Soap

The other day, Mike sent me to the commissary to buy soap.  He runs a lot (about five miles a day, and seven on Thursdays (= Saturdays)), so he takes lots of showers.  As a result, he goes through a lot of soap.  Nothing is sold in bulk here, like it is at Sams or even Wal-Mart, so we end up buying a week's worth of stuff like paper towels and toilet paper and soap at a time.  (It's very annoying.)  So after the boys were in bed, I took advantage of the opportunity to have a little freedom, and I jumped into Clyde and zipped up to the commissary for soap.

Like any other lady in a grocery store, I started at the produce section and spent at least 45 minutes meandering all over the rest of the store, adding items to the cart that were not actually on the list.  Not that there was a real list.  The real list was mental, and it only had one thing:  soap.   But I got bread and bananas and cereal and cold cuts and milk and crackers and spaghetti sauce and salad dressing and tea and butter and yogurt and chips on clearance and I looked at frozen turkeys and Saudi brand nutty buddies and construction paper and cat food before I finally made it over to the soap aisle.

Well, by the time I got there, maybe it was a good thing that my cart was full.  Because I wanted to buy ALL the soap!  (Of course, I couldn't.  There was no way I could fit more than about 10 bars into that tiny cart with all that other stuff.)  What I discovered in the soap section is that soap here is hilarious!  They name the fragrances all kinds of wild and funny names, all in true seriousness.  Add to the fact that this is such a sheltered, protected society, especially for women, that the soap names left me weak with laughter.

We'll start with the most familiar-sounding:

"Shake Me Up."  OK.  I can see this.  It's like Zestfully Clean, right?

"Secret Bliss"?  Hahahaha!  You can't show your face in public, but you can buy soap called Secret Bliss?  Just what exactly is going on under that abaya?  

 "Passion"!  Looks like we are making up for something!

 "Magic Spell"  Oooooooh.  Look, her shoulders are showing.  She must be putting a spell on you.

"Evenly Radiant."  Because God knows you wouldn't want to be "Unevenly Radiant." 


By now I am just guffawing in the personal hygiene aisle.   I only actually bought four bars, though.  They were my favorite picks.

"Creamy Perfection"!  Yes!  I want Mike to be Creamy Perfection!  His reaction:  "You bought me women's soap?!?" 















 "Young and Radiant".  They are too suppressed for Restless.












"Lifebouy": the soap that Princess Leia used as a child.   

(Also notice that on the bottom, it says "100% Proven To Fight Today's Illnesses.  Influenza A, H1N1, Infection, Diarrhea."   ....correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that infection and diarrhea were also yesterday's illnesses.  And they will probably be tomorrow's illnesses, too.  They need to talk to Disney to come up with a list of EPDOT: Experimental Prototype Diseases of Tomorrow. Ha!)

And my personal favorite:

Because Mike has a long, long way to run. 

Roller Coaster Day

Holy Cow.  What a day.

Today was one of those days where crazy things (both good and bad) happen one right after the other - boom, boom boom - and by the time you get to the afternoon, you think that you're living in a sitcom or something.  By dinner, I had been zapped so many times that I started being mentally prepared for something more to come next.  And indeed, I've been right!  What a roller coaster - up and down, up and down.  It is  now 10 pm and I am writing this quickly and jumping into bed before anything else can happen.  Here goes the blow-by-blow:

BAD:  I should have known that it would be a nutty day when I woke up this morning to the gunfire.  We live right next to a Saudi airbase, and the everyday consequence of this is that we see, hear, and feel fighter jets going over all the time.  (They are SO LOUD, and today they were especially frequent, but I digress.)  The once-in-a-while consequence of this is that they occasionally practice some sort of gun firing at 6 am.  It sounds like popcorn popping a long way off.  So bam, right from the start, an explosive start to the day.  Thanks for the early alarm, Saudi Military!

GOOD:  We got up and got breakfast, and then we were off to take Everett to his first day of preschool.  Big four years old!  We took lots of pictures and everyone was happy.  Everett was really excited to go - he has the same teacher as last year and he knows some of the kids in his new class - so it was very positive.  I had to pull him back by the elbow to remind him to tell me goodbye and give me a kiss.  I'm glad that he is so happy and feels so loved at his preschool.

Disclaimer:  He chose his own outfit!! 

