Category Archives: Dubai

Silent Sunday: For meat-eaters only

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If you’re vegetarian, click away now! Still here? Then this week’s Silent Sunday is a photo of something I bought in our local supermarket at the weekend. I wasn’t sure if the ‘Cheep! Cheep!’ label on it was trying to tell me it was the best-value chicken in the store, or if it was a ‘sound effect’ to go with the ‘too-real-for-my-liking’ package design. Either way, I felt sorry for the bird!

Admits: My kids are still learning that chickens don't look like a chicken nugget, so this at least should help

Admits: My kids are still learning that chickens don’t look like a chicken nugget, so this at least should help

The bunk beds

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When siblings born not too far apart reach a certain age, the question often arises: Should they have bunk beds?

I first thought about bunk beds for my boys a year or so ago, but decided it would be bedtime hara kiri. Images of them jumping off the ladder and diving from the top onto the hard, marble floor quickly filled my mind.

Twelve months later, at 4 and 7, I revisited the idea, because the lovely Dubai Mum over at Dubai Mummy told me there was a sale at Kids’ Rooms with up to 75% off.

I’ll admit I also had an agenda. Years ago, on holidays in North Wales each year, my brother and I experienced the joys of wooden bunk beds with a rickety ladder and chicken-wire base. I’d take a torch up to the top, while my younger brother made a den below, and I distinctly remember wanting to go to bed so we could whisper in the dark (very clever, Mum).

Worth every dirham!

Worth every dirham!

At Kids’ Rooms, they showed me some colourful bunk beds that matched the paint in the room, and before I knew it I was spending DH’s hard-earned cash on not just the beds, but on pirate duvets and cushions, a drawer to go underneath and a thick-pile rug that looked like it would make a good crash mat.

Delivery wasn’t smooth, of course. There was a whole day waiting at home, at the end of which they told us they’d meant the next day. And when the truck did arrive, they’d forgotten all the bedding and managed to knock over a post just outside our villa, leaving a pile of crumbled concrete behind.

But it was all worth it: the boys love the beds and so do I, especially because it means, after reading their stories, they no longer expect me to lie down with them until they fall asleep.

There was a moment’s hesitation when this dawned on them: “But Mummy, how will you take us to bed?” asked BB, the penny dropping.

“Oh, I don’t think I can darling. Mummies aren’t allowed on the ladder,” I replied, peering through the rail at his top bunk.

And he was okay with that.

That, dear readers, is progress.

On being let off the school run

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I’d heard a lot about carpooling – an arrangement that lets you off the school-run hook two or three times a week, then bites you in the bum the rest of the time (you know what I mean – dragging multiple children and their bags, lunchboxes, art projects and PE kits to the car, and driving them all home through traffic while keeping up the pretence that you’re a ‘fun mum’).

I was so relieved, to be honest, that there was an excellent school bus service to BB’s school – organised by some like-minded mums in our compound who also didn’t want to spend their days schlepping backwards and forwards. There’s even a bus nanny on board, who three nannies ago, my older son developed a school-boy crush on.

The sensible thing to have done would have been to put my younger son in the same school, and on the same bus when he’s a little bigger. But, this is Dubai, and when is anything as logical as that?

Did I remember everyone?

Did I remember everyone?

Long story, but LB goes to a different, much nearer school, which frowns on buses for young children, has a car park the size of a hankie, and at which traffic congestion and parking are really stressful (it brings out the worst in everyone, and I wasn’t surprised to see police there recently marshalling the mummy-buses).

It’s a real headache – hence the carpool I’ve entered into.

Yesterday, I was upstairs when I heard my French friend’s car pull up with LB inside. She opened the car door, and the wailing wafted upwards like a siren shattering the peace on a quiet street.

A couple of startled birds who’d been pecking away in the climbing plant outside the window took flight.

It wasn’t LB, but her son. And I instantly knew LB was the cause.

I met her outside as she struggled with the bags, the snack box and the tortuous crying.

“What happened?” I asked, really concerned.

