The gender agenda

“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

“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

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

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

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!

The transition from work to mummydom

I’ve come to the conclusion that never mind massages and spa treatments, what I really need after work and before going head first into a long weekend with two small boys is a decompression chamber.

It was nice and quiet down there! Anyone else feel like they get the bends when they transition from work to home?

Maybe it’s just me, but after being in an office where everyone sits still, the computer more or less does what it’s told and the noise levels are fairly muted, suddenly being reintroduced to the demands of two energetic boys is like surfacing too fast from relatively tranquil depths.

The decibels, the goading, the speed at which the boys fly round the house, the way they ricochet off the walls (summer temps mean we can’t exercise them outside), their neediness after my absence – whilst I’m overjoyed to be back home, it makes me feel quite giddy.

So, now it’s the weekend – and it’s a long one because Sunday, when we usually all go back to work and school, is a holiday for the ascension of Prophet Mohammad. And DH is out of the picture because he’s ‘in the Sim’ – airline lingo for training in the simulator, during which they practice fires, engine failures and other such scenarios.

My mind is thinking about something less terrifying but which has left me scratching my head nevertheless – BB’s homework.

It’s that time of term again when instead of doing the usual spellings and reading for homework, he has to complete a project – and present it – for his end-of term summative assessment. All very well, but he’s six. Some of his classmates are five. They’re in kindergarten!

Last week he had to design a ‘mode of transport’, this week he has to create it. There was the option of using Lego, but that would have been too easy. He’s opted to junk model a train, and so I’ve spent much of the week collecting boxes, buying art supplies and wondering how to turn cereal packets and toilet rolls into an express train.

As my working friend put it, there’s no way such young children can do these projects on their own. So when little Johnny comes home from school and says he has to create a solar system, it’s mum who ends up printing off stuff at work, coming up with ideas (styrofoam balls on sticks? genius!), and cajoling a child who can’t sit still for two minutes (heaven knows how mine gets through six hours of school) into completing the project. On time.

And, with all the tiger-mothering that goes on in Dubai (including presentations by seven-year-olds on iPads!), you really need to make sure your child takes it seriously. BB’s told me some of his classmates have brought their projects in early. On display already, there’s a rocket made out of bottles, a flying car and a train with wooden wheels.

By the end of this week, I’m fully expecting there to be 4by4s made from matchsticks, robotic trucks and remote-controlled airplanes.

I’d better get back to those loo rolls…

Where I appeared Wednesday

No, not on TV or anything like that, but I was quite excited today because a guest post I wrote called Circles in the Sky was published this morning on a website in America and I thought I’d link to it here because it’s my first guest column, plus it actually makes me sound quite experienced at something!

Not experienced in anything useful or lucrative, but in flying with little hellions – something many expat mums will be thinking about as we prepare to head home to reintroduce our children to grass, grandparents and wellies.

Apologies to those who’ve read parts of this before – it’s adapted from a blog in my archives, and, yes, you might notice that I don’t mention I’m married to a pilot. I figured a more competent, all-round more together pilot’s wife wouldn’t lose a child on board, or nearly cause the take-off to be halted, so I decided to gloss over this piece of information while regaling some of my travel tales.

Without much further ado … here’s a teaser. Just click on the link for Airports Made Simple below to read more:

“Please…help….me….”

Waiting at the gate for a flight from Dubai to London last year, Son #1 came out with: “We’re going to go up, up, up and then we’re going to C.R.A.S.H!” – announced loudly, repeatedly, and with suitable sound effects. No amount of shushing would stop him and nearby passengers started looking really scared. Read more at Airports Made Simple

I like to be in America

It’s lunchtime. Everyone’s hungry and we decide to head to a Subway we haven’t been to before.

“A 12-inch roast chicken on Italian, please,” I ask the man behind the counter.

“Yes, Maam,” he says, nodding in agreement and loading the wrong bread with turkey ham.

I ask again: “Sorry … roast chicken not ham, please?”

