Jenyfer Matthews

Yesterday was the last day of school and both children arrived home weeping. I was a good student and liked my teachers well enough, but crying because school was finished for the year was never my reaction to the last day of school!

The kids seem happier today – and have kept themselves busy. The pop-up soccer goals that Santa brought haven’t seen much action in their intended capacity but they are being used today – as tents. The kids have put them side by side, covered them with a fleece blanket and dragged their pillows inside along with their flashlights. Their intention is to sleep in “the tent” tonight. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Their room is currently a disaster, but hey, it’s better than watching TV all day and I have only heard the words “I’m bored” once today so far…

It really heated up in Cairo over the weekend. Great for drying clothes outside but not for much else. And because it’s so hot, people are running their air conditioners more which does two things: pumps yet more and hotter air back outside and puts more strain on the already inadequate electrical infrastructure of the city. It won’t be long before the rotational black-outs start. We’re lucky because our power is rarely off for more than half an hour, and usually in the middle of the night. But once in a while an unplanned black out occurs. Yesterday I had to grocery shop by the light of the flashlight in my cell phone because the transformer in the building next to the grocery store had blown. Smoke was billowing out from between the cracks in the pavement as I walked home. Is it any wonder that the quality of frozen foods isn’t the best here?

I have lots to accomplish in the few weeks that remain before I leave Egypt for the summer (provided I don’t contract H1N1 flu and get quarantined or grounded before I leave, touch wood) but all this heat is making me lethargic. I need to get busy quilting the moose head wall hanging but have found that my thread colors aren’t quite right. It may be some sort of elaborate procrastination method generated by my genuine fear of messing this thing up, but I can’t start until I get the right colors of thread and yesterday when I went to the shop it was closed. Will try again tomorrow.

And today I got another commission, this time for a bed scarf (they are all the rage, darling!) The project itself isn’t such a big deal, the problem is that the family is leaving Egypt at the end of September so I have to get a start on it now if I have any hope of completing it before they leave, given that I will be away shortly for six weeks myself. If the school shuts down because of H1N1 flu, I’ll be totally screwed.

(No, H1N1 is not actually such a big deal here but the Egyptian government is taking no chances at all – hence the senseless slaughtering of masses of pigs.)

Basically, I’m just trying to prioritize and get through it all – and stay cool in the process…

Only 12 days of peace-I mean school-left.

Putting the constant cries of I’m bored and the general sibling sniping that occurs when the children are in each other’s company all day, there are several things about summer vacation I’m looking forward to: getting out of Egypt and the heat and seeing family, no homework, no packing school lunches (x2). There are too many things to itemize really, but one very small thing that I really love about summer is not having to wake up to an alarm.

What’s your favorite thing about summer?

More and more often lately, I’ve heard other children say to my children things like “You haven’t seen Spiderman III / The Hulk / [fill in other comic book character]?” or “You haven’t seen The Clone Wars? I’ve seen all the Star Wars movies!” – with either great surprise or something bordering on scorn in their high little voices.

My children are only 6 & 8 years old. In spite of the fact that the above mentioned movies have characters that first appeared in animated form, I don’t think they are the most appropriate movies for my children to watch. Not only are they fairly violent but they also include many adult themes. (My children find the “rodents of unusual size” from Princess Bride a bit scary!) But given the increasing frequency with which I’m hearing the above sorts of comments, I’m beginning to feel like the only parent who gives any of this a second thought.

And I’m also beginning to feel slightly sorry for my children. It’s not their fault that they are perceived as uncool by their friends. I guess this is one thing that they can totally and legitimately blame me for!

As I was cleaning up in my bedroom this afternoon, I happened on a stack of boxes that had been shoved in the corner. I’d forgotten what was in them so I opened them up – and then wished I hadn’t.

One of them was full of all the school work that my children brought home at the end of the year last year.

The reason it is sitting in that box is because though my first instinct was simply to pitch it all the minute it came home, I couldn’t quite bring myself to toss it out in front of them. After all, what sort of message would that send them about school work? So I put it away and thought that at some point I’d go through it and see if there were any priceless gems that I could keep as a representative sample of their work that year. That time has come – because next month, another pile will come home.

The only question that remains is should I actually open the box and look at each item, or should I just save myself some time and assume that there is nothing worth keeping in the mix and heave the whole box into the trash sight unseen. What would you do?

