Cairo New Arrival!!

Since Maya has been going to bed so nicely so recently -- and more importantly has finished one row on her sticker chart -- it was time to take her to the toy store to pick out a small toy. I won't mention the middle of the night misery she has put me through for the past 3 nights, as the stickers are only for GOING to bed, not for staying there all night. That will be our next task!

Anyway, we decided to go to our favorite Cairo breakfast joint, Lucille's, in the morning. We didn't quite get going fast enough, so we ended up arriving too late for breakfast and had lunch instead. I decided to try the cheeseburger as a Time Magazine online column has recently claimed that Lucille's has the best hamburger in the world, and I needed to judge for myself. Anyway, the burger was good but I think not quite the BEST worldwide -- although maybe if I was feeling seriously homesick for American culture in Cairo I might rate it that way.

After lunch, we headed off to Alfa market on the Maadi corniche to go grocery shopping as we were totally out of food at home. Plus, they have a tiny little toy section upstairs so I thought we would take Maya to pick out a little toy in exchange for her improved nighttime habits.

I was looking at the plastic dinosaurs as a possibility for Maya, and when she saw them she made a big ROAR -- well OK she roared only after we explained that the dinosaurs were dinosaurs and not, as she thought, alligators (her fave animal after donkeys).

I was also considering a new ball (since Maya's has kind of lost its bounce), or perhaps a stuffed animal. They had a HUGE Barney collection and I suggested getting Maya a Barney but Mike promptly vetoed that idea!! I do admit that I let Maya watch Barney on TV the other day after I was totally exhausted from her recent extended middle of the night wakings, thereby breaking our 'Absolutely no TV before age 2' rule that until then had been strictly enforced. OK, maybe that makes me a bad mommy, but it was just 15 minutes!!! And she LOVED it. She was actually singing along and then today asked me for Barney and cried when I said no. Who knew she had such a good memory.

Anyway, so as we were perusing the aisles for an appropriate small toy for Maya for being good about going to bed at night, which has allowed us to reclaim our evenings although not our night sleep, I spotted something I'd never seen in Cairo before. LEGOS!!!!!!!!

Yes, we found legos at Alfa market. Lots of them! They even had Lego duplos (ie baby legos). I am quite sure these were not in Cairo previously -- we had scoured the toy store circuit looking for them a few months ago before Mike's parents dragged a big box of them to Cairo for us. They were not available then.

Then we heard rumors that a Lego store was opening at City Stars mall out in Heliopolis. But when we went out there to look, we never saw one. We did find a Starbucks though, newly arrived in Cairo. Anyway, it was so nice to find Legos at Alfa. We got Maya a Lego Duplo 'Zoo' kit with a green plastic alligator in it. She played with the alligator all evening and was particularly happy that its mouth can open and shut! At dinner, she pretended that the alligator was 'eating' her food.