Category Archives: Children

Last-minute shopping (with kids)

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It’s retail hara-kiri at the best of times. Let alone 48 hours before Christmas, in a city brimming with tourists and visitors.

But it was my last chance, and the present was important.

Each year, on top of a Christmas bonus, I like to treat our helper Catherine the Great to some girly presents. It’s the least I can do, given how hard she works, and I also love shopping for her. Being the sole female in our household other than the cat and me, it’s the only chance I get to buy guilt-free girl stuff, usually in pink.

This year, I’d left it a bit late, and while at the Madinat Jumeriah with the children, I realised I probably wasn’t going to get another chance to buy her gift.

Shopping sans children is better than sliced bread

Shopping sans children is better than sliced bread

The kids darted through the Arabian souk, past wind towers and lantern-lit hallways. We paused briefly at a few market stalls, my eyes scanning the rows of sparkly jewellery. My fingers roamed over the rings and I picked up a couple of silver bracelets, turning them over in my palm to see the jewels catch the light.

All in about two seconds flat …

Because the boys’ hands would reach up to grab the shiniest item within touching distance. They dropped things, sent rings rolling across the floor. They knocked pots over. They put their fingers in the jars of coloured sand and it was a small miracle the souvenir bottles of sand didn’t go flying. Then someone needed a poo.

We found ourselves in one of the boutique clothing stores and I resolved to make a split-second purchase before my stress levels got too high. But then they discovered a mannequin, dressed in a floaty white cotton top.

“She’s got boobs,” announced BB to everyone around. It got worse: he cupped them in his hands. Gave them a rub, and called his brother over. “Look, boobs!”

I shooed them away, but they spotted the male mannequins, in swimming trunks. The boys peeked down their shorts to see if there was anything there (I must admit, I did ask them later: it looked like a nose, said BB).

Then, as I raced to the till with a hurriedly chosen item, BB appeared with a bikini top clutched against his chest.

“Look Mummy, boob holders,” he said loudly, with a triumphant grin that suggested he’d just invented the wheel.

I’m never taking them shopping again, I swear.

Silent Sunday: Sandballs

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I tend not to put personal photos on the blog, but as I’ve made some lovely bloggy friends on here, I’m breaking my rule. I also went to great lengths getting everyone to co-operate for this photo (let’s just say, it was nearly me throwing sand) and so I decided it was worth getting some extra mileage out of it. Have a wonderful festive season and thank you for reading Circles in the Sand!

christmas photo

What are you planning for our last night?

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You’ve probably heard that the Earth is detonating tomorrow. According to the ancient Mayan prophecy, 21 December 2012 will be the end of the world as we know it, and if you look at the shooting meteorites forecast for Friday, this appears to be true.

end of world

While contemplating this fiery damnation, I asked DH: “What would you do if the world really was ending tomorrow?”

“I wouldn’t be doing SIMs [airline speak for simulator training] the day before,” he grumbled, barely looking up from his Airbus test preparation.

I tried again with BB. “How about you? What would you do if this was our last day on Earth?”

He looked alarmed. I tried to explain that it (most likely) wasn’t true, but that if it was, we could spend our last day doing whatever he wanted to do. Perhaps playing Lego, or eating cake all day.

“I know,” he said. “I’d stop the Earth from going away.” [that’s my boy, young enough to still think he can save the world].

If he couldn’t do that (and I really didn’t mean to put a dampner on the idea), I suggested we get on Daddy’s airplane  – there’s an on-board shower spa – and fly it to space.

“Don’t be silly Mummy!” exclaimed BB, raising his eyebrows at me. “We’d run out of gas long before we got to space. Far better to take a space rocket.”

You’ve got to hand it to seven-year-olds – absolutely anything is possible.

Circles in Space: This is us making our escape

Circles in Space: This is us making our escape

Of course, I’d spend my last day on Earth with my family, but there are a few other things that I haven’t got round to doing yet that I might try to squeeze in:

– Sleep under the stars (en famille) on one of The World desert islands (the one with beach-club facilities, not deserted, obviously)

– Sand board down a massive sand dune, standing up

– Raid the Gold & Diamond Park, hot foot it across the marble floors of the Mall of the Emirates to Harvey Nicks and play dress-up with the loot

– Take a helicopter to the Burj Al Arab hotel, check in to a VVIP suite and order absolutely everything from the room-service menu

– Tell the very annoying person I see at work that he’s a muppet

– Give every roadhog I come across the birdie

– Go skinny-dipping at midnight in a pool filled with pink champagne

– Shimmy on the tables at the Cavalli Club

– Do the school run in my pyjamas

On the off-chance that it is 1250 degrees tomorrow (a dark comet is the most likely scenario), have a fabulous night!