I’ve mentioned before what little jocks my children are. It’s particularly noticeable in my daughter since she’s older. She’s wonderful at soccer and tennis and this week brought home three medals from a track meet : gold in hurdles and two silvers for sprinting and high jump.

I appreciate the compliments people bestow – I have eyes in my head and I can see her too. She’s pretty phenomenal for an eight year old. But I also have ears and when people ask me so where does all this athletic talent come from? I can hear the subtext of because you’re certainly not an athlete you lazy lump. It’s true – my husband and I are more likely to be found sitting behind a computer or reading a book these days. But I wish people would think before they speak. We might have been great athletes once upon a time, or at least harbor that potential. The main thing is we aren’t eight anymore.

And if you come to my yoga class sometime, I’ll kick your butt at downward dog!

I recovered and rose from my sick bed – just in time to start another busy week.

I’m also just in time for the thermometer to rise to 100F+ – after what has been a long mild winter / spring, it feels especially hot and dry. The only thing good about the weather is that it’s great for line drying clothes and I have a pile of laundry to catch up on after my “break”. Go figure.

There were times when I wondered if I would make it, but in the end I accomplished all that was on my to-do list yesterday. Cleaning the children’s room alone took me two hours.

I had a lot of time to think as I cleaned. Here are some random thoughts on house work:

* It’s not much fun

* Painting may be easier than washing walls

* If you haven’t moved your washing machine to clean under it in three years, you are in for a nasty surprise

* Unless you live alone, the moment you have one task done, another will be created for you

It’s a never ending job, but all in all, I guess I’d rather my house be reasonably clean than not. Fingers crossed we won’t have another sandstorm for a while…

PS – I’m taking the night off of cooking – and the rest of the weekend too if I can manage it

Since moving abroad nearly ten years ago, I haven’t worked outside the home – instead I had two babies to keep me busy. Now that they are old enough to be in school all day, it seemed like a good time to explore some options to keep my resume alive. Which is how I started working as a substitute at a neighborhood school library.

I started in January and since then, it’s been a day here, a day there. But since last week, I’ve worked five days and I have six more days scheduled this month already so far.

It’s not so much that it’s a demanding job, but when I’m there I’m not at home and when I’m not at home, a whole lot of stuff goes undone. I can’t grocery shop at my usual time, I can’t do the laundry – or any of the other hundreds of chores that go along with keeping a house with two small children in residence tidy. (Note: I live in one of the dirtiest cities on Earth and we’ve had a two day sand storm this week. Guess how much dust and grit is coating my home right now??) Homework, dinner, and bath time is a mad rush. If I’m lucky I can collapse on the couch by about 8:30 – and have an hour of chat with my husband before we both crawl off to bed.

As I said, it’s not a demanding job, but I guess I’ve become spoiled in my decade at home. I don’t like having my routine disrupted, I don’t like seeing clutter and mess all over the house, and I really don’t like not having more time to myself. I haven’t written anything new in months and I have a long list of quilting projects I need to complete in the next little while.

Yet I know that other people deal with FULL TIME jobs on top of having a family to take care of AND still find time to write. I am in awe. It makes me wonder – do they never sleep? Because that is perhaps the only way I could find any peace and quiet to do any writing or anything else.

Being a parent is like trying to solve a never ending riddle. There is no rule book – only general guidelines – and every child is different. Just when you think you’ve got it down, they enter a new phase and all you thought you knew is no longer valid.

Anyone who has read my blog regularly will have already gleaned that my daughter is something of a tomboy. She has friends of both genders, but the ones I hear about most frequently are the boys. This week the mother of one of her male friends asked if she could come over after school today for a play date – and a sleep over.

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The play date was fine, but a sleepover? I kind of thought that most parents were on the same page as far as co-ed sleepovers went (as in NO), but these particular parents are European, apparently a much more broad-minded group of people as compared to the average American

As usual, I’m probably getting ahead of myself and over-thinking things. They’re young and I know that it’s totally innocent, but in my mind parenting is all about setting precedents. I say yes to a co-ed sleepover when she’s 8, how will I explain my “no” answer when she’s 12 or 14 or 16 and she wants her boyfriend to stay over?

I guess I’ll just keep making it all up as I go along.

Tomorrow: pictures and a recap of my recent trip to Doha, Qatar.