Chaperone wanted

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While flying from Dubai to London with the boys (and no DH) on Wednesday, it occurred to me that this is a task most mums of small children would dearly love to outsource.

Just imagine: if you hired a chaperone (and I think you can when they reach a certain age), you could come on a later flight by yourself, watch a whole movie, read, sit and think, drink wine and eat the meal, including the chocolate, in peace. Your clothes would remain stain-free, your sanity intact and you might even get some sleep. Remember those days of stress-free, champagne-swilling travel?

So without much further ado, here’s the advert:

Want to travel and get paid?


Position: Chaperone

Job description: Team leader needed for temporary work in a cramped environment. Candidates must enjoy travel and be willing to work long hours, sometimes nights, in pressurised conditions

Job requirements:
∙ Expert planning skills required, including the ability to pack for six weeks and two continents

∙ Must always be on time and have the ability to negotiate airports/airport toilets/fast food outlets with military precision. The candidate must also be able to speed walk, while dragging two small children along, to the furthest gate, without stopping at Duty Free

∙ Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Situations such as a sick child, delays or a lost favourite toy should be viewed in a positive way

∙ Ability to multi-task essential. Must be able to handle several difficult situations simultaneously, eg, consoling a distraught child who got stuck in the toilet, while stopping his brother waking sleeping passengers and balancing three meal trays

∙ Must be able to keep a smiling demeanour for fellow passengers while practising above-mentioned skills in conflict resolution. Must also be able to withstand withering looks from those seated nearby

∙ A basic aviation knowledge, so as to answer questions such as ‘What makes the wind move?’ and ‘What’s that noise?’, is a plus – as is the ability to tackle technical challenges such as operating the games

Airport hug: The smiles at the end make it all worthwhile and I wouldn’t miss this for anything

∙ Must be willing to be immobilised in a tight space for extensive periods of time, to dive for flying objects, to crawl on the floor for lost items and make multiple trips to a bathroom the size of a phone box (being double-jointed would help)

∙ Must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and preferably have a third or even fourth arm to carry all the luggage at the end

Dressing/grooming: In addition to following the airline’s dress code, it is expected that, for the duration of the shift, the chaperone will have makeup applied, not wear elasticated clothing of any kind and not develop crazy eyes

Previous experience: None required. On-the-job training offered on an exhausting basis

Possibility for advancement: None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years without complaining so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

Overtime: Responsibilities also include rising at 5am the following morning with your jet-lagged, overexcited, overtired travellers

Benefits: Overseas travel and the joy of the airport reunion

Dubai logic strikes again

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With the Dubai Summer Surprises festival well underway, we’re reminded once again that summertime in the UAE is full of, ahem, surprises. Along with Modhesh climbing a lamp post near you, there are raffles with big-ticket prizes (including Nissan Patrols, money and gold) and some fantastic summer sales all over the city, like this one:

The whole rack was marked the same, with the original price on the actual tag down as 79dhs. So Dubai!

The World Tour

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You’d think it should be easy organising a family holiday for four. No third child to have to book an extra hotel room for, no need for the millions I hear are required in the bank before you can take a family of five away.

But, believe me, our imminent World Tour has taken months to plan. Along with the flights (which were rising meteorically in price due to a certain event of Olympic proportions taking place in London), there’s the holiday we’re taking to break up the main holiday. The mini break for a certain birthday. Connecting flights (three legs each way), the hire car (with car seats, somehow), the rental house in the States. And Catherine the Great’s ticket for her home leave to the Philippines, via Hong Kong.

Long gone are the days when it was as easy as booking a package holiday to Crete, packing a few dresses and a sarong, and jetting off to drink tequilas in the sun

Quite honestly, my DH, who took on most of the organising, deserves a gold medal for – fingers crossed – pulling all this off.

So after much deliberation (should we try doing all this on staff travel? Can we fit Florida in too? New York? Wouldn’t it just be easier to go to Thailand? Or Wales?) and many late-night calls to the States, here’s what the itinerary looks like:

Dubai-London. Then a few days later, London-Chicago-Minneapolis. Then, by road, Minneapolis-Lake Superior and back. Two weeks later, Minneapolis-Chicago-London, then nearly four weeks later, London-Dubai. All with two small, high-energy boys, and the extended UK part without DH (who gets a month of bachelor-living in Dubai).

