Coming home tonight!!

I'm coming home to Cairo tonight!! Finally!!

Mike will bring Maya to the airport to pick me up. I can't wait to see them. I hope Maya isn't too sleepy to say hello and give me a big hug.

Here are some cute pictures of Maya talking to me in Sudan...

Ethiopian wedding

Maya went to her first Ethiopian wedding today and had a blast!! She wore a traditional Ethiopian dress that we got for her in Addis and a blue headband. The wedding was for our cleaning lady Tirhas, and Maya's nanny Tiberh was a bridesmaid. Unfortunately, I am still in Sudan so Maya went with Mike and I didn't get to go (I am coming home on Thursday though, thank God!).

Anyway, the wedding was a very big affair and was held at a Cairo hotel. I'm told there was lots of dancing to Ethiopian music and that Maya participated in this quite a bit. She is quite the social butterfly, and Mike says she was flirting with the boys...

Everyone at the wedding knew Maya. Mike said it was a strange experience because all the kids and adults were saying: "Hi, Maya", and Mike had no clue who most of them were. Apparently they know her from Sunday afternoons when Tiberh goes to church, which is right near our apartment. She takes Maya with and Maya plays outside with the other Ethiopian kids while the adults pray and one of the ushers watches the kids. (Sunday is not a weekend here). Then the kids usually they play together afterward as well while the adults socialise.

Anyway, what is really cool is that the Ethiopian/Eritrean community here has totally welcomed Maya as a member of the community. I guess Mike and I are sort of honorary members as parents of an Ethiopian child.

By the way, Mike was very stressed over Maya's hair. He said he tried to do a nice hairstyle for her, but that somehow it didn't work, it was getting late and then he just popped a headband on. I don't know the full story, but he told me that lots of the toddlers and little girls at the wedding didn't have fancy hairstyles and looked like they don't sit still to get their hair done any more than Maya does. Good to know we are not the only ones who struggle with a wiggly toddler's hair.

So, back to the wedding, Tirhas had a gorgeous white western-style wedding dress and her husband Yohannes wore a white suit. Tirhas looked stunning (and so did Tiberh, by the way). They had a western buffet and a traditional wedding cake, although Mike and Maya unfortunately couldn't stay for the cake because Maya needed to go to bed.

Maya has a new cousin

Hey all. Maya has a new cousin, Bryce, who was born two days ago and lives in California with his mommy and daddy. Hopefully Maya will get to meet him sometime, since we hardly ever get to California. But anyway, we are all very excited for our new family addition. Welcome to the family Bryce!

Just as an aside, I hope when Maya does meet him that she's nice and gentle with him...

Some great new Maya pix

So, can you tell I miss Maya? Here are some pictures of her that Mike sent me over the past few days. I really miss her, and she misses her mommy too. She cried both times I talked to her on the phone yesterday, although today she seemed less fragile and sang me some songs. Only six more days...

Maya likes her veggies

Here is another picture of Maya eating fresh dill that she stole from Daddy -- or maybe he gave it to her. Only nine more days until I come home.

Maya imitates daddy

While Daddy was shaving this morning, Maya found a tub of shea butter lotion, and look what she did... Needless to say Daddy reports she is now VERY moisturised.

Maya and Mommy

Here is Maya talking to me on the phone from Sudan. She is talking on Mike's mobile. She told me: "I wub u" about 10 times. I miss her a lot. Only 11 more days before I come home. Maya is wearing a dress my parents got her on their recent trip to Hawaii. Thanks mom!!

Lost and.... Found

While Mike was working in the kitchen yesterday, Maya was happily rummaging through the cabinets -- specifically the one where we keep plastic bags and aluminum foil. It is her favorite cabinet, and it is always a huge mess as she loves to pull the ziploc bags out of their boxes one by one. All of a sudden, Maya let out a scream.

"Hi Lalla!"

Mike turned around and saw Maya extracting Lalla from underneath a pile of plastic bags -- Yes, the old Lalla. She has made her appearance of course just before the two replacement Lallas are due to arrive from the U.S.

