One of the things I love most about my boys is that they don't follow the rules. I mean, yeah it can be a pain in the ass, but it also allows them to show their creative side. For example, we went to a Christams-y type event with a bunch of arts and crafts activities for kids. One of the activities was to make a greeting card, and they had a sample card showing you how it should look, and a baggy filled with all the supplies you needed. So OS and I got to work, and I showed him that what we would have to do to make the card. He brushed me off and said "I'm not making a card like that. I'm making it my way." My first instinct was "No, this is the way the card has to be made", but I stopped myself and thought about. Why does it have to be made that way?! So I let him make his card his way and it turned out beautiful.

At another station you could color wreaths, so my YS who's is only 3, was scribbling away...not bothered with coloring in the lines. Also his color of choice was black. So he was happily making a big black scribble all over his wreath when the helper came over and said let's try using a different color and coloring in the lines. I told her he's only three, and she said well he can try! It annoyed me...he will eventually learn to color in the lines just like his brother did. And if he wants to color the entire wreath black who are you to tell him he cant?! Yes, it may not be festive and cheerful but it's his wreath, his choice and who is she to judge if that's right or wrong?

Then yesterday we were drawing Christmas trees at home, and my OS wanted me to make one with him. So I obviously colored my tree all green, glued some pipe cleaners on the tree to look like trimming and some glitter to look like lights. I looked over at my OS who's tree was a mixture of peach, blue, green, pink, purple, orange and light blue. To me, it wasn't a tree, and he looked over at mine and asked, "Why did you only use green? Why didn't you make it colorful?" as if I was wrong to color a tree green. It made me smile, and when I asked him if he wanted to glue pipe cleaners on his he replied, "No, if I do that you wont be able to see my coloring."

I think its great that they are able to think outside of the box.

I haven't been feeling so great the past few months. That's really an understatement...but I have a few more funny kid sayings from my boys..

OS: YS did you know if something comes close to your eye it will close? Here let me show you. *shoves cocoa puff near YS's eye, nearly poking him* See? Your eye closed.
YS tries the same thing to his own eye: Oh yeah!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

YS: Sorry I ate McQueen's eyes Mommy. He's sleeping that's why I ate his eyes.

Clever boy 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

YS: Mommy, your phone has no data. It's taking really long time to load.
Me: Patience, YS. We need to wait patiently like a big boy.
YS: No. If it takes long time I'm going to die and then I won't give you hugs anymore.
Me: You also won't be able to watch the video if you die.
YS: But I won't give you any hugs anymore and I'll die.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I was laying on the floor, and OS hopped onto my back "giving me a massage". All of a sudden YS jumps onto OS and starts jumping. OS laughing says, "Mommy, you're the horse, I'm the saddle and YS is the rider."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Me: YS do you want mayonnaise on your sandwich?
OS: I hate mayonnaise!
YS: No thank you. I don't hate mayonnaise, I just don't like it when the cat eats it.
Me: Oh...okay.
YS: Yeah, when the cat eats the mayonnaise I don't like it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  

the first cut is the deepest...and the hardest to heal

An ache in my heart..an emptiness in my soul.
Stuck looking back, watching reruns of my life.
It feels so real.
I'm slowly breaking inside.
Every time I pick up the pieces, and start closing the door,
Fear overcomes me.
I fling it back open, and drop whatever pieces I had begun to glue back together.

You broke me in so many ways, more than I ever knew,  and more than I ever will know.

My amazing sister came up with (or rather stole) a great idea of taking all my funny stories and sayings and making it into a book. And now that I think about it...I think my mom might have suggested the same thing a few months back. Well whatever...I got inspired (or re-inspired) to collect all the funny things they do and say and the easiest place to keep them is here...on my blog.

So this will be a post of copy/pasting a few facebook statuses...is that the plural of that word? It just sounds so wrong!

soooo I was going to copy paste stuff...but my god! tooooo much work. so instead i'm off to google ways to collect all my facebook statuses and print them out and highlight the ones i want. :D

I haven't posted in a while, but after nearly three months out of Riyadh...we're back! The exclamation point is to try and get myself happy about being here. But a week in and I want to sit in a corner and eat and cry until I either explode or shrivel up. *sigh* Anyways..no need for depressing stuff I have a few cute stories about my boys.

So today I found mold in my washing machine...disgusting I know, but I swear it was not my fault! The washer doesn't properly drain and then the water pools there, and my wonderful husband kept the washer door closed for three months. I leave it open so it can dry out..hence the mold. Anyways..I found it and immediately started scrubbing....while scrubbing my oldest came and asked me if he could watch leap frog on netflix. he got the idea because he found his leap frog alphabet toy. I told him sure, to just give me a minute, and then he walked out and I overheard the following conversation between him and his brother:

Older Son: Hey! You wanna come watch me draw letters on my leap pad?
Younger Son: OK.
OS: Hey YS, do you know what they call "Z" on this?? They call it Zed...it's not "Z" it's Zed. Isn't that funny?

Then they both sit laughing. Anyone reading this might be thinking why on earth is she sharing this...but it was the sweetest most adorable exchange ever. Granted 15 minutes later OS started punching YS because I told OS he could have water instead of another chocolate milk. :/ So these sweet moments are precious.

Earlier today, while driving to school, YS suddenly looks at me and heres how the conversation went:

YS (horrified expression on his face): EEEEEEWWWWWW?
Me: What?
YS (still horrified and now slightly disgusted): EEEEWWWWWW!!! Is that YOU?
Then he grabs the collar of his shirt and lifts it to cover his nose, looks at me and says "Gross!"

I died laughing...because one I had just showered, two I didn't do anything, and three he just looked so cute and adorable. Needless to say my laughing was a horrible idea..because the rest of the ride I had both boys looking at me repeating the convo over and over and giggling.

I seriously wished that children came with a mute button...even though they were incredibly cute mashallah.

Yesterday, was OS first day of KG1, and after picking him up he started telling us about his day. Back story, after dropping him off in the morning we stopped by another school that would accept our YS into pre-k and stayed there for all of 15 minutes. So back to the story...OS is telling us about his day what he did...and the YS interrupts and says " I had fun day at my kool. I played wiv my frieeeeends......etc. etc." <3 p="">
Day before yesterday...I was buying both boys a gift for staying in their beds all night...we are going through sleep training her at my house because I am sick of sharing my bed. If I can't get me time during the day ... then please god at least let me have my bed at night! Oh..and technically OS should not have gotten a gift...because he wakes himself up every hour to make sure we are still sitting in his room which we obviously are not...and then comes into our room..wakes up my husband and gets walked back into his room...only to do it again either after an hour or if its really bad every 20 minutes. :| YS is much better...probably because he's younger. Anyways I digress...

So OS bought a beyblade and asked can we please skype with your brothers? I have to show them my new powerful beyblade!

YS then says he too wants to skype and this is the conversation he said he was going to have:

"They gonna ask me, what you have? And I going be like Tow Mater. And they going be like Where you buy it from? And I gonna be like from da tore!"

The facial expressions and tone accompanying that was priceless.

in other non-kid related news...in May I sent an email to the community center informing them that the child play area smelled like cigarettes, and that it turned out the attendants were smoking there and that they were told it was ok to smoke there. I then proceeded to write that i felt it was outrageous to allow smoking in a children's area. I never received any type of response. Today I get a call from on the attendants. I should mention one of them took my number and said we should hang out (not in a million years) and the other one was the one who called today. Anyways...she called asked how I was then said "Can I ask you a question and I hope you don't get upset" Of course I started feeling nervous...but I said yeah of course.
She was like did you send an email about us smoking?
I acted like I didn't hear...then after she asked three more times I said a long time ago yes...why? She's like no not a long time ago .. like two days ago. I said no I never sent anything two days ago..Then she said someone came and talked to them and told them there had been a complaint about them smoking...and she was like the only people there two days ago were you and the new muhajjab lady. So it had to be one of you too...
I told her that no I never sent anything in the past few days...like I said I only sent something a while ago when the entire play area smelled like smoke...but recently I have not sent anything.

Then she said something along the lines of theres the issue of getting fired. I told her I didn't understand..which to be honest I didn't...the convo was in arabic...and I wasn't sure if she was saying they got fired or they could get fired.

I've been thinking about the convo all day long, and heres my thoughts. 1. completely unprofessional of her to call me and ask that. 2. completely unprofessional of the community center to tell her we've had a complaint when they know very well there are maybe 3 people who regularly visit the childrens area and thats being generous. 3. who the hell does she think she is calling me and setting the tone of i know it was you. f you! I have every right to call and complain if something is not right. and I'm sorry but why is there the risk of being fired?? i remember when I asked if you were smoking you told me they said it was alright....soo whats the issue? Me complaining should have not been an issue if you were in fact telling the truth.

And now I feel like I can't visit the play area in the mornings anymore if they still are working there. *sigh*

I'm feeling like writing so maybe there will be more posts...maybe not. who knows.

If you really take the time to think about life, spend time flipping through old notes and pictures, you'll realize how sad life really is. Not just sad, but downright depressing.

