Author: Robin Chartier

bags packed: check
car rented: check
reservations made: check
snacks and water for the road: check
exchange of currency: not yet

Where are we going? To another foreign country . . . this time UAE, specifically Dubai. More specifically, here.

you don’t have to watch the entire thing, but the opening is pretty amazing. Since we went for the cheap rooms no aquariums in our bathroom or anything crazy like that.

It turns out that Dubai is only 5 hours away and the Atlantis is doing a summer promotion so the rooms are about half price. Of course now that we are a family of 6 we have to get two rooms, so not as much of a bargain, but still doable. And no, I can’t just cram everyone into one room like we used to do on those Hicks family vacations since you only get 4 waterpark admissions per room. It sure is tempting though, all those sleeping bags covering the floor, bodies and suitcases crammed in every corner . . . maybe I should stick a microwave in the trunk of the rental car to use in the hotel. That wouldn’t be embarrassing to carry in through the lobby or anything. Just kidding mom and dad. If the boys have even a fraction of the memories that I have from our family vacations, then I’ll consider us to have been successful.

So that dumb 4-to-a-room policy really turns into a win for me. Baby and I can come back to our own room when it’s super-hot outside . . . hmm, it’s super hot all the time. OK, when it’s peak sunburning time and she can “nap” and I will watch tv and eat snacks. I can’t wait.

There are several other families going up this weekend so all the kids will be able to play together at the waterpark onsite. And when else in our lives will we be able to hop over to Dubai for the weekend? We’re making this one year count and trying to pack in as much as we can without doing so much that none of it is fun.

See you when we get back!

Just like when we lived in 29 Palms, there’s not much that we can do outside during the day because of the extreme heat. But this place? Keeps us plenty cool.

We recently got a membership to the Intercontinental Hotel’s Palm Beach Club. That means we can go use the hotel pool, fitness center, tennis courts and whatever else they have that I haven’t discovered yet.

Like everywhere else here, the water is WARM. They have a lap pool that is “chilled” because the main pool gets so warm from daily temps over 100 and night temps in the 90s. I don’t intend to go anywhere near the lap pool.

The main pool is huge. It has two islands that you can swim around. Kind of like the lazy river pool at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, but without the current.

Even the smallest member of our family loves the water, even if she doesn’t love the hat she has to wear while in the water.

Carter thinks if he reads the poolside menu then we might buy him something to eat. We will, eventually, but we gotta save up. Especially since I think the cheapest thing on the menu was $15 for a salad.

Cause this kid?

 

Josh and a few friends took the boys hiking in a waadi a few hours away the other day. They came home with stories of waterfalls, swimming in deep, deep pools and jumping off of 25-30 foot cliffs.

This was the day that baby and I were home sick. Josh took the boys to scope it out and see if it was doable for us as a family.

But you won’t catch me swimming in any dark caves . . . cause of the baby.

A minor annoyance I have had since arriving in Oman is that every single toilet paper holder is on the left side of the toilet. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but every time I look for toilet paper, it’s never where I would naturally reach for it. I look to the right, but it’s always on the left. It was the same way in Egypt, but I figured it was just because lots of things were backward in Egypt.

Then I started thinking that maybe the middle east has a high percentage of left handed people and that was the reason for the unreasonably placed toilet paper. Um, no.

The answer seems so simple now, but it escaped me for 6 weeks. Yesterday the light bulb finally turned on. The general rule in an Arabic country is: you don’t eat with your left hand because your left hand is for cleaning (yourself) and your right hand is for eating.

So that begs the question: if they aren’t using toilet paper, why put it on the left side of the toilet?

This is what I looked like last night.

No, I don’t know why Josh takes blurry pictures. Just kidding. I have a new camera and it must have been on a weird setting.

Yes, I was hobbling around with my wool socks on, 3 layers of long sleeved shirts and my SF jacket. No one else seemed to think it was cold in our house, which pretty much clued me in that I was getting sicker. At least it explains why I’ve felt so tired and crabby for the past week. No more fever today, just feeling like I need to sleep for hours on end . . . something that baby girl is completely opposed to.

You know you’re grasping at straws when you start googling things like “10 month old baby number of naps?” and “normal sleep hours 10 month old baby.” I guess I should read her the articles that say she should be sleeping from 7pm to 7am and then taking at least two naps per day. I guess I could read her those articles when she’s crawling around the living room at 11 pm cause she went to bed at 7:30 like a normal baby but then woke up screaming twice before 10:30.

We’ve figured out it’s just part of the Chartier life-cycle:

•  Start with a move or extended period of travel (why not? we’ve had plenty of those lately)
• Baby gets sick, sleeps horribly and nurses round the clock so can’t take reflux medicine (it has to be taken on an empty stomach).
• Baby starts to feel better, but starts sleeping even worse and screaming. Very loudly and very often.
• Parents realize that it must be a reflux flare up and just have to wait it out until the medicine starts working again (We think we’ve figured out it takes a week to kick in fully).
• Fuzzy area here where things aren’t great, but not the stuff horror movies are made of.
• One day parents think, “Wow, she napped for a few days in a row without screaming . . . maybe we’re getting to a new normal.”
• Chartiers move or leave for an extended trip . . . and, repeat. 

Hopefully we’ll be better and out exploring Oman soon. You sure you’re not sick of pictures of beautiful oceans yet?