Well, what's been happening..  I dared to venture out in public with all three of them by myself, and I’m afraid I still get the feeling that in Sweden the idea that children should be seen and not heard persists. Nothing major happened, but on the bus back home it just seems so quiet, hardly anyone was talking to anyone else, so my two big ones playfully singing, talking excitedly and seat swapping made me feel self-conscious. I was checking the bus driver’s expression now and again, as once one got a bit annoyed by them. I’m usually more relaxed if it’s an immigrant driver as they probably see them as normal kids ! Maybe I’m paranoid…… By the way the Swedish word for immigrant is ‘invandare’, ironic as the Vikings were real invaders !!
 
Anyway back to the boys development. H. can now climb up on to beds, chairs, but not down yet, so leaves him looking a bit worried, as am I. I am expecting him to fall off any minute ! He has been pressing buttons of all types for a while now with his index finger. There are many red buttons for the timed lights in the corridors down to the cellar, so when we go he is quite happy. Cause and effect is therefore well established. Another interest are the tv remotes. He looks very confused if we have taken out the batteries to ease our frustration, and hence he can make no change to the TV channel, volume etc.
His walking is quite confident now and he hardly ever crawls, but his stranger anxiety is still there, two elderly people tried to smile and talk to him the other day but he gave them some stern looks, turned away, and tears. So my children are liked in Sweden, sometimes. One other quirky thing he does is to lie his head down and smile if he ever comes across a pillow or cushion lying around, as they do from various pillow fights that have happened.
 
We were watching  'you are what you eat' the other night, I thought quite educational, but as the lady said ´'zinc will boost your sex drive', I could sense the cogs going round for a few seconds and then S. said 'what's zinc will boost your sex drive?'  After a moment's thought all I could come out with was 'I can't think how to explain it'  which AlhammdulIllah he accepted as an answer , surprisingly. I have explained the mechanics of baby making in basic terms when asked, but beyond that I hope it will be a while until he persists on asking about that. But I must not assume 8.30 pm TV, beforethe watershed, is appropriate.
 
M. bought a lego set himself, happy to wait his turn in the queue, but on this same shopping trip he took himself to a computer games shop, giving me almost heart failure in the process as I couldn’t find him for 5 minutes. It was just by Grace of Allah I chose that particular shop to ask where the helpdesk would be and there he was, not a care in the world, deeply studying a computer game box . I thought he was improving in this area, but noone could say he lacks anything in the independence department, maybe the sense department though. Maybe he should take some lessons from H. as it's like he's been reading those separation anxiety sections in child psychology books .
M is now good at writing the letter M since my friend showed him a join the dot technique, so maybe all those Winnie the pooh dot to dotcomputer games have been of some benefit. He also drew an Arabic ‘bah’ on a giroslip whilst waiting in the bank. M's always been disinterested in drawing so I’m glad it doesn’t apply to letters. I’m preparing myself for his failure on the ‘draw a man test’ in his 4 year check up coming up, as I doubt he’ll even draw a head, let alone fingers or toes !