Maybe I'm just in a sad mood, but I was just browsing my facebook posts from 9 years ago (which is this genereation's equivalent of looking through a scrapbook or photo album)..9 YEARS!!...and got really really sad. There were posts from people who I no longer speak to, not because I chose to but because life decided that persons time in my life was up. And it hurt my heart..because reading those posts I can barely even remember being with that person. Sharing with them and caring about them are memories so far gone, it's almost hard for me to believe that we ever were once that close.

I look at old pics and then the mirror and am shocked to actually see how much time has passed..to see the youth slowly but surely leaving me...slowly but surely becoming a full-fledged adult.

A few days ago I found out someone I knew got a divorce. For days now I have been feeling incredibly sad and depressed about it. Everyone gets divorced...why does it matter so much? I have no idea....but it left me heavyhearted.

And as I think about everything more and more it just becomes more clear how sad life is. How incredibly depressing our existence really is. We are born, and live only to die. Nothing matters...we are all going to die.

Just as friendships die, careers die, hopes, dreams, and ambitions die we will die. So why do I care so much?

Why does my heart ache over friendships that have slowly and suddenly withered away? Why do I despair over the divorce of people I barely know? Why do I worry about people who go out of their way to show me they don't care?

Why must I feel so much all the time? For once I'd like to feel nothing...no sadness, anxiety, moroseness, anger, hurt....just nothing. I'm tired of all these feelings rushing through me..these emotions leaving me paralyzed unable to move fully into the present and start heading towards the future.

Turning 27

So I was just getting ready to head to bed, when I hear a horrible crash, bang, thud...and then the sound of my four year old screaming out in pain. I rush to see blood dripping from his mouth...his nose all over the bedroom floor. I grab a washcloth and start dabbing his nose and applying slight pressure....no looking up or down for me. I'm a firm believer of not doing either..back will just make it pool inside and down won't do anything special.

I check his teeth, his tongue, his mouth, lips and nose for any serious injuries...al7mdulila there did not seem to be any. I check the rest of his head for any gashes or cuts that might need stitches...nothing thank god!

I try to keep him awake....scared of him getting a concussion or something. But he falls asleep and I worry if thats a bad sign. Then again is 2:20 am and any four year old would be falling asleep at this time. Bloody nose or not.

*sigh* being a mom is full of worries, stress and guilt.

I now have a mountain of pillows and comforters on his side of the bed so if he rolls off of bed again he won't hurt himself too badly...i hope.

He never falls out of bed at home...NEVER. But this mattress we're currently sleeping on..we're on summer vacation...is not the best mattress. It's a very cheap...i know that may sound snobbish..spring mattress. Even I almost fell out of bed twice already in the past two nights. I love laying on the edge and apparently my four year old does too. However with this mattress when you lay on the edge...it slants and creates a ramp that slowly slides you out of bed. I don't know if this is normal....but no other mattress I have slept on in the past 6 years has done that.

And since I have no one to blame I am blaming the mattress. But not without good reason...it really is an awful mattress.

And because when something bad happens you can't help but think of all the other things annoying you because obviously you need to be as miserable as possible...I am turning 27 on the 27th. My golden birthday..I wanted to do something special...a family lunch. But looks like thats not going to happen. First the country decides to change its weekend and make it effective two days after my birthday. Which means confusion and chaos the weekend of my birthday. Plus my dad decided that this would be the perfect time for a road trip...I don't want to, nor can I take a road trip. The road trip isn't for sure yet...but it might as well be. So I'm disappointed. yet again. I should be used to it though. The only good birthday I can remember having was when I finished 6th grade. I had a nice party with a few friends but even that was slightly disappointing seeing as the majority of people I invited ended up going to an end of the school year party set for the same day as my birthday by a more popular girl. But this was also the summer we drove across country and every stop I seemed to be able to get a birthday present. I don't think it really counts though since my sisters got to pick up a souvenir too at every stop. :/

Majority of my birthdays have been spent on an airplane. so i should be used to it by now. but i'm not. and i wanted something special this year...i really really did. for some reason my brain feels like 27 is a huge milestone. and i think i just wanted one day to be for me...to be about me. just one.

Letting out my frustrations..

Family is funny.. extended family that is, You can go an entire year or more hating them...dreading having to see them. Wishing they didn't exist..but then when you do meet up..feel happy that you have them. Today we met up with my aunt and her family and her new grandson...who is absolutely adorable mashallah!! And I was dreading it...dreading the lectures....the awkwardness...just all of it. But it was really nice..even though we didn't eat until 2 and I had a really light breakfast at 7 am, and when we did eat all they gave us was pizza. :| I understand my aunt can't cook because of her broken foot...but there are other things they could have brought other than pizza. Bleh!

I have to say....food wise..this vacation has not been good. It's been filled with cheese quesadillas and really gross leftover rice. :/ and now pizza oh well...thank god we have food to eat.


I still felt really happy and thankful and just so grateful for family. So grateful to have such an annoying clan who, though they can be annoying, rude, and sometimes mean, will always be there for me.

Anyways...while we were there, my sons started to get a little bored. My mom mentions that she brought some coloring books for them and asked if I'd like to give them to the boys now. I was thrilled! So we pull them out and they were really cool. I don't know if anyone remembers those water color books? The ones that had "magic pages" and all you needed was water and a paint brush??? Well these books were like that, except they had one of those magic markers with magic ink. Invisible on everything except the paper, and each section of the paper was a different color once you colored it. It was really cool! My two year old loved it..because he just scribbled away and was thrilled to see that his scribbling resulted in a beautiful picture. My four year old sat there for literally 2 hours coloring page after page after page. He was very precise, and made sure he was coloring inside the lines even though it didn't really matter much :D My brothers watched my boys color their first pages and then looked over to my mom and said.."did you buy any for us?" My mom and I looked at each other and were kind of shocked. They are 12 and 11...the 12 year old is headed to middle school. When my mom answered no...they both sulked and were really upset. The 12 year old kept telling my mom I cannot believe you didn't buy me one. The booklet says 3 and up....when my mom read that she laughed and said I guess they were serious about the up part.

Then the nanny brought out a bag of toys for my cousin's son who is one...so its a bunch of baby toys. My two year old who is still interested in baby toys...sometimes..was playing with the baby. My 11 year old brother grabs a toy and my son asks him if he can play with it. I feel like a normal response would be  to give the two year old the baby toy or start a game with the child. Instead he insists he was playing with the toy first and he shouldn't have to give it to the now crying two year old...or start a game with him. I mean seriously!?

This has become a venting post...so I might as well vent more frustrations towards this particular topic. My brothers and sons all wanted to box...and there are only two sets of boxing gloves. I suggested that each one gets one glove that way everyone can play. They were all playing fine and laughing...when suddenly my older son comes out on the verge of tears wearing no gloves. My younger brother follows him wearing both gloves. I quickly ask what is happening and he says that the older one of my younger brothers said, "It's not fair because I can't hit him hard so lets play by ourselves." In the middle of them playing..all of them together...nicely....laughing, having fun. And this is a constant theme with the 12 year old. He cannot for the life of him play nicely with younger kids. When he suggests they all play soccer he will take this as a time to show off his tricks and takes the game way to seriously. He has no idea how to interact with younger children.

Then theres the drama of every "injury" they get. I'm sorry but I'm  pretty sure a barefot two year old walking over your foot, by accident, does not warrant you collapsing to the floor grabbing your foot, gasping and informing everyone that your foot was just stepped on. Really? You are three times his size, 6 times his age, and he had no shoes on. You are going to seriously try and tell me that him walking over your foot caused you to have a limp?

Another incident. My youngest brother calls to me in a very annoyed voice, "Tell your son to stop stepping on my shoes, he's ruining them." When you hear that you assume that it must be something important...some kind of special shoe that will be deformed or ruined beyond repair by my two year old stomping all over it. So I ask him trying to stay as calm as possible what shoe my son is destroying. His answer??
"My flip flops." oh.my.god.

Even my dad...who really tries to take my brothers side burst out laughing at how ridiculous that was. Then my brother continues with, "You are going to owe me new flip flops if he ruins them."

What are you even supposed to say to that?!

Last but not least...and actually not really even last I'm just through with venting..is the incessant tattling and stupid stupid back handed comments. They are driving me insane! I'm dealing with a new phase of tattling with my 4 year old which I am hoping he will outgrow but looking at my brothers it seems that may not be likely. My god they tattle more than my four year old. " H did this to O" "O did this to H" and I'm just like...if they don't have a problem with it then I don't need to know!!!

I seem to remember being great with kids at age 12...and so were my sisters...well at least one of them. Maybe my memory is foggy....maybe its just true what they say...girls mature faster than boys. But whatever the hell it is...I am incredibly frustrated and really thinking that maybe an almost 3 month vacation with them was a horrible horrible idea. :|

Then there are the moments when they all play nicely and I'm like ok...why can't you be this way all the time?

In other news....I will be 27 in 3 days...less than 3 since its currently 11:35pm right now. Insane!!!!

