I’m sitting her in the murky twilight of what is about 10 am, typing this, trying to get some light from other sources and maybe reflect on positive things to bring this feeling of, well, ‘lowness’ is the only word of I can conjure up right now.
Watching the live coverage of Hajj perks me up when I get a chance. Those million supplicating on the plains of Arafat today, begging for forgiveness is what I’m regularly thinking about.
We’ve been bunking school for a few days (ssh!) but to be honest, I’m too wacked to take them so early in the morning, when all they’ll be doing is Christmas-linked activities. (I’ve grown tired with debating with the teachers about the legitimacy of my children participating in this stuff, and to be told that it’s just tradition, nothing religious.) But I’m not happy with it and it’s all around us so they know what’s going on without having to make a Christmas cracker. S’s teacher rang me yesterday to persuade me to bring him as they were going to meet some pen-pals they’d been writing to. (First I’d heard of this). S wasn’t keen and with my ailing voice, I said it wasn’t likely he could come. Biryani has a bad cold, S’s asthma is back (mildly)H had false croup again, and M has a mouth ulcer, alhamdulillah.
So where was I, oh things that have happened in the relatively recent post, DH is in Singapore but alhamdulillah MIL should be arriving this weekend, some welcome adult company., and support. We had visitors yesterday, which gave a slight morale boost, although I felt inadequate as a host. Hang on didn’t I say something about positivity.

Kids quotes:
S ‘what’s’ impat-eee-ent’ (reads from book, impatient). You tell me!

‘How did they choose the first king?’

H ‘Why do you say everything is beautiful?’ Do I really, well it’s a better word than ‘good’ or ‘nice’. Must think of more adjectives to describe your artwork.

He has also worked out that if you have a ‘forehead’ then also one must have a ‘backhead’

H was trying to do some ‘homework’ the other day. I wrote out some sums which he did with some help. Then he did the alphabet stencil, which also contained a comma. That was tricky explaining what a comma is to a 4 year old.

M: ‘Maybe I might’ I can’t remember what he was talking about exactly, maybe having been asked ‘Are you going to pray now?’
The response anyhow may as well have been ‘No’
He also requested a ‘Staplizer’ to staple one of his numerous home-made books together.

Biryani is turning out a little Tom-boyish (unsurprisingly), bangs duplo men together and making fighting ‘Oooh, ooh’ noises. Her word for Star Wars at the moment is ‘Die’ I’m not sure if it’s a way-off pronunciation, or she just hears the boys saying ‘I’m going to die you’ as they race round the house with their improvised light sabres. (‘kill’ is the practically the same word as ‘die’ in Swedish so I assume that’s why they say this, it doesn’t sound so bad anyway somehow!’ )
She also enjoys picture matching the Curious George bingo pictures we have which I was surprised she could do.
She does use some of the baby-signs I taught her earlier on alongside speech, and she showed this by thinking I’d said ‘fish’ instead of ‘finish’. She also uses the sign for ‘pig’ ‘duck’ quite regularly.

Oh and one from DH ‘When did I say I was ignoring you?’. Yeah, I had to think about that one too.