Category Archives: Family

The bunk beds

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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!

The homework battle lines

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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?

Posted on by

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!”

A Liebster award!

Posted on by

Thank you to Sand In My Toes for honouring my blog with a Liebster award! I’m cheating rather by only answering the questions, but as I’ve been home alone this weekend with a sick child, I’m hoping this won’t disqualify me. So, without much further ado:

liebster-awardWhat was the most spiritual moment of your life?
My second cesarean, losing two litres of blood (a coca cola family bottle!), literally seeing stars, the student nurse nearly fainting and the room suddenly filling with medical staff in an ER-style scene.

What remains your most outrageous buy?
A nicer car than we’d ever be able to afford back home.

What do you do when the kids are napping?
They never nap.

What would your dream vacation be?
Space travel.

What film makes you cry the most?
Titanic – even though we’ve watched it at least 10 times recently due to my sons having an obsession with maritime disasters.

How do you handle the stress that comes with being a parent?
For me, writing is a sanity saver.

What moment do you most look forward to with your child, every day?
Does anyone admit to the moment they fall asleep? When you smell their peachy heads and they suddenly look so adorable and peaceful. But there are also many other moments that balance out the craziness of our days – the best one being when they say, “It’s a good job I’ve got this mum.”

How do you indulge in some ‘me’ time?
I love re-designing the house, reading, going to work with DH, and, very rarely, painting.

Do you like to cook? What’s your signature dish?
I’m an amateur cook, but getting better. Shepherd’s pie is my signature dish.

What is your happiest childhood memory?
Holidays in North Wales, at Pencaenewydd Farm.

Is there something you secretly wish for every day?
That a giant Tesco would open in Arabian Ranches. With online grocery shopping.

How old do I look?

Posted on by

DH got back from New York the other day with a story about a homeless guy who’d tried to get some money from him by guessing his age.

I won’t say what age he thought DH was, but it was six years older than he actually is.

xxxxxx

Just the beginning of a pilot’s mid-life crisis

“Well that’s ridiculous,” I replied, because it was – and because the last thing I want is for DH to have a mid-life crisis. He already flies the most enormous jet airplane in the world; goodness knows where a mid-life crisis would lead.

At bedtime, I asked BB how old he thought I was.

“Erm,” said BB thoughtfully, giving it some serious consideration while brushing his teeth.

“Twenty-nine?”

“Really?” I practically yelped, my voice a little too high-pitched.

I came clean. BB has no idea about age, after all.

“Well, I’m not. I’m forty sweetheart.”

“FOR-TY?” responded BB, his brown eyes widening into saucers.

“You mean a four AND a zero? … Oh Mummy!”

Almost incomprehensible when you’re the tender age of seven!

A 7-year-old’s day

Posted on by

“Mummy, I’m SO excited! So excited to tell you!”

BB burst through the front door, dropping his schoolbag and lunchbox on the floor in a heap.

I could hardly wait.

Long-time readers will know from a previous post that I’m a mummy who lives in hope of her children telling her something about what they’ve done at school that day (“I don’t want to talk about it” is the usual response).

“What is it BB? What happened?” I replied, ears agog as I picked up his discarded socks.

“I’ve got to the next level on my DS machine!”

There's BB at the back of the bus, on his Nintendo DS

There’s BB at the back of the bus, on his Nintendo DS

Doing battle at dinner (again)

Posted on by

Despite having not lived in the UK for just under 10 years, I’m still pretty English.

DH (who’s American) would agree: You can take the girl out of England, but not the English out of the girl, we say.

Mostly our different backgrounds complement each other, but if there’s one thing that DH does that annoys me, it’s when he CORRECTS me in everyday conversation.

For example, I’ll ask him (politely) if he can take something out of the boot, and he’ll shrug his shoulders and pretend he doesn’t know what the boot is. “The trunk, you mean?” he’ll say, in a soft mid-Atlantic accent.

And I refuse to back down. The way I speak, my British spellings and British tastes are so deeply ingrained, it’s like I’m holding onto them for dear life – and living in an expat society such as ours, I’m sure they define me.

This theory also applies, to some extent, to food. We’re lucky enough in Dubai to have access to all kinds of restaurants, from Lebanese to Vietnamese, sushi to Indian. While I enjoy most of these cuisines very much, occasionally all I really want is a shepherd’s pie, or fish and chips.

