Flashback Friday: Recurring Nightmare

Yes, I’m writing my Flashback Friday on a Saturday. I’m allowed to do that because I just had a baby. Anyway…

In the defense of MOMster’s children, I will share one of the recurring nightmares of my childhood involving a beetle, and not just any beetle, but one of the most innocuous beetles known to childhood. The dreadful, the horrifying, the terrible…ladybug.

Yes, that same one featured in the nursery rhyme.

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home!
Your house is on fire and
Your children are alone.

The protagonist of more than one story in our book bin. The one plastering Rachel’s pyjamas. The one that no child is afraid of.

Yes, that one.

I’m seebing her

Everything I do, Rachel does, too.

For example, Miriam spends a lot of time in a sling (courtesy of my friend Jill—thanks, Jill!).

Men at Work

Since I never seem to leave the house anymore I don’t have anything interesting to say, really, except that I was breastfeeding Miriam with the window open and I looked up and was met eye-to-eye with a lumberjack.

4 o’clock isn’t so lonely around here

This morning I was nursing Miriam while listening to the ghostly echoes of various muezzins recite the first adhan of the day. Their voices twisted and glided around the streets and drifted through our bedroom window, an eerie choir unconstrained by either tone or time—confusingly beautiful at times and ear-gratingly obnoxious at others—until the last voice finally tapered off and I was left in silence once again.

It’s quite like how I imagine the Hogwarts Anthem being sung.

Like lemon juice in a paper cut

Sometimes when I’m too lazy to walk anywhere I ask Andrew to do the walking for me. Yesterday I was too lazy to stand up after changing Miriam’s diaper and so I asked Andrew to bring me the sink to me instead, in the form of hand sanitizer.

He squirted a little in my hand and Rachel noticed so she, of course, wanted some as well. She loves hand sanitizer—she calls it hanitizer—she stuck out her hands and asked her daddy if she could have some, too. He obliged and gave her a big ol’ squirt. It was way more than her little hands could possibly soak up.

Looking for a quick solution to her overly sanitized condition, Andrew noticed she wasn’t wearing a shirt. We had taken it off for dinner-eating purposes.

“Rub the rest on your tummy,” he suggested.

Are you 'rected?

Rachel and I were just looking at the family tree we put together last night. She was asking questions about everyone on the chart. When we got to her great-grandma Conrad, Rachel insisted that she met her. I went and burst her bubble.

"Well, maybe you met her in heaven before you came to live in our family. She died before you were born."

"Oh," she said, kind of disappointed by that, "Mommy died, too."

"No, I didn't die."

"You didn't die?"

"No. I'm not dead."

"Oh, are you 'rected?"

"No, I'm not resurrected, either. I'm just plain, old alive."

Rachel is now acting like my position on the cool-chart just went down 10 points because I am neither dead nor resurrected.

Modesty on the Metro

I took my last metro ride as a pregnant lady the night before Miriam was born. It was an impromptu ride so neither Andrew or I were really dressed for a jaunt downtown. When we leave the expat-world of Maadi we both prefer to dress a little more conservatively, meaning long pants for both and long sleeves for me.

Recap of today

My toes are cold; we’ve plummeted from 100°F to 70°F since Miriam was born. I put away the fan this afternoon and I’m even considering wearing socks full-time, at least while in the house. It always seems chillier in the house than outside during the winter.

Maadi is a wonderful neighbourhood to live in because there are so many trees to shade the streets. It’s absolutely fantastic in the summer and even nice in the winter, except that our jaundice-walks aren’t working very well. Not only is it difficult to find a sunny patch of sidewalk (or street) to stand in, locals would think I’m a terrible mother for having my baby’s bare skin showing in this "cold, cold" weather.

One week

Last night we finally finished that game of Hand and Foot that we started the previous Saturday. It took us a full week to play the last three rounds. We must have been busy with something else.

Miriam. We were busy with Miriam.

Two children

Having two kids is certainly more difficult than having only one. If nothing else it is far more confusing for everybody.

I’m pretty sure Miriam thinks her name is “Rrrr…Miriam.” We just can’t seem to spit out any name other than Rachel. Sometimes Andrew tries to recover by saying, “Hello little Rrrrrachel’s little sister, Miriam!” It’s pathetic, really—there are only two of them and you’d think that after a week of having Miriam around we’d at least have her name down.