Sometimes Love is the Key

So, after returning home from a couple of errands Bayan had a proper meltdown when I told him that he couldn't fill the battery operated play kettle with water. He went from spending three hours this morning as a perfectly behaved charming little fellow who helped me organize my classroom for this week's lessons, sat through a meeting with our accountant while I filed my tax papers (which, regardless of weather you are three or thirty, scores similar points on the fun-meter) and helped do the fruit and vegetable shopping for the week. He went from an enchanting little cherub with helping hands and a beguiling smile to a screaming, raspberry blowing, tantrum thrower.

There are some moments when you are in the midst of some chaos or other and a solution or a greater understanding of the situation hits you suddenly with such force and clarity that you are surprised you didn't see it before. Today was no exception. It was as if God whispered to my heart and I knew that he just needed some love and some focused attention from me. How could I not have known that before. It is so obvious now. Anyway, I let him calm down and then went inside to talk to him. He then apologized... of his own accord. (That dull thud you just heard was my jaw hitting the ground.) With tears falling from his eyes and a choked up little voice he said he was sorry for shouting and hitting. Poor darling. Being three is not easy. We sat down on his bed and I pulled the "I love you forever" book off the bookcase. We read it three times cover to cover and spent the rest of the afternoon sharing snacks and stories. I left my preparations for school, the house work and dinner plans off to the side and had one of the best, perhaps most productive, afternoons I have had in quite awhile- just simply being with my little boy. It doesn't get better than that.

Today I learned:

::how to set the oven timer so that it actually rings when it is supposed to.

::that if you put hot jam in a jar and flip it upside down an airtight seal is formed.

:: that if you save an avocado seed when you are making guacamole and place the seed in your guacamole it stops it from going brown. Not sure how that works but it certainly does the trick. Try it. You'll never look back.

:: that the illusive Ruhi book 3A is really Book 5.

:: that if you leave your nail polish in a certain position for long enough it actually becomes petrified.

Ratatouille

We're trying to encourage the kids to eat more veggies and try new foods. Last Friday we decided to do a theme for Family Night. We made Ratatouille from a very promising recipe I located at allrecipes.com and prepared to watch a Disney film of the same name. The kids were so very excited. It smelled enticingly scrumptious, layers of Mediterranean vegetables, garden fresh herbs and cheese slowly baking in the oven... the promise of a movie that they had never seen.

As I set the Ratatouille on the table with much hope and anticipation, Ruhi gave the dish a quizzical look and asked suspiciously "What is that?" (This did not bode well.) Bayan took one look at the food that found its way to his plate and spontaneously burst into tears sorrowfully proclaiming "I don't want soup!" (It did look rather juicy on the bottom.) While Anisa scrunched up her nose, in a most undignified fashion, wore an expression on her face that essentially summed up the dish (even I found it profoundly unappetizing -and I love this sort of thing) and resolutely refused to eat it (though she did try one bite. That was the deal.)

Luckily I had made a back -up: Gluten free (yes Mom - gluten free) cannelloni which went down much better.

Holiday!

The mid year school holidays are here... at last! And we have grand plans for them that involve such sublime things as sleeping in, not driving to school, making lots of play dates, baking cookies, catching up on a some classic movies like The Secret Garden, making things at home like shopping bags and mosaic pictures and having a great time just relaxing from the constant rush of daily life. Something that we all really need to do.

We are off to a roaring start. We spent the day at home, playing, resting, reading, drawing, eating. The children took an empty box and made it into a race car and had a jolly, spiffing, time racing down invisible tracks and zooming to distant places that cannot be seen and must be imagined. It is so nice to have them all home!

Iran

The children at the girls' school have been studying the Middle East this term. They have recently had a focus on Iran, and I have been invited in to share some things about the Persian culture. I have pretty much been given the day and the kids have been helping me prepare for tomorrow. We are planning to make ku-ku sibzamini (a potato omelet), as well as sholeh zard (saffron pudding) to accompany the Persian tea. We are bringing in our samovar and have borrowed a costume from A. that Anisa will wear to demonstrate traditional tribal garb. We are bringing some black material that will come in handy as a table cloth or chaddor. I have been searching the Internet and picking people's brains to come up with positive facts on Iran for a true or false game I am making to play with the whole school. We are bringing in some works of art and will be making paper flowers as well as reenacting a story from 1001 Arabian nights.

