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?"