All in a day's work

It's my children's exam week and this is the first time that I will be 100% involved in reviewing and preparing them for their quarterly. For almost 3 years my children's nanny was the one who took over this task as I worked nights while she was left with my children. Now I have no choice but to face the music...I am no teacher, don't even have the inclination to be one, and don't have the patience either. But what choice do I have? Just now I have spent 10 minutes seething as my son refused to get his stuff so that I can start reviewing him. Grrrrr!!!  It is so hard to be a mother and we only realised that later on when we become mothers ourselves. Sigh... 

I can say that the independence of living in Saudi Arabia has done my husband good. I was observing him last night as he patiently reviewed my son. Back home he relied so much on me when it came to our children. Now he has acquired a more active role in parenthood. I remember during the earlier part of our marriage when he would always tell me that a woman's place is beside her husband and inside the home. He would often tell me that he would rather I just stay home and take care of our kids. I was brought up differently, I kept on telling him back then. Still I was thankful that he respected my desire to work...now he perfectly understands the need for us to help each other financially. Because at the end of the day, it would not be us but our kids who would greatly benefit from our combined efforts. 

I am very much thankful for all the effort that my husband has put into getting this family together and the effort that he continues to exert. Just last night coming home from the office, he brought several folders with photocopies of the books that my children need in school. We asked permission if we could just photocopy the books since the kids were halfway through the school year and it would be such a waste if we would still have to buy the complete set, and they agreed. I was just pleasantly surprised that hubby took time to pick up the master copy from school and have them duplicated. 

I have to park this for now as the king of my heart (wink! wink!) has just arrived home, and the queen, I supposed, will have to serve dinner. Am pretty sure he would love the chicken adobo that I prepared for him.  In the meantime  my son is still dealing with his tantrum... i'll let hubby take care of it   :)

Doctor Doctor I am sick...

Due to the change in weather, my children and I woke up coughing and sniffling on Friday morning. I noticed that morning how the air was a bite chilly already. After lunch, out of concern, my husband decided to take us all to the doctor. It is a good thing that we don't have to pay for doctor consults and medicine as everything is provided for free via my husband's company. As I mentioned earlier, SAAD Specialist hospital is one of the biggest here so we are pretty much covered. It felt good knowing that the company my husband works for has this kind of privilege and covers all dependents as well. From the hospital we went straight to the city of Al Khobar to buy our daughter another abaya. She requested for an abaya that has buttons in front so that when she reaches school she would be able to take it off and just wear it again when she goes home. We also had our first taste of Shawarma and later ate dinner at the Al Ramaniyah mall and shared 2 orders of Broasted chicken with khubus. The Shawarma here tastes different my children loved it! And aside from the  chicken meat and veggies, was a handful of french fries! :) it only costs 5 riyals.

The price of Broasted chicken on the other hand, is around 10 to 13 riyals per order, which would include 3 big pieces of chicken, 3 pcs of khubus, fries with garlic sauce and chili sauce. Don't they just love fries??? My husband says that Al Ramaniyah is the mall in Khobar that most Pinoys frequently go to and indeed it is. Everywhere my head turned there was a Pinoy walking around. And you'd notice that our "kababayans" are the only ones sporting happy faces.

We went to Everything for 20, 30, 50 and 100 where they sell stuff for not more that 100 riyals. It was there where we were able to buy a 40 riyal abaya for our daughter. There were so many people that my husband offered to take the children with him outside while I pay for our stuff. When I got to the end of the line, I noticed that everyone was trying to catch the attention of the cashier that they call "Sadiq." I don't know if it's his name or what but when I felt everyone pushing I called him Sadiq too! I wanted to pay and leave immediately as my face was just about an inch away from the wet armpits of a local shouting "Sadiq, my friend! here's my money no more change!" And just about a few seconds from collapsing I started waving  exactly 42 riyals right in front of the cashier's face and shouted "this is exact change! this is exact change!"  As soon as "Sadiq" put my stuff inside the plastic bag, I hurriedly grabbed it and ran outside to get a breath of fresh air before I could faint. :)

Mall of Dhahran

Last Thursday we went to the Mall of Dhahran where hubby decided to bring us for our weekly grocery shopping. We don't actually want to do our grocery shopping every week as it is too time consuming, tiring and more expensive. However, we have a small ref that can only fit a week long supply hence, we have no choice really.

I now realise the importance of having jeepneys around instead of just riding the cab every time. Our cab fare is normally 10 riyals but since the Mall of Dhahran is quite far from where we hailed the cab, we had to pay 15 riyals. The mall is quite huge, complete with a hypermart named Panda; it housed branded clothes, shoes, and bag shops. It is a one-level mall with an entertainment park for children where ticket ride prices ranged from 7 to 10 riyals. Female toilets are hard to locate though...well not really, I guess it was the first toilet that we went to which drove me and my daughter a bit crazy :) We found a sign that read female toilet/female mosque. As we entered, there was no door whatsoever except for a long hallway which led to a seemingly endless stairway. At the top of the stairs were doors that led to a prayer room, a fitting room (i must admit though that I was a bit confused to find a fitting room in the area) and a door that probably led to another room. I did not bother to open the said door and instead retracted our steps back to where we entered hehe... I suddenly lost interest in taking a pee and was in a hurry to go back to my husband who was waiting downstairs with my 2 sons. Again my husband laughed at my expense :) he said it was that way with the other female toilets. We saw another toilet which was not as complicated as the first one we entered, this time my daughter backed off as she saw that the toilet bowl is different from the one she is used to. It was one of those squat toilet bowls. The first time I saw one was back in Japan at Tokyo Disneyland which they call "washiki."

