Ditching their devices on digital detox day (haha!)

During this era of educational dystopia, my kids have started whining endlessly about having to go to actual, physical school. It sets my teeth on edge every time they grimace and say, “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

“Yes, you do,” I reply without fail, feeling cross. I blame all the school closures for this. For making them think it doesn’t matter if they miss school. That going to school is negotiable. 

“Can’t we do online school instead?” they wail.

“No,” I snap, my blood pressure rising. It isn’t up for discussion, in my books. How will they get through life if they think it’s okay to just absent themselves or hide away online the moment they have to do something they don’t want to do. 

I try to explain that the past two years are not the new normal, that the cancellations and closures, the rolling out of bed two minutes before online registration, the virtual classrooms, contract tracing, non-stop masking and threat of exams being suspended are NOT acceptable. But it’s been two years now. That’s quite a long time in their lifetimes.

I want them to learn that showing up – in person – is one of the most important things in life. But maybe I’m just being old school. It’s so hard to impart this lesson when Covid has encouraged a no-show, stay-away culture. 

Anyhow, their constant campaign to skip school was stepped up a notch on Friday, the last day before half-term. I heard all about how half the school would be missing due to being close contacts (probably true), and because lots of parents far nicer than us had given their kids the last day off (really?). They also told me it was digital detox day.

I laughed out loud at their dismay! I could imagine the teachers talking it up, telling the students they’d be on a digital detox the next day, trying to make it sound fun. And my boys visibly whitening, horrified at the prospect of not getting their electronic fix.

“Look, it’s only half a day,” I argued back to them. Fridays in the UAE for the public sector and schools are short, half-days now. Honestly my kids are home at precisely 12.05pm, in weekend mode. I’ve had to start going to the office on Fridays as it’s impossible to get a whole day’s work done with them – and their equally demob-happy friends – in the house.   

Happily (for me), they both went to school on Friday, and suffered (their words) through digital detox morning. I refuse to call it a day when it was only four hours.

“How was it?” I asked Son1 that evening.

“Horrible,” he replied and I found myself wondering if they’d actually switched the entire school wifi off (hehehe). I pictured him holding his phone in the recovery position, raised above his head, desperately hoping it would pick up a signal. 

I was tempted to tell my sons for the umpteenth time that I didn’t have internet as a child, and when I first got on the world wide web at home it was a noisy dial-up connection that crawled along painfully slowly while I grew older waiting for pages to load. But they think that was back in the dark ages.  

Back to school … and back home again

I am beginning to wonder whether my boys will be properly in school ever again – and I mean full-time at school and with PE and activities and a fully stocked canteen where they can eat food not provided me. Maskless in lessons and corridors would be even better.

Have you noticed that some naturally withdrawn children are using their masks to hide behind? It’s like they’ve almost started adopting the masks as their face – like it’s part of their identity, their security blanket. They want to keep the mask on, even while playing sport, or at lunch they want to eat a bite, put the mask back on, take another bite, put it back on. 

The continued policy of masking at school just to be safe – with no end date in sight – makes me terribly worried that being over cautious has a cost, while the benefits are uncertain. 

Anyhow, I digress. Son2’s year got closed down this week, which is what I’d meant to write about. He – and all his friends – are thrilled. He’d left already on his bike when I got the urgent email from school about the closure. The bus kids had already arrived and been ushered straight into quarantine, sending mums back at work into a tailspin. 

I called Son2 to tell him to turnaround, and, of course, the news had travelled fast. 

“Is it true? Is school cancelled?” he whooped with delight down the line. In the background I could hear quite a commotion, like a party had already started. Cheerful voices noisily hollered to each other. Son2 began to cheer. The only thing missing from the jubilation was the sound of glasses clinking.

“Yep, you can come home,” I sighed. “They’ve closed down the whole year.”

“The WHOLE YEAR?” he replied in astonished amazement. 

“Yep, the whole of year eight.”

“Oh! I thought you meant for the rest of the year,” he explained, because honestly the way this term is going with all the cancellations makes anything seems possible. (He admitted later that this scared him a bit – the thought there’d be no more school all year. It’s actually, hopefully, just for a week – adding to the first missed week at the start of school.) 

He arrived back home shortly after, at about 8.05am.`My other son is on study leave, so was also home, but while he can be relied on to study independently, Son2 needed supervising to make sure he actually logged on to online school.

