Jenyfer Matthews

But you can’t take competition out of the children.

I subbed last week for a librarian at the local American school and instead of working in the library that day, I did what she was scheduled to do that day and worked at their annual sports day. Only they don’t call it “sports day”, they call it “kids day” – and rightfully so because there was nothing sports-like about it.

When I was a child we called it “field day” and there were actual competitive sporting events. We had things like sprints, long jump, relays. There were also slightly borderline events like three-legged race and wheelbarrow race, but all the events had one thing in common: they were all competitive and they all had a declared winner. Someone kept a tally, and at the end of the day the person who won the most events was declared the overall winner and on the next regular school day the first, second, third and fourth winners were recognized with ribbons. It was meant to be a mini-Olympic type day and anyone who cared competed fiercely for those ribbons. I can still remember that I won first place for the girls when I was in sixth grade.

Back to the present and last week’s kids day. It was a day of fun, a day of games, but not a day of competition. At least not officially. Some of the games had ways to measure wins and losses, but they were all team events and so far as I could tell, no one was keeping track of it in any official way. As the officials running the various game stations, we assigned points for how well the children listened to the instructions, how much positive team spirit they displayed, and how many children were wearing hats. If there were a way to swab for sunscreen and what SPF they were wearing, I’m sure that would have been on the sheet as well. But nowhere was there a spot for recording winners and all the activities were team activities. No individual events. It was all for fun.

In spite of all this carefully orchestrated non-competitive fun, I still heard kids cheering for their teammates to hurry up, accusing others of cheating, and declaring themselves the winners of an event. They were clearly enjoying themselves, but they were also very intent on winning and were disappointed when they didn’t do as well as they would have liked.

So why is it that we can still celebrate the victory of our Olympic athletes, but we want to erase any sign of competition when it comes to our children? Where do people think that Olympians come from anyway? Or any successful people in any field for that matter? Different people are good at different things. No one will excel at everything, and yes, when you are young and still figuring all that out, it’s not always a happy or comfortable process. But parents and teachers aren’t doing anyone any favors by trying to shield children from that knowledge. And from what I’ve seen over the years on soccer fields, tennis courts, and schools, parents and teachers would be much better off accepting that competition is a part of human nature and instead of trying to expunge it from the curriculum, teaching children sportsmanship – how to be good winners and good losers.

I’m going on a group tour this weekend to a place called Wissa Wassef Art Center and I’m pretty excited. Pottery and tapestry, two crafts so close to my heart, in one place?? I don’t think my husband truly appreciates how dangerous a trip like this might be to our bank account! I have several embroidered pieces already and the only reason I have as many as I do is because he wasn’t with me when I bought them (sshh!!)

Last weekend a friend of mine invited me along on a trip she had planned to go and see a Lego exhibit she’d heard about at the Egyptian Museum. Lego at the Museum? I joked that what were they going to do, build a pyramid out of Lego? The sphinx?

We first went into the main museum building, thinking that perhaps this would be a temporary display set up in a gallery somewhere. Much to my surprise, the museum was absolutely packed. The last time I visited, it was December 2003 when I was visiting Egypt as a tourist. I don’t know if it was because it was a weekday, it was raining, or because it was Ramadan, but the place was a whole lot calmer the last time I was there. Much more museum like. Yesterday it was more like Walmart two days before Christmas. (nightmare!) I had to pick my seven year old son up so that he could see some of King Tut’s treasure because the crowd was so thick that short people had no chance. When we didn’t see any Lego, we quickly made our way back to the entrance and the information desk.

Turns out that there is a new Children’s Museum around the backside of the main museum. At least I surmise it is new because it was empty – we had the whole place to ourselves. Such a treat after having escaped the crowd! And would you believe the first thing we saw as we walked in was a sphinx made out of Lego??

I didn’t have my camera with me but fortunately my friend was able to take a few shots with her Blackberry. It was truly amazing what they were able to do with Lego.