Every summer or really anytime I get together with my family I always have my expectations crushed. I always expect this wonderful gathering, my brothers and sons playing nicely together..but that never happens. Instead its filled with my brothers crying. My brothers are 11 and 12...my sons 4 and 2.

Its the most ridiculous thing ever! Like seriously ridiculous....and it drives me insane. and I have no idea why I'm so surprised every time it happens.

You would think an 11 and 12 year old would be able to play nicely with two preschoolers, be old enough to have the understanding towards them that older people have. But nope!

Instead they use them as scape goats...blame EVERYTHING on them..even things that were not their fault.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I decided that I had had enough of being scratched by my boys claws (I guess this is a Mommy Confessions post too!), and decided to cut their nails..FINALLY.

So I walked into the room they were sitting in and asked who's first, of course my oldest volunteered his younger brother. This is the conversation I had with my oldest while cutting his brothers nails:

OS: Mommy I wish YS had six hands.
Me: Six hands!!! Why?
OS: Because then it would be sooooo long and I could do lots of fun things.

took me a second to understand what he meant, until I realized the obvious. He wanted his brothers turn to be longer and the logical way to make that happen would be to give him more hands. It cracked me up, and I thought it was pretty clever thinking on his part. :)

In less than a month he's going to graduate from pre-k and start KG1. It makes me so sad...how is the little baby who grabbed my finger and looked up at me with his face covered by a huge pacifier already on his way to college?! Where did the time go??? *sigh*

I'm proud of him though and proud of myself for keeping alive this long. lol

A funny thing YS said on the way to school, just so he doesn't feel left out. :P

OS: YS is a stegasaurus, and i'm a t-rex.
YS: No I NOT! *funniest look ever* I blue banana.
OS: A BLUE BANANA *dies laughing*

It was the funniest convo ever. I love when they get along and make each other laugh. warms my heart.

Kid's Q & A

I found this on another blog, and thought I would do it with my oldest who is four. These are the answers he gave me. I tried with my youngest who is two and all his answers were cinnamon because he was eating cinnamon with apples.


What does Mommy always say to you?
"I love you"

What makes Mommy happy?"When I'm being good and when I'm being bad it makes you angry"

What makes Mommy sad?"I don't know"

How does Mommy make you laugh?"When you tickle me"

How old is Mommy?"9"

How tall is Mommy?
"Hand motion showing my height equal to his"

What doesn't Mommy like to do?"Not wake up"
(he means I hate waking up in the morning)


What is Mommy's job?"To keep me safe"

What is Mommy's favorite food?"The fish that I don't like"


How do you know Mommy loves you?"From my pictures"


With Baba

What does Daddy always say to you?"I love you"

What makes Daddy happy?"when i don't do something bad"

What makes Daddy sad?"I dont know"

How does Daddy make you laugh?"when he tickles me"

How old is Daddy?"Umm..64"

How tall is Daddy?
"Reaches his hands as high as he can"

What doesn't Daddy like to do?"Not wake up"

What is Daddy's job?"to keep me safe..no..uh..work"

What is Daddy's favorite food?
"the fish that i don't like"

How do you know Daddy loves you?
"umm. because he says i love you."

I've been back in Riyadh for what feels like weeks, when in reality it's only been a few days..2 days to be exact. *sigh* depression, resentment, anger, sadness, and all those other great emotions have come rushing back to me and its almost like the amazing week in Sri Lanka never happened. I don't feel refreshed and ready to conquer the world...I feel even more miserable. *sigh*

This isn't right...this is no way for people to live. Then I feel stupid because I am constantly being told what a great compound I live on, how awesome it is to have a golf course, bowling alley, etc., etc. but you know what?? all those people that keep telling me that can have all these great things. I will gladly trade places with them. Its like giving a hamster a running wheel and telling him now you can run!

Yes I have amazing amenities on the compound, and a lot of people would kill for that. But it doesn't make me any less trapped. It doesn't take away the fact that I can't leave. I am stuck on this compound seeing the same faces day in and day out, with no hope of leaving when I feel like it. If I do want to leave I have to schedule in a driver...schedules are hopeless with kids. Or I can wait for my husband who sometimes doesn't feel like leaving the house after coming home from work. So if I tell you how miserable I am do not judge me and tell me I have such amazing things available to me. I am entitled to my feelings and currently I am miserable...even with two swimming pools.

In other news, my sons have become obsessed with Dinosaur Train which is a really cool show that teaches them about dinosaaurs (duh!). Theres one dinosaur who's catch phrase is "I have a hypothesis",  and now my two year old and four year old are walking around telling me they have a hypothesis...which i find absolutely adorable! Especially since they pronounce it correctly AND use it correctly.

In crazy mommyland news, my youngest has been especially busy. The day after we got back to Riyadh he decided the best place to use the potty would be his bedroom closet. He took off his underpants in the kitchen, walked upstairs and sqautted in his closet. And then we were wonderfully surprised with a disgusting puddle of diarrhea. Yes, diarrhea...THANK GOD we have tile floors! Can you imagine that mess on carpeting! I think I would have cried.

Second story, he handed me his brothers toy airplane, dripping water, and proudly told me he washed it. Then I, being distracted and slightly confused thanked him. Until I realized he has no idea how to turn on the water so I quickly asked him how he washed the plane; silently praying he didn't use the toilet. He very very excitedly and proudly yelled out: "fish tank!" And I thought greeeaaaaat!!! nasty fish water. but my dad helped put things in perspective, because when I was telling him the story his guess was that my son peed on the plane and honestly that would have been a lot worse than dipping it in the fish tank.

Our poor fish though have been through so much because of this little boy. Last night i found a ball of cotton floating around their tank. and a few months ago play dough and the play dough can.

Our Week Vacation in Sri Lanka Part III

Day 7: Bentota, Sri Lanka & Columbo, Sri Lanka

We woke up to rain, and were so sad to think that we might miss out on a little more beach fun. :( We had breakfast and luckily the rain subsided and we were able to enjoy the pool and then the beach and then the pool again. It was still overcast but I actually prefer it to be cloudy when I'm at the beach so its not tooo hot. After getting our fill of beach and swimming we headed back to the turtle hatchery so my sons could hold the turtles one last time. They did not want to leave, but eventually we headed to Columbo. We took a driving tour around the city, and my husband stopped inside the biggest buddhist temple in Columbo. Once we had seen enough of the city we headed to our hotel room which had a view of the ocean and the parliament building. It was a very pretty view and was a nice hotel room to end our trip in. Not the prettiest of rooms but comfortable and clean.

Day 8: Columbo, Sri Lanka

Woke up super early, headed to the buffet and ate some breakfast and headed to the airport to catch our plane back to Riyadh. The end.

Some of the fruits we tried because I cannot for the life of me remember which day and when and where in the story it fits were mangosteen, jack fruit, dorian fruit, red bananas, lemon bananas, pineapple. The mangosteen was sooooooooo sweet! I loved it..reminded me a little of lychee fruit. Jack fruit I was not a fan of..apparently it is a fruit that grows to be over 20 kg or something like that...when it is smaller and "young" they use it as a vegetable in their curries and when it is big and ripe they eat it as a fruit. It had a weird texture and not an appealing flavor at all to me. My husband didn't mind it though. Red bananas tasted like normal bananas so I was disappointed, apparently red bananas are more rare there and are only used for special occasions. Lemon bananas were also just bananas to me...they had a stronger flavor I guess...maybe slightly tangy. But both were very good bananas and very flavorful. Pineapples were amaaaaaaazing!!! so so soooo good! Did not make my tongue itch at all...and pineapple nearly always makes my tongue itch. The last fruit...dorian fruit....was the most disgusting fruit I have ever had the displeasure of eating. First off the smell was absolutely rancid! It smelled like rotting, decomping, garbage filled with really old baby diapers...it was nasty! I don't know what compelled the sri lankans to even try eating something that smelled so awful even before cutting into the peel. I mean my motto is smells like trash not going into my mouth. Anyways...cutting into the peel to get the fruit lets out an even stronger even more horrible smell. I don't know why I ate it...probably because our tour guide swore that it smells horrible but tastes very good and sweet. Let me tell you...it did not taste good! It has a thin plasticy layer that gives it a slight bite...once you pop through that the inside is a creamy, custardy, cheesy texture. Taste-wise, first bite you think hmm okay...then as it sits in your mouth and you feel the texture of the first kind of crunchy bit mixed with the creamy weird texture of the inside fruit...its just plain nasty. My husband said it tasted like onion to him...I could kind of see how he would think that...but I can even find words to describe just how disgusting this fruit tasted. Everything about it was horrible...taste, smell, texture...EVERYTHING! And my tour guide bought a whole bag to take home too...so it sat in the car with us for a day. And our noses could not get used to the smell which led my husband to believe that the fruit is constantly giving off smell because otherwise our noses would have adjusted and we wouldn't even realize the fruit was in the car. And once the fruit was removed from the car there was still an after smell. It was probably the worst thing I have ever put into my mouth...right up there with ear wax...and I know everyone has tasted ear wax when they were little (it was an accident okay!)

