Berber Mama

Yep, you have to wait for the biometrics letter unfortunately.

I was talking about this to my mother yesterday. I would love to donate money if there was a reputable organization that I knew would get all of the money that was donated to the victims instead of them first taking their cut out of it.

My husband also forgets to speak Darija to Rayan. I try to remind him. But he's home alone with him in the mornings, and he puts his family on webcam and mic, so I hope he's getting used to the sounds. He also plays a lot Arabic music and has the Arabic sports announcers on.

I wonder if we have the same mirror Ours is a Fisher Price, Precious Planet I think, with sort of a net at the top and little stuffed animals dangling from it.

We have coslept almost from the beginning, since I realized that I could actually get some rest that way. We have a cosleeper bassinet attached to the side of the bed, but for a while it was easier just to pull him from that into our bed when he wanted to nurse in the middle of the night. Trouble is hubby ended up moving out of our double bed for a while because it was just too small and dangerous for the three of us. I've finally figured out a comfortable way to nurse him while he's in the bassinet. It's to my left, so I sort of lean my upper body into it, rest my left upper arm above Rayan's head (the mattress is only about four inches lower than ours), rest my head on my hand or forearm, and he nurses from my left side. Most of my body is on the bed, so I won't fall in. I've fallen asleep in that position before, and it's not a good sleeping position, but it works for nursing without waking Rayan up completely, and hubby's back in our bed again.

Awww I think I'll order this one!

I think I need to get one of those with the new baby. I'm having a repeat c-section. I remember how hard it was to get out of the bed during the night when the baby cried the first week after the surgery. I couldn't get into a sitting position from laying down without hurting my incision. I would have to roll myself off onto the floor and then pull myself up into a standing position with the bed.

English toliet (western toliet) vs peeing on your heels over a hole. For all other functions I suggest you find a McDonalds

You know, I have never seen one of these hole in the ground toilets that everyone talks about in Morocco. I remember reading "Culture Shock, Morocco" before I went there the first time and it mentioned this. I was freaked out, I even asked my husband if he knew what toilet paper was and if I needed to bring some. He was offended that I would think like that about Morocco. He had a western toilet in his apartment, so does his family's home(they have 2) and everywhere else we visited had western toilets.

I can't imagine using one of those!

Agadir and Essaouira are beautiful- great beaches and markets

Squeaky, is your fiance from Agadir? That's where my hubby's from.

Thanks, S!

Adam got this book for Christmas (it has both English and Arabic): http://www.amazon.com/Guess-Much-Love-Arab...h/dp/1854309889

When I came home today it was out, so I think Wadi was reading it to him, awwww.

How cute! Adam is adorable, btw.

We want to speak arabic at home with him, but I always forget and end up speaking english to him -becoz my husband and I speak english to eachother- so I end up saying daddy to him. I want him to call his father baba.

We have this miror with toys hanging on the headrest facing him. He loves it and his father gets to see him thru the car middle mirror so its really useful.

My son is 3 months and we have been co-sleeping - i love it like u said easier for me also so cute watching him sleep-, only yesterday I started putting him in his bed in his room, he doesnt mind, may be becoz he is still very young to even notice lol

We are having the co-sleeping problem right now too. I started sleeping with Mehdi when he was 13 months old because he started waking up again during the night like every 2-3 hours. I was so exhausted from being pregnant that I just put him in our bed so that I could comfort him back to sleep. My husband said that the bed was too cramped with him in there cause Mehdi sleeps sideways and puts his feet in his face, etc. so he moved into the guest bed. He has been asking me for the past few weeks when I'm gonna make Mehdi start sleeping in his bed again so that he can come back and each time I say that I'm gonna start that night and then me and Mehdi go to bed and he goes to his bed. I feel so guilty!

I have to break the habit though before the new baby gets here cause I can't have two babies in the bed with me. I swore that I would never co-sleep and here I am kicking myself for it.

My husband does this, too... In fact, he calls me daddy, too, sometimes... i don't know, we have issues chez nous.

