Jenyfer Matthews

My daughter reported to me that she had a loose tooth before school a couple of mornings ago. She is notorious for NOT wiggling loose teeth and basically letting gravity pull them out for her, which can often take weeks, so I was surprised when she came home with the tooth in her pocket later that day.

Along with the tooth came the question: “The kids at school say there isn’t a Tooth Fairy, or a Santa, or the Easter Bunny, that it’s just your parents. Why do they say that?”

It’s not as if I hadn’t been expecting this question from her – she is 10 1/2 years old after all. But the tone of voice in which she presented it – not as a statement of fact but rather as a plea for me to prolong her desire to believe in magic is what decided me on my answer.

I told her that the children at school also told her that the world was going to end in 2012 so what did they know about anything? She went away happy.

I told some friends of mine about the conversation and most of them congratulated me on having made a good save – but one friend asked me why I persisted in lying to my child. She has four children and never led any of them to believe in Santa, etc and they had never suffered for it. What was wrong with the truth?

As a parent I don’t go out of my way to lie to my child. When they ask me questions, I do my best to give them as much information as they require and can process. However, with regard to Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy I take a pass. Some of the best Christmases I can remember were the ones where I was waiting up to hear Santa arrive. The biggest thrill about loosing a tooth was finding the money under my pillow the next morning – handing it over to my mother in exchange for the same money just would not have been the same.

I can also remember what a hurry I was in to grow up – how I dressed older, acted older, and dreamed of what I would do when I was finally grown up. What I wouldn’t give now to go back and take it all a bit slower! I’m sure I’m not the only adult who feels that way – in fact I *know* I’m not. When I finally did realize that Santa and my mother had the exact same handwriting, I didn’t say anything to her about it (lest the Santa-train stop!), but it did take away some of the thrill of Christmas morning for me.

What’s so great about reality anyway? Children have their whole lives to learn the ugly truth about life – that it isn’t always easy or pleasant – but only a very short window in which to live in innocence. As adults we escape reality all the time within the pages of a book or by watching a movie. What is so wrong with letting children believe in a little magic for what is essentially a very short time in their lives?

So, in that vein, I have decided that I am not lying to my children, per se – I am facilitating their childhood. It’s all part of being a good mother in my opinion.

And when my word no longer has weight over the friends of my daughter, I’ll threaten / bribe my daughter to keep her mouth shut for my son’s sake…

I’ve been thinking on and off about movies we can watch for family movie nights. Usually this involves thinking about movies I watched and enjoyed as a child. Let’s face it – movies made in the 1980s were in general much tamer than movies made today. I don’t always remember them in minute detail but they are usually safe choices in terms of violence, language, and sexual content.

One movie I watched repeatedly was Gremlins. I really liked that movie – the Mogwai was so cute and it wasn’t his fault that his new owner Billy accidentally broke the how to “rules” of how to care for him and nearly destroyed his entire town. As I remember it, the movie was funny and scary both and there was a tremendous sense of relief when it all ended well.

I have no idea how the movie has aged since 1984 but given how easily spooked my daughter is, I doubt that she would enjoy it. I think it might even scare my son – he was spooked a couple of years ago by the music Peter and the Wolf and has only recently consented to go upstairs by himself! If the movie itself wasn’t enough to give them bad dreams, let’s do a little comparison. Here are two stuffed animals my daughter has in her room:

Cute, right? Now look at the Mogwai:

Am I the only one who sees the similarities – particularly the big eyes and cuddliness. I’m sure she’d like the Mogwai just fine, until he spawns this:

If I can see the similarity between her cute little animals and the Mogwai, surely she would make the leap from there on to the Gremlins. She would probably never sleep again and I’d be escorting my son up and down the stairs to his room until he’s 10!

I am planning to rent them a movie to keep them occupied upstairs during my birthday party tomorrow, but it will probably be animated!

On the rare evenings when we have no place we need to dash off to and are all at home together, I like to have a family movie night – preferably with a take-out dinner of some kind. It’s a nice way to spend an evening, especially since the children still think of it as a treat to spend time with us, but it isn’t always so easy to find a movie that we will all enjoy.