“Oo-la-la,” she said, through a forced smile. “He’s just upset because he vants to be a ‘beeg boy.’”

I looked at my normally sweet LB. His defiant eyes met mine. “He’s not a big boy,” he declared. “I’m the BIG boy.”

He measurably grew as he sounded out the words ‘big boy’, then to prove his point pronounced: “He’s only three…”

“And I’m four!”

Yes, LB, but it’s really not a good start to our car pool if you make your co-rider weep, it is?

And, I’ve a horrible feeling [she says, wincing at the lack of etiquette] that he might have called him a ‘baby’ too – the ultimate insult.

It’s my turn this afternoon, and there’ll be withering looks and reprimands if it happens again. I enjoy the days when I’m let off the school-run hook too much to risk this carpool going tits-up.

I thought readers in the colder parts of America might enjoy this photo I saw on Facebook - marvellous!

I thought readers in the colder parts of America might enjoy this photo I saw on Facebook – I’m guessing dreamt up by a mom!

Silent Sunday: Big nose

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I’ll never forget the first time I saw the A380 in the sky, and to be honest, I still wonder how the giant gets off the ground – truly amazing. To my DH, it’s all in a day’s work and I loved this photo he took of the underside of the nose.

Looking up at DH's office!

Looking up at DH’s office! Just goes to show that big, fat noses can look good


A rare personal photo, on the ground in London. Seriously, I was terrified my bum would accidentally press a button!

A rare personal photo, on the ground in London. Seriously, I was terrified my bum would accidentally press a button!

You SHALL go to the concert!

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I’ve just realised that this is all going to sound rather Cinderella-esque (minus the ugly sisters and the chimney sweeping), so bear with me!

Yesterday, the stars must have aligned as my day turned into such a treat – the cherry on top being spending the evening at the Media City amphitheatre watching one of my all-time favourite bands – indie rockers The Stone Roses – belt out their legendary tunes under the star-lit sky.

So, there I was, mopping the floor (okay, I wasn’t. I was doing some freelance work for a magazine), when the project came to a natural end and I was able to leave at lunchtime.

Remember this? Never thought I'd see them outside work, in Dubai!

Remember this? Never thought I’d see them outside work, in Dubai!

I skipped off to the mall, with five hours to spare! FIVE hours to enjoy being loose in the mall (with no children barnacled to my leg!). An almost overwhelming amount of time for a usually harried mum and as good as a mini spa break.

I had my hair done, and bought some shoes (not glass slippers, but some flats so I could jettison the work heels and stand all evening in comfort). Later, I picked up my ticket, and edged through the throngs of concert-goers to join my friend close to the stage.

The Stone Roses were amazing. It was honestly like stepping straight back into Uni. And, because this was a Dubai audience of, I’d say, mainly British expats of a certain age, the whole Manchester scene felt a long, long way away. There was no pushing or shoving; no peeing in the bushes, no drugs (just a queue 100-deep for Vodka Red Bull). The atmosphere was electric.

Now, I know you’re wondering at what point did I turn into a pumpkin. Well, I had to be home by midnight. I really did. My DH was leaving for London, so I had to be back on time – and I was – aided by my carriage still being parked in our work car park right next to the venue.

The fastest, jammiest get-away in the Middle East, I tell you.

If the children had let me sleep in this morning, my throw-back-to-student-hood would have been complete. But that would have been asking far too much, wouldn’t it?

The homework battle lines

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homework picture

I dread it each weekend, I really do – knowing that my 7-year-old has three sets of homework due the next day and that the only way it’ll get done is by brow-beating him into it, breathing down his neck and practically jumping up and down with excitement when he completes each task.

Quite honestly, extracting his teeth would be easier (and quieter).

Back in the dark ages, when I was 7, I’m sure we didn’t have homework. Maybe there was a library book each week, perhaps a reading book too, but I really think that was about it until secondary school (or did I completely miss something?).

