Category Archives: Parenting

Summer: The elephant in the room

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I was out for dinner the other night with my parents and a lovely couple who’d recently moved to Dubai. They’d swapped everything they knew and loved in Surrey for a new life on the Palm, and had thrown themselves into the frenetic world of work, Middle East style.

We talked about how she’d already taken a (temporary) job that involved commuting to Abu Dhabi (I was impressed, that road isn’t for the faint hearted, even with a driver). And we talked about their daughters, embarking on adult lives on different continents.

Then, all of a sudden, there it was: the elephant at the table. Amid all the promise of beach trips, handbag shopping and desert safaris, there’s a hurdle all UAE residents face: the Dubai summer. “We won’t be able to get back to the UK until much later in the year,” she told us. “We’ll be here all summer.”

My mum looked aghast! I’m sure she visibly paled. (March is their preferred month to visit, and I do understand why.)

She's clinging on to her scarf and boots until sweat patches appear

She’s clinging on to her scarf and boots until sweat patches appear

I immediately tried to soothe things over: “It’s not too bad,” I said. “Honestly.” I attempted to explain that lots more women stay now, the city’s much quieter and working through the summer is no problem. (It’s when you have small children climbing the walls and bankrupting you every day for 10 weeks that you start throwing plates around.)

I’m posting on this subject because those of us who live here are sharing a similar sentiment this week: IT’S COMING!

We’ve entered that murky zone where you’re trying not to turn the AC on, but give in. Firms that offer AC cleaning are working round the clock, and if you pull on a pair of jeans in the morning, by lunchtime you’re peeling them off to don your summer staples of shorts and flip flops (again).

At the school gates, comments are being bandied around to the tune of “It’s warming up” and “Winter’s over”. Unless you’re particularly stubborn or sweat-proof, the scarves and wraps have been put away, boots consigned to the back of the cupboard.

Give it a few more weeks of rising temperatures and we’ll all be asking each other: “So, when are you leaving?”

A brush with Bobbi Brown

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Makeup and I have always had a fairly functional relationship. But when my good friend asked me if I wanted to join her for a free makeup lesson, I immediately said yes. I think the words mummy makeover might have sprung to mind.

It turned out my friend couldn’t make it, but I decided to attend anyway, despite the little voice in my head that whispered: “Those makeup girls will eat you alive! GOBBLE you up whole!”

“We’re just waiting for a few more people to arrive,” the doll-like receptionist at Dubai Mall’s Bobbi Brown tells me on arrival – the first clue that the other attendees aren’t attempting to sandwich the lesson in between a morning’s work and the afternoon school run. “The last two are in the car park,” she announces after 30 minutes has ticked slowly by.

“It’s our fault,” they tinkle, when they finally show up, their makeup already cover-model perfect and their blow-dried hair coiffed neatly into place.

The makeup guru appears from behind a closed door and a minute or two of air kissing follows. They all know each other, I realise; they’re all of exotic descent, and I’m quite sure already own overly large Burberry toiletry cases the size of carry-on baggage.

Our host for the afternoon turns to me and asks with a megawatt smile: “What are your expectations today?”

“Erm, to look nice,” I reply. I wonder how to vocalise that I’m hoping he’ll make me look at least a decade younger and do it fast enough so I can get to the other side of Dubai in time to pick up my son – but it’s looking like I’m the only person watching the clock.

Smokey eye. Pout. At 6am. In my dreams!

Smokey eye. Pout. At 6am. In my dreams!

As the 10-step lesson gets underway, I learn just how much prepping is required to keep skin in tip-top condition. Cleanser, tonic, serum, eye cream, face cream, overnight cream; it all makes my once-daily application of moisturiser with SPF look rather paltry.

His fingers deftly massage my ‘problem areas’ with gorgeous-feeling products (yes, I’m perched on a stool in front of seven sets of eyes, being used as the ‘model’ at this point). “See, if I apply the serum to half zee face, look at the difference!”

Heads nod enthusiastically as half my face wakes up from years of neglect (it’s as though my skin pores are drinking thirstily from Bobbi’s fountain of youth and are doing a merry jig). “And don’t forget zee neck,” he reminds, with a final smoothing flourish.