As for foods I did like and eat nearly everyday I was there... string hoppers, coconut sambal, king coconut juice, dhal curry, and beef curry. YUUUUUUUM! My breakfast was string hoppers and coconut sambal nearly every day, sooo yummy! I need to learn how to make them!

But yes that is the end of our trip...and now I'm back in depressing Riyadh and hit full force with the depressing feelings, resentment, and anger at being a woman in Saudi Arabia.   

(I decided to break up this post into three parts since it looked like a college essay when I posted it all together)

Our Week Vacation in Sri Lanka Part II

Day 4: Kandy, Sri Lanka & Nuwar Eliya, Sri Lanka

This day was a tour Kandy day, and we just walked around a mall, and then walked the streets to see the little shops. Before the shopping though, our tour guide took us to a lookout point or whatever you want to call it where you could see all of Kandy. It was a breathtaking view of the city with a lot of focus on the lake. The street shopping reminded me a lot of the souks in Saudi Arabia, so aside from the slight difference in merchandise it wasn't too amazing. Still fun to walk around and be part of the city. When we tired of shopping our tour guide brought us to his home to meet his wife and kids. He had a 16 year old boy, a 12 year old boy, a four year old boy and a 3 1/2 year old girl. They were all very sweet, and the wife had made some food, and they had fruit (fruit is like very popular there), and they had fancy fizzy juice. It was sweet of them to host us. After the visit, we started our drive up the mountain to Nuwar Eliya. Along the way, we stopped for lunch at a hotel built practically right next to the waterfall. It was a humid yet gorgeous lunch, none of the restaurants we went to had air conditioning even in the hotels. They all seemed to think that sweating while eating spicy food was a great idea. NOT A GREAT IDEA! But after lunch we stopped by a waterfall and my boys and husband and tour guide all waded into the water. I chose not to because I did not want to be helped by the group of men standing there. However, after my husband, sons, and tour guide were in the water I realized staying by myself with the group of guys probably not the best idea. They kept saying things in Singalese (or Tamil not sure which language they were speaking), looking and me and laughing. They gave off a really sleazy vibe, and they kept getting closer and closer to me...as a group. They started talking to me and I did my best not to smile or be friendly at all because they were really really creeping me out. One guy took out his phone and asked if he could take a picture with me...I wanted to cry but emotionlessly said no. He asked again..one pic and I refused him a second time. Luckily my husband also felt uncomfortable as did the tour guide and the shortened their little wading adventure for me. Then off we went up the mountain passing the tea plantations. It was stunningly beautiful. Next stop was a tea factory. The building and everything inside was over 100 years old, and the same stuff used by the British who built it. The guy said they even used the same techniques and methods the British did to make their tea today...which I found pretty awesome. I'm a huge tea fan so this was just my cup of tea :P :P After buying 6000 rupees worth of tea we continued on up towards the hotel. When we arrived we were greeted with BEAUTIFUL, GORGEOUS weather...I was sooooo thankful not to feel the humidity although I had gotten used to it. Before arriving at the hotel we stopped so my oldest son could ride a horse/pony/wild horse then continued on to our hotel. When walked to our hotel room I was pleasantly surprised to see it was our own personal little cabin...walk inside and it was a bed and a loft with another bed. It was soooo cute and the view was amazing..looking straight onto the lake. We got settled then walked around the lake for a little bit and rented a peddle boat. It was dark though and my husband and sons were a little scared to be on the lake in the dark so we made it a short boat ride and headed back for dinner.

Day 5: Nuwar Eliya, Sri Lanka & Bentota, Sri Lanka

We decided that we wanted to spend a little bit longer in Nuwar Eliya instead of waking up and starting our ride to Bentota early, since the weather was gorgeous and we did not get to fully appreciate the city the day before. So we woke up, and enjoyed breakfast outside with our wonderful lake view. We even met a really nice couple with children close in age to our kids (though the parents looked at least 40). We walked down the entire pathway surrounding the walkable side of the lake, and then decided to have a family horse ride. I took the youngest with me on a horse and my husband to the oldest. I didn't actually ride the horse...I don't know how...a guy walked the horse while we sat on them...but it was still very fun, and made me want to learn to ride a horse even more. I think it would be amazing exercise. When the horse ride ended, we started put 6 hr drive to Bentota. We took one little break for bathroom and snacks near some river that was apparently in some british film that won a lot of awards call river something..and I just googled it. It was called: The Bridge on the River Kwai. Apparently it won a whole bunch of awards and our tour guide was like really proud that this river in Sri Lanka was part of the movie. The river was beautiful but I wasn't really interested in the fact that it had been featured in a movie. We were also supposed to go white water rafting down that river, but since we had the boys that was not an option and also part of the reason we chose to stay longer in Nuwar Eliya. We continued the drive and didn't arrive to Bentota until really late...8 pm. (thats really late in Sri Lanka). When we finally got up to our room...we were realllly disappointed. It was an oddly shaped tiny room with two twin beds. :| Also it was on the third floor at the end of a REALLY long hallway. To get to the beach or pool would be a nightmare with two little dawdling boys. So we called and asked if they had anything better...and they did have a room available on the ground floor that looked out at the pool, and had a walkout to the pool and beach. PERFECT! We changed rooms and to our relief this room had a king bed...a much better fit when its four in a bed. Also we could walk straight to the pool, and then from there to the beach without having to walk down an endless hallway, wait for an elevator, walk down another two hallways and out to the pool. AAAND we could easily get back to the room to change the boys into dry clothes. Much better fit for us. We ordered dinner and went to bed.

Day 6: Bentota, Sri Lanka

We woke up and spent the morning on the beach, and then the pool, and then had some lunch. The beach was sooo pretty, and the water was so clear and shallow for a good distance out which was great because it made it safer for the boys. The sand was so soft too...no shells in the water to hurt your feet. After lunch and a quick nap for the boys we headed to a turtle hatchery. There the boys got to hold turtle eggs, and baby sea turtles. They loved it and I have to say I really loved holding the turtles too! We also saw a few handicapped turtles they saved and Albino turtles which are apparently very rare the guy told us that from every 500,000 eggs, 1 or 2 will be an albino turtle. They keep the albinos and never release them because they are not safe (obviously) because they cannot blend in. When my son finally agreed to leave the turtles we went on a river safari. We saw a tiny little monkey which we were offered to hold, but decided against it. Next stop on the safari was the "fish market" Basically a little dock with large open sqaures holding HUUUGE doctor fish, and we were offered a foot massage by the fish. It cost us 200 Sri Lankan rupees each to sit and soak our feet with the fish...thats about $1.59!!! In the states to sit and have the tiny tiny fish nibble at your feet it cost waaaaaaay more than quadruple that amount! So I got a nice pedicure..too bad the fish can't polish my nails too. :( While soaking our feet my sons and husband held a baby crocodile..very brave little boys! Then we continued and my oldest son, 4 years old, drove the speed boat...almost crashing us into a mangrove! We safely arrived at a tiny island in the river that was home to a small Buddhist temple. We had a tour of the temple and at the end I asked the monk if he could read from their religious book. He looked very excited, i gues no one asks to hear a passage from the book, and read a little bit explaining what he had read. Then he proceeded to ask me if I had facebook and told me he had seen someone who looked just like me on facebook. Completely weirded out I backed out and headed back down to the boat. We drove through a mangrove and headed back to the dock to be taken back to our hotel. We had a horrible buffet dinner with RUUUUUDE russians/swiss people who had no concept of a line and went to bed.

Our Week Vacation in Sri Lanka

I figure a 7 day trip in a country I've never been to, and rarely heard of deserves a blog post with all (or as many as I can remember) the details. I mean how often does one go to Sri Lanka?? Well apparently for Saudis, very frequently; but not for me although I do hope to go back there one day.

So lets just jump in, shall we?

