Water, water everywhere????

So, I now have been living in a desert for one month today. I know…I can’t believe that it has been a month either. Time flies when you’re having fun! In the last month, I have made many observations of different things, but there’s one in particular that fascinates me.
I have not seen a drop of rain since we arrived (a great improvement in my opinion to the weather I was subjected to in Maryland before I left). True this is a city that is surrounded by water (it is an island) and I knew that before I came, but what I was not prepared for is all the water everywhere!
You cannot go more than a block without encountering some kind of water feature or water fountain. Also in order to grow any kind of vegetation there must be a sprinkler system in place (which seem to go off non-stop). The streets are lined with beautiful trees and vegetation that must be watered several times a day. I myself have not only a pool full of water, but a small water feature by my front door and a sprinkler system that goes off 3 times a day to water all the plants and grass in my yard. I didn’t even mention drinking/bathing water!
Abu Dhabi is a fairly large city (about 1.2 million). How the heck do they get so much water????? There must be some mack-Daddy desalination plant around here that I am not aware of!
I took some time to just drive around the city the other day to just observe and take pictures (I could do this in peace since the girls were in camp). I was awed by the water fountains and the beautiful parks and I can’t wait until it’s actually cool enough to enjoy them all. Until then, I’ll just jump in the water!

To the Hospital We Go!

Well, we haven't had internet for about 3 weeks so I'm behind. I actually wrote this post a week ago. Ashli is doing much better now. I removed her stitches on Monday and she is happily enjoying the pool again. She is probably going to have a small, "character mark," as Steve calls it, but she's so darn cute...who's going to notice????

To the Hospital We Go!
If you haven’t heard yet, we had to make our first trip to the ER here in Abu Dhabi. I know…it didn’t take long!
In the wee hours of July 5th (3:30 am to be exact), I was awaking by a horrible screaming sound. That sound was coming from Ashli and I rushed into her room to find her and her bed covered in blood. It took me awhile to determine where the blood was coming from (her mouth) and then a lot longer for me to get her calmed down enough to tell me what happened. She claims she was having a dream about a dragon that was trying to “fire her.” (No she hasn’t recently watched anything with scary dragons in it…we don’t even have cable yet).
As I took a closer look at her lip, I discovered that she had completely bitten through it and I knew that she would need stitches. The problem that I had was two-fold. First, I was in a foreign country and had no idea where to take her or where they accepted our new insurance. Second, we still had no internet access, so I couldn’t look these things up. Since it was now about 4am on a Sunday (Sunday is Monday here) I didn’t want to wake up anyone with a phone call. I had stopped most of the bleeding and she was falling back to sleep. I let her go back to sleep after I bandaged it up as best as I could.
As soon as we could, we started making phone calls and found out what hospital to go to. We went to a small hospital about 20 minutes from our house and we had to wait maybe 10 minutes before they took us back to the triage area. The triage nurse took one look at her and told us she would need sutures. They then moved us to a curtained booth very similar to areas that you would see in a US ER.
The ER doc came in almost immediately and took a quick look and decided to page the surgeon on call. We waited about 20 minutes for him. He was very nice for a surgeon, but there was definitely a language barrier with him. I did however immediately understand the term “general anesthesia” when it came out of his mouth. That’s when the butterflies started in my stomach. Here we were in a foreign country and they were talking about putting my baby under!
Now, if we were back in Maryland, I don’t think that I would have been as nervous. First, I would have probably known the anesthesiologist and the surgeon would have understood all my questions. Because I’m a nurse, I know all the bad things that can go wrong under general and of course all those things started to run rampant through my head. I couldn’t even call any of my close friends to get moral support (Tina…I desperately wanted to talk to you about this!!!) because it was in the middle of the night back home.
I swallowed my fears and played a game of constructing paper jewelry out of paper bed linings with Ashli while Steve paced and we waiting for the insurance to pre-approve the surgery (which took 2 hours!)
Instead of doing this as an outpatient thing, they actually admitted Ashli to a room in a Peds unit (which thankfully had a TV!) and we waited there until there was an OR available. She was an amazing trooper the entire time. They stuck her with several needles and messed with her very sore mouth many times and not once did she cry. She gave everyone who walked into her room one of her famous Ashli smiles and had everyone in the hospital wrapped around her pinky finger in no time at all!
We walked her down to the OR finally around 1pm. They wouldn’t let us go back at all and I spoke to the anesthesiologist (who thankfully knew a lot more English). She looked so tiny in the big stretcher that it broke my heart. As soon as she couldn’t see me, I started crying and struggled not to break into the “Ugly Cry,” with so many people watching me.
We had to wait for her back in her room for what seemed like an eternity (it actually was only 90 minutes). When she came back to her room, she acted like she’d had a little too much tequila (picture the little boy that the father videotaped after having some surgery and posted it on UTube and times that by 10). Her main concerns were A) she was dizzy and B) she didn’t have any panties on. We had a lengthy conversation on why I had panties on and she didn’t! They also gave her pain medicine rectally which did not go over well with her at all. Lucky me…they sent her home with the same meds!
It took her about 2 hours to really come out of it. The surgeon came in and told us that she had only one external suture on the outside of her lip, but wound up with several internal sutures. Her lip was about 10 times its normal size and looked terrible, but she didn’t complain of any pain. I think they must have REALLY good drugs in the OR.
We left the hospital at 5pm (9 hours after we got there). In retrospect, it could have been much worse. The staff at the hospital was very nice and treated Ashli like a little princess. Thankfully, we had just gotten our new insurance cards the day before. The way things work here, they would have wanted cash up front for her surgery if we didn’t have proof of insurance (I don’t even want to think about how much that would have been). Ashli was a model patient. She didn’t cry once and was very patient (it helped that Alanna the Elephant was with us the entire time!). We also have great friends here that helped us out with Caitlin so that she didn’t have to go through the long day with us.
I really wanted to see how things worked here in the hospitals, but not in this way! They certainly do things differently here and the language barrier was a problem at some points, but it was a great learning experience.
She is doing much better now. Today (3 days post-op) was the first day that she was able to eat something other than yogurt/jello without wincing in pain. Her biggest complaint now is that she can’t swim in the pool (which we opened the day before she did this) for a week( I did break down and let her get in a tube for a little while).
I don’t think we are going to talk, watch, play or otherwise engage in any activities that involve dragons for a VERY long time!