Off to drop-off.

Everett's preschool is in a lady's house not far from us.  (Well, nothing is far from us.  We live in a 5 square mile enclosure.)

 BAD:  Although he held up beautifully through dropoff, Lawrence (who does not go back to his preschool until tomorrow) fell apart as soon as we got home.  He desperately wants to go to preschool with Everett, but he can't go there until he is potty trained.  He feels so left out, and he was crushed that we just had to come back to the house without taking him to school too.  Poor kiddo.  We played games while the baby slept and that seemed to help.  And then after the baby woke up, I discovered that she had thrown up all over her sheets.  Ugh. 

GOOD:  When we went back to pick Everett up, all was well.  He had had a ball, and Lawrence was so happy to see him.  BUT....

BAD:  Again, Lawrence fell all apart after we got back to the house.  He flat out told me that he wants to go to Everett's preschool.  Lots of crying and needing to be held ensued.  So...

GOOD:   I said that we could try to use the potty again.  I filled him up with the sugary strawberry juice that they sell here, and BINGO - he wee wee-ed twice in the potty!  HOORAY!  (He has done this before, but he just won't do it every time.  Yet.)  But...

BAD:  Right at lunch time the sugar crash hit, and Lawrence went limp with more crying and whining.  Mike hit the house and all three kids were crying, with Everett running all over because of the strawberry juice, Lawrence just in sugar low, and the baby needing more nap and being sleepy.  I shoved the baby his way as soon as he hit the door with a " Hold her while I go change her sheets."  The boys ran amok while Daddy rocked baby girl (successfully!) to sleep, and I got the sheets changed, and then we all tried to have some lunch (which Mike had to make) to even out the blood sugar issues.  Turns out Mike was peeved about work today because they don't listen to him (but that's the same as at home, right honey? :)  )  so he was steamed through lunch, and just as he was leaving, I took Lawrence upstairs for his nap, only to discover that the cat has peed all over his bed.  ARGH!!! 

GOOD:  Everett and I played until Catherine woke up, and then Lawrence woke up (but both too soon....as we will see.)  Everett read books to me, which is really fun, and he played by himself while I cleaned up from lunch.  So far, this was the only productive thing I've done!  We all rounded up and headed to the playground by our house for a whole five minutes before Daddy came home to pick up Everett for his very first t-ball practice ever!  Mike is the coach!  They are going to have so much fun.

Going to T-ball!  Giraffy and Armadillo did not get to go, but they wanted to pose for the picture.  And you know that Everett is Saudi-ized when it is 97 degrees outside and he picks jeans to wear. 

BAD:  Again, it's so hard to be left behind.  Lawrence really really wanted to go too, but he had to stay home with me.  He was getting really fussy now from not having enough nap, and the baby too, because she didn't get enough nap either.  So I put Lawrence down in front of the TV for a 15 minute show (I hate doing that, but it was necessary) and stuck the baby in the pack n play in the kitchen and got to work on dinner.  We were having shepherd's pie.  The baby WAILED the ENTIRE TIME.  She was so mad that I was not holding her.  I made the meat part and the mashed potatoes part, and I used the very prized $10 package of real live Sargento sharp cheddar cheese (2 cups shredded) that we had picked up at the Tamimi market in Khobar over the weekend.  I put it all together fast because she was so unhappy, and I kept telling her to hang on a little longer, I am coming.  I put foil on the top and slid it onto the top rack, and let go...a hair too early.  It flipped outward and landed upside down on the crease between the oven and the oven door.  The foil, of course, floated up and away instead, so it was just splat - gone.  I shouted a four letter word in front of both kids.  And I'm not sorry.  My cheese.  Gone.  Damn.

GOOD:  Well, I scraped it up and cooked it anyway (ordering a pizza instead is actually more of an inconvenience over here...I miss Brooklyn's)  and Mike and Everett came home.  They had both had a ball!  Their first game is on Wednesday - can't wait to report on that.

BAD:  But Lawrence was unwilling to take any more being left out.  Before we could get to the table, he dissolved for good into full-blown meltdown.  Our only option was to take him upstairs and straight to bed...no dinner, no bath, nothing.  He was SO MAD, but as soon as I got him in his jammies and under the covers, he yelled at me to leave and IMMEDIATELY fell asleep.  He will feel better in the morning.  I bet he'll be hungry!