Later that morning, I heard raucous laughter through the wall – it went on long enough that I had to investigate. As I walked in, he quickly flicked his laptop screen from some software he’d been using to mess around with a friend back to the school platform, where I could see a weary-looking teacher talking in a small box at the top. 

“You WEREN’T IN SCHOOL,” I roared, feeling highly annoyed and at the same time utterly defeated. Because it really seems, doesn’t it, that Covid parenting has passed the point of absurdity?

Reading another email from school this evening about PE and extra-curricular activities returning, but “with a cautious approach” to “ensure our pupil’s safety remains a key priority” (the full programme basically not starting until after half term), I found myself ranting to DH about the insanity of cancelling healthy exercise – not to mention how much we’re paying in school fees for all this.

Still, it could be worse – a friend works in the school’s nursery and they’ve had to switch to online nursery. Those parents have all my sympathies! Perhaps we should all follow in the footsteps of the group of 20 mothers from Boston who met up outside a local high school, to stand in a circle – socially distanced, of course – and scream.    

Dubai works on Friday for first time as weekend shifts

UAE is the first nation to formalise a workweek shorter than five days – for the public sector at least, and my lucky kids

It was a historic day today – the UAE’s first-ever working Friday as the nation switches to a Saturday-Sunday weekend, rather than Friday-Saturday.

The surprise announcement – that government bodies and schools would operate four-and-a-half days a week, closing at noon on Fridays – came out of the blue in December, and left lots of people scratching their heads. 

Private businesses aren’t mandated to make the change, so if my company hadn’t followed suit, I’d have had different weekends to my kids! (who, needless to say, are thrilled with their super-early finish on Fridays at the end of their gruelling (haha) 4.5-day week.)

It took my company a few weeks to decide, but knowing that my bosses all have children, I was fairly confident we’d make the transition to align with Western calendars, even though we work with other Gulf states that are keeping their Friday-Saturday weekend. The half day on Friday, unfortunately, doesn’t apply to us being in the private sector (booo!).

So how does the new arrangement feel?

Right now, strange! I’d go so far as to say a little bewildering. Definitely confusing. Humans, it seems, are programmed to feel a sense of dislocation when a sudden change to routine is imposed on them. But I feel sure it’s going to be great – a whole extra day to catch up with family and friends at home, and proper Sunday roasts, yay! 

Like many people, my week has consisted of changing days on calendars, shifting appointments and commitments forward by a day and wondering what’s going to happen to Friday brunch.

On several occasions, I had to think really hard about what day it actually was. Take Wednesday (the new hump day) for example. Really it was Tuesday. But with school online and my boss sending us home to work due to the UAE’s high Covid case numbers, it felt like Monday part 3. 

In the grander scheme, the passing of time is neither here nor there in a world where 2022 appears to be shaping up as the third act of 2020.

It’s not the first time that the UAE has swapped the weekend around. The previous switch took place in 2006, via a story in the Gulf News, announcing that the weekend would move from Thursday/Friday to Friday/Saturday. 

I am wondering, however, whether we should relocate to our neighbouring emirate of Sharjah. They’ve gone a step further and adopted a three-day weekend.

On 3 September 1967, traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left to the right. This also happened in Dubai in the 60s. Can you imagine if it occurred today?!

My first e-book: A quick summer read for just 99p (or less!)

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]Please share!

If you’re looking for a light summer read, please think about downloading my first e-book. It’s a short (ish) story, and a super-quick, easy read. I’m raising a celebratory glass, as, believe me, I nearly went cross-eyed trying to figure out how to get this on Amazon. I got there in the end ☺ … here comes the blurb:

Workaholic mum Julie Wainscote becomes an overnight Twitter sensation when her live TV gaffe goes viral. Fired from her job, she takes up the challenge of becoming a stay-at-home mum to her son, Jacob. But when she realises the school run is a catwalk, the coffee mornings involve competitive catering and the class bear has been to Lapland, she has to admit the adjustment required may be beyond her.

Does she have what it takes to join Dubai’s ranks of immaculately groomed school mothers?

Cupcakes & Heels is a delightfully funny short story about the dilemmas facing mothers the world over.

