Being resourceful

As I have said before, Maya has been insisting on wearing her "baby jammies" to bed every night, and sometimes during the day, often on top of a "tank". The problem is, we only have two pairs of baby jammies, and one of them is size 6-12 months with feet. As you might imagine, that basically puts Maya in a straitjacket and unable to walk. But she will not give them up. So I devised a solution. I cut off the feet! Now she can wear her baby jammies as much as she wants, indoors or out, and I don't have to worry about her total inability to walk or move (or worse yet, how putting my kiddo in 6-12 month straitjacket footie pajamas might make me look to other parents when we wear them to the park!)

Maya has a dream...

Maya has a dream. Every day before bedtime, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, when she gets out of bed in the morning, when we head off to the park, she always makes the same request.

"Mommy. Up-and-down class. I want up-and-down class! I get older. I can do it. Up-and-down class."

Any guesses as to what she wants? Well, if you can't figure it out, I'll tell you. She wants to take gymnastics class! She has been asking for "up-and-down class" multiple times a day for at least four months. And it is not just any up-and-down class, it is a specific one (though I doubt she's be choosy). She wants "up-and-down class, one with the ball, with the music". Translated, that means she wants the rhythmic gymnastics class, you know, the one where they dance with the ball.

You might be curious about how she knows about gymnastics. Well, at the Gezira club in Zamalek, the gym where gymnastics classes are is right next door to the toddler playground. So she gets to watch them when we go to the park. And she loves it. Unfortunately, kids cannot enroll in classes at the club until their third birthday (and even then I think the club prefers them to be a little older). So Maya has at least nine long more months before she will be able to take up-and-down class.

She is already practicing the moves though. She can do a somersault while holding a ball over her head. And she can do the splits, and she pretends to make dance moves like the girls in the class. She also saw a picture of a girl doing ballet in a book we have about kids around the world, and she has already decided she also wants to do ballet, and requested "shoes like ballet".

We have told her that she can take up-and-down class (or ballet) once two things happen. She has to turn three years old, and she has to be potty trained. Once those two things happen, we will put her in up-and-down class. She does however, have a backup in case up-and-down class doesn't work out. She also wants to take "basketball class".

Breaking the rules

Mike is travelling again, and I'm majorly stressed out. So I decided to let Maya break all the rules. Here she is sitting on the couch, sharing a Tupperware container of leftover Ethiopian spaghetti and watching her Barney video.

She thought it was really cool to have dinner with mommy on the sofa. She didn't even spill (thank God). Actually, she was very careful, and she had a super evening.

Book detention

Several of Maya's books are in book detention. Can you believe it! There are two categories of book detention: Scary books and annoying books (well some of the annoying books are books that are really cool but that have just been read too much recently).

The list of banished scary books are:
1) Llama Llama Red Pajama -- Now some of you might ask how such a wonderful and cute book could be scary. But you see, in the book, Mama Llama goes downstairs, and it takes her a dang long time to come up when little Llama calls. Maya used to love this book (and so did we), but now that she actually understands it, she is terrified of it. And Maya also relates a little too much to baby Llama. For example, when I try to leave her room at night, even when Mike is staying with her, she looks up at me in a pitiful way and solemnly says: "Llama Llama scared." So the book is in detention for a while.

2) Llama, Llama Mad at Mama -- Why? Because while this book is not scary, it reminds Maya of Llama Llama Red Pajama!

3) Corduroy -- Well, in this book, Corduroy goes upstairs alone and gets scared by the night watchman. Maya doesn't think Corduroy should go wandering around the department store, and she gets very upset when he does. And it scares her that poor little Corduroy is all alone at night.

4) Where the Wild Things Are -- Wow, we didn't even get past the first sentence in this book before Maya started totally freaking out. This book is way too scary for imaginative toddlers in my opinion! I think it will be in book detention for a long, long, long time.

OK, those books are in book detention for being scary. Other books are in temporary book detention for being annoying. They are:

1) If You Give A Mouse A Cookie -- Why? Well, because I have had to read this book to Maya every night for the past three months. I love the book, and it is currently Maya's FAVORITE!!! And it is not scary in the slightest! But let's be honest, there's only so much mouse a mommy can take. Oh yeah, and did I mention that our Mouse Cookie book came with a CD?? Yep, that's right! In addition to reading it, we also listen to it on the CD player, and sing along with it, and play little mouse cookie games, and dance to it. I could go on....

2) The Chocolate Covered Cookie Tantrum -- Why? I swear this book actually gave Maya the idea that if she wanted something and cried long enough, she would get it. The day after I first read her this book, she started having massive temper tantrums, and we are still to this day dealing with the repercussions. Can I just ask, why does the temper tantrummy toddler get her cookie just a couple short page flips after her temper tantrum. Oh yeah, it's supposedly after dinner by the end of the book. But what toddler is going to notice a slight technicality like that!