Maya immediately decided that Lalla needed to be fed. I mean, she hasn't eaten in a long time, being stuck in the cabinet and all. So Maya took Lalla and started "feeding" her strawberry yoghurt. Of course, then Lalla needed a bath. The picture posted is Maya right after finding Lalla.

But speaking of strawberries, Maya seems to have outgrown her berry allergy. We found this out by accident in a similar way that we found out she was no longer allergic to wheat. Some may remember we discovered she was no longer allergic to wheat when she bit a chunk out of a french baguette while sitting in the grocery store cart several months ago, and then had no allergic reaction.

The same thing happened with berries. Maya came downstairs with us one morning, went in the kitchen by herself, opened the fridge, grabbed a tub of Tut yoghurt (Tut is some sort of Egyptian berry but we are not sure exactly what it is in English -- sort of a similar to a raspberry), opened up the tub, and started eating. She is a very independent girl. Anyway, neither of us noticed what she had done until the container was nearly empty. We waited for an allergic reaction, but none came. So now she is eating all berries, including her favorite: Strawberries.

Anyway, back to the Lalla saga. Maya's new replacement Lallas are due to arrive today. But we are happy to have them anyway -- it will ward off another crisis the next time she loses her bunny. Now if we could only find those missing sandals...

Rescue Mission Underway

I am informed that the Lalla rescue mission is underway. The two new Lallas have been spotted at Grandma Laura and Grandpa Rick's in upstate New York and are said to now be in transit to Cairo via the U.S. Postal Service. They are due to arrive in Cairo on Saturday.

Of course I'm sure now that they are on their way to us we will probably locate the old Lalla. But that's OK. By the way, Maya's sandals are also lost as of a couple days ago. What is going on here? Where on earth is that girl stashing her stuff?

Maya definitely misses her Lalla. Yesterday (before I left for Sudan), Maya was playing with the remains of my dinner -- adding "ingredients" such as diet Sprite and banana to my special rice and meat tagen going-away Egyptian comfort food dish that I had ordered from a great restaurant that we just discovered called Le Caire 1940. Anyway, I asked Maya if she was cooking dinner, and she said: "Cooking". I asked her if she was cooking for Mommy -- "No". Cooking for Daddy -- "No". So I said: "Who are you cooking for?" She said: "Lalla".

Anyway, I am now blogging to you from Khartoum, where I will be until May 31 (that's 14 days from now exactly). Then I will, God willing, take a week off work for some special Maya and mommy time. Today's picture is from this morning -- Mike e-mailed it to me as part of my daily Maya fix. She picked out the shirt herself!

Missing: One Pink Bunny

Lalla has gone missing! Maya's little pink bunny Lalla has been missing since yesterday morning, and we have torn the house apart looking for her. But Lalla is nowhere to be found.

To make matters worse, Maya woke up sore yesterday morning from her DTAP shot. When she tried to stand up, her leg shook. And she limped when she walked. We gave her some baby Tylenol, and she seemed to feel better. She was also clinging to Lalla and cuddling with us in bed.

When we left for work yesterday, Maya was very clingy and cuddly and we think she had Lalla. But when we got home from work, Lalla was missing. We searched and searched before Maya's bedtime. We looked in all the places we thought Maya might have stashed Lalla: the fridge, my purse, the toilet, under the sofa, in the kitchen cabinets, trash baskets, the washing machine. Maya is very into putting things inside containers, so we looked in lots of things. But no Lalla. We called Tiberh, feeling panicky. But Tiberh didn't remember seeing Lalla during the day and couldn't think of where she might be.

So we put Maya to bed last night without Lalla, thinking we would find her later. After Maya went to sleep (miraculously without either Lalla or a bottle of milk), we kept looking. I looked in drawers, in her toy baskets, in more cabinets, in the pantry. Still no Lalla.

Maya woke up in the morning, still slightly sore, and asked for Lalla. But we still couldn't find her. Our cleaning lady, Tirhas, came to the house and we asked her to keep an eye out for Lalla. But she also didn't find her.

It seemed that Lalla was lost forever.

