On the days when I have the most to say, I am the most tired and often want to collapse in front of the TV for a good movie. But tonight I don’t even have the energy for that. And I need to get to bed early, so I don’t have the time either. So I am going to try to get some of those thoughts down to clear my head before sleep.

There were a lot of thoughts running through my mind today. It’s been a rough day. And it started at around 1am with Sebastian getting up for the night with his poor gassy tummy. We didn’t get back to bed until 5am and up a few hours later.

This week has been a bit challenging in the way that living in a developing country can be. It takes its toll when you walk all over your neighborhood, down the busiest roads — with your son in the baby carrier because a stroller wouldn’t be safe enough crossing the streets — and come up with nothing that you set out to find. We went to ten stationary stores in Maadi, I didn’t even know there were that many. Not one had padded enveloped or boxes which I needed to get our first shipment of calendars ready and posted.

Despite the road blocks, I remained positive. I was pleasantly surprised by the shop keepers helping me best they could, me speaking in English and them speaking in Arabic and using smiles and gestures to come to a common ground. Not once did we get frustrated with each other and this felt good.

I decided to compromise and got regular envelopes with a bit of cardboard to keep the calendar flat. Made of sturdy card stock, it was just an extra precaution. I found an old box for the big shipment and doubled up on envelopes for the others. I stayed up later than I wanted to in order to get everything addressed and taped up.

The breaking point came mid-morning, at about 4am, when I was more than exhausted and up with Sebastian. Calling my mom, thankful for the 7 hour time difference, sobbing about living in Egypt. Sometimes I can handle all the little quirks involved with living in Egypt, but less so at 4am after being up for a few hours and having only slept a couple.

I had a bit of a meltdown at the post office when they insisted on opening everything to go through it, even though we showed them what was inside. ‘What if we stuck money in between the pages?’ Somehow, there was a manager that made it his mission to make me happy. He took care of everything and sent us on our way, after reassuring me that the packages would be easily opened and re-taped. Of course Customs isn’t likely to be so kind.

We set off for Garden City to Sebastian’s ABM session. I wasn’t sure how he would do since he had little sleep but he was brilliant. He was so happy and did so well. Anticipating moves, moving with intent, scooting, reaching, rolling. Awesome. Short aside: I love doing ABM and am thankful that even though our practitioner is going out of town for a couple months, (miraculously) another woman has arrived just three weeks ago that will take her place with us. The added bonus is that she lives in Maadi!

Sebastian was exhausted and our trip back to the post office was not without hiccups. We had to go back to pay for the postage and take care of the paperwork side of things. Our taxi driver didn’t know how to get there so what would have been a 25 min drive turned into one of going in circles. Sebastian decided to cry until we got out of the car and although the taxi driver gave us a picture of his wife and children to look at (?!), Sebastian was only momentarily cheered. He then found a taxi driver in another cab that could lead us to where we would go. Despite the high charge on the meter from all the circling, the driver insisted I had paid him too much. This was another first as taxi drivers sometimes don’t think you give them enough, even when you really do.

We finally made it and there was more to do with the packages than anticipated. Some of this involved taping up a box they decided to put together for one of the shipments that I was planning to ship as two since I didn’t have a box. I was grateful that they did this and could see they took great care, even if some of the words were misspelled on the return address. (Road–Rode) At least it would make it to the destination intended.

Back to the taping. Sebastian HATES the sound of packing tape. It upsets him so much, as do many loud sounds like mixing machines, vacuums and the like. So while they are taping he is screaming. Tired, hungry and not liking the loud sounds around him. The other workers were visibly upset that he was upset and tried to cheer him to no avail.

Despite the horrible situation that would have been so much easier in a developed country, starting with the availability of proper envelopes and boxes, and not having everything opened and resealed, we were still blessed with people that were trying to help us out.  I make this point because it was very unusual. Most times people just don’t care. They have their own agenda and you are not on it.

When I was walking home today from our walk to the club, Sebastian sat in the stroller crying the whole way. It was his tummy again and although he tried to have fun at the club, content on the swing and slide, he was miserable all the way home. I looked at everything as if it was for the last time. Not because we are leaving Cairo for good, but because someday we will. And I want that day to not be too far into the distant future. Not because it is a miserable place to be, but because it is not the best place to be for us.  For Sebastian. And to explain that is another post.

