Sleep (back in Cairo)

Leila was so wired towards the end of our flight back to Cairo that she did not want to go to sleep.  Poor thing.  It was an hour passed her bedtime by the time we landed and she was insisting on being wide-eyed in the sling!  Even as we collected the luggage there was no sign of sleep in her red-rimmed eyes :-(
She did fall fast asleep in the car seat once we got started on our drive home (with a little cuddle from Chimp).  The drive through the curfew was thankfully uneventful and she stayed asleep as we transferred her into her cot.
After this though, it was Scott and I who struggled to get to sleep until the wee hours.  The first problem was that the AC in our room wasn't working (which Scott blogged about here), and the second was getting used to listening to Leila on the monitor again.  After two months of sleeping in the same room I thought it was her that would struggle being on her own again, not me!
So night #1 back in Cairo was good for Leila (in the end), but not so for us.

Night #2 and it was Leila struggling this time.  We think we can see her second front tooth coming through on top and she was whinging during the day abit about it.  We gave her bongela as she went to bed, but she was up just before midnight for a feed and then was struggling to re-settle herself.  She wasn't crying out, but was just moaning every 10 mins or so. It sounded like she wanted to sleep, but just couldn't.  So at 1am we both got up and gave her some calpol and then another feed.  She did go down in the end and then woke at 4.30am for another feed.  When she woke at 6.15am I wondered if this would be it and she wanted to get up for the day, but she still seemed tired and wanting to sleep so I let her go back down after the feed.  She didn't wake up then until 8.30am. What a lie-in!

Night #3 and we are nearly getting there with feeds / waking. She got up at 7.30am this morning which is a bit more on track with things and allowed her to take an hour-long morning nap as well as her afternoon nap (the day before because she had got up so late her first nap was lunchtime really and so she missed her afternoon nap).

What will night #4 bring?
She is very happy to be put down 'sleepy, but not asleep', but has been gringy all afternoon with tooth ache and a bit of bottle-strike.  Fingers (and toes) crossed.

Balls

I'm writing this post for no other reason than to post this photo.

Yep, that was one our suitcases containing a collapsible play pen, a slow cooker, some other small bits and bobs...and roughly 250 plastic balls to make a ball pit.  There were another 50 in a second suitcase!

Part of me really wanted us to be stopped by security.

“What is in the bag, sir?”

“Balls, officer.”

But that didn’t happen – Nabil met us, whisked us through passport control, and got us onto a school bus through the curfew quicker than you can say, “military intervention”.

As for the balls, we've now got them in the playpen.  And although they took up a huge amount of space and led to us needing to repack two cases, I think it was worth it.  Yesterday we spent some time with Leila getting her used to going in the ‘ballpit’, and now she independently wanders down to it and crawls inside to play.

DIY - again!

It's become tradition for us to dedicate the first few days back in Cairo to DIY.  Sometimes this is out of choice, sometimes necessity.  This year it was both.

We got back to the apartment at the not-too-terrible time of 10.15pm and, after sorting Leila's room while  she thankfully stayed asleep in the car seat, we put her to bed.  Feeling that strange buzz you get after a flight, we then spent an hour or so unpacking our suitcases and generally 'sorting' things.  Sometime just before midnight we decided enough was enough and started to get ready for bed, but Alice was struggling to flick the mains electricity switch for the air conditioner in our bedroom.

"Just give it some force and flick it," I said, rather unhelpfully.  But it wouldn't budge.

So then I had a go.  It wouldn't budge.  I tried more force.  It still wouldn't budge.

As is becoming tradition with this apartment, I took the faceplate off the switch to see what the problem was.  There was nothing obvious at first glance, and I didn't want to go prodding around inside while it was still live.  In a previous post we boasted about how we had labelled the different areas of the apartment on the main fuse box when we first moved in, and that this made it much easier for us when looking at the mains electrics.  That's all well and good, but it turns out we hadn't located the switch for the air conditioner in our room.  There were, however, a number of switches that didn't seem to do anything and, after going through them again in the early hours of Monday morning, it turned out that one of them was the master bedroom AC.

Having isolated the power, and by now feeling very frustrated and tired, I figured that if the switch in the room wasn't flicking properly then it would need replacing anyway.  I therefore set about whacking it with a hammer.  It finally moved to the 'on' position.  However, putting the power on and turning the air conditioner on with the remote control only resulted in a small flame burning inside the switch.  I turned it off again.

We therefore decamped to the spare room where we spent three hours failing to get to sleep.  Eventually we went back into our room without the air conditioner and managed to get a couple of hours' sleep before Leila got up.

The next morning, after breakfast and some playtime, I disassembled the air con switch and headed up to Road 233.  The guy in the electrics store had exactly the right replacement and so a couple of minutes later I was back home.  Leila was napping by this point and so Alice gave me a hand as we fitted the new switch.  Bingo.  We now have air con back in our room and, as I'm writing this the next day, I can assure you it resulted in a very good night's sleep.

