August 2016 – robinchartier

Adjustments

I’ve been sick for days. I caught a nasty cough/cold at the end of last week that has knocked me on my butt. Mostly because I spend 22 out of 24 hours of the day coughing which wears me out. But I can’t sleep because every time I lie down I start coughing again. Poor Josh is suffering right alongside of me as I keep him awake all night, so he went to the pharmacy and brought home every cough remedy known to mankind — cough syrup, cough drops, herbal teas, and sore throat drops in every flavor. And he made me try them all. I’m not sure if it’s working, but none of the foreign medicine has killed me yet, so that’s encouraging.

This turkey is finally getting used to going to her new school. I took this photo at a New Family party at the end of the first week of classes. This sweet little girl came up and was trying to be friends with Camille, but my Nervous Nellie was giving her the cold shoulder (preoccupied with all the worries inside her head).

I know that Camille doesn’t really warm up quickly to new people, but it turns out that not only is this girl in Camille’s class, but they sit at the same table. The little sweetie told me, “I try to cheer her up when she’s sad.” Oh Lord, my daughter is such a head case. Please help her.

I strongly encouraged Camille to act kindly toward someone who is clearly trying to be a friend to her (with a well timed glare) and I coaxed this better photo out of her. I’m hoping she doesn’t alienate all of her potential friends by the time she’s ready to make friends.

And she was happy to put the first week behind her! The snake was her prize for making it to Thursday. Working on two phobias at once. Thankfully she has adopted the snake as the school mascot with much greater ease than I had hoped. (She used to not even be able to be in the same room as a fake snake or look at a snake picture in a book).

Not crying, just melting.

Even though moving has brought a lot of hardships, there is one GREAT thing that makes our new assignment well worth it. Josh’s new job gives him so much more time at home and his work schedule is much more flexible. This photo makes me happy because it’s actually Josh working, on a conference call, while Camille reads a book next to him. We haven’t had anything resembling this in 4 years.

We’ve still had some (lots of) tears about school. Usually at night before bed Camille starts crying and wants to message Josie and tell her that she misses her.

Another happy update: my car arrived! This was a miserable day for me because I was sick and coughing and I really should have stayed at home, but I had to get my driver’s license before my car was registered. Then once we were there I stuck around so I could drive my car home at the end of the registration process. It ended up taking a lot longer than we thought it would and after several hours of sitting by myself in the waiting room with random men and coughing all over everyone (while Josh was running around taking care of registration paperwork) I started sending him text messages about how I hated living in AD and was going to leave and go back to America and was taking Camille with me.

Fortunately Josh has gotten his PhD in Crazy People and reacted like a professional Crazy Person Handler. When I looked back over our chat I laughed because I was all, “This country can kiss my ass” and he replied, “I know. We’re almost done. Getting the license plates now.” as if I had only suggested going for pizza and not threatened to leave the family and start a new life by myself. He just blew by it like it was No Big Deal. Well done babe, well done.

At least now my car is parked in my driveway and I can go anywhere that I want — except I’m too sick to want to go anywhere, so that’s a bit of irony for you.

Hoping that this was the last day of tears. She’s been doing better once she’s in class, but the morning routine and getting on the bus is still a struggle. This photo is from yesterday — down to just a sniffle and teary eyes while boarding the bus. I promised if she can go from waking up in the morning and all through the school day with no tears then we will go back to the waterpark. I don’t care how much it costs. If she can get comfortable with this transition, then it’s completely worth it. This morning she left with a thumbs up and a smile, so I’m packing the pool bag . . .

Yas, fun please.

Traveling back in time to last weekend, before school began. I had been feeling guilty ever since someone asked the boys, “what did you do this summer?” and their wry response was “We moved here.” I realized that their summer vacation had been a bit lacking in the fun department and resolved to have at least one thing that they could look back on as a fun summer memory.

So after church on Friday we headed to Yas Waterworld. Too many waterslides to count, a wave pool, 3 different kid splash play areas, and a lazy river.

We all needed a day that was just for fun — no thinking about moving, school, or work for a change.

I left my camera in my bag while we played in the water all day. It was HOT, but the water was perfectly cooled. Meels and I played and rode slides in the kid’s area while the boys all went to check out the big rides and see which ones Camille could handle.

They overestimated her thrill-seeking capacity and said that one of the family rides would be fun for all of us. But when they weighed our group before loading us onto the 6 person raft, and told us where we needed to sit based on weight, I started to have doubts. Then we hit the first steep drop and flew straight down and Camille started bug-eyed screaming. They chose poorly. We all survived, but girlie was wary of all the other rides after that. We finally coaxed her on a “normal” inner-tube ride (doubles, so she didn’t have to go alone) and then she forgave them and was a happy slider after that.

This is the “don’t touch me” face that immediately precedes the smiling Happy Family photo.

and then of course girlie had to jump into the photo and take over the spotlight

It was such a fun day that she was mad when we told her it was time to go home. She even wanted to go back on the “scary slide” one more time, but we told her we’d have to save it for our next visit.

The park is open until 10pm on Fridays so people were still pouring in as we were heading home. I guess we aren’t Gulf natives yet. When night falls I want to be on my couch with my feet up, not fighting masses of people in line at the waterpark.

an apology

It’s been a day. The girl vs. school saga continues. According to her teacher she is doing better in the classroom, but our start to each day has been going downhill rapidly. Begging and pleading to stay home, tears, and today we added screaming to the mix.

She was a mess when we put her on the bus (and her problem is not the bus, it’s just that she’s making herself sick with worry about what is coming after the bus ride) and clung to Josh like a mussel on a rocky cliff. He was finally able to pry her hands from around his neck and shove her into the bus monitor’s arms as he ran off.