Day 1: Habarna, Sri Lanka

We land in or near Columbo, Sri Lanka, I think the airport is outside of Columbo but not by that much. Anywhoo...we land and collect our luggage and look for the guy who is supposed to be carrying a sign with our names or at least my husband's name on it. There is no one...but this one guy carrying a sign saying "Husain and family" keeps staring at us. I pray that's not him...we call the guy we set up the tour with and he tells us he'll call the guy who will be our guide for the next 7 days. The man holding the Husain sign answers his phone the next second and I think, "Crap, he's our guide." We walk to a kiosk selling phone cards and buy Sri Lankan sim cards so we don't have outrageous bills when we get back to Saudi Arabia. Then we leave the airport, and are greeted by a rush of humidity and heat. YUCK! I feel like I want to cry, humid stickiness is not the vacation I was envisioning. But I decide to ignore and make the best of the sweat I suddenly feel dripping down my back and neck. Thankfully the A/C in the car is amazing, and in no time we are enjoying a ride to our first hotel. Along the way we pick up some coconuts, king coconuts to be exact and drink the coconut water straight from the coconut. Then we buy some lemon bananas. Next we drive through a little town famous for their cashews so of course we buy some cashews from the side of the road. Delicious! We then stop by a wooded area where we see some rubber trees and learn that they actually get rubber from these trees to make shoes and tires and stuff. And here I was thinking rubber tree was just a name! We stop for lunch which wasn't anything amazing or really all that interesting. Get back on the road and drive drive drive...passing by coconut trees, banana trees, pineapple plantations and rice paddies. I already knew this but for those who don't each pineapple plant produces one pineapple, and pineapples do not grow on trees or bushes. Pineapples grow under ground like a root with their leaves popping above the ground. When we think we've finally arrived at the hotel we realize our driver has brought us to a place where we can ride elephants..inside I'm terrified, but I play it cool and act like theres nothing too it. Until of course nearly crying when I actually climb onto the elephant and sit on the little bar/box/death trap thingy on top waiting for my sons and husband to climb in too. Our ride starts through a jungle where residents living there try to sell us bags of bananas (we end up buying two bags) to feed the elephant along the way. You yell "Kumari banana" and all of the sudden the elephants trunk is flung up nearly into the death trap thingy waiting for you to hand her a banana. So you feed her bananas as you ride through the jungle (not a dense jungle but its still called a jungle). Then we start walking towards a little lake/pond/some kind of body of water and the elephant walk in until our feet are practically in the water too. She walks through the water as you observe the water lilies and other plant/animal life as well as the floating mounds of elephant poop :D. Its peaceful and beautiful and you kind of forget how freaking huge the elephant is and how freaking scary it would be if you fell off and were crushed by its ginormous feet. And then she leaves the water and they ask if you want to move onto the elephants neck. My husband and sons all took turns...I chickened out. After the majestic elephant ride we head to the hotel in Habarna and are pleasantly surprised with a really beautiful hotel room with an amazing pool that has water soo warm you'll think an elephant must have peed in it. The boys and I take a swim at night, i love night swimming, and then our day ends with some dinner in the room.

Day 2: Habarna, Sri Lanka

We woke up bright and early the next morning and headed to a jeep for a safari through the jungle. Now mind you, when I first heard Sri Lanka is a jungle...I envisioned dark green everywhere..kind of like Tarzan or something. Its not that dark...or dense. and Tarzan is a cartoon so I probably should not have been comparing real life to a disney movie. :/ oh well. It was still breathtakingly beautiful. Anyways...we start our ride and see a few birds, a peacock..and then the best part wild elephants!!! Be prepared this trip is all about the elephants. :D Its a beautiful ride, so peaceful and not too hot yet since its still pretty early in the morning. You can hear the sounds of the jungle fowl and other jungle animals. We drove past a little creek, and then we stopped at a rock/mountain/hill and got out to climb up. The view? SPECTACULAR! The sounds? Better than any relaxation cd! It was stunning....green everywhere and the sounds of actual nature no car engines to mar the beauty of it all. And on top of this rock there was a kind of hut on stilts that we were able to climb up and get an even higher view of everything. I fell in love, even though I am scared to death of bugs and getting dirty I absolutely love nature. When the safari ended we met our tour guide back at the hotel and he took us for one more elephant ride on Kumari. Then we started our ride towards Kandy but not before stopping for a "Village Tour" which consisted of a bull cart ride to a tuk tuk, a tuk tuk ride to a canoe-type boat, a canoe-type boat ride around a lake, and then a stop in an actual village persons kitchen to see how they do everyday tasks. We watched her clean rice (basically like husking corn), watched how they separated the husk thingies from the rice, watched her grind millet in her house, by hand (everything was done by hand), saw how she opened a coconut in her back yard- basically there is a stick stuck in the ground with a blade on it, and then she smashes the coconut against it to peel it so that she can take it inside to open it. They cover the blade with an old coconut shell "for safety" as she said. Next they take the coconut into the house and grab a knife to split it in half. They pour the water into old coconut shells and drink it (we got to drink it I felt soo awesome lol). Then the break the coconut and start grating out the meat. They eat the meat alone and they also have other uses for the meat. They mix it with water to make coconut milk. Or they use the grated coconut as part of the ingredients for roti (their bread). She made roti for us out of the ground millet, grated coconut, and coconut milk, and a little salt. Then she made something called coconut sambal which was grated coconut, onions, chili, salt, lemon and water. It was sooooooooooo delicious! She also made us a spice tea for after lunch with some fresh fruits. It was amazing to see how far the coconut could go! I mean it served as refreshment, side dish, and main dish, and it was also used as their cups! Resourceful!!!! The last stop of the day was a spice garden where we bought a whole bunch of natural medicinal stuff, and got to see the plants of a lot of spices. It was a beautiful garden and an exhausting yet amazing day! We were very very happy to get to our hotel in Kandy and head to bed to prepare for the next two days there.

Day 3: Kandy, Sri Lanka

We woke up early, again, theres a theme of early rising this entire week because Sri Lanka is a country where everyone goes to bed by 8 pm, and all shops are closed by 7 pm. :| This day we headed to the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage to see the elephants!! http://www.elephant.se/location2.php?location_id=43 in case you'd like to see pics. So we get there and are able to see the baby elephants being bottle-fed, unfortunately we were not there early enough to actually give them any milk but we were able to feed the bigger elephants some fruit. After watching the milk feeding, and feeding the baby elephants some jack fruit tree leaves, we walked over to the bigger elephants and bought two plates of fruits to feed to the elephants. It was pretty amazing being that close to a huge elephant. Its trunk up in the air and its mouth open ready for the fruit. It just stood there mouth wide and its tongue would push the fruit down its throat. Its mouth didn't close at all...I accidentally touched its tongue which freaked me out..haha but since I did feel it I might as well describe it. it was soooooo smooth and very wet. Not sticky at all as I would have thought. Just very very smooth, soft, and wet. Once we were done with feeding them we watched them roam on the grassland with a beautiful jungle backdrop. I say backdrop because it looked sooo surreal! It didn't seem real...it was so incredibly beautiful! After watching them walk around freely, no glass or bars separating us from them they started their walk to the river for their two hour bath. We walked behind them, able to reach out our hands and touch them, to the river and the watched them bathing, and splashing and drinking the water. Afterwards we walked to a few shops and saw a factory where they take the elephant dung and turn it into paper, natural color and a bunch of other colors. Pretttyyy coool stuff, but definitely not a try it at home kind of thing..unless of course your diet consists of leaves, fruits, and tree trunks. lol Our next stop of the day was a botanical garden...which was beautiful but considering the heat and the fact that there are botanical gardens in the States too I wasn't all that impressed and was really just ready to head back to the hotel and rest! We rested for a couple hours then headed back out to watch a traditional dance which lasted an hour because it was a few different dances plus some fire tricks and fire walking. When that was done we headed back to the Tooth Relic Buddhist Temple and were driving past a lake...over the lake the sky was filled with bats flying over. Now I am definitely scared of a bat flying near me, but it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. They were so graceful! It was more beautiful than watching birds...maybe because its more rare to see the sky so full of bats (for me anyways). We visited the Tooth relic Buddhist Temple which was very ...loud. They were in the middle of a ceremony or something which is basically loudly beating two or three maybe four drums. I don't know how that can help meditation but there were people meditating. I probably would have yelled for them to shut the hell up! Then after another exhausting day headed back to the hotel in Kandy.

My oldest is the sweetest four year old I know, so so incredibly sweet. This morning his brother wanted his toy, so I asked him to find another toy for his younger brother. He walked his brother out of our bedroom and this was the conversation leaving and coming back,

"Come on, we'll find you another toy."
"Otay"
tiny footsteps running outside, and then coming back in.
"Here let me help you. Here silly let me put the mask on you. Baba, baba look he's batman!"

and earlier in the week we had a flat tire, so my husband called a cab to take the boys and I home (it was their bedtime) and the littlest one laid his head on his older brothers lap, and my sweet little boy, hugged him to him and then rubbed his head. It was the sweetest moment ever.

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My youngest for as long as he could walk and realize that things could be put in pockets has been thinking that his pant leg is his pocket. When it was winter time it worked out fine, since the cuff of his pants would keep whatever he was storing in his "pocket" safe. When summer rolled around he tried putting stuff in his "pocket", but his shorts -- well they have no cuff, so he'd try putting things in his "pocket" and they'd just fall right back out. He would be so frustrated trying to figure out why things would stay in his brothers pocket but not his. Lately, well actually for the past 5-6 months, he has been giving us things from his "pocket". At the play area, while jumping on the trampoline, he'll stop to give me and his dad cotton candy. Sometimes its food...but the past two nights...at bedtime, when we've turned off the lights and have told him and his brother time to sleep, he'll sit up, reach up his pajama pant leg, and tell me, "Here mommy, yucky orange fish." then he'll crawl out of bed, and reach down to give a yucky orange fish to his dad and his older brother. Why on earth he'd think we need a yucky orange fish is beyond me. and why does it have to be yucky?? At first he said orange fish, and so i pretended to eat it and he said no no its yucky orange fish. Kids!