But times have changed, it seems, because children these days, even those who are only knee-high to a grasshopper, have enough homework to sink a mummy ship. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, just that if you have a son who’d rather scoop his eyeballs out than sit down and do homework, it becomes a tedious – indeed painful – chore.

BB is in grade 1. Today, I got emails with his French and Maths homework. There’s English language homework each week, too, and Arabic, which we can’t understand and can only watch in amazement as he forms Arabic letters in front of our eyes. On top of all this, they have spellings every week that they’re tested on in class, and they bring reading books home.

It feels like A LOT – and I’m beginning to realise why I’ve heard mums say full-time work is impossible, because managing this kind of homework load in such small children is a job in itself.

I have to admit that, if BB is cooperating, I rather enjoy the spellings and language homework, and have to practically sit on my hands to stop myself grabbing the pencil and scrawling a sentence myself – but I’m no teacher, and the frustration I feel when BB writes backwards / will only write sentences with the word poo in / or can’t be bothered is off the scale.

Behind every little boy doing homework there's a mummy working three times as hard

Behind every little boy doing homework there’s a mummy working three times as hard

And I also grimace with frustration when the homework requires items that I never seem to have to hand. Glue, highlighter pens, newspapers, dice, flash cards, different coloured biros – my stationery supplies always seem to let me down.

So, imagine my dismay when I opened the homework book last week to discover the treat the teachers had set us:

“Make a tornado”

“Please help your child make a tornado by following the instructions…”

Yes, really.

You will need: a water bottle, clear liquid soap, vinegar, water, glitter and food colouring.

I won’t regurgitate all the instructions, but they involved shaking the bottle to mix up the ingredients, swirling it in a circular motion, and adding the food colouring and glitter.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the mess potential here? (and wonder if perhaps the teacher was getting her own back?)

Bring on the spellings, I say – I’d rather drill BB in spellings than unleash a tornado at home any day.

The boy-mum initiation

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The other day a friend promised me that while bringing up boys might feel like more work up front than girls, it gets easier. It really does, she told me, as I exhaled a sigh of relief.

“When my teenager’s male friends visit, it’s great fun,” she said. “If the girls come over as well, there’s always two crying in the toilet.”

But, as all boy-mums know, there’s an initiation you have to go through, before you can honestly say you no longer feel winded by the non-stop action, the catapulting off couches, and the, ahem, appendage comparisons. Here, I give to you, my boy-mum indoctrination, in its four distinct phases:

Squirming, kicking, running - catch him if you can!

Squirming, kicking, running – catch him if you can!

Phase 1 [with a health warning]: While friends with crayon-loving girls are able to entertain their children with colouring and hair clips, you realise your boy has more energy than an atomic explosion. He scales the furniture, hurtles round the room like a mini tornado and has turbo-charged growth spurts. Continually ravenous, his ability to turn anything from a stick to a finger into a weapon is disconcerting. Between your morning latte and lights out, you save his life at least three times, and you’re so full of nervous energy yourself, your eyes are practically on stalks. There are days when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.

Phase 2: You’ve emerged, with battle scars, from the horrors of toilet training, and learn that your boy would rather plunge the scissors into his thigh than wash his hands. He’s attracted to dirt, puddles, even dog poo, like bees are to honey. Your voice has taken on a shrill tone; it doesn’t even sound like you, but listen to it you must because your boy only hears what he wants to hear.

Phase 3: You’ve given up trying to keep him clean, you never wear your nicest clothes around him and you’ve learnt how to block out the decibels. He zips through activities in seconds, practically burning up the carpet, and takes risks at every opportunity. “What’s the worst that could happen?” you think. The answer is you don’t know, and would hate to find out. Despite the boisterous ways and toilet talk, you notice he’s developed a penchant for your heels.

Phase 4: You find out that your boy is an incredibly affectionate creature. You’re the apple of his eye, and you’re so loved up, it’s like being on a ‘boy-moon’. He slips his little hand in yours and says sweet things, before running off to kick a ball. You feel special, adored. The mother-son bond is unbreakable. You’re Kate Middie in McQueen. An empress – on speed. Because don’t think your life is about to get easier. It’s not that slowing down is bottom of your boy’s priority list. It’s not even on it.

