End of the Road

From an overhead conversation on the bus home six years ago.....

JT had been desparatly trying to read his book on the backseat of the Grand Mall bus when he overhead Scott talking about his Star Wars pop-punk band with Kenton, but he couldn't resist.  A week later and Scott was down on Road 9 buying a guitar (as we'd not brought one out with us) ready for a jam around JTs place with the other members of One For The Road (aka Cairo's Premire Irish Folk Band). It's impossible to try and blog about everything that OFTR and JT mean to us both, but now, six years on and it's all change.

The evening gig was billed as a 'teacher's farewell party' that the band would be playing at, but for us it was a whole lot more than that.

In the afternoon we had invited Leila's friends down for a final play and sing-along and it was really lovely to see so many of them able to join us. With everything being so busy it was hard to find a moment to be emotional, but looking back it's odd to think that most people there in the afternoon we wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for Leila, and without most people there, there is no way we would have got through the last two years in Maadi.  The support network of the Maadi Mum and Baby group has been what has enabled us to do this crazy thing these last two years!

Dad and daughter at the bar

Looby Loo

Leila and Luisa

Leila and Halle

Leila and Karl (doing the electro!)

Maadi Mums and Babies!

The Dads Club (Sam with Ayman, Leila with Scott, Karl with Fouad, Luisa with Kriss)

Leila wondering why Dad isn't just singing for her!

Tea time / Sound Check

Hey Baby, Let's Rock n Roll

This week we have mainly been...having a growth spurt

Leila has been eating constantly these last two weeks; she'll want a snack before breakfast (fruit), but then will still eat her cereal all up, then she'll have another bit of fruit after breakfast and oatcakes or ricecakes around an hour later, then a larger mid-morning snack followed by eating well at lunch, a snack of eggy bread maybe after her nap and maybe a cracker or two before tea which she eats well as well as having more fruit for desert. Phew! That's a lot of food for a little girl.

Scott has been saying 'it must be a growth spurt', but we didn't have any real evidence of it until today when we realised that for the first time she was able to scoot herself along on her trunki as her feet touch the floor!

Our little girl is getting bigger!

Oh, and she's also getting fangs....her incisors seem to be coming through.  That, combined with powercuts during her naps and overnight that shut off the AC, mean sleeping is a bit off at the moment.  I'm sure we won't be complaining about the heat in six months time though!!!

EDIT: further evidence includes the fact that she can go on tip toes and reach the doorbell to the flat!

Cairo bucket list: Bab Zuweyla

This was a favourite old haunt of ours and so we're really pleased we've managed to go one last time.

Leila enjoyed a runaround on the top of Bab Zuweyla, although her daring runs to the edge and precarious leaning over the edge kept us both on our toes.

This was Leila's third visit to the tentmakers market (the first two being to design then collect her name hanging) but unfortunatly Ashraf was not there this time. We bought a few pieces from his nephew, though, and left some photos with him of our prevous visits.

I remember when the shipping company asked us if we were going to buy anything else to ship we confidently said 'no', but as well as the new cushion cover we bought 6m of ramadan material (kids curtains maybe), coffee, a mini fanoox lantern and a tent!

It was a late drive home (as we tried to fit the trip between nap wake-up at 3pm and dinner at 5.30) and we got home just after 6 in the end. A kate dinner was fine though as she'd survived a slow traffic journey home on crackers, rice cakes and a Shaggy mix-tape!

Cairo Bucket List: Pyramids trip

When we decided that this would be our last year in Cairo we wrote a little bucket list of things we wanted to do before we left.  The haven't, and won't achieve 99% of them, because of one thing or other (a final 'Desert Ball' didn't seem worth the money when I couldn't drink because of the pregnancy, and when we really thought about it a 12-hour drive to Siwa wouldn't work with a toddler either), but at least we have the list and will hopefully return at some point to cross a few more off.  One thing on the list though was a pyramids visit.  We've got pictures of us and Leila with the pyramids from our Mena House stay last year, but nothing up close.  We've never been a big fan of visiting Giza because of all the hassle that you always get, but decided that we should give it a go before we left and we're so glad that we did.

We booked a private tour through the CSA as we thought that this way we'd reduce the amount of hassle we'd receive and with four adults it seemed to make sense to have transport in one vehicle rather than two cars.  We wanted an early start on the Friday too, to keep out of the heat and hawkers.  All in all our plan worked. Yes we got a bit of hassle from hawkers, but not all that much, and having the guide also smoothed a few other things over; like Leila (not) having her picture taken with a camel for instance.

When Chin was visiting about three years ago we went to Giza together and managed to get inside the smaller pyramid on our ticket, but this time we really crossed something off the 'list' by going inside the Great Pyramid of Giza!  The authorities used to restrict the number of tourists going in, but now they have just upped the ticket price and have an open policy (tourism needs to bring in some money!).

We decided to buy all four tickets, but just see how we did inside as to whether we'd all continue into the burial chamber itself (one of us being only 19 months old, another having dodgy knees and another being 7 months pregnant!). But we're very pleased to report that we all made it.  The key to our success was going back down the steep slope on our bottoms and using the back-carry position for the sling for the steeper climbs.