Heads that go bump

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A nice quiet evening after a busy week of work sounded just the ticket. A movie for the kids, a shawarma sandwich to eat, and rattling through my favourite blogs.

But when is an evening ever ‘nice and quiet’ when small children are involved? There was a nanosecond in there, a split second of tranquility in which the boys looked serene, tucked up in the spare bed watching a DVD about pirates together, with the lights off.

It was such a cosy scene – their sweet faces lit up by the glow from the TV – that I decided to hop in (secretly hoping they’d let me lie quietly with my eyes shut, or at least not notice that I was looking at the iPad and not the movie).

But three in the bed is asking for trouble, isn’t it? They picked a pointless fight with each other. They both wanted to lie next to me. There were cross words exchanged. Someone got thirsty and needed a drink. They got in each other’s way. One rolled out.

“Mummy, I can’t see past your big fat boooobs,” grinned LB, poking me with his little fingers.

Ouch!

Ouch!

Then, a little later, while I was downstairs making some tea, there was the most enormous clunk, on our marble floor. Followed by silence, which I just knew was the calm before the storm.

I turned on my heel and shot up the staircase in a flash as the howling was unleashed.

“Get some ice,” DH called.

“What happened?” I almost yelled back, pulling a sobbing LB into my arms and peering at the egg-shaped bulge bursting out of his forehead.

Like a deer caught in the headlights, I forgot about the ice altogether, so it was a good job BB had the wherewithal to run to the freezer to get the Mr Bump coldpress. Bless him.

But being the mother of boys, with seven years of head bumps, bruises, finger crunches, knocks and kicks under my belt, I’ve learnt that a brother’s sympathy is rather short-lived – their empathy (unless it’s the two of them pitted against the world) about the same as a sabre-tooth tiger looking for his supper.

“He was running and slipped Mummy. Right there,” BB told me, pointing at the spot.

Before turning his attention squarely back to the TV: “Look, Mummy…look at that pirate boat! And those pirates with swords…quick, look!”

Boys, eh – talk about having the uncanny ability to ensure a ‘quiet evening’ ends in injury.

Silent Sunday: Love notes

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The relationship between my oldest son, 7, and his adorable Girl Next Door, 6, is a source of fascination to me, because from the moment our lovebirds met (aged 2!), their friendship has shown that boy/girl differences really are hardwired into the brain.

I was reminded of this the other day, when they drew these pictures for each other:

Girl Next Door thinks she’s going to marry BB and doesn’t mind that he only talks about trains and ships. This is the birthday card she made for him – look at the kisses on the track, the hearts coming out the coal and the word ‘Love’ in the smoke stack. Cute!

Girl Next Door thinks she’s going to marry BB and doesn’t mind that he only talks about trains and ships. This is the birthday card she made for him – how cute are the kisses on the track, the hearts coming out the coal and the word ‘Love’ in the smoke?

Here’s the drawing BB did for her. It had a functional purpose – the hole was so he could hang it on her front door handle like a pizza-delivery menu. The words, in case you can’t read them, say: ‘The Titanic sank 100 years ago’. Talk about girls being from Venus, and boys from Pluto!

Here’s the drawing BB did for her. It had a functional purpose – the hole was so he could hang it on her front door handle like a pizza-delivery menu. The words, in case you can’t read them, say: ‘The Titanic sank 100 years ago’. Talk about girls being from Venus, and boys from Pluto!

To work or not to work?

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I’ve been working a lot recently, in an office, with adults who listen and don’t break everything. They don’t shout, fight, or fall off chairs and injure themselves.

Nor do they need help in the toilet.

At the end of the day, my colleagues are still alive, without any assistance from me whatsoever.

I like it. I really like it.

Except I wish I didn’t enjoy it quite so much, because our lives would be so much easier if I didn’t work. If I hadn’t struggled so much with being a stay-at-home mum whose days felt like one long, open-ended project that I was as likely to finish as I was to climb Everest, backwards.