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Bedtime means quiet, silence, sleep. My boys, like most boys, don't seem to understand that. Tonight, my youngest was holding a helicopter toy that has buttons that make real helicopter sounds. He clicked it once, I asked him not to do it again, his reply? "Oh solly"
Then a few minutes later he clicks it again, I tell him again, no clicking the buttons, "Oh solly"
FInally the third time I take it away, and he cries and promises he won't do it again. So I give it back...and not two seconds of having it he clicks the button and immediately says, "Oh solly" Needless to say I took it away, but not before laughing. I couldn't help it...it was soooo soooo funny!

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Yesterday during bedtime rituals I was helping to get my boys ready, when my four year old suddenly tells me, "thank you mommy, for not letting me sneeze." Knowing me and my family, we are very very sarcastic. So my first reaction was omg he's being sarcastic..but then he followed up with, "I mean that nicely mommy." which melted my heart but also made me feel a sort of pride that he can differentiate and understand the difference between sarcasm and well everything else. and the back story behind the sneeze is if I feel a sneeze coming on and someone so much as breathes loudly it will go away and I get REALLY annoyed. Apparently my boys have inherited that, and he was happy not to be sneezing because he had just sneezed three times before (he has a cold :( poor baby!)

My oldest son and I were reading a book, and the word immense came up. So I stopped and asked him if he knew what immense meant, and he said "Yes. It means big." I was so proud of him, and told him so, and started reading again when he interrupted to tell me "Mommy, you're immense." Part of me wanted to cry lool because no one wants to be called immense, the other knew that he meant big in a nicer way..not fat but literally just bigger than him, so I hugged him and let him know I was proud of him for trying to expand his four year old vocabulary and use big words properly. even if my feelings did get hurt a little bit (although they really shouldn't have)

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Both of my boys end up in our bed sometime during the night, this is all my husbands doing. He is a very light sleeper and also very impatient. So when he hears them cry, he immediately runs to their room, and instead of trying to get them back to sleep, carries them to our bed. My 4 year old doesn't cry out anymore, he just wakes up and walks himself right on into our room and climbs into bed with us. :( I really hope they outgrow it because I've had about enough of being kicked and shoved nearly off the bed. Anyways..to the point..last night my youngest out of nowhere started screaming at 4 am...he was sound asleep and suddenly started shrieking. When we finally realized what he was saying I was able to calm him down. 4 am and my two year old is screaming that he wants pizza. I dunno what kind of dream he was having that made him wake up screaming demands for pizza but it must have been really bad. It took a while for him to calm down and fall back asleep...after many promises of pizza in the morning.

My youngest toay, or rather tonight was telling me about the cat he chased a few months ago. before i get into that story, he has gotten into the habit lately of asking me if I remember things....random things. So before falling asleep I will get a slew of questions... "Mommy, member buzz ightyear?" "Mommy, member woody?" So tonight after a bunch of Mommy member questions he said "Mommy, member cat? I chase cat, cat scared, cat want go to sleep" I replied with yeah he didn't like being chased very much, he wanted to rest, to which he said, "I feed cat" "what did you feed him?" "A stick." It made me laugh because for some reason he seems to think a stick or a leaf or a rock basically anything he can find on the ground is suitable food for any animal he is chasing. Last weekend we were at a farm and there was a dog...who wanted nothing to do with him. And poor dog was being chased after and having sticks shoved in his face, with my son yelling "Dog eat dog eat!"

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My youngest's favorite knock knock joke is this... "knock knock, who's there, cock-a-doodle-doo, cock-a-doodle-doo who? What?! I can't hear you bert i have a banana in my ear." He made it up, obviously.. but the last part was taken from one of his favorite sesame street clips with bert and ernie. being his mom i find it absolutely adorable and so so smart! :)

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I am always trying to persuade and convince my boys that healthy foods are much better than junk food. I don't want them to have the same bad eating habits i have...i have HORRIBLE eating habits!! So my technique was to point out all the ways healthy foods are good for you..what vitamins they contain how they make you stronger...it backfired because my clever oldest son now uses it against me...while eating an ice cream, or chips, or anything i have told them is bad for them.. he will say "this is really good for you, it has vitamin l and vitamin r and makes your muscles so strong." And being a preschooler he is so sure of himself and his understanding of the world and being my son he feels he is never wrong. And when he thinks I may be winning the argument he'll end it with well god told me that. god said this is good for you. how can i win?!

More funny kid stories..

About two week ago maybe more (not that it matters at all) my sons watched The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue, which is basically the sequel to the first one. There was a song in that movie that my oldest reallllyyy loved. All last week he had been begging me to sing that song for him, problem is I couldn't for the life of me remember the lyrics and we were never next to the laptop so that I could turn on the movie and figure it out. Finally after getting tired of me telling him I don't know the lyrics he decided he was going to write them down for me. Keep in mind my son is 4 years old and the only thing he knows how to write is his name and a few random letters. :S So he grabs a paper and pen and starts writing. When he's finished he hands it to me, and it looks like a bunch of drawings of all the characters...there was a vacuum, a toaster, a blanket...etc. He was like okay Mommy, now sing it, i wrote down the lyrics. I looked at him, and looked down at "the lyrics" and tried to figure out how to get out of this mess. So I lamely said, I still can't remember. He freaked out and was really really REALLY upset. I mean he wrote them down and everything!? what was my problem?!

Today though I miraculously found the song on youtube...he was thrilled and so was his little brother we have been singing it together all morning. :) In case anyone else wants to give it a listen here's a link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCHkVuWghDU

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My oldest turned four last week, the tenth of march to be exact, and we were planning to have a cake in his class the day of his birthday, and then a party on the weekend. My son went to his teacher the day before, and told her tomorrow is my birthday and none of my friends are invited. None of them can come. He came home that day and told me, and I corrected him and said that we would be sharing his special day with his friends and he said, "No Mommy! No! We can't!!! I already told Miss Farah that none of them are invited! We can't have a party now, we can't!"
Kids are so odd sometimes :D

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I'm potty-training my youngest who is two, and lately I've just been having him run around with no diaper and he has been doing fine. When he feels like he needs to go he runs to his little potty and uses it. This particular day I was folding laundry and saw one of his underpants. I thought it was probably best for him to wear them rather than run around half naked. So I called him over, put them on, and walked over to the kitchen for less than 5 minutes. I came back into the living room and he was gone. I called him and called him, and then noticed him lying under the couch. As I got closer I noticed he was lying under the couch in a puddle of pee. :| Whhhyyyyyyy????!?!?!?!?!?! I mean all day long not one accident he was using the potty and everything...the second he gets underpants on he does this?! It was incredibly difficult cleaning up that mess...I have no idea how he can fit himself under that couch. 

So .. Friday was my son's birthday party. 3 out of the 9 kids in his class came, along with two family friends, plus 6 neighborhood kid...so 11 kids in total. oh and his brother...12, and him..13, and one of the kids siblings..14. 14 kids...hmmm not bad..not bad at all. :D

I brought gator golf, and play dough, and bubbles and bowling, and i made a pin the tail on the donkey game. oh and i painted faces. seems like the kids had fun..so that was good. I mean all three kids from his class did not want to go home....so i'm assuming that means they enjoyed themselves.

what else, what else??

I can't think...my heart hurts tooooo much and i feel depressed. I'm in a "I can't believe this is my life" mood. blah!

A fun busy day today..where for a day I didn't feel like I was living in Saudi Arabia. We woke up bright and early, had some breakfast (egg burritos in case anyone was wondering) and piled into the car for a morning at the farm. It wasn't the type of farm you are all thinking of..no animals, no sheep...it was a legit farm. like the kind where they grow food. and it was an organic farm...and we got to buy produce which I am very excited about because i have been slowly slowly trying to become organic...trying to eat healthier.

Anyways..it was a small 7-acre farm, but it was BEAUTIFUL. If anyone has ever been to Saudi Arabia it is desert...everywhere...with a few random patches of grass they planted for decoration. It is depressing beige everywhere you look with a dusty brown haze in the sky a lot of the time. So we walk into this farm and hear birds chirping, can smell fresh air!! it was breathtaking...and just what I needed to lift my spirits. There were all kinds of foods...kale, tomatoes, lemon trees, orange, arugula, mint, spearmint, etc... I loved it! and after 4 hours of walking through the farm, meeting people, having a snack...we drove home for a 2 hour rest before heading to my son's school for their International Night.

We got there 4 pm...and didn't leave until 7. It was amazing!!! it was just ...wow...passed my expectations by like i can't even explain. we loved it...there were booths of a bunch of different countries...foods (yum!!)... free foods!! (yummier!!!)...and the saudi booth had a horse and a camel...and guess who rode a camel?! yes me! it was awesome! although the poor camel looked reeeaaallllyyy unhealthy . it had green foam coming from its mouth and flies covering its entire nose area. :S my son (the older one..he rode with me and the younger one rode with his dad) asked me why does he have flies on his face? I told him I didn't know...on the drive home..he says, "Mommy? Camels are old..so thats why it had flies on his face. But horses are new and thats why they don't have flies." It made me laugh! the way his mind works amazes me. I mean how smart is that to think that flies are attracted to old things...so thats why the camel had flies because hes obviously an older kind of animal..whereas horses are newer and therefore do not attract flies. sooo smart!

anyways..back to the international night. I rode a freaking camel!!! so cool!!! and there were dance shows, circus acts, singing...all kid driven by the way... there were children on unicycles!!!! soooo awesome!

and then inside the gym they had arts and crafts for the kids...and a bouncy house.

