This week we have been mainly....spots and songs

Leila had a high temp when we got home on Sunday, then on Monday morning I noticed a few red pin-prick spots on her thighs which turned into a rash in the afternoon.  We decided to leave it overnight, but the following morning she had a rash on the inside of her thighs, her feet, her armpits and on parts of her arms and legs.  Needless to say we were worried!  The only upside to this was that Leila's temp had gone down and she really didn't seem bothered by the rash.
We got an appointment on Tuesday afternoon and the doc was able to diagnose hives (!) that were showing an allergy to something (or nothing!).  It's funny as looking at the way her rash developed it did remind me of when I used to get a rash on my hands and need to take anti-histamine too.
Thankfully the rash has gone now, and fingers crossed she won't be troubled by it again soon.

Leila's obsession this week has been with her nursery rhyme books.  She is constantly picking them up and wanting us to do the rhymes (and actions that they have in them) for her.  She has her favourites (Snail, snail, put out your horns - I'll give you bread and barley corns!!) although these don't match with our favourites (she is really not impressed by This Little Piggy or Round and Round the Garden). When she likes the one you are doing she will point at the page again and again until you have put on Grandma's Glasses a million times!  Her favourite to do with dad is Row Row Row Your Boat where she really tugs against your arms whilst trying to sit bolt upright!

A few more updates

In the post below this one you'll see links to a few 'old' videos that we've finally got round to editing and uploading.  Well, here's a couple more...

• Dance Around (early version, to see if Leila would like it)
• Leila's first Stavolta
• Leila's ID badge

Pro-Morsi march comes down our road

There's been an increasing amount of peaceful marches by Morsi supporters over the past couple of weeks, and tonight a very large one headed down our road in Maadi.  They were on the opposite side of the road to our apartment, but there were a few hundred people in the crowd.  Our next-door neighbour went on to their balcony and began waving anti-Morsi stuff, which brought a few of the pro-Morsi crowd over...but they quickly moved away and rejoined the march.

Evening music and living room wanderings

Blog video updates

Today is a 'work from home day' due to concerns that the trial of Mohamed Morsi woudl bring Cairo traffic to a standstill (and thus make it impossible to travel to/from school).  Reports are due to be written by Sunday, and I'm still ploughing through the marking of 60+ essays.  I should really be doing some now, but my computer (where I've got the markscheme) has warned me that I'm running out of space on the hard drive.

Having had a quick look at where I could make some space, I've realised that squirrelled away in the depths of a billion sub-folders are a collection of videos - some dating as far back as January.  They're all vids we filmed on a camera and transferred to the computer to be edited and uploaded to YouTube, but we never got round to it.

So now I'm starting to get round to it.  Yes some of them are quite 'old' and, yes, they're possibly of no interest to you now that Leila has developed beyond the stage they show.  But I think it's right that since we have them we should edit and share them.  It really will take me a while to get through them all, but to get you going here are links to a couple of posts that feature the newly-finished video clips.

• Mena House
• Luxor
• Baby-led weaning, one month on
• Playtime in Buxton over the summer
• Some of Leila's first steps 
• WereBear peek-a-boo
• Opening and closing (plus bonus LeilaCam footage) 
• Stacking cups 
• Wandering about with the ribbon stick

Fun at home

During GrannyP's visit to Cairo, she caught on video some clips of things we do at home.  Everyone knows that we spend time playing music and reading together, but it's difficult to catch on video as Leila sees a camera and wants to play with it!  GrannyP managed to do some low-profile filming this week, and so managed to get a few minutes before Leila realised she was being recorded!

This week we have mainly been dancing!

I've decided that one of the greatest compliments it's possible to receive is the approval of your daughter.  Over the past few months I've been writing and recording songs for her, all of which are based on her own interests and activities.  The songs are loaded on a little MP3 player that is dedicated to kids music, along with a couple of hundred other kid songs.  It consequently take a while to cycle through the collection but last night I was lucky enough to be with her when the songs I'd done came on.

She went crazy.

In the first clip she's listening to "Dear Zoo", based on the book of the same name.  See what she does, entirely unprompted, when "They sent a lion..."

As for this clip, this is the second song I wrote and so it's become a staple of music time. "Hey Baby" is meant to be an 'action' song to dance to, and she certainly jiggles around a lot. She's particularly good at the 'twist down to the ground' and the second load of clapping!