For now the girls are helping to wrap up little sample pouches for the kids to try some traditional Persian snacks. My little mermaid has been busily laying out cellophane squares and placing one ingredient list on each, while Ruhi has been meticulously placing the same number of dried apricots, figs, dates, dried mulberries (toot) white raisins (yes, white, or perhaps a pale, creamy, yellow) and dried chick peas in little patches of glad wrap. We are wrapping these in the cellophane and will be giving one to the students and staff tomorrow. Provided that we finish our preparations of course.

Later:

The day went really well, if I do say so myself. We got to school early and I started making the sholeh zard. After recess I had the girls dress up and began by asking what the students thought of when they imagined Iran. We got the usual response of deserts, camels and terrorists and from there started talking a little about the history of Iran, about Mehran's personal experiences and the Baha'i Faith and about how there are good people everywhere. I showed them some of the things that I had brought and had them make the flowers while I began taking small groups into the staff room to make the ku-ku sibzamini. We managed to find a job, albeit some very small, for every single person and by the time it took to finish cooking (we made a triple batch) and eating them (there were none left) it was almost lunch. The kids were then introduced to Persian tea, with its soft spices and unique technique of sucking the tea through sugar cubes- they really got into this. (Some kids even had thirds) - Which was good because although the sholeh zard smelled really good I think the flavours were extremely unusual for the children. Most people managed to finish their portions but no one asked for seconds. I think young J. summed it up when he poked his head through the door and instead of the usual "thank you" that was said as bowls were handed back instead went this route: "Wow! That was disgusting!" Never mind, Mehran's parents took half of what was left and Nushan and her friends polished off the rest.

The most successful part of the day was after lunch when the whole school came together and we played the dorost ya eshtebah (true or false) game that I created for the occasion. I played this with my students when we were studying Mexico and they loved it. There are two teams and each team chooses a person to sit in a hot seat (which are positioned so competitors are back to back and cannot see the other teams response. ) There are two cards for the people in the hot seat to hold. One says true (dorost) and one says false (eshteba). I say a statement like: Iran's second largest export is flying carpets, or the first charter for human rights was written by King Darius of Persia and they have to work out whether that statement is true or false and hold up the correct card. Each team that gets it right gets a point and if a player gets it wrong they sit down and another team member has a turn. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and everyone had a shot. But better than this was the reenactment of Ali Cogia and the Merchant of Baghdad, one of the stories from the 1001 Arabian nights. I had another teacher pick the two main characters (I didn't want to be accused of nepotism you see) and fortunately one was Ruhi (who was devastated, but held it together most maturely, that she only had a little shot at the true and false game.) Getting to play Ali Cogia perked her right up and R. was perfect as the greedy merchant. The kids were spellbound while I narrated portions of the story and laughed in all the right places. It was awesome. (I wish my regular students would do that.) At the end we handed out our little snack gifts and also extra tea bags. Apparently they really liked the tea. But they also got to learn positive things about another culture, especially a culture that is generally portrayed in an extremely negative light. They left with positive experiences, tasty snacks and a better understanding of a group of people who are not so very different from themselves.

Mexico

I don't normally write anything about what goes on at school here on the blog but this term was exceptional and I simply had to share. We have spent the last ten weeks focusing on Mexico. We have been learning about the culture, doing arts and crafts, reading stories, myths and legends, sharing interesting facts, playing games and studying about famous people and places from Mexico. We have taken a virtual tour of the Temple of Inscriptions and gotten to touch a replica mask of the King of Palenque. Groups of students have been busy constructing Mayan and Aztec pyramids out of large refrigerator boxes as well as making a Mexican jungle complete with palm trees, wild flowers and butterflies. (You'll have to excuse the palm trees they were much more lush and robust before we started moving them.) Groups of older students served as tour guides, pilots and flight attendants when we converted a spare classroom into "Mexico" and took younger classes on a field trip. The younger classes had made passports, airline tickets and had packed suitcases filled with all the essentials they might need on their trip. We then boarded our makeshift airline and headed into the sky. Using a map we detailed our flight path, saw different classes of Mexican society going about their daily lives and viewed petrified waterfalls from the window of the plane. They got to touch special rocks and minerals from Mexico and pass them around. They listened to the sounds of the rainforest on CD and then went on a butterfly hunt through the Mexican jungle, explored the Temple of Inscriptions complete with hieroglyphs (that you cannot see from the picture) listened to the legend of Popo and Itza and saw them (volcanoes) from the plane as we headed toward Mexico City (students had made a huge painting detailing the famous volcanoes.) When we landed students were greeted with some of the scents of Mexico, such as chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon. They saw avocados and explored some of the artwork of Diego Rivera and Freida Kahlo, and admired a huge mural that the older students had made. I also had lots of artifacts that they got to see and touch, everything from dolls and puppets to pottery and textiles. Before boarding the plane back to Australia the whole class learned and performed the Mexican Hat Dance, the older students helping teach the younger ones. We had a great time. The kids keep asking when are we going back? Maybe someday they can go for real...