There was King Tut’s mask, mummies, seated statues, mosaic pictures – even a model of the workers building the pyramids all done in Lego! All these things were mixed in with other actual antiquities, plus there was a Lego play area so the children could construct their own exhibits. The children spent a happy hour there. The only thing that would have made it a happier place for the parents was a couch and a coffee bar

I’m really glad that we found it when we did because I imagine that when word gets out, it’s going to be just as crowded at the main museum is – no place like that will remain undiscovered for long!

I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and think that this label is simply a holdover, an antique from an earlier time, but just so you know, there are a huge number of people in the world who would probably find this label offensive:

Given the fact that I’ve never seen a candy bar labeled this way any where else I’ve traveled, I’m betting you already know it’s offensive. I bought the bar in spite of the label – for my daughter. She enjoyed it tremendously…

I used to set my alarm for 6:30am, but that didn’t really leave me enough time to get up, make school lunches, and herd the children through their morning routine without an awful lot of hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! So now I set my alarm for 6am – which would work wonderfully well if only I would actually get up at 6am. Instead I tend to hit the snooze button three times and get up closer to 6:20am. Getting up even twenty minutes late still leaves me just enough time to get everything done with a minimum of nagging most mornings.

I had planned to make French toast over the weekend, but since I was actually the last one up both mornings (lucky me!) it didn’t happen. Instead I decided that I’d make it for breakfast today. When I told my husband my plan last night, he scoffed. He gets up at 5:30am and says he always knows what time it is when he hears my alarm going off over and over again.

I took it as a personal challenge to get up on time this morning.

I admit I still hit snooze 2x, but even getting up 5 minutes earlier than usual left me time to make four pieces of French toast for the children this morning. Just imagine what I could get done in a day if I got up the first time the alarm went off? If I got up when my husband does, I could practically take over the world!

We had another movie night with the children this week and this time watched The Karate Kid. I had high hopes for this movie. “Wax on, wax off” is a phrase that has worked its way into popular vernacular – I still hear it used in TV / movies from time to time.

I’m sorry to say that this movie didn’t hold up quite as well as Back to the Future though. Who knew that “wax on, wax off” was the most lasting element? The rest of the dialogue was cheesy, the direction was clumsy, and I think they made a big, big mistake going for an original soundtrack rather than using real 80s music hits. The best part of the whole movie was Pat Morita’s role as father figure and teacher. Without him, I’m sure this movie would have quietly slipped into obscurity by now.

The movie was one cliche after another, which wouldn’t have bothered me so much if they had been handled a little better. For example: at one point Daniel, the new (poor) kid in town, goes to meet the girl he likes at her country club. She’s late coming out so he goes in through the kitchen (why??) and looks for her in the dining room through the window in the swinging door to the kitchen (Really? So it’s a country club set up like a cafeteria??) Daniel sees her, predictably dancing with his arch-enemy and her ex-boyfriend. He jumps to conclusions and tries to make a hasty retreat and crashes into a waiter carrying a tray full of Italian food judging by the amount of red sauce that ended up on Daniel’s previously spotless white outfit. What happens next? Everyone in the dining room starts laughing at him in unison. Because that’s always what happens in the real world when there’s an event like that.

At the end, Daniel faces his antagonists in a karate tournament and is doing very well. So well that the evil karate teacher advises his students to use illegal kicks to injure Daniel and take him out of the running. The scales fall from the bad boys eyes and though they do what their teachers say to do, the bad boys are full of remorse for their actions and happy when Daniel triumphs in spite of their dirty tricks. Rather than just have the boys meet eyes and come to a silent understanding and truce, the #1 nasty bad boy hands Daniel the trophy with a big smile and says something to the effect of “way to go, you deserve to win”. A big turn-around for a guy who spent the previous two hours kicking the crap out of Daniel and just suffered a humiliating defeat and loss of his karate title, don’t you think?

Best part of the movie? When my seven year old son said that he’d never try to be the silent tough guy and lie about how/why he was getting beat up – he’d come tell his mommy

Oh well. It didn’t hold up for me, but at least the children enjoyed it – they’ve already watched it again. And other than the music, it was still better than My Fair Lady.