Needless to say it was a buuuuussssyy fun-filled day and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

And I need a rest...but tomorrow we are having a bday party for my son and inviting a few of his friends from school...welll actually all of them..but only 3 rsvped. so yeah.. 3 outta 9...thats not bad.. is it? :S

eh whatever!

oh...and socializing is really starting to exhaust me. I'm excited at the prospect of making new friends...but it exhausts me.. it physically drains me. I don't know why..sigh!

anywhooooo.....its 1 am...we have guests arriving at 3 pm...and of course all the preparing and  such so i am off to bed. nighty night world!

Let go of the hate,
of the anger,
of the dream of smashing your head against a freshly painted wall and watching the blood splatter beautifully across the starkness.
Feel the load being lifted as you choose forgiveness over revenge.
Feel the peace in your soul as you begin to realize forgiveness/forgetting just means one less thing to worry about.

Mommy confessions:

Sometimes I let my kids eat things that have fallen on the ground, I'd rather they eat it then deal with the melt down that would happen if I didn't.

I secretly feel proud when my kid hits a bully that has been bullying him or other kids.

When I tell you every kid develops at their own pace, I'm really thinking "IN YOUR FACE!!! my kid is better than yours...damn right hes better than yours! he could teach yours but we'd have to charge"  i know inappropriate song reference.

There have been days when I leave the house without brushing my hair...or my teeth, and sometimes I go a week without showering.

There are moments when I want to scream at my kid "GOD DAMMIT! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST GET IT?!"

I have more than once dealt with a wet bed by throwing a towel over the wet part...and if its really wet throwing a stack of towels over the wet part.

I don't bathe my kids daily, sometimes every other day proves to be too difficult.

I wear the same clothes for an entire week (I'm in Saudi Arabia...we wear Abayas.. no one sees my clothes anyways, whats the point?)

I leave my nail polish on until it disappears on its own...who has time for nail polish remover?!

Yesterday I was skyping with my mom, and sharing all the crazy funny stories of my boys..she could not stop laughing. Between all the laughing she said "Hannah, you need to get these down, you need to save these, write a book or something."

I dunno about writing a book...I mean who else would want to read these stories? Actually she may have something...I mean if a guy can publish a book showing his online email pranks then I'm pretty sure a book with short stories about preschoolers would possibly be popular. But like I said...not so sure about the book...but definitely going to be posting the stories here on my blog. anyways..here are a few recent stories...

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My oldest son, he just turned 4 today, was walking with me a few weeks ago. I started to tell him our plans for the evening and the fact that since we were planning to stay up later he would need to have some quiet time (my convincing way of telling him he needs a nap..his younger brother takes naps but because he's a big boy he takes quiet time). He started to get upset, and reason with me about how not tired he was even though you could see and hear the exhaustion on his face and through his screams..no shrieks. Finally, he calmed down..and told me he wanted to take his nap in my bed, though he called it Baba's (what he calls his dad) bed. I apologized and explained that quiet time, bed time, any type of sleeping was to be done in his bed..no discussion. He sighed, looked up at me completely serious and said, "I have rights, and I want to sleep in Baba's bed." What do you reply to a three year old who has just told you he feels his rights are being abused?! Where do kids get this stuuf???

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I've started to potty train my youngest, he turned two in November, and he's been doing pretty good. I won't say there haven't been accidents...because of course there have been...but the worst accident (if you can even call it that) happened a few days ago. I was doing something in the living room, when he comes running to me telling me he did poo-poo..mind you he was extremely excited. So I look in his potty and to my horror there is nothing there...I look at him and ask as calmly as I can..where did you do poo-poo? He grabs my hand and says, "Come here, I show you." He walks me to the dining room..THE DINING ROOM!!! of alllll the rooms in the house he chose there, and points under our table. :| There it lay...on the rug, under the table where we eat. I explained for what felt like the zillionth time that we use the potty when we need to do poo poo or pee pee. He giggled and ran away, leaving me to clean up the mess. It gets worse...before this happened I had set the table because my husband would be home soon and we were going to have dinner. So he walks in and we head to the dining room. My youngest's spoon is nowhere to be found...I look down and find it on the floor...thinking to myself ugh not only did he poop on the floor but he threw the silverware on the ground. But noooo...my son is much too creative for that...the spoon when I picked it up had what looked like dried on food...I started wiping it off when my heart sinks...I smell what I assumed were food particles...only to realize my innocent little two year old..took his spoon and tried to cut into the feces he had left under the table. He tried to cut his poop?!?! WHHHHYYYYYY?!?!?! what was going through his mind...why would you do this?! whyyyy?!

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On a less funny note..yesterday while driving home from school....correction, while being driven home from school. My youngest was napping as usual, and my oldest was playing a game on the ipad. Suddenly I heard the cough. ..the cough that I think most moms can relate too. The one that warns you that any second there will be vomit...everywhere. I panic and start rummaging through my purse looking for the plastic bag I had started carrying since the last throw up incident in public. But there wasn't enough time...the cough was insistent...he was going to throw up now. Now let me lay out the seating arrangement...I'm sitting on one end of the bench, my eldest in his car seat in the middle, and my youngest at the other end in his car seat. So I can tell he is going to throw up right now...I reach over my eldest, and throw my hand under my youngest's mouth...sickly sweet yet sour smelling chocolatey milk mucusy throw up fills my hand...I do a balancing act trying for the life of me to keep the majority of it in my hand which if you've ever tried filling your hand with water know is incredibly difficult to do. I try to balance, while my free hand is still rummaging through my purse ...desperate to find something...anything to salvage the car seat and his pants. And i find it! a tiny zip lock baggy that I had forgotten to throw out....THANK GOD! the cough again....I shove the baggy under his chin strategically just as he starts again...and miraculously it all makes it into the bag...with my clean hand i rummage again and pull out a bag of wipes and wipe down my hand...cleaning off the vomit, but not the nasty smell. I can now better place the baggy and let him finish. Once hes done...i wipe down the harness straps, and start trying to wipe his shirt...but decide its best to just let him ride home shirtless. The important part is aside from the harness straps miraculously the only thing that was ruined by vomit was my baby's shirt. Ahhh.....the joys of motherhood.

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As any mother knows...when its the middle of the night and you here that foreboding cough, and you run as fast as you can to get there in time to save the sheets, the blankets, the pillow, and their jammies. But you also know to bring something to catch the vomit in. Weeell...my husband is not the best when it comes to stress. He cannot think fast and kinda goes a little crazy. One day we heard that cough....but he got to the room just as my son was about to throw up and he had nothing to catch the vomit in. Another tip? If all else fails use the blanket to catch the vomit because it is the easiest thing to remove and replace. Yeah, my husband didn't get the memo...he grabs mys now vomitting son and runs across our carpetted floor to the bathroom, and tries to get him over the toilet, only to find the toilet closed, so he moves him to the sink. I was livid when I got to the room, because now we had vomit all over my sons bed, all over his pajamas, a trail leading to the bathroom and all over the bathroom floor, vomit on the toilet lid, and vomit all over the bathroom counter and in the sink. I wanted to cry and yell and scream..so of course I yelled at my husband. Why on earth would he think carrying a vomitting child across a room would be a good idea. His excuse was he wasn't thinking...well how incredibly convenient for him! :D

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Thats all I can remember for now...but I'm sure there will be pleeeeenty more! :D Oh and the last one is not that recent...its from like a year ago.

Shallow breaths are all I can take, I feel so suffocated..so trapped. It seems everywhere I turn there's another wall, no doors to open, no windows to let in the light. Day by day the room keeps getting smaller-- turning, moving, hoping all becoming so difficult to do. I need air, I need space..I need to feel the wind blowing through my hair, the sun warming my skin. I want to free every caged animal in hopes of somehow freeing my soul from the torments of the bars encasing it. Days, weeks, months all blending together. Nothing changes...nothing new. I'm choking on the dust slowly filling my tiny prison. The bars around my soul keep getting tighter. I'm told my eyes look dim, how can anyone tell when there are no windows, no doors? Will it ever get any better?

I try to relax, meditate in the silence. But the silence is what makes things worse. It sends my mind rushing back to thoughts of you. Back to the feel of your embrace. Back to that first kiss. I find myself spiraling down further into the depression I feel..so I tense up. Close off, and envelop myself in the stress. Hide my feelings and my heart beneath the chaos. Will it always be this way?