Arabic, again

Did I mention that Maya is getting seriously scary good at Arabic? She is like a language sponge right now. Today we ordered pizza for dinner. When the pizza delivery man came with the pizza, Miss Maya shouted "Izzayak" (How are You?) at him.

Then he asked her: "Ismik Eh?"

She said: "Maya".

For those of you who haven't figured it out already, "Ismik Eh" means "What is your name?"

She answered his question without anyone translating for her. How does she know what it means? I don't get it.

OK, in all fairness, Maya's Amharic and English are both way stronger than her Arabic. She has words and phrases in Arabic, but I don't think she has anywhere near the level of comprehension. But still. We never made any effort to teach her a single word of Arabic. I know she hears it at the park every day, and she hears me speak it on the phone. But no one that I know of actually speaks Arabic directly to her. I am really surprised by how much she is picking up.

Oh yeah, did I mention that when she wants a kiss, she asks for a "Bousa" (the Arabic word). She knows both the Amharic word (Samie) and the English word, but she is a little rebel and she prefers to ask in Arabic.

Pajamarama

Maya is in a major retrobaby stage. This week she wants to do everything that babies do. So far, that has meant lots of being cradled in mommy's arms, an obsession with footie pajamas (or one-piece pajamas), and a request to break back out the crib so she can sleep in it.

The pajama thing has been strange because for months on end Maya has been obsessed with wearing a tank top to bed, as she puts it "like mommy". That has been regardless of how cold her room gets at night. And she had also refused to wear one-piece, or even long-sleeved, pajamas at all for months.

But now all she wants is what she calls "baby pajamas", preferably worn over a "tank", as she still wants to be a little like mommy, even when she is being a retrobaby. The problem is we don't actually have many one-piece baby pajamas that fit, since she had refused to wear them in months. So every night she is either fitting into a 6-12 month size footie sleeper -- which has to seriously stretch to fit on her 27-month-old body -- or an 18-month one-piece sleeper with no feet that fits pretty well. Of course, she prefers the 6-12 month sleeper, go figure...

Anyway, on Sunday when I came home from work Maya fell into a huge temper tantrum. After about 20 minutes of irrational screams, Tibby and I were able to slowly piece together why she was upset. It turns out that she had wanted to wear her 18-month sleeper to the park, but Tibby had quite sensibly refused. Maya had then chosen to forego the park in favor of remaining in her sleeper after her nap. And she was upset about it. So we told her she could go to the park today in her pajamas, so long as she would sleep in something else overnight so I could wash them.

So today while I was at work, Maya went to the park in her pajamas. (She was wearing them over a pair of jeans and a shirt) According to Tiberh, the first thing she did was walk up to all her friends at the park and show them her jammies. The jammies stayed on until bedtime today, when I threw them in the washing machine. And yes, she is currently sleeping in the 6-12 month sleeper.

Painting again

The other day at the bookstore, we spied a Dora painting kit and bought it for Maya. She had a blast! OK, we used all the paint in the kit in one go, but oh well. At least we had a good time!

We had tried to check out another painting place I had heard about in Zamalek, about a 20-minute walk from our house. It was a cafe called Arabica. So while Maya was napping on Saturday, I called them to double check that they actually had painting for children. On the phone, they said: "Yes".

So when Maya woke up from her nap, I promised her painting. And she got SOOOO excited about it. So we broke out the stroller and walked on over to the cafe. But what did we find? Not painting! Basically they just covered each table with a large sheet of paper and a cup with about 5 broken crayons in it and based on that they had told me they had painting for children. Maya was not fooled! And she was not happy to be presented with a couple broken crayons!

Plus we were the only family there. The cafe was actually popular with young professionals using the cafe's Wifi to get some work done. So we felt we coulnd't let Maya run around or be too loud! It looked like at some point in their past, they might have had painting, based on the children's painting they had hanging on the walls. But not any more! Oh well.

Anyway, to avert a massive tantrum, we took a walk to the bookstore and got this Dora paint kit. And Maya painted at home before bed instead!

Cookie Dough!!!

I decided to make the recipe my mom sent me for freezer cookies so that we can have some quick activities to do with Maya after work or when we're bored at home. So the other day after work, I got out the mixer and we set up shop at the table.

First we had to call to get some ingredients. We were almost out of butter, and we wanted some M&Ms so that we could put them in our cookies (given the unfortunate absence of chocolate chips from the store shelves). So I got everything out and ready and we started mixing in the ingredients. We were doing fine until we got to the part about adding brown sugar. We don't have traditional American brown sugar here, but we do have brown castor sugar, so I had decided to use that instead. But when I opened the box, what was inside was individual packets of sugar -- you know, like what you get when you order a cup of tea at a coffee shop. So I started ripping open all the individual packets and putting them in the measuring cup while Maya was going insane waiting to add it to themixing bowl. Finally, I just gave in and used white sugar... Oh well.

