Summer in the UAE has much to recommend it: less traffic, quieter malls and a generally more relaxed pace of life.
Having already ticked off my trip of the summer – we travelled early this year for the World Cup – I'm now left to see out the best of the school holiday here in the UAE. And so are my three sons, aged 13, 11 and seven.
This year, I eschewed summer camps in favour of saving some money and spending time entertaining the kids while working from home. How hard can it be, I thought. Here's how it went – and the musings that crossed my mind.
Monday
7.04am: It’s hard.
7.07am: During term time, once the children are dropped off, the morning is my tightly scheduled walking-gym-meditation time before work. But during school holidays, mornings become a black hole event horizon in which time gets demonstratively slower until an hour lasts an entire week. Scientists should study this phenomenon.
8.18am: They’re hungry, despite having eaten breakfast an hour ago.
12.30pm: I’m trying to work at the dining table. The set-up feels vaguely pandemic-ish. I ask the children not to bother me unless it's important. It turns out that “I’m thirsty” and “he said I’m not sigma” are important.
12.32pm-8pm: They’re hungry.
Tuesday
9.18am: They’re hungry.
10.09am: They’re bored.
10.17am: They’re going in the pool.
10.23am: They’re bored of the pool.
10.24am-11.02am: I lecture them on how I never had a pool when I was growing up and when we would go on holiday to places where there was a pool, I would be in it for eight hours a day and my parents wouldn’t even see me until dinnertime.
11.04am: They’re back in the pool.
11.13am: They’re bored of the pool.
3.03pm-8pm: They’re hungry.
Wednesday
9.30am: Why do all entertainment options seem to cost at least Dh300 per child?
10am: I need tea light candles, so I take them to Ikea and leave it to the Swedish multinational home furnishing retailer to entertain them. They enjoy playing house for three whole hours in the mini bedrooms, dining rooms and kitchens. I leave with a Frakta that contains a lot more than tea light candles, proving there is no such thing as a free lunch. Well played, Ikea.
4.15pm: Families who leave for the entire summer: I have so many questions. How do you get two months off work? Are you working remotely? Is one parent staying and another going back? If you are lucky enough to have help in the UAE, why have you voluntarily gone away to cook, wash and iron for two months? Are you renting an Airbnb? Are you made of money? Or are you staying with family? In which case, are you OK?
Thursday
1.09pm: Monopoly Knockout is getting out of hand. I suggest something less likely to cause arguments, like Lego.
1.12pm: Lego is getting out of hand. I suggest something less likely to cause arguments, like a jigsaw puzzle.
1.22pm: The jigsaw puzzle is getting out of hand. I suggest something less likely to cause arguments, like sitting in silence.
1.25pm: Silence is neither feasible nor enforceable. I crack and let them on the PlayStation for a few hours.
11.30pm: The words “buns”, “cooking”, “sigma”, “skibidi”, “nonchalant”, “cooked” and “bov” haunt my dreams.
Friday
7am-10.44am: They’re hungry.
10.45am: They decide to build a pillow fort. Every single pillow and cushion, along with every sheet, blanket and duvet cover in the house is draped around the living room. In my opinion, the fort lacks structural integrity, but they are working together so I don’t offer any advice.
11.17am: Arguments break out over how much I should be charged to enter the pillow fort. The child who says “no charge because I love mummy so much” becomes my temporary favourite, although I am suspicious of his motives.
11.30am: “I love mummy so much” child asks to order McDonald’s for lunch, confirming my suspicions.
3pm: Afternoon play date that involves three additional children in my house. This results in a Schrodinger’s cat play date situation whereby my house is simultaneously more hectic owing to extra children and less hectic owing to said children entertaining my own.
Saturday
6am: As it’s the weekend, naturally they wake up earlier than usual.
10.30am: They’re hungry. The 6am wake-up time means 10.30am is effectively lunchtime. Eating goldfish crackers at this time feels wrong. I make them eat a cucumber first, making me feel like one of those from-scratch, clean-living, homesteading Instagram mothers a la Hannah Neeleman or Nara Smith.
2.02pm: I need something from Spinneys. I could Instashop it, but that would deny myself the pleasure of leaving the house for 10 minutes. And by 10, I mean 40.
3.15pm: Until today, I had happily lived my whole life with zero knowledge of Alan Chikin Chow. This is now ruined as the afternoon is spent with YouTube as our main babysitter.
9pm: For many parents, the summer holidays are the chance to loosen up the schedule and allow children to stay up later. I disagree with this at a fundamental level. If my children are still up at 10pm, when will I hate-watch Landman?
Sunday
9.17am: They go upstairs to play hide-and-seek. I wait for someone to start crying.
9.19am: Someone is crying.
9.21am: They’re hungry.
11.07am: We kid ourselves that a walk around the mall will be cheap.
12.12pm: We have somehow spent Dh2,200.
6.13pm: There’s an argument over Minecraft. I make the appropriate noises while failing to understand any of it.
6.59pm: They’re hungry.