BUY IT NOW: If you’re in the UK, please click here

Or for America, the UAE and worldwide, please go to this US Amazon link. If this doesn’t work in your country, could I suggest searching for Cupcakes & Heels in your country’s Amazon store.

Thank you so much!

The weight test on Dubai’s vertical Northern Line

I’m trying to have a lean month – cutting out the sweet treats that got out of hand over Christmas, bike rides outside in the glorious weather, even jumping on the kids’ trampoline.

But it’s not that easy, is it? My downfall, as always, is when goodies get brought into work. Today, it was someone’s birthday, and the most delicious cup cakes started doing the rounds – moist, melt-in-your-mouth little pieces of heaven, topped with frosting so delicious it actually glistened. Well, it would have been rude not to.

I then needed to go downstairs. I was waiting in the lobby for the elevator (we’re on the 25th floor), when I heard the noise.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

The New Year downfall: well who can resist?

The New Year downfall: well who can resist?

The elevator’s alarm, going off on the floor above.

We hear the sound a lot because there are only two elevators that go to the top of our tower, and they’re always overcrowded. Think a vertical Northern Line; office workers crammed in like sardines, all armpits and perfume. The very top floor of our building belongs to a Chinese company, and I swear they’re running a technology sweat shop up there, with hundreds of staff bussed in from Satwa every day.

The elevator stops at my floor, and the doors slide open. Now, I know someone missed the ride upstairs because I heard the alarm, signalling it was overloaded, but the 10 or so people jammed inside the lift start shuffling backwards to make room, for me.

Ten faces stare at me, their gazes boring into mine. Eyes torn from the Elevision TV screen in the top corner of the lift, attention ripped away from their smart phones, which they hold in their hands like compasses. Their faces look expectant, their mouths twitching. They’re all watching to see if I set the alarm off.

No, I think. I’ll wait for the next lift.

But they’re a friendly (lightly built, Asian) lot and beckon me in. They shoot me a come hither look, and I step in, gingerly. Breathing out. Treading so carefully it’s like the floor’s made of eggshells. I withhold my breath a little longer than is comfortable, bracing myself for the over-load buzzer and my undignified exit, in front of all 10 of them. Should I jettison my handbag? Standing on the scales at home is nothing in comparison to this.

Then the moment’s over. The doors swish shut, and the elevator descends.

I’ve got away with it – until the next round of cupcakes!

What a three-day weekend means to a pilot’s wife

“Mummy, what time is D coming for his sleepover?” Son2 prized my eyes open. It wasn’t even 7am. Ugh! Jumping on top of me, he pulled the duvet off and checked to make sure he’d fully woken me up. “I’m so excited!”

“Yay, no school!” said Raptor when I got downstairs. He was lying on the sofa, smiling with glee. He only had three days at school this week, as they also had a day off for teaching planning. Today it’s the Islamic New Year, the start of a long, three-day weekend.

Three cheers for all you exhausted mums who love children that generally don’t give a second thought to the mental or physical shape we’re in! (That’s okay. They’ll have kids someday.)

Three cheers for all you exhausted mums who love children that generally don’t give a second thought to the mental or physical shape we’re in! (That’s okay. They’ll have kids someday.)

A couple of hours later, I heard DH’s key in the door. His suitcase trundled in and I noticed he looked pale, his face drawn. Little wonder as he’d flown all night. He remarked on the Halloween decorations we’d put up, then went to bed. He leaves again on Saturday.

“So mummy, what can I do?” asked Raptor. “I’m sooo bored.”

“Me too,” chorused Son2. I checked my watch: not even 9am. What activity could I conjure up for them? Swimming, the cinema, a play date? The sleepover wasn’t for another 12 hours. I’ll admit I was yawning as my children’s demands for breakfast, entertainment, a dog, my itunes password ricocheted around my tired brain.

And that’s when the small, unentitled voice started Greek chorusing in my ear. “What about me?” If there’s something the UAE is good at, it’s throwing in these long weekends. I’ve posted about them before. And I’m sure there are many who love the chance for more family time.

But the thing is: for pilot families it doesn’t work out like they’re supposed to. It’s rare for dad to not be flying on weekends like these, which means mum is left grappling with bored children who inevitably start fighting – and that’s on top of doing everything else. The hot and sweaty school runs in 80 per cent humidity; making sure they eat, do their homework, go to bed, and dealing with all the extra admin living in the UAE seems to require. Oh, and the paid job, which actually keeps me ticking over.