Lol, this is too cute. I remember when I started calling my husband daddy, he said "what's that?" at least the first one hundred times.

I am so sorry for you. The Moroccan Consulate is terrible. They deny for no reason.

I think that's an exaggerated statement.

Zaid uses them interchangeably as well...

Mehdi is soooooo cute!!!

Thank you! So is Zaid... and Mehdi loves his pic, btw.

On two separate occassions when I was scrolling through posts,he saw his picture and started this big fake laugh and pointing.

I asked him if he wanted to play with that little boy in the picture and he shook his head no (which is his way of saying yes). lol.

My husband calls the baby Daddy. I don't know why He doesn't refer to himself as anything, but I refer to him as Daddy, so we'll just wait and see what the baby decides to call him.

This made me laugh out loud. That is too funny!

Does everyone's kids call their dads baba or daddy?

I've always called my husband daddy to our son, husband's never called himself baba to him. Are we abnormal?

Unfortunately though, however many warnings the consulate wants to post, 9 times out of 10 the person being scammed doesn't see themselves as being scammed.

That's the problem.

I think it is actually on the high risk consulates of Changdou, Manila, Lagos, and it might be on Cairo's - someone recently posted one for Tunisia and Algeria. I know that fraud happens everywhere as does love, but I would hope that people take these warnings for what they are worth. VisaJourney is such a small microcosm of the immigrant visa process, but the day-in/day-out visa scammers that the MENA consulates see is probably mind boggling. I actually wish that there could be a video taken at the USEMs where they show "A day in the life of a Casablanca (or insert other country here) Consulate Officer". I would love to see the guys that are coming up for their interview. Show the guy, show the pictures of his American fiance or wife, and show their evidence. What would we say to the images? What would we say to their relationship? What would VJ people come up with? Would it be "awwwwww, they are so in love!" Or would it be "#######?!?!?! F'ing scam artist!" I would also like to point out that this could and should be done with the Phillipines, Russia/Ukraine, and Nigerian consulates as well. Don't just limit it to MENA. That would be an awesome show. Just blur out the images of the people - let them justify their relationship and see how would you process them. Approve? Deny? AP? What would you do or say?

At the end of the day, it's about protecting US Citizens from being scammed.

LOL!

I tried to look up the Egyptian consulate for the same information. I found a page about marriage updated last 7/2009 and it didn't have the same info.

Just wondering if anyone had seen the infomation that was on the Casablanca consulate page providing information on documents needed to marry in Morocco.

I don't remember seeing this on there back in 2006 when I was searching. It's pretty sad that there are so many fraudulent marriages coming out of Morocco that they were compelled to try to "reason" with American women.

http://casablanca.usconsulate.gov/marriage_requirements.html

Good morning Jeanne. I envy you! Enjoy your day of pampering...

Just popping in. Thrilled to see the thread! We're 20 weeks today and find out what we're having next week. Very exciting!

Congratulations! You're not too far behind me. We found out at 22 weeks and it took 1/2 hour to get him to move his leg away from his private area. It's like he was being modest.

So how are you feeling so far?

I feel somewhat more normal than my first trimester. The only complaint that I have is the round ligament pains that strike when I roll over in bed or cough/sneeze. It feels like a charlie horse, but in the groin....lol.

I would just like to say that the whole reason that I started this thread is because of the OT thread. I posted some over there when my son was very little and got some good responses. This time around when I tried to join in, the "clique" chose to ignore my posts for some reason and pick and choose who to respond to. I didn't feel welcome which I'm sure how I was wanted to be made feel. I think that Caro was the only one kind enough to acknowledge my presence.

Maybe thats the reason that so many regional threads are popping up.

And to add that maybe the questions on here have been traditional baby questions so far and it's only 5 pages long, but the thread is only 3 days old! It still has the potential to evolve into a bigger thread.

Just my 2 cents.

