More on Egypt

What felt all-consuming before is now absolutely mind-boggling.

You just have to wonder about Mubarak—what did he tell his thugs to do? They all seemed to have turned at the same time and are now looting the city, trashing museums, terrorizing citizens. In my mind I picture him saying, "This is the end: take whatever you want," as if it is his to give.

They've smashed two mummies in the Egyptian Museum—they only had like five mummies to begin with—in addition to smashing several other items, though apparently nothing has been stolen.

They've wreaked havoc in downtown Cairo.

The scariest part is that I can no longer tell Rachel that "our house" is safe. It probably isn't. The thugs—who seem to mostly be upper-division police officers and security officials for the National Democratic—are now entering upperclass residential areas, including Maadi. Apparently Carrefour is ablaze, Maadi Grand Mall and Road 9 are being looted, and residences are being broken into as well.

There's absolute chaos everywhere.

Snow Camel

Even though going out into the cold makes me feel like this:

I ventured outside to play with my girls in Tuesday’s fresh snow. We decided to build a new snowman beside the remnant of our last snowman, but when we rolled the first ball of snow to rest beside the icy remains of our late snowman we decided we could perhaps be a little more creative.

Home is...

Today when the girls and I were walking home from playgroup we ran into one of our neighbours.

"Good thing you're back from Egypt!" he called out, "They're really messed up!"

"Things are pretty tense," I agreed.

"The whole region is going crazy! The world is going crazy!"

"It is, it is," I agreed.

Sometimes it's hard for me to discuss politics with our neighbours, who welcomed us "home" with open arms from our "trip" to Egypt. They don't understand that it wasn't a trip—we lived there; it became part of us; Miriam has an Egyptian birth certificate. Egypt was our home. We love Egypt.

She's a tricky baby

For Christmas Rachel got some princess magnets. She would play with them on the filing cabinet, making them go to balls and castles and things, she took them to my parents' house a few times when they babysat her so that she could play with them on her fridge. She lost them a while ago, though, and has been missing them ever since.

Yesterday she demanded that I find them.

"I don't know where they are," I told her, "We can look for them but we've cleaned your room several times and haven't seen a trace of them. I don't know what else we can do. Sorry."

She started wailing, which is something I've had enough of in the past few days.

"I want my princess magnets! I want my princess magnets! I want my princess magnets!"

While Rachel was droning on and on about her magnets, Miriam left the room. A few minutes later she toddled back in, singing a little song, and clutching...the princess magnets!

I wonder where she was hiding them.

It was a good hiding place.

She's a tricky baby.

Desperation

It happened again.

Miriam got locked in her bedroom during her naptime. Unfortunately, I didn't discover it until after she had woken up. I had been working on a project in the kitchen with Rachel when I heard Miriam fuss so I walked back to the bedroom and tried to open her door. It wouldn't budge.

"Noooooo!" I wailed.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked.

"The door is locked. Again." I said.

"Well, it wasn't me," Rachel quickly pointed out. She then provided her alibi: "I was out here the whole time."

"If it wasn't you then who was it?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it was Miriam."

"Miriam is stuck in her crib."

"Oh. Well...ummm...I just like to turn things. And I try to remember which way is locked and which way is unlocked when I stop playing but it's hard to remember."

"How about just not playing with the locks?"

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Mommy?"

"What?"

"You can unlock the door! I know you can!"

"Thanks for your support."

#Jan25

My heart goes out to Egypt today.

Last March, shortly before we left Egypt, Mubarak got sick. Of course, the word on the street was that he had gone on a little "vacation." Luckily, we had access to international news and it didn't take us long to confirm that he had gone to Europe for gallbladder surgery (with rumors of more). While he was recuperating we had several conversations with people about what would happen if he died while we were there. I feared the political unrest. Would there be a military takeover? Would his son start ruling in his stead? What would happen?

I'm glad I'm not there because I'm stressed out enough from here.

Andrew, on the other hand, yearns to be part of something historical, something revolutionary. He wants to be there to see it happen.

In all our discussions about "what would happen if Mubarak died" we never once suggested that perhaps Mubarak wouldn't die—perhaps there'd be a national uprising against the government. I don't see why we didn't think of that. Egyptians are passionate enough, brave enough, oppressed enough—and here they are, making it happen.

At least, I hope they are making it happen.

