were getting stronger as the morning went on. I knew it wasn't rush to hospital this instant kind of contractions, I could still have a decent conversation and you know... breathe (those of you who have gone through natural labour will know what I mean). But nevertheless I was pretty convinced that this was it. So at about 9am Yaasier and I said our goodbyes and received our well wishes, packed the hospital bag in the boot and off we went. The strangest thing, I was having contractions all the way to the hospital (only about 10 mins away) right up to the second they put the monitor on my belly... and then everything just stopped! I was quite annoye lying there actually wishing for the pain because at least it would mean we were in business. But when the nurse came to check there was only 1 stong contraction in the whole hour that we were there. So we were sent home. It was about 10.30am and Yaasier and I decided to go and have breakfast before having home. You'll never believe but we stopped at KFC! I had a most delicious zinger burger for breakfast and then we headed home. Imagine the disappointment when we walked in the door with no baby! Bilaal of course couldn't understand why we didn't bring home the baby. I hadn't explained to him the natural birthing process so he was under the impression we went to the dr to have the baby taken out (I showed him C-sec pics in a magazine).

I don't remember much else about that day, probably because I was a bit distracted? It was about 6pm and we were all downstairs getting ready to have a light supper. I had been feeling the contractions again and they were definately getting strong enough for me to hold onto something while waiting for it to pass. So the loved ones convinced me to go back to hospital. So off we go again and find ourselves at the hospital again at about 8pm, and as I feared the second they put the monitor on the contractions slowed down and weren't very stong at all. Two hours later the nurse told us that as I was due for an induction the next morning and needed to be there at 4am I could stay there to wait it out or I could go home and relax, maybe have a hot bath to spur things along. Since we were only 10mins away i decided I wanted to go home and bath in my own bath with bubbles. The minute I got into the car the contractions were back again, but I decided to go home anyway. Once again we strolled into the house... with no baby. Yaasier ran me a hot bath and the minute i got out the contractions came strong and fast! I got dressed, but when it got to putting on my shoes I couldn't even bend! So back to hospital at about 11.30pm. I think the whole anticipation and false alarms was just so unbearable that when we pulled up to the hospital I just burst into tears. The poor security guard was so concerned. He brought me a wheelchair and quickly pushed me into the maternity ward while Yaasier parked the car. This was it! This was really really it!

And at 1.30am on the 2 July 2009 our precious little girl, weighing in at 3.4kg and 49cm long, was born.

Sore Loser

Bilaal has a very competitive spirit, I guess he gets it from both his parents. But one thing I cannot stand is that he is such a sore loser. I have been trying to foster in him a sense of good sportmanship, but to no avail thus far. Now I hear you saying, ag but all kids are like that. True, but not to the levels Bilaal takes it. I am just afraid that if we don't nip this behaviour in the bud early he is going to grow up to be be one of the John McEnroe's of the world. That he is going to be that boy that gets excluded from team games because he saps the fun out of it with his sore loser behaviour.

What starts off as a fun game of snakes and ladders or ludo or momopoly, hardly a game you play for recognition or achievement, just some silly fun... and it ends up being a game of tantrums or tears or aurguing and nobody having any fun. So what will happen if it's real competition like a sport?

SO with the Bafana vs France game I saw an opportunity for some life lessons to be imparted! I described to him how Bafana had a very slim chance of getting through to the next round, even if they won the match and how the whole country was disappointed. I asked him how he would feel if he was one of the team and of course he said he would be very angry. So I explained to him that the players probably feel the same, yet they are going to go out onto the field and play the best game they can and still put all their hearts into it. I explained that even though they let us down, we still need to show our support, because that's what true support is... sticking with your team even during the bad times. Then I Bafana to the French team. I explained to him how poorly the French behaved after they failed to win their previous matches, that they had taken out their frustrations on each other and how disgraced the French nation are by their team.

Then I asked Bilaal, now do you want to be like the Bafana players who still have the pride and support of their country, or do you want to be like the French team who everybody is talking badly about and whose own countrymen are ashamed of them. And of course he said he wanted to be like Bafana. Fortunately the game yielded a win from Bafana and the French coach played into my little life lesson by displaying true unsportsman like behaviour by refusing to shake out coache's hand! I said to Bilaal again, 'you see, Bafana did their best and won the match. And even though this is the end of the competition for them, at least they can say they can be proud that they left the competition with dignity.'

So now everytime Bilaal starts trying to cheat in a game or throws a tantrum when you go up a ladder and land far ahead of him, I can remind him again that he wants to be a Bafana not a French!