Where I hear to what lengths other parents have gone to entertain their children during school holidays, I sometimes feel a little guilty that I don’t try a little harder myself. Not having a car limits us, but I *could* make arrangements if I really wanted to. So that’s what I did this last week of their school holiday. A friend and I arranged for a van from her husband’s company and we took all of our children ice skating at a mall in another part of Cairo called Nasr City.

It’s not that far to Nasr City but once we got on the road I was immediately reminded why I don’t do such things more often – it took us a little more than an hour to get to the mall with all the (scary) traffic on the roads. The mall itself looked fairly nice – and oddly enough was decorated for Christmas. There was even a large Christmas tree right in the middle of the ice rink (which itself was in the middle of the mall) I didn’t have any time to look around however – the van needed to be back and available for employee transport by 4pm. Once we finally arrived, the children had an hour to skate before we had to jump back in the van and drive the hour back home.

But what a fun hour it was. The children had an absolute blast. They started out hanging on the rail around the rink and by the end were playing ice tag. Our time passed much, much too quickly. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t take so long to get back there. But since it does, I think next time I’ll arrange our transport a bit differently so we have the option to stay a bit longer if we wish. Skate, lunch, skate some more.

Any maybe next time I won’t have twisted my ankle the week before and will be able to join them!

The children each received a few new DVDs for Christmas so on Christmas night we decided to do a family movie night, complete with Chinese delivery and popcorn. (What? We were supposed to go caroling??)

The movie we decided to watch was Back to the Future, with Michael J. Fox. I loved loved loved Back to the Future when I was a teenager. I recorded it on a VHS tape from cable and played it repeatedly one summer. My routine was to set up a lawn chair sticking out of our front door and then turn the TV set a bit so I could watch it while I lay on the chair sunbathing. Since we lived in southern Louisiana and I didn’t bother to switch off the AC while pursuing my tan, it’s not an activity that I think my mother would have approved of (sorry, Mom!) The point is, I have very fond memories of that movie and probably could have quoted it at one time.

It seemed an obvious choice when it came to shopping for my daughter, but when it came to sitting down and watching it I started to have my doubts. Would it have aged well? Having had my memories of old favorites like My Fair Lady and The Thorn Birds totally ruined by watching them again recently, it was entirely possible that the same thing would happen here. You just can’t always trust Amazon reviews (how do you think I ended up buying The Thorn Birds? We have only ever watched the first episode it was so horrendously bad)

I am happy to say that we all enjoyed the movie very much – even my husband who somehow had never seen it the first time around. It starts in “present day” 1985, but since it very quickly switches back to 1955 it didn’t seem too dated at all – the children certainly didn’t notice. It held the childrens’ attention throughout (my husband too and he’s a tough audience) and it was very cute to see how anxious my daughter was toward the end, worrying whether everything was really going to work out or not. All in all a success on all fronts. What a relief!

(I have a strange compulsion to watch it again when everyone is out for the day, only this time I will quilt instead of sunbathe)

For the New Year holiday I think we’ll do another family movie night with her other new movie: The Karate Kid, yet another classic from my youth. Fingers crossed we’ll have another hit!

This picture makes me smile. I worked retail (way back) when I was in college and I used to volunteer to work all night on the 25th while the store was closed to clean up the tremendous mess from the last minute shopping just so I could avoid working the day after Christmas when there would be lines out the door with people coming in to return things.

Christmas morning came very early as the children got up to see just how many presents had appeared while they slept. Santa fills stockings and leaves one present per child in our home, the rest of the presents are from family. I wait til Christmas Eve to put everything out to minimize temptation – and because it makes more of an impact on Christmas morning that way!

The night vision goggles were a hit, as I suspected they would be. The snag? One pair works great, one pair does not. They waited all day to be able to test them out in the garden after dark. Imagine how disappointed my daughter was when she came upstairs within a few minutes to report that her pair didn’t function properly, but her brother’s were perfect. Not my fault, but I felt so badly for her. To make matters worse, I can’t even exchange them because they are currently out of stock where I ordered them. I keep messing with them, hoping that it is just a matter of flipping the switch just right. But I’ve also printed out a return label. Hope the relative that is coming to visit in a few days doesn’t mind packing them in his baggage for the return trip and popping them in the mail for us!