All through dinner, we kept so quiet.  We had to keep shh-ing Everett, and we all whispered because Lawrence was sleeping.  After dinner, I tiptoed upstairs to to check on him.  The curtains that we have hanging over the boys' door (Lawrence won't let us close the door so we hung curtains over the door frame to block out the light) broke and fell down on one side (thwack!) and then all the wooden rings fell off one by one (clank!  clank!  clank!  clank! clank!).  So loud!!  ARGH!  But amazingly, he did not even flinch.  So that was good.  But now the curtains were down!  ARGH again! 

GOOD:  We got to Skype with Gramama and Grapapa tonight, and after Everett went to bed (I was so whipped by then that I just gave Everett a quick sponge bath and got him in the bed) Mike drove over to our friends house to borrow and extension ladder to fix the curtains.

BAD :  Of course, the extension ladder was too small!  So now what?  I wish I had taken a picture of Mike on the extension ladder, discovering that it did not go high enough, but GUESS WHAT (of course) the camera memory is full and I can't take any more pictures.  Enough.  My nerves are shot.  Post the blog and go to bed.

Today was one of those days that happen to everyone every once in a while.  So many good things - first day of preschool, first day of t-ball, using the potty!  So many bad things - cat pee, throw up, meltdowns, and losing my cheese.  No more emotional roller coaster for me for a long time - I have paid my dues for now.  Here's to tomorrow being more even keel!

Greetings From Bahrain!

Last weekend, Mike had extra two days off (four day weekend!) so we decided to take an overnight trip to Bahrain.  Some of you may not know much about Bahrain, so here is the quick run-down:

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island country situated near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is an archipelago of 33 islands, the largest being Bahrain Island, at 55 km (34 mi) long by 18 km (11 mi) wide.  Saudi Arabia lies to the west and is connected to Bahrain by the King Fahd Causeway.  The official language is Arabic, although English is widely used.  (thank you Wikipedia for text and the CIA for maps!)

On the right map, Dhahran is about where the "R" is in Saudi Arabia.  When we go there, we drive over the Causeway.  If we were just to drive there straight, it would take about an hour to get to the hotel.  However, since we cross an international border, we have to go through customs and passport control, etc. so it takes longer.  All that stuff is on a tiny island in between the two countries.  The island is just about the word Fahd on the map (it's not the larger island to the right of that).

Bahrain is nice because a) it's something else to look at besides the compound and b) women can wear normal clothes there!  YAY!  So off we went.

The boys packed their own bags and loaded them in the car themselves.

Ready to go!

Approaching the Causeway.  This is the toll booth.

View from the Causeway, before the border island.  Those are Saudi flags on the light poles.  The Causeway is 16 miles long.

Here comes the border island.  Those towers are revolving restaurants. 

At passport control, it's just one big traffic jam.  We waited 2 hours to get through it. 

Once we were over the border and in Bahrain, we went to our hotel. 

Mike had reserved a HUGE 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom apartment in the hotel!!  It had more square footage than our rental house in the States.  That dining room table is for eight!

Here is our full kitchen.

The boys' room.

View from our apartment included the Grand Mosque (with the two towers). You can see the Persian Gulf behind it.  We were on the 10th floor.

Zoomed in.

The thing to do at the Gulf Hotel is go to the pool.  Here we are!

This hotel is popular with families with kids because it has a great pool.  This is the play structure in the pool.  Everett loved it!  (Lawrence was terrified.  Maybe next time.  In his defense, it was REALLY LOUD because all that water was pounding down.)

The other side of the play structure had a fabulous slide.  This is Everett!

After dark, our view was really pretty with all the city lights. 

The kids collapsed in front of the TV and we all ordered room service.  WOW!  And they got chicken nuggets!!  WOW again!  We really miss chicken nuggets. 

Our spacious abode.  Kids in jammies. Waiting for the room service to arrive. 

The next morning, watching the cars and trucks out the window was much more interesting than Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV.  They are having their breakfast by the windows for the view.

The border crossing on the way back was faster - only about 40 minutes.  While we were waiting, we saw this container.  Powder?  Hmm, what kind of powder could this be?  (We had lots of time to think about it.)  Baking?  Garlic?  Onion?  Baby?  Gun?  Iocane?  (Mike said YOU'D LIKE TO THINK THAT, WOULDN'T YOU?!) (Never get involved with a border crossing in Arabia.)  