Perhaps if I’d been able to pat myself on the back occasionally for singing the baby to sleep, or dangling a rattle for him to swat, things would have been different.

But the truth is, whilst I love my children more than I ever thought possible, I found it difficult having them barnacled to my ankle/breast/hip 24/7 – and I really missed work.

Anyway, they started growing up, not needing me quite so much. And since it costs money just to stand still in Dubai, going back to work not only stopped me from going round the bend, it also made sense.

What goes up...must come down

What goes up…must come down

So now we juggle. We make complicated arrangements involving my husband, our nanny, and kind mothers who do me an enormous favour and bring my youngest son home from school if needed.

I bark orders as I grab the keys to leave. “Don’t forget, you need to go to school 15 minutes early as it’s ‘Look at your child’s learning journal’ day. And then drop LB and C [our nanny] at the park for the class playdate. Oh and there’s French homework.”

DH looks at me, wanting to throttle me.

(He’s here quite a bit in the day, due to an erratic flying schedule that often sends him away at weekends instead. I know we’re lucky in that respect as one of us is usually around.)

I rush home from work and stuff money into envelopes for school trips/teachers’ gifts. I attempt to come up with the latest demands from school for things I don’t just happen to have lying around (yesterday it was 31 of something…buttons, beans. I sent Lego).

I worry a lot about missing things.

The Festive Sing-a-long. The Winter Festival. “And, oh god, Decoration Day. It’s next week, in the middle of the day [about as convenient as a hole in the head]. I can’t go!” I think to myself.

But it’s the mummy guilt that really gets me.

“Mum, how many days are you working? Why are you working again?” my children ask.

And the line my youngest son came out with this morning: “What takes you so long at work, Mum?”

Those Cosmopolitan magazines that told every female who’d listen in the 70s that it was her right to have it all/have an orgasm/combine motherhood, homemaking and career changed everything, didn’t they?

Kids, meet Baby Jesus

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While I personally think it’s still too early to put the Christmas tree up, my children disagree. I promised we’d do it today, and at 7 on the dot this morning, the pestering started.

“Mummy, c’mon. Get out of bed,” BB ordered, tugging at the duvet. “You said we’d put the tree up.”

No stopping them: My little helpers decorating the tree early this morning (yawn)

My little helpers throwing baubles at the tree

“Later, BB, later,” I uttered in reply, but to no avail. The kids’ excitement about hanging twinkly lights, baubles and tinsel on a fake tree had taken on the momentum of a runaway train that wasn’t about to be halted by a mummy hoping for a lie-in.

I gave in – and got up. We hauled the decorations from the outside storeroom to the house, dusted them off, and got started (minus the Christmas music – as I said, too blimin’ early).

You would think that living in a Muslim country might mean Christmas would start a little later. Not so. The shops are full of it, their floors adorned with trees and their windows decked out.

But the commercialism aside, it’s definitely harder to convey the true meaning of Christmas here. It’s all a bit of a hush-hush operation at BB’s international school, where they do put on a celebration, but disguised as a ‘winter festival’.

To be honest, my children don’t think beyond the presents – and I was reminded of my shortfall in this department today.

Each year, I bring out a nativity scene that I bought at a Christmas festival. As I was setting it up, LB came over and peered at the figurines: he touched the baby Jesus swaddled in the manger; looked quizzically at the reverent wise men bearing gifts, the proud, tired parents and the guardian angel. Then he reached out and grabbed the cow sitting lowing in the hay.

“Mummy, what is it?” he asked, with a not-so-reverent shine in his eyes. “Is it a farm?”

Mental note to self: make sure that this is the year my children learn the basic story of the nativity.

When visitors come to town

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For the past three weeks, we’ve had guests – first my mother-in-law and then my parents – and whilst I’d love to be able to tell you that we gave them a time-share in the grandchildren to remember, I’m not sure that we did.

Images of my mum floating round a lazy river, cocktail in hand at a pool bar or even relaxing on a lounger with a good book at the Polo Club didn’t materialise – because, to put it simply, life got in the way.