“No problem, Maam. No problem,” he assures me, throwing some chicken on top of the ham. (Several minutes later, charging me extra for his mistake.)

We negotiate the veggies, then get to the dressings. I pick Caesar. He starts pouring, but it runs out, mid-squirt.

“Maam, no problem. I give you ketchup,” he says, directing the nozzle at the sub.

“No, no, really, that’s fine. No sauce,” I say, raising an eyebrow in protestation at the salad being covered in ketchup.

I try to get the meal deal, the one we always have. “Could we have the crisps and drink, too, please?”

“Meal deal?” he enquires. Blank smile. (Ringing it all up separately on the till.)

A cut above the rest

After the bill has been debated, the boys tuck into their sandwich. I say ‘tuck in’ – BB eats his half quite happily, while LB pushes his around the table.

Our sandwich man looks over, beaming away at me and the boys. I smile back. Then he starts walking over, brandishing a gleaming, 6-inch kitchen knife!

“You want cut,” he grins, pointing at LB’s still uneaten half of the sub.

“NO! Thank you,” I respond, perhaps a little sharply and with two eyebrows raised, but stopping him in his tracks before my three-year-old gets his hands on the knife.

A little later, as we’re leaving, he motions me over with a cheery wave. “Maam,” he asks. “I want to come to your country.”

He means the US, as I’d already told him the boys were American. My heart sinks, because I genuinely feel terrible for migrant workers who’ve left their families behind, but also know there’s nothing I can do to make the ‘American dream’ a reality for him.

“You can help,” he asks, beseechingly. “Your husband help? When you come next, you tell me how you help. Okay.”

I nod. I offer sympathy. I mutter something about visas. Then agree I’ll ask my husband what to do (DH is already meant to be helping the man in the Indian at a foodcourt we visit to get a job with the airline, after all).

He won’t let me go, though, so we talk some more about a transfer within Subway, and although I can’t quite understand what he’s saying and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s his first day on the job, I think he says, “I have 10 months’ experience here. And a diploma in sandwich-making.”

An amiable chap – but a diploma, really?

Never a dull moment in Dubai, not even ordering lunch.

Silent Sunday: The Tardis

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that temperatures in the UAE spike in summer, and it gets seriously hot. So imagine my amusement when I saw this egg-shaped walk-in human drying machine on a visit to our neighbouring emirate of Sharjah. For children who get wet playing in the Al Qasba fountain, it lights up with eerie red lights and blasts hot air at you – like the climate doesn’t already do that!

Looks like an alien space capsule, or a sci-fi teleporter, don’t you think?

A man with a van on a hot afternoon

Sitting indoors after school today, we heard the tinny strains of Greensleeves – just about audible over the noise coming from the TV (yes, it’s summer, we’re stuck inside and the TV is all that stands between me and the kids climbing the walls with boredom).

As the tinkling notes got louder, so did the boys’ excitement. “Mummeee, it’s the ice cream van. QUICK!!”

The boys ran outside to buy brightly coloured lollies and I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the van, which comes round our neighbourhood bringing a welcome chill to our desert compound. On long, sultry afternoons, it not only brings back childhood memories, but also provides good old-fashioned entertainment as you watch the vehicle being mobbed by kids.

It might be 41 degrees in the shade, with 75 per cent humidity today (yes, you sweat from pores you didn’t even know existed, and don’t get me started about humidity hair), so the ice cream man’s arrival doesn’t exactly mean we all get a breath of fresh air. But as my boys and BB’s girlfriend from next-door sat on the porch step licking the drips from their lollies before they melted into gloopy puddles, I enjoyed a few blissful moments of peace and quiet in the air-conditioning inside.

Results all round! The next time we hear the van’s chimes ringing out across our compound, I’ll have the money ready.

Set up by two British brothers in 2009, the entrepreneurial young pair spotted a gap in the market and filled it with an imaginative small business that left everyone else wondering why it hadn’t been done before – obvious really!