So then we got to the mixing part, which Maya loved. She dipped her fingers in and got a taste of the cookie dough. I wasn't too pleased due to the raw egg in the batter. But honestly I didn't have much control over it. Oh yeah, and she got to lick the mixer thingy.

Anyway, we split the batter in two, so we made some batches (for freezing) that would be sugar cookies, then we added M&Ms to the other batches. After I added the M&Ms to the second batch, Maya calmly got down from the table, walked over to the cabinet, got out a plate, walked back to her chair, put the plate on the table, climbed up on the chair, looked up at me and said: "I put it."

Then she reached into the mixing bowl and grabbed two fistfuls of cookie dough to put on her plate. And it was so fast I had no time to react. I did manage to get most of the cookie dough back into the bowl, but she also managed to get a fair amount. Yuck!! I mean, cookie dough is tasty, but that is just way too much.

We are all Ethiopian!?!?!

Tonight when we were putting Maya to bed, we read a book about a little girl from Ethiopia. So I asked Maya where she was from. Conversation as follows:

Me: Where are you from, Maya?
Maya: 'Opia
Me: Right! What about Tibby? Is she from Ethiopia too?
Maya: Yes!
Me: What about mommy. Is mommy from Ethiopia?
Maya: Yes!
Me: What about daddy. Is he from Ethiopia?
Maya: Yes!
Me: What about S. (her friend)
Maya: 'Opia!!

So I guess we have a little learning still to do...

We might be starting potty training...(or not)

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. But we might be starting potty training. Or not. Who knows? Certainly not me. It's all up to the Mayster!

Today I asked Maya, right before a diaper change, if she wanted me to put on a fresh diaper or if she preferred panties and would therefore go in the potty. And guess what. She said panties. So we lugged her potty downstairs and put on a pair of (supposedly) leakproof training panties. I fully expected that within 10 minutes or so we would be fully retreating to diapers. But Maya managed to go the entire evening without a single accident. Of course, we were sitting her on the potty every 10 minutes to "try". But still, last time we tried this a few months ago she had several accidents within a half hour period. So we were quite proud of her tonight -- except when she stood up from the potty and proceeded to purposely pee on the floor. But hey. It wasn't technically an "accident" since she did it on purpose...

Tomorrow we are going to ask her if she wants to try again to use panties instead of her diaper. We'll have to see what she says. But I'm not counting my chickens just yet!

Maya pix!

I just thought I'd post some new pictures. Tiberh did Maya's hair today, and totally outdid Mama!! It urned out very cute. Here's some pictures of her new style, plus a picture ofmaya this morning with a terrific smile!

Lovin' the glottal stop

Miss Maya has surprised us in the past week by picking up a handful of Arabic words, phrases and sounds, much to our amusement and despite the fact that she has no caregivers who speak to her in Arabic!

Her exposure to Arabic is limited to hearing other parents and nannies talking to their kids at the park or at her music and art classes, even though the classes themselves are in English. She also hears me talking on the phone in Arabic constantly due to my job. I probably get phone calls roughly twice an evening in Arabic and a couple times a day on weekends. As a result, Maya thinks that Arabic is the language of the telephone. And in fact I rarely speak on the phone in any other language, unless relatives call.

So the other day Maya picked up her toy phone and had a conversation on it entirely in Arabic. It was a cross between ordering groceries on the telephone and barking instructions.

It was like this: "Allo, Allo! Fih eh? La'a. La'a. Ummmm. Malesh. Kull Kwayyis!"

That translates to: "Hello Hello. What do you have? No. No. Ummmm. Never mind. It's all good."

I knew she had some Arabic words. But this was practically a full conversation. It was really totally unexpected. Anyway, her most recent Arabic word is La'a, which means "no" and has a glottal stop in it (the apostrophe marks the glottal stop). In Egypt, people emphasize the glottal stop to make the word "no" sound more vehement. And Maya is loving it. In fact she has adopted it in English as well. So now instead of saying just "No" in English, Maya says: "No'o" with a great big glottal stop in the middle. It is hilarious!

Anyway, for those of you who have no idea what a glottal stop sounds like in Arabic, I will try to catch it on video so you can hear. But I can't do it now because she's going to sleep. So it'll have to wait!

Baking Brownies

After our ragingly successful trip to the Ceramic Cafe, we decided to test fate after Maya's nap and do another activity today. We baked brownies (from a box)!

So I have been planning to bake and freeze cookie dough so that Maya and Tiberh can have some cool at-home activities for days when it's too hot to go to the park (or too cold and wet, though we don't have many days like that here). My mom sent me some great freezer recipes where you can make rolls of cookie dough, and then basically slice, decorate and bake when you want to make cookies. And Josh and Avni brought sprinkles when they visited! That seems to be all a 2-year-old can manage. I can't imagine Maya actually sitting through the process of making cookie dough, then rolling, shaping, decorating and baking. So this seemed like a good alternative.