With the abaya and the headscarf (hijab) that keeps falling down, it was a pretty difficult task to lift up the long skirt and do "the deed" while holding my head (remember the headscarf?) hahaha  Still it was a cool experience for everyone...well for us girls anyway... 

After walking and looking around the mall, we then decided to do our grocery shopping we needed to wait for 15minutes though as the grocery had to close their doors to give way to Salah (prayer time). 

looking on as the grocery doors are being closed for Salah (prayer time)

almost empty aisles as everyone prepares for Salah

Once again I took the liberty of taking amateurish pictures using my phone but I did this without attracting anyone's attention as I don't see people taking pictures of their kids around. I don't know if it's allowed or not but with the many rules in this country I'd rather be on the safe side :) without having to sacrifice taking pictures of the places we have visited...

Forgetful Lucy

My eldest who is assigned to take care of their packed lunch and water jugs turned "forgetful lucy" and failed to bring the latter the other morning. So when my husband called I told him about it and we concluded that our son would probably just go to her Ate and borrow money to buy a bottle of water. I guess my husband got antsy that he called me again just before lunch to tell me that he was coming home to fetch the water jugs and bring them to my children's school. He decided to tag me and our youngest son along. When we arrived, our son was nowhere to be found. We were told by his teacher that he asked permission to go to the boy's room, where he could not be found either. We decided to go to his Ate, on the way to her classroom however, we saw our son running from the school canteen with 1 riyal on his hand. Upon seeing us he said that his friend gave it to him so that he can buy a bottle of juice. I guess it was not enough and was on his way to give the money back. I felt terrible and so did my husband. We promised ourselves to remind each other of our children's school stuff.  It was a good thing my husband decided to go home that day otherwise our son would have been sooo thirsty.  It was only an hour before they go home so I decided to just stay and wait for our kids, as my husband needed to go back to his office. While waiting I took pictures and a video of my youngest who tried to amuse himself  by trying to climb up the school posts until he got tired . See for yourself.... :)

IPSA's gym, perfect venue for my youngest who wanted to run around

And then he starts climbing the post...

tried to do it a couple more times....almost succeeded

now he gets tired and realised I was taking pictures of him... :)

Wordless Wednesday

My children's first day at their new school

I felt I only slept a couple of hours when I heard my alarm... As soon as as I turned off the alarm I fixed myself and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the family and my children's packed lunch for school. It is just so convenient to have a rice cooker and an electric kettle that slashes off time from the other things that I needed to accomplish. As soon as I was done with my chores I went back to our room to wake the kids up...I happened to look at our clock and realised that it was only 12:30 in the morning! I felt like kicking my own behind hahaha! I guess I was so excited to be busy with my family this particular morning. Back home there was always the nanny to take care of everything. All I needed to do was wake up, supervise and see the kids off.

Needless to say, of course I went back to bed and was muttering to my husband that he should have told me it was only 12:00 when we were in the bathroom. I even told him earlier that I was going to cook breakfast already as it was the children's first day of school. I guess he was so sleepy to answer so when we woke up this time at 5:30am I recounted to him what happened early on and he kept on laughing. I checked the alarm and only noticed that I set it on the wrong cellphone as I had not set the time correctly (it was still set on Manila time) which is 5 hours ahead :)  Oh well! the best thing about what happened was that I had more time to spend primping myself :)

For their first day, my husband and I decided to join them in the bus and bring them to school, we also needed to talk to their teachers and find out what section they would be in. I was concerned about how the driver drove though and the fact that he would leave the riders should they not be at their designated post on time. I made a mental note of going down earlier than usual from tomorrow so as not to keep the driver waiting. We arrived in school quite early as we had to wait for several hours before we learned that our eldest daughter has been included in Grade 6-Loyal while my edest son in Grade 1-Obedient. My husband took care of my daughter's schedule and talked to her class adviser while he assigned me to talk to my son's adviser. When we were about to leave, my son would not let go of my hands. Tearfully, he hugged me and would not let go. I was surprised because he has always been so excited to go back to school. I had to bribe him with 5 riyals just go back inside the classroom. It's a good thing he took the bribe...now it got me thinking was he the one doing the bribing with his tearful act, just so he can get 5 riyals from me? lol  At the end of the day the important thing is he went back inside his classroom.

Below are pictures on the way to my children's new school I was not able to take pictures inside as my phone's memory could no longer handle the bulk. :)

 

Arabian Sausages

At the Carrefour supermarket we bought Arabian Sausages, they look so much like our local longganisa, which my kids lovingly call "longga-bongga" (we adapted the way my bestfriend and her son call longganisa). They were thinner and longer as compared to our local ones.

I should have trusted my instincts though, as my kids and I did not like the taste one bit. I had to finish mine to prove them part of our deal that we have to eat whatever is served on the table. I don't want my kids to grow up being choosey with their food. Back home, they even eat tuyo and tinapa and they love it :) My tastebuds was able to distinguish its garlicky taste but there was a curious herb or spice that was used as well. And I could not, for the life of me, remember what it was. It tasted like cardamom or something that you smell from a Chinese drugstore. Am not too sure... where I've always boasted my husband to know the spices or herb used on a particular food. This time I would have to concede :)  It might be something that the locals here love to include in their list of grocery items but for sure it won't be part of ours next time.