Maya in DC

Isn't this picture of Maya (totally exhausted by the way) lying in the grass the best EVER photo of Maya? It is at the mall in D.C. after visiting the natural history museum and the air and space museum, and riding on the carousel, and eating an ice cream cone! I have made it the background on my laptop...

In Albany, at a farm

We fed chickens some feed. And Maya fed a baby goat a bottle. And, oh yeah, Mike got to take the donkey for a walk!

At the Central Park Zoo

Maya loved the Central Park Zoo, especially the children's zoo. She even fed a goat by hand. Unfortunately I don't seem to have any pictures with actual animals in them...

Why dinosaurs dead, Mommy??

We took Maya to the natural history museum in Washington D.C. on the last day of our trip to the U.S. so she could see the dinosaurs. We also took her to the air and space museum to see the airplanes. But it was the dinosaurs that caught her interest. Now she wants to understand why the dinosaurs died, and she is not satisfied with my explanation... no matter how many different ways I explain it.

She really liked the idea that she was seeing dinosaur bones. And she totaly understands the concept of bones now. She knows that there are bones inside her, just like there are bones in dinosaurs. It is pretty cool to see her grasp that concept.

We tried to explain to her that the dinosaurs died because of climate change -- and that they didn't have air conditioning or heat like we have so they got very uncomfortable when the climate changed and then died. Then she asked why the climate changed ... and we tried to explain the asteroid theory. And then she is back to "But why they died, mommy?".

So I tried to explain the concept of being extremely uncomfortable. Like how she doesn't like to get in the car if it has been sitting in the sun, but that it is OK once daddy turns on the air conditioner. But imagine if we didn't have air conditioning in the car, or heating in our home (well, Maya has not really experienced extreme cold so we just focused on heat). But no matter how many times we tried, we were back to: "Why dinosaurs died?"

We did get her two dinosaur books at the museum, but sadly neither one explains why dinosaurs died... One does show a T-rex attacking and then devouring a triceratops though. Guess mommy's quick perusal of that book was a bit lacking! We had to do some quick editing and page flipping last night at bedtime when I tried to read that book to Maya as a bedtime story. Ooops!

More from New York

We're back in Cairo and severely jet lagged. I was up from 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. last night with Maya, who refused to sleep and insisted that it was "wake up time". Mike traded off at 2 a.m., and then my phone woke me up at 10:30 a.m. Mike and Maya are still asleep. I'm not sure what time they finally crashed though.

These pictures are of Maya at the park early in the morning in Brooklyn and at the Manhattan children's museum.

Yet more pictures from day one in NYC

OK, we also took Maya on a carriage ride in central park, and then stopped in FAO Schwartz when it started to rain. She got to play on the big piano and try on a princess costume. Later, we went out for Ethiopian food, but Maya slept through it. After the end of the day, I was so tired I was about to die...

More NYC photos

Later on day one, we took Maya to central park where she had a blast. She rode the carousel with her grandma and then played in a sprinkler playground. And that was just the beginning of a very full and very exhausting day!

Maya's New York Odyssey

Sorry for the posting dry spell. We are on vacation in New York. We spent a couple days in New York City at Maya's Auntie Michelle's place before heading up to Albany to visit her grandparents. On Friday we're going to Washington to see her Uncle Josh and Aunt Avni and go to their baby shower. Here are some photos of the first part of our trip.

Maya was fantastic on the plane. I barely had to dig into my bag of treats for her at all, and she just stayed very well behaved for the whole trip. It helped that she was fascinated by the plane, and the plane bathrooms were a big hit as well. The flight attendants were a bit annoying though, as they kept asking us to close the plane windows so passengers could sleep, or alternatively see the movie screens in the dimmed light of the plane. It was way annoying, considering that we were on a 10 a.m. flight and the flight staff wanted passengers to sleep as if it were a red eye flight. And no way can I get Maya to try to sleep through a whole day. And she wanted to look out the window at the clouds and ocean. I finally told the flight attendants that I thought a screaming child would probably keep passengers awake more than a single open window, and then they left us alone...

The first picture is of Maya listening to music on her earphones. Then we have pictures of her playing at a park in Brooklyn a few blocks from Michelle's house. Every morning in NYC she woke up at 5 a.m. and we were at the park by 7 a.m. to let our jet lagged kiddo run off some steam.

Quiet...

All of a sudden this morning, the house was exceptionally quiet. Too quiet. No Maya noises, and no sign of Maya either. So I went looking to see what she was up to. This is what I found. Maya, in the corner of my bedroom, taking care of her babies. (And in case you wondered, she is giving one of them a "shot" with the mobile phone charger)

Red Ants

I have not written about this before. But one of the downsides of moving from Zamalek to our new digs is that our new neighbourhood and building and apartment seem to have a problem with red ants. I mean, the ants live here, and they lived here before us. And we can't seem to evict them because we can't find out exactly where their little house is or where they come from.

We have two types of red ants. We have little itty bitty red ants, and we have bige huge ginormous red ants. If we eat something on the sofa, for example, and a little crumb drops to the floor, within about 3 seconds there will be a horde of red ants in for the kill. They will break apart and try to drag away the crumb -- until we get the Raid, that is.

But unlike previous Cairo ant infestations (and we have dealt with many), we are unable to trace them back to a single point of entry. Also, they seem to have scout ants they send out to look for crumbs even when the house is spotless. We are basically at war.

I even have war wounds -- battle scars. Those ants pack a mean bite, and the bites hurt really bad and can swell up like golfballs -- on me at least, as I seem to have a histamine reaction to them. Or maybe I am the only one who has been bitten. In any case, these are no ordinary ant bites. They hurt.

Today I caught Maya swinging one of her foam Alphabet letters at an ant, then shouting: "I died him! I died him, mommy! I died him, daddy!."

But even miss Maya can be scared of the ants sometimes. Like during diaper changes when she refuses to lie down on the carpet, saying: "The ant is going to eat my butt!"

Serious language

Maya has developed some pretty amusing linguistic habits recently, especially in getting us to do what she wants. Let's pretend she wants to watch a Sesame Street video, but I am busy doing something else. The conversation might go like this:

Maya: Mommy, I want to watch Sesame please.
Me: OK Maya, just a minute.
Maya: (After waiting about 2 seconds) Mommy, I want to watch Sesame now, I SAY!

Every time she wants to really emphasize that she wants something, she says: I SAY at the end. It is really too cute, although the girl can sure be bossy this way...

Many faces of Maya

Finger painting

Ode to ketchup

So. Let's just imagine -- you know hypothetically -- that when you go out to the club for a swim and lunch, that you order your child a grilled cheese sandwich and specifically ask for it to be served with veggies, not chips or fries. You emphasize this to the waiter about 10 times (while your child is playing on a grassy field nearby and out of earshot, of course).

Then the food comes. And imagine hypothetically that instead of chips or fries, there are carrot and cucumber strips. A parent's dream, you might think.

But very quickly that dream is shattered as your child asks for the ketchup and proceeds to dip her cucumber strips in the ketchup and eat them like french fries. Aaahhhhh!

*****

On another food-related note, we went to Wagamama at City Stars mall today, and Mike ordered some fresh carrot juice. Maya was very attracted to the juice, since it is bright orange and all, and asked to try it. She took one sip and gave us a death look. She looked around, stood up in her chair, and spit the juice back in Mike's cup. Way not to make a mess on the table, girlie!