Nothing bad – just general busy-ness, scheduling clashes and a pesky flu bug – but enough to make me concerned that my parents’ visit could possibly be classed as unpaid labour, rather than a holiday.

xxxxxxx

Where would working families be without advanced babysitting from super-grandparents? It’s just too bad they’re thousands of miles away normally

In the line of ‘duty’ this time round:

– The boys got really sick, warranting two days off school for grandson2 and causing untold sleep disruption

– I missed much of the above because of work, leaving The Visitors in charge (as to who had the easier job here, I’m in no doubt – especially the night shifts which, quite frankly, leave me wanting to throw breakfast bowls at the wall)

– After a bad experience in a taxi, and only able to drive as far as Arabian Ranches, my parents are, understandably, loathed to venture out on their own (and I can’t say I blame them), meaning they’re confined to the house if on their own. The pool aside, the only place they can walk to from ours is the mini-mart supermarket and dry cleaners

– The Thanksgiving buffet my DH took them to ended in a monumental and very public puking session courtesy of ‘chunder wonder’ poorly grandson1

– During their stay, they were also bystanders to a flood at grandson1’s birthday party venue and a hospital appointment about his upcoming surgery

– They suffered made it through a children’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, attended by 24 six- and seven-year olds

– DH, our main driver and peace-keeper, succumbed to the bug, mutated it into ‘man-flu’ and developed sciatica too

On the upside, some highlights I hope The Visitors enjoyed:

– Trips to a desert wildlife centre in Sharjah, the pool, a beach resort and Al-Barsha park

– A dhow cruise out into the Gulf and through the heart of Dubai Marina, followed by Arabic food

– For my dad, two glorious days of golf at the DP World Tour Championship, our trump card and just down the road from us

– Business class travel, both ways

What do you think? Do you think they’ll come back? I think they will – for the golf, at least, with their flu jabs topped up.

Flooding in the desert – yes, really!

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Long-time readers of this blog will know that rain in Dubai can be as exciting as, say, a white Christmas in the west.

It’s always the talk of the town, and is usually prequeled with a will-it, won’t-it, slightly murky lead-up that puts the whole of the emirate on rain watch.

5 drops here, 10 drops there. Radio presenters add to the ripples of anticipation, as listeners text in with rain sightings.

Maybe once or twice a year, it does actually rain – and I nearly always savour the event, however quickly it’s over, from start to finish.

NOT this time.

It began with a hunch, a sort of uneasy feeling that all was not well with our usually sunny world. As a strange darkness crept round the curtains this morning, I morphed into Rain Scrooge.

Puffy rain clouds – meh! We all cast our eyes skywards to witness the perennial blue sky clouding over

“Oh no, not rain!’ I thought to myself. My Dad was going to the golf, and I had lots of driving to do (from point A, to point B, to point C, and then possibly to point D later on).

If you saw how people drive – no, make that aquaplane – when it rains here, you’d understand. And there was also the small matter of not knowing if the wipers on the car would work (they disintegrated on our other car through lack of use).

“Mummy, it’s raining – on Grandad’s golf day,” squealed LB, hurtling up the stairs like a baby elephant.

We peered out the window at the glistening ground and I reassured Dad it woudn’t last – there was no way the golf could be rained off in Dubai – but even though it wasn’t really much of a downpour, chaos was unleashed on the roads.

A puddle on Sheikh Zayed Road made it onto the traffic news, my journey to work took three times as long, and all over Dubai, there were repercussions because of the unique event that is rain in the desert.

Swimming lessons were cancelled due to debris in the pool (a few leaves, perhaps?); Wake-up and Shake-up, a weekly event parents attend at school (don’t ask!), was postponed due to the tennis court being wet.

But the most-trying news was to come. At work, my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognise. It’s BB’s birthday party tomorrow and on the other end was the manager of the venue.

“We’re flooded,” he told me. “This whole side of the Ibn Battuta mall is covered in water. We’re sorry, we can’t do the party.” (I don’t normally swear on the blog, but sometimes an expletive is necessary: @^%^@@@!)

Cue: a day spent finding another venue so as not to disappoint an excited small boy on his seventh birthday (thank you DH for pulling off that one), and contacting 25 mums to let them know.

I mean, seriously, what are the chances of a party venue being flooded in Dubai? It was only a piddling amount of rain.

Pah!

Postscript: BB’s birthday is now at Chuck E. Cheese’s – I can’t believe I’m hosting a party at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Ever since my friend’s boy attended a party there and got his head stuck between the toilet roll and the loo door, I’ve vowed never to enter Chuck E. Cheese’s lair with more than two kids. Wish me luck!