Excited, very. Anxious, yes. Worried the boys might turn feral with jet lag and give up sleeping, yes.

But I’m counting the hours now!

There were definitely moments when our desert escape plans seemed too complex, but during all the planning, we discovered something that added a whole new dimension to our search for a holiday home – a secret weapon that meant we could practically spy on the properties we’d seen advertised.

While I trawled the Internet and followed leads sent by kind friends, my DH – who loves anything to do with navigation – would bring up Google Maps to pinpoint the house. Not content with me calling out the name of a neighbourhood, he’d say, “Look, here’s the road, and if you just go up here a bit, this must be it…Look, right on the end…Right by an enormous patch of industrial land.

“With some construction. And a huge area of …. wait, is that SAND?”

Thank goodness for virtual reckies!

When you’re hoping for a leafy neighbourhood, and discover it looks more like Dubai, you’ll never book a summer holiday home again without using Google Maps

The view of the Burj we never see

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These will be my last Dubai photos for a little while so I’m posting two from our seaplane ride, and one that, although old, has a Wimbledon twist.

Built on an artificial island, the Burj Al Arab is a shapely sight, visible on a sunny day from miles around. Brilliant white during daylight hours, the Teflon-coated hotel takes on an entirely different look at night, with spotlights creating a changing tableau of colours. But have you ever seen this iconic building from behind? (sorry the quality’s not great – iPhone, through the window, moving target, etc!)

The Burj Al Arab, one of the most expensive hotels on earth, pictured as we all know it. I love the fact that the 210 metre-high helipad has doubled as a grass tennis court

And around the back: Built to resemble the billowing sail of a dhow (an Arabian vessel), here’s a behind-the-scenes view of the vast mast

Didn’t believe me about the tennis court? Here it is, with Roger Federer and Andre Agassi having a friendly knock-about to promote the Dubai Open in 2005

The Gulf’s SAD season

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It’s widely known among desert dwellers that summertime, rather than winter, is when we feel down in the dumps due to being trapped indoors and running the air-conditioned car-to-climate-controlled mall gauntlet.

What’s more, as people retreat from the sun, life here becomes less sociable. There are no afternoons spent BBQ-ing with friends in summer, no kids playing on the streets and, unless you’re up and out at dawn, beach trips are abandoned because it’s literally too hot for the seaside.

June saw a whopping 11.5 hours of sun a day – but in summer, we tend to hide from it

Add to this the fact that nearly all your friends vanish overnight on ‘home leave’, just as your kids break up from school for two months, and it’s easy to see why summer in the Gulf can trigger an inverted variety of seasonal affective disorder, or the ‘winter blues’ as it’s known in other parts of the world – complete with a vitamin D deficiency due to sun avoidance.*

Peering at BB’s slightly sunken-looking eyes today, I even wondered if he might be suffering from an overdose of processed air. “I just want to stay home and watch TV, and play with my Lego,” he told me, exhibiting the classic hibernation symptoms that so many of us display at this time of year.

We’re heading off soon, but several of my good friends are staying in the sandpit for at least some of the summer. One, who’s waiting until the schools break up in England before leaving, wrote on Facebook, “This is my fourth summer in Dubai and it’s been sweat and tears all the way.

“This year, I plan to do it with poise. See me anytime in the compound or at the mall and just check out that poise!” she put.

