Tomorrow, a mini-bus will pick her up in the morning so hopefully I will not be late but realizing that, I am a little bit sad. I work full time and the time we have in the morning in the back seat of our car while my husband drives is so precious. We would sing songs, do makeup, play riddles or just cuddle up and see the cars and the people outside. For me, that was quality time with her, no matter how little, it was so precious for both of us.

I told her after dinner that the next morning she’ll be taking the bus with her friends and she’s like, “why mom, I don’t miss my friends in the bus!”

Adjusting to this new routine will take time, for her and me.

I began the Couch to 5K program last night, choosing an empty parking pavement space near our apartment building. It would have been lovely to jog in the park but well, the pavement is better than nothing.

Week 1, day 1 of the program is easy peasy, or at least sounded easy:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

I’ve not been going to the gym for two months now, mostly because of my summer vacation and the horrible increase in the membership fee I learned when I came back. Imagine, they have increased the fee by 50% more even if there’s no change in the gym equipment or facilities/service.

Intolerable.

So I ran again. And sweat like crazy. It’s still balmy at 30C outside with I guess more than 40% humidity but on the positive side, it’s free sauna for me, even without the gym membership!

Anyway, we tried to get her to bed at 9 pm, a little bit late than planned. And all know how she responds to that.

Of course that would mean the rest of the adult population in our house has to go to bed, too. Boo hoo, no internet time for me until she sleeps! Hubby is sick so it wasn’t an effort for him to go to bed. Me? I lay down in the dark room, (im)patiently waiting for the tot to sleep. 10 minutes, 20,30..still I can see her eyes wide open. I told her if she’s not going to sleep, then we’ll not take her to school tomorrow (translated: if she’s not going to zzzz then there’s no internet and blogging time for mommy!).

I don’t know what happened after that.

Then I woke up to her moaning and saying “hot!”. Our a/c stopped working!The horror. I got up, checked the a/c settings and returned to the room to change her wet shirt. Looked at the clock and realized that I have slept for at least 2 hours.

I only pretended to sleep so she’ll sleep and once that happens, I’ll sneak out of bed to blog - which is what I am doing right now, only, I planned to wake up earlier than this wee hour of half past midnight!!

Anyway, I slept really late last night, thinking about so many things I wish I had a second, spare brain to slam those thoughts into. I was overloaded with thoughts - mostly useless ones. So what’s a girl to do at 1 am? I turned the PC on (what else) and read news, blogs and news and blogs. I finally dragged myself to bed at 2:30 am in utter surrender to something I have no control of - the internet. The information and endless source of reading material just won’t end.

Then I woke up at 6 am. What!? When it’s work week when I have to wake up at that time I feel like dying, now that I am having my break I wake up at this hour so effortlessly? You’ve got to be kidding me.

It’s 8 am now and all the people in my house are not showing any signs of waking up. They are smartly utilizing the good ‘ole Friday break, my friends. And I envy them very much!

I am joining the Dubai Marathon and I’m telling the whole world - at least shamelessly revealing to people about my plan to run. And I am serious but don’t be. I don’t plan to run the full marathon. No, I don’t have the guts to kill myself yet, either by exhaustion or by shame or both.

This year, there’s a 3K run. It’s a fun run but still. Running is never my forte although I love the feel every time I ran. It’s also a good excuse to buy a nice Nike shoes. Kidding.

So, I have come up with a plan, grabbing ideas from all over the net. Heard of the Couch to 5K program? That. I am going to train for some weeks to be able to run a full 5K. Will that day come? I guess it’s up to me.

I am quite happy with school breaks (although I can’t tell if my mom, who takes care of the babe for the whole day thinks so). It means longer sleeping time in the morning and not driving her to school. I don’t even have to think what to put in her lunch box.

I’ll be having a break myself for the Eid holidays, probably starting on Wednesday until Friday. I say probably because it all depends on the sighting of the moon. I am not kidding.

 Pristine had asthma attacks while we were on vacation in the Philippines. This photo was taken minutes before my brother’s weddingl.

I am so happy for my little girl.

I am puzzled by their relationship. When they’re together, they constantly fight. Dad tries to kiss the little girl and she squirms away. He attempts to put his arms around her at night and she says, “it’s hot!”. But when her dad is away, she constantly asks, “when will he return, mom?”

Women always have complicated feelings, even at a  young age.

I couldn’t believe how much his daughter misses him. She missed him more than I do! When we came back from vacation almost two weeks ago, she was fine but lately these days, she had been asking about the blank space in our bed and how many days until papa boards the plane.

~ M is always ready to carry her all the time, when she wants to! ~ 

Last night, I chanced upon M online at Yahoo so we had a chat. Pristine was so enthusiastic to talk to him so we called him through Yahoo Messenger but being 5 hours ahead of Dubai, it was already 1 am in Japan. Not a good time to chat long as he needs to sleep to catch up with his flight the next day. But M was still awake packing his things and tidying up the room he stayed (in my brother’s apartment in Tokyo) so he said ok.

Father and daughter talked - mostly, Pristine talked using the PC mic. M has no PC mic, can only hear and see us from his computer screen. He then typed his replies to his daughter’s questions via chat. It was so interesting. Every time a new line is typed, Pristine would call my attention and ask, “what did papa say, mom?”

Then the talking continues.

Pristine couldn’t last more than 10 minutes talking to my father or to my sister but to her own father? Thirty minutes later and she was still at it. She obviously missed him a lot!

In the end, she said, “ok papa, I love you. Don’t ever leave us again, ok?” Lol.

*M didn’t leave us behind, he was just stuck in Japan for work. *