Bayan's foot

This poor little love. He is so patient. He stepped on a golf ball as we were about to leave Adventure Land and really tweaked his ankle. He can't walk on it at all. Slight pressure hurts and he was up throughout the night needing lots of cuddles and pain relief. This morning he is still store, but is no longer sobbing incessantly. He has resigned himself to crawling around the house to get where he needs or to asking someone to bring him things. Luckily he has two doting, big, sisters who are only too happy to oblige. One of them is even experiencing sympathy pains and has had to have both her feet bandaged. These are special pains. "Blinking pains." They shift around, and so do the bandages: sometimes it is the ankle, sometimes the knee or shin, sometimes it is even the elbow, wrist or hand and when Bayan's ankle really plays up she experiences spontaneous agony too. Sigh.

Adventure Land

New Years Day was spent at a fun park with Mehran's family. Not Disneyland, but not bad. There was boating, canoeing, rock climbing, bouncy castles (well - sort of), mazes, mini-golf, motorized cars, huge slides and water slides. There was even a tractor driven 'train' ride around the park where the kids kept a sharp lookout for further attractions, unfortunately all they found were golf greens. They, unanimously, felt that was rather unfortunate. But at least there were the slides. Bayan loved the big, wave slide the best while Anisa and Ruhi preferred the water slides.(He even hauled his heavy carpet off-cut up a mountain of stairs so that he could go down again and again and again.)

Some of my favorite moments included:

watching Bayan watching Mehran attempt to scale a rock mountain.

Watching the girls enthusiastically wait for turn after turn on the water slides and have a brilliant time going down.

Watching Mehran attempting to take the lazy route in bringing the picnic baskets, coolers and lunch bags down to the shaded lawn on the lower level of the park. He didn't wish to walk down all the steps so he thought it would be easier to take the slide down to the bottom while carrying the pile of lunch items on his lap. He neglected to account for the bumps in the slide and that while loaded up and going fast he would hit them harder. With the first dip the lid to the cooler became airborne, pieces of ice flew high overhead while others landed square in his lap and along the slide behind him. By the time he arrived at the bottom he was sporting some soggy shorts and a very moist shirt. But he avoided the stairs and that was the whole idea, so despite the fact that he was showered in melting ice, he was happy and pretty impressed with himself.PS. Note the people on the steps who have stopped to stare...you would think after fifteen years (today was our fifteenth wedding anniversary) I would be used to Mehran's shenanigans by now. But I find that we continue to reach new heights of embarrassing (albeit completely hilarious) public displays. You know I really wouldn't change it or him for that matter - well, maybe a few things... Anyway here's to fifteen more years. At least.

Creating a Calendar

We have spent much of the school holidays at home (for obvious reasons) and as much as I had hoped to be out and about enjoying ourselves I am so very glad that we have been here instead. It has given us a chance to be quiet and still and enjoy our own company as well as getting a few things done that I have wanted to do for the kids.

Ruhi and Anisa have been busy making us a 2010 calendar to put up on the wall. Ruhi went on the Disney site and she and Anisa and Bayan chose some images which they then colored in. Ruhi has been busily going through and adding important dates like Birthdays, Baha'i Holy days and feast nights. I think I will commission some artwork throughout the year and have them make a calendar from their own artwork for next year, but this has kept them busy, kept them happy and offered some great opportunities for cooperation as well as learning the dates of some special occasions.

Flash cards

For ages now I have been meaning to make Ruhi a set of times table flash cards. First of all because she really needs to learn them and has struggled a little with math this year, secondly because she and Anisa both seem to like using cards as a method of learning and you can quiz yourself (bonus for me). I have grand plans that involve constructing a special series of pockets that will be constructed from fabric and attached to the back of the car seat. We spend so much time driving to and from school that I am hoping we can use at least a little of that time for homework purposes and pockets of flash cards that can be quickly flipped through on a daily basis may not only help their learning but will also hopefully cut down on official homework time at home. That time could then be used for something else. Do I need to tell you that I already have plans for that too...hmmm, probably not. But only good plans, I assure you. Hopefully the kids will think so too.

Anyway, I typed up sets of the flash cards from 0-12 on the computer, printed each off on a different colored page and cut them out individually sticking each on a piece of patterned backing paper. I made two sets. One that shows the order of the times tables including the answer and one that will be further cut down into individual flash cards where you will not see the answer on the front, but will be able to find it on the back.
While I cut card stock and paper Bayan happily practiced his own cutting skills... with paper. He even took the following photo for me. I protested heartily, but he won in the end and I am so very glad that he did. I love his view and how he has captured the light and the depth and the colors.

How come my photos don't look this good?