Of course, the voice was quickly hushed – Son2 threw a tantrum when his sleepover got postponed, and Raptor needed me to find something for him. If I could take them to see family this weekend, I would, but it’s not really an option when you’re thousands of miles away. Nor is taking them on a mini-break by myself particularly appealing.

So, really, for a pilot’s wife, a three-day weekend is just an extra day when they should be at school and instead I find myself bloomin’ knackered while trying to be ‘fun’.

What I’ll be wearing Wednesday

When I got home from work tonight, I did the first thing I always do when transitioning from the peaceful buzz of the office to the happy, barely contained chaos of homelife: I went upstairs to get changed.

Usually this is a non-event. I take off whatever smartish outfit I happen to be wearing and throw on my Dubai staples: shorts and a lightweight top. Then I can relax, and lounge on the sofa for a bit, before the homework / reading / bedtime triathalon.

Not an accurate representation of the blogger (i.e., modelled by someone far skinnier than me). But here's the purple dress I had to promise Son2 I'll wear tomorrow

Not an accurate representation of the blogger (i.e., modelled by someone far skinnier than me). But here’s the purple, embroidered shift dress I had to promise Son2 I’ll wear tomorrow – with red lipstick

Tonight, if you’d been standing outside our villa, you’d have heard all hell break loose in our home.

“Mummy, why did you get changed?” demanded Son2, his voice rocketing up several octaves.

“I had to take off my work clothes, sweetie.”

“WHhhhyyyy?? Put your skirt back on!”

Two fat tears slid snail paths down his pink, powdery cheeks and I knew I had approximately 5 seconds to avert an oncoming tantrum.

“Mummy, PUT.A.DRESS.ON, PLEEASE.”

A thought then dropped into his head with a thud: “And red lipstick!”

It took me off guard – he’s 5 and I have no idea how he knows about this stuff. Seriously. I can only imagine the kind of girls he might bring home when he’s 18.

Quiet car anthems

There are some mornings when Son2 doesn’t say anything on the way to school. Then there are other mornings where it’s like having a pint-size dictator sitting in the backseat, and you realise that, compared to dealing with a small child, pregnancy was really a nine-month massage.

Today, I banned Son2 from bringing the iPad into the car, so he grabbed the Kindle instead. For some reason, there was heavier traffic than normal, and I was just attempting to merge onto a fast road when he started shouting.

“MUM! LOOK! Stop the car, quick, look!”

It was something on the Kindle he’d found incredibly funny.

xxxxxx

“I’m just a bit busy right now darling!”

“I can’t look,” I replied, keeping a watchful eye on the slow-moving Datsun Sunny in front of me, and the much faster Land Cruiser I could see in my mirror about to sling-shot across three lanes. “I’m driving.”

“Just look quickly!” (What could be more pressing than Robo Shark turning mines into missiles, he’s thinking.)

“I really can’t!” A motorbike was now vying for pole position too.

He reluctantly agreed he’d have to wait for me to look until we’d parked. But then something on the radio disagreed with him. At age 5, he’s developed opinions about whether the DJs are talking too much and which songs he likes – his favourite, ironically, being I Crashed my Car into the Bridge by Maytrixx.

I switched channels. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument and knew I’d soon have the car to myself and could then rock out to some quiet car anthems (a mum has to take her chance to rock out when she can).

At school, I kissed him goodbye and his eyes suddenly looked downcast. “Don’t go to work Mum. What takes you so long there?” he asked, forlornly. “Just quit!”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked him why he didn’t want me to work.

“Because I love you,” he said quietly, as a teardrop squeezed its way out of one eye and trickled down his cheek.

Miss you kiddos when I’m gone all day.

The green-eyed monster

green-eyed-monster

“Enjoy Sydney,” I said tersely, and I did mean it; it’s just that I wished I was going too. Like I do nearly every time my DH goes on a trip.

Yes, I can be a jealous wife – and it’s a horrid, energy-sapping emotion that I wish I could banish. And, I’m going to be completely uncensored here: it gets worse when you have children. And they’re dangling off you like deranged Christmas ornaments and depending on you for everything.