So, with this dear friend in mind, here are my tips for mums who are sticking around (excuse the pun) and want to create the illusion of appearing both cool and sane this summer:

● Make your own ice cubes from fruit juice and gin

● Avoid manmade fibres like nylon or rayon, which simulate being suffocated slowly in a plastic bag

● Keep a spray bottle in the fridge and give yourself a good squirt, like elephants do – starting with your wrists to quickly cool down your bloodstream

● Wear a moisturiser with SPF on your face every day – put it on before you open the curtains

● Tackle humidity hair with a shot of dry shampoo during the day

● Buy a SolarKindle protective case for your Kindle and let the sun charge the battery

● Keep in mind that retail hara-kiri (Carrefour on a Friday afternoon) won’t be so bad over summer with everyone gone

● If it’s your first summer in Dubai and you haven’t experienced an unchilled pool yet, think of it as the equivalent of a Turkish bath

● Next time you spot Modhesh (the yellow, coiled mascot for the annual Dubai Summer Surprises festival), rather than wanting to run him over, tell yourself he’s the result of a love-fest between a banana and a slinky and you might feel more endeared to him

● Forget poise, you need a posse. Go to the salon for a cucumber facial, valet park at the mall, hire a dog walker and enlist help to entertain the sprogs

*Researchers have actually shown that people who live in the UAE may be prone to SAD in the summer – and those who wear sun cream, abayas or khandouras block still further what little vitamin D their bodies can absorb

The gender agenda

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“Mommy, how old were you when you knew who you wanted to marry?”

Not a question from my son, but from his adorable, blonde-haired, blue-eyed best friend and girl next door, who I posted about before when it became blindingly obvious to us that little boys are from Mars and little girls from Venus.

Childhood sweethearts: But while BB likes to dabble in toilet talk, his BF has more romantic thoughts

“I was about four or five when I knew,” she told her mother – referring to BB, despite the fact he’s incredibly messy and only talks about trains.

Later, she started asking her mom why they lived in the UAE, and not America.

“If BB moves to America, I have to go with him – just so you know,” she declared.

“Because we’re family – or we will be after we get married.”

“He thinks he’s going to marry a toilet,” (don’t ask, but if you really want to know, look here).

“But I know better and he’s in for a SURPRISE!” she giggled.

More proof, if ever it was needed, that male and female brains are hardwired so differently, it’s no wonder we can’t fathom our partners at times.

In need of a vacation

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“How many more days Mommy,” enquired BB this morning. “Is it one day or two?” he asked, his eyes shining with excitement at the prospect of the epic summer holiday ahead.

“Three days BB, three days to go,” I replied, with an equal measure of trepidation.

I don’t usually admit to feeling stressed on the blog, but if ever there’s a time to come clean it’s this week.

It’s the last week of term, the temperatures are in the 40s, we’ve all been ill due to being cooped up indoors, there’s the kindergarten graduation to attend, teachers’ presents to organise, we have a visitor, there are friends to see before they leave, and then there’s the thought of the 10-week summer holiday ahead of us. Yes, I’ll say that again, 10 weeks!

In fact, the mass exodus from the desert to cooler climes has already started. Yesterday, I parked right outside the supermarket and I’m convinced the roads are already quieter. School seems to be sliding into the holiday and every time I meet a friend, the conversation starts, “So when are you off?” and ends with a cheery, “See you in September!”

Crazy, never-to-be-repeated week

Some mums are leaving practically the moment the school gates clang shut, most of us are following within a week or so, and a few brave souls (and women with jobs) are staying in the sauna.

Aside from the good-byes, there’s the emotion of the school-year ending, lost library books, packing, and – of all the weeks we could have chosen to do this – the nightmarish task of potty training a boy who has a deep, deep mistrust of the toilet. Traumatised isn’t an exaggeration, and that’s both me and him – all witnessed by my visiting mother-in-law.

So, while I know I’ll feel like I’m in free fall once the structure of school is gone and DH jets off away from it all to Sydney, I’ll be so glad when this week is over, the farewells are said, the 10 tonnes of artwork filed and LB actually makes it to the toilet in time without screaming blue murder.

There are weeks when my office job feels like a walk in the park in comparison.

Photo from: The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants

Not-so-Silent Sunday: Drum roll

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Children’s birthday parties are practically a sport these days and here in Dubai you can host a party on a bus, on a boat, in a limo or at a waterpark. Alternatively, you can have a party at home and hire entertainers, magicians or, I’ll put money on it, even fire eaters or dwarfs.