I return to the table, taking my place opposite a young Emirati lady with unblemished, milky skin (skin whiteners, she tells us), groomed eyebrows and aquamarine nails, and the lesson moves on to concealers and correctors. An assistant helps me find a foundation better matched to my skin tone than my own skin, and I start to really enjoy myself as I eye up products with a colour scheme more sophisticated than a painter’s palette.

“Blending is your friend,” proclaims our make-up guru; “Bobbi never says camouflage – we naturalise,” he tells us, and with the number of references made to Bobbi herself, I start to wonder if they’re all best friends.

Just as we’re being taught how to stop lines showing in the under-eye area (gasp!), I notice the time. If I don’t tear myself away from the unlimited access to expensive products that highlight, pout, plump and pale, I’ll be late for Son 1.

One of the makeup assistants flanking the table finishes off my makeover at speed, and I rush from the room, leaving all my classmates there for, I suspect, a leisurely afternoon.

“We’ll call you,” they tell me as I swing on my heel to leave the store. “For your next lesson.” And, given that it was free and really worthwhile, it’s a mummy gift horse I won’t be looking in the mouth.

Breakfast with a son

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One son had a whole week off for half-term; the other only had a day. I felt bad for Son1, so on his day off, I decided to take him out for breakfast.

“Where shall we go?”

“Subway!”

“Well, that’s really a lunch place. Let’s go to Arabian Ranches, the new restaurant.”

“Awwww.” [Cheers up when he remembers what’s there.]

“Mummy, can I go and play?”

“Okay, but come back when the food arrives, yes?” [Scampers off to play in the little playarea by himself, while I sit by myself at the table.]

Breakfast arrives – boiled eggs for him, an omelette for me. The soldieurs on his plate aren’t exactly fighting for space, given the mouse-size portion (hardly enough to feed a boy who can almost wolf down a loaf of bread) – and the buns in the basket are too fancy for him.

“So how’s school?”

I had time to photograph the view, watch the golfers and twiddle my thumbs

I had time to photograph the view, watch the golfers and twiddle my thumbs

“Good.”

“I’m cold!”

“That’s why I told you to wear your sweater this morning!”

I run through some other conversation openers with him.

“I thought we might be able to talk at breakfast – you know, chat!”

“I didn’t.” [Looks at me as though I’d suggested dragging him through the bushes on the golf course backwards.]

“I’m REALLY cold Mum.”

“Okay, well finish bashing your egg shells into the egg cups and we’ll get back into the car. You’ll warm up on the way home.”

“I forgot the iPad.”

“No, you didn’t. Here it is.”

I hand it over while I finish drinking my tea.

“Five minutes, then we’ll leave.”

A chat – what was I thinking? Who’s coming with me next time?

School narcolepsy

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So from the high that was Amsterdam, comes the bump of real life, and dealing with a problem that presented itself just before half-term.

You know something’s not right when you get a call from school asking you to pop in. I duly did so, the very next morning. And while everyone I spoke to couldn’t have been nicer (or more helpful), the writing was already on the wall.

My son fell asleep (twice) at school.

He denies it, of course. Son2 is not stupid and knows sleeping at school is frowned upon. He has an elaborate story about his friend L telling him to lie down on the grass outside and close his eyes. When the teacher found him snoozing on the little, landscaped hill, he was actually awake and just playing a game, he claims. Hmmm, nice try!

It’s possible, I suppose (a pig might have been flying past too), but I happen to know that the teachers are right; my 5YO is too tired for school at moment, because HE WON’T GO TO BED.

He resists sleep like there’s no tomorrow. Like he’ll get kidnapped in the night by the bogeyman and injected intravenously with vegetables. However tired he is in the late afternoon, at bedtime his eyes snap wide open, as though propped apart by matchsticks. He clamours for attention: “Just one more book!”, “Stay with me, pleeeeeease!”

What should be a fairly quick routine turns into a marathon, and it’s little wonder that there are many bedtimes where I feel like this afterwards…

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

The school wants him in bed at 6.30pm: I wish!

Sometimes, 45 minutes later, I’ll creep past the boys’ bedroom, treading with a feather-light step so as to make no sound, and notice that Son2 is STILL kicking his duvet around.