For now, I must get some sleep. It’s early to rise tomorrow. We are selling the Seb Can Do Calendars at the Maadi Women’s Guild Christmas Bazaar. Hoping to sell lots and lots. We still need to recover our publishing costs.

Before Sebastian was born, we never talked about co-sleeping as an option. We bought him a baby cot and set it up next to the bed. It was a big decision; which bed do we buy for our unborn baby. We didn’t know how much shipping allowance we would have when Ali’s company would transfer us, so we went with something small. Of course, looking back we now know we could have gotten a crib or one of those cribs that go right up to the bed so it’s like co-sleeping, but the baby still has his own bed. And then eventually the crib would turn into a baby bed. But I digress. Like I said we went with the baby cot.

When Sebastian was born, he did not first fall asleep on my chest. Nor did he first fall asleep in his baby cot. He was sedated from anti-seizure medicine in the hospital and sleeping in his incubator. In a room full of preemies who hardly filled their clear, plastic beds, Sebastian barely fit in his. After the incubator, he moved to a plastic cot on top of something with wheels, so he could keep moving up from NICU to SCBU and eventually out of the SCBU (special care baby unit for those of you lucky enough to not know what that stands for) altogether. We decorated it with a special bear from Ali’s friend D and some soft receiving blankets with animals on them from B. We tried to make it special so when he woke in the night or early in the morning when we were not there, he would have something familiar, something that smelled like mama and daddy.

Eventually we took Sebastian home. The first time he fell asleep, it was in my arms. We placed him in his baby cot, which we had moved to the living room so we could be in the same room as him as he slept. We were too nervous to have him out of our sight yet and also wanted to be near him to make up for the hours we couldn’t be while he was in the hospital. When I read about babies being in the hospital for months after birth, I don’t know how the parents survive this as 16 days was traumatic enough for me. Not long after he fell asleep we heard a choking sound and ran to his crib. Sebastian was spitting up (later we would confirm that he had acid reflux) and it looked like his entire meal was on the cot and the floor. That was the end of the cot. (In America we just call it a crib, or even a cradle if it’s small. But in the UK, they call it a cot. And since that’s where Sebastian was born, that’s what I learned to call it.)

After the spitting up mishap, we created a bed for Sebastian in the middle of our bed. We had a baby pillow to elevate him so that if he did spit up again while he was sleeping, he wouldn’t choke. We had his special soft blanket beneath him and the blanket his grandma (my mom) had made for him. We stared at him as he slept and left the room with the door open. Even though we had a monitor, we weren’t quite ready to rely on it fully. We climbed into bed quietly later in the evening and slept on either side of him. Ali was surprised by how aware he was of Sebastian sleeping next to him and I was already on his feeding schedule and sometimes woke before he did.

Sebastian slept best this way. In the mornings after a night of waking every two hours and having little sleep (some of you recall that I was still pumping back then and after I fed Sebastian a bottle, I had to stay up and HAND PUMP before I could go back to bed again, to do it all over in another hour or so. Life got easier after I rented the electric pump and started to have extra milk and didn’t have to pump EVERY TIME.) So in the morning, after Ali left for work, Sebastian would fall asleep on my chest and we would sleep that way for a little while.

Health care workers came to our apartment once a week for the first month Sebastian was home because he came home with a feeding tube in his nose (NGT-he took it out after a week and promptly went to the bottle). Sometimes they would arrive when he was sleeping and tsk tsk at the fact that he was still sleeping in the middle of our bed and ‘it wasn’t a good habit to get into because really he should be in his own bed.’ I didn’t want to care what they said because finally we could be the parents we wanted to be out from the shadows of the routines and nurses at the hospital. But what they said made an impact because then I started to have him in his cot again. And it worked for a little while. But getting him back to sleep and putting him back into his cot got harder and harder to do.

We could never do that nursing position where you get to lay on your side in bed and fall asleep while your baby is nursing. Sebastian’s body couldn’t relax in the right position. So I was always sitting up, I mean, I am always sitting up, crossed legged as he nurses and falls back to sleep. I’m not sure when I started keeping him in bed with me after he first woke in the night to eat. Maybe it was when he was two months old, when we were living in S. London for the summer before moving to Egypt. But we started it and haven’t stopped.