 So that was our trip to Bahrain.  Catherine is only 5 1/2 months old, and this puts her up to five countries - Saudi, Kuwait, Netherlands, USA, and Bahrain!  It was fun - we'll go again when I get burned out on abayas.  :)

A Big Day for Lawrence

Today was Lawrence's first day of preschool!  Wow, we sure do miss Good Shepherd.  But Lawrence still had a great time at his new preschool, and he did super getting in the door.  He was tired when I picked him up, too - worn out!

Now he's a real Big Boy - on his way to school!

Construction Trucks backpack is perfect for my Lawrence

Everett doesn't start his preschool for another 2 weeks (yes, October!)  But he was very eager to demonstrate to Lawrence how to wear your preschool backpack.

 Lawrence's preschool is run by a lady named Miss Ana.  She holds a "play school" in her home for 12 children.  

This is at the door to Miss Ana's house.  Ready to go in!

He and Miss Ana had a conversation about belly buttons before he went inside. 

He gave me a kiss and said "Bye bye, have a good time!"  and went inside without looking back.  <sniff!>  So brave!

And (BIG NEWS!!) it was only 98 degrees today!  It didn't even hit 100!  So to celebrate, I loaded Catherine up in the double stroller and Everett and I walked to Miss Ana's to pick Lawrence up.  He was ready to come home and was glad to have a spot in the stroller - so tired!  It's a 10-15 minute walk there, and it was nice to be out of the house. 

So that was Lawrence's first day of preschool.  He's all ready to go again tomorrow.  I am sad to not have him home, but I'm glad he will be learning to be with other kids.  (And if Everett's preschool will hurry up and start, I will have both boys in school at the same time for 2 1/2 hours, 3 days a week!  Hooray for baby Catherine time!  Hooray for preschool!  Hooray for Lawrence!)

Scary Stuff Nearby?

Thanks to everybody who has been concerned for us in light of the current US Embassy issues.  I just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know that while I'm sure the US media is going nuts over there on your side of the world, things seem pretty much the same over here.  Of course, we are concerned, but Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia are decently far away (the distance from Dhahran to Benghazi is like Charlotte to Guatemala City - if you were a Japanese person living in Charlotte and there was an attack on the Japanese Embassy in Guatelmala City, how concerned would it make you be for your own safety?  Probably not too much.); Yemen, while closer, is already known to be a haven for terrorists, so as long as they stay down there, we are ok. 

So far, the only ramification that I have even heard of around here is that they cancelled a cocktail party that was supposed to happen at the Consulate the night of the initial attack.  Nobody on camp is talking about it, we have not gotten any warnings from the Company or the US or Saudi governments, and I don't think we are in significantly more danger than we were last week.  So we are not losing any sleep. 

The key here is distance.  Stuff like that doesn't happen in Saudi because the government here squashes it instantly by buying people off.  As long as everything stays far away, we are ok.  And don't worry - the minute we don't feel safe, we're outta here.  Promise. 

Driving Miss Dhakayah

Driving here is pretty scary.  Every time we hit the road, we are really putting the ADVENTURE in Our Arabian Adventure.  So when Mike went to the old McDonnell Douglas compound the other day and saw this sign on the gate as he left, we all got a good laugh!

Ha!

Yeah - good luck!  It's a veritable zoo out there.  I don't really have any pictures of the traffic here, but it's chaotic.  Sometimes there are lane lines and sometimes there are not.  Sometimes there are street signs or stop signs or interstate signs, and sometimes there are not.  Not that any of these signs really matter anyway - men just drive the way they want to, like animals herding in the road.  (I really don't mean that in a derogatory way, just objectively; the way the cars bunch up around turns or mesh together for an intersection, it really does look like sheep all squooshed together and running forward.)  Do you find yourself in the right lane, and need to do a quick left U-turn to turn around and go the other way?  No problem!  No, don't bother to signal - just do it.  Allah will protect your car.