A Land Far, Far Away!

OK...so enough about Ashli. Cate has definitely been doing her share of exploring and pondering too. Let's look through her eyes for a little bit!

Looking through the eyes of your children can definitely be enlightening. If only we could see things the way that they do. If only I could see through Caitlin’s rose-colored glasses the world would be so much nicer!
Caitlin believes that we are in a land of Royalty (and to a certain degree, we are). There are palaces and mansions all over the place, but the buildings that she has become most fond of are the mosques. There are hundreds of mosques all over the city and you can see them building more. Construction is rampant here and I’ve even seen cardboard cutouts in the shape of a mosque at big building sites so that the workers don’t have to go far to pray the 5 required times a day. You can hear the Call to Pray from any location here.
Caitlin’s favorite by far is the Grand Mosque which even I admit is spectacular. It is a huge ornate white building which is lit up each night with blue lights. She has become convinced that it is the castle in which Aladdin and Jasmine live and wants to go visit them and have some tea. It does bear a striking resemblance to Jasmine’s childhood home in the Disney movie.
To a degree a lot of the buildings here are something out of a fantasy. It seems all the builders have a little competition going on. Each one is trying to outdo the other with their amazing creations. They are building a large structure to be the headquarters for a local builder very near our house that is shaped like a very large glass Frisbee. Caitlin loves it and calls it the crystal ball and knows that we are getting close to home when she sees it. Maybe she can make a wish into it and have Aladdin invite her to tea?

To Bidet Or Not To Bidet

Thought I would write about stuff that the girls are fascinated with here in Abu Dhabi. I’ll start with Ashli. It doesn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t surprise any of those who know and love Ashli, that she is totally fascinated with the bathrooms here.
All bathrooms have either a bidet or a nozzle ( I don’t know the correct term yet). The nozzle has a long hose attached to it and you can use it the same way as a bidet to squirt clean water on areas that need to be cleaned after using the toilet. Please don’t make me explain further!!!!
Because all the bathrooms have either one of these options, they rarely have toilet paper. This is a nightmare for Ashli. Even as a tiny baby, she would have a hissy-fit if her bottom was the slightest bit damp. Luckily, a friend for-warned me of this and I stocked up on mini packs of tissue that I carry with me everywhere. She still gets all flustered when she realizes that there is no paper.
We have a bidet in one of the bathrooms in our hotel suite. Ashli insists that it is a bathtub for babies and no matter how often I tell her otherwise, she stands firm. I feel sorry for her future children. LOL!!!
Now the nozzle is a great source of amusement for her. Fortunately she hasn’t figured out that her own bathroom (in our future house) has its own nozzle. (We REALLY need to figure out how to turn it off). But, she did find and experiment with the one in the second bathroom in our suite. I was in the other room when I heard running water on the floor of the bathroom. I went in and found Ashli on the toilet with a stunned look on her face and water all over the floor in front of her. I asked her what happened and she recovered quickly. “I don’t know” was all I got. I asked how all the water got on the floor and she shrugged and said, “Somebody must have touched that thing.” The “thing” was the nozzle that I had given her strict instructions not to touch.
So far she has only touched it a few more times (I’m not looking forward to her being alone in her room with one) and I’m hoping that there are no dirty babies around her while we are still in the hotel!

