Wordless Wednesday 55

no more excuses!

I always used sumayah as an excuse for not going to gym. But no more! This morning Yaasier suggested we all go to gym and just try her out at the childcare. So off we went and I was fully prepared to start 5 minutes of my workout only to be called out to console a crying child. But what do you know, while signing them in, Sumayah waltzed into the play area when she saw the other kids there and I didn't even have to sneak off! I just waved at her and said I'd be back soon and off I went. For about 15 minutes I kept expecting someone to call me, but I soon realised I had nothing to worry about.
Though I should give credit where credit is due. I don't think we would've tried this and I would even say part of the reason she was fine is because of this tuesday past. Yaasier was graduating after a long and stressful year of studying and assignments and I desperately wanted to be there. So our very dear friends, nay, rather I should call them family agreed to look after the kids. And this despite having a toddler of her own and being in her third trimester. And Sumayah had a marvelous time! Sure just about the time we were returning she started getting crabby, but that was to be expected. So thanks again to the Joulays, u are awesome friends! And here's to many more family visits to the gym.

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wordless wednesday 24

Wordless Wednesday 23

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

"Mommy, is there such a thing as a white person?"

HUH?!

That was my initial reaction when Bilaal asked me this the other day. After I found my jaw on the floor and erased the question mark from my forehead, I asked him, "Why do you ask?".

He proceeded to tell me how his favourite girl friend that he used to play with last year (she left the school to attend grade R this year) and her cousin (also a girl) once told him that he could only play with them if he was a "white person".

So I asked him, "So what did you say?"
To which he replied, "I told them you don't get such a thing as a white person. Do you mommy?"

And that is how we entered into our first discussion about race. Interestingly the reason for his perception that there is no such thing as white person or a black person is because he only views colour differences in terms of lighter and darker. So you are either light or dark, no coloured or indian or black or white. And him being a little Cape coloured boy views himself in the light category! The conversation then extended beyond skin colour as I was trying to explain to him that he shouldn't choose his friends based on how they look or what they wear or what they have, but rather how they treat others and are they nice to be around. We even touched on disability seeing as there are 2 children at his school with disabilities, one with Down's Syndrome, one with autism. All this while he was having lunch and I was folding washing!

I asked him, "So how come they played with you anyway, R was then your best friend last year? And doesn't E then play with S (indian girl) ?"
Bilaal: "Yes because when I said there's no such thing they just said 'oh' and then we played"

Aah the simplicity of childhood!

Between Friends

The journey of social learning continues for Bilaal... When we were down in Cape Town for the holidays he had a feast of social opportunities with friends and cousins. Now he and my cousins son enjoy each others company for the most part, except for the teasing. See my cousins son keeps telling Bilaal he's a baby, you know in that wela kabela sing-song tune. Bilaal didn't know how to handle this except to keep shouting "I'm not!". After the first encounter it bothered him quite a bit so we talked it over and explained to him that it was just teasing and that the best way to handle it is not to let the person teasing you see that it bothers you, and to retaliate with clever responses and not neccessarily to be rude. My mother-in-law role-played the situation with him where she pretended to call him a baby and he would laugh at her at say "so are you!" in a very playful tone. So the next interaction was on the horizon and Bilaal was very excited to put his new skill into practice. He did pretty well, but obviously the teasing is not going to stop immediately... these things take time. The funny thing is the next morning when I told him he did well, he asked me, "but how come when I said 'so are you' it didn't work?"
So I asked him, "What do you mean? What did you expect to happen?"
To which he replied, "I expected him to shut down."
I had contain my laughter at his response and explain to him that it would take time but that he did really well and should continue.

So the next time he saw his cousin there was no taunting, but while they were eating his cousin kept telling him to stop talking. Now believe me Bilaal is a real chatterbox, even we are constantly telling him to stop talking when he's eating otherwise it takes him 45 minutes to eat a peanut butter sandwich... believe me I am not exaggerating! So anyway his cousin kept telling him to stop talking to which Bilaal replied, "I don't want to stopt talking, you stop talking."
Cousin: "No you stop talking"
Bilaal: "How come I must stop talking but you can talk?"
Cousin: "Because it's my house"
Bilaal: "No it's not, it's you daddy's house"...

Just a little debate between friends hey!