School, again

Since my last post about school, we did some research and found that Karim's birthday is after the state cutoff of September 1st, so for this year we have no option but to put off any formal class room activities. Then today I read an interesting article focusing on child development and education. After reading this I am leaning more toward just relaxing about school and allowing Karim to learn through our daily activities without forcing any major structure on him. I have tried some academic activities before like tracing letters and numbers and other preschool workbook activities and he has never really responded to them, in fact, he was rather resistant. I was worried that I was doing something wrong and that he was missing something and feared he would fall behind when it was time to officially start school. However, after reading the article and reviewing what I've learned about child development I think it's more important to allow learning to happen naturally at this point depending on what Karim is interested in. For example, he loves letters, words, 'reading', and books although I've never really sat him down and taught him directly, it's just something he likes and chooses to explore.
The article is a good read for anyone with preschool/kindergarten aged kids who are struggling with making a decision as it really helped put my mind at ease.
On another note, I know I haven't put up pictures recently and I've been really bad about even taking pictures of the kids. Here are a few of Karim being a goof. He found his tux from my bro and sis-in-law's wedding and decided he wanted to wear it. They just celebrated their 2nd anniversary so we were barely able to get the tux on, but Karim thought it was a lot of fun. He kept saying, "look mom, I'm a father, I'm going to work now"

Roqaya was indifferent to the whole thing...

You will notice though, she is in my patented (not sure if that's true or if other parent's have used this technique) backward pjs. She has recently been insisting to not wear clothes. This would not be such a big deal if she also did not enjoy peeing on herself and then running around laughing at how cool she is. I have also found one piece leotards to be helpful and not so hot especially once she figured out how to unsnap her onsies. It's a constant battle but so far I'm winning. I'm just glad she has the sense to remain clothed in public.

Learning to Swim

We signed up Karim for swimming lessons in July. He is so ready for his classes to start, he's been a water lover since I can remember. He loves "swimming" in the bathtub, really he just dunks himself and slides around on the bottom of the tub. We went to our community pool this weekend to get him used to swimming in a pool. He had not been to a real pool before--he's had plenty of experience with their kiddie pool, the ocean, some rivers and water parks, but never just a pool. He was scared for about 2 seconds but once he was in that was it. We got the kids float suits last year which work really well and they like them. This way Karim could pretty much be on his own since the shallow end is 3 feet and he couldn't touch. After about 10 minutes of swimming he decided he wanted to get out and jump in from the steps. He did that a couple times and then decided it would be more fun to jump from the edge of the pool. It was all over after that, then he worked on jumping as big as he could. He didn't mind one bit being submerged in the water. I'm not sure how well he'll adjust once he's not in his float suit though, but that's why we want him to take the lessons--to be familiar of the water and not be scared.
Roqaya seemed to feed off Karim and was soon pushing my hands away and wanted to go off by herself. She wasn't as good at staying vertical so I still had to stay right next to her in case she tipped over. I was surprised when she started climbing out and jumping from the edge of the pool. I had to catch her though because she hasn't quite figured out that she needs to close he nose and mouth when going under the water. I think I was most surprised when Karim said he had to go to the bathroom. I assumed he would just go, but he insisted on getting out and going in the locker room, he found it unfathomable that kids would pee in the pool.
I was unable to get pictures since it was hard enough keeping track of the two kiddos. I'll try to get some when he starts his lessons since Roqaya and I will be in the bleachers watching.

It is official....

Roqaya is a big girl! She is done nursing. We've been working on this for a couple weeks now and yesterday was her first full day without "mama's milk" (the code name we use, and two words I have been very sure not to say in case she thinks its her invitation). She sometimes gets really angry when she doesn't get to nurse, but I've learned to catch her before she gets too tired and I give her her singing puppy and rock her until she falls asleep. Last night was her first night without her night cap and she did really well with just one little whining spell before dozing off.
I had such an easy time weaning Karim, he basically did it himself and there was no effort involved. But with Roqaya, she was a frequent nurser so I had to get her down from about 10 sessions a day. I just hope that she soon forgets all about mama's milk so we can have an easier time getting her to sleep, especially at night. Either way, she's now a big girl, but still my baby.

Day Five

This was probably our most leisurely day since we didn't have any major plans, we just hung out in Cairo. We visited the railroad museum inside the train station and we saw a lot of cool stuff.

The King's train

Karim driving the King's train

Model of how ancient Egyptians moved large items. Basically a bunch of people pulled the large stones on big sleds.

Then we made out way to the Cairo tower where we had lunch in the rotating restaurant on top. This is something we had to do because it's something we could never afford in the US.