The Saudis here REALLY DO think that either Allah will protect them in their cars, or it was their time to die.  That's why they don't wear seat belts.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Usually, the driver (husband or father) has one on, but women don't wear them supposedly because it has to go across their chests, giving them "shape", and kids are just loose in the car.  Yes.  Just loose in the car.  On all the roads, including the interstate.  It is so hard to watch.  The really progressive Saudis have car seats, but they don't strap their kids in to the seat - they just sit them there with no belt.  (Seems so me that that places them up higher and so they are more likely to be injured.)  So it's no wonder that the top killer of kids over 4 is car crashes (the top killer of kids under 4 is drowning, with car crashes being second...why drowning is so high will be the subject of a future post.)  It's also no wonder that the interstates are all called  "Highway of Death", by westerners at least.

Here we are on a Highway of Death (this is the road to Abqaiq) with slightly-less-than-typical traffic.  Notice how the sand continually blows over the road.  It would cover the road completely, except that there are bulldozers all along the side that push the sand back off the road.  (Not that they give you any warning of where the bulldozers are.) (Lawrence, our Vehicle Boy, LOVED this!)  But notice how quickly we come upon one that does have a barrel out front.  Yikes!  And people drive whatever speed they want, too.  We are going about 70 mph here.  (Also, just try to block out all three kids crying and the kid music in the background.  That's what we do, too.)

(LHS - don't play this while the baby is sleeping!)

We decided that Allah helps those who help themselves, so back when we were buying, we bought the biggest, most humongous metal car we could find, and we strap ourselves and all our kids in so tight that they can barely move.  That way, if something happens, at least we will be as safe as we can be, and certainly better off than the other people.  And we'll take that wish for good luck, McDonnell Douglas - thanks!  - we're going to need it.

PS Dhakayah is an Arabic girl's name meaning "intelligent".  

Close. But no cigar.

Holster your weapons at the door, please.

Feeding Frenzy

Everett's new thing is to feed his sister baby food.  It's very cute - what a good brother! - but I do feel a little sorry for her, having to learn to eat, and get used to the food, and sit in the high chair, and wear a bib, AND get occasionally poked in the cheek with a spoonful of runny apples.  However, Everett loves it so much we let him do it anyway:

He's demonstrating how to open your mouth for the bite.  Really, he is pretty good at it!  He even sings to her when she gets upset about the process. 

And of course, "I do it, too!" wants a shot.  He gets a little extra help from Daddy.  Wow, look at all that blonde hair on that kid.

Ha!

Little Did You Know...

Little did you know that you were living amongst heroes.  But the secret is out!  By day, we maintain our mild-mannered personalities.  By night, we are known as....

The Super Family! 

Here we are in our Super Jammies.  Our super power is -  sleeping!  We are all super sleepers!  We work together with our friends Nice-Warm-Bath and Bedtime-Stories to do battle against our sworn nemesises (nemesi?) Dessert-Sugar-Rush, But-*You're*-Not-Going-To-Bed, and One-More-Drink-Of-Water.  So if your kids can't sleep, you can call on us to come and help you (if we're awake, that is).  Ha!

PS But remember, we are not awake after 2:30 pm your time unless we are home for Christmas.  So, basically, we are almost always asleep when you need us.  :)  This time change thing is handy!    

Our Pantry

As promised, here is a picture of all that baby food we brought back for our little Arabian Princess:

It's like having a grocery store right here in our own pantry.  Here you see sixteen different flavors represented, and each flavor is eight packages deep.  Adding eleven loose packages on top, plus three applesauces, gives us 142 packages total, but 139 of those include two tubs, so it's 281 containers of baby food.  That's the first shelf!

The second shelf is for meats (we have about 50 jars), plus rice, oatmeal, and mixed cereals, formula, four kinds of puffs, and three kinds of yogurt tabs.  We also have a few of those pouches with the screw top lids in the back.  Oh yeah, and one extra Target brand pears in the front there.  Think we've got enough??

While I was rearranging the pantry to accept all this baby food, I found this, which Mike must have bought while we were gone:

COUNTRY Corn Flakes??  Are these somehow different than regular corn flakes?  As opposed to City Corn Flakes, perhaps?  Maybe they mean country like nation.  Each flake is shaped like a country?  "Look, Mom!  I got Sweden and Japan in the same spoonful!"  ???  (Speaking of countries, these Corn Flakes were manufactured in Lebanon by a Swiss company and distributed from Dubai for sale in Saudi.  Maybe it means Multi-Country Corn Flakes.)