What happens next is, because the schools start early here, his owl-like ways catch up with him: we have to literally drag him out of bed and prop him up downstairs. He’s caught up on some sleep over half-term, but mainly by sleeping later in the mornings, which doesn’t bode well for tomorrow, his first day back.

When the alarm goes off, I’ll be yanking him from a deep slumber again – what he doesn’t need to know is that I’ll be as good as sleep walking too.

Wish me luck!

Show us the colour of your money

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We’re in the living room after dinner, and I’m helping Son1 with his school project on our community, whilst keeping half an eye on Facebook at the same time.

I notice that someone’s posted something onto the Facebook page for Son 2’s class, about a school trip tomorrow.

“Huh?” I think. It’s the first I’ve heard of it.

“Did you know you’re going on a trip in the morning?” I ask Son2. He gives me a blank look.

So I read the message aloud.

“The class is visiting a mosque tomorrow, and they’re still looking for volunteers. Volunteers should cover legs and arms, and I assume women have to cover their hair as well. Please send in 5 AED with your child so they can buy a piece of fruit afterwards.”

The pat on the back I gave myself for knowing all about Son1’s sports day the next day – including what events they’re participating in and when (egg and spoon; dress up in UAE costume and run around a post and back, etc) – was clearly premature.

“Glad I saw that,” I say, to no-one in particular.

“So, I’ll put 5 AED in your bag,” I tell Son2.

“5 AED or a hundred?” he asks, his face a picture of devout innocence.

Ever feel like they’re just after our money? Gah!

The colour of DH's money: we keep all his foreign notes in a 'bus bank'. He's always trying to pass them off on me!

The colour of DH’s money: we keep all his foreign notes in a piggy bank. He’s always trying to pass them off on me

App-ortunistic Son 2

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I realise that in posting this, it’s going to sound like my children spend their whole time playing on electronic gadgets. I do force them to do other stuff too, like outings, homework and eating.

But, let’s face it, the iPad does have its uses, especially during those times when you need to get things done, like make dinner or drive.

Son 1 even takes his to school now, as part of their bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme. “We do research on it, Mum!” he claims. “I only use Safari.”

Just recently, Son 2’s use of the iPad has started causing me some concern, though. He’s begun collecting apps – anything from Lego apps to airplane simulators. He, somehow, knows how to find these apps (he’s only 5!), and can get as far as the password prompt.

He then cajoles me into putting the password in (he’s only allowed the free apps), and Bob’s your uncle, it starts downloading. Except he’s become very app-happy, and can’t stop at just one or two. He’s bugging me continually about new apps, to the point that it’s driving me crazy.

“Let’s go for a bike ride,” I suggest. “Your iPad will run out of memory. It might IMPLODE if you put too many apps on it.”

How the iCloud works beats me

Dodgy photos, apps and games get rained down thousands of miles away by that clever little iCloud (beats me how it works)

Their screen time is limited, but you’d be amazed how many apps he’s got his hands on. My screen-ager intuitively knows that the iPad isn’t a toy; it’s a toy chest of apps and games, and his little fingers literally fly round the screen, leaving smeary fingerprints as they go.

Then came the email from my mum. Son 2 has her old iPad and the password is hers. “Is someone trying to reset the password?” she asked. “It’s just that I keep getting messages saying someone’s attempting to reset it.”

That someone = Son 2.

And that’s not all. It appears the cloud has been busy too.

“And the thing is,” she continued, “overnight, all the apps appear on my iPad too.”

You can imagine how over the moon Son 2 is – that his grandmother in the UK must surely be playing with his Lego Batman app over her cornflakes.

You might also like: A cold call from the world-wide web

The ninja lunge (and food allergies)

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Over the school holidays, a great friend and I took a trip to Al Barsha park to exercise the children. It’s a park I’m fond of, with bicycles for hire, a (manmade) lake with a track round it and ample play areas.

It was sunny, warm and, without the routine of the school day to contend with, there was a relaxed atmosphere among the mums, who’d spread blankets on the grass, brought picnics and were exchanging details about their plans for the holiday.