(After a quick consult, daughter opted to get the money back for the goggles and apply it to a cell phone of her very own – probably a present with more longevity anyway!)

The children also received half a dozen new DVDs between them. Problem? Our DVD player has decided that now is the right time to die. Oh, it still sort of works – it got us through movie-night on Christmas. But often it only thinks it is closed before it starts to ‘read’ the disk. You have to push it closed, which can’t be good for it. It wasn’t an expensive unit and it’s definitely been used with great regularity over the six or seven years we’ve had it, but it could have picked a better time to crap out. I’ll have to take it to see if can be repaired soon. Why bother? Because it’s on the inventory list we were compelled to complete when we moved to Egypt and whether it works or not, it has to leave with us when we do. Nice huh? It’s cheaper to buy electronics elsewhere and bring them in with you, but if you do that then you are stuck taking them out again even if they are broken just to prove you didn’t sell them while you were here. If you buy them internally, at least you can ditch them if they break (and if they are also made locally, they will) All I can say is that at least the malfunction isn’t something subtle and hard to describe!

All in all, it was a satisfying day. The children seemed genuinely pleased with their presents. They didn’t get too much and so didn’t get over stimulated, and they got a nice assortment of things that will amuse and entertain them in the short and long term. Phew!

I did finally get my cookies baked and distributed on Christmas Eve, though there are still more than I’d ideally like to have in the house. I can resist gingerbread but toffee bars? Just like crack. Now that Christmas is over, I’d also like to take down all the decorations and put the whole holiday behind me. I never really was able to get in the mood this year and twisting my ankle on the stairs and dropping a cake pan full of treats on the big toe of the opposite foot (big bruise) on Christmas Eve and Christmas day respectively didn’t help anything. Bah-humbug! The children are still enjoying the tree though so I suppose I will leave it up til New Year.

My mind has now turned to planning for my trip to Thailand. I. CANNOT. WAIT.

There are several differences between doctors in the US and in Egypt, late night office hours being one. Another is that if you have an x-ray or MRI, they will interpret the results for you and then give you the films. I used to think it was because the population was fairly transient, it didn’t make sense for them to keep the films when the patient might move on in a year or two. And it’s kind of handy to have them sometimes – makes it very easy to get a second opinion!

But it’s not just things like scans and x-ray films they will give you. My husband had a mole biopsied and when he went back for the results, they gave him the slides. Most recently, I was given the slides from my last gynecological exam. When I asked why I would want them, the doctor said that it’s too much hassle to store them all for every patient so they just give them back to you. Mystery solved.

My daughter got a microscope for Christmas last year. I have often thought that I ought to get industrious and show her how to make interesting slides to view. The mole slides *might* be acceptable but there’s no way I’m donating my cervical cells! Just explaining where they came from would probably traumatize her for life…

The children’s tennis coach is a funny guy. One of his main objectives with younger children is to make them “love tennis” and to achieve this, he rewards them with various things. Once in a while he comes up with something practical like a tennis bag or wrist bands but most of the time he gives them candy and inexpensive stuffed animals that make LOUD animal noises and have creepy flashing eyes.

This week, the coach had an impromptu mini-tournament in my son’s group. Since my son won 4 of his 4 games, he was #1 in the tournament and won the grand prize, to be given to his mother.

(click image to enlarge – if necessary!)

As you can see, he stuck to the animal theme! They are at least a size too big for me and the sole is pretty insubstantial and squashy so my foot is always slipping off to one side – not to mention that the bottom is sort of sticky and loud when I walk.

I have a couple of nice pairs of slippers from L.L. Bean and Cabelas, but the little man is so proud I just have to wear these for a while, even if they make my feet sweat.

I suppose it could be worse – at least I can make an argument for not wearing them in public!