I don’t mind watching the more recent Pixar / Disney movies, but my husband isn’t as enthusiastic about those as the children are. We’ve watched some non-animated PG movies with mixed results – I did not think the original The Karate Kid held up well over time and as a result was painful to watch, though the children seemed not to notice. The new updated The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith wasn’t much better – too obviously politically correct for my taste (which I could have ignored if the acting had been better). We tried Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull middle of last week. I liked it fine, though not as much as the earlier ones, but not only did my daughter find it too scary, it’s amazing just how much historical and political context you need to bring to those movies before you can really understand what is going on. I’ll wait on the others in that series until they are a little older. We also watched The Goonies which is basically Indiana Jones for kids and that went down a bit better for all of us. It is tough to find a movie my daughter doesn’t find scary however – she even walked out on The Princess Bride because she was scared of the “rodents of unusual size” and the sword fighting!

Still, we’d like the kids to be exposed to more than just sanitized output of Disney – the best stories do have an element of suspense or danger after all – so once in a while we pick something the children would never choose on their own. This weekend it was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (1939). I actually prefer the series with Jeremy Brett but this particular version has an innocent and goofy quality that we thought might appeal more to the children.

Overall, the plot and character development in this version was simple enough for the children to follow. In this particular episode, Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty are pitted against each other. In the beginning of the movie Professor Moriarty has just been acquitted of murder and lets Holmes know that he has big plans to commit a crime that will go down in history, right under Holmes’ nose. Then, when Professor Moriarty returns home from the courthouse, he gives his house servant a bad time because one of his plants has withered and died while he was in jail – a very minor scene just to show how nasty he can be about even small things.

Toward the end of the movie, Holmes and Dr. Watson break into Professor Moriarty’s house by way of his greenhouse. As Holmes and Watson are snooping around, trying to figure out what Professor Moriarty is up to, my son says, “They should kill all his plants! That would really make him mad!” My son said this in all earnestness but my husband and I couldn’t help but laugh. To think that my son remembered such a small detail from the beginning of the movie and also that he thought killing the plants would be an appropriate course of action!

My daughter’s verdict? Though this particular version of the movie portrays Dr. Watson as a bumbling clown which lowers the suspense element a good bit, my daughter still thought that it was too scary!

Many people decide to start the new year with resolutions to get fit, exercise and eat right – so why are we preventing our children from doing the same things?

I admit it: I don’t read or watch the news. Most of it is worthless anyway and the really newsworthy items filter back to me eventually. (It’s a good system actually) This is probably old news to many of you, but it recently came to my attention that there are cities in the US that are banning sledding, at least in public areas.

This didn’t surprise me actually, but it did make me sad. I can remember when I was 3 or 4, our house sat on the top of a fairly steep hill, at the bottom of which was a busy street and a T intersection. I spent many hours racing down that hill, skidding to a stop at the last minute with my feet, just short of the street. Talk about a rush! I’m not saying that situation was ideal or that kids should be allowed to sled out into traffic, but children shouldn’t be denied the pleasures of winter snow play because parents aren’t willing or available to supervise them.

The first time I noticed this sort of legislation, it was merry-go-rounds in playgrounds. Many of the parks in Dubai included them while most in the US do not. (Of course many of the parks in Dubai also include broken equipment and jagged posts but I digress) I suppose some children fell while running to get them going or fell / jumped off while they were spinning and hurt themselves so someone, somewhere decided merry-go-rounds were too big a risk and had to go. I don’t doubt that there have been many broken limbs and stitches caused by merry-go-rounds, but using that sort of logic what about stair railings? How many children have been hurt sliding down a railing and flying off at the bottom? Should we do away with railings, essentially a safety feature, because a few goofy kids used them in a way not intended and got hurt?

For that matter what about trees? The son of a friend of mine recently fell out of a tree in his backyard and gashed himself behind the ear on the way down and required stitches. Should we cut down all the trees to prevent accidents like this in the future? Trees clean the air, give homes to birds, and provide us with oxygen but isn’t protecting our children more important?

Statistically most accidents happen at home, in the bathroom. Shall we do away with those too? Children get hurt, even under supervision. Life’s a risk.

Dig deeper and much of the problem comes back to lawsuits. Too many people see their own bad luck at getting hurt as a get-rich-quick scheme, but until the court system in the US stops wasting time listening to people trying to blame other people for their own actions and consequences, laws prohibiting this and that will just keep popping up. Was the merry-go-round was so poorly maintained that it flew off its axis while spinning? Maybe there are grounds for a lawsuit. Did a child, lacking forethought, jump off mid-spin and land on a rock? Suck it up, pay the doctor, and go about your business.