The bottom floor lobby

Outside the tower on our walk to the main road we found this tree, I don't know what it was but I really like it

We found a cab on the main road and asked him to take us somewhere to get American coffee on the way to the train station. We ended up driving for hours, asking people on the street to point us to a Starbucks but we kept being told "it's right down this street" or "yes, right around this corner" but it was never there. We finally happened upon another coffee place after we'd given up and were going back to the train station. We ordered a third cup for our cab driver who had never had American coffee. That was the only cup of coffee I had in the whole 3 months I was in Egypt and it was fantastic. We stopped at a mango juice stand outside the train station and then got situated in our seats for the quick ride back to Alexandria.

Day Four

This day didn't start out so great, but it turned out to be a great day of touring Aswan. We got up early to have a little hotel breakfast before meeting our driver to take us to the train station. The food in the hotel was not what I expected as far as what I consider breakfast food. There were several bean dishes--fava beans, garbanzo beans, black eyed peas--some salads, and bread. They did have an omelet bar so that's where I went. And, of course, they had Nescafe--pretty much the only coffee available in Egypt.
We got on the train early and were very disappointed with our seats. We were able to get a private cabin but it was extremely dusty and the air wasn't working. Also, it seemed that outside our door was the go-to place for people to smoke. The worst part about this was that it was the workers mainly who were smoking and it seemed to be the norm so there was no amount of complaining that would get them to stop. We all wanted to sleep but were all too irritated by the dust and smoke to get any real sleep--the kids didn't seem to mind too much though.

With no sleeping going on, I was thinking about our trip so far and realized that I was actually grateful for this leg of the trip because had it not been for this I would have been unable to be satisfied with the rest of the journey. I came to the conclusion that without experiencing the bad, we cannot appreciate the good and this was, in a way, the main lesson I took from my whole stay in Egypt.

Luckily, this was the shortest train ride and we arrived in Aswan early in the day. We found a driver to take us around the town and our first stop was at a little masjid that Asmaa and I just loved, I just wanted to bring it home with me.

We then made our way up to the High Dam and did some drive-by site seeing on the way--we had to catch our train back to Alexandria so we had to be quick about seeing Aswan.

The road up was interesting because on one side was complete desert and on the other was lush gardens, but on both sides were signs of electricity.

Electric company

All of us on the High Dam

All of us again on the other side

The friendship monument displaying the relationship between Egypt and Russia (who financed the dam after the US said no)

We got back in the car and drove toward Philae--a small island in the Nile. This island contains several temples that were once flooded as a result of the construction of the first dam.

The market we walked through before renting our boat to take us to the island. The Coke store sign says Abu Karim Market (Abu Karim=Father of Karim).

This guy looked pretty hardcore, although I'm not really sure what he was guarding.

Our boat

Some people left their own carvings

I guess this was the site of a famous Egyptian music video so the kids were excited. I've never seen the video so don't know if this is the exact spot.

We got back on our boat and made our way back into town to a nice seafood restaurant. Ahmed and his sister set out in search of goods to take home, as there are certain things that can only be found in Aswan, or that just grow and taste better than what is found closer to the Nile delta. For example,  peanuts, cinnamon, red peppers, dates, pepper corn, and other spices.

At the train station our groups split and Asmaa and the kids headed back early and we decided to take the sleeper train and spend one more day in Cairo before heading to Alexandria. The sleeper train was great and something I would do again if we ever travel Egypt like that again.

Day Three

Our first night in Luxor was the most relaxing of the trip and we were all able to get some good sleep before starting our next big day--Luxor's west bank. We commissioned our driver from the previous day to pick us up and take us around the sites for the day and we are lucky that he turned out to be a cool guy because we forgot the diaper bag at the hotel and didn't realize it until we arrived at the Valley of the Kings. He went to a nearby convenience store to get us a supply of diapers, but we also remembered that our camera was in that bag. Fortunately, Ahmed's sister had her camera so we were still able to get some shots.

Huge rocks were removed from these mountains and then shipped to the other side of the Nile. It's amazing what the ancient Egyptians were capable of.

The whole valley is peppered with these tombs, several small ones like this, almost unnoticeable like these and other more  significant ones, like King Tut's which we weren't allowed to photograph
 

We did a lot of walking and it was really hot. We were here on December 25th and it was at least 90 degrees. The last stop in the Valley of the Kings was the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut.

Many of the ornamental carvings still retain the original color

There were two of these tress brought from Somalia and planted here as part of the Temple

We toured a few more less popular sites before heading to a restaurant in town. The place was recommended by our driver and we're pretty sure he gets some kind of commission for bringing tourists there, but the food was as good as he said it was so it was worth the higher-than-normal price. We then spotted a little place to get drinks and stopped in before heading to the hotel.

Karim got sick and spewed on me and that was our cue to head back to the hotel and get ourselves in bed.