Saturday, April 28, 2007
YES I DO! I really do love my kids
Ever just have one of those day when you have to keep reminding your self that you love your children? Oh I know you do. We all have our moments. Some more then others. Well, I'm starting to think there might be something wrong with me! I had to "remind" myself about 1000 times today. The trouble is I have no one to blame but myself. I grew up in the country so I had all kinds of nice open space and I have always felt bad that my boys have to live in an apartment. Also I was a major tomboy and my DH is the very active type so we have always encouraged our boys to be boys. They like to wrestle and rough house, play baseball in the living room and see who can jump furthest of the top bunk. I have gained more then my share of gray hair due to my little angels and I am sure I'm destined to be the next poster mom for Prozac! DH takes it all in stride. Never lets the antics of his offspring bother him in the least. "Oh, Their boys leave them alone!" is his constant refrain. Well today I had enough! I officially snapped. All of them the 3,the5, and the10 yr old along with the biggest baby of all my DH decides to have a no holds barred smack down in my room, in my bed, ON TOP OF ME! Oh I'm sure you all have stories better then that and to tell the truth so do I. However today just was not the day to mess with mom! I started jumping and screaming and throwing things around. I was really acting as if I had totally lost my mind! When I finished my spazz attack and regained use of my senses there sat the four "monsters" staring at me in disbelief. Mouths gaping open and eye bulging out of their sockets. Silence filled the air of a good 20 seconds then Jesse my 3yr old who has had a lot of trouble starting to talk looked at DH and said"Dad, momma crazy!"and with that they all started laughing hysterically. What was I to do? "I really do love my kids" I kept repeating to myself as I walked in to the kitchen and made myself a huge bowl of ice cream. Then I called to my brood to come and share with me the treat I had made.... As they all filed one by one into the kitchen to see what surprise I had made this time, I drowned each one with glass full with ice water. Then I picked up my huge bowl of ice cream and said that anyone who was not wet could have ice cream and anyone who was wet had to clean up the mess. It might have been to mean or not mean enough. All I know is I thought it was funny! I felt alot better too.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
EaTinG oUt
First and for most I need to reiterate how much I really do like living here......Most of the time.......
We (the people in my life) like to eat out at lest two or three times a month. This is not including Micky D's or KFC, but really getting out. We are very fortunate in this neck of the woods to have some of the finest restaurants from all over the world represented. Famous places from England, Italy, America, are here. Not to mention the many local Mom and Pop cafés or splendid Arabic traditional places.
From Drive Thru to Drive You, We have it all. We still have car hops and I don't mean like Sonic. I'm talkin' people come to your car, wait for you to order, sit there and have a chat with you if their not busy and then run your shwarma and fresh juice out to your car still pipping hot and ready to drip hummus all down your chin. UMMM I think I need to call for delivery. Oh yeah, They deliver here. Not just the corner cafeteria but also the little shop with fresh bread, milk and batteries; the drug store if you ran out of tampons, even the dry cleaner will come to your door and pick-up and drop-off your clothes.... WELLLLLL for a small fee. Of course this might be alittle hard for you all who have big back yards and lots of elbow room to understand. We have all these things sure but 8 out of 10 families in the UAE live in apartments. I'm not talking about little Apartments. I live on the 16th floor of a 22 floor building. And it's not small either. My place is bigger then my mom's house! OH NO I've gone and done it...... rambling...... OK ok back on track...
Eating out is alot of fun here. You could eat at a different place everyday for a whole year and not be able to visit them all. There is just one thing I have to complain about. That is when we go out to the American restaurants I get alittle ticked. All most all the places here will charge you for water... I know I KNOW crazy right? ok well that is there right I guess but when I walk into my favorite "All American" feeding box and find that I not only have to pay for a small glass of water but also chips and salsa...... I mean really! This is not on! I know it has been a few years since I made it across the pond to the motherland but surely you all don't have to "order" chips and salsa. Or bread sticks or any of those other fine little get started treats they might give you just to wet the whistle and get those taste buds all woke up! It's not like they are over charging or anything, it is just knowing that if I were back in the good ole' US of A I wouldn't have to pay for it at all.
