Zayden hasn't been to school since the pandemic hit UAE and his school shut. However, like a lot of toddlers, he doesn't spend his quarantine time watching cartoons and playing video games. Instead, every day, he learns something new, creates a piece of art, plays games inside his apartment and gets absolutely no screen time. Despite which, the toddler is quite happy.
Now Zayden is not the only one in the list of happy people here. This obviously includes his mother Ameera Hameed and her legion of Instagram followers. Most of Zayden's quarantine activities are of Ameera's own creation and she is now quite surprised about how her profile has become popular among mothers and older siblings of toddlers. "Ever since Zayden was a baby, I would spend a lot of time looking for activities that would help the child's intellectual development and are entertaining. I often ended up improvising a lot on my own. I did not want him to be addicted to TV at this young age," says Ameera, a Keralite who lives in Abu Dhabi. "Soon, I noticed how my friends and their friends started trying out this set of activities and started seeking my advice. So, I thought of making my account public," she says.
While Ameera used to put up activity posts previously, she has increased the number of them since the lockdown began. "Zayden used to go to school until noon. But since the lockdown began, he is home. Now he needs more activities and I'm sure that a lot of mothers are in a similar situation. So, I post them frequently. Also, I've been told that a lot of these posts make them happy," Ameera smiles. Over a video call, she shows us a canvas on which Zayden had painted. "I wanted to try canvas tape art and ended up making him try it. Now, this looks like an artist had drawn it. I've hung it on our living room wall now," she says. In a video, Zayden plays musical chair inside the house and in another one, he creates art on the glass.
Apart from giving people activity ideas, Ameera also creates awareness on various issues. Picture this. The caption of a very popular photograph on her feed began with three words, typed in all caps and read 'Cute Baby Contest'. The photograph did not show the face of a baby and upon reading the caption, one will find out that Ameera did not announce a contest, but was instead protesting online beauty contests for babies. "How can you judge a baby based on the way they look?" she asks. "I've been getting a lot of requests from parents saying 'My baby needs your help'. Upon clicking it, I am redirected to contest links. So instead of liking, I send them the link to my post," laughs Ameera.