Father's Day

On Sunday we had a late morning, all four of us lying in the bed, chatting and playing. Then Bilaal and I went to prepare breakfast and he practiced all morning to sing his daddy a special song. I still need to upload the pics and video, but in the mean time here is the movie I put together for Yaasier's birthday earlier this year. It just captures what an awesome, special daddy he is. He is always worrying that he doesn't spend enough time with the kids, but really he goes out of his to spend quality time with them. And although there are the obvious things like providing for them, keeping them safe and secure, clothed, fed and educated that makes him a good dad... it is the special things like taking Bilaal to play ball, teaching him things, holding Sumayah in his arms in the evenings, laughing together and praying together that makes him an extra special dad. So here is to my gorgeous hubby who I love to bits!

My patriotic son

It is amazing to see how Bilaal has develop such patriotism toward South Africa. And it's not just because of the World Cup. This has been developing steadily for a while already and as his memories of his UK life start to fade, his proudly South African resolve has strengthened. Initially it was deliberately fostered by Yaasier particularly through the love of rugby. Yaasier is and always has been an All Black supporter. He grew up supporting the All Blacks during apartheid and because he is pretty obsessed with rugby, it is more than just support that can just be switched off and allegiances changed because we are now in the new South Africa. Instead what he has done is nurture that support in Bilaal, after all he is from the 'born free generation'. Bilaal has full Springboks gear which we always let him wear when they play and we encourage him to support 'against' daddy when they play the All Blacks. It's so cute to see how excited he gets when his team is beating his daddy's.

Now with the World Cup fever and particularly in Johannesburg where people (me included) have been donning the SA flags and mirror socks and all sorts of other SA paraphenalia for months already, his sense of pride in country has been rejuvenated. He insists the flag must be on the window where he is sitting, and he always checks that my mirror socks are fitting properly. He also gets very upset with me if I forget to wash his Bafana jersey for football fridays. And you should hear him sing the national anthem. I think I should record him one day and post the video to my blog. On the night after the opening match against Mexico, we found him crying in his sleep. When we asked him why he was crying he sobbed that it was because Bafana lost! So we had to explain to him that they didn't lose and what a draw meant and that there would still be more games to play. This morning I didn't tell him that Bafana lost.

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Friends

With the school holidays Bilaal has been seeing alot of the neighbours' kids. They don't always get to play together in the week because both kids go to aftercare so they come home quite late. The nice thing about living in a complex with security guards is that it is safe for them to move between each others houses or even play in the driveway between our houses. I would never ever otherwise allow Bilaal to go across to the neighbour without me watching his every step until he was inside their house, or play outside in the street even if right infront of the house. How things have changed! I rememeber how my brother at 5 years was able to go quite safely from neighbour to neighbour and we would simply call out for him from the yard when it was bath time, knowing that one of the neigbours would send him home.

The funny thing is Bilaal reminds me so much of my brother at this age. He was that kid. I supposed it's because we lived in the middle of our end of the street so he was friends with the nieghbours all around us and so he was the common denominator between all the other boys. Rameez is also a very friendly, confident person and has always loved being social. So as a result he was always friends with everyone. I remember the one neighbour's kid, Subair, used to knock at our door 8am in the morning on weekends and I would usually be the one to answer the door with sleep in my eyes and in my pjs to a little boy asking "is Rameez here?"... To which I would reply in a most irritated tone, "It's too early, come back later!"

I chuckle when I think about it now. Of course as they got older it wasn't so much the mornings that annoyed my teenage self, it was the constant presence of these irritating little tweenies, because they were ALWAYS at our house. Bilaal is a little like that with these 2 neighbours kids. Only this time I am not annoyed, but happy that he gets to have this experience of friendship outside of school. In the mornings the first one arrives at about 9.30 am and Bilaal is usually still milling around in his pjs unless we have somewhere to go. If we go out in the morning, we only need to pull into the parking space on return and out pops the 2 friends and follow us inside. They don't even give us a chance to put our bags down and they're already there ready to play. Both kids' parents work and are looked after by a domestic worker, so if they are here at lunch time, I normally give them lunch too. My only gripe is that sometimes the playstation tends to dominate play, so I always monitor and limit the time they are allowed to spend in front of the T.V. I find it amazing that they don't play outside in the garden more often. I usually have to encourage them to play with a ball, because they always want to be inside with the cars and toys. Sumayah of course thinks she's one of the boys, always trying to get in on the action when they are playing with the toys.

Bilaal and Oscar who lives opposite us.

Seth lives next door

Sumayah thinks she's one of the boys

Uncle Rameez

Spoke too soon?

