Nuts about Bilaal

There are some things Bilaal says that I am not sure I should post, if only for the reason that I know somewhere down the line his older self may cringe with embarrassment. Just the other day is an example of one such incident. The other day Bilaal said to his dad, "Oh now I know what this is for!", referring to his sack of boy nuts... "when I squeeze it, I get a pain in my side, so it must be for giving you a pain in your side?"

Other things he asks me are not cringe-worthy, but usually puts a smile on my face. The other day he asked me, "Mommy, when a mommy and daddy get married, must the daddy be older than the mommy?" So I explain to him that there are no rules about age, except that both people must be adults to marry, but that you don't choose a partner based on age. "Oh, because I was wondering how do you find someone that is the right age..."

And then today, while driving home he asked what is a 'female'. The more I'm telling him it's a girl or a woman, the more he's saying to me, "No! but what is a female that eats meat?!". And it goes back and forth like that with him describing a female and what it eats till he said, "... dinosaurs..." and I realised what he meant. "Oh! you mean like carnivore and herbivore, not female!" He wouldn't be the first male species to refer to the female as carnivorous beasts!

Of course the one that always make me giggle is when he asked me when he will grow spiderwebs under his arms! SO I explain to him that you don't get spiderwebs under your arms, but that when he gets older he will grow hairs on different parts of his body, using facial hair as an example. But he just kept insisting, "so there don't come spiderwebs?... but the hair does it only look like spiderwebs?..."

"Yes Bilaal"... that's seems to be my line these days.

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?"

Midgets and Swear Words!

Every parent has stories of their children doing or saying something in public that just makes tnem cringe with embarrassment. Well, I am no exception! I have my fair share of tomatoe cheeks in the 4 years of Bilaal's existence. Unfortunately (or maybe for my sake fortunately?) I cannot remember all of them. The earliest embarrassing moment I do recall was when he was still very young, I can't remember how old, but he was just transitioning from nonsensical sounds to purposeful articulations (a fancy way of saying he was starting to speak!) Anyway, so he had this humungous duck that he absolutely loved. It was twice his size and he used to sleep with his arm draped over the duck's neck. So naturally the first animal sound he was taught was "quack". But this was too complicated an assimilation of letters for Bilaal at the time so instead he said "kak"! So everytime he saw a duck he would point and shout excitedly "KAK! KAK!" One day I was standing in Ackermans in Kenilworth Centre in Cape Town, waiting in line to pay or my goods when horror of horrors Bilaali spotted a duck! And true as peas he proceeded to point and with much zeal and animated frenzy shouted "KAK! KAK!" Now I was faced with a dilemma do I ditch my probably-don't-need-but-at-the-time-think-I-can't-do-without sale items; or do I just pretend I didn't hear and hope he doesn't repeat it. Well I stayed and he did! So I thought... how do I explain to the disgusted Antie in front of me that I do not teach my child to express such vulgar profanities without directly addressing her. So I simply said to Bilaal, "Yes, my boy, that's a duck and it goes "quack, quack!"

Now bearing in mind if that happened today with Sumayah I wouldn't care less what the people around me thought, I just don't get embarrassed for such minor transgressions anymore. But there are some things that will always be embarrassing. Like the first time Bilaal saw a midget. Now fortunately for me I am retelling this story as it was told to me because I wasn't with Bilaal on this occasion. He was with his granny in a supermarket called Tesco in the UK. Apparently a midget man stood a few paces away from Bilaal in one of the aisles looking up at the shelves. Bilaal looked, turned toward him then said, "Tell me... why you so small?" Fortnuately the man took it in good humour and simply answered, "because I can't grow". But that didn't stop the Bilaali inquisition because he then asked, "but why you can't grow?" At which point my mom intervented and swiftly moved him along.

On another occasion Bilaal was on a bus with his granny and great-granny travelling from Shepperton to Kingston when 2 Pakistani women sat near them and started talking with heavy Pakistani accents. They were chatting away when Bilaal remarked very loudly to be heard over the bus engine, "Ma, why do they talk so funny? They not making any sense."

So I may have been spared those 2 particular times, but I remember a time in the shops with me as well. See for a long time, and somtimes today still, Bilaal would describe people by the colour of their clothes. So if you wore predominantly pink you would be the pink one, or a man wearing blue would be the blue one, etc. Of course other people don't know this, they just hear talk of the white man or the black lady... you catch my drift? So one day we were in Sainsbury's and Bilaal was very intrigued by the security at the door because he was just going through a period of fascination with police and security and 'baddies'. He was still a little confused thinking that the security was a baddy because he caught those who did bad things and I was trying to explain it to him. So as we were walking out of the shop Bilaal pointed at the security who was wearing black, but also happended to be a black man and called out, "Mommy, so is the black man a baddy?" I don't know who heard because I was at my car in no time!

I'm sure there are many others, if I remember I'll be sure to post it!