The Grocery Store

We aren’t officially in our house yet since our furniture is still not here (we’re hoping this weekend sometime), but there comes a time when you need to buy a few items from the store. The first day we were here we were desperate since we had no luggage. In the land of 100+ and high humidity you cannot live without deodorant and soap!!
We are living in a hotel apartment which is adjacent to a large mall. There seems to be a large mall every 20 feet or so in Abu Dhabi. I’ll post more about them later, but right now I want to talk about the grocery stores. Each mall has a “grocery,” store in it. I’m talking 2-3 story behemoths that are like Super WalMarts on steroids. After arriving without our bags, we needed to do some shopping. We walked next door and went to a LuLus (yes..actually name of a chain of stores). Their logo is, “Where the world comes to shop.” This seems very appropriate since you see someone and something from every continent every time you go into one J
All I really wanted from this first venture into the land of shopping in Abu Dhabi was a toothbrush and some soap, but it took us nearly an hour to do this. The store was so huge, I became disoriented several times. Thank goodness that Steve was with me to point me towards the exit. Otherwise, I might still be wandering around in there (and I thought I had a good sense of direction).
I was happy to see several American products (like the type of deodorant and toothpaste that I usually use), but they all seem to shrink on their way over here and their prize tags grow J I was adventurous and did try a few products that I was not familiar with and so far have been happy with one small exception. I am not a fan of the vegetable soap.
My first real experience with the grocery store on my own was yesterday (OK…I went with my friend Eileen). Eileen and her kids got here the same time we did and they are in the same boat. We decided to try a store that was rumored to be filled with Western products. Now, I’m all about trying new things, but it would be nice to use a familiar product every once in a while. There was also the rumor that this particular store has GASP……pork products.
We entered Spinneys with our 4 children (we both have 2) and immediately started finding things that we thought we weren’t going to get for a couple of years. I was very excited to find Jif peanut butter and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray (it’s the little things in life that make you happy J). We also found things we couldn’t identify and for the most part left them alone. This was a comfort trip after all and we needed some stuff that was familiar to us. We’ll be more adventurous another day.
The produce section is always exciting. There are all kinds of interesting fruits and vegetables from around the world. Just today I found that I could buy grapes from 5 out of the 7 continents. I need to find someone who has been here a little longer to give me a tutorial on the different items available and how to eat/use them. I was thrilled to find nice avocadoes that weren’t too expensive. Can you say Guacamole and Margaritas by the pool?
Then, we found the (dramatic pause) Pork room. Since UAE is a Muslim country, all pork products must be housed in a separate room and have non-Muslim staff operating it. There is a large sign on the door warning all Muslims to stay away. Eileen and I immediately went in and looked around. Not only did we find all the items you expect, but in the pork room you find Pop Tarts and Marshmallows (both made from pork lard).
I was able to find all the ingredients to make a cheese tortellini dish that I make all the time back home much to the delight of the girls. I wasn’t able to replicate the taste from back home exactly, but as Caitlin said, “It’s really, really close Mom!” She then went on to have 3 helpings J

Our Travails

Well, our trip was definitely exciting! Where should I start? How about the 2 hours that it took us to check in at the Delta counter or almost missing our connection in JFK? It wasn’t all bad….I enjoyed a very luxurious business class flight from JFK to Abu Dhabi. Steve let me sit by myself on the long flight and the girls were absolute angels.
Starting at BWI we waited in line at the Delta counter for about an hour and then found out that a couple of our bags were too heavy. (I knew that they were going to be) Because our flight was delayed we decided to repack some of them. That took Steve and I another 30 minutes of sweat and tears, but by God we got them all under 50 pounds! By the way….we had TEN check ins. By the time we got our boarding passes, we had been at the airport for 2 hours and still hadn’t been through security J Luckily security was a breeze . We got to our gate and found out that our flight was delayed indefinitely due to some computer glitch.
We left BWI 2 hours after we were supposed to and prayed all the way to JFK that we would make our connection (we had a 3 hour layover). We got to JFK and had to go to another terminal to get our boarding passes running the whole way. Which is not so much fun with tired 4 & 5 year olds and six carry-ons. We get to the ticket counter at 10pm (our flight was scheduled to leave at 1050). We were promptly told that we were too late. I went into meltdown mode and irritated everyone there enough that they allowed us to get our boarding passes. The only condition was that we had to run (which we did until we hit security and came to a screeching halt). Some nice people let us cut in line and went through in a record amount of time (pretty impressive with 3 laptops and 2 kids). We then proceded to run all out to the gate (which was the 2nd to the last). We made it to the gate after near cardiac death (I consider myself in decent shape, but carrying a 4 year old and 3 bags while running nearly did me in!). We got on the plane sweaty and exhausted and didn’t take off for another hour J
The girls slept a good portion of the 12 hour flight (Ashli was asleep before we left the gate) and we all enjoyed the amenities of business class including a seat that reclines completely and free booze (well Steve and I did that part). All in all it wasn’t a horrible trip(the business class seats made up for the bad parts). There were only a few meltdowns (mostly mine) and it went faster than I expected. Now…should I tell you about our lost baggage????