So as I feared, my celebrations on yesterday's post was a little premature. Last night the sleep battles resumed. The funny thing is when I was putting her to sleep for the night I already knew what kind of night was ahead. This time it wasn't related to the separation anxiety I don't think. When I was putting her to sleep it was just clear that she was very restless. No amount of rocking or swaying could get her to calm down enough to fall into a deep sleep. So naturally at around 10pm she was awake again. I was on the phone with a friend so Yaasier went up and put her back to sleep. But I knew right there and then what kind of night was awaiting me. Even when I picked her up and held her in my arms in the bed, she still couldn't sleep. Her eyes would be closed, but she wasn't asleep. Eventually at about 2.30am I went downstairs to give her some rescue remedy and then got back into bed and slept with her in my arms the rest of the night. Of course the last thing I needed was to be told this morning that I should keep the volume down because I am disturbing the neighbours with my frustrated moanings that Sumayahs should "just shut up and sleep for god's sake " and stomping down the stairs and angry closing of cupboard doors in my frustration. Now mind you I know the house is very quiet so all my annoying sounds are amplified, but was I really loud enough to wake the neighbours? I don't think so... maybe to disturb the people who are warm and snug under the blankets in my own house yes, but I hardly think I was 'shouting' or 'banging' doors. So naturally this morning I was in a rather foul mood.

But I made myself a good brekkie and have turned to ranting to the blogosphere to calm me down. Now for a lovely long hot shower and I will be ready to face the day.

Touch Wood

Touch wood that I am not blogging about this too soon... you know how it is that you are happy about something and just when you talk about it or write about it, something changes and your news is negated. Well hopefully that's not gonna happen here. See for the past 2 nights Sumayah has been sleeping ... fairly well. On Saturday night I found that everytime she cried, if she saw me peering over at her she just put her head back down and slept on, confirming the whole separation anxiety theory. So I opened the side cover of her camp cot so she could see me through the netting and evertime she cried out I put me hand against the net and shusshed her back to sleep. It actually worked quite well and the best part was that I didn't have to get out of bed. Ok so maybe I had to lie very low down on the bed and practically hang over the side with my arm freezing in the cold night air, but at least I got some shut-eye!

Then last night I rearranged our furniture slightly so that her camp cot is more alighned with my bed and her sleeping position corresponds with mine. And surprise surprise I think that may have done the trick. She slep through the witching hour and only started being restless from about 1.30 am. She never really woke up, only cried out slightly in her sleep and I could simply stretch out my arm and say 'sshh' and she would sleep on. She only woke at about 5am when I brought her to the bed and gave her a bottle.

Now here's to hoping that this can continue for ever more!

Separation Anxiety

It is as though Sumayah has read the manual! According to Baby Sense, "This is the age when separation anxiety starts, and (she) will exasperate you with (her) fickleness of mood. One minute (she) will be playing quite happily on (her) own, and the next (she) will be sobbing inconsolably if you move out of (her) line of vision."

I really though that with me striking the perfect balance between being a part stay-at-home, part working mom, she would overcome her separation issues. When I leave in the morning she is perfectly fine as long as Abegail distracts her when I leave. Yet when I am home with her there are times when she is totally engrossed in her own little play world that she couls care less where I am, and then most other times I can't even move round a corner to reach for something without her crying.

I have come to realise that this may also be the root of our sleeping woes. Yes they still continue. I have not blogged about it for a while because I resumed sleep training last week and was hoping that I could reveal my success after the fact and bring about a change of tone to my blog from gloomy to hopeful. Well it was going well initially. She started taking full 2 hour naps in the day! Night times still had its hourly wakings, but all she required was a little pat and her dummy.

And then, of course, she developed tonsilitis! So all sleep training progress was thrown out the window and I now have to wait for her to be fully recovered before I can start all over again! Of course it doesn't help that I too have a cold, so does Yaasier (even worse that mine) and Bilaal recovering from a cold too!

She has become so clingly I have even dug out the old Baby Sense sling and find myself washing dishes with her in the 'hip hold' position. I really am at my wits end with this whole sleep story. Earlier I read a post on The Reluctant Mom's Blog that was so painfully truthful and honest and I was soooo glad I read it. Sometimes as moms we feel so alone guilty when we experience negative emotions and thoughts toward our children because not only because we love them, but because we are afraid that we will be judged as inadequate, a failure, a bad mother... when really we should realise that ALL moms experience negativity at some time during motherhood. And it is in realising that and confronting the ugliness of our emotions that we are able to seek help. So once again Reluctant Mom... Thank you for your honesty!

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