It was probably just a bad day, but my boys were awful today. AWFUL. I woke up with a small knot of dread in my stomach. I knew the morning would bring with it dark forces: the battle over homework. Getting my youngest to sit down at his wordlist is like trying to trap a will-o’-the-wisp. The older one is in cahoots and just as bad.

But, actually, the homework went OK; it was later in the day that I plummeted into the doldrums. Son2 bailed on a class he’d previously begged me to pay up-front for by screaming all the way there. His punishment – not being allowed to see a friend he’d already spent all morning with – caused his tantrums to crescendo, becoming a punishment for us too, and my equally strong-headed Son1 made a big scene about something else.

By dinnertime, my nerves were frayed, and the work I was meant to be completing still wasn’t done. When DH, nervously, asked what we were doing for dinner, I lost it. “They won’t eat anything I make anyway,” I raged, referring to a lasagna I’d cooked the other night (containing mushrooms) that had actually made Son1 vomit at the table. “Food I’ve spent ages preparing just gets thrown back at me!”

So I wasn’t in the best frame of mind when I wished my beloved (who does so much for us at home) a good trip as he went to bed at 6pm. I might even have told him he was lucky, and that I wished I could get away. If I’m honest, it’s not the layover in Sydney I’m jealous of (although it is one of my favourite cities); it’s the minutiae of everyday life and the juggling I want a break from.

“Have you seen the state of our cat?” DH asked the other day. “She really needs a bath.” “Look at Son1’s fingernails. You really need to cut them.” Then get the nail clippers. I’m pretty sure you can cut nails too.

Then there’s the Rasputin ants in the kitchen; the two-tonne grocery runs to feed ravenous boys on top of full-time work in media; the fact they’re getting up at 5.30am to play on the Xbox and are like grisly, overtired bears when I put them to bed – not to mention the never-ending logistics of the car pool I’m indebted to because I can’t get Son2 home from school when I’m at the office.

And don’t get me started about the school projects my older son can’t do himself, that last week saw me up until midnight making a beard for an Ernest Shackleton costume. (When do the costumes end?) I can’t be the only working mum who spends lunchtimes sneakily printing pages off the office printer when the bosses aren’t looking?

If there are any men reading this who want to know what a woman’s mind is like, imagine a browser with 2,671 tabs open.

I’ll feel better in the morning, when I’ve laid the green-eye monster to rest and am getting on with everything – because all this stuff, it’s just life, isn’t it? And it’s nearly the end of term.

Bouncing back from expat-no-return

You might remember that a few months ago, I was attending job interviews. I’d reached a point of expat-no-return, in which, to be brutally honest, playdates were beginning to bore me senseless and the freelance work I’d been doing for a couple of years had hit a dry patch.

Is this it, I thought? Have I really sacrificed my former career in glossy magazines to spend my days wiping bums, noses and tears, making boiled eggs with soldiers and listening to my boys talk about their willies non-stop.

In a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side moment, I decided I needed a full-time job. With colleagues, interesting projects and (remember this) a salary. My next lightbulb moment came during one of my interviews, while sitting in what can only be described as the office’s broom cupboard.

“The hours are 9-6, and we work six days a week. Saturday to Thursday,” the Turkish interviewer with a dark floppy fringe told me, looking at me intently as my eyes darted to the floor in search of a trapdoor.

Kids, shhh! (I need earplugs, don't I?)

Kids, shhh! (I need earplugs, don’t I?)

“And it’s all office based.” Which surprised me somewhat as to get to the broom cupboard, we’d practically had to climb over at least a dozen workers crammed into a space no bigger than my kitchen.

Armed with the knowledge that publishing sweat shops packed to the rafters and operating on a six-day week do exist, I gave up the job search.

And decided to go it alone with my own little venture (big plug here).

It was fairly quiet to begin with, but then, just like buses, three jobs came along at once. And, all of a sudden, my little dipping-of-the-toe in the shallow end of the mumpreneur pool turned into a thrashing, front-crawl Channel swim, against the tide.

But, complaining I’m not. The mix of office work, work from home and playdates is suiting me nicely, despite being totally run off my feet at the moment.

The only thing is, during my days working at home, I’ve noticed that the boys have moved on from talking about their willies. And have, instead, started photographing their bum cheeks and front bits with my iPad.

Lord, help me.