Anyway, so last night we ordered all the ingredients for this freezer cookie dough from the grocery store (home delivery rocks!). And we asked if by chance they had pre-made brownie mix, which they did! So we ordered that too. Of course, I was too lazy to actually make the cookie dough last night, but we did bake the brownies today.

It was great. I laid all the ingredients and utensils out during Maya's nap, and then we made the cookies as soon as she woke up. Took about 5 minutes! Then we put them in the oven. Maya thought it was great. The only kick was that we discovered that she actually doesn't like the taste of brownies!?!?!?!?!?! She took one bite, then spit it out. Oh well. Too bad we don't have a picture of that!

Painting Pottery

We had a pretty cool morning with Maya today. We took her to a cafe we had recently heard about where kids can paint pottery while their parents have a cup of coffee. It's called Ceramic Cafe and it's in the Cairo suburb of Mohandiseen, just across the river from were we live.

We had actually heard about this place a while back and attempted to go there when my parents were visiting. But after frantically searching for the place, we never did find it that day. So I backtracked, got better directions, and today we found it and had a blast!

Maya painted a piece of pottery in the shape of a pizza! She sort of mixed all her colors together, and then ultimately dumped her whole palette of paint on it, so it ended up as a swirly grey with an unpainted white crust. (Note to self: Next time choose colors for Maya that will blend well together, like red and yellow or blue and yellow). I painted a snowman bowl -- ironic in Cairo, don't you think? It was pretty cold today though! My snowman ended up pretty cute, but it does have some speckles of grey on it due to Maya deciding to try to paint my pottery too. And Mike painted a flower vase. He did a pretty serious paint job on his, so maybe it will turn out nice. Maya, of course, also painted her face and the table.

Anyway, we will pick up our glazed pottery next week. I can't wait to do this again. It was pretty fun and I think will get more fun the older Maya gets. It will also be a good summer activity for Cairo when it is too hot to go to the park. I do wish there was a decent indoor play place for kids in this city. It gets really annoying when it's 100 degrees outside for days on end and no good things to do indoors.

Well, I forgot to take pictures, so I'm posting an old one I found of Maya dressing up in an apron and firegirl hat. Tonight we are going to cook brownies from a box!

Campaigning for President

Anyone care to take a guess who Maya wants for president??

Maya does hair!

Here are some cool pictures last week of Maya doing her aunt Avni's hair after Maya had her own hair done. She had blast!

More on Corduroy

Tonight, Maya again refused to read Corduroy -- even though she talks about him constantly -- but we figured out why.

Apparently, she doesn't think it is good that Corduroy goes upstairs all alone looking for his button. She thinks that Corduroy is scared, especially when he hides when the night watchman comes. She told us she wanted to tell Corduroy not to go upstairs because she knows he'll be scared. But that he goes upstairs anyway. And that makes her upset because she likes Corduroy and doesn't want him to be scared.

So then we decided together that Corduroy was a story "for daytime", not for bedtime. Hopefully she will agree to read it again. Who would have known this story would be scary to her?

I should mention that we have already had to shelve the Llama, Llama books at night as well because Maya relates a little bit too much to Baby Llama's nighttime fears of being alone without Mama Llama. Little Llama has been banished from the bedroom for this reason. So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about her being afraid for Corduroy.

Maya loves Corduroy!

OK, first I apologise for going awol for the past week. I went back to work after being off for about two weeks and it's been crazy busy.

Maya is all of a sudden starting to get into storybooks. As in actual stories with real plots. Previously, she was only interested in picture books. She liked books with pictures and catchy text that were about things -- say tugboats or puppies for example -- but wouldn't sit still for an actual book with a storyline.

The other day she pulled Corduroy off the bookshelf and asked me to read it to her. I opened the book up with the full expectation that within two pages she would be wriggling off my lap to find a different and more action-packed picture book. But she didn't! She sat through the whole story and was completely captivated. The next day, she talked about Cordoroy and asked to read Corduroy again that evening. So we read it again! And she was captivated again.

She talked about how Corduroy went upstairs (up the escalator in the story) and downstairs again. And she talked about how he lost his "belly". (She means his button but thinks it should be called a belly, as in a belly button...) But it is clear she is actually following the story!

So I tried some other books -- the Rainbow Fish and A Mother for Choco -- and she sat and listened to those as well. OK, well she didn't like them as much as she liked Corduroy. But still, I am so happy that we can move on from picture books to books with simple stories!

Anyway, we tried again with Corduroy last night and she wasn't interested and claimed to be "scared" of Corduroy. Umm hmmm... But I think she was just trying to delay bedtime, so it doesn't count.