When do the whiny years end?

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My mother – the wise one – told me the other day on Skype, “Enjoy it – they’re small for such a short time, you know.”

Nod away, please – because I know it’s true. I know this is a fleeting part of my children’s lives, and one day we’ll be looking at photos in the knowledge that this phase of cheeky, dimpled, non-stop little boyness was merely a snapshot in time.

Like my parents must wonder how the blonde-haired, shy little girl with pouty lips in their photo albums turned into the mum-of-two in Dubai.

You thought we didn't need umbrellas here in Dubai, didn't you?

“Ouch! You’re hurting my ears!”

But could someone please tell me: when, oh when, does the whining stop?

Today my four-year-old whined All.Day.Long. In fact, he’s whined pretty much all week.

It’s like I’m a conductor and the mere act of turning my attention elsewhere signals to my son’s vocal chords that it’s time to strike up a racket louder than a Katy Perry concert.

And his older brother – seemingly oblivious to the clanging, deafening decibels – has been egging him on from the wings, with cymbals.

I’d like to be able to tell you that I get down on LB’s level and calmly explain that whining won’t get him what he wants, but I’m about a hundred miles beyond that.

Instead, the constant wa-wa-wa-ing in my ears has driven me to distraction and I’ve started fantasising about lying down for a very long sleep – not-to-be-disturbed until my youngest is at least 8.

But I know what my mother – if I can catch her between aqua-zumba, bridge sessions and Med cruises – would say: “Just you wait til they’re teenagers, dear!”

Silly manoeuvres in nice cars

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One of the first things you’ll notice if you visit Dubai is the high proportion of nice cars on the road. The second thing you’ll spot is that drivers do really silly things in their nice cars.

I know this happens all round the world, but for reasons I won’t go into, drivers in the UAE are more guilty than most of road stupidity. You only have to take a short drive in the early-morning, blanket fog we’re having at the moment to find out that some drivers don’t even put their headlights on.

Using her mirrors (we see this too!)

Using her mirrors (we see THIS too!)

And don’t get me started about the mums who march into their child’s classroom voicing all manner of finickity complaints about the way their beloved offspring are being taught, then drive all the way home without buckling their children up.

It does sometimes seem that the more luxurious the car, the lower the driver’s road IQ is. Take these examples: while waiting to make a U-turn, DH and I saw a woman in a BMW just ahead of us make the turn, then FORGET to straighten up. She continued in a circle and stranded her car on the central median, like a yacht run aground.

Then the other day, we watched a woman climb back into her Porsche SUV at the petrol station and drive off, with the hose still attached (clearly late for Pilates).

But today I saw a manoeuvre that beat both of these. Picture the scene: at BB’s school as you walk out, there’s a pedestrian crossing leading to the sand parking lot, manned by a guard.

I’m afraid to say it was a woman again, in a brand-new BMW with children in the back leaving the car park. In all her molecules of wisdom, she mistook the pedestrian crossing (with people on it) for – astoundingly – the car park exit and mounted the crossing in her car, no more than three yards from the school gate. The aghast-looking guard started waving his hands wildly and a mum started shouting.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled.

The driver wound down her tinted window. “Don’t swear at me,” she sniped back.

“But what you’re doing is insane,” the mum spat.

I wanted to stay to see whether she actually managed to exit the car park via the pedestrian crossing, but DH whisked us away so I’ll never know (she probably did!)

Road IQ: -46. And I bet she won’t learn, either!

Send CV with pretty photo

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It’s well known that in the UAE, companies can be quite specific about the nationality of the staff they wish to hire. A recent job advert, for a receptionist, specified that “only attractive women from the Philippines, Russia or Arab countries need apply”. But job ads on Dubizzle get quirkier than that:

xxxxxx

Odd-sounding words galore! If you can conduct interviews with ‘the big persons’, you’re in