OK, fine, whatever. New things are hard for her. I can sympathize. I had a meeting at school during the day and peeked though a window a few times and she was playing with friends and not crying. Yay.

But when the kids got home the boys reported that she cried all the way to school and then when it was time to get off the bus she started screaming that she wasn’t going and holding on to the bus seat and the bus monitor had to unwrap her arms from around the seat and carry her off the bus. Oh hell no. Mama was pissed. You can be nervous, but you can’t be a brat.

First up: apology letter to the bus attendant, who doesn’t get paid enough to deal with that kind of drama. Second: no more screaming. We have gone from earning rewards for good behavior to making poor behavior a punishable offense. I am done.

Ending with a sunset — it could almost be LA if it weren’t for the Arabic signage. Happy today is over, but that means another morning bus ride is right around the corner. Oh, help.

Beginning of the year

This about sums it up. I don’t nap, but these days I crash. The kids went back to school yesterday, Josh and I have been married 19 years today, and we are all tired. Stupid tired. Mono tired. We haven’t even done anything and we’re tired, tired.

I suppose it’s the stress of the move catching up with us, but it feels a bit over the top. Josh’s back is half broken, neither of us are sleeping very well in our loaner Queen size bed where we keep blaming the other person for being on our side and the dog for taking up the bottom third (yes, Dad, I know you and mom share a full sized bed, but you don’t get any prizes for being crazy), and I think I’ve had a headache 5 out of 7 days this past week. I’m sure it’s from not drinking enough water because the water comes out of the faucet warm (not room temperature, but hot/warm) and has to be chilled in the fridge, and by the time it’s cold I’m not thirsty or the kids drank it because we can only find tiny pitchers to fit in our fridge and I hate drinking water anyway, and can’t someone just give me an IV already so I don’t have to be bothered with swallowing?

We are happy. Just tired. And I keep thinking we have to move again in two years. My stuff hasn’t even arrived yet and I’m already wondering how we’re going to make it out of here.

I’m also navigating having another person living in my house. For the most part, she is unnoticeable and a delight to have. But I’m not sure how much I should try and include her in our lives — does she want to come watch TV with us? Does she even understand that I’m inviting her to watch TV with us? She says, “OK Madame. No problem, Madame,” no matter what I say so I’m not sure when she gets it and when she doesn’t. The language barrier also means that when she says things they come as directives and not requests. “We go now” instead of “Can we go now?” or “You buy this” instead of “would you mind buying this?” I have to reword them in my head so I don’t bristle and feel like she’s bossing me around.

And I’m tired of things being Not Quite Right. Thankfully the internet has been mostly fine, except that we can’t get a signal upstairs through all our cement walls and Josh has tried for a month to get someone to come and run a wire upstairs. One guy came a few times and then dropped off the planet. Josh called him to follow up and he said. “I forgot you. Give me 10 minutes.” and then never called back. The cable box to the TV (which we have because it’s actually cheaper to get phone/internet/cable together than internet by itself. Seriously. Don’t ask why. I don’t understand it.) is buggy so we will be watching something and it will change channels all by itself, or it plays the picture from one channel with the sound from a previous channel, or I record something and it records for 2 minutes and then kicks off, or it tells me it can’t record because it’s already recording something else, but it’s not. Someone came out last night and maybe fixed it? I’m not sure because I’m afraid to try it and end up aggravated all over again.

The kids started school yesterday and that wore me out too — we had orientation day with administration meetings for all 3 levels, plus the superintendent. Then PE uniforms to buy, classes to locate, and people to meet. All 3 boys are so excited and happy about their new school, but girlie is ready to go back to Bahrain. It has nothing to do with the new school, just that she hates new things and she’s had way too many new things lately. She didn’t cry at all when she started Kindergarten, but she cried all day in class yesterday and was already starting again as the bus approached school this morning. Her sweet teacher sent me a message that she tried to do her best all day, even through her tears. Today was day 2 of tears — if she comes home with puffy, red-rimmed eyes again I’m going to have to try some other way to get her acclimated to school.

Headed to ACS. Smiles on 3 out of 4 kids is a decent percentage.

Olympic Rings

If you want to know what’s going on at our house, sit on the couch, turn on the Olympics and let it run all day and into the night. Take short breaks for food and alternate your own Xbox football (soccer) competitions with watching the real thing. Cheer for America along with all the countries that never get any coverage — especially Bahrain or any of the other GCC countries (Qtar, UAE, etc). Boo at all the Russians and yell “Doper!!” every time one comes on the screen. During boring “sports” like synchronized swimming, horse dancing, trampoline, or golf play Minecraft on your computer while you keep half an eye on the TV, checking all the different sports channels every now and then in case they are airing athletics (Britishism for Track and Field), weight lifting, volleyball, football, water polo, cycling, or any of the other more interesting (and real) sports.

Not because we love the Olympics in an unnatural way, but because the alternative experience would be for you to run around your neighborhood, douse yourself with the hose, and set a blowdryer on high angled right at your face. Throw a handful of sand in the air and let it rain down over you to round out the fun. We have a pool in our compound, but the water is hot so it feels sweaty both in and out of the water.

Trying to cool down with cold water from the water bottle. No chance of cooling off in the pool.

At least all this Olympic watching has created spirited competition between the boys. The 10 meter IM. Everyone wants to be Michael Phelps.

Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

We last about 20 minutes at the pool, then retreat indoors. We’re tired of hibernating, but that’s life in August.