Sensible parents get sucked in, too, and I did laugh this weekend when I walked out our front door and saw that our neighbours across the road were holding a party that had the potential to cause a right racket. Whether the most unbelievable din was created or not, I’ll never know as it was all over by the time we got home. Brave parents!

I did wonder if they’d given their next-door neighbours a heads-up…

Help! I need somebody

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I’m not sure whether to post this as it makes us sound terribly spoilt, but here goes.

In the Middle East it’s possible to outsource every task you could conceivably think of – from the ironing to banging a nail into a wall, changing a lightbulb and assembling Ikea furniture.

Even things I didn’t think were possible to avoid can be delegated. Had we wanted to, we could have valet parked at a children’s party this week, and already today I’ve politely declined having someone carry my groceries to the car and having the car washed while I shopped.

Expats tend to follow a typical pattern. They hire a cleaner, pay a teenager to babysit, then farm out the ironing. Before too long, they realise it’s cheaper to sponsor a live-in maid

Because the truth is, it’s really, really difficult not to have help in Dubai.

One of my favourite bloggers, Where’s my ruby slippers?, posted a wonderful and honest account about this aspect of Dubai life, and I found myself nodding in somewhat shame-faced agreement when she described how, that morning at the mall, a lady had taken her parking ticket at the exit and put it in the machine that operates the barrier. “Had she been able to shut my car window without cutting her arm off, I have no doubt she would have done that as well,” she wrote.

The drawback, of course, is how lazy it makes us. How it becomes too easy to throw money at a problem – and, the most concerning part, the effect it has on our children. I’m constantly reminding BB and LB that there are many things in Dubai that aren’t normal (“Where’s her nanny?” asked BB once in England, on meeting a little friend in a park filled with mums, not paid staff).

But, here’s the thing: apart from our trips home, this is the only existence my children know, and teaching them that life here can be a little too easy is a challenge.

This week, our doorbell rang and it was DH’s dry cleaner, dropping off his freshly laundered and pressed uniforms. We thought nothing more of it until we realised the impression it had made on BB.

I bought him some new school uniforms a couple of days ago, but one item was out of stock so I placed an order and left my phone number.

“They call when my shirt arrives?” BB asked, looking a little puzzled. “Won’t they deliver it, like Daddy’s work clothes?’

Sigh! Time to revisit real-life for a reality check, me thinks.

Technology infiltrates prayer time

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Have you ever watched a three-year-old play with an iPad? It’s actually quite shocking. The way those chubby fingers fly round the screen, leaving smeery fingerprints as they go, and the way the machine is handed back to you with 2% battery power.

While nobody was looking, something has happened to today’s tots. They’ve become ‘screen-agers’, who intuitively know that an iPad isn’t a toy, it’s a toy chest of apps and games.

Here at Circles, I’m continually nagged, harassed and cajoled until I give in and pass the iPad over to the children. LB can find and play a whole raft of kids’ apps (check iGameMom.com for some great ideas) and his six-year-old brother is just a click away from downloading hundreds more from the Apple Store.

“Books….nah! Mummy’s iPad is much more fun AND it can teach me to read”

And, I’m the first to admit, it’s the most wonderful electronic babysitter – especially during those times when you need to get things done, like make dinner, or drive.

I’d go so far as to suggest that iPads might even have been designed with young children in mind. They’re small and compact, with no power cords to trip on or chew, and they’re instantly on, cutting down on whinge time. What’s more, they’re made to be touched, with no keys to get jammed up with juice or bashed.

I worked out today that by the time my children reach middle school, they’ll have been using an iPad almost every day for eight years.

But just as noteworthy is the way modern technology has crept into every part of our children’s lives. Kids can learn to read and count on iPads, they can colour in virtual colouring books, bake electronic pies and video the ceiling. They can watch cartoons and movies on iPads and play games galore. And that’s not all: modern technology can even infiltrate prayer time.

My good friend and mother of BB’s girlfriend told me yesterday that after saying a prayer for her five-year-old daughter that evening, she was asked: “Mommy, say ‘send’.

So cute, it was worth a whole blog post!