If only they'd open one in our compound

If only they’d open one in our compound

Or bangers ‘n’ mash, or a greasy spoon …. a proper sausage roll. I could go on.

What has become glaringly obvious, however, is that my expat children are having none of it. To my dismay, they reject nearly all my favourite English foods.

Case study: Chez Circles, yesterday evening
I’m in the kitchen, making an old staple: beef stroganoff with mashed potato and broccoli. It’s bubbling away nicely, smells delicious and I’m just waiting for the potatoes to cook so I can add butter and milk and pummel them to fluff with the masher.

BB comes in. “Mummy, are you cooking?” [clue no.1 as to what’s going on]. “What are you making?”

Then, “OH.NO. Not pie. Oh please Mummy, not pie.”

I made shepherd’s pie last week and the two of them sat at the table for a whole hour while DH and I practically force-fed them in a culinary stand-off.

BB’s eyes actually start shining with fright. “No darling, it’s not pie,” I say glumly.

We sit down to eat, I tuck in. DH politely does the same. I have a hopeful look on my face that this meal will be a success.

“WE.DON’T.LIKE.IT,” they wail, wiping the smile off my face in an instant and leaving me grinding my molars in frustration.

“Maybe you should have done rice,” says DH, quietly (clue no. 2).

Through clenched teeth, I tell them I used to eat potatoes every day when I was a girl, that mashed potatoes are yummy and that they’re being ungrateful. And then I try shock tactics and tell them (for the hundredth time) about the starving children in Africa.

BB eats slowly and silently. LB fidgets on his chair.

I go back into the kitchen to pour more wine, pondering to myself how my children could possibly dislike food I grew up on (the answer, of course, is that their taste buds lean towards Asia rather than England, because our Filipina helper cooks rice for them more often than I care to admit).

And that’s when I heard the yelling: “Mumm-eeeee, QUICK. EMERGENCY!” shouts BB.

His brother has reluctantly taken a few bites…and vomited. Everywhere. Bringing the meal to an unceremonious end.

[Thinks: it might be time to reclaim the kitchen – and use ear plugs at the dinner table.]

Wake up and Shake up!

Posted on by

I am not a morning person. Never have been; never will be. I’m much better at staying up late than I am at getting up with the lark, and have seriously considered having a teasmade installed by the bed to smooth the opening-of-the-eyes process.

All my life, I’ve somehow managed to avoid really early starts. I worked in media (9.30am start in London); freelanced for many years; and studied history at university (earliest lecture 11am, and believe me, even that felt early). I like my sleep, need my sleep and don’t function very well without it.

Cue: children.

I’ve pretty much blanked out the early, mind-bending horrors of baby-induced sleep deprivation, and to be fair to BB and LB, they stay in their beds most nights these days, but my problem is this: schools in Dubai start rudely early.

BB leaves on a school bus at 7.15am, and the doors slide shut on LB’s classroom at 7.50am. Seriously, just typing these times makes me yawn, and if I’m driving on to work, I get there half-an-hour before nearly everyone else.

The moves

The moves

This morning – still feeling like we were getting up for a red-eye flight despite it being the second week of term – it was the usual palava hustling LB out of the house. He climbs into the car like he’s got all. the. time. in the world and climbs out like he’s dismounting a horse.

Being Dubai (where useful things like school car parks aren’t always given due consideration), I have to drag him a fair distance, past the onion-shaped dome of a mosque, over a football pitch, up some stairs, and across the ‘big kid’ part of the school. That gives him opportunities aplenty to attempt to climb walls, meander, stop and smell the flowers, or sit down.

Herding kittens would be easier.

We made it, and I was just about to slope off to get a shot of caffeine when I realised: the parents were congregating on the tennis courts for ‘Wake up and Shake up’ – organised fitness to music at 8 in the morning, with the children. (Think: mums jumping around in Lycra and a generous smattering of dads standing rooted to the spot with their arms firmly crossed and both eyes on the smoking hot PE teacher.)

If I wasn’t fully awake before, I was after throwing a few shapes to Gangnam Style on a surprisingly Arctic-like* Dubai morning.

* That may be an exaggeration. But it honestly was one of the crispest mornings I’ve known in the UAE