But there’s a greater problem that comes out of all this legislation of our behavior: obesity. Obesity is a huge problem in the US among adults and children. Experts and wring their hands and point the finger at poor food choices and that is, at least, part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that children today aren’t allowed to do anything anymore. See above.

My children have been asking for a Wii ever since they came out, and so many of the parents I know who have given in and bought one use the argument that at least when the children play games / sports on Wii they are off the couch and moving. In Cairo, I can almost buy that argument because there are few good open spaces for children to run and play in this huge, overcrowded city and hardly anyone has a backyard. However, I do not believe that standing and waving a remote around the living room is a replacement for the real thing – and until I meet someone who mastered skiing on Wii and then successfully skied down a real mountain in real snow, I will remain unconvinced. Too many children I know who do have a Wii are still pudgy and uncoordinated.

(I don’t have a Wii because my children are active enough on a daily basis that I don’t begrudge them a little couch time.)

We think we’re protecting our children with all these rules and laws but what I fear is that we are raising a generation to not only lead a sedentary lifestyle but also to deny taking any responsibility for their own actions and behavior.

I did some of my shopping in the US last summer, some of my shopping in Germany earlier in the month, and the rest of my shopping in Egypt. On the one hand, shopping over a longer span of time is less stressful during the holiday season. On the other hand, if you shop too far ahead of time or while you are traveling, you can’t take things back if they don’t work out.

Everything I bought was well received. My husband especially liked the clothes I bought for him in Germany and I was greatly relieved that everything I selected fit properly. The problem? One of the t-shirts I bought as a layering piece for a sweater sprung a hole in the shoulder seam the first time I washed it, before he ever wore it! I can probably fix it, but I shouldn’t have to start mending things immediately. I was even more disgusted when I noticed that a new pair of socks I bought him had a hole in the toe after one outing. They were not inexpensive socks! Now I have to darn the toe of them if he’s ever going to wear them again. Not exactly what I had in mind to do this week, especially as these were meant to replace other older socks…Grrrr…

I also bought him a digital alarm clock in Germany. That at least works fine – sort of. The box said it was “radio controlled” which I assumed meant that it had some sort of central, official time keeping feature. I wasn’t sure that it would work that way in Egypt, but surely you can just manually set the clock, right? Hmmm…maybe.

The clock is a nice one, but it a bit more complicated that it really needs to be. I bought this particular model because it was one of the few that actually had a power cord. My husband read the instructions and set the time zone – what do you know, there is radio control in Egypt. The problem is that the control tower doesn’t know what time it is here! I can’t blame them really – there was an awful lot of confusion for the inhabitants back in Aug / Sept when the government kept switching the time back and forth to suit their Ramadan schedule. However, it isn’t so amusing when the clock insists that it is actually an hour later than it really is and in turn wakes you up an hour earlier than you intended! He reset it once after a “false alarm” and it happened again the next morning. I hate gadgets that think they are smarter than you are. Now he has to figure out what time zone would be compatible with our current time just to fool the clock into showing what our local time actually is! Grrrr…

My own gifts were much more successful – at least nothing has yet fallen apart! Who can go wrong with earrings and books? My daughter bought me a pair of small “gold” hoops, channel set with little zirconia – earrings that she chose and bought herself at her school Christmas fair. She was a bit nervous when she gave them to me because they weren’t “fancy” enough. They are in fact lovely and I cherish them more because they were obviously so heartfelt. That is what the holiday should be about.

I’ll try to remember that next time that clock wakes me up at 4AM…and I’m darning new socks!

Christmas was a success in spite of my own foibles.

I had wrapped all of the boxed items earlier in the week, so all that remained to prepare on Christmas Eve was to put the last remaining items in gift bags and stuff the stockings. There were actually a few smaller items I would have liked to wrap, but I couldn’t find any of the tape.

The children were ready to go to bed from about noon on, if it meant they could hurry along the day, and they were busy planning what exactly they were going to leave for Santa. The gingerbread houses they’d made at our club didn’t survive beyond a few days of their creation but there were still a few straggly cookies left from the day they’d decorated them at our club. I felt a little bad about not having done any baking so after making us a nice dinner, I took the children to a bakery down the street to buy some sugar cookies. They didn’t mind staying up a little later to run that errand!