The other DIY we've had on our mind related to baby-proofing the apartment.  Before leaving in July we had bought and set up a play fence to cordon off a large area part of the living room that we would keep 'Leila friendly'.  However, over the summer she's become very good and keen at walking and generally moving about, so we want to open up a bit more of the apartment to her.  Unfortunately, though, she insists on walking into the kitchen which is the once room we'd prefer to keep her out of since it's quite small and frankly not the safest room in the house.

We'd looked into buying safety gates in the various shops around Cairo, and they're very difficult to come by.  When somebody does sell them they cost a fortune.  We considered bringing some out with us from the UK, but they're heavy and bulky and we were already bringing 4 suitcases and the buggy.  I've also had a cursory look at building them.  There's a few carpenters around who would be able to do it, but based on the price of custom wood things we've bought already I estimate somewhere around 400LE per gate.  That's pretty cheap for something custom built, but considering we bought the plastic fence panels for just over 500LE for four, the fence panels are much more economical and just as safe (if not safer).

The question was therefore how to fix them to the places we need gates.  The fence panels are designed to fit together in a square and so you need a bit of a bodge-it mentality to do anything other than that.  In the living room we've used an intricate arrangement of industrial strength cable-ties to secure the fence panels to a heavy table at one end and a large chair at the other.  But to go across doorways we needed something else.

Yesterday we found that the end for the 'peg' on the fence will fit into a large steel hook/eyelet screwed into the wall, and Alice had the brilliant idea of using the same type of screw-in hook at the other end (where there is a hole in the fence to receive the peg) and feeding a broom handle through the holes to secure the other end.

So this morning daddy and daughter had an adventure to the 'other end' of Road 233, where the shops get more local and where there's a hardware store.  The shopkeeper didn't have any closed-loop screw-in things but did have screw-in hooks, a large set of pliers, and incredibly strong forearms with which he closed the loop for me.  5LE for 6 didn't strike me as a bad deal at all.  I also bought a tube of silicone bathroom sealant, which I'm going to try putting on the base of some of Leila's plastic bowls to make them non-slip.

When we got home Leila was ready for bed, so while Alice took her for her nap I set about using the new screw hooks to fix a fence panel in front of the kitchen door.  Fortunately the door frame for the guest toilet is close enough to allow me to screw both sets into wood, rather than needing to drill into the concrete walls.  On the left in the photo below you can see the pegs moulded into the gate fitting into the screw-in loop.  On the right there's a white plastic broom handle going through the holes in the fence and then through the other set of screw-in loops to secure it.

The gate was put to the test as soon as Leila woke up, and I'm delighted to report that it works perfectly!  Now to work out where else we need gates, and get them fitted!

Bish Bash Bosh!

Since starting to pull herself up and toddle around Leila has had a few biffs. We rushed out the bruise cream on her first biff, but since then we've relaxed a bit and a "shoosh" and a rub has been all she's got in return!

Today though was the biggest bash yet as she toddled across the bedroom and misjudged the distance to the bed. She made a lunge for the bed as she go close but managed to miss grabbing it and fell infront of it - whacking her head on the woiden frame. It was a proper whack and followed by proper, full face wailing :-(

Cuddles, kisses, cold compress and bruise cream followed, but they couldn't stop her eyebrow looking like she is permanently inquisitive.  Poor thing.

Date Night(s)

What with staying with grandparents all summer, we have been offered a very reasonable baby sitting service! Things haven't always gone that smoothly though, as Leila's sleeping has been a bit off since we got to the UK.  Here though, are our top 5 Date Night experiences.

5. The Perfect Timing. This was third time lucky for Granny babysitting and meant we could have a night at the cinema - our first in over two years!  The perfect timing meant that although the film started at 7pm, its 25 mins of trailers meant we could put Leila down at 7pm and get a lift to the cinema just in time! No wriggling from Leila until after we got home allowing us enough time to laugh again at many of the brilliant jokes in Alpha Papa.

4. The Dutiful Grandpa. This was our first night out of the summer and Grandpa Crunch was in charge as we went to the pub for open mic night. Poor Grandpa was so dutiful that he was still up listening to the monitor when we got back around midnight! Thank you, Kevin! And thank you Leila for behaving!

3. The Lock Out. A double date night at the pub for us with Fabs and Sam in Bristol and Granny babysitting.  All was quiet on the Leila front and so a nice evening was had by all. The one mishap was that granny didn't have a key to get back into the airbnb and gramps was asleep and not answering the door or phone! Locked out, granny then tried us again to get in to crash in the spare room but we were in bed already and by the time we had got to the door she was off trying plan C! Eventually gramps woke up and let her in and we were all able to join Leila in slumber land.