I would just like to say that it is awesome that you all have a MENA Baby Corner now, but honest to God, those of us in the OT Baby Corner would love to have you all participate. We don't bite and welcome everyone who is newly pregnant, newly mommy, wanting to be a mommy, lost a baby, it doesn't matter what you're situation is we're there. Those of us that joined the Baby Corner just announced that we were preggo and boom we were a member. Your MENA baby concerns are understandable, but it seems like most of the posts on here have been regarding traditional baby questions. Believe me, every daddy or mommy, too - MENA or not is scared.

I have a feeling the only reason why the Filipina girls have a baby forum is because most of them speak Tagalog, so it might be easier to have questions answered, whereas most of you all are US born and raised (HLM is from Egypt - but her English is spectacular ).

So, on that note, not that I'm trying to discourage your group, but all of y'all are maybe knocked up or you're a new mommy - you're going to need advice or want to give advice, why not do it on the OT Baby Corner? Keep the Baby Corner going. You're only 5 pages into this little thread, whereas OT Baby Corner is 340+ pages - that's not a bad thing...you don't have to go back and read everything, just post your questions or comments and we'll all be around to post back. Furthermore, the BC is awesome because you can search past posts - truly handy!

You are free to say "F You, Staashi - we don't want your stinking forum!!" - that's cool and your hormones allow it , but honestly, we've seen our participation die down because the Regional Forums are creating their little threads.

I speak for the BC ladies, we hope to see you there.

Amanda and Carrie!

Annies husband got us great dvds. We have Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Kung Fu Panda, Cars, Lion King, and Shrek. Zaid loves them and the arabic is great! 5$ a dvd! Cant beat it!!!

Did she say where he got them? I wish that I would have stocked up on the bootleg kids dvd's when I was last in Morocco for $1.00 each.

I have that same problem and it only shows up during pregnancy for me. I got my doc to give me monthly b-12 shots during my last pregnancy and it improved immensely.

I didn't get any sleep last night because both of my hands were bothering me.

Good morning everyone! Hope everyone has a great day.

LOL about the statue!

Arabic Disney DVD's?!?! Where! I must have some...

I just went on google and typed in arabic dvds for kids and found that ebay has quite a few including sesame street in arabic and barney....

It depends on the size of the town and what kind of contacts your fiance has. We got married in Laayoune because my husband was working there and it took us from the first of May till the first of July to get approval. 2 months!

Okay, we got our approval letter yesterday in the mail and it is signed by the same guy who signed for our I-751 package. I'm thinking that maybe this is how they determine who gets what file and how some people are approved faster than others, namely because the employee might work faster...idk.

Just thought I'd throw that out there to those waiting. I know that I sure lost a lot of sleep wondering about it!

Yes! We started on Monday! It's been going great so far. I think Mohamed Ali is really enjoying it too.

How are things with you?

Doing great, I guess you saw by our siggie that our ROC was approved. We are so relieved. It's one less thing to worry about!

I didn't know that Ali's full name was Mohamed Ali. That will be quite a conversation starter for him here in the US.

Hi berbermama ~ I will be at my desk, trying to look productive this morning. All while staring out the window, daydreaming of laundry and real coffee.

jax

I daydream alot....I don't think that laundry has ever been in my daydreams though!

Good morning everyone!

Have you started your classes yet Laura?

Have a great morning Jackie, Kelly, and Andrea!

I guess that I'm lucky that Mehdi didn't have colic. Fingers crossed that this baby doesn't either. It breaks my heart to hear a baby cry when you don't know what the problem is. I would be an emotional wreck.

All that I have to say to Mehdi is that it's bath time and he starts running for the bathroom! I'm sure that when he gets older that will change since most little boys don't like taking baths.

The biggest problem that I have with him is that he's whiny and clingy and doesn't like for me to work on the computer( I work 15-20 hrs a week from home). He wants me to be in the living room sitting on the sofa with him watching t.v. or just up walking around.

We have a 6 year old son named Abdurrahman. We're going to be giving him his long desired brother or sister in July. That makes me 13 weeks pregnant.

Congratulations! I think that you make 3 of us so far that are expecting again. There's another Amy that is 4 months pregnant.