“We’re staying in Dubai, how about you?” “Lapland, just for five days – we’ve booked a glass igloo!” The conversations were peppered with the names of far-flung places, visiting relatives and venues serving turkey.

mom with eyes in back of her headI can’t remember exactly what B and I were talking about as we watched our children play, but, all of a sudden, she leapt up, ninja-style, and ran to her two-year-old son – reaching him just in time, before the snack a nanny had offered him touched his lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said, politely – but urgently – to the lady in question. “He’s got food allergies and can’t eat the things other kids eat.” The moment passed, little K got back to digging in the sand, and the nanny he’d wandered over to turned her attention back to feeding her tribe.

But the episode, which all happened so fast, has stayed with me. Not least because, now that my children are a bit older, I don’t have to watch them quite so closely. I can sit in the park, chat, even read a book (it’s so much better). My friend, on the other hand, needs eyes in the back of her head to keep her severely allergic tot out of harm’s way. That kind of vigilance is a full-time job.

B put a post on Facebook yesterday and I’m sure she won’t mind if I copy it here, as it sums up perfectly some of the frustrations that the growing number of parents of allergic children go through, and how people (including celebrities) can help.

“It really bothers me when a celebrity comments on something important that they know nothing about. For instance, writing about having food allergies and being able to add these foods in and out of their diets.

I understand unless you are affected by food allergies, you may not know the difference between a food intolerance and a food allergy. However, if you are influential, you should learn the difference before you affect the way so many view food allergies and their potential consequences.

My child has severe food allergies. Ingesting a peanut, milk, or eggs could kill him. Not just upset his stomach. KILL HIM. The first time we had to inject him with an Epi-Pen, within minutes of coming in contact with the allergen, he had quarter-sized hives all over his little body, then his voice changed and we knew his throat was closing shut. He hadn’t even turned 2 yet.

It was the scariest experience of my life.

I think about his food allergies constantly. And although it’s become second nature to read every label, worry about cross-contamination, and make sure he always has safe food to eat, it still can be a daily struggle.

My child is never more than 5 feet away from an Epi-pen. We are never able to go to a restaurant here and order food off the menu for him. They either don’t have anything safe or they really don’t understand how serious the consequences could be if they made a mistake, or cross-contaminate his food. I don’t want sympathy. My child is just like every other child; he is happy and full of life. His food allergies don’t define who he is. I need everyone to know that a food allergy is not a food intolerance.

Would you know what to do if you stumbled upon a child who was going into anaphylactic shock? I hope that even if you’re annoyed with my long rant, you will take the time to read how to use an Epi-pen because it could save someone’s life.

It could save my child’s life.

So please, Mr. Celebrity, before you go off complaining about how your “food allergies” are upsetting your stomach, please learn what the hell you’re talking about.”

How to use an Epi-pen: Click here

The big chill

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It’s all relative, I know, but it really is quite chilly in the desert right now. And for the few weeks each year that this happens (Winter light, as I call it), it’s as though my children think we’re living in Alaska.

“I’m cold,” is the first whine of the day, followed by a big song and dance over putting their clothes on and exposing their bare skin to the bracing air (15 degrees this morning, and that is, erm, centigrade). “Still cold,” pipes up Son 2 on the school run, despite the heater – or “heat machine” as he calls it –  being turned on in the car.

“You have no idea what cold is,” I try to explain to them (where we lived before, in Minneapolis in the Midwest of America, it’s been -45 with the windchill recently and the schools had to close for a few days).

In anticipation of the dramatic change in weather, Dubai Confidential compiled a survival guide

In anticipation of the dramatic change in weather, Dubai Confidential compiled a survival guide

I’ve tried to tell them that if we still lived there, they wouldn’t be able to leave the house without bundling up in layers of clothing, and donning fur-lined boots and bobble hats. They’d have to pick their way over ice, there would be snow-ploughs clearing the snowdrifts, and frostbite warnings.

“Honestly, it’s not that cold,” I repeat, as we put jumpers on and head out the house, unencumbered by coats and other weighty items (my sweater dating back to about 2006 as, since moving to the UAE, I’ve entered a winter fashion time warp due to only buying summer clothes).

Our Filipino nanny, too, seems to think it’s biting cold and has taken to swaddling herself in a hoody, scarf and socks round the house. I’m thinking I’d better buy her a hot-water bottle quick, or the snuggle blanket with sleeves on sale in New Look.

