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 :)