Gingerbread house

With some assistance from my mini chef extraordinaire we whipped up some batter to construct a gingerbread house.Ruhi and Anisa we most obliging when it came time to roll out the dough and were delighted to use the offcuts and scraps for their own purposes. They made dolphins and horses while Bayan made 'shapes'. Everything was promptly eaten so their are no photos except for this one of the unadorned house before the kids were set loose to decorate it.Our house, as you can see, has two stories and windows this year. We encountered, as you can also see, structural difficulties involving miscalculations and more royal icing. But we won't talk about that. Instead lets talk about the excellent use I found for much of our unused Halloween candy.The kids jabbed (I mean positioned) jelly beans along the eaves and used hardened chewy candies to decorate the center of the roof and help fill in some gaps (more miscalculations or perhaps shrinkage during baking. Yes, that must be it.) Anisa color coded little lollies and Ruhi used them to make an intricate path leading up to the door.We used candy canes to make a fence and a marshmallow puff of smoke for the chimney and the kids went to town decorating the rest of the roof and environs with gummy lollies and sprinkles. Once again this dwelling will not be consumed, but will have served it's purpose well, as Thanksgiving has once again been bumped back to a later date just to make sure that everyone is truly well before we have anyone over, so by the time we are done it will have graced our table as a centrepiece for over two weeks.For the record I am not completely heartless about the deep sense of loss coming from tossing out this uneaten delicacy so I have ferreted away a few treats to be shared among the children who are joining us for our 'Thanksgiving' lunch. Fresh, wrapped, and far more hygienic plus they are sweet and sugary and are only available once a year. To say nothing of the fact that they would be far more healthy than attempting to ingest this (or any portion thereof) gingerbread house.

The Tablet of Ahmad

Over the last few days (whenever we have felt up to it) Ruhi and I have been working on making a decorated prayer sheet for The Tablet of Ahmad. We were taking about the importance of prayer and how some prayers are more powerful than others when she decided that she wanted to memorize this Tablet. So we printed a copy, in light grey ink, from the Internet and traced over the words with a fine felt tipped pen. We then dug out the scrapbooking supplies, measured up the quotes and boarders and began decorating. Because the paper is so pretty we mostly used offcuts from where portions of the prayer fit to embellish the Writings.While Ruhi carefully measured and cut Anisa was busy creating virtue cards (more on that later). Here she is with the latest creation. She added a handle, something that I have never done, nor ever thought to do, but there you have it. I love the ingenuity of children.

And here is our completed Tablet of Ahmad. Ruhi has been saying it every morning while I say it for them before bed. I hope that Anisa and Bayan will, eventually, pick some of it up too.

The beach

It has been a couple of days since anyone has ah "tossed their cookies" so to speak. And it has been over a week since we have left the house. Mehran, desperately wanting to take the kids somewhere, thought that perhaps we might try the beach. I agreed as the kids have been so disappointed because we have had to keep putting off our plans for Thanksgiving and the chances of us coming into contact with anyone at the place we were going was very slim. So we piled in the car and lethargically headed off to get some fresh air and sunshine. The kids had a blast wading in the surf and playing in the sand. Bayan found endless stones to throw and Mehran even squeezed in a nap while sunning himself on a rock . While it certainly lifted our spirits and seemed to do no end of good, Ruhi began projectile vomiting again this evening. And so, without further ado, we return to square one.

Feeling defeated

By a vicious cycle of vomit and washing. By mountains of laundry, stacks of dishes and constant housework that never ends.

By my lack of enthusiasm and energy for everything.

Making an effort- a fun menu for lunch: vegetable spring rolls (for the few of us fit to eat them), fruit salad in a rockmelon bowl and a collection of stories from around the world...

but mostly- feeling defeated.

Gastro

Defined:

Gastroenteritis often involves stomach pain or spasms, diarrhea and/or vomiting, with noninflammatory infection of the upper small bowel, or inflammatory infections of the colon.[1][6][12][13]
The condition is usually of acute onset, normally lasting 1–6 days, and is self-limiting. (No kidding.)

Should you develop this delightful disease here are some of the perks you can expect to experience:
Nausea and vomiting
Diarrhea
Loss of appetite
Fever
Headaches
Abnormal flatulence (fun)
Abdominal pain
Abdominal cramps

As fabulous as all that sounds I assure you it is much. much. WORSE!

Mehran brought it home on Saturday evening. This is a man who, in the entire time we've been married (nearly fifteen years) has never vomited once. Not once. Not even when we got food poisoning at a picnic. He credits his 'guts of steel' with the fact that he survived the extremely unhygienic conditions of a refugee camp in Pakistan. I can't dispute that. But not even his past exposure to rancid, fly covered, meats and the like could prepare him for this bout of Gastro. The man who never vomits... vomited. Violently. A lot. The condition is highly contagious. Highly. Which meant that I, the vomiting queen, was next. Anisa caught it shortly thereafter. Unfortunately Mehran had brought home a big bag of fresh cherries and had let the children indulge before bed. The result of this was Anisa waking in the middle of the night to hurl copious amounts of cherry vomit all over herself and her bed. Which I got to clean. At 3:00 am. In the midst of my own perfectly enchanting symptoms. Bayan was the next to succumb. His strategy was to throw up and then cry for food. To throw up and then cry for food. To throw up and then...do you detect a pattern here? Not sure that Bayan did, but his was the swiftest recovery. Ruhi held out the longest. We thought that maybe she would not catch it, but not only did she catch it, she caught it with flair and extravagance. She would aim for the toilet but would wind up covering walls and floors. The only thing missing was for her head to start spinning around. The frustrating part is the minute you think you might actually be on the mend someone starts throwing up again. It is diabolical I tell you. Diabolical.