So, next time you and yours go out on the town and the waiter or waitress comes up to the table and fills up that glass with water or sets that nice basket of chips and salsa down in front of you, think about me. I might not have to leave my house to get tampons but at least you don't have to pay for chips and salsa.
I feel the pain my country feels today.
One of its faithful was taken away.
May be he was a writer or
she next to reach the stars
I Don't ask why it happend
I Don't ask the who, the when, or the way
I just feel... the pain My Country feels today.
God please watch over VA. Tech
We (the people in my life) like to eat out at lest two or three times a month. This is not including Micky D's or KFC, but really getting out. We are very fortunate in this neck of the woods to have some of the finest restaurants from all over the world represented. Famous places from England, Italy, America, are here. Not to mention the many local Mom and Pop cafés or splendid Arabic traditional places.
From Drive Thru to Drive You, We have it all. We still have car hops and I don't mean like Sonic. I'm talkin' people come to your car, wait for you to order, sit there and have a chat with you if their not busy and then run your shwarma and fresh juice out to your car still pipping hot and ready to drip hummus all down your chin. UMMM I think I need to call for delivery. Oh yeah, They deliver here. Not just the corner cafeteria but also the little shop with fresh bread, milk and batteries; the drug store if you ran out of tampons, even the dry cleaner will come to your door and pick-up and drop-off your clothes.... WELLLLLL for a small fee. Of course this might be alittle hard for you all who have big back yards and lots of elbow room to understand. We have all these things sure but 8 out of 10 families in the UAE live in apartments. I'm not talking about little Apartments. I live on the 16th floor of a 22 floor building. And it's not small either. My place is bigger then my mom's house! OH NO I've gone and done it...... rambling...... OK ok back on track...
Eating out is alot of fun here. You could eat at a different place everyday for a whole year and not be able to visit them all. There is just one thing I have to complain about. That is when we go out to the American restaurants I get alittle ticked. All most all the places here will charge you for water... I know I KNOW crazy right? ok well that is there right I guess but when I walk into my favorite "All American" feeding box and find that I not only have to pay for a small glass of water but also chips and salsa...... I mean really! This is not on! I know it has been a few years since I made it across the pond to the motherland but surely you all don't have to "order" chips and salsa. Or bread sticks or any of those other fine little get started treats they might give you just to wet the whistle and get those taste buds all woke up! It's not like they are over charging or anything, it is just knowing that if I were back in the good ole' US of A I wouldn't have to pay for it at all.
So, next time you and yours go out on the town and the waiter or waitress comes up to the table and fills up that glass with water or sets that nice basket of chips and salsa down in front of you, think about me. I might not have to leave my house to get tampons but at least you don't have to pay for chips and salsa.
I feel the pain my country feels today.
One of its faithful was taken away.
May be he was a writer or
she next to reach the stars
I Don't ask why it happend
I Don't ask the who, the when, or the way
I just feel... the pain My Country feels today.
God please watch over VA. Tech
Monday, April 9, 2007
Road trips and car games
Right, today I want to talk about road trips and car games. No matter if you are setting out on a two hour trek to Grandma’s house or heading cross country for summer vacation, if you have small children you are going to have to play car games.
Growing up, in Southern Indiana, our family went on a lot of road trips and played a lot of car games. Therefore when I decided to take my three little ones on an hour and half road trip to Sharjah I was confident that I had things well under control.
Any of you readers who have not heard of UAE should Google it. I love living here, most of the time, and am very proud to call it my second home. Anywho back one track….
We packed up all the essentials: Game Boys, books, cars and trucks. Just a few things after all it’s only an hour and half. Stopped to fill up and get some treats and we are on our way; me and my boys out on the open road.