When we got home, the children made up cards and a plate of snacks for Santa and his reindeer before rushing off to bed.

In spite of the bakery box in the kitchen, the children put out the cookies they made at our club, along with a carrot for the reindeer. The cards they made were adorable, especially the fact that they signed their full names – just to be sure he would know exactly who they were from! The Santa with the sax? A goofy present from their tennis coach which pays annoyingly high pitched carols in digital beeping.

After the children went to bed and I was fairly sure they were asleep, I prepared the gift bags and brought all the presents downstairs to the tree. Then I started looking for the stocking stuffers. I found one bag with candy…but where was the other bag with the candy canes? I could remember having stashed it, but could not remember where! In the process of looking for the stocking stuffers, I found another bag I had hidden which contained some traditional Christmas cookies I brought back from Germany. If I had found that sooner, I wouldn’t have had to make the bakery run! Also found during the stocking stuffer search was a toy I bought for my son back in October when I was shopping for his birthday. Oops. I felt a bit like a squirrel, finding all these treasures I had hidden and then promptly forgotten about. I only wished I had found the toy earlier in the week because it would have really helped during my mad last minute shopping trip. Since using it now would only throw off the present count, it remains stashed for another occasion…

I did eventually find everything I intended for the stockings and finally fell into bed at a fairly reasonable time. (Is 1AM reasonable??)

The next morning I discovered where all the tape had gone: My son had wrapped up several rolls, along with most of the pencils in the house and a used lip balm for his father! Good thing I did a little back-up shopping for Dad!

The children seemed to enjoy the holiday in spite of my absentmindedness and lack of baking. According to them it was the best Christmas ever. That’s all I wanted for them. As happy as I am to be done with the season, I am already thinking ahead to next year and planning how to schedule baking, what we will eat, what decorations I need to gather… I have a whole year to get my act together but maybe this time I’ll keep a notebook telling me what I’ve bought and where I’ve hidden it!

The cats above have more holiday spirit than I do this year. I am glad the big day is nearly here – only so that it can all finally be over.

I did not do any baking this year. None. My children didn’t ask about it and I didn’t offer. For their sakes, I have made sure that they have gotten to participate in the appropriate seasonal festivities. I have spent more time than I anticipated going back and forth to our rec club, but the children were able to make gingerbread houses (with graham crackers) and make and decorate cookies. They ate most of their efforts before I got any pictures. When I saw the reckless use of icing and sugar, I was more than happy they enjoyed themselves in a place other than MY kitchen.

I did at least do some decorating.

I made this Christmas countdown calendar a few years ago. The pattern started out as a wall hanging, to which I added 25 pearled buttons upon which the children hang a bell each day until they reach the top. There are more bells at the bottom than anywhere else because it was the only way I could fit the required number of button-ornaments on the tree! The children dearly love hanging a bell each day and watching the tree fill up. I love that 1) it doesn’t require (yet more) candy to be interesting (as many of the Christmas calendars rely on) and 2) it pretty much keeps them from constantly asking me how many more days til Christmas?

(Geez, I do sound grumpy, don’t I?)

This is our first year in our new apartment and I finally, finally went out and got myself the candle holder I have been wanting for our fireplace ever since we moved to Cairo (we had a fireplace in our last apartment too)

I like the idea of a fireplace more than I like a fireplace itself. Most of the time what a fireplace seems to be is a huge source of drafts. They can be pretty though – but this is as much of a fire as I ever intend to build!

I had intended to buy some poinsettia to set on the hearth but never got around to it. By the time I thought about it after I returned from Germany, it just seemed pointless. The ones I had from last year only just died! The “odd” stocking on the far left is mine. No, it doesn’t match the rest, but it is the stocking that my grandmother made me when I was little (4? 5??) and I have used it every year since she gave it to me. Tradition means more to me than matching or color coordination.

So, other than the last few presents I need to stuff into gift bags before I set everything out later tonight, I suppose I’m as ready as I will ever be for the big day. In spite of sounding as if I am channeling the Grinch, I sincerely wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

I’ve gotten up early the last few mornings to wrap presents before the children wake up because I can’t seem to outlast them at night anymore!

I used to enjoy wrapping presents. I remember asking my mom to let me wrap her presents for her, which she was only too happy to let me do. It was fun to choose complementary paper and bows. It was something of an artistic process for me, creating a beautiful package, though I was never very good at tying pretty bows – I relied more on stick-on bows or curly ribbon or a combination of both.