2. The Lullaby.  Poor Granny had it tough this night. We knew Leila wasn't sleeping well so planned to be home by 11 to be ready for an early waking from her. We pushed our evening out right to the limit, as we were having such a brilliant night with Team 65, and ended up splashing out on a black cab home to save time. When we got home though we found that Leila had woken an hour ago and was only just falling asleep (now that granny was running out of lullabies to sing her!). Don't know who was more tired out by the experience! Luckily it didn't put granny off the idea of babysitting, but

1. The Favour.  This evening out very nearly didn't happen. A favour had to be called in about an hour before we were heading out! It was the last night of Scott's fringe show and both Grandpa and I wanted to go, so a favour needed to be called in. There had been many offers so we didn't think it would be too hard to arrange. That afternoon though we find that babysitter candidates #1 and #2 are both busy (one only having arranged to go out just 30 min before we ask her!). Time is getting tight and, as grandpa gives Scott a lift to Underground Venues, it looks like one of us will need to stay home later with leila. A brainwave though means we call Betty and find that not only is she free, but she is willing to scoff her tea down and be round before bathtime! So, we find a babysitter an hour before curtain up, and are both able to enjoy the last night of Scott's fringe debut!

Leila's tenth month

Wow, time is going by so quickly now!  This month has been one of adap ptation, walking and "talking" As we contine our travels around the UK.

Leila has proved that she is very adaptable to travelling (being shipped from pillar to post) - something she has done a lot of this summer. Staying in new beds, napping in different places and at different times, different seats for eating, meeting new people the list goes on. This has definitely had its toll on her sleeping - she struggles to nap for longer than 35 minutes and with only two naps a day. She has also shown that she is really sociable once she is comfortable with new people.

We travel back to Cairo in a few days now, and will be returning with a very different baby to the one we left with! She has grown up so much these last two months and we're so glad we got to spend this exciting and lovely time of her development all together. After spending all this time together it's going to be hard to go back to work and to reestablish routines and 'home' life. 

Play / Development
Leila is taking more and more steps on her own now and enjoys walking back and forth between people. It's really exciting to see her progress and there haven't been too many biffs along the way fortunatly.
She is getting better at clapping and does this when she is happy, or sometimes just when the fancy takes her!  She has also started waving and can wave 'hello' and 'goodbye' when the mood takes her. Leila is also starting to be chatty at times and has a range of sounds, pitches and volumes for every occaision!

Sleep
Leila is napping twice a day now and is getting a good 12 hours most nights.  Because we don't want to be getting up at 6 or 7am on our holiday I have taken to bringing Leila in to bed to feed when she wakes in the morning.  Most days she will then doze off after a bit and give us a lie in (till 7.30 or even 8am sometimes!).  This is a bit of a bad habit maybe, but hopefully we can change it when we get back to Cairo.
Leila struggles to fall asleep totally on her own sometimes and so I am nearly nursing her to sleep again (something we tried to stop in February because it meant she was waking at night and unable to get back to sleep without being fed).  However because we are moving around so much we can't do any sleep training until we get back home so we'll need to stick with this for the time being.  She is waking a few times in the night now.  We think that the nighttime waking is because we are travelling so much and sometimes it feels that she isn't hungry, but just wants the comfort of feeding.

Feeding
The reintroduction of dairy into my diet has been going well as we haven't seen any signs of problems with her poops. I have had pizza for the first time in months and Scott made our favourite pasta sauce with a blue cheese and (soya) cream sauce - yum!!
Leila has reduced the number of milk feeds she has a day now and seems to be reducing the amount she takes too.  She only has two daytime feeds now (mid-morning and mid-afternoon, just before her two naps) although she has increased her nighttime feeds. Leila doesn't take much from her evening bottle anymore and we sometimes don't bother to offer it as it falls so close in time to when she has finished her dinner now.

Walky Talky

Leila is becoming a real Walky Talky girl now and is walking independently and making chatty sounds.

Over the last month she has become more confident walking while holding just one hand and it sometimes feels like she is hardly holding on! We have been trying to get her to take a few steps between us on carpet with some success - although she does look a little zombie-like  walking with her hands out in front of her!
Two weeks ago though she initiated a game of 'back and forth' which saw her turning by herself almost and really enjoying the increasing number of steps between us in the front room at Granny's. It was this weekend though that she started showing free will with walking, as she started to totter around her Nanny's house. It was great to see her decide that she wanted to follow Daddy's voice into the kitchen, or to play chase along the corridor.

She still falls on her bottom at times, but is able to negotiate obstacles (like feet!) and change direction,  and of course can pull herself up on whatever is available (mum's trouser leg, the couch etc). We thought that she'd finish the summer being able to walk, which is an amazing achievement for a 10 month old, but are slightly nervous about the implications of a walking baby!!

Leila has always had her quiet moments, whilst being able to make sounds she seems to prefer this to chatter. Her sounds have been rather intermittent, and with meeting so many new people this summer she is often quiet until she feels comfortable.

However recently she has started more constant chatter and sound. We noticed that she seems to 'talk' to objects,  gadgets especially, and this started when we got her her first mobile phone (this is a toy! We finally gave in to save our own phones from her drool). It's really fun and sometimes feels like you're having a conversation! Her favourite sound is 'da' which she uses indescriminatly at the moment.  Quite often her 'babble' sounds like the Crazy Frog though!