How could Lalla get lost just three days before I am going to Sudan? What a disaster. When Mike travelled for work a few months ago, Maya's sleep got massively disrupted. And she had Lalla then. I can't imagine how Maya will fare without both Mommy and Lalla.

So I started searching on the internet for Lalla replacements. I couldn't remember Lalla's brand name. Mike thought it included the word 'bath'. I wasn't sure. So I just searched for bunny bath security blankets. AND I FOUND LALLA!!! Well, it is not the grubby beloved Lalla that is lost, but it is the exact same species! She is made by Funbath. I ordered two Lallas on the internet and had them shipped to Mike's parents. Hopefully they will be able to ship them to us here quickly. If we are lucky, Maya will never know the difference. And we will have a new secret weapon -- a spare Lalla -- to prevent this crisis from ever happening again.

Cindy's going on a trip

Just so everyone knows, I'm travelling to Sudan later this week for work. I'll be in Khartoum for about two weeks. Maya will be in Cairo with her daddy and Lalla.

I'm very sad to be leaving Maya but I am confident that Mike will send me fresh pictures daily. I will be back around June 1, and then hopefully taking a few days off to spend time with Maya.

Maya goes to the doctor

Maya gave us some surprises at her 18-month check-up today with Dr. Cherif Erian, her UCLA-educated pediatrician who is probably the most relaxed doctor in the world.

Maya has had a growth spurt since her last check-up. She is now 82 centimeters (32 inches) tall and weighs 10 kilos (22 pounds). That's a lot taller than at her last doctor's appointment. She jumped from the 35th percentile in December for height to the 60th percentile now. She went from being short for her age to being a little bit tall.

Maya's weight hasn't caught up to her height yet, though. She is only in about the 15th percentile for weight and has gained less than a pound since December. Dr. Cherif suggests it is because she never sits still. He's not worried.

Oh, and Maya also got one shot -- DTAP. For those of you who aren't currently parents to those in the toddler set, that means Diptheria, Tetanus and Pertussis. She is now totally caught up on all her shots. Yeah!

As for her reaction to having a needle jabbed into her thigh, she didn't really seem to treat it as any more serious than a little bump on the head. She cried for about a minute, then decided she wanted to explore Dr. Cherif's desk drawers.

As Maya was digging around in his desk drawers and snatching his personal tylenol stash for use as a fun new rattle, Dr. Cherif pronounced Maya perfectly healthy. She was then rewarded (perhaps actually bribed) with a little green smiley face sticker.

Oh yeah, and Dr. Cherif has got a way cool plastic rocking horse in his waiting room. Maya loved it!

Maya's first haircut

I finally gave Maya her first haircut -- well at least her first since we adopted her when she was eight weeks old. She had her head shaved when she entered the Children's Home Society care center in Addis Ababa, where rumor has it she had a full head of hair upon arrival.

Maya's normally beautiful and shiny hair had been starting to look scraggly at the ends in recent weeks, and Tiberh and I agonised over what to do with it. Maya is still way too young to go to the salon. She would never sit still for a trim, and scissors held by a stranger and a wiggly toddler head just don't mix for me. Plus there are no kid specialist places in Cairo that I know of.

Tiberh and I debated whether we should cut her hair while loose, or in tiny box braids. And we agonised over whether her hair should be wet or dry during the "procedure", whether Maya should be awake or asleep, and over how much to cut off.

In the end, Tiberh braided Maya's hair into about 50 tiny braids during her nap, and I cut them when i got home for work in the evening. I cut off about 3/4 of an inch from each braid. I think I cut it a little uneven in the front, and I was worried how it would look. But two days later, when I took out the braids and washed her hair, it looked fine. A little shorter than I'd imagined, but not bad for my first try. Thank goodness Maya has very forgiving curls! I'll try to post some post-haircut pictures later.

Stay Tuned

Maya is having her 18-month doctor's appointment on Saturday evening with Dr. Erian. Stay tuned for updates on her measurements and reaction to the appointment, which we think will include some shots!

Victory at last

After nearly 11 months of diligent searching, of scouring every grocery store and pharmacy I could find in Cairo, I have finally found them -- clothlike Pampers!!