And spare a thought for the camels in leg warmers (joke).

I do wonder if living in a desert climate for the past five years might have thinned our blood, although to be fair, the fact that our homes have no heating, are draughty and have floors made from marble does mean you feel it when the temperature plunges from the 35 degrees or so that we’re used to.

So, there you have it: a few years of desert living and you’ll find your family becoming quite reptilian, minus the dry, scaly skin. Not only that, but you’ll also take great delight in sipping steaming hot chocolate and wearing tights (even if, by midday, it’s on the warm-side again).

Post-holiday blues

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You’d think a six-day mini-holiday to the UK shouldn’t take six days to recover from, but somehow this whole week has been all about getting back into the swing of things.

The time difference and arriving back in Dubai on the milk flight at 5am meant the boys then slept until past midday, setting me up for a particularly trying problem in small children: INSOMNIA. The Scrooge of Christmas travel.

Because it’s not like you can just tell them to count sheep, is it?

No, no, that would be far too easy. Instead, for several nights, between the hours of 9 pm and 1 am, the boys pummelled me with all kinds of strange symptoms, from “I’m scared, stay Mummy, please!” to “I’m going to vomit!” (Son 1), singing for two hours straight (Son 2), hunger pangs and even sleep walking (Son 1).

Trying to count sheep with Son 2 just turned into bonus stimulation time

Trying to count sheep with Son 2 just turned into bonus stimulation time

Son 1 would have re-set much quicker if it wasn’t for the fact that Son 2 was adamant his insomnia should be shared.

“Are you AWAKE?” he’d bellow at his brother, nearly raising the roof of his bunk-bed (and I couldn’t separate them because they’re really dependent on each other and hate to sleep alone).

“WAKE UP!”

Then Son 2 got his hands on the duck clock in their room and set the alarm off: “QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK QUACK!”

I’m surprised you didn’t hear the racket going on in their bedroom.

DH was safely ensconsed on the other side of the world (in Australia and New Zealand) for the first two days of their nocturnal shenanigans. Happily, he returned on the third day, only to fall fast asleep at 8.30 pm with jet lag of the polar-opposite kind.

Oh the glamour of our jet-setting ways!

The holidays by numbers

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I was one lucky expat this holiday and got to go home for a whirlwind trip – six days (three of them travelling) overflowing with family, food and surprises. I could wax lyrical about that home-for-the-holidays feeling, the novelty of winter and the precious time spent with loved ones, but I don’t quite know where to start. So, instead, here’s my numerical recap (SUBTITLED: Travel with kids never did run smooth) …

Distance travelled: 8,650 miles (in 2 planes, 2 trains, 1 tube train, 2 cars and 2 taxis)

Family members visited: 24, including DH’s 95-year-old Grannie

Visas forgotten (due to being in old passport): 1, causing immigration officials to shake their heads and tell us we couldn’t travel (in the end, they took pity on me)

Visas reunited with: 1, thanks to two special people: C who searched our house to find it; and DH who discovered that overnight FedEx delivery doesn’t apply when there’s bad weather in the UK

Skipped heartbeats: 3, when the concierge at the hotel the visa had been delivered to by a fellow pilot mistakenly presented me with a box of jewellery instead of an envelope

Waterlogged UK, but wonderful nevertheless

Waterlogged UK, but wonderful nevertheless

Passports lost: 4 (Yes, seriously. I think I was cursed)

Passports found after 45-min panic: 4. They’d dropped into a black hole in my suitcase

Children lost: 1, before the pantomime at Birmingham’s Hippodrome, triggering a full-scale search for Son 2 via walkie-talkies. (I know, I know, we’d only been out of Dubai for five minutes)

Children found: 1, in a deserted area of the theatre, clutching the booster seat they give kids like it was a life raft

Christmas dinners eaten: 3

Floods (or water ponds as they’re called in Dubai): Too many to count

Fish rescued: 2, found in a puddle, as floodwater receded from my parents’ garden; they were returned to the fishpond they’d escaped from

Minutes stayed up past midnight on NYE: 7

Speed of gusting wind as plane sat motionless on taxiway: 40mph

Memories made: Priceless

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (and thank you for reading Circles in the Sand in 2013) x