Too cute

Last Thursday we had a birthday party to go to and so I decided to put Leila in a dress.  She never wears dresses as we think leggings are a lot more practical for all the climbing about that she does but she seemed to like wearing it. In fact the next morning I showed her the dress and her Hello Kitty t-shirt to choose from to wear and she plumped for the dress!  Oh dear! Have we been depriving her of being a pretty little girl all this time?

She opted for a dress again on Saturday, but today had to go in shorts as both dresses were dirty (clambering about furniture, the park and eating plums being evident down the front of them both!).

Although her hair is still no where near being long enough to do anything with, Ella has bought her a few little hair clips to put in at the front.  Again she seems to like having these put in, but also enjoys pulling them out!  Anyway it looks like Leila does enjoy being a pretty little girl at times.


Leila has decided that she wants to wear dresses now - making me feel bad that we've subjected her to t-shirts and leggings for too long! I guess it is summer and it is so nice to have your legs out rather than in leggings, but the little dresses she is wearing make her just look far too cute!

She also took it upon herself to start taking a bag with her on walks.  For the record the first thing the bag contained was a pair of wooden blocks (!), but it now contains her hairbrush, mobile phone and sunglasses.

Although they aren't great quality we've been managing to get lots more pics of Leila recently because we've given her our old old digital camera to play with.

Note the new shoes in these pics - Ella saw them in a shop and decided to buy them for Leila.  Ella has a matching pair which is pretty cute too!  Ella also bought Leila some hair clips which Leila enjoys being put in her hair, but soon takes them out.

Romanian Real Estate

This weekend I spent just over 36 hours in Bucharest.  I spent a further 10 hours on planes or in airports!

The trip, however, was well worth it.  I had two key aims: visit the school and meet my new colleagues, and go house hunting.  Both - I am now delighted to say - were accomplished successfully, and I left Bucharest on Saturday night with an enormous smile on my face.

I'll definitely be writing much more about Bucharest and the school in the future, but today we've had a big success in securing somewhere to live next year.  In fact we are going to take the house from the 15th July...just 6 weeks away!

I got up on Saturday morning and had breakfast in the hotel with FC Rapid, a Romanian Liga 2 team who are set for promotion to their top league next year.  So that was interesting.  Shortly after this, my new headteacher very generously came to the hotel to collect the two suitcases of things I had taken over and store them for us until we arrive.  He invited me to his house for a coffee, and I had a lovely hour with his family talking about all kinds of things before needing to head back to the hotel to meet the estate agent.

We visited four properties - all ones that we had seen online and put on our shortlist.  In a way, starting with the one that we already knew was our 'top choice' was always going to make everything else pale into insignificance, but it was great to visit it in person.  It's been on the market for a couple of months, and the price had dropped a bit, but it was still above our budget.  It's gorgeous, owned by Romanians who are in Australia for 4 years, and they have kids so they've child-proofed the place (sharp corners covered, etc.)  It's in a very quiet area, and the back looks over the forest with a direct path from the row of houses into the forest itself.


You can see where it is on the map below, which also marks the route to school.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/44.5171019,26.1220718/British+School,+Strada+Erou+Iancu+Nicolae+42,+Voluntari+077190,+Romania/@44.5149343,26.1209132,1698m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x40b202ae23900d5f:0xa50f734cbf6e3076!2m2!1d26.133684!2d44.514921!3e2




I also took a series of short videos as I went around the house to show to Alice.   The quality is terrible, but it gives you an idea.  http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2UV4t4C4udSQW9hvsLgiN_uSUeiTIKhh

I could put up links to the other ones we looked at, but it's rather pointless.  We spent a long time discussing our options, but eventually decided to put in an offer about 20% below the asking price.  After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing by email from Cairo, the estate agent has confirmed that our offer has been accepted.  We're delighted.  I'm exhausted.  Goodnight!