Mike was sure I would never find them, and scoffed at my neverending efforts to find the perfect diaper. But today I feel vindicated.

When we were in the process of adopting Maya in 2005, long before we moved to Egypt and well before we even had a referral, I sent Mike out to the store one night to buy diapers so we could 'practice' playing parents. We wanted to be prepared. He came back with Moltex diapers, and I was VERY disappointed when I pulled them out of the bag. They did not feel like the plastic-coated diapers I remember from my childhood. They felt like soft paper. They were thin. They would certainly leak. I was sure Mike had made a total new parent blooper and picked out the absolute worst diapers in the universe. Why hadn't he just got Pampers? Surely they would be the proper plastic kind that I was sure was best.

But I later discovered that diapers had changed a lot in the nearly three decades since I was born. The best diapers now are not plastic, but a thin cloth-like material that leaves baby skin feeling dry inside and that very rarely leaks. These diapers are the best, something I didn't realise at the time. And after we adopted Maya, at least until she was eight months old, we put her in the cloth-like Pampers.

When we moved to Egypt, I was dismayed to find that only the plastic-coated Pampers were available -- the exact same sweaty, leaky, plastic Pampers in the exact same Arabic packaging that we found on store shelves in Addis Ababa when we adopted Maya. Since we arrived in Egypt, I have forced Mike to drive me all across Cairo in search of my precious clothlike Pampers. Here's how it goes: I hear of a new modern grocery store off in the far reaches of the city and I force Mike to drive me there on a weekend, whining and pleading when he protests that he would rather spend the day at the park or having a leisurely breakfast of waffles at home. Once we get to the store, however, it becomes clear that the Pampers they have are the same plastic ones available everywhere else.

Eventually, we did manage to find clothlike Huggies. But they are not the thin, microfiber Huggies that are available in the US. They are thick and bulky and uncomfortable. But until yesterday, they were the best we could do.

Then, at Maya's toddler art class, when all the babies got undressed to slide in the bubbles, I saw them -- clothlike Pampers on another baby. At first, I thought her mother must work for an embassy and have some special privileges. I discounted those Pampers. But then I surreptitiously glanced around the room. Two other babies also had clothlike Pampers. Amazing! Did their parents all work for embassies? Had they carried the Pampers into Egypt in their suitcases? Did visiting grandparents bring them in? I asked one of the mothers.

As it turns out, they told me, clothlike Pampers ARE available in Egypt. They are intermixed with the plastic ones in stores. The key is this: Clothlike Pampers are made in Saudi Arabia and imported to Egypt. Plastic Pampers are made in Egyptian factories. The key is to look for the Saudi seal. We bought four boxes that evening.

About our life in Cairo with Maya

We moved to Cairo in June, 2006 when our daughter Maya was eight months old. She was just perfecting crawling when we arrived in Cairo on a sweltering summer day last year. She learned to pull up to a standing position in a flavorless room in a downtown Cairo hotel, where we stayed for a month while we searched for an apartment. Two months after that she took her first unassisted steps in our new apartment on the posh Nile island of Zamalek.

Maya has since blossomed into a running, jumping, climbing, laughing, singing and generally happy and energetic toddler. She takes toddler singing and art classes, loves to "read" books, and her favorite meals are peach yoghurt and lemony stuffed grape leaves. Her best friend so far is a pink and white cloth bunny that her aunt Michelle gave her and which she has nicknamed Lalla.

Maya is also learning to talk -- in English, Amharic and Arabic. The English she gets from me and Mike, and the Amharic she gets from her nanny Tiberh, who is also her best "real" friend in the world. The Arabic, well, we haven't been trying to teach her Arabic but she seems to be picking some words up anyway. So far, she can say 'No', 'Let's go' and 'water' in Arabic. But her English and Amharic are so far much stronger.

Welcome to my blog as I discover the joys and perils of living in the crowded, noisy, colorful and bustling capital of the most populous Arab country with my daughter Maya.

Welcome to Cindy's blog

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging, where I will chronicle my eclectic life in Cairo with Mike and Maya for the benefit of family, friends and the world at large.