Well, we are only 20 minutes into the trip when Nasser (NasCar 5yrs) starts the “are we there yet?” whine. Wow that was fast. We are not even out of the city yet (Abu Dhabi). OK that’s fine…..I have been trained for this situation……Travel songs, always a crowd pleaser, are just the ticket. I charge Khalid(k ha lid) with starting us out he’s ten and an old pro at the travel game so he can teach the other two the ropes. First: John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmitt then ole’Mac Donald, The ABCs (three times) and on and on finishing with a wonderful rendition of There’s a whole in my bucket, and everyone laughing. HHUMM all is right in the world. AAAAHHHHH….. I would like to accept this Mother of the Year Award on behalf of my wonderful children…… Yeah! Right! The peace and tranquility lasted all of two minutes then we were back to “are we there yet?” I check the time I check the mileage Um I’m doing pretty well Ok let’s play a game. One of my favorite games growing up was Count the Cows. Very easy game, you count cows. The car gets divided in two; Driver’s side against Passenger’s side and the side with the most cows at the end of the trip wins. The catch is if you pass a graveyard then you lose all your cows. Get it? Good game right? Just one thing we don’t have cows in UAE but we do have camels, cows-camels same difference and graveyards are not near the roads so they would be hard to spot…uumm gas stations are just as rare so we’ll use that. The boys love the idea and soon we are counting camels and looking out for the dreaded gas stations. This game got us almost all the way to our destination and I sure was glad to see the end of the road.
It just made me think how lucky I was to grow-up where and with whom I did. One thing that I worry about is my children growing up in a place that is so different then where I did. Yeah, the summers are hot here and there are not as many activities for them. But, we had a wonderful time on our road trip even if we did have to count camels.
Till next time,
Shamsa
Growing up, in Southern Indiana, our family went on a lot of road trips and played a lot of car games. Therefore when I decided to take my three little ones on an hour and half road trip to Sharjah I was confident that I had things well under control.
Any of you readers who have not heard of UAE should Google it. I love living here, most of the time, and am very proud to call it my second home. Anywho back one track….
We packed up all the essentials: Game Boys, books, cars and trucks. Just a few things after all it’s only an hour and half. Stopped to fill up and get some treats and we are on our way; me and my boys out on the open road.
Well, we are only 20 minutes into the trip when Nasser (NasCar 5yrs) starts the “are we there yet?” whine. Wow that was fast. We are not even out of the city yet (Abu Dhabi). OK that’s fine…..I have been trained for this situation……Travel songs, always a crowd pleaser, are just the ticket. I charge Khalid(k ha lid) with starting us out he’s ten and an old pro at the travel game so he can teach the other two the ropes. First: John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmitt then ole’Mac Donald, The ABCs (three times) and on and on finishing with a wonderful rendition of There’s a whole in my bucket, and everyone laughing. HHUMM all is right in the world. AAAAHHHHH….. I would like to accept this Mother of the Year Award on behalf of my wonderful children…… Yeah! Right! The peace and tranquility lasted all of two minutes then we were back to “are we there yet?” I check the time I check the mileage Um I’m doing pretty well Ok let’s play a game. One of my favorite games growing up was Count the Cows. Very easy game, you count cows. The car gets divided in two; Driver’s side against Passenger’s side and the side with the most cows at the end of the trip wins. The catch is if you pass a graveyard then you lose all your cows. Get it? Good game right? Just one thing we don’t have cows in UAE but we do have camels, cows-camels same difference and graveyards are not near the roads so they would be hard to spot…uumm gas stations are just as rare so we’ll use that. The boys love the idea and soon we are counting camels and looking out for the dreaded gas stations. This game got us almost all the way to our destination and I sure was glad to see the end of the road.
It just made me think how lucky I was to grow-up where and with whom I did. One thing that I worry about is my children growing up in a place that is so different then where I did. Yeah, the summers are hot here and there are not as many activities for them. But, we had a wonderful time on our road trip even if we did have to count camels.
Till next time,
Shamsa
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Welcome to the wonderful world of Blogging
Today as I was going thru the Friday newspaper I came across an article about how American women are trading in their early morning talk shows for blogging. This I found really interesting because I up until now had no idea what blogging was and I sure didn't know how. But, feeling like I was missing out on some great trend(like leg warmers) I decided I had better get on the ball and get myself blogging. The article talked about mommy bloggers so that is where I started. I myself am a mother of three so I figured it would be nice to see what the rest of the world was doing with their little charges. I was hooked after reading the first post. I wanted to write this lady a three page reply! This is a great Idea! I kept thinking, so after a few more blogs here I am. ready to tell the world all the crazy, wonderful and sometimes just plain scary things I see living abroad in the UAE. So stay tuned I promise you'll love it!
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