Conversations and Proclamations

There are few things in life so delightful as seriously conversing with the very young. Allow me to demonstrate.

Here is a conversation Ruhi and I had in the car on the way home from school. They had been learning about the Middle East and the mother of one of her classmates had brought in some items to share and talk about the time that she spent as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, which Ruhi had interpreted as Israel (you will witness the relevance of her telling me that in a moment). Ruhi was explaining and describing some of the things that she had seen like a prayer shawl of some sort and a special candle holder that held a whole bunch of candles in a row. So, out of curiosity, I innocently asked: "Oh, are they Jewish?" (Referring to her classmate and family and thinking how wonderful it would be if they were - you know diversity and all...) Ruhi, referring to the candle holder, looked at me as though a most voluptuous walrus had just popped out of my nose and said: "No Mum... They're solid silver." Indeed.

Anisa, with her characteristic charm and enthusiasm, proclaimed one day after breakfast and entirely out of the blue: "You know Mum, one day I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna be big and I'm gonna have a baby in my tummy and I'm gonna have big boobies and I'm gonna make milk and I'm gonna be a cow! Just. like. YOU!" Um - thanks honey. (I think Mehran has been secretly hoping she'd become a doctor, but you know - cows are good too.)

While Bayan carries on delightfully random conversations that take so many twists and turns that it's quite crucial to pay very close attention or else you never know where you might end up.

Bayan: "Mum, Mum, Mummy I have a tummy ache in my throat and my toes hurt in my tummy."

Me: "Your toes hurt in your tummy?"

Bayan: "Yes! Look Mummy! You see de cat? I like cats. Cats are funny!"

Me: "Oh, I missed the cat. What color was it?"

Bayan: "I fink (think) was black. See mummy, see!" (holding up a toy car) "Car goes brrrrmmmm!" (excellent sound effects)

Me: "That's a nice car Bayan."

Bayan: "Yes. Here is broken. We need some sticky tape to fix it."

Me: "I don't think I have any sticky tape with me."

Bayan: "Yes, yes you do. We have sticky tape."

Me: "Yes we have sticky tape at home but not in the car. How about if I give you some tape when we get home?"

Bayan: "Mummy space is dark?"

Me: "Yes Bayan, space is very dark. How is your tummy?"

Bayan: "What?"

Here he is having an intimate chat with Chipper the squirrel (or as Bayan would say, the squirreler. He has taken to adding the suffix -er to the ends of various words like stool and hole so that they become stooler and holer respectively. I find it immensely charming.) And here are Anisa and Ruhi conversing with nameless (so far as we know) crustaceans. They were formally introduced before making a special appearance at dinner. Bayan wanted no part of it. I suppose it is rather savage. I must look for more vegetarian recipes.

Clandestine drop offs

I thought I had brought everything to the hospital when we went last week, but on returning home found that I had forgotten to take a heavy bag filled with books. People had also donated a lot of items, mainly second hand stuffed animals, that the hospital was unable to accept as there is no way to adequately sterilize a stuffed animal. So I made a phone call and found a place that was more than willing to take them off our hands. Over a year ago Bayan collected stuffed animals for a domestic violence organization and apparently the idea went over really well. They said they could certainly use some more and so after dropping the books at the hospital, we went to a designated location in the city and quickly dropped off the bags of stuffed goodies in between showers of pouring rain.

Martha and her daughter A. then joined Bayan and I for a bit of op. shopping around town. We found a fantastic second hand book store and visited a few thrift shops unearthing small treasures here and there. It is so nice to have someone who shares the same interests as you. Thanks Martha for an awesome afternoon.