I've been watching the #Jan25 feed on twitter every spare moment I get since, well, January 25th, watching things unfurl. Now, though, the government has plunged the country into a media blackout: there's no internet, no cell phone service, no contact with the outside world...for anyone.

Like I said, I'm glad I'm not there because I'm stressed out enough about it from here.

It's so hard not knowing what is going on. Seeing pictures of Midan Tahrir swarming with people, police, tear gas, and anger and recognizing landmarks is rather surreal. I've used that metro stop. I've been to the restaurant. I let my girls run amok on that sidewalk. There's the Egyptian Museum, AUC campus, the mugama. We have so many happy memories of the place that it doesn't seem possible for it to be taken over with an angry mob.

Once, my brother and I tried to catch a taxi from Midan Tahrir to the Khan, during ramadan—we couldn't because the area was mia'b'mia empty. There were no cars or people as far as the eye could see. That, itself, was odd because Tahrir is usually bustling. We took a minute to meander on the square—in the middle of the road—just because we could, while we tried to figure out the best way to find a cab.

That calm, peaceful evening is such a contrast to the pictures I've seen of people lining the streets, praying, shouting, walking, fighting—thronging, thronging, thronging—trying to pressure the government to give it up and get out.

Medical stuff

I'm really excited to be insured—perhaps a little too excited, really. Last week went something like this:

Monday: Cairo party at the Cummings', FHE
Tuesday: Dentist appointment, running
Wedneday: Josie's play
Thursday: Running
Friday: Yoga, doctor appointment, temple
Saturday: Running
Sunday: Day of rest (plus 3 hours of church, 2 hours of scout meetings, 1 hour of choir...etc.)

I was really, really frazzled by the time Saturday rolled around. And then Andrew pointed out that I had gone out every single evening except for Monday. So that would explain a lot since I don't usually go out that often. Not that I'm a hermit or anything, but I just don't usually go out that often. I'm a stay-at-home mom, which, by definition, means that I stay at home. A lot.

We Be Loyal Scouts

As of today I'm officially a den leader. I just printed out my Youth Protection Training certificate (which, by the way, claims to be "suitable for framing" so you might just see it on my wall...or not) and I feel like I'm completely jumping into the fire. We have a "pack meeting" on Tuesday and a "den meeting" on Wednesday. And we had two committee-type meetings today.

I'm completely out of my league here. Not only have I never been through scouting but I grew up watching my brother go through the Scouts Canada program, which is a completely different system, dutifully sewing on his badges and longing to join the boys on their adventures (they did really cool things; and I only sewed his shirtsleeves shut a handful of times, but that was only because most of his badges went on his sash and not on his shirt).

We were sitting in our meeting this afternoon discussing the 2011 budget and the topic of belt loops came up.

"We'll continue to buy badges and beads for all the boys but we won't be supplying belt loops anymore. They're just too expensive, so we'll have to let parents know that they will have to supply belt loops for the boys if their boys want to earn them."

The whole time I was thinking, Why don't they just put belt loops on the pants in the first place?!

Black Socks

This morning we were on time for church. Barely. Still, let's give credit where credit is due.

We. Were. On. Time.

For some reason our children can wake up bright-eyed an bushy-tailed on a Saturday morning at, say, seven o'clock in the morning, but on Sundays we literally have to drag them out of bed—usually by 8:00 in the morning, sometimes later. I have kind of come to think of them as natural alarm clocks, but they've recently been rather defective, waking up when I want to hit snooze and sleeping in when I need to be woken up. And climbing into bed with us.

We only have one other alarm clock that does that.

I woke up this morning at around six o'clock and thought I was paralyzed—I tried to turn over but couldn't move. It only took me a moment to notice that I had a child resting in either nook of my arms. (I don't even know how these things happen). I had Andrew help me move them back into their own beds and then we went back to sleep until our alarm (the one on Andrew's iPod) went off shortly after 7:00.

Both of us were dressed before we even woke the girls up.

"My socks don't match," I commented to Andrew, "but I don't care because I'm wearing my boots to church so no one will see them."

Blueberries, blueberries....

One of Rachel's favourite YouTube videos is this one:

She likes to say, "Blueberries, blueberries..." in a demented voice and then hit her face on anything nearby. She will also sometimes say, "Cucumbers, cucumbers..." or "Cereal, cereal..." or anything else if we don't happen to have blueberries around. We don't often have blueberries around, actually, but we do have blueberry yogurt.

The girls split a blueberry yogurt the other day and they were getting quite silly and creative with it.