I’ve read a lot about co-sleeping on different websites, in different books and in magazines. Of course the professionals poo poo on the idea. But the best I read was in a Mothering magazine.  Basically, studies show that if you do it correctly, it’s perfectly safe for your child. That means no smokers in the bed, no drinking/heavy doses of medicine. For me, these things are easy. I don’t drink. I’m still nursing, so I don’t even take medicine. And when you are nursing, your body clock is on the same one as your baby. Sebastian has recently slept through the night THREE times in one week. Each of those nights I woke at the same time, wondering why he hadn’t woken. It was almost bliss, except even when he can sleep through the night, I can’t!

I definitely don’t think co-sleeping is for everyone. I think you have to be dedicated to making sure you do it safely. But it’s not my place to tell people to co-sleep, just as others shouldn’t tell us we shouldn’t. I fall asleep with Sebastian curled up next to me, sometimes up on the pillow (he still has reflux) or in my arms. I wake to him stretching his body out and a big yawn follows.  I open my eyes to see him looking at me. He smiles and I scoop him up in my arms for his morning milk time. Now that’s bliss.

I love my daddy. We had so much fun together at the Dubai Children’s Park First, we tried to watch a dolphin show. But the music was too loud and there were lots of bright lights, so my mama took me for a walk. Then my daddy came and we ate ice cream and played in the park. It was so fun. My daddy can make me laugh more than anyone else. He is so funny and silly too.

While ali had some work to do in Dubai a week and a half ago, we were able to tag along. We stayed in the Dusit Residence in the Dubai Marina. The Dusit was a furnished residence, larger than our own apartment in Cairo. We couldn’t even hear each other from one room to the other! The fine dining table was set and we were worried we might break something! I sat on the couch and looking around couldn’t believe we were there.

The job perks are nice. But for me, it’s those moments I battle between thinking the long hours while ali works and I’m putting Sebastian to bed without a kiss from his daddy are worth it for a dip into a lifestyle like this, and thinking I’m glad we have our humble abode and I wish Sebastian’s daddy could come home to give him his bath every night of the week.

That said, we enjoyed our stint in Dubai and the view from the 32nd floor was stunning. I never knew being so high up made the world outside so quiet. Even surrounded by new buildings being worked on, we couldn’t hear the jack hammer or experience the dust. It was like we were a world away. Separated from reality. But I think that Dubai is a little bit like that…

Views from the master bedroom.

More photos here. Leave a comment for the guest pass to see the photos with Sebastian and I have posted it on facebook as always. I will be posting more photos and snipits of our trip. I wanted to post while we were there but didn’t have access to flickr as it is a blocked site in the UAE.

Calendar Stats:
Measures 30×24cm folded and 30×48cm opened out.
Matte finish
Card stock (not too thin, not too thick; think normal calendar feel)
$20 each, $4.95 flat rate shipping, regardless of quantity

We have 500 calendars to sell. We pay up front for the calendars and have to sell a certain number to break even, then the additional to raise the funds.

Contact me if you would like to order a large number of calendars to sell on.

If you live in an area where you and several of your friends would like a calendar, get together and purchase them and I can send them to one location to be passed out. You could even have a Seb Can Do Calendar party!

I will be taking calendars to Australia in December, so if you are there you can purchase one then, no need to pay for shipping.

If you would like to pay by check or money order, please contact me at sebcando [at] gmail.com or leave a message on the group wall. You can post the check to my mom’s address in Mi, payable to Kara Sharp. I will provide that address individually. If you pay by check or money order, you can have reduced shipping to $2.95.

I’ve created a group on Facebook (Seb Can Do) and am trying to get the word out there. Join the group, invite others to join!

Calendars will be sold in Cairo at the CSA and Maadi Christmas Bazaar. Hoping to sell at a couple local book shops as well.

It’s that time of year again! Time to get your 2010 calendar! When shopping for yourself or a friend, please consider adding our Seb Can Do 2010 calendar to your holiday list. Inside you will find photos from the photo raffle showcased. We’ve even added some new photos by the photographers and a new photographer. So while some of the scenes from around the world will be familiar, some will be new too.