We were in fact the first people in of the day and had the great gallery and burial chamber all to ourselves for a few minutes before anyone else made it inside.  The first stand-out moment for me though was when we first entered the pyramid and Leila just toddled off down the passageway herself!  The second was the mini-break we gave ourselves in the chamber itself where we sat down and had a Pennington pyramid picnic on the floor!  Leila had a packet of raisins and we all had a drink of water to revive ourselves while others came and went until the path out was clear enough for us to go.

 
We then stopped off at the 'photo spot' which is a little drive away, but allows you to see all three pyramids together for a great picture.  Leila wasn't completely obliging up here, but we bribed her with a banana and managed a few shots.

Then  we got out her toy (Dear Zoo) Camel for her to play with, the hope being that this would attract her interest in the real camels sat about and we'd get a picture of her with them.  It worked and she was doing lots of pointing to the camels and then 'showing' them her toy camel and being very excited.

Our guide, Ahmed, then managed to negotiate that we'd have a picture of her with a camel (we felt that camel ride might be pushing it a bit), but this is where it all went wrong.  As she approach the camel he let out a very camel-esque grunt!  This was the first time that Leila had heard what a camel sounds like (we pretend they just say 'gamel, gamel, gamel') and she was suddenly very put off the idea of going anywhere near it!  She backed away and just kept saying 'no no no' and wagging her finger at it!  It was a shame we didn't quite get the photo we wanted, and we hope she hasn't been permanently scarred by the idea of a camel ride, but it was quite funny really.  She was soon distracted from the camel and his strange sound by an old rusty chair that she decided to sit on and then decided to play with her camel along in the sand all the way back to the minibus.

Although it wasn't even 10am it was starting to get hot and we realised that we only had time for one last thing before Leila really 'lost it' in the heat.  We decided on a quick visit to the Sphinx and so started the walk down the slope to it; the was Leila's favourite part of the tour I think as she had the whole road clear for her!

We had to wrestle her into photos and then once we were inside the sphinx complex had to fend off people wanting photos with her; I didn't want to let a random person manhandle her into their photo, when she didn't even want to be in ours!  In the end we got a few nice pics once she had a bit of space to walk again and we made a quick exit to head home.

All in all we're really pleased that we did the trip and hopefully Leila and Pickle 2 will be able to go back again some day.

This week we have mainly been....copying

On Wednesday afternoon Leila decided that she would change Fang's nappy.  She got the baby wipes and wiped him and then put some nappy cream on him and then wrestled with getting the nappy on him.  It was amazing to watch and see her copying what we do with such attention to detail (throwing the used wipes in the bin and then getting a new one for instance). Once she managed to get the nappy on him she wanted to repeat the process again and again - I think this took up the best part of the afternoon!
Then on Thursday she did the same thing; first with Fang and then with her toy black-and-white cat Jess (who she is calling 'Mog' at the moment - even though she has a different grey cat called Mog). The other bit of copying that she then did on Thursday was when Scott got home and she was playing with her Basha puppet and decided to take him through to her room, put him into the bed and then put the blanket over him!
It's great that she is copying what we do, and so funny to see her doing it with her random toys - as she doesn't really have a specific 'dolly' type toy to mimic with.

The blanket mentioned in the 'putting to bed' copying is a new thing that has gradually evolved and has bene led by Leila.  Her bedtime routine has been gradually changing, some of it caused by the lighter evenings now that the clocks have changed (can't really start bedtime routine when it's still so light out!), and some of it initiated by us as we try and prepare for having two kids in the house!  She had this cellular blanket in her room for a while now and sometimes Ella has offered it to her at naptime.  She sometimes takes it, sometimes not, but now is starting to reach for it once she has laid down in her cot. The good thing - at the moment - seems to be that she isn't clinging to it for sleep, because when she wakes up the first thing she wants to do is hand it back to us!  And I managed to wash and dry it the other day without her noticing, s hopefully it won't become a conmplete comforter, but just an association.

The other bedtime change has been the addition of story time after she has fed. Leila loves reading and so we haven't quite worked out how to 'end' story time - the second night we did it she insisted on reading Bear Hunt five times to herself, and the time after that she wanted to sing songs too!  It's nice though that she's so happy to read and is happy to have the last thing before bed being a book.  We've a way to go though as she still wants to feed as part of her routine and she can be fussy about who reads what (some stories only she is allowed to read!) and who she has a last cuddle from (she fusses when Scott tries to pick her up rather than  me).

Bowab in training?

Leila loves going to the park ('Pa!') and is really friendly with the bowabs and gardeners there.  She also loves saying 'hi' to our bowab and to Darwish outside our building.  Maybe she is a bowab in training?!

Leila and the gardener at the 'park'

Leila with Darwish outside our building

Leila watering the park - splish splish

Erm..... Well she got home in one piece, so I guess she got away with nearly spraying this large dog at the park!

Leila finds a chair to sit on during a walk along Road 9