Social House - a great choice for babies

By 3pm today my husband and I were irritable (mostly due to a post brunch hangover) and DS was sapping what little energy we had left in reserve.  There was only one option and that was to get the heck out of our villa.  Dubai mall was the chosen escape (idiots I hear you cry!) but for once we seemed to have made a good decision, as for a Saturday it was relatively quiet. 

Food was high up on our list of priorities (we needed to satisfy those hangover munchies) and we stumbled into the first reasonable restaurant we came across, Social House.

Our gamble paid off well.  The servers were quick to greet us and welcomed our family warmly. We were shown to a table with lots of space for the buggy and were immediately brought a highchair.  Luckily there were a number of families in the restaurant with younger children which always helps me feel more relaxed (safety in numbers!).  Having been organised this morning I had defrosted a salmon and veggie dinner for DS which I had packed together with a kiwi and his sippy cup.  Without any questions our waiter brought me a bowl for DS's dinner and a bottle of room temperate water for his sippy cup.  They happily heated his dinner for us bringing it back quickly.  DS enjoyed his food and was content in his surroundings laughing and smiling at the friendly staff.  In turn my husband and I enjoyed our meals whilst DS was entertained in a different environment to our villa, a win-win for everyone.        

The staff at social house went out of their way to accommodate the three of us and I would thoroughly recommend dining here with a baby.

For a more in depth review of the restaurant I recommend reading Social House Dubai Mall.

Leaving DS with a sitter

We have a brunch booked for the Habtoor Grand Grill and the organizer has (stupidly?) booked an outside table.  I was already considering having our sitter look after DS and now with the added possibility of having him in the scorching midday heat, I think a sitter is the only option.

Apart from leaving DS with grandparents during the daytime,  we have never left him in the care of our sitter.  Now I do trust her, she is a full time nanny for close friends of ours, but my DS doesn't really know her that well.  We have used her in the past during the evening but he is usually in bed by the time she arrives.  At the moment we seem to be in the middle of a stranger anxiety phase (please God let it be a phase!) and I am really concerned that leaving him in the care of our sitter will upset him too much.  In preparation for the brunch DS and I have spent time with our sitter whilst she has been working with our friends child so I am hoping this might make a difference.

I really am in two minds about whether to go or not.  One side of my brain keeps shouting 'this is way too much stress for an afternoon out', 'it's not fair to put DS through this', 'what happens if something goes wrong whilst I'm out?'.  Whilst the other side is screaming 'you deserve to enjoy a child free brunch', 'you live in Dubai without family this is the only option', 'if he is upset you can just come home'.

This is another difficulty about living abroad.  DS is 9 months old.  We have had a handful of evenings out without him, but have never left him during the day before (let alone a whole night!).  I feel we need to get used to leaving him with other people (obviously trusted sitters!) as this is probably good for him, as well as our sanity.

So this brunch will either be a success, or a disaster.  I'm hoping to return to a happy baby and I have managed to enjoy at least one drink without worrying..... am I dreaming? We will see.....

9 months and all change

Nine months in and it's all change for my DS in our household.  Overnight we seem to have mastered crawling, waving, sleeping through the night and gained a first tooth! Now I feel that I can freely admit that, yes, I was jealous of all those babies who seemed to be doing all of this from the age of 5 months (or so their mothers might suggest).  It's funny how annoying it becomes when friends (who are only being kind and helpful) continue to say 'don't worry all babies are different', 'they will crawl when they are ready', 'we are just lucky our baby has always slept through'.  You just sometimes want to hear what they honestly think 'well you probably haven't given him enough tummy time', 'you're on your mobile too much and not interacting with your baby', ' you're too quick to comfort your child at night' and maybe in the end that would have been more helpful.

However, now that my DS has accomplished all of these, I know I will probably join my smug friends and hand out the same advice as they did.... Anything to avoid offending anyone in the typical British fashion.

BBQ fail

So, with the husband having recently purchased a new garden cooking toy and it being the Eid extended weekend break, we decided that hosting a BBQ would be a phenomenally good idea.  How wrong we were!

Firstly, for future reference, preparing a villa and food for 10 guests with a teething 9 month old is not any fun. Especially when you have a husband (who requested the BBQ in the first place) deciding to tell you at 11am that he HAS to watch the NRL final at midday when everyone is arriving at 2pm.  A morning of bickering between husband and wife followed with a whining baby giving his two pennies worth.  With the guests arriving early (when normally I can guarantee people would be at least 15 mins late) the afternoon did not begin as I had hoped. 

Whilst the men sweated in the garden heat, the wives enjoyed the relief of the air conditioning and unsurprisingly had to occupy the babies.  Mine, of course, was the most challenging due to his recent aversion to everyone apart from Mummy and Daddy and mostly screamed in the face of anyone who tried to give him any attention.  This new development is something I hope (pray) we can soon grow out of. 

As I caught the distinct smell of burning from the garden I congratulated myself on correctly predicting that spending 3000Dhs would make absolutely no difference to the quality of food that we end up serving.  Luckily I had managed to prepare three decent salads and had some back up sausages in the oven - oh I know my husband too well!  Abandoning the idea of eating outside due to the sauna like conditions, everyone managed to grab a sausage and squeeze into our lounge to enjoy the food.  Most guests left early (probably because the sound of our DS screaming had sunk into their bones) and I was left with a hot (not in the sexy sense), angry husband, an upside down villa and a baby who needed calming the heck down.  No, a BBQ was not a great idea.