What people are saying about the Seb Can Do 2010 Calendar:

“Wow, it looks like a Lonely Planet travel calendar… I can’t wait to get my own!”

“It’s really beautiful. I love the layout and the design.”

“Once you are ready to take orders, I want 3!”

You will be happy to know you can pre-order your calendar now. Calendars will be available for shipping and arrive at your home before Christmas.

Calendars are printed on card stock with a center fold for easy hanging on your wall or your refrigerator. Exact size measurements: 30×24cm folded, 30×48cm opened out.

Price: $20 each plus shipping and handling (flat rate of $4.95)

Currently finalizing purchasing options (PayPal, Google Checkout, Check or money orders). You can go to Sebastian Can Do to purchase via Paypal now. Stay tuned for other options to be posted by Sunday evening.

Below you will find a sneak peak at what is inside the 2010 Seb Can Do Calendar. For the full calendar, please order today!

DECEMBER Himalayas, Nepal by Darryl Anderson

AUGUST Butterfly Orange, Washington DC by Sara Richmond

JANUARY Cairo, Egypt by Matthew Cassel

My new favorite photo. Taken in Dubai Children’s Park.

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with uploading photos to flickr due to our poor internet connection. So hopefully they will be uploaded slowly over the next week and I will have time to write and post about our short trip there.

Introducing, the latest fund raising event for Sebastian Sharp. Thanks to my friend Alex, we will be selling 2010 calendars to raise funds towards equipment for Sebastian. Featured in these calendars will be photos from some of your favorite photographers who donated their work for the photo raffle. You will also notice some new photos included with some of the originals included in the raffle.

I will be meeting with the printer this week to decide on all the fun stuff and will let you know when the calendars are available for purchase online. I will also be selling them at a couple local shops in Maadi, Cairo and at the Maadi Christmas Bazaar on Dec. 4. AND I will be bringing a good size pile to Melbourne to sell there, just in time for the holidays. Price will be confirmed after meeting with the printer.

Details and photos to follow. Sneak peak tomorrow. Having internet issues so uploading photos is not an option at the moment!

Thanks Dianne for pointing this out. ‘If she can do this, I can’ an article in the Guardian written by a mum whose daughter has CP and spent the first weeks of her life in SCBU (special care baby unit). She also keeps a blog, Mama Lewis. She’s originally from the suburbs of Detroit and is now living in London.

I then went to her blog to check it out and found a very encouraging comment in response to her article. It was written by a woman named Alima.

“I read your article in the Guardian today, and had to come and read the whole blog. I am an American living in the UK, and perhaps most relevantly, I am a grown woman with CP. Reading through your posts, I just wanted to say something I think my parents would say as well – you can never tell what your baby will do in the future. I have some extent of brain damage – how extensive I couldn’t really tell you, as I don’t think they MRIed me in childhood, and I only got told myself during an MRI for other reasons. But I too fisted my hands…almost continuously in childhood, especially the right, and still do for comfort, though I can open them if I think about it hard enough. I too had (and still have) twitches and spasms of the face and other body parts. I didn’t sit up, crawl, or reach at all ‘on target’. My legs and arms still don’t always go where I want them, and I have to think about every motion. But, I also walk mostly independently, have just finished a PhD, and have long proven wrong doctors and physios who said I would never walk or talk.

I don’t know what the future holds for May, but in my experience the dedication of parents who are willing to keep challenging their kids (even when the kids would rather not be pushed) and who are not shy about demanding the most from doctors, schools, and other professionals, counts for a lot. Keep challenging her and yourselves, and she will respond to the best of her ability.”

I wish I could write to her and thank her for encouraging this proud mama of one awesome little boy who is and will continue to achieve leaps and bounds.

There aren’t many green, play spaces here in Cairo. Which is unfortuntate, especially as winter is approaching and it’s cool enough to spend time outside after a long, hot summer. But we recently joined a club – paid for by the company – which allows us access to some very nice play spaces for both Ali (basketball) and Sebastian (swings!). I like the swings too, although we did get told off because the swings are for the kiddos, but I convinced them it was ok for me and Sebastian.

Below are some pictures Ali took with his blackberry while we were out yesterday afternoon. Fun times. Sebastian was besotted with a little girl over on the swings, which is why he’s not looking at the camera in most of the photos!