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Mommy! Mommy! Hanoo where are my keys? Did you see my phone? Whats the plan for today? What do you want to do? Can we watch Cars? Can we buy a dog? I had an accident! I did poopoo! Omar spilled the water! Omar colored on the couch! Hamza won't share. I want.. I want...I want.. I neeed I neeed I neeed..Laundry, dishes, dinner, breakfast, lunch, snack, water, juice, treat, potty, diaper, clothes, vacuum, dust, fold, organize, pick up toys, step on toys, pick up toys, step on toys. break toys. cry.

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I can clear my head of everything and everyone but you. You hide in the corners of my mind, waiting for my undivided attention. You are always there lurking beneath the chaos, but you prefer to jump out when I'm all alone. To intensify the hurt I guess. To make me really concentrate on the pain of loss and heart ache. to make me question my entire existence. to make me realize it was all my fault.

well this sucks...i just undrafted a bunch of drafts that i actually liked and thought for some crazy reason they would be put in chronological order...guess not. :/ ugh!

and now i have no idea when they were originally published...and i kinda wanted to remember that. f u blogger!

Today I had a moment...a moment where I was 100% fine with being 26....and completely okay with the fact that my 27th birthday (ahem golden birthday) is only 4 months away. I didn't feel like i couldn't breathe, i didn't feel like i'm suddenly ancient...i was genuinely happy. I mean i still feel at peace with my age...but other stuff and emotions and things came up and replaced that zen feeling.

It was amazing! still is amazing....i just feel comfortable. I am becoming a little less shy...a little more social (not in a disgusting way)...i just like me. yes high school was fun...and college days were wonderful...but i was so insecure....i still am...but back then i was insanely insecure. so yes...i no longer have this gut wrenching feeling about being 26...and turning 27. i'm feeling good about it and kind of excited...my life isn't over unless i say it is.

and even though i feel so amazing...my poor heart is aching. :'( sigh i've given up hope thinking it will ever stop. oh well..this is life.

Cloud 9

I have two sons, my oldest got a lot closer to his dad when my youngest was born. So much so, that he'd request and prefer his dad to me. Lately though, he has been wanting me..which I'm not going to lie makes me sooooooo happy! :D Unfortunately though, the younger one needs me too...and I feel torn because since the older one is older its just natural for him to get the shorter end of the straw..that's the way it always is i think.

Tonight, while putting them to bed, the older one told his dad, "I want Mommy, to put me to sleep." and he started to cry. It broke my heart, so I got out of the younger one's bed, and climbed into bed with him. THe younger one will not let ANYONE else put him to bed, he was screaming so loud I had to have my husband take him out of the room.

My oldest was thrilled with the attention, and was soo happy to be cuddling with me. He kept talking with me, and I was telling him how much I love him, and how much everyone in our family loves him, and how much his little brother loves him. He interrupted me with, "I don't think he loves me. He always hits me and head butts me and screams...and stuff"

I told him no that's not true...he loves you very much. And I shared a story of my younger sister hitting me in the eyebrow with a matchbox car and making me bleed. I said no one can like someone all the time, it doesn't mean that we don't still love the person though. I told him that sometimes he doesn't like me or his dad...but we still love each other.

He smiled and told me , "Yeah..I get it. But you know? Baba isn't strong, he isn't strong enough to deal with sick boys, he can't deal with me when I'm sick. Only Mommy can deal with me when I'm sick." It made me heart melt. It had to be the sweetest moment of my life. The most amazing feeling ever to know that even though he chooses his dad over me the majority of the time...he still needs his mommy, and he always will. And it was so sweet and precious when he told me he got it...and I know he does. He is such a smart little boy...I mean how many almost 4 year olds do you know that can properly use the word apparently in a sentence???

ON a side note...it is incredibly hard to make friends. I never realized how easy I had it in school...you're kind of just forced into friendships. Some last some don't but if you're like me...you'll find yourself a mommy of two with no adult friends you can really relate to and see a future with. I met someone here and we are nearly identical in personality. lol I move fast and want to say shes my best friend...but I know how insane that sounds...I mean we've only hung out a total of three times...but i think the saying about love can apply to friends too...sometimes you just know. hahaha

Today we had a couples date...with the boys. and it was NICE! it was really really nice! the boys were not terrible monsters and we all enjoyed each others company. But it got me thinking about friends and making them and I never ever went out of my way to make friends...ever. I kind of just ended up with friends....I am however going to make an effort to make friends more often because maybe those are the ones that last...the ones you actually try with...

"Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that he had done it; he should not destroy her credit,her appearance, prosperity, too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the retirement of Mansfield for him, rejecting Sotherton and London, independence and splendour, for his sake. Independence was more needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed. The liberty which his absence had given was now become absolutely necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world, for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined, and varied not.

To such feelings delay, even the delay of much preparation, would have been an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the marriage than herself. In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquility; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.

The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that a very few weeks would be sufficient for such arrangements as must precede the wedding." -Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

This is how I feel sometimes, there are paragraphs before this one that also apply...but reading this one..broke my heart, because I can relate. I don't know if its meant to be relatable or not...but it is, for me, very much so.

So one of the women I met last Tuesday works for a not for profit organization that helps with the empowerment of women in Saudi Arabia. Of course I was instantly interested with everything she had to say, and my husband laughed and told her well my wife would like you to help make driving for women happen. She laughed and then said something that I never even thought of...

She started talking about how the driving issue they have put on the back burner and are currently working on trying to get rid of the whole mahram permission thing happening in KSA, which is basically that a woman needs permission of her male guardian, be it her husband, her father, her son, her uncle...you get the point I'm sure..to do pretty much anything, get a job, leave the country.

She said we recently have started going backwards in that now the male guardian not only has to sign a paper granting the woman permission, but after she hands in the paper he receives a text message informing him and I guess also checking that he did indeed grant her permission.

My cousin was telling me about this a few weeks ago, and it made me sick...I mean what are we property?

Anyways..she said so think about this..when a woman tries driving who gets in trouble? Her husband, or her father, or her brother, or whatever male guardian is in charge of her..so they basically have taken away any choice...any anything really and made her completely helpless. Then she said once that is taken away..then the only person responsible for her actions is her. She said theeeen...she can go out on the road and drive...and if enough women do it at once...they really can't do much.

And I dunno it made a lot of sense...and i think my watered down explanation doesn't really do it justice...but I definitely agree that the first step would be giving back women their right to make their own decisions.

*sigh* I am sick of living in a country where I am ignored, where questions that should be directed to me are directed to my husband. where I am helpless, dependent, and thought of as the property of my husband. I've only been here four months...but it feels endless. I just want to go home, and this country is not my home.

which brings me to the next point...the guilt of feeling like somehow I've betrayed someone for like seriously hating Saudi Arabia and really all Arabs. I'm quite alright with being thought of as The American. I take it as a compliment....this country and its people disgust me. now i should say that it isn't everyone and there are nice people...but its really hard to do when you take your kid to the playground and the sand is filled with trash and broken glass everywhere and he nearly gets poked in the eye with glass when he trips into the sand. and to make matters worse to hear that that playground is cleaned daily every morning, when going there it looks like its been years since it has ever been cleaned.

Starting Fresh

New year...yes I know we're already a month into it, but I decided its time to start fresh. Also I just couldn't stand any of my posts -- so they have all been reverted to drafts. :D I might re-publish a few of the poems (if you can call them that) that I really loved. but other than that...fresh start.

I have been trying really really hard to make sure my family is eating healthy. Less junk food, less candies. I've been cooking dinner nearly every night and making sure they both have healthy, filling breakfasts and a good substantial lunch. But let me tell you...it's hard! With two picky eaters?! Its really really hard! Luckily my 4 year old listens more so when I say eat your dinner he'll eat it .. like it or not. My 2 year old on the other hand...if he doesn't like it he is sure to let me know! He'll spit it out until theres nothing left to spit out...and still keep spitting.

I've also been coming out of my shell a bit and socializing a whole lot more...which fr those who know me is a HUGE deal! I mean just today I went out with a group of people I never met. 2 single guys, 3 single girls, and a couple and their one year old daughter....and on top of that I actually participated in the conversation!!! Normally I would have hidden in the corner with the one year old and my sons and tried to make myself invisible. But I didn't! I am sooo proud of me! :D

And I am planning on planning (lool thats funny!) a kinda spa date with another woman on my compound. I met her once and loved her! She's blunt and sarcastic and just plain amazing! I just wish she had kids...but all in good time! She's newly married...like 5 months or something. but she is just so cool and i want to be her best friend. I'm also actually considering getting a baby sitter for the boys so we can double date with her and her husband. My husband hates her because her sense of humor is exactly like mine..but you know what??? whoo cares!!! :D

I've also been doing a lot of baking....but healthy baking! My most recent thing is Apple Carrot Coconut Muffins. The boys hated them, i think because of the texture. But my husband and I loooved them! They were soo good...kinda surprising that there was no sugar in them...just honey.

I'm seriously considering opening some kind of bakery or restaurant...but the thought of serving so many people kind of scares me. I'm also contemplating lasik..so I can wake up and not be blind...and so that tiny bacteria doesn't get caught under my lense and burrow a hole through my cornea.