Leila's Bouncer

We picked up the baby bouncer we used for Leila second-hand from someone in Rehab who was leaving Egypt.  We used it with Leila quite a bit; first as somewhere to put her that wasn't her mat(!) and then for her own entertainment as she was gaining control of her movements and could 'bat' the toys on the arch in front.  When she was able to sit up herself though we had to retire it as she was just pulling at the toys constantly and trying to sit up in it.  We passed it on to Tom and Armani for Baby Halle, and they recently loaned it to the Prebbles for Baby Ethan.  As the Prebbles left Cairo last week they dropped the bouncer round to ours with a few other things they weren't taking to the UK/USA.  It was in the spare room, but Leila soon discovered it and decided she wanted to use it again!  When she sits in it it threatenly droops back under her weight and so after a little fun with the camera I have been trying to convince her that it is for a 'baby' and that she is a 'big girl'.  She has now gone to get her baby toy which she has put in, fastened the straps around and now added the bar to.  The start of role play ready for when Pickle #2 comes along?!

And here is Leila in the bouncer when she was a 'baby' - just one month old!

Leila's camera

To try and distract Leila from our phones and camera we have given her my old small digital camera for her to use.  She just really loves looking through pictures and will do this all day on our phones if she could.  We've been taking the pictures on 'her' camera, although even this can be difficult as she always wants to look at the screen and see what is there.  Most of the pictures are of her toys and sometimes she'll then say the name of the toy and go and find it.  This picture though is of her pulling a cheeky face with her water bottle when she was with Ella for the day.

This week we have been mainly.....buying bananas!

In November I created a little project for myself of taking pictures of Leila around Maadi to illustrate a book I was making for Scott about The Things We See in Egypt.  One of the pictures I took was of the banana man on the roundabout on 216 where we tend to go for our 'mooz baladi'.  

I printed up a copy of the picture too, intending to give it to the man when we next saw him.  For some reason of other though he didn't come back all winter and has only recently returned/reclaimed this pitch a few weeks ago.  Amazingly he remembered us and the next time I visited to buy bananas I made sure that the picture was in my bag.  He was so excited by the picture that he gave us free bananas and asked Leila to pose again.

He asked when we would next visit; 'bukra?' Erm, not likely that I can eat a kilo of bananas in a day!  The next time we returned he insisted on free bananas again and asked about the photo.  I brought a copy for him the next time and we had even more free bananas!

This week we have been maninly....recognising!

Leila is doing really well at recognising where she is.

Today we went swimming at Maadi House. This is only the second time we've been and as we turned into the road she started saying 'splash splash' and kicking her arms and legs.  Yes I'd told her before we set off that we were going swimming, but the timing of her coming out with this was pretty cool.

Leila also recognises the park that she goes to with Ella when we walk near it. She points and shouts 'Paa' at the green grass in the central area down the road.

She's also good at recognising when we are at some of her favourite places; when we go by Cairo Kitchen she lets out an excited 'eeeee!' and as we approach home she often says 'daaaa' as she hopes that it means Scott with be back :-)

This week we have mainly been....chatty

Leila's words are really coming along and we are picking up more and more on what she is saying.

She can tell us which cereal she wants;  Ooots! She has a strange liking for nearly dry oats at breakfast time (just a little bit of prune juice is all she wants on them), despite our cupboards being full of imported Weetabix and Shreddies!

When she wants to go to the park, or just to walk, it sounds the same 'ak'. She'll then say 'baaa' and wave when we are going out to say goodbye!

As it's getting hot now we're using the AC a lot around the house and in her room 'Ay see'

Her animal vocabularly has been added to with 'Pa' which is panda after her panda t-shirt that she inherited from Martha.  When asked what frogs do the other day though she stuck out her tongue!  (as the rhyme we sing is about Little Green Frogs who stick out their tongues and then dance shoo-be-do-be-do!)

Yesterday she pointed to her bottom and said 'poo' when she'd done a poo. A massive breakthrough as we thought she was miles off potty training, but then she didn't repeat this today.

She knows that there is a 'baba' in mummy's tummy and she has taken to wanting to lie down and cuddle it (as well as clean inside my belly button with a small amount of tissue, which is rather odd!)

She quicky learnt the word 'ouch' when she scraped her knee a few weeks ago.  Even though the scab fell off last week she still keeps pointing at her knee and saying 'ouch' with great enthusiasm!  We're trying to calm this now by encouraging her to solve ouch problems with kisses, rather than cream or poking!