So why is it that wrapping presents now is such a chore? One problem is perhaps the lack of inspiring wrapping paper. My mother had a huge selection as she bought a few new rolls every year. Nice quality wrapping paper is hard to get in Cairo and the few nice rolls I bought from a friend (who imported it from England) is fast dwindling. It doesn’t help that my son, in his early Christmas enthusiasm, got into my supply and used way more than was necessary to wrap his sister’s present and cut it badly besides. Sigh.

I do have pretty ribbon and tags, thanks to a friend in America who shipped them to me via a friend of hers at the US Embassy, but I’m still not much good at tying bows. Did you know that you could split wider flat ribbon and curl it with scissors? Maybe you already did, but I just learned that trick and used it to my advantage this morning.

I could of course just use gift bags; however, while convenient, bags are just not as tactile or fun. Children like to rip paper. Also, bags are hard to pile under the tree. A tree with only bags standing in groups under it just looks…odd.

I ran out of boxes to wrap just about the same time I ran out of patience and tape. I still have a few more things to wrap but those items will go in bags…

I LOVE this song. I will never hear Roxanne by The Police again and not think of Rudolph.

I am not sure what I was thinking, but I finally did my present inventory over the weekend and found that I was woefully unprepared for the big day! I fooled myself into thinking I was ahead of the game by having bought each child their WOW gift and a few of the harder to get items in the US this summer. That might have still worked out okay, except that three different sets of relatives prefer to deposit money in our bank account and let me do the shopping, which is safer than mailing things. It’s not as if this is a new system so I am not sure why I blanked on that aspect of things so completely this year.

Then I “lost” a week in Germany. I did get my husband’s presents while I was away, and a couple of things for my daughter, but did not find anything that inspiring for my son. As luck would have it, the children were invited on a play date yesterday afternoon so after dropping them off, I headed straight to the mall!

It’s always a toss of the dice here in Cairo as to whether you’ll find anything worth having or whether the items you want will be in the size you are looking for, but usually if you are willing to pay enough you can find something to buy.

This is the only time of year I will just close my eyes and pay whatever shops are asking to get the job done. Really, what choice do I have? $60 for a sweatshirt? Okay. $50 for a child’s sport watch? Done – next. The beauty of this system is that 1) I’m mostly spending money from the family so it doesn’t “hurt” my thrifty bone so much and 2) since I spend all year saying “NO” to the children, they usually don’t realize that I am the one who has actually purchased all these previously denied items!

At least this time I am truly finished! Now, to find a quiet hour (or two!) to wrap things up!

I stole the post title from an email my German friend sent me, which she in turn stole from a horror movie. It seemed appropriate as my last two trips via Amsterdam have not been uneventful.

I flew from Cairo to Amsterdam and then took a city-hopper flight to Cologne. I decided to stop for my waffle cookie supply going because 1) I had time and 2) I wanted to put it in my checked back on the return flight. As it happens, it was a good thing I did.

I nearly missed my flight going to Cologne because of a long line at a snack counter. I think I was behind some sort of class trip. By the time I got back to my gate, they were preparing to start calling names and making threats on the terminal speakers. I was one of 5 who straggled up last minute, but I felt better that I had my snack and I wasn’t alone. It would have been embarrassing to get on the plane dead last because of a sandwich!

Coming back, my flight from Cologne was delayed by an hour because the plane coming from Amsterdam was delayed due to ice. Since I only had a little over an hour gap to make my connection, my only hope was that my Cairo flight would also be delayed by ice. It is the first time I’ve ever actively *wished* for a delay!

The pilot announced that anyone with a flight scheduled for 8:50 should expect to miss it. My Cairo flight was scheduled for 8:55pm, boarding to start at 7:50pm. The flight attendant I asked about my chances suggested that I run. We landed at 8:30pm. I made it into the terminal (by bus) and through passport control by 8:40pm. Then I grabbed a cart for my bags and ran from C hall across the entire airport to F hall – I even ran on the moving walkways!

I arrived at my gate breathless but in time. I am grateful that the airport staff took pity and kept the gate open longer than usual for me and a handful of others that galloped up last minute. More amazingly, my bag made it as well.

Settling in back to the routine is another story. Germany is only an hour different than Egypt, but there is always a price to be paid for going away. My price is apparently laundry…